Author Archives: Dana Pico

Posted on by

A couple of very uncomfortable questions

As we have noted many times, Philadelphia has been seeing a huge surge in homicides, and Mayor Jim Kenney wants no part, no part at all, of accepting responsibility. District Attorney Larry Krasner is also famed for passing the buck, while Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, the Mayor’s hand-picked stooge, is far more concerned about inclusion and diversity than enforcing the law. To be fair, with Let ’em Loose Larry not seriously prosecuting most crimes, Commissioner Outlaw is really kind of helpless.

First, the math. With at least five homicides reported on Saturday and Sunday, Philly is sitting at at least 369 homicides as of the 247th day of the year, for a killing rate of 1.4939 per day, which works out to a projected 545.28 killings for the year. However, an alternate way of projecting the numbers, using 2021’s record-setting pace, gives us 574.52 projected murders.

Let’s tell the truth here: the vast majority of homicides in the City of Brotherly Love are perpetrated on black victims by black killers. As bad as Philadelphia’s homicide problem is, it is very much a black problem, while white Philadelphians see themselves as much safer.

We have noted that the homicide rate in Philly came down under previous Mayor Michael Nutter, District Attorney Seth Williams, and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, and that, as of August 9th, Philly had seen more homicides this year than any full year under Mayor Nutter and his staff.

Mr Nutter, like Mayor Kenney, is a liberal Democrat. Mr Krasner is a hard-left Democrat, sponsored, to the tune of $1.45 million by George Soros, while the previously elected District Attorney, Seth Williams, was also a liberal Democrat, though maybe not quite as far left as Mr Krasner. Mr Williams had his own legal problems, and was forced to resign after a federal conviction, for which he spent 2½ years in federal prison.

Every elected official in the chart to the left is a Democrat; Democrats outnumber Republicans about 6 to 1 in registration in Philly, and the last Republican mayor left office while Harry Truman was still President.

But if they’re all Democrats, and mostly liberal ones in a chart which begins in 2007, there has been a clear and dramatic difference in how the city’s leadership has performed when it comes to homicides. Mr Nutter inherited 391 murders from his predecessor, John Street, and while the glide path was certainly uneven, the number of killings was reduced to under 300 in his last three years in office. There was a dip of three murders in Mr Kenney’s first year, but then the killings increased rapidly, over 300 in Mr Kenney’s second year, and by the third year were higher than in any of his predecessor’s eight years.

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: The Symbolism of Philadelphia

While Mr Krasner specifically campaigned on reducing sentences, not pursuing convictions for certain minor’ offenses, and investigating the Police Department, there had been some sentence reductions in Mr Williams’ last few years as well.

While pondering all of this, an uncomfortable thought popped into my head, and I will admit to not knowing the least offensive way to put it, but here it is: when dealing with a murder problem that is very heavily skewed toward Philadelphia’s black population, is it possible that Messrs Nutter, Williams and Ramsey, who are all black men, were simply paid more attention to by the city’s black community than Messrs Kenney and Krasner, who are both white, while Commissioner Outlaw is black, but is also a woman? Is it possible that the previous city leadership were simply more respected by the black community than the people currently in office?

I do not know the answer to the questions I just posed, nor do I know how one would go about researching them, but they are really questions which should be asked.

Posted on by

Is justice a matter of color in Lexington? Why does outgoing Commonwealth's Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn go after white killers more harshly?

We have previously noted how Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn has a history of “mediating” plea deals to let murderers plead down to manslaughter and get far more lenient sentences. These were crimes in which the murderers “manslaughterers” deliberately tried to kill someone, so you’d think that someone who killed another man in an accident after fleeing police would catch something of a break, right?

Driver in five-county car chase that ended in man’s death found guilty of murder

by Taylor Six | August 31, 2022 | 4:37 PM EDT

Nathaniel Harper, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

A jury delivered a guilty verdict in the murder trial of 42-year-old Nathaniel Harper, who was charged after he led police on a five-county car chase that resulted in the death of 57-year-old Anthony Moore of Lexington.Harper was convicted of wanton murder, fleeing or evading police and receiving stolen property following an incident on August 29, 2017. The defense team had hoped that Harper would receive a lesser homicide charge such as reckless homicide or second degree manslaughter.

The jury made a determination for his sentence on Wednesday afternoon for a total of 36 years with 30 years for the murder charge, one year for receiving stolen property, and five years for fleeing and evading police.

Was Mr Harper determined to go to trial, rather than take a plea bargain? Apparently not:

While the defense team – including Shannon Brooks and Chris Tracy – said there was no question of the truck being stolen and that Harper fled, they questioned whether he should be charged with murder.

“He is guilty of fleeing and receiving stolen property,” Brooks said in closing statements. “You can check those boxes as we stand here now. We concede those.”

They asked their client be charged with reckless homicide, as opposed to wanton murder, defined as the operation of a motor vehicle under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life.

In other words, his attorneys were trying to get Mr Harper a lesser conviction, but knew that conviction on something serious was a given.

Now, I have absolutely no problem with Mr Harper being convicted of murder in this case, and would have had no problem with him being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It is my position that deliberate murderers should get out of jail on the day that their victims come back to life.

As it is, born on October 1, 1978, and taken into custody on August 29, 2017, if the judge follows the jury’s recommendation, his sentence would not expire until August 29, 2053, when he would be 75 years old. Of course, under Kentucky law, Mr Harper would be eligible for parole after serving 85% of his sentence, or 20 years, whichever is less.

But it has to be asked: why did Commonwealth’s Attorney Red Corn and her subordinates not agree to some serious plea bargain arrangement, when they have so frequently done so in other cases? Is there any obvious difference between Mr Harper and, say, George Boulder IV, who was part of a deliberate, broad-daylight shooting which killed members of another gang, or Xavier Hardin, who deliberately shot an enemy in Fayette Mall, or Jemel Barber, who was allowed to plead down for one of two fatal shootings, or Malachi Jackson, who killed a 15-year-old rival, or James Ragland, who killed a woman outside a Lexington strip club?

Yup, I’ve got the mugshots of all of those fine gentlemen embedded in the links under their names, and it will take only a glance to see what the obvious difference is.

Fortunately, Miss Red Corn is retiring at the end of this month. Less fortunately, it will be Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) who appoints her replacement, and Miss Red Corn suggested Kimberly Henderson Baird, her first assistant, to Mr Beshear, saying:

It goes without saying that appointing (Baird) would be historical — she would be the first African American woman to serve as Commonwealth’s Attorney in Kentucky. It is time!

Clearly, race is important to Miss Red Corn, who is an Osage Indian.

It is amusing that, in the Lexington Herald-Leader article on Miss Red Corn’s retirement, the newspaper said:

One of her more recent murder convictions was Robert Markham Taylor, (photo here) who was sentenced to 49 years in the brutal attack on University of Kentucky chef Alex Johnson, whose murder generated national headlines. Johnson, 32, was beaten to death, and his body was stuffed into a barrel and dropped into the Kentucky River, where it was found in January 2014.

She also successfully prosecuted Paris Charles, a handyman, (photo here) who killed and dismembered Goldia Massey, his girlfriend, in 2014. Charles was sentenced to 35 years in that case.

Yup, you guessed it: both men are white.

Miss Red Corn should not be feted; justice demands that she be gone, and, in reality, she should be prosecuted herself for her obviously discriminatory prosecutorial behavior.

Posted on by

Killadelphia The Labor Day holiday weekend has barely begun, but the blood is already flowing in Philly's mean streets.

Must be a slow news day at The Philadelphia Inquirer, because the newspaper has actually covered, albeit briefly, three homicides today:

3 people have died among 10 shot in less than 7 hours in Philly

The shootings in the first seven hours of Saturday morning included a double homicide as well as a separate killing, all within three hours. No arrests were reported.

by Diane Mastrull | Saturday, September 3, 2022

The Labor Day weekend got off to a violent start with 10 people shot, three fatally, within the first seven hours of Saturday morning, according to police.

The first shooting was reported shortly before 1 a.m. at Chew and Locust Avenues in East Germantown, where a 26-year-old male was shot once in the chest, police said. He was transported by private vehicle to Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia, where he was reported in stable condition, police said

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: The Symbolism of Philadelphia

I accessed the story at 6:10 PM EDT. The Inky somehow thinks it’s edgy or new wave or something silly like that to not timestamp their articles, and it only states “Published 3 hours ago”, so it hit the newspaper’s website sometime between 2:00 PM and 3:10 PM. There has been plenty of daylight since then, and it’s still daylight as I type this, so there’s plenty of time left before the skies grow dark.

About two and a half hours later, just after 3:30 a.m., two men were killed at 52nd Street and Woodland Avenue in Kingsessing. Police said one, believed to be 20 to 30 years old, was shot once in the back of the head and was pronounced dead by medics at the scene. A 39-year-old man was shot multiple times throughout the body and was pronounced dead just before 4 a.m. at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, police said.

There’s more at the original, detailing shootings at 4:11 AM, 4:56 AM, and “an hour later,” before getting to this:

4400 North Franklin Street, at the intersection with 700 block of West Cayuga. Someone has already put himself in jail to keep the neighborhood bad guys out. Click to enlarge.

The morning’s third homicide came just after 6:30 a.m., when a 45-year-old man was shot multiple times in the 700 block of West Cayuga Street in Hunting Park, police said. He was pronounced dead at 6:47 a.m. at Temple.

I recall hearing about a body being found on Friday as well, but can’t document it. Just counting the three I have documented, that takes the city to 367 homicides, as of Saturday morning; who knows what Saturday evening will bring?

Monday, September 6, 2021, was the end of the Labor Day holiday weekend last year, and at that point the city had seen 363 homicides; city is already four above that total. The holiday weekend ends on Monday, August 5th, one day earlier this year.

The end of the Labor Day holiday saw the end of the ‘lull’ in city murders last year, but, starting after the holiday weekend was over, Philly saw 199 murders in 116 days, a rate of 1.7155 per day, driving the yearly rate higher, and ending with 562 bodies littering the city’s mean streets. It’s been end-of-summer warm in the City of Brotherly Love, with no rain forecast for either Sunday of Labor Day, so plenty of decent weather for the bad guys to be out on the streets shooting people.

Current homicide rate as of Saturday morning: 1.4919 per day, which works out to 544.53 by the end of the year. Calculated another way, 576.13 is the projected number, based on the increased killing rate last year. Philly will finish the year with a homicide total that is either first or second in all-time murders.

Posted on by

Well, imagine that! As the Feds add tax credits to buy plug in electric cars, manufacturers raise the prices of them

The so-called Inflation Reduction Act was supposed to, you know, reduce inflation, right? A lot of people thought it was festooned with all sorts of things which had nothing to do with inflation, and one of those things was the Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit:

Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

Enacted August 16, 2022

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-169) amends the Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit (IRC 30D), now known as the Clean Vehicle Credit, and adds a new requirement for final assembly in North America that takes effect on August 16, 2022. Additional provisions will go into effect on January 1, 2023. Further guidance on these provisions is forthcoming. Find more information about the credit from the Internal Revenue Service.

List of Vehicles with Final Assembly in North America

The following table provides a list of Model Year 2022 and early Model Year 2023 vehicles with final assembly in North America based on data submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and FuelEconomy.gov as of August 1, 2022. Note that for some manufacturers, the build location may vary based on the specific vehicle, trim, or the date in the Model Year when it was produced because some models are produced in multiple locations. The build location of a particular vehicle should be confirmed by referring to its Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) using the VIN decoder below or an information label affixed to the vehicle.

As vehicle manufacturers continue to submit the applicable vehicle identification information to the relevant government agencies, this list will be updated as more information becomes available.

NOTE: Some manufacturers that have vehicles assembled in North America have reached a cap of 200,000 EV credits used and are therefore not currently eligible for the Clean Vehicle Credit.

Of course, the Europeans are just hopping mad that the tax credit only applies to vehicles whose final assembly takes place in North America, but wait until they figure out that Canada and Mexico are in North America. The Europeans would much rather put Canadians to work than Americans.

The tax credit is up to $7,500 for purchase of a new, plug-in electric, and since President Biden and his supervisors subordinates very much want to have Americans gobbling the things up, that $7,500 credit is supposed to help consumers who just can’t quite afford the things be able to say, “OK, yeah, with this tax credit, we can go ahead and buy a Ford Mustang Mach E!”

Oops!

Ford hikes price of electric Mustang Mach-E by as much as $8,475 due to ‘significant’ battery cost increases

by Michael Wayland | Published Friday, August 26, 2022 | 10:59 AM EDT | Updated Friday, August 26, 2022 | 2:07 PM EDT

  • Ford Motor is hiking the starting prices of its electric Mustang Mach-E crossover by more than $8,000 for some models.
  • The increased prices will go into effect for new orders placed starting Tuesday, when order banks reopen for the 2023 model year.
  • Ford said the markups are due to “significant” material cost increases, continued supply chain strains and market conditions.

DETROIT – Ford Motor is hiking the starting prices of its electric Mustang Mach-E crossover by more than $8,000 for some models, as it reopens order banks for the 2023 model year.

The company on Thursday said the markups – ranging between $3,000 and $8,475, depending on the model and battery – are due to “significant material cost increases, continued strain on key supply chains, and rapidly evolving market conditions.”

The Mach-E is the latest electric vehicle to experience a price increase, as raw material costs for batteries for electric vehicles more than doubled during the coronavirus pandemic.

The starting prices for the 2023 Mustang Mach-E will now range from about $47,000 to $70,000, up from roughly $44,000 to $62,000 for the 2022 model year. Prices exclude taxes and shipping/delivery costs.

Ford earlier this month also raised the starting prices of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup by between $6,000 and $8,500, depending on the model. The automaker cited similar reasons for those increases, specifically related to raw materials such as lithium, cobalt and nickel that are used in batteries for the vehicles.

There’s more at the original, but I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked!

Of course, the various vehicle price ranges are based on that most important characteristic: range. The ones that see price increases of ‘only’ $3,000 are the ones with the lowest battery capacity and therefore shortest range. You buy the biggest battery pack available, and you can get a listed 305 miles on a full charge. Of course, you’re also going to be getting that $8,475 price increase! We don’t know yet what the 2023 Mustang Mach E will have for a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price, but the chart to the right shows MSRPs for the four versions of the 2022 model.

The “Select” model had a range of 211 miles. It was assumed that the 2023 MSRPs would see an increase anyway, but the new price hikes, well, you’d be paying $70,000 or more for the GT model.

I must say that I am amused. Who could ever have guessed that this would happen?

Posted on by

(Allegedly) murdering a 97-year-old man because you are frustrated is the epitome of stupidity A 52-year-old nurse just might spend the rest of her miserable life behind bars

Eyvette Hunter, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

Not all murders are committed with a gun.

Meet Eyvette Hunter, 52, who has been charged with the murder of 97-year-old James Morris at Baptist Health Hospital.

Lexington nurse accused of killing patient makes first court appearance

by Christopher Leach | Friday, September 2, 2022 | 10:12 AM EDT

The Lexington nurse accused of killing a 97-year-old patient via intentional medical maltreatment made her first appearance in court Friday.

Eyvette Hunter, 52, was indicted on one charge of murder and arrested on Aug. 23, according to court records. Police say Hunter’s maltreatment caused the death of James Morris, who died at Baptist Health Lexington on May 5.

Hunter was arraigned in circuit court by Judge Thomas Travis on Friday. During her arraignment, the prosecution brought up a motion it filed earlier this week, which requests permission for the Lexington Police Department to conduct a forensic examination of Hunter’s cellphone. . . . .

Police said Morris’ death was “a direct result” of Hunter’s actions. According to a suspension order by the state Board of Nursing, Hunter allegedly withdrew a vial of lorazepam meant for another patient and injected it into Morris. Once Morris was asleep, Hunter force fed him, which caused him to go into respiratory distress and then to aspirate, according to court documents.

You can read more here.

The Lexington Herald-Leader did not, of course, publish Miss Hunter’s mugshot, which they had, in that reporter Christopher Leach noted in his story that he accessed Fayette County Detention Center records, from which I was able to obtain the mugshot I have used here.

The earlier story noted that Miss Hunter had been a Licensed Practical Nurse since 2007, when she would have been 36 or 37 years old, and then completed more education and became a Registered Nurse in 2018. This story speaks a bit more harshly to me in that my wife is an RN, and it astounds me that an RN would, allegedly I have to add, do something like this.

This was a crime of frustration, as Mr Morris was agitated and aggressive, and Miss Hunter requested medication to calm him down. When that request was not ordered, she allegedly took an order of Lorazepam meant for another patient, administered it to Mr Morris, and then, when he was asleep, and then, again, allegedly, force-fed him, causing aspiration and death by choking. It was also a crime of stupidity.

Think about that: after becoming a registered nurse at age 48, a long and hard climb, Miss Hunter was in a profession which would normally pay more than $40 an hour. She had also worked at the University of Kentucky Hospital as a ‘traveling nurse,’ placed there by Health Carousel Travel Network. Travel nurses can easily be paid more than $75 an hour!

If Miss Hunter administered that Lorazepam as alleged, her license was already toast if discovered. But if she proceeded to kill him via aspiration, she just put her 52-year-old self into jail for the rest of her miserable life.

James Morris, from his obituary.

According to his obituary, Mr Morris was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War. He did not deserve this!

Fortunately, we do not have to worry about Fayette County’s Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn “mediating” her conviction and sentence, as Miss Red Corn has announced that she will retire at the end of this month. We can only hope that Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) will appoint someone to the position who is actually tough on crime.

Posted on by

Killington The truth shall set you free . . . if you are free to tell the truth

After being graduated from high school in Mt Sterling, Kentucky, I was more than ready to leave the small town and head for Lexington, and the University of Kentucky. It wasn’t like I could afford Hahvahd, anyway. I lived in the Bluegrass State’s second-largest city from 1971 through the end of 1984, before moving to the Old Dominion for better job prospects. Yeah, I tend to concentrate on foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia when it comes to crime, but it seems that while Killadelphia sounds more closely like Philadelphia than Killington sounds like Lexington, they’re becoming a bit too much alike.

I was ready to write about Lexington’s 32nd homicide of the year, when I opened the Lexington Herald-Leader’s website and found that the story about the 32nd murder was already out-of-date:

Man fatally shot on Devonport Drive, Lexington police say. It’s the second homicide this week

by Christopher Leach | Friday, September 2, 2022 | 7:14 AM EDT | updated: 8:05 AM EDT

Lexington police are investigating the second reported homicide of the week after a man was fatally shot early Friday.

The shooting happened in the 2000 block of Devonport Drive, near the intersection of Alexandria Drive and Versailles Road, around 12:55 a.m. Lt. Joe Anderson with the Lexington Police Department said responding officers found a man with a gunshot wound when they arrived at the scene.

The man was sent to the hospital, where he later died, according to Anderson. His identity will be announced by the Fayette County coroner after next of kin is notified. . . . .

This is the 33rd killing of 2022, nearing the annual homicide record of 37 set last year. This is also the second homicide this week after Dietrich Murray, 29, was shot and killed on Wednesday.

There’s a little more at the original.

In 2019, Lexington set its all-time homicide record of 30. Then, in 2020, Lexington broke that with 34 murders, and, in 2021, set it again at 37 dead bodies littering the city’s streets.

The city is on the slow side when it comes to putting information up on its websites. The city’s homicide investigations page hasn’t, as of this writing at 8:34 AM EDT on Friday, September 2nd, even included the 32nd killing, which occurred before noon, two days ago. But it does include the homicide investigations from 2021 on the same page, and the 33rd killing last year occurred on November 20th, 79 days later in the year.

Unlike Philadelphia, which averages almost 1½ homicides per day, much smaller Lexington, 321,793 versus 1,576,251 residents, averages only 0.1346938775510204 per day, or one every 7.42 days. That means that statistical projections are a bit more iffy; with one homicide every week, just a couple of weeks in which no one bothers to kill someone else can really throw off projections. Something as simple as a rainy weekend can keep the bad guys indoors more, and out on the bad street corners less.

Nevertheless, the current numbers work out to a projected 49.16 murders for the year.

So, what’s changed? As we noted on Thursday, Mayor Jim Kenney (D-Philadelphia) was blaming Philly’s huge homicide record on Republicans, on everyone but himself. Just as in Philly, Lexington has been operating on the same firearms control laws for years, so it isn’t a change in Kentucky’s constitutional carry gun control laws. A lot of big city politicians tried to blame the 2020 surge in killings on COVID-19, or the reaction to the unfortunate death-during-arrest of methamphetamine-and-fentanyl-addled convicted felon George Floyd, but that was two years ago! COVID-19 restrictions mostly eased by the end of 2020, and certainly by mid 2021, so it’s difficult to blame them. In Philly, the homicide rate surged from 1.4578 per day at the end of the Labor Day holiday weekend, to 1.7155 for the period from September 7 through December 31, 2021, when the vast majority of COVID-19 restrictions had been lifted and the public schools had been opened, albeit with mask mandates.

Something else has happened, something cultural that legitimizes bad guys carrying guns and blowing away people for trivial reasons. Yes, Kentucky’s firearms laws are less strict than Pennsylvania’s but Lexington’s 2021 homicide rate of 11.498 per 100,000 population was far lower than Philly’s 35.654.[1]The math: 37 homicides in 2021 ÷ 3.21793 = Lexington’s 2021 homicide rate; 562 homicides in 2021 ÷ 15.76251 = Philly’s homicide rate, expressed in homicides per 100,000 population.

Lexington’s homicide investigations page does not specify the race or ethnicity of murder victims, and the murder victims are specifically excluded from the city’s non-fatal shootings investigations page. But of the 87 non-fatal shootings listed as of August 27, 2022, 16, 18.39%, of the victims are listed as white, 5, 5.75%, are listed as Hispanic, which can be of any race, and 66, 75.86%, are listed as black.

Lexington’s population are not 75.86% black.

At some point, we have to look at the numbers, because numbers don’t lie. Pointing out these numbers, as I have previously, will be denounced as raaaaacist, but, unlike a lot of bloggers, I am retired, and have no job from which I can worry about being ‘canceled’. I can tell the unvarnished truth, the way so many others cannot.

And the truth is important: you cannot solve a problem if you are unwilling to identify the problem correctly, and it is wholly politically incorrect to identify the problem correctly these days.

Well, here’s another truth: everybody does know the problem, but as is obvious in Philly, most would rather ignore the fact that the homicide problem in our cities is primarily a black problem. So many would rather simply accept a ‘disproportionate’ number of murders among black city dwellers than admit that the problem exists within our black communities.

 

There is, however, another problem which jumps out at me, and it’s a problem that today’s left really don’t want to admit. The left believe that one change necessary to combat global warming climate change is greater population density, more people living closer to their jobs, not having as long commutes, and a greater ability for more people to take subways, trains and buses to work than their evil personal cars. But if there’s one real physical difference between Philadelphia and Lexington, it’s that the poorer areas in Lexington are not the rowhouse type of neighborhoods that dominate much of Philly. Even in the poorer neighborhoods in Lexington, housing is far more likely to be physically separate dwellings, far more likely to have a bit of yard between houses. This is not to say that there are no rowhouses in Lexington; there are, though interestingly enough many of them are in the gentrified areas north of the University of Kentucky campus, on South and North Limestone Street, along parts of Upper Street. And if you are really, really angry at someone, if you live further apart, it will take you longer to go home and get your gun — assuming that you aren’t carrying it — than in Philly, and those few extra seconds may be the ones which give you the time to realize, hey, if I blow that rat bastard away, I might just spend the rest of my life in Eddyville.

Row houses on Broadway in Jim Thorpe, during 2012 St Patrick’s Day Parade. Click to enlarge.

Could that be part of the reason that heavily rural Carbon County, population 64,749, where I lived in Pennsylvania, under the same gun control laws as Philly, went many years straight with zero homicides, even though it’s an area with a lot of hunters and most people own firearms? As nearly as I could find — the data are scattered, not consolidated, and it’s possible I missed something — there was one murder in Lehighton in 2004 and another in 2006, and those were the only murders in Carbon County from 2001 through 2019. Other than going up Broadway in Jim Thorpe, there are very few rowhouses. When the murder rate in Philadelphia was 22.197 per 100,000 population, in 2019 — boy, how low that seems compared to now! — and zero in Carbon County, with both under the same firearms laws, perhaps, just perhaps, it might be considered that the firearms laws aren’t really the problem.

Those two murders? One was a strangulation and beating of a mother by her son, and the other a stabbing following an argument.

But, at some point, we have to look at race and population density, both things the left are horrified to contemplate as being contributing factors, when it comes to crime in general, and murder specifically.

References

References
↑1 The math: 37 homicides in 2021 ÷ 3.21793 = Lexington’s 2021 homicide rate; 562 homicides in 2021 ÷ 15.76251 = Philly’s homicide rate, expressed in homicides per 100,000 population.
Posted on by

Jim Kenney: The Buck Doesn’t Stop Here! 'It's not my fault!' whines the Mayor of Philadelphia!

Bernard Samuel was the last Republican Mayor of Philadelphia, leaving office on January 7, 1952, when George VI was still King of England, Josef Stalin dictator of the Soviet Union, and Harry Truman President of the United States. Since then, there have been ten popularly elected Mayor of the City of Brotherly Love, all of them Democrats. That’s 70 years, 7 months, and 25 days of unbroken Democratic rule in Philly.

His Honor the Mayor is upset, very upset, at the number of shootings in his city, but, of course, it’s not really his fault, is it?

Pa. ‘a Backward State’, Philly Mayor Says in Criticism of State Gun Laws

Kenney’s latest comments came after a triple shooting on the grounds of an elementary school in the Kensington neighborhood left three young men wounded, including a 17-year-old, shortly before 1 a.m. Wednesday

By Rudy Chinchilla • Published August 31, 2022 • Updated on August 31, 2022 at 8:12 PM

Criticizing the state’s gun laws, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney on Wednesday called Pennsylvania a “backward state” and said its Legislature for the most part doesn’t care about its citizens.

Kenney made the comments in response to an NBC10/Telemundo 62 question about his support of stricter gun laws and a shooting that happened at a school in the predawn hours of Wednesday morning.

“We’re not gonna get gun control in Pennsylvania. This is a backward state whose Legislature for the most part doesn’t care about the health and welfare of its citizens,” Kenney said.

In the Pennsylvania, the state government sets the gun control laws, and the pre-emption law prohibits smaller jurisdictions from setting stricter restrictions or penalties on residents than the Commonwealth has in place. With one exception, a state law which allows felony rather than misdemeanor charges for illegal handgun possession, in Philadelphia alone, all of Pennsylvania is under the same firearms laws.

So, if the gun control laws are the pretty much uniform across the Commonwealth, and it is a lack of stricter firearms restrictions which has led to the homicide rate, shouldn’t the homicide rate be fairly similar across the Keystone State? As we noted just a few days ago, they aren’t:

In 2020, there were 1,009 murders in the Keystone State, 499, or 49.45%, of which occurred in Philadelphia. According to the 2020 Census, Pennsylvania’s population was 13,002,700 while Philadelphia’s alone was 1,603,797, just 12.33% of Pennsylvania’s totals.

Here’s how the actual numbers work out: there were 510 homicides among 11,398,903 Pennsylvanians not living in Philadelphia, for a homicide rate of 4.474 per 100,000 population, while there were 499 murders among 1,603,797 Philadelphians, which works out to a homicide rate of 31.114 per 100,000. If the gun laws are the problem, why aren’t the homicide rates for Philly and the rest of the Commonwealth fairly similar?[1]Even as late as the end of August, I have been unable to find the ‘official’ statistics for the number of homicides statewide for 2021. With 562 murders in Philly in 2021, I’m sure … Continue reading

According to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page, there were 364 homicides in Philly as of 11:59 PM EDT on Wednesday, August 31st. That’s a 1.96% increase over the 357 on the same date last year, and 2021 not only set the city’s homicide record, but utterly destroyed the old record of an even 500, set during the crack cocaine wars of 1990. Under His Honor the Mayor, Philly has seen two of the three highest murder totals since statistics were being kept. Yet, oddly enough, the gun control laws never changed! Oddly enough, under Mr Kenney’s immediate predecessor, Michael Nutter, murders decreased in the city, and as we noted on August 9th, Philly had surpassed the entire year’s homicide total for every single year under Mr Nutter’s eight years in office.

The current homicide rate in Philadelphia is 1.4979 per day. During Mr Nutter’s eight years in office, the city never averaged as high as 1.00 killings per day.

And in all of that time, the firearms laws in the Keystone State were the same.

Depending on how you do the math, the city is on target for 546.75 and 573.02 murders in 2022.[2]The 546.75 number is obtained by taking the current number of homicides per day, and multiplying by 365 days in the year. The 573.02 number is obtained by taking the percentage increase in homicides … Continue reading While we can’t know the final numbers yet, one thing seems certain: under Mayor Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, 2022 will ‘win’ either the gold or the silver medal for murders this year, and they’ll have three of the top four homicide numbers. Mr Kenney’s term doesn’t end until January of 2024, so, unless he resigns early, he’ll have yet another full year to lead the city to more than 500 murders.[3]Mr Krasner was re-elected in 2021, and his term doesn’t expire until January of 2026. Miss Outlaw has no fixed term, but serves at the pleasure of the Mayor.

The outgoing mayor has for some time been outspoken about gun control and critical of what he characterizes as Republican inaction on the issue, both at the state and federal level. He has also been blunt when asked about gun violence in the city, and at times seemingly overwhelmed when discussing the growing problem.

In July, he had to apologize after saying he would “be happy” when he is no longer mayor. Those comments came after gunfire during the city’s annual July 4th fireworks show on the Ben Franklin Parkway sent crowds running and left two police officers shot.

Yeah, well the entire city will be happy when Mr Kenney is no longer Mayor, but it really doesn’t matter: whomever is elected to replace him will be another Democrat, and will be just as frustrated and just as bad.

Most of those killings have come by way of gunfire. The city controller’s office lists at least 332 fatal shootings as of Aug. 30. It also shows at least 1,266 nonfatal shootings.

The city’s shooting victims database shows 1610 shooting victims as of August 31th of this year, but ‘only’ 1555 through August 31, 2021. There have been 55 more shootings, a 3.537% increase, and let’s face it: every shooting is an attempted murder.

There are, of course, no records of how many times people were shot at, but escaped without injury, or were so slightly wounded that they were able to flee the scene and treat their wounds without going to the hospital.

There’s actually a lot of blame to go around. The reaction to the unfortunate death-during-arrest of methamphetamine-and-fentanyl-addled convicted felon George Floyd turned loose the anger of the left, but that was two years ago, and killings in the City of Brotherly love have skyrocketed in the subsequent years. The election of a George Soros-sponsored defense attorney as the city’s top prosecutor has enabled a lot of bad guys to get away with slaps on the wrist . . . if even that much is also at fault. A stooge Police Commissioner with more interest in ‘diversity and inclusion’ than law enforcement, and who cannot attract new recruits to the police department only makes things worse.

But Mayor is the top job, the ultimate responsibility, and Jim Kenney, who served on the Philadelphia City Council for 23 years before running for Mayor — at 64 years of age, he has been running for or serving in city government for 32 years, half of his life, now — ought to know that. He asked for that job, and that responsibility. Yet he is shirking all responsibility, blaming everyone, or at least every Republican, but himself, for the downward slide of our nation’s sixth most populous city, a city with a proud and storied history that predates the founding of our nation, the city in which our Declaration of Independence was approved and signed, a city founded in 1682 by William Penn. Mr Kenney can throw shade at anyone and everyone he wishes, but in the end, he has been an utter failure, and everyone knows it.

References

References
↑1 Even as late as the end of August, I have been unable to find the ‘official’ statistics for the number of homicides statewide for 2021. With 562 murders in Philly in 2021, I’m sure the statistical disparities would be even worse, but I cannot work with numbers I do not have available.
↑2 The 546.75 number is obtained by taking the current number of homicides per day, and multiplying by 365 days in the year. The 573.02 number is obtained by taking the percentage increase in homicides as of August 31st and multiplying that by 562, the number of total homicides in 2021. As we reported on September 7, 2021, there was a significant decrease in the daily homicide rate in the city between July 9th and September 6th, the end of the Labor Day holiday weekend. Subsequent to that, the homicide rate surged, to a whopping 1.7155 per day.
↑3 Mr Krasner was re-elected in 2021, and his term doesn’t expire until January of 2026. Miss Outlaw has no fixed term, but serves at the pleasure of the Mayor.
Posted on by

European socialism has saddled Europeans with skyrocketing electricity bills

I’ve got to admit it: Ursula von der Leyen is a pretty cool name, almost as cool as Annemiek van Vleuten, the Dutch cyclist who won the Tour de France Femmes this year. But Mrs von der Leyen isn’t a cyclist.

Energy crisis: Ursula von der Leyen calls for ’emergency intervention’ in electricity market

By Jorge Liboreiro • August 30, 2022

The worsening energy crisis besieging Europe has laid bare the “limitations” of the electricity market and requires an “emergency intervention” to bring down soaring prices, Ursula von der Leyen has said.

“The skyrocketing electricity prices are now exposing, for different reasons, the limitations of our current electricity market design,” the European Commission president said on Monday while addressing the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia.

“[The market] was developed under completely different circumstances and for completely different purposes. It is no longer fit for purpose.

“That is why we, the Commission, are now working on an emergency intervention and a structural reform of the electricity market. We need a new market model for electricity that really functions and brings us back into balance.”

It wouldn’t have anything to do with the European nations supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia with more than just words, would it?

Well, part of the pain is the European Union’s regulations setting the cost of electricity:

Today, the EU’s wholesale electricity market works on the basis of marginal pricing, also known as the “pay-as-clear market”.

Under this system, all electricity producers – from fossil fuels to wind and solar – bid into the market and offer power according to their production costs. The bidding starts from the cheapest resources – the renewables – and finishes with the most expensive ones, usually gas.

Since most EU countries still rely on fossil fuels to meet all their energy demands, the final price of electricity is often set by the price of gas. If gas becomes more expensive, electricity bills inevitably go up, even if clean, cheaper sources also contribute to the total energy supply.

The system was initially praised for boosting transparency and promoting the switch to green sources, but since late 2021, it has come under intense criticism.

In other words, all electric consumers are paying for sparktricity based on the cost of the most expensive means of production. That’s European socialism for you!

Of course, Russian’s invasion of Ukraine brought about swift sanctions against the bear, but the Russians hold the high cards here: Europe is dependent upon natural gas from Russia for fuel for power plants and winter heating. And much of democratic Europe is not east of the United States, but due east of Canada. Berlin, for example, is at approximately the same latitude as the southern border of Labrador. To quote Ned Stark, “Winter is coming.”

Natural gas futures are more than ten times what they were a year ago:

There’s no stopping Europe’s gas bills.

On Thursday, future gas prices at the Title Transfer Facility (TTF), the continent’s leading trading hub, reached €321 per megawatt-hour, a stratospheric figure compared to the €27 set a year ago.

The new all-time high follows a surprising announcement by Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled energy giant, who last week said it would soon shut down Nord Stream 1 – which pipes gas from Russia to Germany – for a three-day maintenance operation, performed alongside Siemens.

Gazprom argues the pipeline must be checked for cracks, dents, leaks and other potential glitches.

European politicians have repeatedly accused the company of weaponising energy flows and exploiting technical questions as an excuse for piling pressure on countries at Vladimir Putin’s will.

Well, of course Russia is weaponizing energy flows. After all, some of the European nations are sending money and military equipment to Ukraine, to use to fight Russia. What else would you expect Russia to do? Vladimir Vladimirovich is attacking Europe that same way Europe is attacking him: economically. The only thing cannier Russia could do is keep sending limited, though slightly increasing, amounts of gas to Europe, keeping prices high but also lulling the Europeans to sleep, then, maybe around December 15th, Pow! shut it off completely.

The German government might think differently about sending military aid to Ukraine if the German people are freezing in their flats.

But you can’t say they weren’t warned!

Trump accused Germany of becoming ‘totally dependent’ on Russian energy at the U.N. The Germans just smirked.

by Rick Noack | September 25, 2018 | 2:44 PM EDT

BERLIN — Out of President Trump’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, it probably won’t be the script that will be remembered by diplomats but, rather, world leaders’ laughter, caught on camera and shared in viral videos.

One of them captured the amused reactions of the German delegation as Trump said: “Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course. Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas could be seen smirking alongside his colleagues.

Who’s smirking now?

It wasn’t the first time Trump had lashed out at Germany over its gas imports from Russia.

During a NATO summit in July, he took aim at the Germans for the same reason, specifically singling out a planned 800-mile pipeline beneath the Baltic Sea called Nord Stream 2. “Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is captive to Russia because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia,” Trump told NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, also speaking on camera at the time. “We have to talk about the billions and billions of dollars that’s being paid to the country we’re supposed to be protecting you against.”

Looks like President Trump, the hated, evil reich-wing fascist, was right all along, and the Europeans were what they have so often been, wrong. I will confess to being somewhat amused.

You don’t have to somehow like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or hope that Vladimir Putin wins, to have been bitterly opposed to the responses of the United States and Europe: I might want Ukraine to win, to throw out the Russian invaders, but I don’t want it so much that I’m happy that the world is closer to nuclear war over it.

Posted on by

Now the Biden Administration wants people to take a completely untested-in-humans vaccine!

Image by ronstik from Pixabay

I am by no means an anti-vaxxer. Vaccines have seriously mitigated many diseases, and almost eliminated a couple. Who would want to go back to the days of paralysis and iron lungs of polio? Why would we want a return of smallpox, which has killed millions? And yes, as I have stated previously, I have taken the COVID-19 vaccines, and the boosters.

But until the COVID-19 panicdemic — and no, that’s not a typographical error; panic was really the disease — we had serious clinical trials. In the late 18th century, Edward Jenner, having heard how dairy workers seemed immune to smallpox, devised a clinical trial.

In May 1796, Edward Jenner found a young dairymaid, Sarah Nelms, who had fresh cowpox lesions on her hands and arms. On May 14, 1796, using matter from Nelms’ lesions, he inoculated an 8-year-old boy, James Phipps. Subsequently, the boy developed mild fever and discomfort in the axillae. Nine days after the procedure he felt cold and had lost his appetite, but on the next day he was much better. In July 1796, Jenner inoculated the boy again, this time with matter from a fresh smallpox lesion. No disease developed, and Jenner concluded that protection was complete.

That was a clinical trial with one subject, but, thanks to the politicization of COVID-19, it might be a larger clinical trial than one today:

FDA expected to authorize new Covid boosters without data from tests in people

The lack of human data means officials likely won’t know how much better the new shots are — if at all — until the fall booster campaign is well underway.

By Berkeley Lovelace Jr. | Tuesday, August 30, 2022 | 4:09 PM EDT

The updated Covid vaccine boosters, a reformulated version targeting the BA.5 omicron subvariant, could be available around Labor Day. They’ll be the first Covid shots distributed without results from human trials. Does that matter?

Because the Biden administration has pushed for a fall booster campaign to begin in September, the mRNA vaccine-makers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have only had time to test the reformulated shots in mice, not people. That means the Food and Drug Administration is relying on the mice trial data — plus human trial results from a similar vaccine that targets the original omicron strain, called BA.1 — to evaluate the new shots, according to a recent tweet from the FDA commissioner, Dr. Robert Califf.

That could be a potentially risky bet, experts say, if the shots don’t work as well as hoped.

Note that my source was NBC News, not some evil reich-wing blog!

Of course, the Biden Administration wants to get this in people’s bodies almost immediately:

Biden Team Aims for Omicron-Targeted Shots in Arms by Labor Day

  • Reformulated vaccines due to ship next week if cleared
  • US will have between 10 and 15 million doses initially

By Josh Wingrove | August 26, 2022 | 11:33 AM EDT

The Biden administration plans to begin offering next-generation Covid-19 booster shots as soon as the Labor Day weekend, according to people familiar with the matter, aiming to stave off a fall surge in cases of the disease.

Food and Drug Administration regulators are expected to clear the use of Covid-19 vaccines reformulated for omicron variants next week, the people said. They asked not to be identified ahead of an official announcement.

The so-called bivalent vaccines are designed to better protect against subvariants of the virus that are now dominant in the US, BA.4 and BA.5. The shots are poised to begin shipping next week and can be administered after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention clearance.

A CDC advisory panel hearing is set for Sept. 1 to 2 to discuss the issue, the people said. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has the final say and could sign off as soon as next week.

That timeline sets up the potential for a smattering of shots as soon as the Labor Day weekend beginning Sept. 3, with broader availability in the following week or two, the people said. The US will have between 10 and 15 million doses initially available, one of the people said, out of a total order of 171 million doses.

So, President Biden and his minions want people to start taking a vaccine which has never been tested on humans starting this coming weekend. And while there’s no word, at least yet, of an attempted federal mandate, we have previously noted how Mayor Jim Kenney (D-Philadelphia) — who wouldn’t wear the mask his city’s public schools have mandated for students while visiting a school — is finally getting his wish and firing the 68 remaining unionized city employees who have refused to take the existing COVID-19 vaccines. Will the Mayor, along with other big city mayors who have done the same things he has, try to force people to take the newest vaccine, the one not tested on humans?

Also see: The New York Times: California Approves Bill to Punish Doctors Who Spread False Information About COVID Vaccines

We already know that the existing vaccines neither prevent people from contracting the SARS-CoV-2 virus, nor prevent those who have contracted it from spreading it to others. At best, the vaccines may lessen the severity of symptoms in those who do contract the disease.

But even that is becoming questionable. As we have previously noted, there is strong evidence that a lot more people have had the virus at some point, in line with acting Food and Drug Administration head Commissioner Janet Woodcock having told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, last January, that she expected that, eventually, almost everyone would contract the virus. Celebrity doctor Anthony Fauci said that COVID-19 would infect “just about everybody.” This was during the BA.1 variant’s primacy, and two months later, the American Medical Association warned that the then-new BA.2 subvariant could be “30% to 60% more transmissible” than BA.1. While playing Blondie’s One Way of Another, we noted that BA.4 and BA.5 are gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya! Yale Medicine also said that BA.4 and BA.5 appear to be more transmissible.

With the advent of at-home testing for COVID-19, we do not know how many people have tested positive for the virus and never reported it. After all, if reporting that you have contracted the virus would subject you to restrictions, there would doubtlessly be those who did not feel sick enough to stay home and subject themselves to self-quarantine. We also do not know how many people felt slightly ill, but didn’t bother to get tested, either at a clinic or at home, and we don’t know how many have contracted the virus at some point but were completely asymptomatic.

What we do know is that BA.5, while serious for a relatively small percentage of people, isn’t much more than a typical cold or perhaps the flu for most people.

Why, then, would we want to introduce an untested vaccine into millions of people, for a disease that is simply not that serious for most of the public?