A state Attorney General is supposed to enforce the law impartially for the benefit of all citizens. However, New York’s AG, Letitia James, ran on an inherently political platform, vowing that she would destroy President Trump—and she’s tried to keep that promise. No wonder, then, that when she spoke at a Fire Department of New York (“FDNY”) promotion ceremony on Thursday, she got a political response from the assembled crowd: Boos. Now, the FDNY has gone full North Korean: Those who booed must turn themselves in for punishment and reeducation or be “hunted down.”

Part One of this saga is Letitia James’s 2018 campaign promise to destroy Donald Trump:

I believe that this president is incompetent. I believe that this president is ill-equipped to serve in the highest office of this land. And I believe that he is an embarrassment to all that we stand for. He should be charged with obstructing justice. I believe that the president of these United States can be indicted for criminal offenses and we would join with law enforcement and other attorneys general across this nation in removing this president from office.

Part Two is James’s (so far) successful lawsuit against Donald Trump. In it, she alleged that Trump lied to banks by giving Mar-a-Lago’s market value (among other things), even though the banks, per ordinary business practices, did not rely on Trump’s alleged misrepresentations, profited from his business, and hope to do business with him again.

Parts One and Parts Two show that James makes no pretense of being an impartial law enforcement officer for the state of New York. She is, instead, a hyper-partisan political activist.

So, when she showed up on Thursday at an FDNY promotion ceremony, many in the audience, dismayed by her political activities, welcomed her with a political response:

New York Attorney General Letitia James was met with a chorus of boos and chants of “Trump” while delivering a speech at an FDNY promotion ceremony Thursday.

As James walked onto the podium at the Christian Cultural Center’s Brooklyn Campus, members of the crowd — made up of the families of captains, battalion chiefs and civilians who were up for promotion, as well as the firemen who work beside them — began to jeer, video shows.

[snip]

As James continued her speech, the booing swiftly turned to chants in support of former President Donald Trump.

“Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump,” the crowd bellowed.

Did Letitia deserve to get booed?

AG Letitia James gets booed at ceremony for fire fighters! pic.twitter.com/qmCF8Sa6hy

— The Silent Majority (@siIentmajority) March 10, 2024

In a healthy, free society, the commissioner might send around a memo reminding the firefighters that they should behave with grace at a promotion ceremony out of respect for those being promoted.

However, neither New York State nor New York City is a free society anymore. Instead, the FDNY commissioner announced that the malfeasors must turn themselves in for punishment and reeducation or be hunted down (emphasis mine):

FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh is hunting down smoke-eaters and other staffers who mercilessly booed New York Attorney General Letitia James – and cheered in support of Donald Trump – during a department promotion ceremony this week, The Post has learned.

FDNY Chief of Department John Hodges fired off an email to other agency honchos warning a reckoning led by the department’s Bureau of Investigation and Trials was coming over the chorus of boos and chants of “Trump” that James received at Thursday’s event. 

“BITS is investigating this, so they will figure out who the members are,” Hodges wrote FDNY chiefs Saturday in the letter obtained by The Post.

“I recommend they come forward. I have been told by the commissioner it will be better for them if they come forward and we don’t have to hunt them down,” he continued. 

Once in the department’s clutches, the people who dared make a political protest against a political figure will “be educated why their behavior is unacceptable.” You and I both know that this response would not have occurred if city workers had booed an enemy of the Democrat party.

The same article quotes Alan Dershowitz:

“Firefighters have an absolute constitutional right to boo the attorney general, and the government has no power to punish them for it,” Dershowitz told The Post. “So efforts to get the names of the booers is an effort by the government to chill free speech and is unconstitutional.” 

In 1994, when Kim Il Sung died, and again in 2011, when Kim Jong Il died, Westerners were mesmerized by footage of the extremes of grief that North Korea’s citizens showed during the televised funerals.

Everyone understood that these paroxysms went far beyond the cries of people brainwashed into viewing a politician as something akin to a god. For example, in Thailand, when the monarch died, he was viewed as a god, and the people mourned greatly, but there was no hysteria.

The North Korean displays came from a people aware that the secret police were watching them. Anyone displaying insufficient grief was buying a one-way ticket to the regime’s vast network of concentration camps.

Our miraculous Constitution has meaning only if those with political power respect the limits it places on that power. Wherever Democrats control law enforcement, that respect vanishes.

We have a steadily shrinking window of time within which to elect to office people who still believe that each individual has inherent rights—including the right to speech and protest—with which the government cannot interfere. If we don’t vote in overwhelming numbers, what happened in New York will soon be the norm across America.

Image: Letitia James gets booed (edited). YouTube screen grab.