With apologies to Margo Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies, let’s just take a look around at how the summer has gone if you’re in a blue state. Now you could be in a blue state, meaning you have a Democrat as a governor, but you have either Republicans running all or part of the state legislature, and/or you could have Republicans running things at the local level, and things might not currently be so bad. But if you truly are in the belly of the beast, Democrats everywhere you look as far as you can see at all levels of government, this hasn’t been the best of summers.
In New York State, The political equivalent of the 4 X 100 relay race, albeit using illegal aliens as batons, and buses as runners, continues to yield spectacular results. Mayor Eric Adams decided his sanctuary city heart does indeed have limits, and signed a $432 million no-bid contract to re-bus the illegal migrants from Manhattan to upstate New York. Governor Kathy Hochul isn’t amused, and wants to investigate the company that got the contract for mistreatment of the illegal migrants.
Meanwhile, as Karen has reported here, mistreatment to the illegal migrants isn’t the only mistreatment apparently happening, as sex assault charges by one of these re-bused migrants has been filed by a female state worker trying to manage temporary housing in a hotel. Upstate New York has subsequently discovered their inner NIMBY and ordered Mayor Adams to quit paying illegals forward to their county.
In Massachusetts, after eight of the larger cities declared sanctuary status, and then-gubernatorial candidate Maura Healey openly embraced the spirit of sanctuary status as she vied for the office, now has had a change of heart. Now, Governor Healey has called a state of emergency over the influx of illegal immigrants.
MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR MAURA HEALEY ON SANCTUARY CITIES:
"If they want to take on a sanctuary city designation, I think that's great!"
Now, she's declaring a state of emergency over the influx of migrants into her state.
Life comes at you fast! pic.twitter.com/h6FeCuaVsO
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 8, 2023
Healey’s lieutenant governor, Kim Driscoll, went as far in the press conference as to plead with citizens of the Bay State to open their doors and just take in random illegal migrants that the state can’t handle anymore.
🚨 BREAKING: Massachusetts Democrats are begging the public to let the newly arrived ILLEGAL ALIENS stay in their homes as the “sanctuary state” continues to struggle with the influx of illegals.
Would you let ILLEGAL ALIENS stay in your home? 🤔https://t.co/dVhDuBMySh
— Proud Elephant 🇺🇸🦅 (@ProudElephantUS) August 10, 2023
The devastation on Maui continues to unfold, with unimaginable loss of life and property becoming more apparent with each passing day. It’s obviously clear that state and local government is not up to the challenges of fighting the fires, search and rescue, and then recovery and rebuilding.
A group of locals in Honokowai were filling up gas cans on their own dime to distribute to towns in need. Power is back in west Maui, some places have Starlink and cell towers are being set up. But still no large-scale govt presence where we were. pic.twitter.com/TXu3TDYZWF
— Kellen Browning (@Kellen_Browning) August 13, 2023
The federal government is going to have to step in. Joe Biden, currently vacationing in Rehoboth Beach again, had this to say.
After a couple hours on the Rehoboth beach, @potus was asked about the rising death toll in Hawaii
“No comment,” he said before heading home pic.twitter.com/Y0UmXirju9
— Justin Sink (@justinsink) August 13, 2023
He’s good at the ‘no comment’ thing when a disaster strikes the United States. Just ask our friends in East Palestine, Ohio, who still haven’t seen Joe Biden.
Then, there’s my home state of California. How are things going in Los Angeles? Well, take Nordstroms, which is a fairly upscale department store…or was.
The building, which not only houses Nancy Pelosi’s Congressional district office, but bears her name on the building on 7th Street, also houses, along with many other federal agencies, the Health and Human Services regional office. On August 4th, Assistant Secretary for Administration, Cheryl R. Campbell, issued this warning:
In light of the conditions at the (Federal Building) we recommend employees … maximize the use of telework for the foreseeable future,” Campbell wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Chronicle.
“This recommendation should be extended to all Region IX employees, including those not currently utilizing telework flexibilities.
That’s right, the same day that Jeff Zeints, Joe Biden’s chief of staff, asked that federal staffers all across government begin going back to the office again, HHS very quietly recognized the deteriorating conditions on the ground and decided for the indefinite future, it’s best that workers of San Francisco’s HHS office do not put themselves into harm’s way by going to the office.
It was not immediately clear whether other tenants in the building had issued similar directives. Officials with Pelosi’s office and the Department of Labor said they have been working closely with local and federal law enforcement to ensure safety for their staffers, but they have not advised employees to work from home.
The building has long been a locus of some of the city’s most intractable problems.
Dozens of dealers routinely plant themselves on, next to or across the street from the property, operating in shifts as users smoke, snort or shoot up their recent purchases. The property’s concrete benches are an especially popular site for users to get high, socialize or pass out.
While Pelosi’s five-person staff was not advised to work remotely, she raised concerns about the building’s tenant safety last week in a meeting with the U.S. attorney for the northern district of California, according to officials with her office.
I don’t know, think that might come up in the mythical debate between Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis? I say mythical, because when one of the two principles is only agreeing to a debate if it’s not in front of a live audience, it’s not really a debate then, is it?
Imagine the Lincoln-Douglas debates being televised from a closed-set soundstage and having the same impact with the citizenry. We wouldn’t have had a President Lincoln without those debates, both because of his ability to react to the crowd, and the crowd reaction having the effect of honing Lincoln’s message and rhetoric in order to be more persuasive about the injustice of the institution of slavery.
On just about every kitchen table issue that affects the majority of Americans – crime, immigration, public infrastructure, education, economics, Democratic governance at all levels has been an unmitigated disaster. If Republicans campaign on prosecuting that record of failure everywhere that’s blue and what life could be like on the other side, maybe the current summer of discontent will will give way to what Shakespeare referred to in Richard III – the winter of discontent.
Optimists look at that phrase and say the winter of discontent gave way to the glorious summer, so good times are ahead. The reality of the expression is that the winter of discontent reflected a time of great authoritarianism and tyrannical rule. Hopefully, the electorate will recognize that Democrats represent that tyranny in one-party blue states, and the calamity that follows, and vote accordingly to bring about the glorious summer in 2025.
