At Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution hearing on the role of Antifa and other violent groups in the current rioting, Subcommittee chairman Ted Cruz (R, TX) condemned the Progressive-Democrats (my term) on the subcommittee for not condemning the extremist violence, including specifically one of the groups that was a subject of the hearing, Antifa.

Ranking Member Mazie Hirono (D, HI) responded with

[H]ow many times have I had to say that we all should be denouncing violent extremists of every stripe.

To which Cruz asked

Does that include Antifa?

To which Hirono responded

I have the time [meaning it was her time for questioning witnesses]

The exchange demonstrated two things: Progressive-Democrats are big on talking about the need to denounce such thugs and their thuggery, but Progressive-Democrats refuse actually to condemn such thugs and their thuggery.

The other thing is that the Progressive-Democrats’ refusal actually to condemn includes, explicitly, Antifa.

Here are a couple of graphs, via The Wall Street Journal.

Of these 15 cities, Austin, Chicago, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Houston, New York, Columbus, Los Angeles, Charlotte, Dallas, and San Jose all have Democrat mayors. Eleven of the 15 largest cities are experiencing very large per centage increases in total homicides compared to the prior year—the year before the outbreak of rioting and looting. Only two of the 15—Democrat-run, to be sure, have experienced a per centage drop in homicides.

Here’s another graph.

Democrat-run cities have the largest per centage year-on-year increase in homicides—again, comparing with the year prior to the present year of rioting and looting—of the 50 largest cities in the US. These Democrat-run cities drive the average, also; Republican- and Independent-run cities all have significantly lower increases.

But it’s Democrat-run cities who want to defund their police departments, either partially or to the point of abolishing the police altogether.

Remember this in November.