Is crime so bad the Post Office is no longer safe?

I work as an instructor for a few companies, none of which reside in my local area. Whenever I finish a teaching gig, the company I taught for pays me, sometimes electronically, sometimes with a check. So naturally I was curious when I saw this headline the other day:

Now, reading a bit further (because I don’t trust any headline, and you shouldn’t either), I realized its NOT the Postal Service saying this, its instead a member of the Better Business Bureau. That person had good reason to say this, because she noted that check fraud jumped from 300,000 incidents to 680,000 incidents in 2021, despite Americans writing less checks every year.

*From: https://goodmorningwilton.com/break-in-reported-at-wilton-post-office-outside-mail-box/*

The issue doesn’t seem to be with residential mailboxes, but rather with the large, outdoor blue post boxes. Post boxes are being broken into at an alarming rate. In some cases, the criminals rob the postal worker to get the key to open the blue boxes. In other cases, they simple beat the boxes open with some blunt instrument. Once they get the checks, it’s not hard to erase the amount with a chemical solution and re-write the check for significantly more than was originally intended.

Checks are probably one of the few items to still be regularly mailed, and the post office was quick to note that its still safe (in their words) to mail checks:

“The Postal Service delivers about 130 billion pieces of mail over a year to 163 million customers,” said Paul Shade with the U.S.P.S. “It still remains the most secure way to transmit anything from any type of mailing.”
Paul Shade, USPS

The Post Office also noted it was installing high security boxes that are more difficult to break into.

There is a trend in the statistics. Going city by city, each “bubble” lists the incidents and arrests. Take a look at California:

Los Angeles: 54 incidents, 1 arrest
Oakland: 51 incidents, 4 arrests
San Francisco: 20 incidents, 2 arrests

And at Texas:

Houston: 97 incidents, 12 arrests
Dallas: 25 incidents, 2 arrests

Vs. Florida:

Miami: 15 incidents, 7 arrests
Tampa: 3 incidents, 3 arrests

Although I didn’t have full access to the data to calculate an arrest to incident ratio, I suspect that California would come out on the losing end of that calculation. Florida’s numbers are significantly lower than expected, and I’d reason its the fact that they make arrests and actually prosecute crimes. If you knew you could simply steal a bag of mail, cash a bunch of washed checks and face little to no chance of repercussion, well, why wouldn’t you?

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Is America resembling the French Revolution?

On a recent visit to Colonial Williamsburg, I had the good fortune to listen to a speech by a Marquis de Lafayette re-enactor. He was good. He was really, really good. After his speech I chatted with him, and he recommended reading the book Lafayette by Harlow Unger. So I grabbed it off Audible and over the past two weeks it has entertained me on my drive to work.

If you need a book to read or listen to, get this one. Unger does a great job of being historically accurate while remaining interesting. He highlights not just the events that happened, but the personal relationships and how they influenced history. While I knew about Lafayette from my time studying the Battle of Yorktown, I did not know about how pivotal his financial contributions to the Revolutionary War were, nor how important he was to opening French markets to America after the war.

But perhaps the most stunning portions of the book relate to the French Revolution. Unger does not mince words describing how Lafayette blundered trying to replicate the liberty and ideas from the American Constitution into France. At multiple times, Lafayette turned down opportunities to lead his country in establishing a constitutional monarchy or a republic, which eventually fell into the hands of terrible men like Robespierre and Danton, whose bloodlust plunged France into terribly bloody revolution that likely killed over 1 million citizens and 2.5 million military in the ensuing wars. Random people were pulled off the street, beheaded and then had their heads displayed on pikes. Unger’s direct quotes from a multitude of direct sources, many of them Americans such as Thomas Jefferson. None mince words describing the horror of mob rule. While Lafayette himself would escape execution, France was never the same again.

The chapters that describe the fall of France’s government were telling in that they had many parallels to modern-day America. The gradual descent into lawlessness, while good men either sat idly by or refused to take action, seems eerily reminiscent of the descent of many large American cities into chaos following BLM-related riots. The takeover of the government by the Jacobins, who seemed to lust only for more blood and power, resembles so many statements from prominent lawmakers, whether its to strike down white women from positions of authority, kill Trump supporters, or call people a threat to democracy. In French Revolution fashion, its even OK for people to display a severed head of a politician. I’m just surprised it wasn’t placed on a pike.

Anyone clamoring for revolution should read about the horrors of the French Revolution, and how multiple missed opportunities for a peaceful removal of the King resulted in massive violence that plunged France into darkness. Anyone who thinks they will run the mob should read about how Robespierre and Danton both faced the very guillotine that they used to execute thousands of their own countrymen. Anyone that thinks we should strive for this style of revolution is a madman.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Winsome Sears is my President

During the Virginia election, I had the pleasure of attending a veteran’s event where then-candidates Glenn Youngkin, Jason Miyares and Winsome Sears spoke. Youngkin was the typical, polished politician that one would expect, and his speech was as expected. Miyares, who I didn’t know a lot about, surprised me a bit by talking about his background, how his mom fled from Cuba to ensure a better life for her family. But by far the best speaker was Winsome Sears, a former Marine Corporal whose background and accomplishments would make a better story than 99% of the documentaries on Netflix.

Don’t take my word for it though…

Her speech at the veteran’s event got her a standing ovation, tons of laughs and the loudest applause out of the bunch. Since then, she hasn’t stopped, and she’s right on all the issues that matter.

She opposes CRT, but wants better education to lift more people up:

She has a moderate view on abortion. While it would be better to oppose abortion completely, I’ll take this over the euthanasia being allowed now:

The one view I think is very important is on prisons. The local TV station interviewed her after the campaign visiting a prison. The reporter asked why she was here, and she responded that prisoners “…are still my constituents, and I represent them as well as other Virginians.” This is a huge, underappreciated position that most Republicans are missing. Yes, its important to jail criminals, but what happens after they serve their sentence? If they have no way of righting wrongs and re-integrating with society, then they will simply return to a life of crime.

(I wish I could find this video, although I’m guessing Google black-holed it somewhere)

We saw this in Iraq after the invasion. Paul Bremer lead the effort to disband the Iraqi military and basically made it impossible to hire former Iraqi military members for any projects. All around Iraq, millions of dollars in investments were going to anyone, even foreigners, but not to any former Baath party members, even if the majority of them had joined simply because they had to and were happy to disavow any allegiance to Saddam Hussein. Not surprisingly, when different extremist groups came around and offered these former fighters pay so that they could feed their families, they signed up in droves, and we essentially created the next generation of terrorists.

After the most recent shooting in Richmond, Sears called for prosecuting criminals and actively going after gang activity, rather than grabbing guns.

(YouTube won’t let me embed the video, you’ll have to follow the link).

So yeah, Winsome Sears is my President. Maybe she can be the running mate for whomever wins the Republican nomination?

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Youngkin is actually being a governor, and its awesome!

While Glenn Youngkin was running for governor, there were more than a few skeptics that said he was going to be super-squishy on a lot of issues. That was not an unfair criticism, given how poorly so many Republican politicians turned out to be on issues of real importance. Thankfully, Youngkin has turned out to be pretty darn good.

*Governor Glenn Youngkin Waves at Crowd at ITAC (Industrial Turnaround Corporation), May 31, 2023. Official Photo by Christian Martinez, Office of Governor Glenn Youngkin.*

Yesterday his efforts finally hit the news when he removed the bachelor degree requirements for nearly 90 percent of state jobs. That’s a big deal. Bloated job requirements are a nuisance and make it difficult to hire and fill positions. Most of these positions are better served by someone with a credential instead of a degree. It’s also important to note that our higher education system tends to lean Democrat, so this should make it easier for Republicans that chose to not subject themselves to 4 years of Democrat indoctrination to obtain meaningful employment.

Sadly, more than a few trolls at Instapundit are simply saying this will make it easier to insert particular demographics into government. I seriously doubt it. Combined with his assault on DIE institutions and rules, this should open up jobs to constituents everywhere, and this move in particular was viewed favorably by a few Democrat lawmakers.

It doesn’t end there though, because Youngkin is addressing hundreds of individual issues. He passed legislation making it easier to adopt children. If you recall, that’s an area where losers in the system make it hard for good couples to adopt by making them jump through hoops that normal parents would never be subjected to. It’s a real issue I’ve discussed before, so its nice to see the governor care enough to work to fix it.

On top of that, Youngkin has signed good budgets, mental health initiatives, and credentialing plans to make it easier for people to transfer credentials into the state without additional testing. These don’t tend to make the news, but for the average Virginian, they are issues that affect them every day, so they make a difference.

I’m glad he’s doing this. We’ve had a fair share of Republicans that run on big issues like abortion and Second Amendment, but then ignore the normal day-to-day issues that aren’t big news. While its great to say you “fought the woke mob,” at the end of the day, I also want my day-to-day issues to get better. Passing sound budgets and making Virginia a state desirable to live and work in affects my family directly. Hopefully with more success we’ll have other Republicans wake up and take similar efforts in their states.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.