NEWS AND OPINION:

It’s a very touchy subject on Capitol Hill, in the White House, in state capitals and at town halls. When should an aging politician take a dignified bow and leave the public stage?

Americans have spoken.

“We live in an era of stark political division, but there’s at least one aspect of politics both sides agree on: a maximum age limit for elected officials. Most feel that after a certain age they should not be permitted to hold office,” CBS News reports.

“There isn’t just agreement across political lines, but across demographic groups, like age, too. Young and old, including seniors, favor maximum age limits for elected officials,” the network said — and yes, the network conducted a poll to support this idea.

And the numbers: 73% of U.S. adults agree there should be “maximum age limits” for elected officials — that includes 75% of Republicans, 75% of independents and 71% of Democrats. Even 74% of those respondents who were over age 65 agreed with that, along with 75% of those age 30 to 64.

Age 70 appears to be the ideal time for retirement, according to the poll — which found that 40% agreed that lawmakers and elected officials should make their gracious exit at age 70.

Another 26% favored age 60, while 18% gave the nod to age 80, 8% to age 50 and 2% to age 90.

The CBS News poll of 1,511 U.S. adults was conducted Aug. 29-31 and released Sunday.

THE ELUSIVE PRESS CONFERENCE

President Biden interactions with the news media are getting rare.

“Regardless of what you thought about former President Trump and his verbal treatment of the press, he was extremely accessible, sometimes to his own detriment,” advised Joe Concha, a columnist for The Hill.

Mr. Biden has held 17 press conferences in his first 20 months in office, compared to Mr. Trump, who hosted 36 press conferences in his first 20 months, he wrote in an analysis.

“So, the question is: If Biden has all the momentum many in the media have been saying he has, and if he has such a winning message that is turning everything around for Democrats heading into the midterms, why hasn’t he sat down for a TV interview in more than 210 days?” Mr. Concha asked.

“You read that correctly. The last time the president of the United States did a real TV interview was with NBC’s Lester Holt on Super Bowl Sunday in February,” he said.

“It is also noteworthy that Biden has not done an interview with journalists at any major print newspapers since taking office. (That’s nearly 600 days.) The president did do a June interview with the Associated Press, but that’s a wire service,” Mr. Concha later noted.
“Almost all news outlets would be up in arms if a Republican administration stiff-armed the press so blatantly. But a Republican administration isn’t in power,” he said.

THE GOVERNORS PUSH BACK

A group of 22 Republican governors led by Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa is not happy with President Biden’s $500 billion Student Loan Forgiveness Plan that will ultimately cost the average taxpayer more than $2,000.

The governors are offering a helpful and refreshingly clear reality check here.

“Only 16-17% of Americans have federal student loan debt, and yet, your plan will require their debts be redistributed and paid by the vast majority of taxpayers. Shifting the burden of debt from the wealthy to working Americans has a regressive impact that harms lower income families. Borrowers with the most debt, such as $50,000 or more, almost exclusively have graduate degrees, meaning hourly workers will pay off the master’s and doctorate degrees of high salaried lawyers, doctors, and professors,” the governors advised the president.

“A high-cost degree is not the key to unlocking the American Dream — hard work and personal responsibility is the key. For many borrowers, they worked hard, made sacrifices, and paid off their debt. For many others, they chose hard work and a paycheck rather than more school and a loan. Americans who did not choose to take out student loans themselves should certainly not be forced to pay for the student loans of others,” the governors said.

“At a time when inflation is sky high due to your unprecedented tax-and-spend agenda, your plan will encourage more student borrowing, incentivize higher tuition rates, and drive-up inflation even further, negatively impacting every American,” they advised.

Who are they?

The letter was signed by Ms. Reynolds — along with Govs. Kay Ivey (Alabama), Mike Dunleavy (Alaska), Doug Ducey (Arizona), Asa Hutchinson (Arkansas), Ron DeSantis (Florida), Brian Kemp (Georgia), Brad Little (Idaho), Larry Hogan (Maryland), Mike Parson (Missouri), Greg Gianforte (Montana), Pete Ricketts (Nebraska), Chris Sununu (New Hampshire), Doug Burgum (North Dakota), Mike DeWine (Ohio), Kevin Stitt (Oklahoma), Henry McMaster (South Carolina), Kristi Noem (South Dakota), Bill Lee (Tennessee), Greg Abbott (Texas), Spencer Cox (Utah) and Mark Gordon (Wyoming).

ONE FOR THE COAST GUARD

The U.S. Coast Guard Academy ranks among the nation’s top institutions of higher learning, according to a pair of major college rankings. The academy once again was named No. 1 in the Top Public Schools, Regional Colleges North, and the Best Regional College North categories in the 2022-2023 U.S. News & World Report “Best Colleges” magazine.

The academy was also ranked #12 in both the Campus Ethnic Diversity, Regional Colleges (North) category, and the overall Best in Undergraduate Engineering Programs category in the publication.

In addition, the Princeton Review also named the academy in “The Best 388 Colleges” ratings, a listing of the top 15% of colleges and universities in America.

POLL DU JOUR

• 24% of U.S. adults describe the political viewpoint as U.S. Supreme Court as “very conservative”; 22% describe the viewpoint as “conservative.”

• 27% describe the court’s viewpoint as “moderate.”

• 6% describe the court as “liberal”; 5% would derive it as “very liberal.”

• 17% are not sure what the political viewpoint of the court is.

SOURCE: An Economist YouGov poll of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted Sept. 3-6.

• Helpful information to [email protected].

NEW YORK (AP) — Payment processor Visa Inc. said Saturday that it plans to start separately categorizing sales at gun shops, a major win for gun control advocates who say it will help better track suspicious surges of gun sales that could be a prelude to a mass shooting.

But the decision by Visa, the world’s largest payment processor, will likely provoke the ire of gun rights advocates and gun lobbyists, who have argued that categorizing gun sales would unfairly flag an industry when most sales do not lead to mass shootings. It joins Mastercard and American Express, which also said they plan to move forward with categorizing gun shop sales.

Visa said it would adopt the International Organization for Standardization’s new merchant code for gun sales, which was announced on Friday. Until Friday, gun store sales were considered “general merchandise.”

“Following ISO’s decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will proceed with next steps, while ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules,” the payment processor said in a statement.

Visa’s adoption is significant as the largest payment network, and with Mastercard and AmeEx, will likely put pressure on the banks as the card issuers to adopt the standard as well. Visa acts as a middleman between merchants and banks, and it will be up to banks to decide whether they will allow sales at gun stores to happen on their issued cards.

Gun control advocates had gained significant wins on this front in recent weeks. New York City officials and pension funds had pressured the ISO and banks to adopt this code.

Two of the country’s largest public pension funds, in California and New York, have been pressing the country’s largest credit card firms to establish sales codes specifically for firearm-related sales that could flag suspicious purchases or more easily trace how guns and ammunition are sold.

Merchant category codes now exist for almost every kind of purchase, including those made at supermarkets, clothing stores, coffee shops and many other retailers.

“When you buy an airline ticket or pay for your groceries, your credit card company has a special code for those retailers. It’s just common sense that we have the same policies in place for gun and ammunition stores,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain who blames the proliferation of guns for his city’s deadly violence.

The city’s comptroller, Brad Lander, said it made moral and financial sense as a tool to push back against gun violence.

“Unfortunately, the credit card companies have failed to support this simple, practical, potentially lifesaving tool. The time has come for them to do so,” Lander said recently, before Visa and others had adopted the move.

Lander is a trustee of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, Teachers’ Retirement System and Board of Education Retirement System – which together own 667,200 shares in American Express valued at approximately $92.49 million; 1.1 million shares in MasterCard valued at approximately $347.59 million; and 1.85 million shares in Visa valued at approximately $363.86 million.

The pension funds and gun control advocates argue that creating a merchant category code for standalone firearm and ammunition stores could aid in the battle against gun violence. A week before the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where 49 people died after a shooter opened fire in 2016, the assailant used credit cards to buy more than $26,000 worth of guns and ammunition, including purchases at a stand-alone gun retailer.

Gun rights advocates argue that tracking sales at gun stores would unfairly target legal gun purchases, since merchant codes just track the type of merchant where the credit or debit card is used, not the actual items purchased. A sale of a gun safe, worth thousands of dollars and an item considered part of responsible gun ownership, could be seen as a just a large purchase at a gun shop.

“The (industry’s) decision to create a firearm specific code is nothing more than a capitulation to anti-gun politicians and activists bent on eroding the rights of law-abiding Americans one transaction at a time,” said Lars Dalseide, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association.

Over the years, public pension funds have used their extensive investment portfolios to influence public policy and the market place.

The California teacher’s fund, the second largest pension fund in the country, has long taken aim on the gun industry. It has divested its holdings from gun manufacturers and has sought to persuade some retailers from selling guns.

Four years ago, the teacher’s fund made guns a key initiative. It called for background checks and called on retailers “monitor irregularities at the point of sale, to record all firearm sales, to audit firearms inventory on a regular basis, and to proactively assist law enforcement.”

Some of the most violent crimes in America are being carried out by its youngest members of society and those who deal with youth offenders say the trend won’t reverse anytime soon.

The startling surge of lawlessness began during the pandemic and, in cities large and small that bear the brunt of the crime wave, leaders fret that there are no easy solutions.

In Washington last month, Commanders’ running back Brain Robinson Jr. was shot in an attempted carjacking perpetrated by an armed teenager.

Prosecutors in Philadelphia this summer filed murder charges against two 14-year-olds, a boy and a girl, for allegedly beating a 73-year-old man to death with a traffic cone.

A 17-year-old in San Antonio, Texas, was arrested and charged with murder, accused of luring a 15-year-old boy from his home in what police say was revenge for a drug robbery.

The list goes on and on.

SEE ALSO: Crime wave puts high-profile Democrats on defense for work on parole boards

“Youth crime is absolutely spiking,” said Marc T. Little, executive director of CURE America Action, a Christian-based conservative advocacy group focused on urban issues. “All we have to do is look at the news and most of what we read about the hotbeds of violence in cities is crimes committed by youth.”

Analysts say the rise in juvenile violent crime is caused by several factors, including absentee fathers, shuttered schools during the pandemic, and soft-on-crime district attorneys either refusing to press charges or seeking lenient sentences.

That has created a perfect storm for communities struggling to contain the violence.

Another factor, analysts say, is left-wing politicians and prosecutors whose lenient approach to juvenile crime.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Contrell angered police and others when she appeared in juvenile court last month to support a 14-year-old carjacker. She sat with the perpetrator’s family as he was sentenced to probation for three first-degree robbery convictions committed when he was only 13.

The head of the New Orleans Fraternal Order of Police said the move was a “disappointment” and “unfortunate.”

SEE ALSO: Biden rips GOP support for police, calls for increased funding for cops

“I pick no sides,” the mayor later said, explaining that the teen was in her Pathways program which is intended to help at-risk youth stay on the right path.

In Los Angeles, where rising crime rates have been plagued by brazen smash-and-grab robberies and home invasions, District Attorney George Gascon has sharply restricted when juveniles can be tried as an adult.

Those actions have sent a message to teens that there will be no consequences for their crimes and send teens back into urban communities to carry out further mayhem, Mr. Little said.

“People like George Gascon and others are not making sure teens are rehabilitated, but just looking to lower the numbers of youth in prison and sending them back into the communities,” he said.

While no one has tracked national data on crimes committed by juveniles, statistics from areas throughout the country point to a widespread rise in violent crime by these perpetrators.

Data from the police department in Montgomery County, Maryland, which borders Washington, shows that the number of homicide victims and suspects under the age of 21 has tripled since last year.

So far this year, there have been six homicide victims and nine suspects who are under 21, up from two victims and three suspects in 2021.

Through the first six months of 2022, prosecutors in Indianapolis charged six people under 21 with murder, compared to two charged throughout all of 2020 and the five charged by the end of 2021.

Police in Washington arrested 63 juveniles for carjackings so far this year, on pace to shatter last year’s record of 100 carjacking arrests. For all of 2019, only 25 teens were arrested for carjacking.

In Prince George’s County, Maryland, which also borders Washington, police arrested an eye-popping 430 juveniles so far this year, more than double the number from this time last year.

New Orleans police arrested 157 juveniles between June and August, including 24 who had been arrested more than once during that period.

The most recently available data on violent youth crime is from 2020. That data, compiled by The Sentencing Project, which advocates for reducing incarceration, showed that the number of homicides committed by those aged 10-19 increased by 1% in 2020 compared to 2019. However, the total number of juvenile arrests dropped by 8% during the same period.

Mac Levin, chief policy counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice, said it’s hard to know if juvenile crime is surging or if youths are just committing more high-profile offenses. The number of violent crimes solved by the police has decreased since 2020, making it difficult to determine who perpetrated the crime.

Mr. Levin also noted that in several cases, youth and adults committed the crime together, adding another variable that complicates quantifying youth crime.

Some municipalities have taken steps to address the violence.

Officials in Prince George’s County on Friday began enforcing a curfew for teens, requiring them to be off the streets between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and between 12 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, unless accompanied by an adult.

Officials in Philadelphia, Washington and Winston-Salem, North Carolina followed suit, quietly resuming enforcing their long-standing juvenile curfews by trying to curb crime in areas where young people tend to congregate.

Curfews exist in at least 400 towns, cities and counties across the country, but are rarely enforced, according to data from the National Youth Rights Association.

The move was popular in the 1990s when politicians sought to be tough-on-crime at a time when America was awash in violent crime. However, curfews fell out of favor in the mid-2000s, when social justice activists said they trampled on the rights of Black youth.

Studies show that curfews do little to curb crime in the communities where they are enforced. A 2016 study by the Campbell Collaboration, a non-profit that reviews public policies, examined 7,000 studies on juvenile curfews and concluded they were “ineffective.”

The Campbell Collaboration concluded that there was a slight increase in crime during curfew hours and it had no impact on reducing crime when the curfew was not in effect.

Data from the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention released this year found that violence committed by youth aged 7 through 17 is more frequent during school days and occurs between 1 pm and 7 pm.

“These kids are brazen and out in the light of day doing what they do,” said Kevin McGary, president of the conservative activist group Every Black Life Matters. “If all these crimes were committed at night, this might have some effect, but I don’t see it as a real solution.”

Mr. McGary said the nation must work to address the crisis of fatherlessness in Black communities.

A Justice Department study last year found that 72% of adolescents serving sentences for murder are from fatherless households, while 60% of rapists grew up without a dad.

Meanwhile, more than 72% of African-American children are born to unmarried mothers. Between 1930 and 1950 over 90% of children in African-American households were born to a married couple.

“Fatherlessness is the common denominator for crime in the urban communities,” Mr. McGary said. “Fathers are not there as a voice of reason, pillar of rationality, and a barrier to protect children. Single moms are working and children are left to their own devices and we are reaping the consequences of that.”