Amid flurry of parole reform measures are two that tackle the parole process itself
Two aging inmates in a prison in San Luis Obispo, California. Maryland lawmakers are considering several parole reform bills this year, including two little-noticed bills that would reform the parole process itself. (Photo by)
Amid high-profile proposals to make it easier for long-serving inmates to seek sentence reductions and to make work safer for parole agents are two largely overlooked efforts that supporters say are no less important: Reforming the parole process itself.
'Looking at the process of parole may seem, you know, not as big, but it is, especially for those incarcerated. Just trying to increase … a little bit more transparency and predictability,' said Del. Elizabeth Embry (D-Baltimore City). 'I'm just saying [there's] room for improvement, and we hope this bill will advance us toward that improvement.'
Embry is the sponsor of House Bill 1147, which calls for an annual report by the Maryland Parole Commission breaking down the number of cases it has heard and approved in a year, broken down by race, and requiring that inmates who are rejected for parole get a report detailing the reasons why. Currently, they have to ask for that information.
Del. N. Scott Phillips' (D-Baltimore County) House Bill 1156 would increase the number of Parole Commission members from the current 1o to at least 15 but no more than 20. More importantly, those members, currently nominated by the secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, would be nominated instead by the governor, from a list of candidates drawn up by a new commission made up of law enforcement officials, public defenders, health and education officials and more. The Parole Commission nominees would still need to be confirmed by the Senate.
Both Phillips' and Embry's bills are scheduled to be heard March 4 before the House Judiciary Committee.
'Parole [reform] will be something we will definitely take a look at,' Del. Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City), chair of the committee, said in an interview earlier this month.
Clippinger said the two bills 'generally, but not specifically' resemble legislative priorities from Campaign Zero, a national social justice organization led by a Maryland native DeRay Mckesson.
Mckesson, one of the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement, served on a Maryland task force in 2023 to evaluate data collection and policies within Maryland's state's attorneys' offices, and to assess whether prosecutors' practices are fair and equitable.
Mckesson said attempts to reform of the Parole Commission are welcome.
'We need to modernize the structure of the Parole Commission. So few people understand the parole process. We just want fairness in the parole system,' he said in an interview earlier this month.
The Parole Commission, a part of the department within correctional services, is a full-time body that holds parole hearings on a case-by-case basis to determine whether those serving six months or longer should be granted parole. The commission chair draws a $132,000 salary and commissioners are paid $117,000, according to the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
The 10-member board is scheduled to meet every other Wednesday but currently it has three vacancies. The department declined comment on the two latest bills, except to say that it 'recognizes the critical role legislation plays in building a more just and effective correctional system in Maryland.'
Embry's bill calls for additional data that is not currently required in the commission's annual report of its work to the governor, such as figures 'disaggregated by race of relevant incarcerated individuals.' Some of the other information must highlight the number of cases in which the commission granted or denied parole; the number of people granted administrative release; the number of parole hearings and purpose of each hearing; and the number of people eligible for parole but never granted it.
Hearing examiners who review each incarcerated individual's case and make a recommendation to the commission for or against parole would have one week, instead of the current three, to deliver a report the to the inmate, the commission and the Department of Corrections, spelling out the reasons for the recommendation. In addition to including the 'reasoning and justifications for the recommendation,' an individual denied parole would have to get another hearing scheduled 'not later than two years' from the denial. Currently, there's no requirement to when a subsequent parole hearing must be scheduled.
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The bill also specifies that, 'The Commission does not have the authority to permanently deny parole.'
'There's a need for [parole] improvement and we hope this bill will advance us toward that,' Embry said in a recent interview.
Phillips' bill would take hearing examiners out of the process of recommending parole approval or denial. Under the current law, the commission can skip a hearing on a parole case if there are no objections from the inmate or the department, in which case the hearing examiner's recommendation become the final decision.
Phillips' bill would also alter not only who serves on the Parole Commission, but how members are appointed for a six-year term.
When there's a vacancy on the commission, a 12-member panel would submit at least three nominees to the governor. Those panel members would include the public defender, president of the Maryland State's Attorney's Association, the executive director of the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission and four appointees of the governor – three from the general public and a prisoners' rights advocate.
Some advocates noted the Parole Commission should diversify its panel. DPSCS confirmed that three former department employees are now parole commissioners: Chair Ernest Eley, Robyn Lyles and Lisa Vronch.
Second Look Act draws hours of testimony in House Judiciary Committee
Maryland is currently one of just four states, along with Kansas, Michigan and Ohio, that do not allow the governor to directly choose person to serve on a parole commission.
'This is to start a conversation about really looking at how the Parole Commission operates, particularly who's on the Parole Commission and what workload do they have right now,' Phillips said in a recent interview. 'Really having people to be a little more accountable in the process.'
Clippinger said he wants to see action this year on one parole measure that has been reviewed for several years — removing the governor from the medical parole process.
That bill, sponsored since 2022 by Del. J. Sandy Bartlett (D-Anne Arundel), vice chair of the Judiciary committee, will be heard Tuesday by Judiciary. A companion Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. C. Anthony Muse (D-Prince George's), was held Feb. 13. The measure passed the Senate last year, but did not get out of Judiciary.
'We want to get the medical piece done this year. We're going to try and make that happen,' Clippinger said, standing near Bartlett.
'We're going to get it done,' Bartlett said.
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Boston Globe
23-05-2025
- Boston Globe
Black Lives Matter street murals stand as an enduring reminder of protests against racism
Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, D.C., ordered crews to remove the BLM mural in March under pressure from the Republican-led Congress. Bowser noted that the mural — an act of defiance against President Trump's first administration — 'inspired millions of people and helped our city through a painful period.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Keyonna Jones, one of seven artists who painted Black Lives Matter Plaza, said she understands why Bowser acted and that the mural's removal doesn't take away from its historic importance. Advertisement 'To see it replicated all over the world within 24 hours,' Jones said during the demolition of the plaza. 'I think is what really speaks to the power of art and so that is my favorite part about the whole experience.' According to Urban Art Mapping, a database of public street art, nearly 150 'Black Lives Matter' murals remain. Advertisement Lindsey Owen, an art historian in Chicago, said each one represents the shared cultural and political purpose of a community. 'Even as BLM Plaza is dismantled, the reciprocal mirroring of these murals ensures their persistence,' Owen said, 'now also reflecting the absence of spaces that have been removed.' Here are details of some notable BLM murals: Alabama In 1899, Hobson City became Alabama's first self-governed all-Black municipality. In 2020, residents including Mayor Alberta McCrory painted 'Black Towns Matter' on its main street, Martin Luther King Boulevard. In Montgomery, a temporary installation was established around Court Square Fountain, once the site of a slave market. City officials said the mural will be washed away once wear and tear begin to show. Michelle Browder, the artist, said her design reflects the history of the area, and that the community signaled a readiness to address racial inequity by uniting to complete the mural. 'It gives us a sense of uniqueness and shows that our statement has not only significance but also invites people to look down, read and reflect on what happened in this space,' Browder said. California In downtown Oakland, residents and community groups painted 'Black Lives Matter' along three blocks of 15th Steet. A month later, another mural was erected by The Queer Healing Arts Center honoring Black Trans and Queer Lives. The city council in neighboring Berkeley then approved a BLM painting in front of city hall. A rainbow-colored mural along the center lane of Los Angeles' Hollywood Boulevard states 'All Black Lives Matter' in celebration of the BLM movement and transgender people of color. Mural designer, Luckie Alexander, said its message resonates stronger than ever today. Advertisement 'Seeing the BLM Plaza (in Washington) destroyed feels like we are going back in time, when Black folks and LGBTQ+ had to struggle just to exist,' Alexander said. 'With the one here in Hollywood still remaining, it gives me hope that California is still a safe place to live.' Connecticut In Hartford, a Black Lives Matter mural — each letter painted by a different artist — was created on Trinity Street, just steps from the Capitol. That mural was repainted in 2023 after it was defaced with a swastika. Andre Rochester, who painted one of the Ts in 2020 and 2023, said the mural represents the city's Black and brown population. 'It was placed with intention,' Rochester said, adding: 'It makes a loud statement, that the City of Hartford cares.' Tyrone Motley, who inked the V during the 2023 repainting, said it is important that Hartford continues to protect the mural even as others around the country disappear. 'I feel work like this is ageless,' Motley said. 'I'm pretty sure in 10 years people can look at a piece like this and still get the message.' Florida A 'Black Lives Matter' mural in St. Petersburg mural was repainted in 2023 to read 'Black History Matters.' Illinois One of the murals that sprung up across Chicago — a 100-foot 'Black Lives Matter' display in Oak Park — was vandalized to read 'All Lives Matter.' The original message was later restored. Minnesota In Minneapolis, where a bystander used her cellphone to record Floyd's killing at the hands of police, 16 artists participated in the creation of 'Black Lives Matter' in 24-foot-high letters on the street outside the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum. Missouri In Florissant, activists attempted to paint a mural in front of the police department on North Lindberg Avenue, but the city kept painting over it. Advertisement In Kansas City, six murals were painted across one block, totaling a span of 2,000 feet. The murals were enhanced in response to vandalism, but some are now deteriorating. New Jersey A block-long mural on Grand Street in Jersey City took two weeks to complete. In East Orange, 100 people participated in the creation of a 9,000 square-foot mural. New York In New York City, a mural in front of Trump Tower in Manhattan and others in Harlem and Brooklyn were defaced with black paint by anti-abortion protesters. Texas Six murals were painted across Dallas in 2020. Abounding Prosperity, Inc., which provides health services to the Black community, secured private funding to ensure they will be maintained for 10 years. Washington A permanent mural was installed in Seattle's Capitol Hill. The city and the Vivid Matter Collective — an artists' group — repaint and maintain the mural every year. In 2021, a second mural was installed outside Seattle City Hall. The organization will repaint that mural in June.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Yahoo
What the Reconstruction Era Can Teach Us About the Politics of Shame
Man representing the Freedman's Bureau stands between armed groups of Euro-Americans and Afro-Americans, 1868. Credit - A.R. Waud—Library of Congress There is a curious passage in W.E.B. Du Bois' 1903 masterpiece, The Souls of Black Folk, that tries to capture the zeitgeist of those closing decades of the 19th century that ended Reconstruction and gave birth to Jim Crow. Reflecting on the epochal defeat of our country's post-Civil War experiment in Black emancipation and multiracial democracy, Du Bois characterizes the era as 'the psychological moment when the nation was a little ashamed of having bestowed so much sentiment on Negroes, and was concentrating its energies on Dollars.' I have taught Souls every year of my career as a professor of African American Studies. Still, I confess I never truly grasped the enduring significance of Du Bois' insistence on this peculiar description. Reading it amidst our era's rampant recriminations against 'identity politics,' 'diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI),' and 'wokeness,' as well as the backlash against 'Black Lives Matter' and police reform, it is difficult to avoid the force of Du Bois' insight: Like with the demise of Reconstruction, the struggle over shame is key to understanding the reactionary politics that we see today in the post-BLM era. The rhetoric of racial reaction, to paraphrase economist Albert O. Hirschman, has successfully spread this debilitating emotion. In the aftermath of George Floyd's murder in 2020, for instance, support for Black Lives Matter soared to historic heights in polling and protest participation. Shortly thereafter, according to leading Pew Research Center surveys, public support—especially among white Americans and Republicans—fell precipitously as narratives and media coverage from the right reframed the movement. Early portrayals often treated antiracist activism as a disruptive but long overdue 'reckoning' with how racial stigma promotes police impunity or makes the citizenry tolerate enduring, intergenerational injustices like inner-city poverty. Now that the rhetoric of reaction is ascendent, leading narratives dramatize the movement as divisive, dangerous, and corrupt. Looming over this data is the ubiquitous gender gap in American politics. While women have historically been, especially during the Reconstruction era, advocates and underappreciated drivers of change and support, growing gender divisions structure public opinion. A March 2025 NBC News poll reports that among women ages 18 to 49, 67% say DEI programs should continue, while only 40% of men in the age bracket say the same. We are living through another of these 'psychological moments'—a time when much of the nation is recoiling in unwarranted shame or even resentment at the moral obligation to repair, remember, and reimagine. What once felt like a shared reckoning has, for many, become a source of fatigue or suspicion—a sobering reminder of how quickly a moral awakening can be reframed as a shameful mistake. Yet, this shame is not simply a private emotion. It is the result of a political strategy, one cultivated to sap the confidence and conviction of those who dared to be outraged about racial injustice, or thought that disruption and solidarity could overcome paralysis and fear. It is akin to the shame that followed Reconstruction, when the project of multiracial democracy was denounced as naïve, corrupt, and unnatural—not simply because it had failed on its own terms, but because of who was involved and what it threatened to upend. To understand our own moment's rhetoric of race politics, we must trace an ignoble inheritance passed down from the enemies of Reconstruction to the present. These so-called 'Redeemers,' as white conservative Democrats anointed their movement in the postbellum era, cast themselves as gallant saviors of a fallen South, determined to rescue their region from the sinful empowerment of formerly enslaved people, federal intervention, and the democratic possibilities unleashed by Reconstruction. With a deep investment in racial hierarchy and a romanticized vision of the antebellum order, they cloaked their counter-revolution in the language of salvation, insisting they were 'redeeming' their states from what they framed as the chaos, corruption, and illegitimate imposition of 'Negro rule.' In truth, the Redeemers waged a campaign of violent reassertion indifferent to injustice—past or present. Theirs was a restorationist project carried by terroristic violence, voter suppression and government usurpation, and the deliberate dismantling of government institutions like the Freedmen's Bureau and public schools. 'Redemption' became a euphemism for the suffocation of multiracial democracy in its infancy. Their rhetoric provided a rough draft for what Du Bois would later call 'the propaganda of history': the collective distortion of the past in textbooks, scholarship, popular culture, and memorials into a 'convenient fairy tale.' There are three key elements of the Redemptionist reaction that especially resonate in the present. First and foremost, the rhetoric of their movement insisted that racial equality is an inherently foolish and futile pursuit due to the intractable incompetence and inferiority of people of African descent wherever they are found on the globe. In an 1867 address to Congress, President Andrew Johnson proclaimed that 'Negroes have shown less capacity for government than any other race of people…wherever they have been left to their own devices they have shown a constant tendency to relapse into barbarism.' Supreme Court Justice Joseph McKenna, in the majority opinion for Williams v. Mississippi, an 1898 ruling that narrowed the scope of anti-discrimination claims to the explicit text of law, declared that the Negro race 'by reason of its previous condition of servitude and dependencies,' has 'acquired or accentuated' certain habits, temperaments, and characteristics that mark them separate from whites in their carelessness, dishonesty, docility, and lack of 'forethought.' Popularly, the banner of Black incompetence was carried by demeaning depictions in material and theatrical culture, as well as in D.W. Griffith's racist epic film, The Birth of a Nation (1915), which portrayed Reconstruction-era Black legislators as 'comically' idiotic, necessitating the violent restoration of white rule. This rhetoric is, unfortunately, resonant with today's attacks on 'DEI,' with critics insisting that efforts to recruit, incorporate, and promote Black talent in higher education, the military, and in many workplaces amount to the dangerous promotion of incompetence. President Donald Trump, for example, immediately and falsely blamed a horrific Washington, D.C. plane crash on DEI hiring at the Federal Aviation Administration, despite no supporting evidence and overwhelming testimony to the contrary from aviation officials. Meanwhile, figures like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have made attacking and dismantling DEI a large part of their public persona, while ignoring legitimate concerns about their unprecedented lack of qualifications for their own roles. High-profile Black leaders like former Harvard president Claudine Gay or former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles Q. Brown, Jr., have been targeted for defamation and harassment to drive them out of their positions, similarly to Black elected officials and business leaders in the Reconstruction era. The consequence of these campaigns is a revival, from the highest offices of the land, of the Redemptionist lie that common sense should treat Black people as presumptively unfit for positions of authority or public trust. Those who believe otherwise, then, are caricatured as foolish and sentimental. These arguments frequently draw their legitimacy from pseudoscientific racism and the related idea of the backwardness of African diasporic peoples—and expand much further than politics. From Silicon Valley to the media landscape, people in positions of power are reintroducing theories of racial hierarchy under the guise of defending 'free inquiry' or 'realism.' As the Scientific American and The Guardian have documented, a network of actors is actively working to launder eugenics-era thought into legitimacy, cloaked in appeals to genetic science, meritocracy, and market rationality. From Tucker Carlson's monologues, to Elon Musk's offhand remarks about intelligence and heredity, to the administration's executive order against teaching the social construction of 'race,' a new generation of elites is reanimating the old canard that racial inequality is not the legacy of injustice but the reflection of the fundamental inequality of natural 'racial' kinds. Second, we are encouraged to feel shame because of the perversity of consequences. Whatever the good intentions of the last decade or so of racial progressivism, we are told, we have only exacerbated crime, deepened distrust, and stood in the way of economic rationality. Take, for example, the so-called 'Ferguson Effect,' the notion that protests against police brutality demoralize police and exacerbate crime. Just as the reactionary historiography of Reconstruction, led by William Dunning, cast Reconstruction as a misguided, radical experiment in Black suffrage and governance, the Ferguson effect casts protest movements like Black Lives Matter as accelerants of violence and civic decay. Both assert a kind of intuitive 'common sense' that masks deep ideological anxieties. The Dunning historians appealed to the logic of natural racial hierarchy, while proponents of the Ferguson effect draw on a racialized sense of law and order where public safety is presumed to hang precariously on police exercising sweeping authority and compelling broad deference and admiration. In both cases, dissenting scholars have had to work uphill to replace myth with measurement. As social scientists like David Pyrooz and Richard Rosenfeld have shown, the Ferguson effect—when tested across dozens of major cities—fails to reveal a coherent national trend. Rigorous studies consistently find that changes in policing behavior, while real in some places, did not drive national crime patterns, and where proactive policing declined, crime often did not rise at all. Importantly, the best accounts have not only rejected the broad claims of de-policing as a driver of crime but have also emphasized the dangers of clinging to these narratives. The fact that cities like Boston and Baltimore are currently experiencing record homicide declines undercut the notion of a generalized crime wave and affirm something protestors proclaimed: that differences in police approaches matter immensely. Another pillar of Redemptionist rhetoric is the feminization of progressive politics. From Reconstruction to the present, reactionary voices have sometimes attempted to discredit movements for racial justice by portraying their advocates—especially white women—as naïve, sentimental, meddling, and destabilizing. During the postbellum years, white female abolitionists and teachers working with freedpeople were mocked as 'nigger schoolmarms,' accused of spreading delusion and disorder, and often singled out in violent retributions. These women played a vital role in founding schools, advocating suffrage, and supporting Black citizenship, but were often cast by their critics as insubordinate, hysterical, or morally corrupting. This gendered stigma echoed through how Reconstruction itself was characterized—less a serious project of transitional justice and constitutional refounding than a crusade driven by feminine sentimentality run amok. As recent historians have shown, many white women brought genuine moral and pedagogical commitments to the work of abolition and Reconstruction, but navigated a public discourse that portrayed their efforts as irrational and disruptive. Their work, particularly in the South, became one of the earliest battlegrounds where political femininity was equated with moral overreach, excess, and social breakdown. This trope has only persisted today as figures like Christopher Rufo and other conservative intellectuals have revived a strikingly similar line of attack. Writing in City Journal, National Post, and across the digital right, they framed 'wokeness' and progressive racial discourse as symptoms of what they call the 'feminization of American culture.' The rise of DEI and new norms around pedagogy, student activism, and campus protest culture is attributed to a dangerous excess of 'feminine' traits—emotionality, overprotection, inclusivity, and moralistic judgment. This narrative not only ridicules the intellectual and political work of women but also seeks to cast entire movements for justice as self-indulgent and unserious. It is an old trick: to attribute the presence of injustice not to the powerful who perpetuate it, but to the women and marginalized people who criticize it. What makes this rhetoric particularly potent is that it insists on old gender hierarchies as the norm. To understand this history is not merely to lament its repetition, but to arm ourselves with clarity. The reemergence of scientific racism, the delegitimization of Black leadership and achievement, the panic over DEI and protest, the feminization of justice—are not isolated phenomena. They are part of a coherent tradition of backlash, one that knows how to speak the language of realism and reform while advancing the cause of domination. The task, then, is not simply to refute the lies with better data, though that matters. It is to refuse the shame that seeks to make us forget what we glimpsed, however briefly, in the streets in 2020 and beyond: the possibility that this country might confront how far it is from the scale and scope of its promises, and seize upon that reckoning to remake itself. We will either find a way to remember that aspiration without apology. Or, we will watch another moment where the tentative promise of reconstruction curdles and congeals into something genuinely worthy of our collective shame. Terry is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and the co-director of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. His forthcoming book is Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement This project was supported by funding from the Center for Policing Equity. Contact us at letters@
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Yahoo
Thousands march in Dublin against Ireland's mass migration policies as McGregor pursues presidential bid
Thousands of people participated in a march against Ireland's mass migration policies in the country's capital of Dublin on Saturday. UFC champion Conor McGregor – who is considering a potential presidential bid in his native Ireland – posted a video message beforehand from Dublin's Garden of Remembrance, where the march began hours later. "Hello everyone in Ireland. April 26th, 2025 - A big day here for our country. "A historic month for Ireland since 1916," McGregor said, referring to the recent anniversary of the Easter Rising against British rule. "Over 100 years ago, our brave men and women made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could live free today. So let us remind ourselves why we are here. And also why we are not here," McGregor said. "We are not here to build hatred amongst each other. We are not here to sow division. We are here to commemorate the valiant heroes who went before us. We honor their spirit, we honor their fight." Conor Mcgregor Urges Ireland Citizens To Vote Him As Country's President After Meeting With Trump McGregor said the protest would be intended "to shine our light on the failure of Ireland's government and our full disapproval of it." Read On The Fox News App "Be respectful, be proud, be united," McGregor said. "Because together, we will be heard, and as one, we will be victorious in our mission. To those leading their march and speaking for the tens of thousands standing behind you: be calm, be clear." "Speak with dignity - we want to hear your voice. Together we rise, together we win," he added. "God bless us all. God bless Ireland." The large-scale demonstration kicked off on Saturday afternoon in the garden, as crowds carrying tri-color flags headed down O'Connell Street. Some protesters carried placards reading "Irish Lives Matter" and "Ireland is Full," and many wore green hats with the message "Make Ireland Great Again." Irish police, known as gardaí, showed a heightened presence in the capital, maintaining a cordoned-off line between the marchers and a smaller group of counter-protesters who gathered in front of the General Post Office (GPO). "Over 106,000 Irish men, women and children attended yesterday's rally," McGregor wrote on X Sunday, sharing aerial photos of protesters waving tri-color flags. "Not one social order incident to report. Tremendous! Onward for Ireland!" Police later said "no major incidents" happened Saturday, though three people had been arrested for "public order offenses," according to the Irish public broadcaster RTE. Police declined to provide additional information. The counter-protest was organized by United Against Racism and was backed by members of opposition parties including Sinn Féin, Labor, People Before Profit, the Social Democrats, the Socialist Party and the Green Party, according to The Irish Times. America Celebrates Irish Culture And Politics On St. Patrick's Day They held banners that read, "Boycott Apartheid Israel" and "Dublin Stands Against Racism," according to photos from the scene. McGregor first announced his interest in running for president of Ireland after meeting with President Donald Trump on St. Patrick's Day, though the fighter has suggested the country's nomination process is stacked against outsiders like himself. Those who spoke at the march included Dublin City councilors Gavin Pepper, Philip Sutcliffe and Malachy Steenson and Fingal councilor Patrick Quinlan, according to "The fact of the matter is we're bringing in thousands and thousands of people and putting them up in hotels while our own people are being left to rot… We've had enough of this in Ireland," Pepper said to a cheering Dublin crowd, according to a video shared on X. "Irish people come first in our own country. It's time for mass deportation. The traitors of Sinn Féin do not care." The prime minister of Ireland, who holds the title of taoiseach, Micheál Martin, told reporters on Sunday that he did not "accept the negativity from those who spoke yesterday in respect of where modern Ireland is today," according to a video shared online by Susanne Delaney, a contributor to the anti-globalist outlet Irish Inquiry. "The level of opportunity in modern Ireland today again is far in excess of anything previous generations experienced in terms of educational completion and so on," Martin, who also met with Trump in the Oval Office earlier in March, said. "The big social issue of our day is housing, but we're focused on solutions to that and less so on the rhetoric of it." Asked about the growing size of the "Irish nationalist" movement, Martin said the "ballot box is the key metric, the key determinant of the organization of society, who gets elected into government, who gets elected into local councils." "And I think it has to be based on ideas and policies," he said. "We believe we have a stronger set of ideas than perhaps those who articulated yesterday."Original article source: Thousands march in Dublin against Ireland's mass migration policies as McGregor pursues presidential bid
