AUSTIN, Texas (Texas Insider Report) — Americans can hardly turn on the news or scroll through social media these days without being bombarded with images of violence happening around the country. And as happened during the 1968 Presidential Election, voters today are asking when the rioting, lawlessness, physical intimidation and looting will end.
In the presidential race between President Donald Trump and his Democrat challenger Joe Biden, the battle for the high ground on the issue of "Law & Order" has forced Biden to play from a position of defense.But it’s not just at the top of the ticket, however, where the subject of safe streets and neighborhoods is playing out.
Political pundits have suggested the outcome of November's elections will be determined by suburban females – who at times seem to struggle bewteen Trump’s New York City brashness versus his independent and pragmatic record of accomplishments as a 1st Term President.
The battle for the hearts and minds of America’s suburbs is unfolding in Congressional Races across the country as well, and for the first time in a long time, that battle is even playing out in the state of Texas.
National Democrats have hurt their Texas party members by refusing to denouce the lawless rioting nationwide, while embracing the "Defund the Police" movement in places like Austin and Dallas.
Their only capitulation, to date, has been an overtly transparent mouthing of the words “law and order.”
One Texas Democrat, though, refuses to do even that – and it should come at little surprise when, in fact, he has a history of defending violent gang members while living in California.
Democrat Congressional candidate Mike Siegel, who's challenging respected Republican Cong. Michael McCaul (left,) for the 10th Congressional District seat running from north Austin to northwest of Houston, defended members of the notorius Nortenos Gang against the City of Oakland, California about a decade ago, during his days as a lawyer in Northern California.In an effort to reduce neighborhood crime, the Oakland City Council was trying to secure an injunction against the Nortenos Gang to prevent its members from gathering in a particular section of town, the Fruitvale area, where the Nortenos claimed a significant part of the city as their territory. The injunction would have applied to 40 members of the gang, and prohibited them from meeting within a 2-square-mile area inside the neighborhood. The injunction also sought to place a curfew on the gang's members.
One Oakland Police Captain called the Nortenos the “most dangerous street gang in Oakland,” and chastised anti-injunction activists like Mike Siegel, saying,
“There are those who are apparently more concerned about the rights of those terrorizing communities, than they are for the residents who live in fear.”
The Nortenos Gang has a long and well-established violent criminal record. According to police records, crimes committed by the Nortenos include, among others:
- Assault
- Burglary
- Car-Jacking
- Domestic Diolence
- Drive-by Shootings
- Drug Trafficking
- Gun Trafficking
- Homicide
- Human Trafficking
Possession of a Hand Grenade- Rape, and
- Robbery
To Siegel, it was the police who were at fault – not the ones committing the crimes, a notorius Oakland gang.
