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Crime Wave? Another Lie

Today I am sharing a blog post from Robert Reich, about how we can deal with the absurdities we are hearing about crime waves – but only in inconveniently Democratic majority cities:

How to respond to Trump’s lies about a “crime wave”

ROBERT REICH

AUG 28, 2025

Friends,

Trump’s escalating rhetoric of a “crime wave” in America, coupled with threats to occupy Chicago, New York, Baltimore, and many other cities, has put many Democrats in a bind. 

They worry if they deny crime is a problem, they could turn off swing voters who always and inevitably worry about crime. 

As with immigration, crime is an issue that Trump can demagogue because, while the rate of serious crime his fallen dramatically, most Americans continue to fear crime. That fear has been heightened by expanding homeless encampments and drug overdoses in plain view, no matter what the statistics say. 

Crime has also been a racial dog whistle. At least since Richard Nixon emphasized “law and order” and Ronald Reagan said he’d be “tough on crime,” Republicans have used fear of crime as code for white fear of Black people. 

So what should Democrats do? My suggestion: Don’t simply give statistics showing that the rate of dangerous has fallen. Say safety is critically important, but local police rather than federal troops are best at dealing with it. 

Don’t stop there. Hammer Trump for pardoning the 1,500 criminals who violently attacked the United States capitol and caused the deaths of four police officers — and for then firing the federal prosecutors who held them accountable. 

Attack him for opening the floodgates to white-collar crime — hobbling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, freezing enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, disbanding the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, and retreating from almost all federal lawsuits involving money laundering, crypto markets, and foreign corruption. 

Since retaking the White House, Trump has granted clemency to Lawrence Duran, a health care executive who was convicted of leading a Medicare fraud and money laundering scheme. Trump has commuted the 14-year sentence of Jason Galanis, who defrauded investors, including a Native American tribe and a teachers’ pension fund, of tens of millions of dollars. He has pardoned Julie and Todd Chrisley, the reality TV stars convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion. 

In April, the Wall Street Journal reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi was “swapping out and sidelining career supervisors who were responsible for charging crimes such as corruption, price fixing and securities fraud.”

Trump is soft on crime as long as the crime serves his own purposes. People who try to get on Trump’s good side — such as New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted on bribery charges during the Biden administration — have seen Trump’s Justice Department drop its charges against them.

Before they poured money into Trump’s initiatives and PACs, many Big Tech corporations were facing federal investigations and enforcement actions. Those investigations and lawsuits are now being dropped.

Earlier this year, the Department of Justice dropped its criminal case against Boeing, which involved the company’s role in two plane crashes that killed 346 people — despite Boeing previously agreeing to plead guilty in the case.

Trump is himself a criminal, found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree related to payments made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. 

Don’t just accuse him of manufacturing a pretext to go into American cities. Hit him hard on his own horrific record of coddling criminals.

August 28, 2025 Posted by | Character, Civility, corruption, Crime, Law and Order, Living Conditions, Political Issues, Quality of Life Issues | , , , , | Leave a comment

History the White House Doesn’t Like: The List of Exhibits Trump Wants Gone

It’s a strange honor to have exhibits selected that the President wants gone. As in Literature, when you read through the list, you learn a lot about the fears and the prejudices of the creator. In recent decades, the United States of America has had a greater tolerance for the idiosyncratic views of artists, appreciating their differing perceptions. The list below is taken word for word from the White House Post called The President is Right About the Smithsonian.

  • The National Museum of African American History and Culture debuted a series to educate people on “a society that privileges white people and whiteness” — defining so-called “white dominant culture“ as “ways white people and their traditions, attitudes, and ways of life have been normalized over time” and portraying “the nuclear family,” “work ethic,” and “intellect” as white qualities rooted in racism.

As part of its campaign to stop being “wealthy, pale, and male,” the National Portrait Gallery featured a choreographed “modern dance performance“ detailing the “ramifications“ of the southern border wall and commissioned an entire series to examine “American portraiture and institutional history… through the lens of historical exclusion.”

The National Portrait Gallery features art commemorating the act of illegally crossing the “inclusive and exclusionary” southern border — even making it a finalist for one of its awards.

(Intlxpatr comment: This painting reminds me of the painting of Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus escaping to Egypt to avoid King Herod’s massacre of the innocents)

The National Museum of African Art displayed an exhibit on “works of speculative fiction that bring to life an immersive, feminist and sacred aquatopia inspired by the legend of Drexciya,” an “underwater kingdom populated by the children of pregnant women who had been thrown overboard or jumped into the ocean during the Middle Passage.”

The American History Museum’s “LGBTQ+ History” exhibit seeks to “understand evolving and overlapping identities such as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, queer, transsexual, transvestite, mahu, homosexual, fluid, invert, urning, third sex, two sex, gender-bender, sapphist, hijra, friend of Dorothy, drag queen/king, and many other experiences,” and includes articles on “LGBTQ+ inclusion and skateboarding“ and “the rise of drag ball culture in the 1920s.”

The National Museum of the American Latino features programming highlighting “animated Latinos and Latinas with disabilities” — with content from “a disabled, plus-sized actress” and an “ambulatory wheelchair user” who “educates on their identity being Latinx, LGBTQ+, and disabled.”

The National Museum of the American Latino characterizes the Texas Revolution as a “massive defense of slavery waged by ‘white Anglo Saxon’ settlers against anti-slavery Mexicans fighting for freedom, not a Texan war of independence from Mexico,” and frames the Mexican-American War as “the North American invasion” that was “unprovoked and motivated by pro-slavery politicians.”

According to the National Museum of the American Latino, “what unites Latinas and Latinos“ is “the Black Lives Matter movement.”

The National Portrait Gallery commissioned a “stop-motion drawing animation” that “examines the career“ of Anthony Fauci.

The American History Museum’s exhibit marking the 50th anniversary of Title IX includesbiological men competing in women’s sports and argues in favor of “transgender” athletes competing in sports against the opposite biological sex.

A exhibit at the American History Museum depicts migrants watching Independence Day fireworks “through an opening in the U.S.-Mexico border wall” and says America’s founders “feared non-White immigration.”

The American History Museum features a display that refers to the founding of America as “a profound unsettling of the continent.”

The American History Museum’s “American Democracy” exhibit claims voter integrity measures are “attempts to minimize the political power” of “new and diverse groups of Americans,” while its section on “demonstrations” includes only leftist causes.

An American History Museum exhibit features a depiction of the Statue of Liberty “holding a tomato in her right hand instead of a torch, and a basket of tomatoes in her left hand instead of a tablet.”

  • The National Museum of the American Latino features an anti-American exhibit that defines Latino history as centuries of victimhood and exploitation, suggests the U.S. is stolen land, and characterizes U.S. history as rooted in “colonization.”
    • The exhibit features writing from illegal immigrants “fighting to belong.”
    • The exhibit displays a quote from Claudia de la Cruz, the socialist nominee for president and a director an anti-American hate group, as well as another quote that reads, “We didn’t cross the border; the border crossed us.”
    • The exhibit remains prominently featured on its website alongside a quote from the Communist Party USA’s Angela Davis, who was once among the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives.
  • The National Museum of the American Latino features an anti-American exhibit that defines Latino history as centuries of victimhood and exploitation, suggests the U.S. is stolen land, and characterizes U.S. history as rooted in “colonization.”
    • The exhibit features writing from illegal immigrants “fighting to belong.”
    • The exhibit displays a quote from Claudia de la Cruz, the socialist nominee for president and a director an anti-American hate group, as well as another quote that reads, “We didn’t cross the border; the border crossed us.”
    • The exhibit remains prominently featured on its website alongside a quote from the Communist Party USA’s Angela Davis, who was once among the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives.

The former interim director of the future Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum declared the museum will be “inclusive” of biological men posing as women.

Commentary from The Hill, August 22, 2025:

White House lists 20 objectionable Smithsonian exhibits, artworks

BY ASHLEIGH FIELDS – 08/22/25 10:34 AM ET

The Trump administration specifically targeted the American history museum’s “LGBTQ+ History” exhibit and condemned a separate display lauding the 50th anniversary of Title IX with a focus on transgender athletes. President Trump signed an executive order in February barring transgender women from competing in women’s sports.

The decision to highlight more than a dozen exhibits and artworks as “woke” comes days after Trump criticized the history museum for its depiction of slavery and its impact on Black Americans. 

“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” the president wrote Tuesday in a Truth Social post.

“We are not going to allow this to happen, and I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made,” he added. “This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE.”

During his first term, Trump lauded the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture for its portrayal of harsh truths and storied victories for disenfranchised Black citizens. 

Trump’s issue with the depiction of slavery in museums has been widely challenged by Black historians and community leaders.

“Just as the Holocaust is remembered in all its brutality, so must America reckon with the truth of chattel slavery, Jim Crow and racial terror,” Toni Draper, publisher of the Afro-American Newspaper — the archives of which were used to help curate the museum — wrote in a recent op-ed for Afro.com. “Anything less is historical erasure, a rewriting of facts to make the nation appear more palatable.”

But history is not meant to comfort — it is meant to confront. And only in confrontation do we find the lessons that lead us forward,” she added.

August 24, 2025 Posted by | Arts & Handicrafts, Beauty, Bureaucracy, Character, Civility, Community, Cultural, Heritage, History, Political Issues, Quality of Life Issues, Stranger in a Strange Land, Transparency, Values, Women's Issues | , , , , | Leave a comment