LOS ANGELES, California — Mayor Karen Bass joined a community meeting about the recent L.A. fires on Tuesday that opened with a denunciation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which had nothing to do with the natural disaster.
“The politicization of the pain in our communities is immoral,” said Rabbi Ken Chasen of Leo Baeck Temple, repeating it twice for emphasis. “Attempting to capitalize off the misery of fire survivors is unjust — the very definition of injustice.”
“Now is not the time for tearing down leadership. We thank Mayor Bass and our elected leaders for listening and acting swiftly,” he said.
Having just said that we should not “politicize” the issue, Rabbi Chasen then went on to do so.
“We also believe it will be essential during this week, when ICE has started to show up in our communities, that when we say everyone deserves to be safe in our community, we mean everyone.”
Members of the audience applauded; this reporter, a Pacific Palisades resident, walked out in protest.
In discussing the event beforehand with organizers, they admitted that the participants in the meeting, from both the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire in Altadena, had been handpicked, and said that questions would not be allowed from members of the audience.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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