When you suffer political humiliation, create a straw man and make yourself look heroic to obscure your inherent culpability with silliness, Democrat New Orleans City Councilor and mayor-elect Helena Moreno reminds us.
Earlier this month, Moreno politically suffered a brutal debasement when she had the state dictate terms to her about a budgetary rescue. Allowing the State Bond Commission to issue $125 million in revenue anticipation notes in exchange for close oversight of city finances by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office, it forces her and the incoming Council to kowtow to outsiders on financial matters, even some very specific ones.
With city government’s wings now substantially clipped, what to do in order to prop yourself up and make people forget your substantial loss of power, to think you have more than you do and are more relevant than you actually are? In Moreno’s case, she decided to make city policy-makers look tough in opposing Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s, with the blessing of GOP Gov. Jeff Landry, plan to send Department of Homeland Security personnel to the New Orleans area next week to conduct intensive sweeps to locate and detain illegal aliens, particularly trying to nab those who committed crimes other than being in the country illegally.
Such operations have proven successful at many levels. In the most recent in Charlotte, NC, over about a week some 270 illegal aliens were arrested, with as many as a third having been convicted or arrested of crimes committed in America. Not only were dangerous individuals taken into custody, but those detained only for illegal entry with eventual deportation spawns desirable side effects such as opening up jobs, greater housing availability, reduced usage of taxpayer-financed health care, lower public schooling costs, and fewer uninsured motorists.
Moreno’s response to it is to decry it all and offer advice mainly to illegal aliens on her own website in how to interfere legally as best they can, if not entirely evade, efforts to bring such individuals to justice. She also offers tips on trying to impede legally the operation. This is in the spirit of some individuals who have tried physically to impede such operations or to try to reveal these in real time that have proven dangerous to agents, detainees, and the public, although Moreno counsels not to interfere with investigations.
In defending the action, she makes the curious statement that she allegedly is keeping the “community safe,” although her actions could increase the difficulty that operatives have in capturing dangerous people that threaten the community. She further justifies it on the basis of reports, usually false, of isolated excesses that genuinely are few and far between, and which stands in opposition to the general rule of public policy that it not be made on the basis of exceptions.
This may play well to her base, many of whom are entirely insulated from the spillover effects of illegal immigration except to break the law by employing aliens’ services at cheaper rates than citizens can offer, but which disserves the law-abiding public as a whole. She should learn from the attitude more refreshing and greater attuned to the safety of his constituents shown by nearby Kenner’s Republican Police Chief Keith Conley who consistently has welcomed efforts such as these.
But if you want to distract the public from knowing how badly you flopped on something, like helping to crater the public purse, create a false crisis like this. Moreno is a seasoned politician who shows she learned that trick long ago.
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