Eye on ’24: The GOP’s Shot at Latino Votes
Presidential candidates “should take heed that Hispanic voters are not a monolithic group,” advises Valeria Gurr at The Hill. “We care about education opportunities for our families and children,” among other issues. “Four out of the five U.S. states with the highest Latino populations have implemented a school choice program: Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Illinois” — with Texas soon to follow. “Most Republican candidates have expressed support for empowering parents” while the silence from the Democratic Party, which presumes “to own our votes, is increasingly deafening.” Latinos are the “fastest growing segment,” so the nation’s future is tied to the “success of Hispanic students.” Candidates “courting” this vote should push for “educational freedom for those children.”
Conservative: Probe Hawaii’s Burn Ban
As Hawaii’s attorney general’s office probes the cause of the Maui wildfire, it should focus on the state’s “decision to ban an age-old fire mitigation practice, prescribed burns,” urges Jeff Stier at the Washington Examiner. These tightly contained burns once ensured that fires “won’t have fuel to grow out of control.” Hawaii’s ban, which followed “lawsuits and lobbying campaigns waged” by activists like Earthjustice and the Sierra Club, led to the “demise of a historic 36,000 acre sugar plantation in 2016.” The absence of the “sugar plantations’ land management practices,” plus “the climatic conditions to start a fire,” laid the groundwork for the Lahaina disaster. It’s time to “factor in the always costly, often harmful, and sometimes deadly outcomes” of climate-group agendas.
Crime watch: London’s Lesson for US Police
London’s Metropolitan Police Service, “the Met,” has tapped “respected academic” Lawrence Sherman as its chief scientific officer, and “police departments and district attorneys’ offices in America might consider a similar approach,” suggests Thomas Hogan at City Journal. Sherman “helped establish robust tools for predicting homicides and other types of violence among prior offenders.” While “on this side of the pond, deterrence-based policing and prosecution have all but disappeared in cities,” the Met “is compiling lists of the most dangerous offenders in London, performing integrity checks on its own officers and procedures, and tracking the performance of its strategies.” US prosecutors and police “need to follow the evidence about what works to deter crime, instead of putting their faith in theories, hopes, and dreams.”
Capitol Hill beat: Slap Gaetz Down, Now
Rep. Matt Gaetz’s attempt to boot Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who’s “done an impossible and thankless job quite well,” from his position suggest Gaetz believes “Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries should be handed power over the fate of a Republican speaker of the House,” quip National Review’s editors. And “in the name of conservative ideological purity,” to boot. Yes, “we all knew we’d probably end up at this point sooner or later.” After all, “Gaetz’s entire approach to politics is theatrical and unserious, geared to achieving more notoriety,” and it’s “true to brand that Gaetz has no alternative potential speaker whom he’s promoting.” “It’s hard to predict where the Gaetz ploy will end up, except that nothing good will likely come from it, unless he’s decisively and quickly slapped down.”
From the right: Paying a Moral Debt to Afghans
America has welcomed 84,000 Afghan allies since 2021, per the State Department, and given most of them “humanitarian parole” — yet that, laments The Wall Street Journal’s Sierra Dawn McClain, leaves them in “an immigration purgatory” with no path to permanent protection or residency.” The bipartisan Afghan Adjustment Act could remedy that, but it’s “languishing as Congress focuses” on other priorities. “Helping these Afghans would signal to other allies that the U.S. doesn’t abandon its friends.” It would also “help settle the moral debt America incurred with its botched withdrawal. The Taliban’s takeover was a tragedy for Afghans who supported the U.S. mission, fought for women’s rights, and aimed to build a free political system. Keeping its promise to them is the least America can do.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
