Armed robbers, carjackers, other violent crooks to get lighter punishments if DC bill becomes law — even the Washington Post says it's a bad idea



The Washington, D.C., City Council is voting Tuesday on whether or not it will override Mayor Muriel Bowser's veto of the body's controversial Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022, the Washington Examiner reported.

It seems likely that the council — which is devoid of Republican members and unanimously approved the legislation in November — will do just that.

What are the details?

The bill decreases punishments for violent crimes such as carjackings, home invasion burglaries, robberies, and even homicides, the Washington Post reported.

\u201cARMED ROBBERY: D.C. police are looking for two suspects who walked into a store, brandishing guns and demanded cash.\u201d
— 48 Hours (@48 Hours) 1626795094

But a Sunday piece by the paper's editorial board declared that the legislation could make D.C. "a more dangerous city."

More from the Post:

The bill eliminates life sentences and gets rid of mandatory minimums for every crime but first-degree murder. The maximum penalty for someone convicted of a violent felony while using a gun to commit more violence would drop to four years from 15 years. This is not an evidence-based approach to public safety. The data is clear that firearms offenders recidivate at higher rates and more quickly than those who committed crimes without guns.

The Examiner added that the "progressive council has defended the bill as making the law fairer and less racist, while numerous law and law enforcement figures have said it has the potential to open the floodgates of crime."

Fox News said Bowser raised red flags about the reduced penalties provisions when she vetoed the bill Jan. 3: "Any time there is a policy that reduces penalties, I think it sends the wrong message."

What if council overrides Bowser's veto?

If council overrides Bowser's veto and sends the bill to Congress, Fox News said federal lawmakers will have 60 days to review it. The cable network noted that Congress may enact a joint resolution during that time period that rejects the bill — and if President Joe Biden approves that resolution, the bill will be prevented from becoming law.

Anything else?

WTTG-TV reported last fall that D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III was opposed to the reduction of sentences the bill pushes forward: "If we’re reducing a sentence from 10 years down to five years, that makes the city less safe."

Contee was in the news last week as well after giving a fiery press conference addressing swirling rumors about the identity of a city employee and homeowner who fatally shot a 13-year-old black male he confronted at 4 a.m. over car break-ins.

Contee confirmed the man who pulled the trigger also is black, and the chief condemned "misinformation" and "allegations centered around race."

Specifically, a group went as far as posting a photo of a white man and a picture of Karon Blake — the fatally shot teen — implying the white man is the one who pulled the trigger.

"The fact that there’s misinformation swirling out there, and people are tying it to race and other things and putting images of innocent people out there next to young Karon saying that 'this is the person that’s responsible for that' — that’s reckless, and that’s dangerous," Contee said with a raised voice. "Imagine if that was your picture beside his, and people showed up at your house with half information. That’s unacceptable."

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California fundraiser: Gavin Newsom is 'undeniably, unequivocally' running for president



A California fundraiser closely linked to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom told TheWrap that after the midterm elections, Newsom "absolutely is going to announce that he is running for the presidency once Biden announces that he is not running."

President Joe Biden recently cast doubt on whether he would seek reelection. In an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes," which aired on September 18, the 79-year-old suggested that while he had previously indicated he would run again, "it's just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen."

A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll indicated that 54% of Americans disapprove of the president, and that his favorability was dropping amongst Democrats as well as with Republicans.

A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that 64% of Democrat voters would prefer someone other than Biden, the oldest president in American history, to run in 2024. The number of voters under the age of 30 keen on fresh blood is far higher, figuring at 94%.

High inflation, a disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, an unprecedented border crisis, and a long list of scandals together may dog Biden in the 2024 presidential race, in addition to the looming prospect of impeachment by a Republican-controlled House or removal via the 25th Amendment.

"Undeniably, unequivocally," said the fundraiser of Newsom's intentions. "No ifs, ands or buts. He will run if Biden does not."

A Los Angeles philanthropist entrenched in the Democratic Party similarly suggested that Newsom will run should Biden bow out.

Newsom survived a recall election in 2021, with 61.9% voting to keep him, and advanced from the Democratic primary on June 7 of this year. He once again faces a general election on November 8, this time facing Republican Brian Dahle, against whom he is expected to win.

Nevertheless, the California governor has recently been looking outside his state and making national plays for attention.

Newsom recently targeted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a potential opponent in the 2024 presidential election. On September 16, he challenged DeSantis to a debate, promising to bring his hair gel, which the Florida governor indicated had been "interfering with his brain function."

\u201cHey @GovRonDeSantis, clearly you're struggling, distracted, and busy playing politics with people\u2019s lives. Since you have only one overriding need -- attention --let's take this up & debate. I\u2019ll bring my hair gel. You bring your hairspray. Name the time before Election Day. @CNN\u201d
— Gavin Newsom (@Gavin Newsom) 1663367242

Newsom has also been advertising his California's fetal abattoirs in Republican-controlled states. Some of his billboards in Indiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, and elsewhere read "You do not need to be a California resident to receive abortion services."

In addition to serving as invitations to exterminate the unborn in his state, he indicated his rationale was that "the people that support my candidacy support this."

Newsom has also launched television ads, including one in Florida castigating DeSantis and former President Donald Trump, which stated "Freedom, it's under attack in your state ... Republican leaders, they're banning books, making it harder to vote ... even criminalizing women and doctors."

TheWrap reported that in addition to sending out feelers, Newsom may also be setting up the network and financial backing he would need for a presidential run. Over the summer, he reportedly spoke to a number of political consultants with minds to national elections.

Like Vice President Kamala Harris, Newsom has also recently been networking with deep-pocketed influencers and fundraisers. He met with Heather Podesta, a lobbyist and Democratic fund-raiser, claiming he did so to support the Democratic Governors Association.

The Democratic field in 2024 may be populated with familiar faces, such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Va.), and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

If Newsom runs, he may also contend with Vice President Kamala Harris, who has indicated that Biden "has been very clear that he intends to run again. And if he does, I will be running with him proudly."

According to a recent Harvard Harris Poll, 50% of respondents found Harris unfavorable whereas only 37% found her favorable.

Newsom's America

Newsom remains popular in California despite overseeing an energy crisis, an epidemic of fires, high crime, and markedly diminished freedoms.

Owing largely to state Democrats' energy policies, California's electric grid is highly unstable. The state relies heavily upon solar and renewable energy, although routine strains on the grid have prompted Newsom to keep California's last nuclear plant open.

Despite the government's antipathy for fossil fuels, the state has also had to burn more gas in recent years and ration electricity to avoid a recurrence of the rolling blackouts that left hundreds of thousands of residents in the dark for hours and days at a time in 2020.

Massive swathes of federal and nonfederal land have been consumed in California wildfires over the past several years. Although Newsom has argued climate change to be the culprit, he has been accused of transforming his state into "a tinderbox waiting for a spark," and for having "failed to take care of forestry management in California."

Minority Leader of the California State Assembly James Gallagher told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that the Newsom administration's refusal to stand up to "big special interests in California [like] the Sierra Club," who don't want any trees cut, "is the cause of these fires and is leading to people dying."

As destructive as the wildfires have been, crime in Newsom's California has proved exceedingly more lethal. The chances of becoming a victim of a violent crime in the state are 1 in 227, and the likelihood of becoming a victim of a property crime is 1 in 47.

In 2021, there were 2,361 murders in California, setting the violent crime rate up to 466.2 per 100,000 from 437 the previous year. At the same time that murders were on the rise, arrests were falling, from 2,812.3 per 100,000 people in 2020 to 2,606.3 per 100,000 last year.

The streets are not only home to worsening violent crime. According to the California Health Care Foundation, as of 2020, there were at least 255,000 homeless persons in the state, up significantly from previous years.

The Public Policy Institute of California estimated there were at least 2.3 million illegal aliens living in California as of 2019, comprising approximately 6% of the population.

Although Newsom has suggested in his messaging to voters in red states that their freedoms are under attack, California ranks #48 overall in the Cato Institute's "Freedom in the 50 States" index of personal and economic freedom.

William Ruger, vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute, and Jason Sorens, director of the Center for Ethics in Society at Saint Anselm College, authored the libertarian think tank's report, which stated "California is one of the least free states in the country, largely because of its long-standing poor performance on economic freedom."

The report indicated that under Newsom, "California is one of the highest-taxed states in the country ... one of the worst states on land-use freedom," and home to the weakest gun rights in the country, it's freedoms have "weakened consistently over time."

Florida ranked #1 nationwide in fiscal and economic freedom, #2 in education freedom by prominent think tank



On Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tweeted, "Florida ranks #1 among the states for economic freedom!" This ranking refers to the Cato Institute's "Freedom in the 50 States" index of personal and economic freedom.

William Ruger, vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute, and Jason Sorens, director of the Center for Ethics in Society at Saint Anselm College, authored the libertarian think tank's report, which determined that Florida was #1 in economic freedom, #1 in fiscal freedom, #2 in education freedom, and #2 overall for freedom in the Union.

\u201cFlorida ranks #1 among the states for economic freedom! \n\nhttps://t.co/eFxr8wVOSt\u201d
— Ron DeSantis (@Ron DeSantis) 1661799600

Freedom, as conceived by the Cato Institute authors, is predicated upon a framework of individual rights, in which individuals "should be allowed to dispose of their lives, liberties, and property as they see fit, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others." This understanding is informed, in part, by "the natural-rights liberal thought of John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Robert Nozick."

Variables and freedom defined

As it pertains to fiscal policy, Florida's relative freedom ranking was calculated on the basis of of the following policy variables:

  • state taxation;
  • location taxation;
  • government consumption and investment;
  • government employment;
  • government debt; and
  • cash and security assets.

"Florida's state-level tax collections are more than 1.5 standard deviations below the national average," the report indicated. "Government consumption and debt are lower than average."

Despite Florida's position in the top spots for economic and fiscal freedom on the index, the think tank nevertheless recommended that Florida "decentralize taxing and spending powers from counties to municipalities and make it easy for municipalities to control their own school districts."

For education freedom, Florida's top-five ranking reflects a number of variables, including: public school choice; homeschoolers' curriculum control; compulsory school years; and the mandatory state approval of private schools.

The data the rankings rely upon reflect code laws enacted as of January 1, 2020, as well as tax, asset, and debt information collected and analyzed going as far back as 2019. Consequently, actions taken by the DeSantis administration in 2022 — such as the Parental Rights in Education bill — are not reflected in the present rankings.

Based on the index's criteria, many of the state's recent freedom-focused initiatives might secure for Florida a higher freedom ranking in subsequent reports. By the same token, since the Cato Institute is markedly libertarian and not socially conservative (as evidenced by its upgrade of Florida for personal freedom after the nationalization of gay marriage), Florida's abortion law may be cited as grounds for a potential downgrade.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

The top five states extolling and protecting freedom so defined are (in this order): New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, Tennessee, and South Dakota.

The worst five states overall, in terms of the freedoms enjoyed by the Americans living in them, are: Oregon (#46, down six spots since 2020), New Jersey (#47), California (#48), Hawaii (#49), and New York (#50).

California, for instance, sits second to last because it is "one of the highest-taxed states in the country" and "one of the worst states on land-use freedom." According to the report, "California is a classic left-wing state on social issues" wherein gun rights "are among the weakest in the country and have been weakened consistently over time."

Gov. Kathy Hochul's New York has sat dead last in the nation on the freedom index for over 20 years. Whereas some Democrat states have middling personal freedom and low economic freedom, New York allegedly performs poorly in both dimensions.

All of the governors in the top five states are Republicans, with the exception of Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak. All of the governors in the worst five states are Democrats.

Horowitz: Will state legislatures keep rolling over for tyrannical governors?



Even if one believes government has the legal right and the scientific backing to destroy our lives over a virus, shouldn't such decisions be made by a legislative body? This is a simple proposition anyone who supports representative democracy should rally behind, yet 10 months into the greatest government display of control of our lives, we continue to have health departments making the most consequential decisions of all time without legislative input. Governors continue to tell legislatures to mind their own business, and the response from most GOP-dominated legislatures has been tepid at best.

There is no virus that can possibly prevent legislators from weighing in, at least not after a few days into the initial emergency. We should all agree that if the actions taken by the governors, mayors, and health departments are so compelling, then the legislature should easily be able to approve them — if not within hours or a day, certainly within a week. As such, any decision that is made against the life, liberty, or property of an American — from business and school closures to quarantining and masking — should only be made by an elected body within just a few days of the presumed emergency.

Are the 31 GOP-controlled legislatures passing these bills, even in the 19 states where they command veto-proof majorities? Very few of them are going far enough, although some are headed in the right direction. Idaho, Ohio, and North Dakota are examples of some states where one chamber has passed meaningful limitation on the governor's orders. However, one to two months into the legislative sessions, not a single state has effectively checked the dictatorial powers yet with a categorical bill passed by both chambers.

Last week, the New Hampshire House passed a bill zeroing out all fines levied against businesses and individuals under emergency health orders. Shockingly, Gov. Chris Sununu (R) said, "We can't claim to support law and order, then incentivize law-breaking and reward those who do not follow the rules."

From following these efforts in numerous states, I get the sense that this is the belief held by nearly every governor in the nation. They believe they have the right to legislate against the most intimate parts of a citizen's life, and in turn, the legislature has no businesses getting involved. Sununu believes that the legislature is being lawless by interfering with his private "laws."

It's not surprising that governors believe they should have as much power as possible. What is shocking, though, is that state legislatures are not more aggressively checking their power and appear content to allow governors to continue ruling as kings. For example, the GOP supermajorities in West Virginia failed to apply limitations to the current declared emergency. Indiana's supermajorities refuse to fully check the power of the liberal RINO Gov. Eric Holcomb.

The scary thing is that the clock is ticking on state legislative schedules, and many of them will be out of session within a few weeks, which will enable governors to rule without any checks and balances for the next eight to nine months. At a minimum, states must pass bills forcing the governors to call the legislatures back into session as soon as governors declare an emergency or give the legislature itself the ability to call itself back in to session.

What I'm observing now in most state legislatures is an antiquated law designed to protect liberty being used to protect tyranny. Most states limit the legislature to just a few months of active lawmaking, and some states even limit the number of days during the session that legislators can introduce legislation. This was done to prevent the government from legislating away too many of our rights. However, what has happened in recent years is that most of the "legislation" is promulgated by the governor, the state agencies, or the courts. They have zero limitations on the time or scope of their "legislative" powers. Thus, limiting the ability of the legislature to convene actually prevents the people from using their only democratic avenue to redress their grievances against executive tyranny.

Take Utah, for example. There is an allegedly Republican governor, with the GOP controlling the House by 58-17 and the Senate by 23-6. Yet it as might as well be California when it comes to mask mandates. The state legislative session ends this coming Friday night, and legislators have yet to limit the power of the government or health department. With the legislature out of session until 2022, the health department extended the criminalization of human breathing without a Chinese face burka through March 25. Without any sort of legislation – and indeed, with the legislature slated to be out of session – these unelected bureaucrats are suggesting that the mandate will be in place until 1.6 million people have been vaccinated, and even then, citizens will be allowed to breathe freely only in "low transmission" counties. With masks already never having worked in Utah, the unelected bureaucrats have now set up a standard that will continue with no recourse for the citizenry until the legislature convenes next year.

Even though a significant majority of the state was living under mandates already, it didn’t stop a huge increase i… https://t.co/GJ623Rgqxy
— IM (@IM)1614193862.0

James Madison, writing in Federalist #48, observed, "The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex." He further believed, "The legislative department derives a superiority in our governments from other circumstances."

"Its constitutional powers being at once more extensive, and less susceptible of precise limits, it can, with the greater facility, mask, under complicated and indirect measures, the encroachments which it makes on the co-ordinate departments," wrote Madison. "It is not unfrequently a question of real nicety in legislative bodies, whether the operation of a particular measure will, or will not, extend beyond the legislative sphere."

It was in this vein that many state constitutions limited the powers of their legislative authorities. Little did their framers know that not only would the executive branch begin to legislate against fundamental rights all year round, but the legislature would be all too content to permanently cede that authority.