 All right, let's jump in with really just a quick update on the state of police defunding in America. So one of the cities most affected by BLM last year and the city may be most affected by spike in crime over the last two years has been the city of Chicago. This is a city where we saw significant calls for cutting police budgets, significant calls for reducing the power of police, the influence of police, the reach of police in our cities. And of course in 2020, during when crime was going through the roof and BLM was out in the streets and the police would be chased by BLM, it shouldn't be the other way around but it wasn't. Looting was all over Michigan Avenue, if you remember BLM then said looting is just a form of redistribution of wealth, this is reparations, this is a good thing, completely screwed. The mayor of Chicago, Lightfoot, proposed at the time cutting the police budget by $80 million, $80 million. Well now as murders have hit a 27-year high, 27-year high, where would that put us in terms of 1990 something, right? So yeah, 1994. So 1984, murders actually peaked in Chicago I think in 1991 but since 1994 they've been steadily in decline, it's been a phenomena, it has been amazing, the reduction in crime all over the United States and particularly in the big cities like New York and Chicago and for 25 years approximately, crime was declining when Trump was elected and announced there was carnage in the streets of America, some of the most peaceful, less violent times in all of American history. Anyway, as Chicago is hitting right now, a 27-year high, erasing, erasing 27 years of achievement, of reduction, systematic reduction in crime generally and in particular in motor rates, Mayor Lightfoot is panicking and running to the feds and asking Attorney General Mary Garland to send additional federal law enforcement officials to the city. She says we can't continue to endure the level of violence that we are now experiencing. Oh my God, the world is crazy, this is nuts, what's going to happen? And she's actually, actually, actually asking for federal aid. You remember when Trump was pilloried by Democratic mayors for suggesting federal aid during the BLM riots and during the crime waves that followed, proceeded and followed, well now the same Democratic mayors are requesting aid because they realize that it's out of control and now there's no politics to play, now it's all about just trying to reduce crime. It truly is one of the, the last two years we'll go down as one of the, a true tragedy where at least in parts of the United States, again these record achievements of lowering crime that we have experienced for 25 years, or more than 25 years, really since 1981, so for 30 years, have now been reversed and we're seeing an uptick in many cities around the country, an uptick in general, in property crime, in other forms of crime and in particular in motor. We are returning to the 1970s and 80s where crime was out of control in this country. Just you know, one other example of this is New York, which again has seen a dramatic increase in crime and as a consequence I think of that, just elected a Democratic mayor who is very much a centrist and a law and order Democrat and is committed to increasing police budgets and increasing the, you know, the presence of police and he was a former policeman, Eric Adams, a former Republican and he's just been elected to New York's mayor and you can see that the electorate is rebelling against kind of the far left's agenda as expressed last year, in particular of defunding the police, shutting them down, eliminating them. I mean, as you know, even in Minnesota, the electorate voted against doing away with the police force in Minneapolis, even though, you know, a year ago it looked like, or two year, a year and a half ago it looked like that was, for a sudden get a pass and yet the election in November, people don't actually want to live in crime with neighborhoods and most people, most, including people who live in those neighborhoods realize the crucial importance, importance of the police and the value the police actually add. In San Francisco, you know, San Francisco, God, what a tragedy. I mean, San Francisco is arguably one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The whole Bay Area is just beautiful. The views, the scenery, the Golden Gate Bridge, the sky rises, the sky, skyline in downtown San Francisco, the, the, the, the hills driving the windy roads. It's just, if you've never been to San Francisco, it's definitely a place to go. It's, it's beautiful. It's inspiring. And of course, in the last few years, in the last 10, 15 years, it's been a mecca for, for high tech. It used to be Silicon Valley, but a lot of the high tech companies have moved north to San Francisco, Twitter and many other companies have their headquarters there, a lot of startups, to gorgeous place. And yet, even when I lived in the Bay Area in the 1990s, it was a haven for the homeless and the homeless were particularly aggressive in San Francisco, particularly aggressive towards passerbys and, and particularly, I don't know, offensive, you know, in, in just their attitude and, and their behavior, but it's only gotten worse. And a few years ago, I was in San Francisco and I was attending an event at the Tenderloin district and a theater there. There was a comedy show. My son was in and I was attending the comedy show and it just was unbelievable. I'd never seen it like this. Basically, this is two blocks away from Union Square, the heart of San Francisco. It's just an encampment, the filth, hundreds of, of homeless people, again, aggressive, shooting up on the streets, dozens and dozens and dozens of them in this area of, of, I don't know, four blocks and I had a walkthrough in order to get to this theater. It was not particularly fun, but even driving in the streets, they run into the streets, some of them are obviously mentally out of it. Some of them are just on drugs. You're afraid of, you're going to run one of them over. It's just horrible. It's just horrible. And, you know, business owners, forget it. I mean, nobody wants to go to that district and buy anything and shop or anything like that. It's a business is, a business is collapsing in the area because of just a mass of homelessness. Anyway, the mayor of San Francisco, again, a Democrat, but more of a, probably more of a moderate Democrat by the name of London Breed and she is, she's declared a state of emergency in the city's Tenderloin district. That is these, this area where all the homeless are. And she basically is, is encouraging the police to go and clean it up and basically get, move the drug addicts, I guess, to an area where they can be treated and they can be dealt with, clean it up, prevent people from, from, from defecating and from sleeping right there in the street. That's the other thing. You had to walk around all the human poop all over the place. And it's one thing to try to evade dog poop, but human poop. And it's, so finally, finally, maybe San Francisco is going to do something about some of its homeless problem. It's still not a long-term solution. It's still not a sustainable solution. That will only come when affordable housing is actually built, real affordable housing, and that will only happen when people in the street expect it to, to work and expect it to do something in order to get that housing. But, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting. Now, in San Francisco, the progressive prosecutor, who famously is not prosecuting shoplifting, and as a consequence, it's San Francisco. There's this epidemic, if you will, of shoplifting. Um, so, you know, in, in San Francisco, the reason there's this epidemic is that the district attorney is basically declared shoplifting, not a crime. Anyway, the district attorney came out and he denounced the mayor's declaration, right? So he opposes the state of emergency and the tenderloin. I guess he wants people, uh, people there, uh, you know, he wants them just to, just to live there and just to, just to, just to destroy the place. Uh, he, he said, yelling people who have mental health struggles, putting them, uh, uh, putting who are vending hot dogs and other people in cages will not solve the problem. Cages, right? They are only, uh, right? And so it's, it's still a struggle in San Francisco, even though the mayor might be a little bit better. It is still a struggle given the district, uh, you know, the attorney general of San Francisco, uh, who is the guy who is supposed to prosecute people, uh, is, I guess, really refusing to act. So it's going to be interesting. We'll watch what happens in San Francisco, whether anything positive comes of this, but it is interesting, uh, this conflict in the left between the moderates who actually want to win and who actually want, I think in some way, honestly, want to create a better quality of life, uh, but who are just dominated by altruism and the far left, who is completely wacky, nihilistic, doesn't care what I order about quality of life, uh, is completely bought into, uh, altruism all the way to its nihilistic conclusion. That struggle within among the Democrats is fascinating. And we're seeing playing out. We'll see it play out in New York. We'll see it play out in Chicago. We'll see it play out in San Francisco, uh, Portland, Seattle. Many of our cities will experience this dichotomy of people who get elected, who are going to be the more moderate, uh, but the, the, the grass roots who are far more, uh, extreme and nutty and, and, uh, nihilistic, um, and, you know, that, that will determine to a large extent the, the, the, the, the fates of the Democratic party. The other thing that will determine the fate of the Democratic party is of course the Republican party. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to Iran book show dot com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution, uh, on any one of those, uh, any one of those channels. 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