Washington, D.C
Washington D.C. Democrats and pseudo-left support draconian, punitive crime bill
The Council of the District of Columbia, Washington D.C.’s local legislative body, voted on February 6 to advance the right-wing “law and order” Secure DC Omnibus Amendment Act of 2024. A final vote will take place within the next few weeks, during which more deliberations and amendments are expected to be made.
The bill combines proposals from several crime bills proposed last year, in the wake of a supposed crime wave that has hit the District. According to official figures, the city’s homicide rate has increased by 36 percent in the past year, the highest since the 1990s.
As is the case in Democratic Party-run governments at the local and national levels, rather than deal with the root social causes of crime, bourgeois politicians advocate a massive crackdown on the poorest layers of the population and criminalizing poverty.
The bill would give the chief of police the power to create temporary “drug-free zones” for a period of five days at a time. Within these drug-free zones, if the police believe a group of at least two people intend to commit a drug-related crime, they could be asked to leave or face arrest. This portion of the bill would give encouragement to police harassment against groups congregating in such zones for other reasons.
Theft for the purpose of reselling merchandise would be treated as a felony with a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. A punitive amendment which would have reduced the threshold for first-degree theft—punishable by up to 10 years in prison—from $1,000 to $500 was deferred for the final vote.
The bill would drastically increase the length of pre-trial detention from a maximum of five days to 225 days. Furthermore, the bill would permit pre-trial detention of juveniles for many crimes, including violent crimes and certain unarmed offenses. The D.C. Jail has been cited on numerous occasions for its inhumane and downright horrific conditions.
“Every day, I hear from residents across all eight wards about the urgent need to address crime in our neighborhoods,” the bill’s sponsor, Democratic Councilwoman Brooke Pinto, declared in a press release last month. In a sham effort to provide the “law and order” bill with a popular gloss, Pinto added, “It is resoundingly clear—from residents across the District, businesses, visitors and our federal and regional partners that urgent and effective action is needed now.”
In fact, “urgent and effective action,” that is, addressing underlying issues impacting Washington D.C.’s increasingly impoverished working class, is excluded from this bill and the city’s Democratic Party establishment’s overall agenda.
Nowhere in the bill are the root causes of crime addressed—poverty and the soaring cost of living. Currently, one in seven people in the District of Columbia live below the poverty line. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has reported that D.C. has a shortage of 33,000 rental homes available for “extremely low income” renters, defined for a family of four as having an income of $41,400 or less. Seventy-three percent of people in this category spend over half their monthly income on rent.
So intense is the need for rent relief that the Emergency Rental Assistance Program established at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, described as a “lifeline for residents facing displacement” by Street Sense Media, was forced to stop accepting applications within hours after it came back online in early January. According to the publication, “ERAP historically runs out of money mid-year,” and has taken to opening for brief periods on a quarterly basis in order to extend the program’s funds.
The Democrats, who have long ago cast aside all pretenses of concern for the working class, have no interest in addressing these issues, instead they serve business owners and their upper-middle-class base by further marginalizing the poor.
For example, to advance the needs of big business, a homeless encampment in McPherson Square was cleared out last February, in which 70 homeless people were removed and most of their belongings destroyed, with promises to help the homeless going almost entirely unfulfilled.
Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser recently offered $500 million in renovations to Capital One Arena in an attempt to prevent Monumental Sports and Entertainment, owner of several D.C.-area sports franchises, from moving to a potential new arena in Alexandria, Virginia. Monumental’s chairman and CEO, Ted Leonsis, has an estimated net worth of $2.8 billion.
Bowser has been offering further enticements to businesses to open up shop in D.C., offering $20 million in grants altogether in the hopes that downtown D.C., greatly affected by years of a pandemic that shows no signs of slowing, can be rejuvenated.
Several activist groups were present at the Secure DC bill’s vote to express their opposition.Tia Bell of the TRIGGER Project expressed concern that the law would ultimately hurt the neighborhoods most affected by gun violence, while others claimed that the bill’s punitive approach would disproportionately harm black residents.
Of the 13 D.C. Council members—11 Democrats and 2 independents—all but one of them voted in favor of advancement, with Ward 8 Councilman Trayon White, a Democrat, voting present. Among the council members who voted in favor are several who were endorsed either by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) or other pseudo-left groups.
Janeese Lewis George (Ward 4) and Zachary Parker (Ward 5), were endorsed by the DSA, while Matthew Frumin (Ward 3) and Brianne Nadeau (Ward 1) were endorsed by other “progressive” groups and the trade union bureaucracies. All voted to accept the law-and-order bill.
Frumin, in a press statement released on the day of the vote, thanked Pinto for “her leadership and hard work in introducing this bill.” Frumin offered vacuous criticism, noting that, while the bill “focused heavily on accountability and enforcement,” the Council “must be equally committed to creating hope and opportunity.”
For the DSA-endorsed Parker and Lewis George, no hint of criticism was expressed. The latter’s support came after an amendment was introduced that would “[expand] the types of criminal records eligible for sealing or expungement.” This is, of course, after the crime bill would have made possible the targeting of underage youth by the police.
Parker, who has voted to accept previous “law and order” packages in the past, did not even bother to publicly acknowledge his vote. In 2022, the Washington D.C. chapter of the DSA publicly endorsed Parker, declaring that his campaign was a “massive opportunity for the progressive left to elect an uncompromising champion for our values.”
Not content with prostituting their supposed “values,” the DSA stated their “endorsements are not just a recommendation to DSA members to vote for a particular candidate, but rather a commitment to fight to get that candidate elected.”
4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
Washington, D.C. (7News) — Rosselli is the newest restaurant to open in DC.
Bringing in classic Italian flavors, Chef Carlos explained how he hopes his food is a unique addition to the Italian food scene in the DMV.
Chef also demoed a signature dish with Brian and Megan.
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You can learn more and book your table here.
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