Seriously, can anyone name a well-run Democratic city?

As we draw closer to polling day, there is really only one question anyone needs to have in their head. Are things better or worse than when America last went to the polls?

The problem is that you can answer that differently state by state. A lot of people who fled California in the last couple of years, for instance, can say that their lives have improved by moving to Tennessee, Florida or Texas.

So let me narrow the question down a bit. Can anybody in any Democratic-run city honestly say that their lives — and city — have improved over the last couple of years?

That’s a slightly easier question. As New Yorkers go to the polls it is also a slightly devastating one to ask. Because it has a devastating answer.

I dare even the most die-hard, dyed-in-the-wool Democrat to say, “Oh, New York has never been better. In fact, it’s just getting better and better.” Does anyone really believe that? Is there a single person out there who can really say that with a straight face? As they survey the crime in our city, the homelessness, the waste and rats. And I’m not even talking about the incumbents of City Hall. Does anyone think that this great city has become greater in the last two years?

The stats in New York speak for themselves. Ignore the nightmare year of 2020, and just look at the increase in crime during the last year. Between July 2021 and July 2022 shooting incidents in New York increased by almost 14%. The number of murders increased by almost 35%.

Of course, most of us are lucky enough not to get shot. So it’s easy for some people to be lax in their judgments. But the same figures exist in almost every other area of crime. A 41% increase in grand larceny. A 37% increase in robberies. A 26% rise in burglaries. All just in the course of a year.

NYPD investigating the scene of a shooting in Brooklyn on November 1, 2022. Shootings in New York City have increased by almost 14% from July 2021 to July 2022.
NYPD investigating the scene of a shooting in Brooklyn on Nov. 1, 2022.
Robert Mecea

Though it’s not as if you need the statistics to tell you that. Walk almost anywhere in our city and you can see it for yourselves. There is the homelessness, the people shooting up in the street, the clearly insane people shouting around on the streets. Of course, it’s worse in the outer boroughs. But it is just as clear in the center of the city, too. A couple of weeks ago I was proudly showing some out-of-towners the delights of Midtown when we walked out of the building to find a homeless man shooting up in the street with a needle and then howling down the street as mothers and children hurried by.

Democrats pretend that this is a nationwide problem. But it isn’t. It’s a Democratic-run city problem. Occasionally Democrats like to play a nasty little game on this serious issue. They pretend, for instance, that crime stats like those to do with shootings are the same in red states and blue states. What they fail to note is that it is blue cities that are the problem. Even if they are in red states.

For instance, if you go down to Austin, Texas, you will find a city that is booming, for sure. But you will also find all of the same problems you find in New York. You will see all the same homelessness, the drug addiction, violence and lawlessness.

That is what is so strange about the experiment that Gavin Newsom and other Democrats have played on this country in recent years. It doesn’t matter whether it is San Francisco, New York, Austin or indeed the nation’s capital. Look at the state of Washington, DC, these days, with its homeless encampments greeting you from the moment you leave Union Station. You don’t have to wonder about the politics of the people who run this city. Of course, the Council of the District of Columbia is Democratic-majority. Because they have the same problems that every other Democratic city has.

Shootings in New York City have increased by almost 14% from July 2021 to July 2022.
J.C.Rice
A homeless encampment in McPherson Square in Washington, DC.
Shutterstock

By now you would have thought that people would be onto this. After all, everywhere they get into power the Democrats try the same tricks: bail and other criminal-justice “reforms,” attacks on the ability of police officers to do their jobs and much, much more. The results are there for everyone to see. Have the policies worked anywhere? No. But still the Democrats keep putting them in place wherever they can.

Indeed that is Newsom’s main achievement. He rolled out a set of policies that further wrecked San Francisco while he was mayor. As governor, he rolled out the same policies — with the same disastrous effects — across California. If he ever makes it to the White House, as he and much of his party hope he will, he’ll try to roll this out across the country.

So again, show me one place where these policies have worked? They’ve worked for the criminals. They’ve worked for the people who’ve never put anything into the system but spent a lifetime taking out. But have they worked for the rest of us? People who pay sky-high taxes and get ever fewer returns on that investment? Of course not. It´s something to think about when you go to the polls. Name just one place where it’s worked.

Tat’s on you, lady!

Yesterday, The Post reported the strange case of Melissa Sloan from Wales. Ms. Sloan has spent recent years tattooing every single inch of her body. In fact, there’s less available space on Sloan’s body than there is in Manhattan.

Now the 45-year-old is complaining that no one will employ her. The tattoos, many of them done at home, “prison-style,” by her boyfriend, cover her face. And the truth is that if you have a face covered in tattoos, you are likely to scare off the customers.

Now Sloan says that she can’t even get a job as a toilet cleaner. I feel sorry for her. Not just because she has made a mess of her body, but because she has made a mess of her life. And because, like so many people today, nobody close to her thought to stop her.

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bill restricting use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to restrict prosecutors from using rap lyrics as evidence against criminal defendants in California.

Newsom signed on the dotted line of a new bill — the Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act, also known as AB 2799 — on Friday, which advocates say will help protect artistic expression in hip-hop and rap.

The bill was approved by state lawmakers in August after mass backlash over the imprisonment of some big names in rap, including Young Thug, Gunna, and the late rapper Drakeo the Ruler.

Used as evidence against them were their song lyrics, as prosecutors alleged Young Thug formed a street gang and promoted it through his songs

A trial date is expected to take place on Jan. 9, 2023.

The case echoed that of late rapper Drakeo the Ruler, who was facing first-degree murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder charges before his death in Dec. 2021.

The LA-based rapper, who was 28 when he died, had lyrics from his song “Flex Freestyle” pulled as evidence he killed a 24-year-old man. He was later acquitted.

Rappers Tyga, Meek Mill, Killer Mike, Too $hort, Ty Dolla $ign, YG, and E-40, were virtually present when Newsom signed the bill.

The signing was also virtually attended by Calif. Rep. Reggie Jones-Sawyer and Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of The Recording Academy.

“For too long, prosecutors in California have used rap lyrics as a convenient way to inject racial bias and confusion into the criminal justice process,” Dina LaPolt, co-founder of Songwriters of North America, said in a statement, according to Variety.

Rapper Meek Mill was present in the zoom meeting when Newsom signed the bill.
Getty Images
Rapper Tyga was also present when the California Governor signed the bill.
WireImage

“This legislation sets up important guardrails that will help courts hold prosecutors accountable and prevent them from criminalizing Black and Brown artistic expression. Thank you, Gov. Newsom, for setting the standard. We hope Congress will pass similar legislation, as this is a nationwide problem.”

“Not having this legislation has allowed people to utilize people’s creativity and lyrics against them when we know that’s not fair,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said ahead of the signing. “I don’t think anybody in the studio when they’re in their cars in their garage or when they’re writing music, they shouldn’t be thinking about, ‘Is this going to be something that I shouldn’t say in art and music?’”

“We should be able to express ourselves. We should be able to say things that are on our minds and our hearts or in our imaginations without fear of somebody bringing this up in a courtroom,” he added.



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California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s scheme for the Oval Office

Remember a couple of months ago when Joe Biden was overseas and Gavin Newsom sauntered into the White House like he owned the place, jacket slung over the shoulder oh so casually, TV cameras in the perfect place to capture the moment he opened the door and entered the president’s private lair?

Quite some chutzpah.

Immediately, tongues wagged that he was there to “measure the drapes,” which was exactly the point.

The Californian governor is being presented as the pretty face to lead a new generation of moderate Dems and their best hope to hold the White House.

In this scenario, a doddering Joe Biden would be shuffled off before his term ended, so Kamala Harris could grab the mantle — hurrah! — as the first black woman president, at least for a few months, and Newsom could set himself up as VP with a rails run into the White House in 2024. At 54, this distant relative of Nancy Pelosi fancies himself as the “youth ticket” to beat Donald Trump.

But not so fast.

Independent transparency non-profit Open the Books has dived deep into California’s finances to unmask Newsom’s backers and the destructive policies they foster, like misguided criminal-justice reforms which have driven crime rates around the nation.

The Newsom section of the Open The Books report, exclusively provided to The Post, is a fascinating glimpse into the ecosystem of liberal political elites that is ripping this country apart and shows how millions in donations to Newsom’s campaign have resulted in billions of dollars worth of contracts.

Newsom found his way strolling the White House, acting as if it was home a few months ago.
Twitter/CAgovernor

After a 10-year battle to unlock California’s secretive checkbook and almost 450 open records requests with every state agency, Open The Books discovered that Newsom’s donors often are richly rewarded for their largesse with grants to their foundations and massive tax credits to their companies. Newsom “solicited roughly 1000 state vendors for $10.5 million worth of campaign donations, and those companies or affiliated companies received $6.2 billion worth of worth of state payments last year,” says CEO and founder Adam Andrzejewski.

His woke quartet

At the center of Newsom’s Berkeley/Bay Area cheer squad are four very rich women whose twin obsessions are climate and criminal-justice reform: Patty Quillin, wife of billionaire Netflix CEO Reed Hastings; Quinn Delaney, wife of real-estate mogul Wayne Jordan; Kaitlyn Krieger, wife of Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger; and Elizabeth Simons, daughter of hedge-fund billionaire James Simons.

The woke quartet poured $22 million into progressive criminal-justice ballot measures and progressive DAs over two years, according to Politico.

They spent almost $4 million just to elect far-left Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, who has brought misery to the lives of so many Californians. They opened their Hermes purses again to defeat two recall efforts and keep him in office.

Open The Books has itemized their contributions to support Gascon and his policies.
From Quillin $1.65 million, from Simons $725,000. Delaney gave $448,000 to the Real Justice PAC, which supported Gascón, and Krieger gave $206,500.

The Kriegers founded the Future Justice Fund, whose goal is to end “mass incarceration” because it is racist to put black people in jail. Delaney and Jordan founded the Akonadi Foundation, which is dedicated to “ending the criminalization of black youth” and “supports the development of powerful social-change movements to eliminate structural racism and create a racially just society.”

Akonadi donated $28,200 to Newsom’s reelection. Delaney donated $122,200 to Newsom’s re-election; Jordan donated $89,800 and separately donated $100,000 to the Million Voter Project Action Fund Committee to Oppose Newsom Recall. But the state of California has reciprocated some of this generosity.

For instance, Simons donated $123,200 to Newsom’s reelection, and her private-equity guru husband, Mark Heising, matched it with another $123,200.

California gave back with a grant in 2021 to their Heising-Simons Foundation worth $262,502.40 via UC Berkeley.

Quillin donated $123,200 to Newsom’s reelection. Hastings donated $94,000 and another $3 million into a fund to fight Newsom’s recall. Netflix employees and executives donated $69,150 to Newsom’s reelection. Netflix, Inc. Federal PAC donated another $5,000.

Lo and behold, Open The Books found that the California Film Commission looked kindly on Netflix when it came to allotting tax credits. Netflix received more than twice as much in tax credits as did any other company ($60 million in the allotment reported in February 2022).

It’s nice to live in a nepotistic state where the media gives you a free pass. But if Newsom plans on stepping up to the big stage, the Open The Books scrutiny is just a taste of what’s to come.

Bragg’s off target

Alvin Bragg refuses to lock up murderous thugs but he’s more than happy to weaponize the law to strike a political enemy of the Biden administration like former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. In the middle of a violent crime wave in this city, Bragg’s priority today is to indict a resident of Washington, DC.

New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks during a news conference.
AP/Yuki Iwamura

Open letter, closed minds

Shame on the never-Trumper former Pentagon leaders who signed an open letter they must know plays right into the Biden administration’s inflammatory election narrative that Trump voters pose some existential threat to “democracy.”

The letter, which alludes to the January 6 Capitol riot, has been carefully written to be opaque, bordering on incoherent. But the 13 signatories know perfectly well that whipping up “MAGA fear” is the Democrats’ only strategy to stave off a wipeout at the midterms.
The fact that the letter was organized by Duke political science academic Peter Feaver, a fevered Trump-hater and mentor of General “Thoroughly Modern” Milley, makes its intent clear.

Special criticism is due signatory Leon Panetta, the liberal Californian congressman turned-Obama CIA director and defense secretary who previously also signed the “Dirty 51” letter from 51 ex-intelligence officials framing the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation before the 2020 election.

Some on the list should know better. Others are beyond redemption.

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