Dear Weekend Jolter,
“How on earth did we get here?”
Charles C. W. Cooke poses the question with no satisfactory answer in response to the wild footage last weekend of dozens of smash-and-grabbers at a SoCal Nordstrom. The tape shows a mob of thieves knocking over displays and dragging away whatever merchandise they can (more than $300,000 worth, reportedly), after having “sprayed bear spray” at the security guard, according to CNN. Employees watch helplessly.
The question, of course, has an answer, if not a satisfactory one: In the attempt to correct past and even ongoing wrongs in America’s criminal-justice system, prosecutors, mayors, and — in certain jurisdictions — voters have lost sight of the middle ground between throwing the book at petty criminals and dismantling the system that provides for their punishment. As Charlie writes, “In a free country, it should be difficult to convict someone of a crime. But it should not be impossible — or, worse, unthinkable.”
California famously downgraded a number of nonviolent offenses to misdemeanors via Prop 47 almost a decade ago. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the clearance rate for property crimes has tumbled into the gutter since, to about 9 percent as of 2020 (and lower last year), though most homicides get solved. Staffing reductions may be prompting police to shift focus, understandably, to violent crimes. But, as the PPIC piece observed, unsolved property crimes may also reflect “stricter arrest criteria” for misdemeanors than for felonies, related to Prop 47. And even Governor Gavin Newsom has faulted local prosecutors for not pursuing these cases more aggressively.
Shoplifting and smash-and-grabbing remain illegal in California, and nationally; in Los Angeles, the DA vows that perpetrators of recent flash-mob robberies will be held to account, and treated as felons. But just as permissive rhetoric on immigration can create a magnet at the border, so too has the tone shift at city halls drawn larcenists and thrill-seekers to Kohl’s. See Chicago, where the progressive mayor scolded a reporter for describing rioters and looters as a “mob.” “Large gatherings,” please. Is there any doubt toward which side the balance of power has tilted in law enforcement?
Drug-policy experiments tell a similar story. One of this week’s must-reads on NRO was Ryan Mills’s examination of Oregon’s drug-decriminalization debacle. Not only has decriminalization diminished the quality of life for others, there is a case to be made that it’s hurt the very people — drug users — it was intended to help:
Critics of Measure 110 who spoke with National Review said they believe most Oregonians, even in uber progressive Portland, are coming to a similar realization — despite their good intentions, drug decriminalization has had a devastating impact on the region. . . .
Last year, Portland police investigated a record number of drug-overdose deaths in the city. This year, they topped that record in early August. Critics have also charged proponents of drug decriminalization and so-called “harm reduction” of enabling drug users. Over the summer, the health department in Multnomah County, which includes most of Portland, drew scorn after it was revealed that they were planning to provide drug addicts with smoking supplies and with educational materials about how to ingest drugs anally.
CNN’s heartbreaking report on how San Francisco’s drug scene stole a mother’s son tracks with the experience in Portland. Again, what happened to the middle ground on the way to “reform”? Jim Geraghty writes:
This is not an either-or issue; you can look at the War on Drugs and find it counterproductive, ineffective, and turning otherwise law-abiding people into criminals simply for being curious about the feeling of getting high. You can heed the lessons of Prohibition and conclude that certain human activities can be unsavory, unpleasant, or potentially self-destructive, and should still remain legal. But you can also recognize that making something legal will increase the demand for it, and that the bad consequences of those newly-legal actions are likely to proliferate rapidly.
While city governments neglect their most basic duties, the consequences are manifold and manifest. Workers at San Francisco’s federal building were recently told to work from home amid crime concerns. A number of major retailers, including REI in Portland, have announced plans to shutter stores in the face of security issues. Target’s CEO just reported that “theft incidents involving violence or threats of violence” in stores more than doubled in the first five months of 2023. A Household Pulse Survey showed Seattle leads among big cities in the percentage of residents who reported feeling pressure to leave for safety reasons; one interesting detail, flagged by the Seattle Times, is that a much-higher percentage of young people than of older people voiced those concerns. This apparent voter’s remorse will express itself in one of two ways — residents will leave the cities that become unlivable, or they’ll force a change within them.
* * *
In other news: The Fulton County court system’s IT team is in the market for an “Are you sure you want to publish this?” button. Another week, another indictment. More on that below. Do read on.
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
R.I.P.: James L. Buckley: Gent, Thinker, Patriot
The pros and cons of Trump indictment No. 4: The Georgia Indictment Is Serious, but It Also Overreaches
The mayor of New York has a point: Biden Should Listen to Eric Adams
The Chinese economic model is failing: The China Bust
ARTICLES
Michael Brendan Dougherty: A Storm Is Coming
Mark Antonio Wright: Joe Biden Isn’t Going to Be the Democratic Nominee
Caroline Downey: California Teen Tried to Escape Macho Mexican Culture through Medical Transition
Andrew McCarthy: ‘Special Counsel’ David Weiss Makes $5 Million Biden–China Scheme Disappear
Jim Geraghty: 91 Felony Charges, but the GOP Base Doesn’t Want to Change Course
Noah Rothman: It’s Time for Republicans to Come to Terms with Trump’s Legal Peril
Jay Nordlinger: Sweet, and Vital, Democracy
Eitan Fischberger: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Coming Soon to a University Near You?
Dan McLaughlin: A Day at the Fair with Ron DeSantis
Becket Adams: Media Bury Biden’s Mistreatment of Vets and Gold Star Families
Madeleine Kearns: World Sports Organizations Wake Up to the Absurdity of Trans-Athlete Policies
Brittany Bernstein: Has Vivek’s Moment Arrived?
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Because Mark Wright loves getting hate mail: Oliver Anthony’s Fuzzy Lament
Brian Allen takes us beyond The Scream: The Edvard Munch We’ve Hardly Met
Armond White on the new Stephen King doc: Stephen King, Prophet of the Apocalypse
CAPITAL MATTERS
Joel Kotkin & Hügo Krüger offer a roadmap for responding to climate change: Adaptation Is the Answer
Daniel Pilla explains a recent IRS move to stop certain home visits for delinquent taxpayers: IRS to Stop Unannounced Visits to Taxpayers
THESE EXCERPTS WON’T SELF-DESTRUCT
We received sad news early Friday morning, on the death of the great James L. Buckley, 100. We’re trying to keep the tributes, which come flowing in, collected here. From our editorial:
James L. Buckley was dear to National Review, dear to the conservative movement, and dear to the American idea, if you will. He was a staunch defender of that idea: the rule of law; individual opportunity; personal and civic decency; etc. JLB died this morning at 100.
He was an older brother to WFB — to William F. Buckley Jr., the founder of National Review. They were two among ten siblings. Jim was Child No. 4. Bill was No. 6. Priscilla Buckley — who for years served as NR’s managing editor — was No. 3. Some referred to the Buckleys as “the conservative Kennedys.” Jim was the last surviving sibling.
He and Bill were different — each his own man. Jeffrey Hart, our late senior editor, once described Bill as “Wildean” whereas Jim was “Capraesque.” And yet, as the New York Times observed early on, Jim had “some of his brother’s characteristics: much of the same flashing humor; a gift of language and facility of expression; the grand manner engagingly wed to a natural friendliness.” . . .
Jim Buckley had significant roles in all three branches: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. Our Neal B. Freeman has long described him as “America’s most distinguished public servant since John Quincy Adams.”
JLB never stopped thinking, writing, engaging. In September 2016, he was interviewed by William Doyle — a former intern of his in the Senate — for USA Today. The presidential campaign that fall was “too depressing to contemplate,” he said. But he did some contemplating, and commenting, anyway.
He also spoke pointedly about the nominating process. “I never liked primaries,” he said. “They attract people on the fringes of each party.”
Jim was a cherished guest at various National Review and National Review Institute events: always gracious, insightful, and amusing. He spoke in that warm burr that many of the Buckley sibs had.
He liked nature a lot, Jim did. Once, he missed an NR anniversary party, and WFB observed that his brother “had a date with some penguin somewhere.”
James L. Buckley was a gent, a thinker, a patriot. His like is rare. His like is good. He will not be the last — there must not be a last. But, oh, he was good, setting an example that none who knew him can ever forget.
This newsletter warned a few weeks back that the plethora of charges against Trump could soon drown each other out, politically speaking. Andrew McCarthy writes here about the particular issues with the latest indictment out of Georgia. But — Noah Rothman notes that all the debate surrounding these charges shouldn’t distract from the fact that a historic legal drama is about to unfold in this country. And Jim Geraghty states what needs stating:
A rational Republican Party would look at former President Donald Trump’s fourth criminal indictment in five months — now up to a grand total of 91 felony charges — and pause to reevaluate its options in the 2024 presidential election. We don’t know exactly when all these trials will conclude, and when the juries will return their verdicts, but it is likely that at least one and perhaps several trials will be completed by Election Day 2024. Special counsel Jack Smith is aiming for a January 2024 start to the January 6 trial case, the Manhattan trial about the falsified business records over payments to Stormy Daniels starts in March 2024, and the classified documents case trial starts in May 2024. We don’t know yet when the Georgia trial would start.
It is also possible that more indictments come down because of these trials; Trump is jumping onto Truth Social and saying that witnesses should not testify, which may well violate federal law barring any effort to “harm, threaten, delay, or otherwise influence a witness to an official proceeding, punishable by up to 30 years imprisonment.” Trump doesn’t just have the bad habit of breaking the law; he does so in the most public, verifiable and obvious way possible.
When considering the combination of the evidence, the potential jury pools, and other factors, there is a good chance that if nominated for the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump will be doing so as a convicted felon in November 2024.
This outcome would be, you know, bad.
Relatedly, and seeing as the universe is generous in its provision of grasping dotards vying to lead this nation, Andy breaks down in further detail the statute-of-limitations dance the DOJ may be doing in connection with Biden-family allegations:
Remember Hunter Biden’s extortionate WhatsApp message to his Chinese business associate, Henry Zhao? The message we just learned about in June because Gary Shapley, an IRS whistleblower agent, shone a light on it? The message that spun up Congress and much of the public, and even stirred the press out of its slumber for a moment or two, because it undeniably implicated President Biden?
Well guess whom the message failed to stir? That would be none other than newly minted “special counsel” David Weiss, the prosecutor who has supposedly been investigating Hunter Biden — and thus the Biden family influence-peddling business, the main source of income for the president’s son — since 2018. . . . Initially, Weiss used the pendency of the 2020 election as an excuse to take no meaningful action on the investigation. Once Joe Biden won the presidency and installed Weiss’s boss, Garland, at the Justice Department helm, Weiss dutifully buried the Biden investigation by not seeking an indictment from the grand jury. As every prosecutor knows, the statutory time-limit for filing criminal charges (known as the statute of limitations) runs out if charges are not formally filed. If a prosecutor drags his feet for years, crimes that have not been charged become time-barred — i.e., no longer prosecutable. . . .
Why rehash all of this on the occasion of Weiss’s first week under the sham designation of “special counsel” in the investigation he has been sabotaging for years?
Well, today’s being August 14, 2023, I thought I might remind you that the statute of limitations for most federal crimes is five years, and for tax felonies relevant to the Biden probe it is six years.
Despite the evidence accumulated over the last five years, David Weiss never filed an indictment. That means the statute of limitations clock has continued to tick . . . tick . . . tick. As a result, all potential tax crimes committed before August 14, 2017, are time-barred as of today; so are all other potential felonies committed before August 14, 2018, (e.g., extortion, bribery, money-laundering, failure to register as a foreign agent, and so on).
So I thought I’d mention that Hunter’s WhatsApp message happened on July 30, 2017. The $100,000 payment that soon rolled in was on August 4, 2017. The $5 million that followed landed on August 8, 2017. All a little more than six years ago. Happy anniversary!
ICYMI, Dan McLaughlin was on the ground last weekend for the Iowa State Fair. A bit of color:
The Iowa State Fair is an enormous, sprawling event, in which the political candidates are merely a sideshow. It’s the biggest state fair in the country, a once-a-year Disney World of its own on permanent grounds in Des Moines, with scores of food tents, rides, musicians, displays of livestock, tractors, farm and gardening equipment, and the famous butter cow (an annual life-size sculpture of a cow made entirely of butter). It’s imposing to try to find parking anywhere for blocks in any direction.
Walking through this sort of event with a major presidential candidate is a study in contradictions. On the one hand, there’s something royalist and “Make Way for the King!” about a man walking with an entourage of sign-carrying supporters, lesser dignitaries, security, and the press, with people announcing his presence and plowing through the onlookers. I couldn’t avoid a thought of “we’re off to see the wizard” every time DeSantis moved even a little and the whole crowd moved with him. It was hard not to be struck by the absurdity of the entire thing, or to retreat into a certain level of ironic distance from a process that contains a deep well of sincerity and earnestness under all those layers of cynicism. When his wife Casey split off briefly to take one of the kids to a game stand, everybody but me stayed with The Candidate. At another game stand, the press mobbed one side where DeSantis was with Ernst, Casey, and the kids, while some ordinary fairgoers were left alone on the other side to throw things at balloons totally oblivious to doing so 20 feet from a presidential campaign.
On the other hand, the ritual is very American and very republican: DeSantis shook a lot of hands and posed for a lot of selfies with ordinary Iowans thrilled to meet him, and along the way, he had to endure the abuse of various hecklers, be they leftists or Trump supporters (it was sometimes hard to tell the difference), as well as the crushing indifference of the bulk of the crowd to any politician. Probably his best moment of the day was encountering a Special Olympian and his grateful family, who praised DeSantis for keeping things open.
Shout-Outs
Graeme Wood, at the Atlantic: How Bronze Age Pervert Charmed the Far Right
Matthew Kassel, at Jewish Insider: For Ilhan Omar, not all foreign influence spending is bad
Alana Goodman, at the Washington Free Beacon: This Far-Left Socialist Is a Top Donor to RFK Jr.
CODA
I can’t recall if I’ve done a plug for Buckethead in this space before, but I’ll end today with a shredder. First, the name: If you haven’t heard of this guitarist before, let me explain. You see, he wears a bucket . . . on his head.
So that’s cleared up. He also is a virtuoso, was part of Guns N’ Roses for a few years, and has released an unfathomably large number of albums. Much of his music trends to the heavier side, but he straddles genres. His Colma album, for instance, is almost all acoustic. This song — “Soothsayer” — is more classically “Bucket.” Warning: It gets a bit loud.
Have a great weekend.