Without all the mob violence, robberies, and rapes, won’t Washington, D.C., lose half its charm? Can we really call ourselves a civilized society if our nation’s capital doesn’t rack up a higher murder rate than Mexico City or Nairobi? Does President Donald Trump think that D.C. residents are wimps, that they can’t tolerate a few thousand felonies every year, as the price of … well, what exactly?
What does anyone gain, in fact, from leaving our major cities to fester in chaos? My commentary later today will explain exactly who stands to gain from it and what they want — to impose learned helplessness on the citizenry, equip us with shock collars, and cut our vocal cords so we can’t even bark.
But Trump doesn’t learn helplessness. He gets kicked around, slandered, prosecuted, even shot — and comes back stronger than ever. He wants the same for our battered cities and their citizens. He wants to bring back the America he remembers growing up in, and restore Washington, D.C., to the ranks of First World cities.
Portraying the capital city as a crime-ridden hellhole, Trump told reporters that the city “is becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness.”
“We’re taking our capital back,” Trump said.
Attorney General Pam Bondi will oversee the city’s police department. She was present along with Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host, FBI director Kash Patel, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
Of course Yahoo tried to minimize D.C.’s problems, averring: “While there is a crime problem in D.C., and while stats are meaningless to victims, the rate actual fell last year, per the Metropolitan Police, with violent crime down 26%.”
Not true. Fake news, produced by police fraud:
In July 2025, DC police commander suspended for downgrading shootings, stabbings & carjackings to lesser offenses to make crime stats look better.
They’re not fixing crime, they’re cooking the books. pic.twitter.com/HRc3OQktnS
— Kylie Jane Kremer (@KylieJaneKremer) August 11, 2025
Mediate reports that Washington, D.C., might be the first stop on a law-and-order tour through other troubled cities not under direct federal jurisdiction:
President Donald Trump said his administration is going to look at deploying the U.S. military to other American cities, including Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, at a press conference where he announced that he was taking federal control of the police department in Washington, D.C., and deploying 800 National Guard troops there to crack down on crime.
Why Did Ashli Babbitt Have to Die?
Speaking of crime in D.C., it’s looking more and more as if the killing of January 6 election integrity advocate Ashli Babbitt was just that — a crime, albeit one covered over by the salvific cloak of a Joe Biden pardon. Or the autopen’s pardon, in any case. Revolver News reports on new footage of Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd gunning Babbit down:
Michael Byrd’s story has been a lie from the start. He claimed he didn’t know the person he shot was a woman and that he had no idea she was unarmed. But all the video proves otherwise. He saw exactly who Ashli Babbitt was and exactly what she was (and wasn’t) holding.
The following graphic video has just been released. (Warning, it shows lethal violence.)
The video of Byrd shooting and killing unarmed Ashli Babbitt has been released. The coward Byrd shoots Ashli around 10 ft away with capital police literally behind her. If we did this on Iraq or Afghanistan we would be charged, rightfully so, for war crimes! Byrd is lucky he… https://t.co/h9vHrSnP5L
— Joshua T. Hosler (@JoshuaHosler) August 9, 2025
Minutes after shooting Babbitt, the bumbling Byrd filed a false police report:
BOMBSHELL REPORT: After Shooting Ashli Babbitt, Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd Made FALSE Radio Report..
U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd, within a minute of discharging the bullet that fatally wounded Ashli Babbitt on January 6, 2021, transmitted a radio message asserting… pic.twitter.com/fYkJmcucGG
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) January 14, 2024
And remember why the National Guard weren’t present on January 6, as President Trump had requested:
Ma’am, it is long past time to be honest with the American people. On January 3, I requested National Guard assistance, but your Sergeant at Arms denied it. Under federal law (2 U.S.C. §1970), I was prohibited from calling them in without specific approval. That same day, Carol… https://t.co/3GLihtK7ul
— Chief Steven Sund (@ChiefSund) August 11, 2025
We need to get D.C. under the rule of law, all right — in more ways than one.
Elites Want the Privileges They’d Deny to the Rest of Us — Like School Choice
Mark Zuckerberg is many things: a tech lord, a CIA collaborator in censorship, and a key part in the conspiracy to “save democracy from the voters” in 2020. But give him this much: He loves his kids. In fact, he loves them too much to send them to the public schools created and run by his leftist political allies. The New York Times reports:
Mark Zuckerberg has been denounced after a school he and his wife established for children from low-income families in East Palo Alto announced in April that it will be shutting down, leaving students and their parents confused and angry.
But it turns out that a mile away, behind a high wall of hedges, the billionaire and his wife, Priscilla Chan, were running a private school out of a house at their Palo Alto compound for two of their daughters and a dozen other children. And they were doing it in violation of city code.
I for one am outraged that The New York Times would try to subject Mr. Zuckerberg and his family to something so petty as “the law” that applies to the rest of us. What’s next — expecting the residents of sanctuary cities like Martha’s Vineyard to accept illegal immigrants without calling in the military? If the Left’s biggest supporters had to face the real-world consequences of their policy preferences, their very psyches would collapse into tiny, woke, gold-plated shards. And that just seems cruel to me.
Beto O’Rourke Goes Full ‘Grand Theft Auto’
In a profane rant at a political rally — eight long years after he has held any elective office — failed Texas candidate Beto O’Rourke responded to GOP efforts to redraw congressional districts and send home illegal aliens by promising lawless retaliation. “The next time we win power, we’re going to drive that car like we stole it,” he said, by opening U.S. borders again and granting mass amnesty.
Democrats know that deportations and an end to illegal immigration are popular with the public and yet they can’t help but campaign on “we’re gonna let them all in and give them citizenship.”
What a gift to us for the midterms. Thanks Beto! pic.twitter.com/vPbSGPTTkC
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 9, 2025
Meanwhile, Texas is prevailing over O’Rourke in a crucial court case led by Attorney General Ken Paxton, to stop O’Rourke from funding the Texas representatives who fled the state to stop the vote on redistricting:
BREAKING – VICTORY: Texas AG Ken Paxton secures a restraining order on Beto O’Rourke against illegal fundraising for the derelict Texas Democrats who fled the state to block redistricting.
“The Beto Bribe buyouts that were bankrolling the runaway Democrats have officially… pic.twitter.com/D57kLuojzC
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 8, 2025
Courageous Christian Challenges Bankrupt Decision Legalizing Same-Sex ‘Marriage’
Ten years after the Supreme Court extended marriage rights to same-sex couples nationwide, the justices this fall will consider for the first time whether to take up a case that explicitly asks them to overturn that decision.
Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for six days in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple on religious grounds, is appealing a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages plus $260,000 for attorneys fees.
In a petition for writ of certiorari filed last month, Davis argues First Amendment protection for free exercise of religion immunizes her from personal liability for the denial of marriage licenses.
More fundamentally, she claims the high court’s decision in Obergefell v Hodges — extending marriage rights for same-sex couples under the 14th Amendment’s due process protections — was “egregiously wrong.”
“The mistake must be corrected,” wrote Davis’ attorney Mathew Staver in the petition. He calls Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell “legal fiction.”
Meanwhile, as we’ve reported here at The Stream, organizations like MassResistance are marching through the 50 states, convincing legislatures to pass resolutions requesting the overturn of Obergefell, which invalidated their states’ previous laws governing marriage.
Along The Stream…
Don’t miss Raymond Ibrahim’s fascinating account of the Christian monk who was the first to expose the incoherence of Islam.
Later this morning, Nona Jones joins Life Today to offer biblical lessons on how to cope when when we feel rejected.
John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.
