It’s Never the Criminal

It’s always the victim, or the victim’s property, or—in some infamous instances—the producers of the victim’s property that are to blame for the crimes. It’s a modern day version of “if she hadn’t dressed that way, she wouldn’t have been raped. She invited it.”

The latest example is the Progressive-Democratic Party’s Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson’s decision to sue a couple of automobile manufacturers for Chicago’s spiking auto thefts. His rationalization is that those manufacturers didn’t install “standard” anti-theft technology on cars manufactured in the model years 2011 to 2022.

He’s carefully ignoring the fact that auto thefts in Chicago spiked during the latter years of his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot’s (D) term and continues in his own—with their decidedly soft on crime and no bail policies. All those model years prior, still lacking anti-theft tech acceptable to the mayor, weren’t getting stolen.

Nah, it’s the car manufacturers. It’s the gun manufacturers. It’s the woman’s attire. It’s any excuse Progressive-Democrats can dream up in order to avoid facing the fact that crimes are committed by criminals, and criminals need to be punished for their crimes. But, bleat these Leftists, that would work a hardship on the poor, misunderstood, downtrodden criminals.

“Let Ukraine Direct Its Own Counteroffensive”

US Army General Jack Keane (ret), once Army Vice Chief of Staff and current Institute for the Study of War Chairman, thinks US military personnel criticizing the way Ukraine is conducting its offensive should (my paraphrase) sit down and shut up.

Keane’s characterization of those sideline inhabitants’ behavior, chirping from the sidelines, is being generous. Whatever their own combat experience, if any, it has no relevance to the realized combat environment the Ukrainians are facing with the Russian up-armored barbarians.

No one in the American military today has designed large-scale mechanized operations against a serious and capable enemy that is employing a comprehensive defense. The last time was the Metz campaign in France in 1944, led by General George S Patton.

But in all their woke awesomeness, the Pentagon’s armchair junior high quarterbacks Know So Much Better. If these wonders truly want to help Ukraine, they’ll push President Joe Biden (D) to stop slow-walking and outright denying the weapons Ukraine needs to effectively and efficiently prosecute its offensive, and they’ll get their own bureaucrats out of the way of actual delivery.