We Are Back To “Mostly Peaceful” Protests

I may be going out on a limb on this, but I think most Americans don’t want to watch their cities being burned down. The majority of Americans like the idea of law and order and frown on groups of people attacking police or federal officials. This may be another area where the Democrat party and the media might want to reconsider their messaging.

On Monday, The Daily Caller reported:

Legacy media outlets have framed violent unrest that began Friday in Los Angeles, California, over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids as “protests,” despite extensive vandalism, arson and attacks on police.

Riots commenced on Friday after ICE raids in Los Angeles County, prompting President Donald Trump to deploy the National Guard to the city on Saturday. Despite the violent and destructive nature of the demonstrations, several legacy media outlets opted not to describe them as “riots.”

Protesting is legal and is as American as apple pie. Burning property and attacking people is illegal.

The article notes:

For instance, The Associated Press published a Sunday piece noting that protesters impeded access to a significant freeway and set fire to self-driving cars, but neglected to use the terms “riots” or “rioters” when describing the demonstrations.

In fact, the story even compared the Los Angeles riots to previous riots in the city in what appeared to be an attempt to downplay the violence. “The protests did not reach the size of past demonstrations that brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which [Democratic California Gov. Gavin] Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops,” the AP wrote.

The article reports:

Moreover, ABC7 Los Angeles anchor Marc Brown on Sunday appeared to downplay the riots as the outlet showed footage of a car burning downtown.

“It could turn very volatile if you move law enforcement in there the wrong way and turn what is just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn into a massive confrontation and altercation between officers and demonstrators,” Brown said.

CBS News also published a Monday piece that neglected to use the terms “riots” or “rioters,” while reporting on the anti-police violence that occurred on Sunday.

“[S]ome of those remaining threw objects at police from behind a makeshift barrier that spanned the width of a street and others hurled chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles parked on the closed southbound 101 Freeway,” the outlet wrote. “Officers ran under an overpass to take cover.”

This is not acceptable behavior, and unlike what happened during the ‘summer of love’ in 2000, anyone who broke the law needs to go to jail. No charges should be dropped; no bail accepted.

Coming To A County Near You

Yesterday The Epoch Times reported that Los Angeles County would be mandating vaccine passports.

The article reports:

Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the United States, announced Wednesday it would require proof of COVID-19 vaccination at bars, nightclubs, breweries, lounges, and related businesses.

The order will also require vaccine proof or a negative COVID-19 test for large outdoor events, including Los Angeles Rams, Chargers, and Dodgers games, said County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer to the Board of Supervisors. Would-be customers will have to have at least one vaccine dose by Oct. 7 and be fully vaccinated by Nov. 4, she said.

“This is a reasonable path forward that will position us to be better able to break the cycle of surges,” Ferrer told the board. “This modified health officer order aligns with the continued need to reduce risk of transmission and increase vaccination coverage,” she added.

Los Angeles officials, she said, now believe that vaccine passport systems “are now a very important strategy for quickly raising vaccination coverage across our county and ending the pandemic.”

Other than Los Angeles, New York City on Monday started officially implementing its vaccine passport system for restaurants, bars, gyms, and other facilities. Businesses who don’t comply or violate the city ordinances can face fines, said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

In California, San Francisco last month also rolled out a vaccine passport mandate for similar establishments. Provinces in Canada as well as France, Switzerland, Israel, and a number of other countries have mandated that people show proof of vaccination to enter restaurants, gyms, bars, and related businesses, which have drawn protests in Europe.

I wonder how the local businesses feel about this rule.

The article concludes:

Some GOP governors, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have signed bills or issued orders to prohibit businesses or local governments from using vaccine passes.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation nonprofit, in a lengthy post last month, said that government officials around the world have made grave errors when rolling out passport systems, noting that “imposing such systems on the world will lock out hundreds of millions of people” from key services, including travel and obtaining visas.

“These new trust-based systems, if implemented in a way that automatically disqualifies people who received genuine vaccinations, will cause dire effects for years to come. It sets up a world where certain people can move about easily, and those who have already had a hard time with visas will experience another wall to climb,” the foundation said.

How are we going to explain to our grandchildren that we gave away their freedom because we were afraid of a disease that is survivable when treated early?

A Step In The Right Direction

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article this morning about California and voting.

The article reports:

California and Los Angeles County have agreed to purge as many as 1.5 million inactive voter registrations across the state as part of a court settlement finalized this week with Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog.

Judicial Watch sued the county and state voter-registration agencies, arguing that the California government was not complying with a federal law requiring the removal of inactive registrations that remain after two general elections, or two to four years.

In August 2017, Judicial Watch reported:

Judicial Watch announced it sent a notice-of-violation letter to the state of California and 11 of its counties threatening to sue in federal court if it does not clean its voter registration lists as mandated by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). Both the NVRA and the federal Help America Vote Act require states to take reasonable steps to maintain accurate voting rolls. The August 1 letter was sent on behalf of several Judicial Watch California supporters and the Election Integrity Project California, Inc.

In the letter, Judicial Watch noted that public records obtained on the Election Assistance Commission’s 2016 Election Administration Voting Survey and through verbal accounts from various county agencies show 11 California counties have more registered voters than voting-age citizens: Imperial (102%), Lassen (102%), Los Angeles (112%), Monterey (104%), San Diego (138%), San Francisco (114%), San Mateo (111%), Santa Cruz (109%), Solano (111%), Stanislaus (102%), and Yolo (110%).

In the letter, Judicial Watch noted that Los Angeles County officials “informed us that the total number of registered voters now stands at a number that is a whopping 144% of the total number of resident citizens of voting age.”

Under Section 8 of the NVRA, states are required to make a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters from official lists due to “the death of the registrant” or “a change in the residence of the registrant,” and requires states to ensure noncitizens are not registered to vote.

There is “strong circumstantial evidence that California municipalities are not conducting reasonable voter registration list maintenance as mandated under the NVRA,” Judicial Watch wrote in the notice letter sent to California Secretary of State Alex Padilla.

Because the states refused to supply information to the President’s Commission to study election fraud, private groups like Judicial Watch have to to the work themselves. It is good to see that the work of protecting the votes of American voters who are legal voters is proceeding.

How Many Dead People Will Vote In November?

This is a story from May 2016, but it is very relevant to today’s events. On May 25, 2016, Townhall.com posted an article about voter fraud in Los Angeles. The story illustrates why voter identification laws are necessary.

The article reports:

A comparison of records by David Goldstein, investigative reporter for CBS2/KCAL9, has revealed hundreds of so-called dead voters in Southern California, a vast majority of them in Los Angeles County. “He took a lot of time choosing his candidates,” said Annette Givans of her father, John Cenkner. Cenkner died in Palmdale in 2003. Despite this, records show that he somehow voted from the grave in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010. But he’s not the only one. CBS2 compared millions of voting records from the California Secretary of State’s office with death records from the Social Security Administration and found hundreds of so-called dead voters. Specifically, 265 in Southern California and a vast majority of them, 215, in Los Angeles County alone. The numbers come from state records that show votes were cast in that person’s name after they died. In some cases, Goldstein discovered that they voted year after year.

This one local reporter, using this one method, uncovered hundreds of dead voters in just one small corner of the country — some of whom “voted year after year” after their deaths.

I wonder how many dead people will vote for Hillary Clinton.