RUSH: The rising crime wave in New York City, talk about it all the time. Shootings are up 200 percent over last year, and all sorts of violence and mayhem are being unleashed.

Now the mayor, the idiot Bill de Blasio, says people’s pent-up frustration at being cooped up inside because of the coronavirus is the reason for skyrocketing crime. He says the one billion dollar cut in the police budget, that’s got nothing to do with it. Dismantling the anti-crime task force, the plain-clothes unit, that’s got nothing to do with it, either. And, of course, neither does his release of over 2,000 hardened criminals from Rikers Island.

And now another genius, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has put her two cents in. She agrees the massive police budget cuts are not related to the crime wave – because she wants the police defunded. She says rising crime is caused by people who are scared to pay their rent. They go out and shoplift a loaf of bread to feed their hungry kids. How does that account for the 200 percent increase in shootings?

Meanwhile on the other coast, California Democrats are about to release 8,000 criminals from jails and prisons to stop the virus from spreading, supposedly.

Liberal Democrats. They defund the police, and at the same time they release criminals from jail. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?