Debbi: “Duke, let’s go do some crimes.”
Duke: “Yeah. Let’s go get sushi… and not pay.”
—from Alex Cox’s “Repo Man.”
Let’s have a little fun this week and talk about petty crime — before getting to the high-level criminals who loot countries instead of convenience stores.
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“Repo Man” is probably the funniest look at L.A.’s seedy underbelly — at least until “Pulp Fiction” in the ’90s — and somehow also the truest since Robert Towne and Roman Polanski gave us “Chinatown” in 1974. That’s no easy feat for an absurdist dark comedy about skanky repo men and secret government agents chasing after a Chevy Malibu with an alien in the trunk.
Stick a pin in “Chinatown” for now. I’ll take you back there momentarily.
Aimless losers like Duke and Debbi will always be around, drifting from one small-time crime to the next until they end up in jail or dead. And popular entertainment has always been happy to deliver audiences more than a little fun at their expense.
Maybe that’s because there’s a bit of a lawbreaker at the heart of each and every American, if hopefully only a little bit.
And Another Thing: Readers last year practically begged me to write more longform pieces, and I’ve been happy to oblige. There’s nothing more fun than taking a deep dive into a topic I hope you’ll find interesting, important, or at least amusing in its absurdity. These essays are made possible by — and are usually exclusive to — our VIP supporters. But I’m having so much fun this week that I begged my managing editor to keep it outside the paywall. If you’d like to join us and never miss another one, please take advantage of our 60% off FIGHT promotion.
The first time I saw video of what looked like 14,000 Japanese pedestrians waiting for the crosswalk light before crossing the street — without a single car in sight — I thought, “Why are these people just standing there?” To this American’s eyes, the Japanese near-obsession with law and order looked comical. “C’mon, it’s just a little jaywalking and it’s totally safe.”
In New York, San Francisco, or my hometown of St. Louis (back when there were still some people left in the city), the crowd might not even check twice for cars before making their way across.
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And yet it was the Japanese who came up with the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Go figure.
I’m reasonably certain the Founders didn’t include the right to “cheat just a little on your taxes” in the Constitution because they didn’t want to make it seem uncool.
From high-level crimes like taking up arms against King George III in 1775 to Jesse James in the aftermath of the Civil War to fraudster-turned-congressman George Santos right now, a little lawbreaking — both high and low — seems to be baked into the American soul.
And that’s OK. Mostly. The Founders broke the law to advance the cause of liberty, but if Santos ever advanced a cause greater than himself, I’ve never heard of it.
It didn’t take long for Hollywood to discover Americans love a good heist — or even a bad one.
The original movie version of “The Great Train Robbery” was a silent short way back in 1903. But nothing beats Sean Connery deadpanning “Find me a dead cat” to a baffled Donald Sutherland in Michael Crichton’s 1978 remake, a fictionalized telling of a real-life 1855 heist. It’s the strangest — and funniest — part of his master plan for the first-ever robbery from a moving train.
The first mobster movie — D.W. Griffith’s “The Musketeers of Pig Alley” — came out in 1913, and Americans still line up to watch them more than a century later. Sometimes our mobsters go out in a blaze of glory and bullets, like James Cagney in “White Heat.” Other times, they end up with minions kissing their ring, like Al Pacino in “The Godfather.”
Either way, audiences hardly seem to care, just as long as we get our vicarious thrills.
My favorite “popcorn” author, Elmore Leonard, made a career writing about lowlifes. His favorite band — and mine — was Steely Dan, who set cynical tales of drunks, dealers, and degenerates to highly polished jazz-rock grooves. But Donald Fagen and Walter Becker hardly invented the genre. Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” anyone?
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Cash had such big brass ones that he sang, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” to cheering crowds of convicts, with the prison guards looking on.
America’s love for outlaws has never been limited to the big screen.
And Another Thing: While we’re discussing movies and criminals, there are people in Missouri who still revere the memory of Jesse James. Brad Pitt — raised in Missouri — was the driving force behind getting Ron Hansen’s novel, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” made into a film in 2007. It’s a stunning movie and was a labor of love for Pitt, which is a huge tell. Not so much about him but about us.
In the ’90s, “The Sopranos” redefined and elevated our expectations for what TV drama could do. James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano was an irredeemable murdering narcissist, and audiences couldn’t get enough of him or either of his families, nuclear and mobster. “The Sopranos” took viewers to darker places than TV had previously dared, and that was part of the thrill. Gandolfini’s rare ability to show both Tony’s brutishness and vulnerability gave us permission to enjoy it.
Besides, Tony was never much more than a nouveau riche street thug. He was Hollywood’s next step up from Henry Hill in “Goodfellas,” flatly confessing in the opening line, “As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster.”
“Chinatown,” like “The Godfather, Part II,” which also came out in 1974, was one of those rare Hollywood movies that explored high-level corruption in a grown-up, dramatically affecting way. During what starts as a typical “find out what my husband is up to” investigation, L.A. private detective Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) soon finds himself at the center of a conspiracy involving the city’s water supply, shady land deals, and powerful political forces.
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“Chinatown” gave us the rare Hollywood crime story where evil wins — not with a bang, but with a shrug. When Gittes loses everything and Joe Mantell mutters, “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown,” it lands like prophecy: The sinister forces manipulating Los Angeles will continue doing as they please.
Because in the real world, the sinister forces aren’t in Chinatown — they’re in Washington, Wall Street, and Sacramento. Their goal is to undo the results of the 2024 presidential election and impose their preferred policies, even at the cost of destroying whatever is left of trust in our social and political institutions.
Diverting L.A.’s water for personal gain, like in “Chinatown”? That’s child’s play compared to what today’s progressives can pull off in plain sight.
Today’s corruptocrats don’t hide in smoke-filled rooms. They have street-level minions in L.A. and social media influencers coordinated almost to the point of choreography. If you missed it earlier today on Instapundit, this Collin Rugg post tells the left’s whole social media story.
REPORT: There appears to be a coordinated messaging campaign spreading throughout TikTok where large creators have released nearly identical statements on the ICE raids.
Many large creators are releasing extremely similar statements where they shame other creators for not… pic.twitter.com/eMN7KUm0Sb
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 12, 2025
“If they’re not getting paid,” Rugg added later, “this is incredibly embarrassing because they’re all just copying what they heard online.”
“The left can’t meme,” we righties rightly boast. But I’m here to tell you that they’re the world’s best at manufacturing social contagions.
Those social contagions — the brain-rot behind “Trump is Hitler” and “Illegals have a right to be here” — have real-world consequences. Julie Kelly wrote today about James Boasberg, the D.C. judge who’s made himself a one-man wrecking crew of institutional trust.
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“Boasberg lit the match on March 15 during a series of hasty proceedings to advance the first lawsuit against the president’s Alien Enemies Act (AEA),” Kelly wrote, and the next day — a Saturday — by judicial fiat he “immediately banned the deportation of anyone covered by the AEA.”
Even though the Supreme Court reversed Boasberg’s reckless decisions—and later put a lid on his contempt investigation—the die had been cast. Not only did the media rush to portray the illegal gang bangers as victims (again) of a cruel Trump administration, the false narrative that the White House was defying court orders quickly took root.
Kelly also noted that Boasberg’s “baseless attacks on the Trump administration were not lost on his colleagues. Like good little robed soldiers in a fight against their own countrymen, several judges followed suit.”
If there’s a more vile kind of corruption than veiling it behind a judge’s robes, I don’t want to know what it is.
I used to think that corruption, left unchecked, was the worst kind of crime — setting aside treason, which is so narrowly defined in this country that it gets a special mention in the Constitution. Corruption doesn’t just steal, it eats away at public trust, at the foundations of civil society.
I’d let off a hundred Dukes and Debbies for dining and dashing if it meant sending just one corrupt politician or billionaire to prison for life. Examples must be made.
And what about the riots now hitting Los Angeles and other major cities?
Other PJ Media writers have already reported on the tangled web of Deep State agencies, NGOs, and billionaires making these riots — this insurrection, this usurpation — possible.
Now there’s this: “California Democratic Party Faces Scrutiny Over Brick Purchase Amidst LA Protests.”
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Ever wonder where the thugs on that overpass got the bricks they used to smash cars and maybe a skull or two? They’re courtesy of California Democrats:
A recent review of the California Democratic Party’s May 2025 expense report has uncovered a significant and controversial expenditure: the purchase of 200 pallets of construction-grade bricks. Notably, this acquisition lacks any associated construction plans or public documentation, raising questions about its intended use. The absence of a clear purpose for such a substantial purchase has prompted calls for transparency and accountability from both political opponents and watchdog organizations.
“Without detailed documentation or a clear plan,” the story continued, “the justification for such a significant expenditure remains unconvincing to many.”
Ya think?
A political party aiding and abetting political violence. Elected officials doing the same. Taxpayer dollars funding the NGOs that mobilize the street thugs. All in service of a city and a state acting in defiance of the federal government performing its constitutional duty to enforce the laws of the land.
Is this corruption taken to a new extreme? Are we witness to some new species of treason — or just a particularly sleazy insurrection?
Stopping the rioters is a necessity. But rolling up the high-level criminals and organizations who fund, supply, and direct the riots could prove to be the most important thing Trump 47 could hope to accomplish — provided he has the wherewithal to follow through. Every Swamp creature probably whispers in Trump’s ear, “Forget it, Don. It’s Chinatown.” But unlike Jake, he can’t just walk away.
Let’s finish where we started with “Repo Man.”
It’s OK to laugh at Duke and Debbie because, despite imagining themselves as budding criminal masterminds, the only people they ever really hurt are themselves. They’re pratfalls with pretensions.
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Duke, to no one’s surprise, got himself shot and killed robbing a convenience store near the end of the movie. Dying in the arms of the movie’s protagonist, Otto, even his last words are lame: “I know a life of crime has led me to this sorry fate, and yet, I blame society. Society made me what I am.”
“That’s bulls***,” Otto replied. “You’re a white suburban punk just like me.”
“Yeah, but it still hurts.” [dies]
Being stupid is supposed to hurt, otherwise everybody would probably stay that way. Some never learn and end up as a Florida Man Friday item — or worse. Today, it’s the smart guys in suits who need to feel the pain.
Last Thursday: From the Maxim Gun to the Maxim AI
