About those people who say crime is down in Washington D.C.? "I would say they fool because they don't live where I live."

Says Sandra Seagers, 74, who lives in Congress Heights part of the city, quoted in today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "When the National Guard Comes to Town" (audio and transcript at Podscribe).

We're told: "Her own brother was shot and killed in the seventies. But she says back then crime was targeted toward people who were involved in it. And for the most part, bystanders were left alone. And as time went on, things changed. It was more crime, the stores shut down. But now, especially since the pandemic, she says, it feels like the violence is more random....  and for Sandra, that means more innocent people and even businesses are caught up in it.... She says, after the murder of George Floyd, the police were too lean on crime. She was also frustrated with the DC law that prevented kids from being charged with adult crimes. She was so fed up that she actually wrote a letter to the mayor and city council asking for the National Guard to be sent in.... But the response was, no. The city council couldn't stop it. The police couldn't stop it. The mayor couldn't stop it. So Sandra, too afraid to go outside, hasn't been to a grocery store in two years.... She was listening to the local radio station one late afternoon when she heard the President describe the city as one beset by crime and lawlessness.... It resonated with her."

Seager says: "I did not vote for Donald Trump. I did not. And I don't agree with a lot of things he's doing. But when he decided to bring in the National Guard and the, and the federal agencies, I was happy. First day it was announced, that same night, that I didn't hear gunshots, no shootings, and no stabbing. I saw one car come by and one person walking and that was it. People calm down...."

Maureen Dowd's sister got her car stolen in Washington D.C.

"Two polite officers who responded to our call said they could do little, amid a rash of brazen car thefts by teenagers. One officer said that, even if they saw the perp driving in her car, they could not chase him, because of laws passed by the D.C. Council.... The next morning, though, an officer... banged on her door. Her car was found in a park, running, nearly out of gas. When she collected it, after paying a $215 towing charge, she found an odoriferous collection: half-eaten pizza, grape soda cans, fast-food wrappers, a used condom and a couple of debit cards.... [T]he police said to throw [the cards] away... Then... she got over $1,800 worth of speed-camera tickets that the car thieves had racked up going 70 in 25-mile-per-hour zones, and some for running red lights.... She had to go down to headquarters on Friday to get the police report so she could appeal the tickets...."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Criminal Fights Crime" (NYT).

The final line is: "Even if Trump is being diabolical, Democrats should not pretend everything is fine here. Because it’s not."

I like to think the Democrats need to offer solutions, not just admit that there are problems. Of course, it's awful to deny that the problems are really that bad or to say that we deserve the problems or that side effects of solving the problems are worse than the problems. But assuming Democrats admit there is a terrible problem — and Dowd is only denying that "everything is fine" — they seem to want to focus on how bad Trump's solutions are.

Is President Trump's very big ballroom just for State Dinners or will there be balls?

Balls in the ballroom — what a concept! I know one time Princess Diana and John Travolta danced together at the White House. Was it a full scale ball? Where are the balls of today? It seems that we only have red carpet arrivals and then people sitting around at tables. So this passage jumped out at me as I was reading James Traub's "John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit" (commission earned)("Her" = Adams's wife, Louisa):

Her fortnightly teas became so popular that she tried to restrict the crowd by decreeing that henceforward no dancing would be permitted, but Washington society came and insisted on dancing. Washington now had a little bit of the dazzle the Adamses had known in foreign capitals. When Congress was in session, balls and fine dinners were held almost every night. The most magnificent house in Washington had been empty since its owner, Commodore Stephen Decatur, the great naval hero of the War of 1812, had been killed in a foolish duel in March 1820. But now Baron Hyde de Neuville had purchased the three-story mansion on Lafayette Square and threw splendid parties there. For a time, the Adams house was filled with music and dancing and even giggling and flirting.... A dancing master came for as much as three hours a day to teach all the young folk.

Key words: almost every night. Nowadays, it seems you only hear of balls — the dancing kind of balls (not the "Big Balls" kind of balls) — during inaugurations. I'd like to see Trump's new ballroom used for dancing, and perhaps he's the person to get people dancing. It took a person to incite all that dancing that was going on in Washington circa 1820. Of course, the person was not John Quincy Adams, and it wasn't his wife Louisa. It was Dolley Madison. 

"I can tell you firsthand here in downtown DC where we work, right here around our bureau, just in the past six months, you know, there were two people shot, one person died..."

"... literally two blocks down here from the bureau. It was within the last two years that I actually was jumped walking just two blocks down from here. And then, just this morning, one of my co-workers said her car was stolen, a block away from the bureau. We can talk about the numbers going down, but crime is happening every single day because we’re all experiencing it firsthand, working and living down here...."

Said ABC News anchor Kyra Phillips, quoted in the NY Post.

But the numbers!

"Dunn was an international affairs specialist in the criminal division of the Justice Department, according to a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel matters."

I'm reading "Man who threw sandwich at law enforcement was DOJ employee, Bondi says/Police allege that the man approached law enforcement officers, including Metro Transit Police and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, and began yelling obscenities" (WaPo).

U ST NW MAN THROWS SUB SANDWICH AT OFFICER: "The defendant was repeatedly yelling, cursing and berating an officer within inches of his face and ultimately assaulted him. He was arrested and the charge of assault of a police officer will be filed in district court tomorrow… pic.twitter.com/0mmJvdIVba

— Allison Papson (@AllisonPapson) August 13, 2025

"It's a trap."

💡The moment when MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and Mika Brzezinski finally realize Democrats have been duped by Trump into defending violent crime in DC:

“It’s a trap!" pic.twitter.com/J3AlvIKGHA

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 13, 2025

"D.C. mayor meets police takeover with reluctant compliance" according to the teaser on the front page of The Washington Post.

At the article, the headline is "D.C. Mayor Bowser sticks with cautious approach amid Trump’s takeover/Bowser continued with the cautious approach she has taken over the past several months and said there is little D.C. could do to prevent Trump’s unprecedented actions."

Why isn't Bowser getting impassioned and denouncing Trump? Why the restraint? What is the long game?

"Let the parents decide. My daughter was born August 31st. Had she been born September 1 , she could have started 1st grade a year later."

"Why should this bureaucrat date dictate my child’s education?"

So says the top-rated comment at "D.C. banned ‘redshirting’ years ago. Here’s why people are talking about it. The controversial practice of delaying kindergarten enrollment by a year has been allowed to happen at a small number of schools" (WaPo).

I think the answer to her question why is: It's part of the struggle against (what is perceived as) white privilege: "It is difficult to determine exactly how common it is to delay a child’s enrollment in school. Some national data suggest it’s rare — somewhere between 3.5 percent and 5.5 percent of eligible children do it. Most of those students are boys born in the summer months. Academic redshirting is also more common among White children at schools that serve large numbers of wealthy families, who can afford an extra year of preschool or day care, according to an article published by the American Educational Research Association."

ADDED: The Supreme Court's opinion in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which upheld the parents' right to exempt their own children from the school's gender-ideology indoctrination, relied heavily on Wisconsin v. Yoder, which upheld the parents' right to exempt their child a school requirement that had to do with the age of the child. In Yoder, Wisconsin wanted to compel school attendance up to the age of 16, and the parents, Amish parents, sincerely believed that schooling beyond 8th grade impairs religious salvation. They wanted their children to avoid the "worldly educational environment" and sought a different kind of wisdom and way of life, and the Supreme Court viewed their preference as a constitutional right. I'd thought of Yoder as a marginal case until I saw Mahmoud v. Taylor.

The WaPo commenter's slogan "Let the parents decide" resonates.

"Bowser caving immediately to the faintest hint of pressure on the name of the plaza is somehow even more cynical than the move to name it Black Lives Matter Plaza in the first place."

Said Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, a Georgetown philosophy professor (who, we're told, is black).

He's quoted in "Black Lives Matter Plaza Is Gone. Its Erasure Feels Symbolic. The movement that prompted 'Black Lives Matter' to be painted in bold yellow near the White House is in retreat. Its leaders are asking what comes next for social justice" (NYT). From the article:

"[Bike lanes] are often installed not to satisfy the barely measurable trickle of residents who pedal to work..."

"... but mainly to make car traffic worse enough that people will be discouraged from driving.... The city has built about 20 miles of bike lanes in the past five years, but despite that, the portion of D.C. residents who bike to work peaked in 2017 and has decreased each year since, falling from 5 percent to 3 percent.... Rodney Foxworth, a longtime civic activist who now leads an anti-bike lane group, says the city 'has a bias in favor of bike lanes no matter whether residents or businesses want them, and a lot of these lanes are being installed in Black, low-income communities. There is a nexus between bike lanes and gentrification.'... Adding bike lanes 'is meeting a relatively small demand' from cyclists in an older, largely African American area, [VJ Kapur, an advisory neighborhood commissioner,] concedes, 'but we are working to make the roadway safer. We are not scheming to induce developers to displace folks from the neighborhood. Change is occurring. Bike lanes potentially yield a visceral reaction because they are alien, visible implements going into a neighborhood that has looked very much the same for a long time.'"

From "The truth about bike lanes: They’re not about the bikes/D.C. is building miles of bike lanes, though fewer people are biking to work" (WaPo). That's an opinion column by Marc Fisher. 

Can I get an opinion from Pete Buttigieg? I remember this from back in 2022: "Pete Buttigieg launches $1B pilot to build racial equity in America's roads." He was inviting us to lean toward the interpretation that there is systemic racism in the design of road projects, so shouldn't we presume Rodney Foxworth is right about the motivation behind the installation of bike lanes?

"Last year, federal prosecutors in the [Washington D.C.] U.S. attorney’s office chose not to prosecute 67 percent of those arrested..."

"... by police officers in cases that would have been tried in D.C. Superior Court.... In an interview, Matthew M. Graves, the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney for the District, said his office was continuing to prosecute the vast majority of violent felonies. He said prosecutors were declining less serious cases for myriad reasons, including that the city’s crime lab remained unaccredited and police body-camera footage was subjecting arrests to more scrutiny...."

WaPo reports.

"[P]rosecutors have to pay to have evidence for DNA, firearm and fingerprint analysis sent to outside laboratories, Graves said. Prosecutors, he said, prioritize doing so for violent offenses.... [A] D.C. law that the city council passed in 2020 preventing officers from reviewing their body worn cameras before filling out charging documents... means officers now have to rely on their memories and notes when filling out arrest warrants, and prosecutors might not move forward on a case if details in the warrant don’t match the footage, officials said.... Graves said the office temporarily had resources stretched thin in recent years, though some of those problems had abated. After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, he said his office temporarily pulled about 15 prosecutors and staffers from D.C. Superior Court cases to focus on prosecuting the federal cases."

"Twice in the past week, Republicans scored wins and divided Democrats by employing an arcane maneuver known as a resolution of disapproval..."

".... The biggest victory came on Thursday, when President Biden told Senate Democrats that he would sign a Republican-led resolution blocking the District of Columbia’s new criminal code if it reached his desk. It was a reversal from his earlier opposition and a frank acknowledgment that Republicans had gotten the better of Democrats on the hot-button topic of violent crime. It is somewhat unusual for the president to have to confront legislation he opposes when his party controls at least part of the Congress — in this case the Senate — since his allies on Capitol Hill can usually bottle up legislation they don’t like and spare him from a veto or a tough decision...."

 
Writes Carl Hulse, in "Republicans Use Arcane Political Tactic to Thwart Democrats/The party has used resolutions of disapproval to confound President Biden and Democrats, forcing them to make tough decisions and debate issues they would prefer to avoid" (NYT).

"The Defense Department on Monday again said it will not help the District deal with the thousands of migrants who’ve arrived on buses from Texas and Arizona..."

"... upholding the department’s previous denial of D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s earlier request for National Guard deployment. In a letter to Bowser (D), Pentagon Executive Secretary Kelly Bulliner Holly outlined a host of reasons National Guard troops can’t be deployed, including the fact that its members are not trained to provide the type of services that would be required to help the migrants, including feeding, sanitation and management of a central processing facility. More than 7,000 migrants from countries such as Venezuela or Nicaragua have arrived at Union Station on buses since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) began offering the free rides in April to highlight what he had called lax border enforcement policies by the Biden administration. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) followed suit in May."

WaPo reports.

"More than 7,000 migrants... since... April" — but what is the number of migrants who came to Texas and Arizona since April and have not yet moved on to other states? Is 7,000 supposed to look like a huge number or a tiny number? And is it a military problem or not? Bowser proposes to militarize it within Washington, but would she view the entire migration across the southern border as a military problem?

"Since his inauguration, Biden has spent only 12 weekends in the capital... In the same period, he’s spent 31 weekends back home in Delaware and 16 at Camp David."

"He’s hosted no state dinners. Sightings around town are few, and often involve a quiet trip to church.... Nowhere was Biden’s implicit promise of dullness more popular than inside the Beltway, a place traumatized by Donald Trump. But it turns out that what the city wanted was less back-to-sleep than back-to-normal.... 'The president could be a Cardboard Box and I think Washington wouldn’t be boring,' says Jamie Weinstein, known for putting together soirees with high-profile guests. '... If you depend on who occupies the Oval Office to define whether D.C. has a great social scene, you are doing something wrong.'... [T]he real impact of having an elderly, not-here-on-weekends president during a pandemic may be to hustle up other trends that were already happening, a move away from big events and formal dinners to socializing that’s more low-key.... 'I get invited to these embassy events and I sometimes forget to go,' is how one of my pals, a longtime local partygoer, puts it. 'And then I’ll look on social media to see who was there and it’s like, "Eeew."'"

I'm impressed that Michael Schaffer got a whole long article out of this material: "Joe Biden’s ‘Cardboard Box’ Presidency/The president promised to be boring. He’s over-delivered" (Politico).

Do not approach the fox! I see "The tale of a wild fox on Capitol Hill had captivated those who live and work there."

In the NYT: "The Capitol Fox, Euthanized After Attacks, Tests Positive for Rabies/The tale of a wild fox on Capitol Hill had captivated those who live and work there. Then a congressman and several others were bitten, the fox was captured and she turned out to be rabid."

Oh, humans of Washington — you who think you know what's good for us people who live outside your charmed circle —  what do you know of how the world works? Did you think you were lucky that a cute fox was happy to walk up to you? Did you experience it as a testament to your charisma?

Here's an article from April 5th, before the fox tested positive: "'Have You Seen the Capitol Fox?'Animal control officers descended on Capitol Hill after reports of lawmakers, staff members and reporters being attacked by a wild fox believed to have been nesting on the Capitol grounds" (NYT).

"Mayor Bowser’s graffiti is made permanent with our tax dollars, while Black children die from increasing Black violence in DC ever more frequently."

"Most recently, a six-year-old girl yesterday. Priorities reassessment needed, Mayor Bowser. Black lives mattering shouldn’t be about memorializing your political stunts."

That's the top-rated comment on a WaPo article that begins: "Construction to make Black Lives Matter Plaza a permanent art installation will begin Monday, with 16th Street NW between H and K streets closing to vehicle traffic. The mural spelling 'Black Lives Matter' down 16th Street will be on brick pavers, and there will be a dedicated pedestrian plaza throughout the center of the street. There will also be landscaping and lighting...."

Another highly rated comment: 

I guess it is easier for Bowser to waste time and money on this BLM vandalism project then it is for her to actually try and solve some of the city's problems. She probably thinks she is doing some thing productive when in fact this project is nothing but a boondoggle. Shouldn't the road crews be out fixing pot hole instead of wasting time on this? Bowser has to understand that not everyone in DC is black and not everyone DC in supports the BLM Marxists. Hopefully some future mayor will rip the whole thing out.

When it is possible to walk on the sidewalk instead of the street, that's when we'll know #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/ztk8SAmcQc

— Fix Malcolm X & MLK (@CleanMlk) July 16, 2021

The Washington Post viewpoint on obscurity: "For three hours, an obscure county board in Michigan was at the center of U.S. politics."

That's the front-page teaser, along with the headline, "Wayne County Republicans ask to ‘rescind’ their votes certifying the election result," which links to an article titled "Wayne County Republicans ask to ‘rescind’ their votes certifying the election results." 

Wayne County is Detroit! Wayne County is not obscure. Or — I see the ambiguity — is The Washington Post calling the county board level of government obscure — obscure everywhere, everywhere there are counties? There are no counties in Washington, D.C., so the narrow viewpoint from Washington may be that counties don't matter.

No counties in Washington?! Is this news to you? But there once were counties in the District of Columbia. Here's a map from 1835:

"When darkness fell, the counterprotesters triggered more mayhem as they harassed Trump’s advocates, stealing red hats and flags and lighting them on fire."

"Scuffles continued into the night as the provocateurs overturned the tables of vendors who had been selling pro-Trump gear and set off dozens of fireworks, prompting police to pepper-spray them. At 8 p.m., violence broke out five blocks east of the White House between the president’s supporters, who wielded batons, and his black-clad detractors, many of whom had participated in racial justice rallies throughout the summer. As the groups approached the same intersection, they charged each other, brawling for several minutes before police arrived and cleared the area.... [A]lmost none of [Trump's] backers wore masks. Among their ranks were white nationalists, conspiracy theorists and far-right activists carrying signs demanding action that was already being taken: 'Count the legal votes.' Trump had thrilled them when his motorcade appeared on Pennsylvania Avenue shortly after 10 a.m., prompting fans to scramble to the side of Freedom Plaza to catch a glimpse.... 'Trump, pack your [shit]! You’re illegitimate!' [counterprotesters] yelled into their megaphone... A family of four on Capital Bikeshare bikes — the father with an American flag tied around his neck like a cape — were cut off by a line of counterprotesters as they tried to leave a tense scene outside the Supreme Court about 1 p.m. 'Get out of our city!' a young woman in black yelled. 'You lost, losers!' shouted a man. The father and his teenage son began to chant 'U.S.A.!' and raised their fists as police officers surrounded the family and pushed them out of the crowd."

From "After thousands of Trump supporters rally in D.C., violence erupts when night falls" (WaPo).

"Protesters attempted to topple a bronze statue of former president Andrew Jackson in a park next to the White House on Monday night but were thwarted when police intervened."

"The scene unfolded dramatically as hundreds of demonstrators protesting police brutality locked arms around the statue in Lafayette Square shortly before 8 p.m., while chanting, 'Hey, hey, ho, ho, Andrew Jackson’s got to go.' Inside the metal pickets surrounding the statue, a smaller group — some clad in black with goggles, helmets and gas masks — scaled the statue and draped ropes around the seventh president astride a horse. Someone scrawled 'killer' in black on the pedestal below.... In a chaotic scene, a helicopter flew low over the park as 150 to 200 U.S. Park and D.C. police moved through the park. Officers used a chemical irritant to disperse protesters and sweep them back to H Street NW. Protesters did smash the wooden wheels of four replica cannons at the base of the Jackson statue. Protesters threw things at police as they retreated, and officers shoved people in the melee. One woman hurled a folding chair, striking an officer, who staggered away from a police line.... As the protest unfolded Monday evening, someone spray painted 'BHAZ' on the columns of the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church. A similar sign was spray-painted on a piece of plywood on H Street: 'BHAZ: Black House Autonomous Zone.'"

WaPo reports.

Toppling Albert Pike... "Why are the cops letting this happen?"

Beyond pathetic. Why are the cops letting this happen? https://t.co/uBW3FUFI33

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) June 20, 2020

I had to ask who was Albert Pike. Here's Wikipedia:

In 1861, Pike penned the lyrics to "Dixie to Arms!" At the beginning of the war, Pike was appointed as Confederate envoy to Native American nations. In this capacity he negotiated several treaties, one of the most important being with Cherokee chief John Ross, which was concluded in 1861. At the time, Ross agreed to support the Confederacy, which promised the tribes a Native American state if it won the war. Ross later changed his mind and left Indian Territory, but the succeeding Cherokee government maintained the alliance.