The latest edition of The Spectator is out, and here’s the lead editorial:
Muriel Bowser is a woman with a plan. In late February the mayor of the District of Columbia unveiled a $400 million, five-year economic development strategy to revitalize the capital’s downtown. It involves converting empty office space into residential units and rebranding parts of the neighborhood. Soon, visitors to Washington will be able to watch homeless addicts shoot up in “Historic Green Triangle” and get their phones stolen by moped-riding teenagers in the “Penn West Equity, Innovation & University District.”
Bowser has drafted these desperate measures in a belated response to the desperate times. As the forty-two-page report concedes early on, “once a bustling employment center, Downtown DC has faced an outflow of office workers in response to remote and telework trends.” Doubtless the pandemic and resulting rise of remote work have played a role in the deterioration. Government employees have been particularly reluctant to return to the office five days a week — and given that they’d have to spend eight hours a day with other government employees, it’s hard to blame them. The knock-on effect is that the consultants and lobbyists hoping to influence or cajole the government don’t feel the need to return to the office either. Countless business meetings and happy hours have been reduced to Zoom calls and emails.
But there’s a more significant reason why DC workers don’t want to go downtown — and the word merits just a single mention in Bowser’s report: crime. Violent crime was up 39 percent last year in the city, with the murder rate rising to heights not seen since the mid-1990s. Why would you drive in to the office when your car could be hijacked in broad daylight by a perpetrator who won’t face consequences? Safer to stay in Virginia or Maryland.
It is deeply unfashionable in the left wing of the Democratic Party to acknowledge that urban crime has become a problem in the last four years — “public safety” is Bowser’s preferred phrase, and she’s ringfenced $31.5 million for it over the next five years. But if any of that money is intended for actually hiring more police officers, her report does not indicate it.
Life is rough for the few cops who still work for the Metropolitan Police Department — they have left the force by the hundreds, putting the department headcount at a half-century low. As Tim Rice writes on p.12, “Rather than cops deterring crime, cops are deterred by public scrutiny and do-nothing prosecutors.” No single figure is more responsible for the sense that crimes have no consequences than President Biden’s pick for the District’s US attorney, Matthew Graves. Graves’s prosecutorial philosophy is a radical one: he basically only does it if the violent crime occurred on January 6, 2021.
The Spectator was a Cassandra on the perils of progressive prosecutors in urban centers fifty-two issues ago, in December 2019. Back then, we didn’t know how good we had it. DC’s decline since is directly attributable to the do-nothingism of the likes of Graves — along with changes to police protocol, weaker sentencing guidelines for judges and underfunding for the parts of “public safety” that make progressives blanch… but actually keep the public safe.
Urban crime isn’t a simple left-versus-right issue; it’s more like a far-left versus everyone else issue. And of Democratic Party core voters, African Americans are among the more conservative: they want safe neighborhoods, gangs held in check and bright futures for their kids. If progressives know how the surge in crime from lax prosecutions leads to good outcomes for people in low-income areas, they haven’t bothered to articulate it.
SCOTUS to Weigh Covid Free Speech
How much can government pressure platforms to ignore free speech?
The Supreme Court will attempt Monday to resolve a three-way crash involving free-speech rights on huge social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and X.
The battle pits conservatives against the Biden administration, with the rights of tech giants to police their own platforms caught in the middle — and the outcome is likely to have repercussions at all levels of government where officials interact with those companies.
How the justices settle the fight could have a profound impact on the 2024 election, public health, national security — and the degree of freedom Americans have to express themselves online.
The result could also shape the future of the bully pulpit: the ability of presidents to use their powerful public megaphone in the digital age.
Samir Jain of the digital rights nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology said in an interview that the high court needs to strike a careful balance when it comes to the government’s interactions with platforms.
Jain urged the court to make clear that “there are legitimate reasons for the government to communicate with social media companies, but it needs to do so in a way that’s not coercive or improperly pressuring” those companies. He added that the court should allow for certain public health and national-security information sharing.
“The answer is not ‘no more communication from the government to social media companies,’” Jain said.
The suit the justices will take up Monday is led by GOP state attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana, spearheading a group of plaintiffs claiming top Biden officials, including the surgeon general and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pressured social media platforms to suppress or delete posts — mainly from conservatives — that opposed Covid-19 vaccine mandates, pushed false accounts of 2020 election fraud and circulated claims about about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
A federal district judge and the Fifth Circuit largely agreed with the red states that the efforts violated the First Amendment. Those courts imposed broad limits on interactions between federal officials and the social media giants.
The Biden administration appealed, saying public officials are free “to inform, to persuade and to criticize” social media platforms.
Federal government officials have also warned the justices that allowing lawsuits over contacts between the FBI and social media companies threatens to turn that major arena of modern American life into a kind of wild west because agents will refuse nearly all contact out of fear of being sued.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision in the case by late June, just months before the November elections — and any ruling restricting government communications with social media platforms could have dramatic impacts on the spread of misinformation on the platforms.
The Race to Remake ESPN
Six years into his tenure atop the world’s most storied sports-media company, the 54-year-old is racing to reinvent ESPN’s business and fend off the biggest threats it has faced in decades. That means stretching the company beyond its comfort zone.
Volatility in the media world forced Pitaro to pursue multiple streaming strategies at once, despite the risk of keeping a powerful league partner in the dark. He’s gambling that ESPN will build a big enough digital business to fill the financial hole being created as millions of Americans continue to cut the cable-TV cord.
Last year, Pitaro struck a deal to launch ESPN Bet, a gambling app that is a departure for the family-focused Disney, in a bid to draw in new audiences.
ESPN’s workplace has been volatile, too: The push for younger viewers led him to sign a huge deal with YouTube star Pat McAfee, an edgy, F-bomb-throwing host, that has backfired with some staff, leaving the impression he gives talent too much leeway.
ESPN’s cable business has shrunk to the point where it can no longer be the foundation for the future. Since 2011, the number of U.S. households paying for cable packages that include ESPN has fallen by about 29 million, reflecting a cable-TV industry collapse.
In its fiscal year ended Sept. 30—the first year Disney broke out ESPN’s financials—the division’s revenue was up 2% but profits fell 2%. In the past, ESPN had been the largest part of a media networks division whose profits steadily increased most years, making it the company’s most reliable financial engine, especially compared with the more volatile movie business.
Feature
Items of Interest
Foreign
Netanyahu condemns Schumer speech.
Markowicz: Let Israel defend themselves.
How Putin rigged the Russian elections.
Russians arrested for protesting Putin.
Why Penny Mordaunt isn’t the answer to Tory woes.
Washington must push for European strategic autonomy.
Domestic
How Biden-Obama rivalry explains his presidency.
Pro-Trump disruptions in Arizona creates problems for 2024.
Ohio is a battle between old GOP and Trump world.
Ken Buck’s early exit hurts Lauren Boebert.
Kathy Hochul’s futile subway ploy.
Once America’s hottest housing market, Austin is running in reverse.
Marriage rates are up, divorce rates are down.
Lawfare
McCarthy: Why Fani Willis disqualification loss is a big win for Trump.
Politico poll: Any conviction would hurt Trump.
2024
Trump considers return of Manafort.
Mike Pence says he can’t endorse Trump.
Biden privately angry at staff over election, polls.
RFK expected to name Nicole Shanahan VP.
Media
Morning Joe, Susan Glasser, and Michael Beschloss spin “bloodbath” falsehood.
Tech
The TikTok bill opposition makes for strange bedfellows.
According to Mike Gallagher, TikTok could be sold by November.
Will Reddit users be part of IPO?
Ephemera
Controversy shows Kate is the first internet princess.
More on the Justin Fields trade to Pittsburgh.
Takeaways from the first week of free agency.
Alex Garland’s Civil War receiving high praise.
How Joseph Epstein deals with scam callers.
Podcast
Quote
“There are no real personalities apart from God. Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most 'natural' men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been; how gloriously different are the saints.”
— C.S. Lewis