Dems To Focus On Crime!

We can't get soft on crime.

As expected, I became a victim of a crime. On Sunday, I was about to head to an overnight job and I noticed that my back passenger side window was busted out. I am an owner of a Kia and the vehicle was broken into but was stopped because the vehicle is a keyless/push button vehicle with an immobilizer. The vehicle cannot move with a key fob within range. My vehicle has some damage and property stolen. The sheriff's department said they're nothing much they can do seeing the vehicle was not stolen. My car's value depreciates and my insurance rate goes up. The vehicle will have $2,000 worth in damages and once it hits Carfax, it will be extremely difficult to sell it knowing it was a result of a crime.

The suspect(s) got away. I could not go to work and I am angry.

I cannot kill them over property. In Ohio, the Castle Rule applies only to homeowner not lease home. A vehicle can be replaced, fixed and found. Shooting and killing a thief over property is murder in the eyes of police and state prosecutors. The thief has to pose a danger to the life of the victim for use of deadly force.

The Kia Boys is a bunch of young children who learned a simple hack to hotwire Kia and Hyundai vehicles. It is seen on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. They are literally impacting the lives of Americans.

Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, St. Louis, Washington, DC, Atlanta and St. Petersburg are hot spots for Kia and Hyundai thefts. The car makers are aware but are struggling to curb the "Kia Challenge." It is coast to coast.

Republicans see an opportunity to exploit a criminal act into another pathetic culture war. The culture war the Republicans are focusing on is crime. 

Crime has increased in many big cities. Not like it was in the 1980s and 1990s, crime has been relatively low in the United States. However, it is an issue now. Extremism is on the rise.

Violent crime is up nationwide and in major cities, Democrats’ main support base, as downtowns struggle to recover from the pandemic.

Last fall, Gallup found that a record 56% of Americans reported crime had gone up in their area — the highest uptick since the pollster first started asking the question in 1972. A follow-up survey in January found that 72% of Americans expected crime to continue to rise this year. 

Residents of urban areas reported a 15 percentage point drop in their perceived quality of life over past year in deep-blue New Jersey, according to a new Monmouth University poll, while suburbanites said their quality of life remained stable.

In the nation's capital, home to both the local and federal lawmakers considering the crime law, homicides were up 30% over last year.

Last month, Rep. Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat, was attacked in the elevator of her Washington apartment building by a man with 12 previous assaults on his record.

Feds are getting into the matter of Kia and Hyundai thefts.

In an interview with a local radio station last week, Craig criticized some reformist Democrats on crime, pointing to, as an example, a failed 2021 ballot measure in Minneapolis to abolish the city’s police department and replace it with a new agency.

“There are people that have been, in my view, reckless with their words over the past few years,” she said. “If we have to choose as a nation between social justice and public safety, we’ve all lost. We have to choose both.”

This Kia Challenge is extremism. These young Black teens are willing to risk their lives, their reputation and their freedom for a simple joyride and petty theft. 

President Joe Biden is expected to seek reelection. He is facing a primary challenge from leftist Marianne Williamson. He is encouraging Democrats to focus on the achievements and get tough on crime.

Democrats have focused predominantly on police reform since the George Floyd protests reignited a national debate over race and law enforcement three years ago. But rising violent crime rates and growing perceptions of unease in major cities have prompted a chorus of party strategists and officials to call for a tougher approach to counter Republican attacks. 

Biden — who has a history of pushing for stauncher crime laws — has tried to straddle the Democratic divide but was forced this week to choose sides when he said he wouldn't allow the Washington, D.C., city government to enact laws that would lower some criminal penalties.

“If Republicans thought President Biden would hand them a wedge issue for 2024, they thought wrong,” said Democratic strategist Lis Smith, a veteran of former President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and an architect of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s rise. “It’s going to be very hard to define him as soft on crime after he’s denounced defunding the police and reducing sentences for crimes like carjackings.”

Nothing focuses the mind of a White House gearing up for re-election like an incumbent getting only 17% of the vote, as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot did Tuesday in the city’s crime-focused mayoral contest.

The Washington, D.C., bill offered a slew of complications. The Democratic-controlled city council passed a sweeping criminal reform measure but then the mayor, also a Democrat, vetoed it. The council overrode her veto.

Gun violence is at record highs.

But D.C.'s unusual existence as not fully independent of the federal government means that Congress can quash any law change. A Republican-led bill got the support of about 30 Democrats in the House and is now expected to pass the Senate with a handful of Democrats, forcing Biden to either sign or veto it. Democrats, who have increasingly pushed for D.C. to be left to rule itself, called on Biden to veto the measure on the grounds that it isn't the federal government's place to determine local criminal law. But Biden didn't acquiesce.

"I support D.C. Statehood and home-rule – but I don’t support some of the changes D.C. Council put forward over the Mayor’s objections – such as lowering penalties for carjackings," the president said on Twitter.

The White House is planning a full-throated effort to present him as tough on crime to try to chip away at any Republican advantage on an issue that has put many Democrats on the defensive.

I support D.C. statehood as well. But I also support criminal reform which is more than corrections. I support deterrence, punishment and penalties. I believe that juvenile crime should be no longer a minor stint in juvenile iron schools. They commit adult crimes, they should face adult charges.

Crime is not a political issue. It is choice to commit an illegal act for a short term or long term gain.

Next week the president will ask for an increase in funding for his Safer America Plan, aimed at crime prevention and policing, in his 2024 budget proposal, according to a White House official. Biden is also expected to continue publicly emphasizing his record on crime issues.

The White House is more broadly preparing to intensify its criticism of Republicans on crime, with plans to highlight some GOP efforts to cut the Justice Department’s Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS program; oppose an assault weapons ban; and defund the FBI. The White House plans to argue that by proposing that federal spending return to 2022 levels, for instance, Republicans would cut funding for programs that fight crime.

The effort will look similar to how Biden talked about crime while campaigning during last year’s midterm elections, the White House official said.