Quick Takes (v70): Aren't We Doing Enough?

Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY-22) is my congressman.  He was not my preferred candidate, but as a constituent, I try and stay engaged.

 Today I received the latest edition of the newsletter, the Williams Weekly Wrap-up, which just happened to arrive on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, an occasion politicians are incapable of ignoring, regardless of whether they agree with - or practice - Dr. King's philosophy. Here's how Rep. Williams addressed it: 

MLK day is not a day for politicians, it's a day for pastors. We must speak the truth as he did.  "Then your light will appear like the dawn, and your recovery will come quickly. Your righteousness will go before you, and the Lord's glory will be your rear guard." Isaiah 58:8

A bit later in the Wrap-up, Williams wrote about a school in Brooklyn; take a look: 

James Madison High School in Brooklyn was closed down this Wednesday in order to house nearly 2,000 migrants who had previously been at Floyd Bennett Field. 

This short-notice disruption in the lives of American families and the education of American students was the result of numerous successive oversights, at multiple levels of government.

It's not clear if he's counting Congress as one of those "multiple levels of government," but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say no. His update continues: 

The ongoing migration crisis has been ignored for long enough that now, every state has become a border state, and every city has become a border city.

I joined members of the Education and Workforce Committee in writing to Mayor Adams in hopes that we can receive answers to questions of why a public school was chosen as the site to shelter migrants, whether there are currently any plans to use other public schools to this end, and what will be done moving forward to prepare these facilities to return to educational use.

You can read our letter in its entirety here.

Here's the opening of the letter, which was dated Thursday, January 11th:

We were alarmed to see recent news reports that a school in Brooklyn was closed and students sent home in order to shelter nearly 2,000 migrants. As you know, James Madison High School was ordered to close on Wednesday, January 10, because of the decision to house migrants from Floyd Bennett Field in the school’s gym. These students were forced into unplanned virtual learning, and it remains unclear how long the disruption will last (emphasis added) or whether there will be future disruptions. Furthermore, it appears this was a last-minute decision with little notice given to affected parents. 

The letter didn't miss the opportunity to call out that long-term remote learning isn't optimal - even though the Representatives had no idea how long the remote learning would continue. 

Now, here's my favorite part, with emphasis added: 

We find this school closure completely abhorrent. As we have made clear time and time again, schools should be used for educating students, not housing illegal aliens. It is grossly unfair to penalize school children for a problem not of their making, and it is entirely irresponsible to put illegal aliens over our own citizens... It is shameful that children enrolled in New York City’s public schools had their education interrupted because Democrats have shown so little interest in stopping illegal immigration. The nation’s children should come first, not those who break the law. 

Is your blood boiling yet? Your heart pounding with America First-ness? A "Yeah, screw them!" feeling? Those are the emotions the letter strives to inspire, so please, don't let them down.

It ended with questions for Mayor Adams, with a demand for answers within 14 days. Paraphrasing the letter, why pick a school to put the migrants in? Were they vetted first?  When were parents notified? How long will the school be closed? How is the school being prepared for students to return? Could this happen with other schools? If yes, how and when?

So, why were migrants housed at James Madison High School? The AP's Melissa Goldin fact-checked and posted her findings on the afternoon of January 12th. Here's what she found. 

In anticipation of a potentially damaging storm, nearly 2,000 migrants being housed in tents at an outdoor Brooklyn shelter were moved temporarily to a nearby high school in the borough’s Midwood neighborhood on Tuesday night. All of the migrants had left the school by early the next morning. Classes were held remotely on Wednesday and resumed in person on Thursday.

Per the article, "the migrants had all returned to Floyd Bennett Field by 4:27 a.m. on Wednesday, after winds had subsided." So, by the time the letter was drafted, the migrants, like Elvis, had already left the building.

I'm not a religious person, but that doesn't stop me from looking up verses when I see them, particularly when they're offered up by politicians. As I interpret Isaiah 58, the basic question is "Aren't we doing enough?" and the answer is, pretty much, "No - you're not,"  if you continue to oppress others, finger-point and speak ill of them, and deny them food and shelter. Here are verses 3-7 and 9-10, to add context to verse 8, the one Williams quoted.  

"Why have we fasted, but You have not seen? 

We have denied ourselves, but You haven't noticed!"

"Look, you do as you please on the day of your fast, 

and oppress all your workers.

You fast [with] contention and strife

to strike viciously with [your] fist. 

You cannot fast as [you do] today, [hoping] to

make your voice heard on high.

Will the fast I choose be like this: A day for a person to

deny himself, to bow his head like a reed, and to

spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast

and a day acceptable to the Lord?

Isn't the fast I choose: to break the chains of wickedness,

to untie the ropes of the yoke, 

to set the oppressed free,

and to tear off every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

to bring the poor and homeless into your house,

to clothe the naked when you see him,

and not to ignore your own flesh [and] blood?

Then your light will appear like the dawn, 

and your recovery will come quickly.

Your righteousness will go before you

and the Lord's glory will be your rear guard.

At that time, when you call, the Lord will answer;

when you cry out He will say: Here I am.

If you get rid of the yoke from those around you,

the finger-pointing and malicious speaking,

And if you offer yourself to the hungry,

and satisfy the afflicted one,

then your light will shine in the darkness,

and your night will be like noonday." 

I could be completely off base with my interpretation, but even if I am, would anyone really be proud to leave them out there, in that storm? 

And would one who was proud of that really be talking about Dr. King today?

In Case You Missed It (v108)

I did a little better getting posts out last week - I hit all four of the regular weekly features, which I haven't done in a while. Immigration - well, migration, I guess might be the better term - was a hot topic. Here's your recap.

For your Sunday School, I focused on Jon Karl's conversations in the This Week classroom. Among his guests? Oscar Leeser, the mayor of El Paso, and Eric Adams, the mayor of NYC. Here's a bit of the conversation with Leeser.

Karl asked Leeser to explain what he does when he arranges for migrants to move north, which is different than what Gov. Greg Abbott is doing by dropping them in front of the Vice President's residence. 

Leeser made a great point in his response.

...if you look at -- the people are not coming to El Paso, they're coming to America, and that's something that's really important.

While (in my words, not the mayor's), Abbott shoves people on a bus and sends them to a political target, Leeser and NGOs in El Paso try to get them where they want to go, where they have people they know. In the past, around 95% of asylum seekers and migrants had sponsors - family or friends who have arranged transportation, and who are waiting for the person to arrive. And now?

So, we have about 50% of the people today that do not have a sponsor, they don’t have money. So, we're helping and working to get them to where they want to go. So, that's been really important that we don't send anyone where they don't want to go. We make sure we help them and we put human beings and, you know, and we put them on buses with food and make sure they get to their destination where -- and make sure that we always continue to treat people like human beings.

Folks on the panel also chimed in. For example, the WaPo's Mariana Sotomayor suggested

there doesn't seem to be much of a strategy from the administration or from Capitol Hill. It might be a topic this week, what with the Martha's Vineyard shenanigans, but this close to the midterms, no one's apt to want to talk about it, other than the Rs - but they're not talking about legislative solutions; they've "tried and tried and tried again and there's just no discussion right now about whether to actually engage in any changes."

Stick around to the end of the post to hear from Marc Short, former chief of staff to VP Mike Pence, who had, um, interesting thoughts about this issue.

The conversation continued in your Extra Credit, where I listened in on Jake Tapper's conversation with Mayor Adams, who was also in CNN's State of the Union classroom. On the larger issue, 

Adams said it's a humanitarian crisis "created by human hands," and that it's one of those moments where everyone is supposed to "come together and coordinate." That means the federal government, and the governors of Texas and Florida. And, he said,

We should not be really treating other cities and municipalities in the manner that we're witnessing now. And so, we need resources for housing, resources to make sure that we can properly give people the medical care, all of the basic necessities that you would give new arrivals that enter a city.

Tapper asked him about a message for the photo-op governors, Abbott of Texas and DeSantis of Florida.

Adams talked about them "hiding up" their actions on guns, for example, and on a woman's right to choose.

You see, this is their way of covering up when many people have been really concerned about the erosion of basic human rights. We're seeing crisis calls for coordination. We received a minimum of six buses early this morning, over 11,000 individuals, asylum-seeking migrants, have come to the city already. It is time for us to coordinate this humanitarian crisis that our country is facing.

Also in the classroom with Tapper? Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), who said

discussions "are ongoing" in the Senate, and said the last "hard push" was in 2017, when he and Sen. Angus King (I-ME) co-sponsored a bipartisan bill that got 54 votes. It addressed Dreamers, chain migration, a pathway to citizenship, and that "nothing has happened during this administration." 

Tapper didn't interrupt to ask what happened to the 2017 effort, when the Rs had a trifecta: the House, the Senate, and of course, the Trump White House. And he didn't ask what happened to immigration legislation in the next Congress in 2019, when the Rs held a 53-to-45 majority in the Senate. It would have been interesting to hear Rounds explain why nothing happened. 

Moving on to Wednesdays' wondering, Gov. Abbott popped up, but not for reasons related to his burgeoning travel agent career. He signed an Executive Order declaring Mexican drug cartels 'terrorists' in the Lone Star State.

Texans are victimized by Mexican cartels that produce and import (fentanyl). So, cartels are terrorists. And it's time that we started treating them that way.

His order directs law enforcement to "identify gangs that are supporting Mexican cartels and work to seize assets as well as disrupt cartel networks." And, he's

also directed Texas agencies to alert the public about the fentanyl crisis, including schools and workplaces through mediums like social media and public service announcements to make clear, that truly one pill can kill."

I don't have a problem with anything he did, including asking the White House to make a similar federal declaration; it's reasonable, and certainly defensible, which some of his recent antics aren't. But here's where the wondering comes in: fentanyl's been killing Americans, including Texans, for years, in rapidly increasing numbers. Abbott said that in Texas last year, nearly 1700 fentanyl-related deaths were reported. So, why did it take him so long to order his government to get the word out?

For your TGIF, we had two good week/bad week opportunities from the Sunshine State. Not surprisingly, DeSantis was one of them. I didn't pick who had what kind of week, I left that up to you. 

Ron DeSantis. Do I need to say more? I mean, I can. There's a case going to trial over his replacing an elected District Attorney; there's the lawsuit filed by the migrants from Texas who were sent to Martha's Vineyard; and there are calls to investigate him over that stunt, which included giving them incorrect information about benefits available to them. 

The other Florida reference was, perhaps, less expected: it seems the special master FPOTUS demanded in his attempts to kill or at least delay the investigations into his handling of our documents doesn't seem to be as 'special' as hoped. 

And what about Judge Raymond Dearie? First, there was the dessert ruling that Donald Trump can't have is cake and eat it, and there's put up or shut up with Trump's nonsensical claims about the FBI and the documents, and there's and you're going to pay for it - hardly music to the former president's ears. 

 I'll be back later with Sunday School; hope you'll be back, too.

Sunday School 9/18/22: Extra Credit

As promised in your Sunday School lesson, here's a longer interview with NYC Mayor Eric Adams, who talked with Jake Tapper in the CNN State of the Union classroom.

Tapper began by noting that "more than 11,000 asylum seekers have passed through New York's shelter system since May, including roughly 2,500 bused to New York from Texas."  Adams has said NYC is "nearing its breaking point" and has even talked about bringing in cruise ships as temporary shelters. With that backdrop, Tapper asked what Adams needs from President Biden and the feds, and "how much longer can New York continue" without additional resources. 

Adams said it's a humanitarian crisis "created by human hands," and that it's one of those moments where everyone is supposed to "come together and coordinate." That means the federal government, and the governors of Texas and Florida. And, he said,

We should not be really treating other cities and municipalities in the manner that we're witnessing now. And so, we need resources for housing, resources to make sure that we can properly give people the medical care, all of the basic necessities that you would give new arrivals that enter a city.

He also said they're not going to run out of resources; they're "going to follow the law... as well as our moral obligations and responsibilities." He said it's already challenging, and will continue to be so, because NYC is a "right-to-shelter" city. And when Tapper asked about his message for DeSantis and Abbott, Adams talked about them "hiding up" their actions on guns, for example, and on a woman's right to choose.

You see, this is their way of covering up when many people have been really concerned about the erosion of basic human rights. We're seeing crisis calls for coordination. We received a minimum of six buses early this morning, over 11,000 individuals, asylum-seeking migrants, have come to the city already. It is time for us to coordinate this humanitarian crisis that our country is facing.

He disagreed when Tapper said "it seems like you agree this is a crisis that needs more attention from the Biden administration," and said it's something that needs more coordination from the whole country, "at the federal level, the state level, and even city-to-city. Tapper tried again, asking if Biden and the Dems in Congress should make immigration a priority, "using their political capital to finally fix this problem," given it's been since Reagan was in office that we last had major immigration reform legislation.

Adams said one of the most important things we can to is allow migrants to work.

They came here to pursue the American dream. I don't think it really is logical to allow people to be here for months without the ability to seek employment, particularly during a time when we are seeking employees on various sectors in our city.

And, from the other side of the aisle - in fact, from the other side of the country - Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) was on next, with immigration one of the topics. Tapper asked if he agrees with the moves by Abbott and DeSantis. Rounds said they're trying to send a message to the rest of the country "about the plight of those individuals that are coming from south of the border." Pointing to the ridiculously high number of border-crossers under the Biden administration - he said it's "about 3.4 million" (and I'm not fact-checking that) coming to our southern states.

What is a governor supposed to do? They're trying to send a message to the rest of the country that this is not acceptable, and that their states can't handle that type of an inflow.

And it's not just the people - it's the drugs, too. He said his state's Native American reservations "have got huge inflows of drug trafficking coming into our state into some of the heaviest poverty areas of the entire country," and South Dakota's 1200 miles from the border.

So, it's affecting all of our states, but the administration is not doing anything about it.

I wish Tapper had said, "I'll have you back to talk about Native American poverty and drug problems," but he didn't. He did ask if there wasn't a "degree of trolling here" and whether he "really have no issue with using human beings, a one-month-old baby, little kids to make a political point like this?"

Rounds said it needs to be put into perspective, "This is every single day thousands of individuals coming across with babies" to our southern states.

And so, yes, I mean, do any of us like the situation that we're in? Absolutely not. Matter of fact, I would suspect that the individuals in the Southern states that are trying to find a way to get the attention of the administration would love to have other alternatives to them. It's been 606 days since Joe Biden took office, and this problem has done nothing except continue to develop. This is a national problem. And yet these governors on -- along the Southern borders are the ones that are faced with trying to address it.

Tapper suggested what we need is "a comprehensive immigration bill" addressing border security and a pathway to citizenship for all the folks who've been here for decades. And, he said

In the more than 20 years I have been in this town, I have seen people like President George W. Bush and Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Marco Rubio trying to get immigration reform done, working with Democrats. Every time, they were defeated by House Republicans, who wouldn't go along with any sort of compromise. Would you support restarting bipartisan negotiations to try and -- try to finally fix this broken immigration system?

Rounds said discussions "are ongoing" in the Senate, and said the last "hard push" was in 2017, when he and Sen. Angus King (I-ME) co-sponsored a bipartisan bill that got 54 votes. It addressed Dreamers, chain migration, a pathway to citizenship, and that "nothing has happened during this administration." 

Tapper didn't interrupt to ask what happened to the 2017 effort, when the Rs had a trifecta: the House, the Senate, and of course, the Trump White House. And he didn't ask what happened to immigration legislation in the next Congress in 2019, when the Rs held a 53-to-45 majority. It would have been interesting to hear Rounds explain why nothing happened. 

Instead, Tapper let Rounds continue.

Yes, would we like to step forward again and try and approach again? Absolutely. Do we have to address it? Yes. Do we have to have border security? Before anything else can happen, we have got to be able to defend that border. We have got to be able to make a border that actually works. Otherwise, why should people pay any attention to the laws that we have gotten? What good would it do to reform them if we're not going to enforce them?

Rounds is right, but he would have had a better case if he had expanded upon the "ongoing" discussions, or if he said he and King were back at it with his bill from 2017, or if he had responded in any way at all to Tapper's comment about House Republicans who refuse to compromise.

Blaming the administration is easy, but it would have been a whole lot more powerful if he had a better story to tell.

See you around campus.

Sunday School 9/18/22

We're talking immigration this week, starting with your Sunday School and ABC's This Week classroom. Jon Karl was in the host's chair, and talked first with Oscar Leeser, El Paso's mayor. 

Karl asked him to describe what's happening in his city, with 1300 migrants a day arriving there. Leeser said it's more than that - north of 1500, nearly 2000 in recent days and some 80% are Venezuelans. 

Leeser said he's got a good working relationship with the Border Patrol, and that

our goal, and it will continue to be our goal, is never to drop anybody off in the streets of El Paso and make sure that no one’s homeless, no one’s hungry. So, we have our NGOs, which is non-governmental organizations that really have opened up their doors and we’ve gotten hotels. And in the last few days we’ve not had any people released into the streets of El Paso...

Karl asked Leeser to explain what he does when he arranges for migrants to move north, which is different than what Gov. Greg Abbott is doing by dropping them in front of the Vice President's residence. 

Leeser made a great point in his response.

...if you look at -- the people are not coming to El Paso, they're coming to America, and that's something that's really important.

While (in my words, not the mayor's), Abbott shoves people on a bus and sends them to a political target, Leeser and NGOs in El Paso try to get them where they want to go, where they have people they know. In the past, around 95% of asylum seekers and migrants had sponsors - family or friends who have arranged transportation, and who are waiting for the person to arrive. And now?

So, we have about 50% of the people today that do not have a sponsor, they don’t have money. So, we're helping and working to get them to where they want to go. So, that's been really important that we don't send anyone where they don't want to go. We make sure we help them and we put human beings and, you know, and we put them on buses with food and make sure they get to their destination where -- and make sure that we always continue to treat people like human beings.

NYC Eric Adams was up next; I'll have a longer interview with him in your Extra Credit, so I'll keep his remarks here brief. Adams said he's been working with New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, as well as with the Biden administration, 

to talk about how do we coordinate and their goal is to make sure that we get the resources and the coordination that’s needed, as the mayor of El Paso stated. These migrants and asylum seekers are not coming to any particular city. They're coming to America. This is an American crisis that we need to face, the humanitarian crisis that were made by human hands by some of the governors in our southern states.

He said there's no coordination with the childish governors Abbott and now DeSantis. He reached out to Abbott and his team, asking for coordination but that's not what they got.

They took the call and stated that they would coordinate... and they did not coordinate at all because I don’t think it was politically expedient for them to coordinate. It was more to do this basically political gamesmanship that you're seeing now.

And, finally, he's committed to New York City remaining a sanctuary city, echoing Mayor Leeser's thoughts.

Let's be clear here, we've all come from somewhere. Our lineage came from a location and the pursuit of the American dream is what we’ve all fought for... And I will always believe that this is a country where people want to pursue the American dream, and there are ways it can be done correctly.

So, having heard from a sender, and a receiver, it's time to hear from the panel: Marc Short, former chief of staff to VP Mike Pence; former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp; Mariana Sotomayor (WaPo), and Alex Burns (Politico). Here are a few highlights.

• Heitkamp said that the 'stunts' perpetrated by Abbott and DeSantis aren't working. She also said that some of what's happening now was predictable, and there was a "lack of preparation" which she blames on both the current and previous administrations. She also said there's a difference between how we treat Cubans and Venezuelans, even though both are "fleeing the same kind of dictatorial, communist regime. And finally, Biden should sit down with Abbott and DeSantis now and figure something out.

• Short said none of this was happening under the previous administration because it "actually secured the border." He also talked about the "hypocrisy and...in many cases, fake outrage" by folks on the left and in the media. And, he said, migrants in Florida aren't walking there themselves, the Biden administration is flying them in - and it's not just Florida. How's that OK, he asked, but it's wrong for governors to ship them to "one of the wealthiest communities in America..."

• Sotomayor said there doesn't seem to be much of a strategy from the administration or from Capitol Hill. It might be a topic this week, what with the Martha's Vineyard shenanigans, but this close to the midterms, no one's apt to want to talk about it, other than the Rs - but they're not talking about legislative solutions; they've "tried and tried and tried again and there's just no discussion right now about whether to actually engage in any changes."

• Burns said the governors are "playing to gallery on the right in their own parties and in their own states, ahead of re-election votes that both of them are highly, highly likely to prevail in and then, maybe, turn around and run for president." He said that we have a "generational, bipartisan policy failure" on immigration, but Abbott and DeSantis aren't doing anything that serious from a policy perspective.

• Karl noted that "the administration is not putting forward anything" either.

I agree with Jon Karl on that point, the Vice President's comments last week about our "secure" border notwithstanding.

I'll close with perhaps the oddest comment from the classroom, which came from Marc Short, who said

... if we were really concerned about the humanitarian crisis, Jon, then actually what we would be doing is we'd be stopping the crisis at the border, where there's 200,000 migrants every month. And they estimate 50 percent of the young women are either raped or sexually molested making that long journey from Peru and Colombia up there. If we actually had a policy in place that returned migrants to Mexico while they waited for their asylum appeals, as happened in the Trump-Pence administration, you wouldn't have the same humanitarian crisis we have today.

What on earth is he trying to say here? That the women who are raped or sexually assaulted on the way here would be better off if they were kept in Mexico? Or is it that he couldn't care less about what happens to them on the trip, as long as we don't get stuck with them?

Pretty sure we all know the answer to that question.

See you around campus.

Sunday School 4/17/22: Extra Credit

In your Sunday School, we learned about Senate struggles to agree on COVID aid, tales from the House Minority Leader, and we listened to two dads talking about kids and legacies.

For your Extra Credit, we're talking crime - something Democrats are running from, and Republicans are running on in this year's elections.

George Stephanopoulos hosted This Week; he spoke with New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell. 

George asked if we need better tracking of folks like Frank James, the suspect in the recent gas-and-shooting attack in the subway, who had hated-filled videos and "suggestions of violence" posted online. Adams believes we do, and that social media companies have a role to play.

There's a corporate responsibility when we are watching hate brew online. We can identify using artificial intelligence and other methods to identify those who are talking about violence. And you know my concerns around even what's called drill music. Not all drill music, but those that talks about inflicting violence on rival gangs. That is driving some of the shootings we're seeing in the parts of the Bronx.

Sewell said they've been working to "convince people that subways are safe," saying that patrols have been enhanced since January when she and Adams took the reins.

We've done over 280,000 additional inspections by uniform personnel in the subway system. Couple that with our subway safety task force. As it stands now, crime in the subway is actually below pre-Covid numbers.

She said more officers are being surged into the subway, recognizing that "people need to see a visible presence of police..." There's stuff we don't see, too, she said. 

Speaking to the continued increase in major crime since his election, Adams noted that it's a national problem, not just a problem in NYC. 

It's not a red state, blue state. In fact, red states are experiencing a higher murder rate than blue states. Tulsa is three times the murder rate of Los Angeles. Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, those are the highest murder rates in our entire country.

He mentioned the 'defund the police' narrative that was heard before President Biden got elected, but turned that into a message for Republicans.

Let me tell you what the de-funders of police are... those who did not vote on the Build Back Better bill. Money was in that bill for police officers. We have 2,400 ATF agents in our country. Only 80 are in New York. We need to double that amount. We need to go after the ghost guns. We need to put a head to ATF in place. Put in place a real gun-tracing program. 

Sewell said police need to rebuild trust and work with the public to do that. It's something she and her officers do, every day, she said,

because we need them. And I think we keep saying that public safety is a shared responsibility. This recent case illustrates just that. And everyone came together. So, we need to build strength in our communities with the police.

George played a clip of former NYPD Commish William Bratton talking about reforms, and asked Adams if Bratton was right.

The scales right now are tipped very heavily in favor of the reforms of the progressive left. Well intended, some needed, but a bit too far. And what we have as a result is this growing fear of crime, this growing actual amount of crime, as evidenced in almost every major American city.

The mayor - a former NYPD captain - said yes. He admitted "major mistakes" had been made in the past, and he agreed with Sewell that they need to rebuild trust with the community. They can't do that 

by allowing those who are dangerous and that have... a repeated history of violence to continue to be on our streets. We have to un-bottleneck the courts. Too many people during Covid, when courts closed down, have not served their time or have not been in the courtroom. And then we have to be honest about some of the things we're doing generationally that has created the crime problem that we are facing right now. And that is why we believe in intervention and prevention to solve this issue that we're facing.

Sewell added that they can't "lose sight" of crime victims, either.

We believe the system has to be fair and balanced, but when we lose sight of the victims of crime, we are not doing what public safety is intended to do.

In the panel discussion, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile admitted the Rs will run on crime. It's a problem across the country, she said, because "we have a problem with gun violence... people are just shooting, shooting, shooting... It's not a Democratic problem. It's an American problem."

And, she said, it's going to take a "...'whole of government' approach" and private sector involvement,

because we’ve got to deal with the fact we have a lot of teenagers, a lot of folks who are just disconnected from society and we have to bring them back in. And if we don't bring them back in, crime is only going to increase.

Speaking of NYC specifically, where she had relatives in uniform, she said the crime budget is $11B, higher than the Ukrainian budget.

So, let's be clear that we can increase the number of policemen. We can increase the budget for police. But you’ve got to bring in Social Service workers, you’ve got to bring in the Youth and Child Department. This is a huge issue...

Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) appreciated Adams agreeing with Bratton that it was "progressive policies that have caused this wave in crime" (an over-simplification of what Bratton said and what Adams agreed with), but he thinks Adams, who ran on fighting crime, is "sticking to his word" and he thinks New Yorkers will "give him the benefit of the doubt" for that. 

Biden, on the other hand, doesn't get a pass. He was against 'defunding the police,' but

he was also standing with a lot of these reforms that have made - that have turned out to be a mistake. And it's not only reforms, it's the attitude of local prosecutors that have been elected, in places like Manhattan, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago who are refusing to prosecute some of these crimes.

The result of all of this is that "crime is going up. And Democrats are going to pay the price for it because it's their policies that changed us from a low crime country to a higher crime country."

George gave the last word to Maria Salinas, an ABC News contributor.

All right. But is it really -- does it have to do with policy or does it have to do -- especially the increase in the last couple of years, increase in crime, does it have to do more in the fact that people -- were in pandemic, people were locked up?

Doesn't mean that people locked up commit crimes once they come out, but all that frustration, losing your job, having the prices of everything being higher, doesn't that affect people? And you combine that with the access to weapons does not -- doesn't that increase a crime?

I've got thoughts on what Salinas said, but that'll have to wait for another day.

See you around campus.

Sunday School 4/3/22

There were some interesting conversations in the classrooms yesterday, including the one between Margaret Brennan and NYC Mayor Eric Adams on Face the Nation. 

Brennan seemed hell-bent on hitting him from both the left and the right on crime. Noting NY has "some of the toughest gun laws in the country," she first asked "where are the guns coming from?" Her next question, such as it was? 

But you know that acknowledging that and having some of the toughest gun laws in the country will have critics say, well, look, it makes no difference if you have tight gun laws.

That was followed up by "So why aren't the laws working?" and, finally, "It sounds like you're expecting more executive actions or orders from the president to do this because none of it's going to get through Congress."

I think Adams, a 22-year veteran of the NYPD, did a poor job with her questions. He didn't mention the Iron Pipeline, which is how illegal guns get to NYC and the rest of New York. He said his anti-gun team had "removed over 20-something guns off the street," while other reports show 85 'ghost guns' alone - not counting other illegal guns - had been recovered by early March. 

Worse than that, he didn't push back at all on her ridiculous suggestion that gun laws weren't working. He said "We need to stop criticizing good, proper law enforcement with the proper proactive things to keep guns out of the hands of young people..." But what he didn't say - and what no one else says, either - spoke louder than what he did say. 

This is how people must answer this question, every time it's asked.

Show me a single law that is 100% effective. Laws against voter fraud, DWI, white collar crimes, child abuse, drug possession, motor vehicle laws, rape and murder, insurrection, other violent crimes... no law is 100% effective - but they still work, either as a deterrent to prevent crimes, or to get criminals off the streets. Critics should imagine a world without any of these "ineffective" laws, and tell us how much they'd like living in it.

He also failed to call out Congress for their inaction, another opportunity missed. 

George Stephanopoulos talked with Ron Klain, President Biden's chief of staff, on This Week. Crime came up in that classroom, too. Here's the bizarre first question on this topic. 

How did Democrats get on the wrong side of the crime issue that's coming up right now, especially in the wake overnight another killing in Sacramento, at least six dead in a mass shooting?

Hmm... Do we even know the party affiliation of the perps, or the victims, in this shooting? And is there a specific policy that got the Dems "on the wrong side" of this crime? George didn't elaborate on any of that, so we may never know. 

Klain doesn't think Dems are on the wrong side of it; he pointed to Biden's plans for "for robust funding of police," part of which was in the omnibus bill Congress passed last month.

We also want to make sure we have in place police reform and community violent intervention to help reduce crime. We have a plan to fight crime. Congress is making progress on that.

He also said the administration's 

working very hard to be at the forefront of efforts to both control crime and have balanced and sensible policing. We think we can do both. That's what we stand for. And that's the plans we put forward to the Congress.

On crime of a different type, George asked if a NY Times report saying "Mr. Biden confided in his inner circle that he believed former president Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted. He has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor" was true.

Klain said he's never heard Biden say that, or "advocate the prosecution of any person." And, he reminded George that that Biden promised decisions on who gets prosecuted would not be handled in the White House.

Only Richard Nixon and Donald Trump, in the modern era, believed that prosecution decisions should be made in the Oval Office... We have returned the practice that every other president, Democratic and Republican, has had since Watergate, other than Trump, to let those decisions be made at the Justice Department. The president has confidence in the attorney general to make those decisions, and that's where those decisions should be made.

When asked, Klain confirmed that POTUS: hasn't had any contact with DOJ on the Hunter Biden investigation, was "confident Hunter Biden didn't break the law" and was "confident his family didn't cross any ethical lines." 

Finally on G-G-G-Ginni and the Texts, any pending legislation on ethics for the Supreme Court, and whether Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from January 6th-related cases, Klain said he wasn't familiar with the specific legislation; the administration's position continues to be that the January 6th Committee and DOJ are the right places for exploring the insurrection and should be allowed to do their work; and that it's not the White House's place to stick its nose into what the Supremes do.

What's-his-name talked with Hillary Clinton on Meet the Press. The only 'crime' they talked about was Crimea. I was kind of surprised; after all, she's a Dem, and part of a major international child sex trafficking crime syndicate, and she and Bill have had all those people killed over the years.

Asked about the "moment" the Dems are having, on "what the party stands for," and where it stands - to the left, to the left, or closer to the center, Clinton said the hand-wringing "was in their DNA" and that it happens whether they're in power or not.

She thinks Biden is doing a good job, and said she's

not quite sure what the disconnect is between the accomplishments of the administration and this Congress and the understanding of what's been done and the impact it will have on the American public, and some of the polling and the ongoing hand-wringing. I've always thought that the best politics is doing the best job you can do. And there's a lot that Democrats can talk about in this upcoming midterm.

Of course, she's "well aware that midterms are obviously always difficult for the party in power." But, 

we've got a great story to tell. And we need to get out there and do a better job of telling it. And for those who, you know, say it hasn't gone far enough, that's always the chorus in Democratic Party politics. But I would add that in Republican Party politics, you have an even greater disconnect. Unfortunately, most of that party has now gone to the, you know, to the extreme and are saying and doing things that have no basis in reality. So, we've got a good case to make if we get our focus in the right place to do it.

They surely do need to get out there and tell the story! And, there was another thing the Dems need to do. 

And, frankly, standing up to the other side with their craziness and their calls for impunity and nuttiness that we hear coming from them, I don't think the average American, frankly, wants to be governed by people who live in a totally different reality.

If only...

See you around campus.