In article <ssn96d$kpt9$7@news.freedyn.de>
governor.swill@gmail.com wrote:
>
> In the red states that Democrats like to point to, the cities where all that murder is happening are run almost exclusively by Democrats.
>

Because Democrats know they�re completely untrustworthy when it
comes to law enforcement, having turned virtually every major
city into a rape and murder zone, they�ve made the obvious
choice.

No, silly, they haven�t started arresting criminals. They�ve
started lying.

It�s a lie told recently by Democrat California Gov. Gavin
Newsom, and then repeated twice this week in The Washington
Post. The latest came in a column by Dana Milbank. (Yes, someone
actually named their son Dana Milbank.)

�Violent crime is generally worse in Republican-run states,� he
wrote on Tuesday under the headline, �It�s just murder living in
a red state.�

The source for that claim, the same one made by Newsom, is a
report published earlier this year by the leftist outfit Third
Way. The report observed that �murder rates are far higher in
Trump-voting red states than Biden-voting blue states. And
sometimes, murder rates are highest in cities with Republican
mayors.�

To start, the point in correlating crime and Democrat policies
has never been that �blue states� are violent hellholes. It was
always that Democrat mayors and district attorneys are
demonstrably anti-law enforcement, and more interested in racial
�equity� than in prosecuting offenders. Again, that�s mayors and
district attorneys, elected officials who serve on the city and
county levels, not state. Of course, Republicans have tied every
Democrat running for every office to the issue, but the exact
line of attack was always in reference to county and city
officials.

With that in mind, let�s look at the data compiled by Third Way.
The report listed 10 states with the highest murder rates in the
U.S. using data from 2020. �In fact, the top per capita murder
rate states in 2020 were mostly those far from massive urban
centers and Democratic mayors and governors,� the report said.
�Eight of the top ten worst murder rate states voted for
[Donald] Trump in 2020. None of those eight has supported a
Democrat for president since 1996.� The authors of the report
observed, �These red states are not generating �murder is out of
control� national headlines. They seem to generate no headlines
at all.�

But for this to be a devastating blow to the Democrats-suck-on-
crime narrative requires ignoring that in every state, including
otherwise red ones, there are densely populated areas that tend
to be blue. And it just so happens, more often than not, that�s
where the surge in crime has taken place.

The No. 1 state on Third Way�s list is Mississippi. Sure enough,
the statewide vote in the 2020 election was for Trump. But
within the state, Hinds County residents voted for Joe Biden, 3
to 1. Mississippi�s biggest city, Jackson, is in Hinds County.
You know where this is going.

Reporting on Jackson last year, CNN declared it �one of the
deadliest U.S. cities.�

The mayor of Jackson is Chokwe Antar Lumumba, a Democrat. The
district attorney is Jody Owens, a Democrat.

No. 2 on the list is Louisiana. Trump won that state, too. But
on the more local level, he lost Orleans, the parish that
contains New Orleans, the state�s most populous city. Residents
there went for Biden almost 8 to 1.

�New Orleans had the highest homicide rate of any major city so
far this year, with about 41 homicides per 100,000 residents.��
The Wall Street Journal, Sep. 16, 2022

The mayor of New Orleans is LaToya Cantrell, a Democrat. The
district attorney is Jason Williams, also a Democrat.

No. 3 on the list is Kentucky, another red state that voted to
elect Trump. But Kentucky�s biggest city Louisville is in
Jefferson County and 60 percent of those voters supported Biden.

This is from Kentucky-based think tank Pegasus Institute in
August: �In the last decade, the city of Louisville has seen
unprecedented increases in shootings and homicides. 2020 became
Louisville�s deadliest year on record, and 2021 have proven to
continue that trend.� The organization reported last year that
Louisville�s homicide rate was competing with the likes of
Chicago and Philadelphia.

The mayor of Louisville is Greg Fischer, a Democrat. The
district attorney is Thomas B. Wine. He is also a Democrat.

Next is Alabama at No. 4, another 2020 red state. But Biden won
the most votes in the most populous county, also called
Jefferson. He won 56 percent to Trump�s 43. Within Jefferson is
the city of Birmingham, which has the third-highest murder rate
in all of the U.S.

The mayor of Birmingham is Randall Woodfin. He�s a Democrat,
just like the district attorney, Danny Carr.

In slot No. 5 is Missouri. Again, a Trump state. And again, with
the county containing its biggest city, St. Louis, going for
Biden, 61 percent to Trump�s 37. St. Louis has the fourth-
highest murder rate in the country.

Mayor: Tishaura Jones, Democrat.

County prosecuting attorney: Wesley Bell, same.

No. 6 is South Carolina. Trump won that state, but Charleston
County, with the city of North Charleston, went for Biden with
56 percent of the vote. North Charleston has the highest murder
rate in the state.

Finally, here we have a city with a mayor, Keith Summey, from
the Republican Party. The county solicitor � Charleston does not
have a district attorney � is Scarlett Wilson, also a Republican.

Not that we�re keeping score, but that brings the number on this
list of Republicans who might feasibly be held accountable for
raging crime in their cities to a grand total of two. For
Democrats, it�s so far 10.

The next two states on Third Way�s report, New Mexico and
Georgia, went blue in 2020, so we�ll skip those.

No. 9 is Arkansas, which was red. But again, Pulaski County,
with the state�s biggest city of Little Rock, went blue with 60
percent of voters choosing Biden. That city reportedly has one
of the highest violent crime rates in the state. The mayor of
Little Rock is Frank Scott, a Democrat. The county prosecutor,
Larry Jegley, is a Democrat as well.

Lastly, at No. 10, is Tennessee. Another red state with a major
blue county that went for Biden. That county here would be
Shelby, with 64 percent of the vote going to the president. In
Shelby is the city of Memphis, which, according to The New York
Times, �is often ranked among the nation�s most violent cities.�

The mayor of Memphis is Jim Strickland, a Democrat. Steve
Mulroy, a Democrat, is the recently-elected district attorney.

To recap, of the eight red states listed in Third Way�s report
as being among the top 10 with the highest murder rate, the
cities where all that murder is happening are run almost
exclusively by Democrats. All but one had a Democrat mayor. And
all but one had a Democrat responsible for pursuing criminal
prosecutions.

Democrats know they�re terrible on law enforcement. Attempting
to lie about it only makes the governments they run that more
dangerous.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/12/the-lefts-funny-new-lie-its-
the-red-states-with-more-crime/