Did you hear? Joe Biden and the Democrats want to defund the police and then unleash harmless vegan Senator Cory Booker on your cozy suburban neighborhood, or something.
But Democrats can't defund the police if the Trump regime beats them to it.
At the direction of Trump himself, the Department of Justice has arbitrarily declared that New York City, Portland, and Seattle are "anarchist jurisdictions" and that means the White House Budget Office could yank federal grants that go to law enforcement in those jurisdictions.
From NBC News:
On Monday, the Justice Department labeled New York City, Portland and Seattle such areas, though the department said it was still working to identify other jurisdictions that meet criteria outlined in Trump's memo. [...]
As part of its rationale for labeling the cities as such, the Justice Department cited city councils voting to cut police funding, the refusal to prosecute protesters for charges like disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly, the rejection of federal intervention, and law enforcement officials suffering injuries during violent outbursts.
So, my initial reaction was to literally laugh out loud at the idea that these cities have fallen to anarchy and that was a reaction shared by people actually living in these cities. Because there is no anarchy. They're fine. Life continues.
But this is actually quite serious and insidious. Telling local governments what laws to pass and who to prosecute is an attack on the Tenth Amendment, among other things, and it's ironic coming from a regime dominated by Federalist types who would have screamed bloody murder if the Obama Administration had tried anything even remotely like this.
Trump picked the wrong (or right) cities to fight with because all of them will most likely tell him to eat shit. But this is a transparently political maneuver so picking a fight with cities that actually have the resources to withstand Trump may be the whole idea.
The head of New York's police union actually celebrated the news this morning because police unions have more in common with organized crime than they do other labor unions.
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has 30 days to make a decision on defunding these cities and it's probably not a coincidence that time will expire just before the election. It's all a big show, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're bluffing.