RUSH: Did you see what happened in Baltimore yesterday? Look at Cleveland. Cleveland police say 71 people arrested overnight in protest. This is dated May 24th. This is a couple days ago from Reuters. “Some 71 people were arrested in Cleveland overnight during protests that flared after a police officer was found not guilty in the shooting deaths of an unarmed black man and a woman following a high-speed car chase in 2012, police said on Sunday.

“Protests were mostly peaceful after the verdict was announced on Saturday, Police Chief Calvin Williams told a news conference. Later in the day, some people ‘crossed the line,’ assaulting bystanders in a downtown restaurant area, briefly blocking a major highway and disrupting business at a shopping center, he said.”

Now, Reuters and the AP and the rest of the Drive-Bys always make sure to mention race if a white cop kills unarmed blacks. But in this case the articles fail to mention the races of the protesters who assaulted the innocent bystanders. Try to guess why, folks. Videos of the assault show blacks attacking whites. But one of the things I think in Cleveland, the reason that this thing was quelled real fast is because the cops immediately began arresting people, and so the protest was brought under control in short order.

Now, that’s not happening in a lot of police departments across the country because of new DOJ guidelines. When the protesters kick up, the cops are told to back off and practically be invisible and let ’em get it out of their system because any show of force by the cops is gonna be provocative and it’s gonna make things worse. This is what the Regime preaches. This is what liberalism is teaching, is the cops are the problem, the cops are the reason there are protests. The cops’ presence during protests make the protests violent. But in Cleveland they went in, they started arresting people right off the bat and shut this thing down, pretty much. That, of course, is not being reported in that context, either.

Now, a New York Times story about Cleveland: “Cleveland has reached a settlement with the Justice Department over what federal authorities said was a pattern of unconstitutional policing and excessive use of force, people briefed on the case said Monday.”

Isn’t it amazing what is unconstitutional and what isn’t these days. But the bottom line here — let me read to from the bottom of the New York Times article. “For Cleveland, a settlement with the Justice Department averts a long and costly court fight and the appearance that city leaders are resisting change.”

So this is how they do it. The Justice Department takes steps to make the local cops look guilty and promises them relief by saying, “If you just sign on to what we want to do, we’ll make it look like you’re not resisting change,” and this is how the federal government is taking over police department after police department all over this country in major Democrat urban areas, but not alone, not exclusive to Democrat urban areas.

The danger here is that the Obama administration’s theory on policing is gonna lead to — look at Baltimore. You take the cops off the street under the premise that they’re the problem, you make them retreat. Whenever protests spring up, the cops have to back off and let ’em have at it for a while. You provoke ’em and they do even more damage. And the unspoken message is that it’s the police who are to blame, it’s the police department’s fault, and the DOJ has to go in and reconstitute these police departments and put restrictions on them that basically handcuffs them.

From The Daily Caller: “With 27 Shootings This Weekend, Baltimore Sees Its Most Violent Month This Century.” Now, that’s 15, 16 years, ’cause it’s a new century. But still, “Baltimore has seen 27 shootings and eight deaths so far over Memorial Day weekend, as the month of May promises to be the most violent the city has seen this century.”

Actually this article, when it was published, was soon to be out of date because the latest figures are now 28 shootings and nine homicides over the Memorial Day weekend, which brings the total of homicides for the month of May to at least 35. This is after fixing the Freddie Gray problem. This is after charging six cops with various degrees of murder and manslaughter. That was supposed to stop the riots. That was supposed to shut people down. That was supposed to tell ’em, “Okay, we’re on your side. We’ve heard you. This is no justice, no peace, well, we heard you. We’re doing it.”

And instead, the shootings, the deaths just continue at a record pace after the fix. And make no mistake. Charging six cops with various degrees of murder and manslaughter was a fix. It was supposed to quell the rights. Even Dershowitz understood this when he was talking about what a lousy job Mosby did, the DA there, state’s attorney there. This is clearly to quell the riots. I don’t think it was alone to quell the riots. I think there was also genuine animus for these cops, but regardless.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said: “It is disheartening that we are seeing such an increase in violence, especially when we think about the progress that weÂ’ve made. WeÂ’ve come too far to have this type of setback.

This isn’t a setback. Setback, what progress? This is how liberals talk. In the midst of a disaster you lament what this means for all the progress that you’ve made. What progress? There hasn’t been any, unless the progress means, “Yeah, we got our cops off the street. We got the biggest troublemakers. We got the biggest provocateurs. We got the agents off the street. And now our people know the streets are theirs and it’s safe.” Right, the streets are theirs and it’s safe to do what? This is like calling ISIS a setback. Setback?

“According to Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton crime in the city has reached levels not seen since 1999: 35 killed in May, 108 homicides for the year in Baltimore.” Deadliest month, May so far, since December 1999, and it’s not over yet.