NY GOV JUST DISMISSED NY'S CRIMINAL-CODDLING LEFT ..... BUT HOW LONG WILL THE SEPARATION LAST BEFORE THEY RECONCILE

Gov. Hochul finally sees the light on public safety in NYC 

 

By Bob McManus

 

New York Post

March 18, 2022

 

 

Gov. Kathy Hochul just dismissed New York's criminal-coddling left

 

Looks like Gov. Kathy Hochul has gotten the message on crime. Good for her — and good for New York, too.

Hochul, as this newspaper first reported exclusively Thursday, has abandoned her puzzling timidity on public safety and is pushing legislation that would tighten New York’s notorious no-bail laws, target both young gunslingers and subway crime generally and beef up the state’s power to detain and treat the mentally ill — against their will, if necessary.

And there’s the key word: necessary.

It is necessary for Hochul to do this — just as it is necessary that Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins face down their lunatic-fringe progressive caucuses and not only take up Hochul’s 10-point public safety plan, but not gut it in the process.

That is, it is necessary that New York confront and defeat crime and serious civic disorder, just as it did a generation ago, and for the most fundamental of reasons: A society that will not do its best to protect its citizens from predation has no moral claim on their loyalty, their industry or their resources.

Eventually, it will wither and fade — which is precisely where New York was in 1993. Hochul, up for a full term in the June primary, now seems to want no part of that.
But why the change?

• Maybe Hochul was simply afraid of Heastie, Stewart-Cousins and the Legislature’s progressive plague.

• Maybe she’s seeing primary polling that she doesn’t like. Centrist opponent Tom Suozzi isn’t an obvious threat yet, but that could change.

• Maybe she’s spooked by the lunatic rumblings of her predecessor, the man who knows no shame.

• Maybe it was those boos at the Rangers game the other night; hockey fans don’t have much patience with squishy liberals.
• Maybe she just had the rookie-governor yips. She wouldn’t be the first to be knocked off balance by a spotlight.

Or maybe it’s all of those things — plus a thunderbolt realization that civic chaos really does matter; that Mayor Eric Adams needs help, and that she’s best positioned to provide some. Stranger things have happened.

Actually, the why of it really doesn’t matter now. It’s what comes next that counts.
Hochul has taken an irrevocable first step as far as the Legislature’s loopy left is concerned; the progressives will never forgive her, so she has no reason to be timid as the debate proceeds.

And here’s where horsepower comes in: Will she use the substantial constitutional powers of her office — the bully pulpit, appointments, discretionary spending and so on — to make Heastie and Stewart-Cousins more afraid of her than they are of their radicals?

Because that’s what it will take. Both leaders have made it clear that they have no intention of tightening New York’s penal code, and just last month they rudely blew off Adams’ request that they do so.

On the other hand, Albany pols change their minds like most folks change their socks. Sometimes sweet reason gets the job done; sometimes blunt-force trauma is required — but the successful governor is the one who can use every tool in the box, as they say.

In any event, Kathy Hochul just dismissed New York’s criminal-coddling left. If she doesn’t follow through now, she loses a big chunk of the reasonable, responsible middle — with all that portends.

Worse, if she loses, the criminals, the crazies and their equally unhinged patrons win.
So root for Hochul. She’s doing necessary work.