RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20545/lawlessness

On the eve of Easter Sunday, for as far as the eye could see, thousands of police officers lined a quiet suburban Long Island street to offer their solemn final salute to a fellow officer, who was shot to death during a traffic stop in New York City. They came from all over the nation to pay tribute to one of their own, yet another victim in the absence of a war against crime, a situation that has been made far more violent, far more dangerous in the wake of legislation such as so-called “bail reform” — now basically a catch-and-release, in which criminals are regarded as victims and victims are regarded as criminals — and similar progressive initiatives that are unraveling our society.

Detective First Grade Jonathan Diller was married to a nurse named Stephanie; they had a toddler named Ryan.

In her eulogy to her murdered husband, Stephanie told a packed church: “He was excited that Ryan’s first word was ‘Dada,’ and I remember I would playfully try to get him to say ‘Mama’ instead. But now I never want to stop hearing Ryan say ‘Dada’ to me.”

“Our lives were pretty much perfect until five days ago when everything changed forever…. He wasn’t the type to sugarcoat anything, so I won’t sugarcoat this: This is devastating; it’s a devastating, senseless and tragic loss for so many — our family, our friends, and the entire city of New York,” this courageous widow continued.

She asked, “How many more police officers and their families will have to make the ultimate sacrifice before the city protects them?”

Media reports that when she finished her tribute, “thunderous applause rose from the thousands of mourners inside and outside the church.”

Regardless of where you live, or what you have experienced in your communities, this tragedy speaks to a nation in turmoil. Entire urban downtowns have become wastelands. Legislation has been passed that harms the ability of police to perform their duties.

With blue flags flying throughout Diller’s community, they reflect the lasting support from neighbors seeking to stand in solidarity with a family shattered by a murderous felon. Those flags, however, cannot begin to reflect the seething anger and heartfelt grief that is a legacy of Diller’s death. There are those, including this author, who will ask why the murderer will likely be sentenced to life imprisonment. Why aren’t we prepared to bring back capital punishment for those who take the lives of those brave men who daily risk their own lives to protect our families, our communities, and our society? Why indeed?

https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/03/inspectors-thousands-of-american-bridges-in-poor-condition/

Following the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge after a collision involving a cargo ship, safety inspectors are now raising the alarm about the structural dangers of a significant percentage of American bridges.

As Fox News reports, federal data from the year 2023 suggests that at least 7% of bridges in the United States – roughly 42,400 total – are in poor condition. The primary cause is deterioration over time, which requires regular repairs that can regularly cost millions of dollars, as well as cause closures that negatively impact many residents’ commutes.

The National Bridge Inventory says that the bridges that are in danger are suffering from either their legs (the substructure) or their arms (the superstructure) being in poor condition; the legs hold up the bridges themselves, while the arms hold up their loads.

Notably, the number of bridges in poor condition has decreased by about 22% over the previous decade, with 16,000 bridges being rated poor 10 years ago but no longer being declared so today.

Although a portion of the 2021 infrastructure bill included funding for the improvement of bridges, it only funds bridge repairs to the tune of $40 billion; the American Road and Transportation Builders Association estimates that at least $319 billion would be needed to conduct all of the necessary repairs on every affected bridge.

Bridges in the United States have come under greater scrutiny following the incident in Baltimore on March 26th, where the Singaporean cargo ship Dali collided with one of the bridge’s central support beams in the early morning hours, allegedly after losing power on the ship and drifting in the water towards the bridge. The collapse resulted in six deaths, and a massive cleanup operation, as well as an investigation into the reasons for the crash, are currently underway.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/04/alvin_bragg_s_hush_money_case_no_due_process_and_a_judge_whose_objectivity_is_highly_suspect.html

From the second it was filed, it was clear that Alvin Bragg’s indictment against Donald Trump for the payments he made to Stormy Daniels was a due process disaster. The complaint alleges legal conduct and then concludes that this legal conduct constituted illegal action of an undisclosed nature. The case should have been tossed instantly. But now that we know that the judge trying the case has deep Democrat ties and is trying to prevent Trump from exposing those ties, it’s becoming clear why it’s proceeding to trial.

Last year, John Hinderaker, who is no Trump fan, eviscerated Bragg’s indictment:

You can read Alvin Bragg’s indictment of Donald Trump and a supporting statement of facts here. The indictment is what we expected. It all has to do with paying $130,000 to Stormy Daniels for a non-disclosure agreement, which was legal. The payment was made by “Lawyer A,” Michael Cohen. Trump reimbursed Cohen using Trump’s own money, which was legal. The “34 counts” arise out of the fact that by agreement, Cohen got reimbursed by sending monthly invoices to Trump or his revocable trust. So for each monthly bill from Cohen, we get three counts of falsifying documents: one for the invoice, one for the ledger entry, and one for the check stub. Pathetic.

The indictment alleges that all of this was done “with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof,” but it never says what that other crime was. The second crime is mandatory because without it, falsifying a business record under New York law is a misdemeanor on which the statute of limitation has run. Presumably the second crime is alleged to be a campaign finance violation. But the payment to Daniels did not violate the campaign finance laws.

What this all boils down to is that, despite 34 counts against him, Trump has no idea what crime he is alleged to have committed.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/protecting-squatters/

What if you come home and find strangers living in your house?

I assumed you order the squatters out, and if they resist, call the police, and they will kick them out.

Wrong.

Pro-tenant laws passed by anti-capitalist politicians now protect squatters. If a squatter just lies about having a lease, the police won’t intervene.

“It’s a civil matter,” they’ll say. “Sort it out in court.”

Great. Court might cost $20,000. Or more. And courts are so slow, eviction might take years.

In my state, New York, homeowners can’t even shut of utilities to try to get the squatter out. That’s illegal. Worse, once a squatter has been there 30 days, they are legally considered a tenant.

This month, NYC police arrested a homeowner for “unlawful eviction” after she changed locks, trying to get rid a squatter.

“Squatter rights,” also known as “adverse possession” laws, now exist in all 50 states. As a result, evicting a squatter legally is so expensive and cumbersome that some people simply walk away from their homes!

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/04/the-injustice-of-the-trump-gag-order/

Biden’s provocative speech is allowed because he didn’t direct anyone to do anything; Trump’s is suppressed even though he didn’t direct anyone to do anything.

New York state judge Juan Merchan has expanded the gag order he slapped on former president Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, to include prohibiting Trump from speaking about his daughter, Loren Merchan, a Democratic political operative.

Merchan doesn’t contend that Trump threatened his daughter. Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, the elected progressive Democrat who sought the gag order and later asked for it to be ratcheted up, has not accused Trump of incitement, much less sought to arrest and charge him for such an offense. How could he? There is no evidence that Trump called for violence or even verbal attacks against Merchan’s daughter.

Instead, Merchan rationalizes that Trump is a powerful figure whose followers construe his statements as directives to resort to intimidation and, potentially, violence — even if the statements do not literally say any such thing. Ergo, Trump must be silenced as if he is guilty of coercion.

According to Merchan, Trump must be treated differently because he’s like a government, not an ordinary defendant: “The conventional ‘David vs. Goliath’ roles are no longer in play as demonstrated by the singular power [Trump’s] words have on countless others.”

But wait, isn’t Trump just using his “bully pulpit”?

After all, only two weeks ago, the Biden administration told the Supreme Court that when the government uses its “bully pulpit” — when it uses the singular power of its words to persuade others — it is not to be blamed for the abusive action of others as long as it hasn’t specifically directed them to take any such action.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/02/on-things-collapsing/

The recent collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was profoundly dramatic. It struck a chord because something similar happened in Tampa in 1980. Ships are big and always getting bigger. And this bridge was a bit older and not made with today’s state-of-the-art design and technology.

How did it happen? Was it a freak accident? The poisoned fruit of affirmative action? Sabotage or terrorism? I have no idea, and we may not know for a while.

I do know that if the truth threatens some chestnut of politically correct conventional wisdom, it will be hidden in a footnote, if it is allowed to be released at all. Planes have crashed and ships have crashed into other ships, and the possible influence of affirmative action and lower standards was never really explored in any depth, even though it appeared to be a contributing factor. The powers-that-be seem to think we can take people with one or more standard deviations lower general intelligence and obtain the same result in technically demanding fields like aviation, seamanship, medicine, and engineering.

In Baltimore, the captain or pilot apparently sounded the alarm, permitting the police to save many lives by closing off the bridge to traffic. This was the good news part of the story. But I am more concerned about the timeline for the bridge’s replacement. There are reports that it will take at least ten years.

The original was built in five.

Sclerotic Nation

We went from biplanes to jet fighters in 20 years. Then we went from jet fighters to men in space in another 20. But repeating yesteryear’s technological achievements like building skyscrapers, dams, bridges, railroads, and the like is apparently going to take longer and cost more than it did in years, if it is even able to be repeated.

https://nypost.com/2024/03/31/us-news/protesters-calling-for-cease-fire-ambush-easter-vigil-at-st-patricks-cathedral-in-nyc/

Nothing’s sacred to these guys. 

A trio of attention-seeking protesters — one of whom previously glued his feet to the stands at the US Open as part of a climate-change stunt — were cuffed and hauled out of St. Patrick’s Cathedral after disrupting Easter Mass with shouts of “Free Palestine” on Saturday night, cops say.

Police were called to the iconic Midtown cathedral for complaints about a “disorderly group” just before 9 p.m. The protesters were quickly taken out of the service.

Matthew Menzies, 31, John Rozendaal, 63, and Gregory Schwedock, 35, were taken into custody and charged with disruption of religious service, police told The Post.

While being escorted out, one yelled “Free Palestine,” a video shared to X shows. 

Schwedock, of the Upper East Side, was arrested in September after disrupting the US Open women’s semifinal with activists who used glue to prevent security from ejecting them from Arthur Ashe Stadium after they held up a sign decrying fossil fuels. Their stunt stalled the match for nearly 50 minutes. 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/01/with-friends-like-obrador/

In a recent 60 Minutes interview, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador—who prefers to be known as AMLO for short—issued to the Biden administration blackmail demands that sounded more like existential threats.

AMLO warned the U.S. that the current influx of some 10 million illegal aliens through the southern border will most certainly continue—unless America agrees to his ultimatums.

One, Obrador says the U.S. must now send $20 billion in de facto bribery payments to Latin American nations, many of them corrupt and dysfunctional. Apparently, he thinks it is America’s fault that millions of Latin Americans are fleeing these failed states northward, not the inept and corrupt governments that create such misery.

Two, AMLO demands amnesty for vast numbers of Mexican illegal aliens currently unlawfully residing inside the U.S. He apparently also thinks there is no such thing as U.S. immigration law. Or, if there is, such statutes do not apply to citizens of Mexico. Can we ask Mr. Obrador to simply grant permanent visa-free, no-questions-asked residence to any American living in a vacation complex in Mexico?

Three, he also requires America to lift sanctions against anti-American Venezuela. That communist government currently is part of the new China/Russia/Iran strategic axis. It is sending thousands of its citizens northward to enter the U.S. illegally.

Many of them are criminals, as the recent murder of Laken Riley by a felonious Venezuelan illegal alien attests. Dictator Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuelan regime recently threatened to invade and annex oil-rich Guyana, its smaller neighbor to the east. Maduro’s “security forces” have routinely murdered hundreds of political opponents. This rogue state is apparently Mexico’s newest ally.

Four, AMLO further requires the U.S. to stop its long embargo of communist Castroite-controlled Cuba, a decades-long avowed enemy of the U.S.