Article by Jazz Shaw in "HotAir":
This is an item in the current presidential election food fights that’s been simmering since early last month and it once again popped up in a number of media outlets this week. Has Joe Biden endorsed the idea of “defunding the police” during this campaign? The mainstream media has been doing backflips recently, trying to claim that Joe has never said this. CNN’s “Facts First” fact-checker jumps through so many hoops to try to make this point that they should be entered in the Westminster Dog Show. The Washington Post ran with a claim that a Trump campaign advertisement “falsely suggests” that he said it. The Associated Press just flatly states that Biden “did not call for” defunding the police.
Joe Biden says police have "BECOME THE ENEMY" and calls for CUTTING police funding: "Yes, absolutely!"
Ady Barkan: “Can we agree that we can redirect some of the funding [from the police]?”
Joe Biden: “Yes, absolutely”
Our industrious fact-checkers continue to attempt to insist that if Biden was only talking about not authorizing funds for police departments to purchase surplus military equipment then it doesn’t count. How does that work? You either give them the funding or you don’t. If you don’t, you’re defunding them.
We should also go back to PolitiFact’s own definition of what defunding the police means. “While some protesters want to eliminate police departments entirely, others want to reexamine the functions of police departments and redirect some of their funding to other services.”
“Reexamining the functions of police departments” is a meaningless phrase. That’s a separate conversation about restructuring police forces. But “redirecting some of their funding” to other services means precisely what it says. You’re taking some of their current funding and sending it elsewhere. Would anyone in the class like to earn a cookie for identifying another way of saying “redirecting some of their funding?” That’s right, kids. Defunding.
Here’s another interesting footnote from the CNN “fact check” I linked at the top of this article. While valiantly paddling upstream against the current to defend Joe Biden, they note the following: (Emphasis added)
In June, when calls to “defund the police” gained prominence on the left amid the national protests that followed the killing of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police, Biden said, “No, I don’t support defunding the police.” Rather, he said, he supports conditioning federal money to police “based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness.”
Biden also said in early June that it “makes sense” for “some places” to reallocate some funding away from their police departments, since some places do not have enough officers but others “have a lot more than they need.” He said the decision depends on the particular community.
Excuse me, but if you’re in the middle of an effort to claim that Biden never said we should defund the police, why would you go out of your way to provide yet another two examples of when he said precisely that? “Conditioning federal money… based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards” means that you will defund them if they fail to meet the criteria you set from on high. And not for nothing, but would Joe Biden care to show us some of these communities who “have a lot more officers” than they need? Inquiring minds want to know.
So why are Team Biden and his media supporters so desperate to convince voters that he didn’t say what he clearly said? Because almost nobody wants to defund the police. Again… why? Because that’s insanity and everyone knows it..
We’ll close with an interesting video that popped up in my feed last night. It shows a group of white liberals in low crime areas being asked if we should get rid of the police. That’s followed by some Black residents of higher crime areas answering the same question. The results may come as a surprise to some.
White liberals in low crime areas vs Black people in high crime areas:
https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2020/07/19/yes-joe-biden-absolutely-said-defund-police/