Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

We are fortunate indeed to have real world results that we can look at for how well or how poorly governing philosophies and agendas work. America’s major cities have been dominated by the Democratic Party for decades, and the results are in.

All but 3 of America’s largest cities are run by Democratic mayors. The 3 largest cities – New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, are losing population every year.

Several of the most violent cities in America, including Albuquerque, Memphis, Detroit, Chicago and Washington, DC are run by Democrats.

States that are bleeding population every year due to high taxation, over-regulation, decaying cities and failing public services including New York, Connecticut, California and others are all run by Democrats.

States that have low to no income taxes, are right-to-work and favor energy development do better economically than high tax, forced union and energy unfriendly states. According to the annual economic outlook rankings published by the American Legislative Exchange Council Center for State Fiscal Reform, in 2019 the bottom ten states were all run by Democrats and the top 10 states except two were run by Republicans.

Needless to say, the top 10 states all have higher GDP, better quality public services, and are experiencing net in-migration. Nevada is an outlier in that it recently flipped blue. However, they have no personal income taxes, a low corporate income tax and they are a right to work state.

Finally, all of the bottom ten states have net out-migration, high tax burdens, and lower quality of life.

The evidence couldn’t be more clear. Democrats are incapable of governing well, or in some cases, such as Seattle or Chicago, governing at all. Every single city that has problems with decaying infrastructure, gentrification, crime, violence, homelessness and other social pathologies are governed by Democrats. They promise a boundless cornucopia of “free” (i.e. taxpayer-funded) services and programs to meet every demand of the creeping socialism we’re seeing in America, at the cost of trampling people’s constitutional rights including property rights.

Critics assailing the Department of Homeland Security for “over-stepping their bounds” in Portland have it 100 percent wrong. The department is in the right.

Further, its actions thus far should just be the first step in disrupting the organized violence aimed at intimidating public officials, injuring law enforcement officers, destroying public and private property and making our streets less safe.

Let’s be clear. We are not talking about “peaceful protests.” What is going on in Portland, as well as Seattle and some other is an array of criminal activity: rioting, looting, arson, assaulting law enforcement officers and more. This is flat out criminal activity.

And it is not all spontaneous. This is organized criminal activity.

For starters, the rioters are targeting cities where public officials have created a more permissive environment. They have restricted the actions of local and state law enforcement. When rioters are arrested, they release them quickly, refusing to prosecute.

Moreover, these officials refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement. In sum, they have turned their cities into “soft targets” for criminals.

Violence has spiked in cities nationwide following weeks-long anti-police protests over the death of George Floyd, according to government statistics and media reports.

Residents in Minneapolis have created patrol groups to protect themselves after the city’s crime spike, and shootings in Atlanta rose 265% compared to last year during an almost month-long period. Seattle’s “Capital Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ) led to a 525% increase in crime, including the death of two teenagers.

As crime rates rose, activists have called to abolish the police, an idea that’s gained traction among liberals. Former Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon, singer John Legend and women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe have all supported dismantling the police, and protesters have touted the idea during demonstrations.

The Minneapolis City Council unanimously voted to dismantle their police department next May, and a school board in Oakland, California, voted to ban the police from its schools.

Saturday’s protest activity was billed as the biggest yet, at least in part due to the shooting of Garrett Foster. Foster was the man who apparently pointed his AK-47 rifle at the car window of driver Daniel Perry while protesters surrounded and pounded on his car during an unpermitted protest and illegal taking of the public street just before 10 p.m. on July 25. Perry, an Army sergeant and licensed handgun carrier, fired his weapon after Foster had used his rifle to order Perry to roll his car window down. Pointing a gun at someone can, obviously, be read as hostile action. Texas’s castle law covers drivers in vehicles defending themselves, including the use of deadly force.

APD and the Texas Department of Public Safety were ready for Saturday’s action, making this post short.

Law enforcement officers were deployed and ready downtown. According to a source familiar with Saturday’s events, no officers were injured. Little force was used in shutting down the protest — which illegally blocked streets and was intended to bring violence to Austin. No property was damaged despite the protesters’ plan. They did take roads illegally, briefly including Interstate 35, the main highway that runs through downtown Austin. Protesters harassed innocent diners and others downtown.

These assholes, and the decision to let Austin become bumsville, is why so many downtown restaurants are in danger of closing. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

The Democratic National Committee released a platform 180 degrees off from the spin. It’s so pro-Iran that the National Iranian-American Council, the de facto Iranian regime lobby in Washington, immediately “applauded” the DNC “for its forward-leaning platform commitments on issues of importance to the Iranian-American community.” It demonstrates that President Obama’s curious preference for the supremacists running the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, rather than our traditional regional allies, has become mainstream Democratic ideology.

Trump administration policies have brought the bloody Islamic Republic to its knees. The Democrats seek to restore its vitality by ending sanctions and re-entering President Obama’s odious Iran deal. Every faction across Israel’s notoriously fractious political spectrum agreed that this deal was an existential threat. Biden and the 2020 Democrats take the opposing view: Regime change is wrong; diplomacy and economic engagement can restrain the mullahs.

Next up, the Gulf Arabs: A new generation of leaders have recently expanded women’s rights, confronted Islamism, acted to curb terrorism, deepened ties to the U.S. and moved towards ending the Arab/Israeli conflict. Biden and the 2020 Democrats prefer to “reset” those warm relations in order to keep America’s traditional Gulf allies at arms length.

(Hat tip: Instapundit.)

The mainstream media as a whole – especially the political news media in and around the DC/NYC/Beltway area – has two options: They can straighten up their acts and stop insulting the intelligence of their audiences or they can continue to show their (mostly left-wing) partisan stripes and turn audiences off.

If recent history is any indication, however, they’ll be going with option two – because they’ve shown over and over again that when it comes to demonstrating a commitment to objective reporting versus pushing biased political angles that help Democrats, they will choose those biased political angles nearly every time.

Nima “Rolex” Fazeli, a 22-year-old from Orlando, Fla., was charged in a criminal complaint in Northern California with aiding and abetting intentional access to a protected computer.

Mason “Chaewon” Sheppard, a 19-year-old from Bognor Regis, U.K., also was charged in California with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and unauthorized access to a computer.

A U.S. Justice Department statement on the matter does not name the third defendant charged in the case, saying juvenile proceedings in federal court are sealed to protect the identity of the youth. But an NBC News affiliate in Tampa reported today that authorities had arrested 17-year-old Graham Clark as the alleged mastermind of the hack.

Wfla.com said Clark was hit with 30 felony charges, including organized fraud, communications fraud, one count of fraudulent use of personal information with over $100,000 or 30 or more victims, 10 counts of fraudulent use of personal information and one count of access to a computer or electronic device without authority. Clark’s arrest report is available here (PDF). A statement from prosecutors in Florida says Clark will be charged as an adult.

A guy on reddit reversed engineered #TikTok

Here’s what he found on the data it collects on you

It’s far worse than just stealing what’s on your clipboard: pic.twitter.com/oqaQyYDXT2

— Dan Okopnyi 🇺🇦 (@d1rtydan) June 28, 2020

Why Texas Is In Trouble—78,064 Public Employees With $100,000+ Paychecks Cost Taxpayers $12 Billion https://t.co/wm8rXNJusv

— Holly Hansen (@hollyshansen) July 31, 2020

Literal World Music. pic.twitter.com/DdhbN4DOAp

— Daddy Warpig (@DaddyWarpig) August 1, 2020

It takes two to tango. pic.twitter.com/sf6tUv9sol

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 1, 2020

RT when you see it… pic.twitter.com/GS3kxlemJz

— Rufus T. Firefly 🥃🍺 (@hoggomcswineass) August 5, 2020