Batshit Crazy Progressive Hypocrites

Far-left policies on policing, education, and taxation are pushing Los Angeles, Chicago, and others to the brink.

Rick Cole has spent several decades running cities, both as an elected official and as a planner. He has worked in suburban Azusa, California, and progressive-dominated Santa Monica and currently sits on the Pasadena City Council. Yet as he looks out at the urban future, he feels despair—most particularly, about the city of Los Angeles, where he recently departed as deputy mayor and chief deputy controller.

I remain deeply committed to the principles I believed once defined the progressive Left — reason, empiricism, tolerance, and the defence of human dignity.

Yet the movement that once championed open inquiry, free speech, and honest debate has hardened into an unforgiving orthodoxy, driven less by ideas than by attitude. The Left I admired for its skepticism and intellectual courage has shifted into a culture of moral certitude and censoriousness. Like many, I find myself repeating the familiar refrain: I didn’t leave the Left; the Left left me. What happened?

IN THE last two years we have been told, very clearly, that there are only two conflicts in the world that progressives and leftists (and most of the Western governments that follow their lead) care about.

Media and government attention, and leftist sympathy, has been overwhelmingly focused on the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas wars, seeing both in startlingly rigid moral terms.

After Congress defunded ‘public’ radio and television, liberal nonprofits are scrambling to fund them. But they’re not scrambling very hard. The Knight Foundation, with assets of $2.6 billion and which hands out over $100 million annually, is ponying up a mere $10 million.

Paula Kerger, the president of PBS, alone earns $1.1 million. 5 other PBS execs make over half a million dollars. The Senior Vice President of DEI earns nearly $400,000. That $10 million would hardly even begin to cover the insanely inflated salaries of ‘public’ media executives.

It’s been a rough few years for deranged left-wing hacks masquerading as “mainstream” or even “relatively sane liberal” journalists. In an effort to recapture a modicum of respectability, failing media outlets such as CNN and MSNBC have sought to purge their ranks of mindless partisans who seem incapable of forming an original thought that doesn’t involve Donald Trump and the word “fascist.” Time will tell if cutting these freaks loose will be enough to save these floundering companies, but in the meantime, the fired journalists keep reminding us why they never deserved our respect.

A juicy controversy is causing a stir in the very chic and exclusive sixth arrondissement of Paris. Just a stone’s throw from the Palais du Luxembourg, some of the most expensive apartments in Paris are being snapped up. A small world of artists, writers and actors live there—protective of their quality of life, of being able to breathe in the delicious aroma of freshly roasted coffee served on the terraces and hear the birds chirping in the distance from one of the capital’s most elegant parks. For them, nothing should disturb this fragile and delicate ecosystem, which was honoured in Emily in Paris. That’s why the news of a new mini-mart opening at the intersection of Rue Vavin and Rue Bréa has caused a local panic, almost similar to the one that must have shaken the ancient city when the Vikings arrived on the banks of the Seine one fine day in November 885.

Last month, the Department of the Navy officially renamed the USNS Harvey Milk—a much-needed course correction that finally put an end to the disgraceful decision to honor a known sexual predator.