The level of crime in D.C. was disgraceful for a nation’s capital; the D.C. government has been incompetent and corrupt for decades, and living there has been perpetually dangerous. (I know: I lived on Capitol Hill for four years. President Trump took aggressive action, and, as always, the Axis of Unethical Conduct will lie, deny, and deceive to avoid admitting that a Trump policy worked exactly as it was supposed to. NPR’s asinine story would make an uninformed reader think that D.C. residents live under constant intimidation by an oppressive military presence. The story even compares the situation to King George’s men in the Colonies before the Revolution. I live 15 minutes out of D.C. The National Guard presence is laid back, friendly, unobtrusive, and much of the time, invisible.
Hilariously, NPR, a partisan news source that dishonestly claims independence and objectivity quotes the ACLU as if that were still a non partisan guardian of individual rights rather than another knee-jerk Democratic Party ally.
“Not only do we have no recourse, but we cannot hold anyone accountable,” said an ACLU of D.C. spokesperson. “We deserve to hold our officials accountable, and we can’t do that here.” What a joke: the ACLU didn’t care that unaccountable local officials were faking crime stats for years to make the public feel “safe” while neglecting law enforcement. That august former free speech organization, NPR tells us, is “one of many organizations that have been pushing for statehood.” I bet! You know, like the Democratic Party, which wants two reliable Democratic Senators to help them achieve a majority. D.C. is only 68 square miles, and unless we want to return to the ancient Greek city state model, making the city into a state is laughable. If D.C. with it’s puny population of about 670,000 should be a state, surely Manhattan qualifies, with about a million more residents.
At least the U.S. is no longer forking over taxpayer funds to NPR to support its propaganda and lies.
Ethics Alarms 
I emphatically do not think that DC should be a state, but I will say that the population argument seems incorrect as the “puny” population of DC is greater than the population of my whole state. Go Wyo!
Now SB, be fair. I also mentioned its puny size Small population + small area = City, not State.
“If D.C. with it’s puny population of about 670,000 should be a state, surely Manhattan qualifies, with about a million more residents.”
Counterpoint – Manhattan should be federalized and lose its representation also.
The purpose of DC not being a state nor being part of a state, per the Founding Fathers:
To that point, given that the space taken up by people who fall in that category has spread far beyond the boundaries of a 10 mile square, Washington D.C. should, first, reclaim the Virginia part of the square, and then, be expanded an additional 10 (or more) miles in each direction.
This forms a minimum of a 30 mile x 30 mile square, encompassing a large number of people for whom “expanding the government in spite of the common good” is too much of a conflict of interest to allow them representation. Though, while expanding D.C. with otherwise all the same Constitutional restrictions, we can carve out an exception for ethicists that live on cul-de-sacs bordering that share parking lots with churches.
Of course then there was whoever wrote that each of DC’s neighborhoods should be made a state to ensure Democrat dominance.
My TDS-suffering sister visited DC last year and assured us upon returning that she had no problem at all. Without, of course, acknowledging that the National Guard presence might have made a difference.
It’s as if they don’t want to see the difference or that they want to deny that there is a difference.
I suspect if she had been mugged or robbed, she would have blamed Orange Man Super Terrible Nazi Evil Bad for her situation and not local law enforcement.
jvb
Washington, remarkably early in the republic, was such a repulsive cultural region that the Founding Fathers even made sure it was legally its own entity in the Constitution. No one has wanted it since. The people here are uninspiring automatons for the Federal Government and share the unique quality of not being able to hack it in a real job. Crime is rampant – if you visit historic landmarks, odds are you will be knifed in the back, robbed at gun point or contract a venereal disease – though once you leave the halls of Congress your safety increases significantly.
Actually, if you look at the chart, Robbery is one of the components in “Violent Crime – Total”. Saying they included it in their petty theft total is incorrect. They seemed to be focusing on the category totals rather than individual subcategories, at least for violent crimes. The violent crime total (the sum of the previous row numbers) was very slightly up, within an error range I’d be comfortable calling unchanged. ±5% seems like a reasonable range to me.
“Petty theft” is indefensible. Crimes of opportunity wasn’t a category in the numbers. They can be significant, and the change in auto theft alone would matter. It’s a terribly way to try and dismiss the improvements. I think “Theft (Other)” is far too broad a category. Using a broad category and comparing it to subgroups is dishonest.
Looking at totals rather than details or vice versa, instead of assessing both, it a common misuse of statistics. I’d say Fox has the better take in this instance. Unchanged or better is a net improvement. Only one subcategory saw any significant increase.
Homicides and robbery being down is important, but so is the significant increase in assault with a deadly weapon. It seems plausible that the greater presence of law enforcement could have improved the ability emergency services to show up and save lives, moving some number that would have been homicides to the assault row. It’s also plausible that a large number of events that would have been previously unreported are now showing in the assault row, meaning it’s not showing increased crimes just increased enforcement. We don’t really have enough information to do more than speculate.
You can’t prove that it is the presence of the National Guard troops that is responsible for the drop in murders. After all, it might be the deportations of illegal immigrants!
By the way, I have had pleasant conversations with the Guard patrolling DC. I found them to be somewhat bemused by the sense of security, prosperity, and beauty of our Capitol city. I wonder what tales they’ll tell when they go back to “flyover country”.
Once again, I have nothing intelligent to add. Even though my had is still a little lopsided, I must make a living, so a few days abroad is par for the course. Finally, back on native soil, I see the usual clever comments that delight the young, old, and cadavers alike – the latter particularly appreciate Gordon and West (no, not “The Wild Wild West”… the cartoon). A pity I wasn’t stateside to witness such genius in real time! But, as a first tier festoon designer, I attend the annual festooneries in the Agrafa Mountains, where my knowledge of the curved drape, tapered tails, and binding ribbons, is legendary. Once there, however, while disentangling myself from a supple servitóra and an ill-placed string of festoon lights, I received an urgent wire from a Mr. Yarret P. Lope, the illustrious Prefect of Motobu, begging my attendance at an urgent meeting in Cape Hedo on the northeastern tip of Okinawa, concerning unanticipated changes in the Central Ryukyu Arc. In a nutshell, the Philippine Sea Plate had pushed further underneath the Eurasian Plate than local predictions allowed. Given my preeminence in everything festoon, I was asked (on a strictly hourly basis) to clear the plates and polish the silverware. However, while aiming for Howland Island, the engine of my Cessna 172 Skyhawk began to sputter. When finally coaxed down from the tallest tree on Nikumaroro by the captain of a fishing crew, with his assurances that the coconut crabs had given up the chase and that my mother-in-law was nowhere lurking in the parking lot, I shook his hand, hugged the boatswain, kissed the cook (by then we had reached Malta), and swore with my right hand in the air and my left on a gasping mahi-mahi that henceforward it’s strictly swags, ribbon ties, and pendants…
That you, Joseph Robinette?
Fred Noonan.
Heh!
PWS