The Patriot Post® · The Calamity of California

A pack of dogs bit a man in suburban Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon.

And by that we mean: A group of up to 50 masked punks hoods thieves organized criminals set upon a Nordstrom clothing store at the Westfield Topanga Mall in Woodland Hills, making off with huge haul of luxury handbags and high-end clothing, according to the LAPD.

As NBC News reports, the mobsters were armed with bear spray — which is great for neutralizing security guards and managers and other nuisances — and they smashed and grabbed and made off with around $300,000 worth of ill-gotten gain.

“People were very scared,” said one shaken shopper. “They were running as if there was an active shooter.”

The local news affiliate reports that Topanga-area law enforcement was on the scene quickly and has “several investigative leads.” The LAPD promises to find those involved, but that might be hard to do given that most of them were covered in black from head to toe. And even if the cops do find them, what next? California hasn’t exactly been throwing the book at these predators, who appear to be organized in affiliation with gangs and Mexican cartels.

Former U.S. Congresswoman and current soft-on-crime LA Mayor Karen Bass called the robbery — wait for it! — “absolutely unacceptable.”

Bass continued: “Those who committed these acts and acts like it in neighboring areas must be held accountable. The Los Angeles Police Department will continue to work to not only find those responsible for this incident but to prevent these attacks on retailers from happening in the future.”

Uh-huh. Sadly, this sort of lawlessness is becoming commonplace across the once-Golden State — as common as a dog biting a man. We wonder: Do Democrats view shoplifting as reparations by other means?

We also wonder: How many more security guards have to get hit by bear spray before Newsom and his failed state of California start to take this sort of thing seriously? And how many more Nordstroms have to get ravaged before the company takes its business out of these blue-state hellholes and relocates in the more law-abiding territory of the red states?

The second part of that question was partially answered back in May when Nordstrom announced that it was closing both of its downtown San Francisco stores.

Ah, San Francisco, a.k.a. San Fransicko. The city by the bay. Pelosiville. The city that burns while Mayor London Breed fiddles. The city whose government employees at the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building were told recently by the Health and Human Services assistant secretary to work from home due to the rampant crime in the area around their workplace.

And, we might add, the city that not too long ago was governed by the same Brylcreemy Gavin Newsom who now wants to do for all of America what he’s done for California. No thanks.

Of course, we can simply steer clear of California. Many families and businesses, though, are stuck there.

One such business, Gump’s in downtown San Francisco, for example, has seen the city descend into dystopia in recent years, and it prompted an open letter in the form of a full-page ad to Governor Newsom, Mayor Breed, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors — a letter that reads, in part:

Gump’s has been a San Francisco icon for more than 165 years. Today, as we prepare for our 166th holiday season at 250 Post Street, we fear this may be our last because of the profound erosion of this city’s current conditions. … San Francisco now suffers from a ‘tyranny of the minority’ — behavior and actions of the few that jeopardize the livelihood of the many. The ramifications of COVID policies advising people to abandon their offices are only beginning to be understood. Equally devastating have been a litany of destructive San Francisco strategies, including allowing the homeless to occupy our sidewalks, to openly distribute and use illegal drugs, to harass the public and to defile the city’s streets.

That “tyranny of the minority” remark is particularly pungent, because it embodies much of how the Democrats govern — whether in our cities, or over our military, or in our universities, or in our girls’ locker rooms.

Just as San Francisco is a canary in the coal mine for California, so too is California a canary for all of the United States. We ignore this warning at our peril.