NICK KRISTOF GETS A HINT OF A CLUE: Lessons for America From a Weird Portland: Soaring rhetoric about justice is fine. But what matters more is keeping people safe and picking up the garbage.

The “soaring rhetoric” is just a cover for the fact that they aren’t actually capable of doing their actual jobs. When you hear a mayor engaging in soaring rhetoric, potholes and homeless villages are on the way.

Plus:

The local slogan is “Keep Portland Weird,” but businesses boarded up to protect against rioters suggest not weirdness but melancholy. A beautiful elk statue that had presided in a park for 120 years had to be removed after its base was vandalized by protesters. Activists have defied the law and taken over a building known as the Red House, frightening neighbors.

Underscoring the concern for law and order, this year Portland is on track to reach 100 homicides, far exceeding the record of 70 set in 1987.

Life in the Blue Zones.

Related: The Racism-Free Utopia Is Rural MAGA Land. “Keep in mind that I think ‘hate crimes’ are mostly bunk. But clearly, such crimes are far more prevalent in SJW hotbeds like Seattle and Portland than they are in rural America.”