Adams' Choice
Will the Dems pivot further left into defunding, or right into enforcement?
As of this writing, the Democrats have taken the Senate, numerous Governor’s seats, and perhaps even the House. So, on the public safety front: Whither America?
Clearly, we will be hearing two competing narratives on this issue. From the left, we’ll be told that the problem is perception, that crime and disorder in our cities is not so bad, and that the media and the Republicans are exaggerating.
From the right, we’ll be told our cities are approaching oblivion.
Ground Zero for this debate is New York. We have all the elements: the media is centered here; Manhattan has a Soros D.A; progressive think-tanks here drive the “decarceration” narrative; and The Duchess of Defund, AOC, has her constituency here.
Add the nation’s largest and perhaps most scrutinized police department, and its a political witch’s brew.
The person to whom all this resolves is not so much our newly elected Governor, but our Mayor, Eric Adams. The former NYPD Captain-turned-politician campaigned on the public safety issue, and he desperately needs to go down as the “Mayor who made New York safe again” in order to achieve higher office.
At the same time, he is beholden to the progressive elements mentioned above.
So what will he do? Because trust me when I tell you: In New York, the future ain’t what it used to be.
Adams clearly perceives the dilemma, and since elected has been walking a hyper-cautious middle ground. Less than a week after the midterms, he has published an op-ed in USA Today that — once again! — tries for the nuanced center.
“New York is the safest big city in America, but this statistic means nothing to a mother mourning a child lost to gun violence,” he writes in the piece. He urges that Democrats push for “right-now solutions” on “public safety.”
I think I speak for a majority of New Yorkers when I say: Mr. Mayor, we’re all ears. What’s the plan?
Adams’ time is running out. While I never worked with Captain Adams, early on your narrator defended him on national television, urging everyone to give him time to “pull a u-turn on an aircraft carrier” (for which I got some grief, I can tell you).
But the simple fact is that, despite all the progressive voters and media here: the right’s narrative on public safety is winning.
Because after all, we have eyes.
So while it wasn’t enough to turn the Governor’s election, it was enough to turn four local House seats. And it could well be enough to turn the city against our cop-turned Mayor. There is grumbling; there is impatience.
So it’s time to put a fine point on it: Mayor Adams, you must choose.
It’s time. Either disappoint New York’s far-left progressive class… or preside over an administration that descends to de Blasio-level irrelevance.
There is no middle ground.
(And what, exactly, should the Mayor do to make the city safe again? See our next newsletter).
Campus Crime: This (literally) just in.
It just doesn’t stop. Every damn day or so. We wrote about it last time (see here). Our colleges are becoming shooting galleries.
Subject still at-large. Shooting occurred on-campus.
This kid looks like the class President or something. Why the HELL this bs with guns? My God. What a waste.
Hope no one is hurt. As per UVA Campus Police: No further info at this time.
Is “Captain Hollywood” ready for his close-up? An interesting story in The Los Angeles Times alleges that in 2017, a well-known LAPD Commander named Cory Palka inappropriately leaked an allegation of sexual assault against former CBS-honcho Les Moonves.
It’s a twisting narrative right out of L.A. Confidential (which was, I’m sorry, a preposterous film), but in sum: Before the assault allegation ultimately became public, CBS executives tried to conceal it from shareholders. One executive apparently cashed out stock (netting over $8 million). So CBS shareholders sued the network in New York. At that point, the New York Attorney General’s office opens a civil case too.
The case has resolved, and the New York Attorney General has released a report that states that Commander Palka, who had apparently become friendly with some Hollywood film folks (including Moonves), warned CBS about the allegation — giving them a chance to try to bottle it up.
Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon is now weighing a prosecution of the Commander. (Someone woke Gascon up and told him he’s a prosecutor, apparently).
But here’s the thing. According to the LA Times, Paramount Global — which owns CBS — announced that it and Moonves had agreed to pay the New York Attorney General’s office $9.75 million to resolve the case.
Great. But has Paramount learned anything?
Apparently not. It’s Paramount+ that just aired this show, in which a gay character alleges that he was sexually assaulted by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (and yes, I am aware that the character recants later in the show. Not the point).
Hey Paramount, as they say in the script-writing biz: “Character is fate.” Congratulations on yours.
Border Boondoggle: So the Biden Administration finally got Chris Magnus, it’s “Border chief,” to resign (another guy they probably had to wake up to give the news). They’ve also apparently cut a deal with Cuba to take back Cuban migrants arriving at our southern border.
Funny how they’re okay with deporting Cubans — who vote heavily Republican.
What do you think the reception for these Cubans is going to be back in Havana? “Bienvenidos”? Unlikely.
And finally…. the Germans have a word for it: schadenfreude (they have a word for everything, apparently): “Deriving satisfaction from another’s misfortune.”
The level of (justified) schadenfreude latent in the below video of this sanctimonious twit-with-a-cartoon-voice is truly next-level:
Now that it’s become clear that he’s lost billions of his investors’ money in what was, in this writer’s opinion, a digital Ponzi scheme: he should stop saving the world and start saving for a good defense lawyer.
One who works cheap, I’m guessing. And who accepts worthless crypto.