DACA's Robin Hood Excuse

Only in legend—and our topsy-turvy political climate—can lawbreakers be treated like heroes. As an analogy, Robin Hood famously stole from the rich to give to the poor. While doing so, he ironically wore all green: the color of money. This bowed bandit took goods benefiting one group, the wealthy, and redistributed them to another. Thus, was this Sherwood Forest dweller, this “do-gooder” outlaw, the world's first Bernie Sanders (I-VT) socialist?

Today, can't any political scheme be rationalized via Robin Hood's claim of good intentions? For example, when Democrats made their late night, locked door legislative arrangement—with zero Republican support that average Americans knew nothing about—that's called Obamacare. Given their appropriation of one-sixth of the U.S. economy, Robin of Loxley would have undoubtedly been among their number given his own sticky fingered proclivities. Yet, if a similar takeover was perpetrated in the private sector, it's likely criminal; or in DACA's (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) case at least unconstitutional.

How is stealing a quasi-legal status akin to citizenship not in the same vein as bank robbing? After all, in both cases something valuable is stolen by individuals with no legal entitlement to it. Complicating matters is the fact that such freedoms are intangible: in essence, more precious than Robin's booty could ever be. So, rather than a higher penalty, our society's lawmakers should reward such wrongdoing, again? For context, during the Reagan era, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) granted up to three million unauthorized migrants a path to legalization if they had been “continuously” present in the U.S. since January 1, 1982. Isn't any DACA replacement, regardless of its particulars, singing from the same sheet music? Make no mistake: it's politically correct amnesty for the undeserving. A popular and easy “fix” to low-information voters that bolsters the self-serving agendas of both political parties: cheap labor for Republicans, voters for Democrats. However, what's politically expedient still is not right. Laws turned into Swiss cheese by Washington's shortsighted whims are as effective as porous borders are safe.

Any democratic society must respect the laws that bind its members or it quickly degenerates into chaos, criminality and tribalism. Such is the ongoing occupation of America by an estimated 11 million illegals. Under the best scenario, even a handful of bad actors among this shadowy underclass are an existential threat. Who are they? Where are they? How do they support themselves? Where do their loyalties lie? How is any modern society to function without safeguards or a basic measure of cultural cohesion?

In any civilized society, lawbreakers go to jail for undermining society in various fundamental ways. Consequently, that outcome causes absences that divide families. Children from both camps, though no fault of their own, are made to suffer because of their parent's unlawful decisions. In a nutshell, illegals' offspring are “anchor babies” compelling D.C.'s current “compassionate” DACA doublespeak. In the name of their broods, why should illegals derive special privileges that no incarcerated citizen enjoys: to flout our laws with impunity, and escape consequences all to benefit their blameless loved ones? In other words, a good sounding excuse justifies almost any malfeasance. By that same skewed logic, should all convicts be liberated from America's prisons solely to rejoin their marginalized children? The fact remains that both sets of law violators present a potential danger to everyone else. Even a crowd-pleasing rogue like Robin Hood would not abet such a grand injustice.

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Busted “Hero” Barry Bronzed

“If ever I become entirely respectable I shall be quite sure that I have outlived myself.” – Eugene V. Debs

Apparently, that's true of the late Marion Barry: a half-century fixture of local D.C. government. While the American political landscape is chock full of colorful characters—some lovable scoundrels, others not so much—perhaps none fit this category better than the one nicknamed “Mayor for Life”. In that role Barry served for four terms as the district fell into corruption and insolvency. In 1989, at a D.C. budget hearing, then-Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.) publicly chastised his mismanagement:

“Some governments are corrupt but are known for their competency in running the city. Others are incompetent but considered clean. [Washington's] government is scandalously corrupt and hopelessly incompetent.”

In fact, at his death, he was still in office representing Ward 8, having collectively amassed 16 years on the city council.

On the first anniversary of his demise, current D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser established a 13-member D.C. Commission to "Commemorate and Recognize the Honorable Marion S. Barry Jr". During a ceremony last week at the Wilson Building, a mock-up of the proposed life-sized statue was unveiled. (Reportedly, his fourth wife Cora Masters Barry, hated the hat: a fedora obscuring Barry's famous receding hairline. Well, D.C. Commission on the Arts Director Arthur Espinoza, manager of the project, should get that right!) The anticipated cost—to be raised through both public and private sources—is between $350,000 and $400,000.

This eventuality begs the question: with such a checkered past, does this particular individual warrant a grand commemoration?

First and foremost, Marion Barry was a survivor. Notably, last Thursday, March 9th, marks the 40th anniversary of the “Hanafi siege”, a little-remembered act of terror in the spring of 1977. (Hanafi Muslims were a radicalized, breakaway sect of the Nation of Islam.) These black men armed with swords and shotguns took hostages at three locations: a Jewish organization, a rival mosque and the government building where Barry worked. At 41, he was then a fledgling council member who suffered a chest wound above his heart. He recovered, but a reporter was killed and a security guard later suffered a fatal heart attack.

Another turning point in the then-mayor's life was January 18, 1990. At the Vista International Hotel—groping former girlfriend Hazel Diane “Rasheeda” Moore—the married Mayor was arrested in an FBI sting for smoking crack cocaine. Videotaped during the encounter and arrest, a muttering Barry blamed Moore: “Bitch set me up . . . . I shouldn't have come up here . . . goddamn bitch.” In the digital age, that event has been recorded on the internet for posterity. In the future, how exactly does a silent bronze statue speak louder about Barry's character than his own potty mouth?

For that utterance he became a popular punch line on late-night talk shows. Likewise, he was famous for the remark, “Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.” (For three consecutive years, D.C. homicides increased to record-breaking levels, reaching 474 in 1990. The nation's capital was then called the “murder capital”.) Still, as a survivor of gun violence, Barry was lucky to escape a second life-threatening fate that felled so many of his constituents: drug overdose. (Ironically, cocaine use killed his son—and namesake—Marion C. Barry, 36, on August 14, 2016.) Unlike those unfortunates, the older Barry lived a long life, expiring from cardiac arrest on November 23, 2014.

Indeed, this politician had a long history of running afoul of the law. Even in the waning two years of his life, Marion Barry racked up $2,800 in fees from 21 unpaid parking and speeding tickets. In spite of these violations, he caused a car accident after driving down the wrong way of a street into opposing traffic. True to form, this time the elder statesman blamed a “hypoglycemic attack” for his behavior. However, there is no good explanation for a 78-year-old Jaguar-driving community leader not to have car insurance and current tags.

Undoubtedly, the statue is intended to sanitize Marion Barry's reputation to future generations as a “champion of the downtrodden”. In the late 60s, he co-founded a group called Pride Inc. intended to help black men find employment. Later, as mayor, he expanded government to accomplish that goal. Yet, who remembers that compared to his decades-long embarrassing escapades of repeatedly flouting the law? For starters, he spent six months in prison for the “Rasheeda” Moore incident. Put aside his local popularity and visible job titles for a moment. His rap-sheet reads like a hardened criminal's: arrests for drug incidents (1990, 2002), incarceration (1991-1992), income tax evasion (2005), stalking (2009), corruption (2010), public exposure (2011), and political censure for taking kickbacks and accepting bribes (2010, 2013) et cetera.

Marion Barry's backers can superficially immortalize his likeness—but nothing will expunge his lengthy track record of wrongdoing. Even his outspoken supporters would likely acknowledge a deeply flawed human being. In the final analysis, the man's shameless and often illegal antics obscure any do-gooder residue gained early as a civil rights activist. Therefore, perhaps it's kinder to leave Marion Barry's “legacy” unbronzed: a well forgotten, but colorful footnote in local D.C. affairs.

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MSM's Hillary Blinders

Seven presumably experienced Washington Post reporters contributed to front page story “President announces his pick: Clinton.” What essential event was glaringly missing from their extensive account? That also yesterday White House press secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton's private email server as a “criminal investigation” mere moments after Mr. Obama's ringing endorsement.

If the first female nominee of a major political party is newsworthy, certainly a sitting U.S. president choosing a successor under close scrutiny of his own Justice Department is even more so. Will it be the White House or the big house for Mrs. Clinton? That's a great inquiry likely never to be preemptively explored, if at all.

The greatest power of the media is the power to ignore.

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Speaking ill of a departed Reagan

It's ironic.  While The Washington Post sterilizes the exploits of current Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton—a former first lady—they simultaneously besmirch the stellar reputation of recently deceased Nancy Reagan, 94. Indeed, who is criticized by them, the woman with the well known reputation as a “liar” (under potentially 3 federal indictments for influence-peddling and corruption) or the person instrumental both to the personal happiness of beloved conservative icon Ronald Reagan, and a pivotal, but indirect reason for the success of his presidency?

In a typical classless move of smearing the voiceless dead for the political expediency of criticizing Republicans, the Post disregards the ancient wisdom in the Latin phrase De mortuis nihil nisi bonum: “of the dead [say] nothing but good.” Given perfect 20/20 hindsight, hatchet man “reporter” Dan Zak infers a fictitious deficiency of character in Mrs. Reagan while his employing newspaper summarily ignores the shrieking 300 pound gorilla throwing Samsonite luggage: the mountainous political baggage of Hillary Clinton's real life scandals.

What was Mrs. Reagan's “wrongdoing?” Per scribbler Zak, she was not an “outspoken advocate” for AIDS and HIV prevention in the 1980s. (This also-ran criticism was similarly used against her highly popular husband for divisive political reasons.) Despite the fact that this was a tumultuous time (when little was medically understood regarding this disease or its transmission), AIDS research funding exploded in the '80s. In 1983, Margaret Heckler, Mr. Reagan's secretary of Health and Human Services, had the foresight to declare AIDS her department's “number one priority.” Meanwhile, as the MSM hit the panic button (and not incidentally blamed the president for his and Nancy's “silence”) committed resources virtually doubled each year from 44 million in 1983 to $1.6 billion in 1988. Unfortunately, an effective preventative treatment was decades in the future, but all of these substantial, seedling efforts are irrelevant to Mr. Zak's unfair and misleading characterization of Mrs. Reagan, who is like her husband—by all legitimate accounts—a great American.

As first ladies are traditionally wont to do, her use of the visibility of the Reagan name was a straight forward “Just Say No” prevention campaign against illicit drug usage. Perfectly sensible advice, easy for the young and impetuous to understand: if one doesn't use drugs one avoids the inherent risks of addiction, unstable mood swings, serious health problems and financial hardship. A legitimate issue, once again, paradoxically more relevant today than the medical scourge that is now treatable HIV. (Compare that good fortune to today's travesty, America's penal system. It is chock-full of Joe Biden's legislative 3rd strike drug offenders. Per the Federal Bureau of Prisons, almost half or 48.7 percent are in prison for life for drug offenses versus 2.9 percent for homicide, aggravated assault and kidnapping; and 7 percent for sex offenses.)

This actuality makes Mrs. Reagan a bit of a visionary rather than Mr. Zak's manicured, elitist caricature of 'glistening hazel eyes, hair a perfectly feathery helmet, ears pinned with gold.' Couple that with his clinical description of her so-called “frosty” personality: 'And Nancy — what of Nancy? She was steel. She was cashmere. She was cold. She was class. And after a couple years of bad press, she was in need of a cause.' All of this rubbish implies a ruthless perfectionism, a person removed from the woes of average citizens, someone his spurious piece further claims “did not do enough.” As usual, the Post's “coverage” has everything simultaneously upside down, backwards and inside out.

For objective context, let us revisit 1982, something that is apparently beyond self-depreciating Dan Zak's journalistic powers. Historically, HIV had been misidentified as a “gay cancer”—thought to be a plague—and labeled with a different acronym GRID (“Gay Related Immune Deficiency”). Specifically, when infected actor Rock Hudson kissed “Dynasty's” Linda Evans, it caused a public uproar—and a wrongheaded fear that the actress might have been exposed. (Thankfully, HIV is not transmitted via saliva exchange, but that fact, like many others, was far from a medical certainty then.) To make matters worse, this issue was further veiled by private sexual behavior. Therefore, realistically given these fact-based dynamics—and the innate lack of clarity—what precisely does this leftist sycophant think the Reagans should have said or done differently? My point: his heavily biased retrospective is a completely subjective “what if” judgment. Therefore, any rear view 21^st century condemnation is unworthy fodder when equating Mrs. Reagan's legacy. A pox on Dan Zak's reputation for defaming a defenseless great lady.

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