Cheryl Russell 9:12 a.m.
Friday, July 2, 2021 9:11 am

JUST DAY TRIPPERS: Sure Kamala, you're right. There is no border crisis. (Newsday photo)

Last week Kamala Harris finally visited a southern border town - El Paso, Texas, which is miles away from the real border crisis. That visit was nearly six months after the Biden Administration canceled effective Trump immigration policies thereby creating the crisis on our southern border. During that visit, Kamala stated that progress has been made. That is an absolute and total lie. The only real progress that has been made is the cartels getting richer as they traffic human beings and drugs into the United States.

In May, for the third straight month in a row, apprehensions at the border have exceeded 170,000 which is more than all of 2020. More fentanyl in greater amounts has crossed the border and is making its way throughout the country. Some human traffickers have been arrested. The cartels continue to get rich while families are torn apart in their homeland and suffer the dangerous journey at the hands of paid criminals. While some individual criminals have been apprehended, the "got aways" are unknown.

Brietbart news reporter Katherine Hamilton states, "In the past few days, the Biden Administration has been attempting to shift crime wave blame onto Republicans by accusing them of "defunding the police" -- despite evidence to the contrary."

"Despite an attempt to change the narrative, the facts speak for themselves: Democrats have been rallying to defund the police for more than a year, and simultaneously, crime has drastically risen in America's biggest -- Democrat-run -- cities.

• President Joe Biden said he supported reallocating police resources during his campaign.

• Vice President Kamala Harris said "I applaud Eric Garcetti" for defunding the Los Angeles police, and said "we have to reimagine public safety" while discussing lowering the police presence in communities.

• Biden's Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said officials must heed calls to "decrease police budgets and the scope, role, and responsibility of police in our lives."

• As Boston Mayor, Biden's Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh proposed a budget to divert funding from law enforcement.

• Biden's Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke wrote an op-ed for Newsweek in 2020 supporting efforts to "defund the police."

• Rep. Val Demings (D-IL) called the Minneapolis City Council "very thoughtful" for voting to dismantle the police.

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and fellow House Democrats refused to criticize the Minneapolis City Council for defunding the police.

• Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) told protestors to "get more confrontational" with police.

• Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) called for dismantling the Minneapolis Police Department.

• Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) called for defunding police as a congresswoman-elect.

• A Democratic National Convention panelist advocated for defunding the police.

• A Minneapolis City Council member defended defunding the police but said she didn't "have all the answers" on who would respond to violent crime.

• House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) compared federal law enforcement to the Nazi Gestapo. He later ignored looting and arson in D.C., claiming the only violence he saw in D.C. was from police.

• Democrat Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he doesn't want police officers to respond to rape.

• Former Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) said he supported Maxine Waters' call to confront the police.

Even though violent crime has risen significantly in the past year, Democrats are still calling for the defunding of police departments around the country:

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) stood by her calls to "reallocated resources away" from police while saying the crime surge is just "hysteria."

• Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) said she still supports defunding the police.

• Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) requested additional police protection at his New York home in January while demanding police departments be defunded in America."

What is at stake with the Democratic Administration and liberal media political lying? An article appearing in the Markkkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University addresses the dangers of political lies and can be summed up in the following comments.

The lowest common denominator in humans is to favor truth over lies. Humans have always favored the truth as a foundation of government. When trust shatters or wears away, institutions and governments collapse. When a politician's deceitful lies are supported by media propaganda that politician is enabled to acquire power by any and all means. When that politician's lies are supported and parroted by the politician's party of affiliation, the lie becomes accepted as truth.

The harm of a lie must be viewed not only from the motive of the liar, but also the impact that it has upon the deceived. Lies not only compel a person to narrow his or her field of choice but give rise to power taken away from the people being lied to. Power accumulates over the course of repeated lies.

The political liar amasses power over time and the deceived lose power over time. While some accept political lies as common place, the real danger of this acquisition of power is that democracy will no longer exist.

Political lies are not limited to the politicians. News outlets in the United States are owned and operated primarily by six companies--GE, Newscorp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS -- not to mention social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube. Those six companies and social platforms literally control nearly everything we know and do not know. Where are the checks and balances and what will happen if this continues? (Lindsay Solper, Propaganda In Today's Media)

The liberal media and Democrats installed Joe Biden by burying the Hunter Laptop story shortly before the election and with lies since 2016 too numerous to list in this short letter.

Not only do the lies of politicians control politics, but, additionally, the news media acts as a propaganda arm of those politicians. It is time to hold politicians accountable for their lies and end the media promoting propaganda as fact. It is time for an intensified movement to save our Constitutional Republic. It is time for a new movement--take back the media and hold politicians accountable for lying to the American people.

Cheryl Russell is a former high school teacher and 30-year employee with the U.S. Department of the Treasury. She lives in Dover.