Tag Archives: New York City

New York City … Or the Rotting Apple

By J Robert Smith

  • April 4, 2023
  • 2-min read

New York City was once celebrated as the “Big Apple.” Frank Sinatra sang about it. Small town and farm boys and girls dreamt about moving to NYC and making their marks. As Old Blue Eyes crooned, “If you can make there, you can make it anywhere, New York, New York”…

It used to be that the Bronx was notorious for poverty, crime, and squalor, but thanks to progressive Democrats (are there any other kind?), New York and it’s boroughs have become sumps of homelessness and crime. Under Giuliani and Bloomberg, Manhattan – midtown, anyway – was safe to walk at night. Midtown, then, was family-friendly. But who walks Manhattan at night, anywhere, particularly alone? Bring families?

Things started going downhill for the now Rotting Apple with the election of Warren Wilhelm Jr, aka, Bill de Blasio. De Blasio, the “social justice warrior,” who started to make lawbreakers and hardened criminals into victims. Who started to tight-leash the once-vaunted NYPD. Warren started turning NYC into a version of the dystopic novel, A Clockwork Orange, where the thugs, murderers, and rapists owned the streets, especially nights.

After Warren, New York voters, in their infinite wisdom, elected Eric Adams mayor. One is hard-pressed to decide which of the two is the dumber progressive box-checker. Since de Blasio has faded into the woodwork – for the time being – and Adams currently holds the office, we’ll say Adams, because he’s The Guy, who, along with every other office-holding progressive Democrat in NYC, is driving New York into the ground.

While Adams pushes pot smoking on the late night shows and laughs it up with cronies, nights, at some of New York’s finer eateries and watering holes (Adams has a security detail, so he doesn’t have to worry about burgeoning street crime), all sorts of New Yorkers have to watch their backs for attacks and/or being accosted by homeless looking for a buck… Or having to play dodge ’em on city sidewalks. Dodge the piles of human feces or vomit and puddles of urine. Oh, and syringes, because shooting up in the streets ain’t so bad anymore in the Rotting Apple.

Trump’s indictment by New York’s other big dolt, Manhattan District Attorney, Fat Alvin Bragg, merely underscores New York’s growing reputation as a Third World banana republic. Not only is Bragg a Soros tool, who obediently follows the script handed to him by letting off hardened criminals to terrorize New Yorkers – the old, disabled, poor, and disproportionately people “of color” (black-on-black crime is soaring). After all, when you think of Rio, what do you think of other than its annual decadent Carnival? Scads of government corruption, impotent or bribed cops, widespread filth, rampant crime, open-air drug markets, and plenty of real victims.

Rio is where the Rotting Apple is heading – without the flare of Carnival, unless St, Paddy’s Day is thoroughly debauched by “progressive” New Yorkers. Don’t bet against that.

If you don’t think that New York can’t be reduced to has-been status, take a look at Detroit. Detroit was once a thriving, world-class manufacturing powerhouse. Over the course of two short decades – the 60s and 70s – Detroit was reduced to the wreck it is today. It’s never recovered. It may never, ever recover. Does the same fate await NYC?

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21 Years After 9/11 and We Still Can’t Say, “Islamic Terrorism”

By J Robert Smith

  • Sept. 11, 2022
  • 3-min read

It’s Sunday, September 11, 2022 – that’s 21 years after the horrific events of September 11, 2001. Nearly a generation has passed.

I was watching Fox News coverage this morning of the 9/11 ceremonies at what once was the site of New York’s Twin Towers. That ceremony is always a sobering reminder that there are bad guys in the world who won’t hesitate to kill Americans on our on soil if given the chance. They’ll kill indiscriminately – the old, young, women, babies, handicapped – whomever.

In watching the coverage, I noticed that Fox hosts and commentators described the 9/11 attackers as simply “terrorists.” They expressed the concern that no other terrorists or “militants” (the other word employed) ever again rain destruction on the U.S. It was clear that the Fox crew wasn’t going discuss why the 9/11 attacks happened. They weren’t going to identify the attackers as Islamic or Muslim terrorists.

In fact, the terrorists who engineered and executed the attacks in NYC and DC – and who commandeered Flight 93 that heroic passengers brought down in a farm field near Shanksville, PA – most certainly had religious motivations (albeit fanatical) in doing so. 9/11 was, by these villains’ lights, jihad – an act of war premised and justified by Islam. Saying that, there’s no claim here that most Muslims are fanatically driven, though the 9/11 hijackers (commonly believed to be led by Muhammed Atta) were lauded by radical Muslims overseas).

Why the 9/11 attacks happened matter more than the when, what, and how. If we fail to acknowledge the motivations that Atta and his conspirators had, don’t we risk having other Islamic terrorists attempt the scale of attacks that occurred 21 years ago? That we haven’t experienced any other large-scale attacks is a credit to our vigilance. But, thanks to Joe Biden and the leftists who run his administration, our southern border is now wide-opened. It’s not just poor, migrant farm workers violating our laws entering the U.S. Among them are probably Islamic terrorists – and others willing to do harm to Americans. Being vigilant at airports isn’t enough.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 to this day, the notion has been pushed that screening measures at airports and other public transportation hubs had to be applied equally. “Profiling” was deemed discriminatory. So, 75-year-old, blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked grandmas are pulled out line and searched as if they’re likely to blow up a plane. It’s absurdity in the name of equality. Police, TSA, and other security pros know it’s absurd. They know that people matching certain profiles are where Islamic terrorists are to be found. The Israelis have used profiling effectively for decades.

Of course, as the future unfolds, it doesn’t mean that terrorist threats will originate exclusively among Muslim peoples. Terrorism is a means. Radical Muslims don’t own the franchise. Looking ahead, terrorism may come from Mexico, for example. Emboldened drug cartels there are really paramilitary outfits. If drug lords see terrorism as a tool to protect or advance their interests, they’d have no compunction using it.

What about among Russians, as another example? As divisions with the West harden and grow, might we not see “unconventional warfare” originating from Russia? If we do, the focus of our policing and security needs to align with that threat.

We can’t just stop “terrorism,” as if it’s a generic threat to Americans’ welfare and safety. We have to know who is perpetrating terrorist acts and why. Understanding and accepting the root causes of terrorism is critical to preventing it.

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SPECIAL: Following COVID-19 Pied Pipers Off the Cliff

J Robert Smith

  • April 10, 2020
  • 3 min read

An expert avoids all of the many pitfalls on his or her way to the grand fallacy.”

— Henry Mintzberg Collection of Expert Quotes

“When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion.”

— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August

THE TAKE

The experts and epidemiological models have been embarrassingly wrong. COVID-19 isn’t a figment of our imaginations, but it’s not the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic – not by a long shot. We’re in the midst of an historic overreaction to a contagious infection. Tens of millions of working Americans and small businesses are paying the price. Paychecks and jobs, lost, and small businesses hanging by threads.

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