Heather Mac Donald, the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, testified before the House Committee on the Judiciary regarding the local and national upheavals over police policies. MacDonald could be said to be watching her warning come true, as she wrote in  The War on Cops (2016), a New York Times bestseller, that raced-based attacks on the criminal justice system erode the authority of law and putting lives at risk. MacDonald is no mindless ideologue . A graduate of Yale and Stanford Law School, she is a prolific and best selling author, and has won many awards for her writing. Nonetheless, you will never see her on panels or as a guest on news shows anywhere but Fox News. Intelligent and persuasive advocates for conservative positions are not welcome in the vast majority of the broadcast news media, for the same reason Senator Cotton’s op-ed in the Times prompted an editor’s resignation and the paper’s abject promise to avoid publishing upsetting non-conforming  views in the future.

McDonald was invited to testify by Republicans on the committee (of course) but her statement should (but won’t) be considered by policy-makers and citizens of all political persuasions, if facts matter to them.

Among McDonald’s points yesterday: Continue reading →