Author Archives: Dana Pico

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Show me the money!

Jerry Maguire was a 1996 film starring Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding, Jr, which made memorable the phrase, “Show me the money!” Now Moderna is shouting the same thing.

    Moderna seeks FDA authorization for 4th dose of COVID-19 shot

    Drugmaker Moderna has asked the Food and Drug Administration to authorize a fourth shot of its COVID-19 vaccine as a booster dose for all adults.

    by Zeke Miller, The Associated Press | Friday, March 18, 2022 | 8:29 AM EDT

    WASHINGTON — Drugmaker Moderna asked the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday to authorize a fourth shot of its COVID-19 vaccine as a booster dose for all adults.

    The request is broader than rival pharmaceutical company Pfizer’s request earlier this week for the regulator to approve a booster shot for all seniors.

    In a press release, the company said its request for approval for all adults was made “to provide flexibility” to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and medical providers to determine the “appropriate use” of a second booster dose of the mRNA vaccine, “including for those at higher risk of COVID-19 due to age or comorbidities.”

    U.S. officials have been laying the groundwork to deliver additional booster doses to shore up the vaccines’ protection against serious disease and death from COVID-19. The White House has been sounding the alarm that it needs Congress to “urgently” approve more funding for the federal government to secure more doses of the COVID-19 vaccines, either for additional booster shots or variant-specific immunizations.

And there you have it: those ‘free’ COVID-19 vaccine shots were all paid for by someone, and, as we all know, it was the federal government. The vaccine manufacturers, naturally, want in on the government’s distribution of electrons distributed from government accounts cash, and Moderna one-upped Pfizer. But while Moderna went straight to the boosters for everyone in their application, Pfizer’s Chief Executive Officer laid the groundwork for his company to do the same:

    Pfizer’s CEO says a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose is probably necessary for everyone

    The Pfizer executive said a fourth dose would provide long-term protection. But not all public health experts agree it’s necessary for everyone.

    by Jason Laughlin | Monday, March 14, 2022

    Another round of shots will be needed to provide more long-lasting protection against COVID-19, vaccine-maker Pfizer’s chief executive said in a weekend interview, but opinions vary on who really needs that fourth dose.

    “Right now, the way that we have seen, it is necessary, a fourth booster,” said Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s CEO, in an interview Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, explaining that another dose could protect against future variants and waning immunity, which is why people who are fully vaccinated and boosted have been getting mild cases of COVID.

In other words, “Show me the money!”

    Some health experts have questioned whether it is realistic or necessary to have a vaccine that prevents even mild illness — when from the start the main goal of the vaccine has been to prevent serious cases and hospitalizations.

    Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and a member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee, has said people who have had the existing vaccine series likely won’t have to worry about serious illness and death from COVID for years, even if they skip additional shots. Preventing serious illness and death should be the goal of the country’s vaccination program, he said, not staving off COVID entirely.

It’s simple: if the CEOs can keep “staving off COVID entirely” as the goal, it will mean more revenue for their company. More, it’s risk-free money! 42 U.S. Code § 300aa–22 states that “No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine after October 1, 1988, if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.” The law continues to require that the vaccines covered must have proper paperwork — meaning: documents warning patients that side effects can occur — and that manufacturers must use proper care of the production cycle to remain immune, or, in other words, do not deviate from proper procedures.

What vaccine producer wouldn’t love this?

Then there’s the third problem for the vaccine producers:

    Millions still haven’t gotten COVID shots. What does that mean for the future of the vaccination effort?

    The slowdown raises questions about how long resources should be spent on outreach and whether the strategies of the last year are still effective in persuading the unvaccinated.

    by Justine McDaniel and Erin McCarthy | Friday, March 18, 2022

    It’s 2 p.m. on a Wednesday in Chester, and nurses Susan Pollock and Carol Von Colln are inside a Delaware County vaccine clinic doing what they spend a lot of time doing these days: waiting.

    Last spring, Americans were in a frenzied rush to get the COVID-19 vaccine; this spring, business has slowed to a crawl. Now, whenever someone walks in, “we’re ready to throw a party,” Von Colln said.

    That day, they vaccinated eight people in six hours.

    It’s a scene playing out across the region and the United States as the number of shots being given each day is at an all-time low — even though a third of Americans are still unvaccinated.

It was the subtitle that got to me, “The slowdown raises questions about how long resources should be spent on outreach and whether the strategies of the last year are still effective in persuading the unvaccinated.” “Persuading the unvaccinated”? No, the “strategies of the last year” were primarily to try to force people to take the vaccines, by threatening them with the loss of their jobs if they declined vaccinations, and imposing requirements for people to show their vaccination records to enter some public spaces. President Biden said, “The rule is now simple: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do.” Of course, the mask mandates that existed took no distinction between those who were vaccinated and those who were not.

Full disclosure: I have been vaccinated myself, a choice I took freely, and I believe that others should take the same decision I did. While no vaccine is 100% without risk, the benefits of being vaccinated outweigh the risks. But I respect the right, and yes, “right” is precisely the word I mean to use, of other people to choose whether or not to take the vaccine. That’s a right that the left, and neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, don’t seem to want you to have.

Remember: the left are pro-choice on exactly one thing!

There’s a lot more at the original, but it shows why the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna want another booster: almost all of those who have thus far chosen not to get vaccinated are unlikely to change their minds, so more money from the government to those producers depends upon getting those who have taken three shots so far to get a fourth.

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A Philadelphia crook is laying on a slab in the morgue Updated! Play stupid games, win stupid prizes

As we noted yesterday, Philadelphians have been applying for concealed carry permits in droves, due to the city being unable to protect them from the bad guys. Now, another Philadelphian has protected his property:

    West Philadelphia resident fatally shoots trespasser who tried breaking into car

    A West Philadelphia resident on Wednesday night shot and killed a trespasser who had thrown a brick through the resident’s car

    by Rodrigo Torrejón | St Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2022 | 7:49 AM EDT

    A West Philadelphia resident on Wednesday night shot and killed a trespasser who had thrown a brick through the resident’s car, according to reports.

    Shortly after 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, police responded to a call of gunshots on the 4400 block of Fairmount Avenue, 6ABC reported. When officers arrived, they found a 23-year-old man lying on the 700 block of 44th Street, with multiple gunshot wounds.

    The man, whose name was not released, was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead soon after.

    Police said that the 23-year-old had scaled a fence and trespassed onto the Fairmount Avenue property, into an enclosed rear yard and threw a brick into the driver side window of a Alfa Romeo SUV, 6ABC reported. After hearing the noise, the 49-year-old homeowner, whose name was also not released, came out to confront the man and shot at least three times.

The legal punishment for vandalism is not death; the legal punishment for stealing a car is not death. But sometimes the legal punishment for stupidity is death! When you break into someone’s property — and climbing a fence into someone’s “enclosed rear yard” definitely constitutes breaking into someone’s property — bad things can happen to you. As Robert Stacy McCain would put it, ‘play stupid games, win stupid prizes.’

From 6ABC News:

    Before receiving word of gunshots, (Chief Inspector Scott) Small said police got several calls about a man wearing a mask trespassing on the rear or properties in the area and one call about a man breaking into a vehicle.

    “We believe these calls are related to the shooting,” Small said.

And the money line:

    The 23-year-old is known by police and his last known address is two blocks from where he was shot, Small said.

“Is known by police,” huh? That’s the euphemism for “he was a frequent crook we’ve arrested several times.”

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: Crazy people are dangerous.

This leads to the obvious question: why wasn’t the 23-year-old frequent flyer already behind bars? Did the police not have enough evidence to get him convicted of something in their previous encounters with him? Did the cops let the guy go with just a warning a couple of times? Did Larry Krasner, who has been Philadelphia’s District Attorney since the deceased was 19 years old, decline to prosecute, or offer the criminal lenient plea bargains which kept him from being locked up for a long sentence, or kept him out of jail completely? There’s some obvious speculation here, but one thing is certain: Philadelphia’s criminal justice system did this guy no favors! Had he been behind bars last night, he wouldn’t have been happy, but he’d at least have been able to look forward to getting out of jail sometime, and getting on with his life.

Instead, he’s lying on a slab in the morgue right now.

I’ve said it before: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani showed us the way. When he was in charge, New York City strictly enforced the law against the entry-level crooks, giving them an early look at the inside of the penitentiary, giving them early incentive to straighten up and fly right before they got themselves into really serious trouble. It didn’t always work: some of them continued with a life of crime after every stint behind bars, but at least while they were locked up, they weren’t out on the streets preying on innocent civilians.

Well, this guy won’t be breaking into people’s back yards, won’t be smashing car windows, and won’t be stealing laptops or whatever else was left in those cars. Instead, he’ll be pushing up daisies somewhere. This is what “social justice” and “racial justice” law enforcement gets us: criminals out on the streets, and some criminals in early graves.

Updated: Friday, March 18, 2022:

The Inquirer story has been updated to note that the deceased is named Nijer James-Murphy, and that the unnamed homeowner is a good guy:

    While the District Attorney’s Office will determine if the shooting is a justifiable homicide, preliminarily, it appears the homeowner acted in self-defense, (Philadelphia Homicide Capt. Jason) Smith said.

    “He has a valid permit, his gun is registered to him, he has no priors, he called the police, he turned the gun over, and he is cooperating. He’s done all the things that a good, outstanding citizen should do,” he said.

Well, that settles it: Mr Krasner, sponsored by George Soros, and thoroughly eaten up with ‘social justice’ and ‘racial justice’ and a hatred for the police, would seem likely to want to charge the homeowner with something. After all, the deceased is listed as a black male in the city’s shooting victims database. The question is: where would the District Attorney find twelve honest citizens, twelve people in the city without criminal records, to serve on a jury which would convict a man defending his property in his enclosed backyard from a thug like Mr James-Murphy?

Let’s face it: the city ought to throw the homeowner a parade!

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Shockingly enough, Philly is seeing a huge surge in license-to-carry applications That's kind of what happens when law enforcement doesn't actually enforce the law

As of 11:59 PM EDT on the Ides of March, Philadelphia had seen 103 homicides, one more than on the same day in murder record-shattering 2021. That’s actually an improvement; the city was nine murders ahead of last year as recently as March 7th. All of which makes this article from Philadelphia magazine a surprise to absolutely no one:

License-to-Carry Applications Have Skyrocketed In Philly — Even More Than You’d Think

“When I saw how high the numbers were, I had to call our stats department to make sure they were right,” a Philadelphia Police Department representative told us.

by Victor Fiorillo | Wednesday, March 16, 2022 | 8:00 AM EDT

It didn’t surprise me a bit to learn that license-to-carry applications in Philadelphia have risen over the past year. First, you have the constant reports of shootings, carjackings and other violent crimes in the city. Second, the Philadelphia Police Department made it dramatically easier to apply for a license to carry, starting in January 2021. But I wasn’t exactly ready for just how big this increase has been. And neither was the Philadelphia Police Department, it seems.

“When I saw how high the numbers were, I had to call our stats department to make sure they were right,” police department spokesperson Jasmine Reilly told me after I requested the data.

From 2017 through 2020, the number of license-to-carry applications in Philadelphia held about steady, ranging between 11,049 and 11,814 applications each year. But in 2021, 70,789 people applied for licenses to carry guns.

In other words, license-to-carry applications more than sextupled last year. And in January of this year, the number of applications continued its upward trajectory. (The Pennsylvania State Police publish an annual report showing the number of licenses issued in the counties surrounding Philadelphia as well as in the rest of the state, but a spokesperson for PSP says that data isn’t yet available for 2021.)

There’s a lot more at the original.

The rate of increase of applications for concealed carry permits might have surprised some, but that they have increased dramatically can’t stun anyone. Since Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat — and the last Republican Mayor of Philadelphia left office when Harry Truman was still President — took office in January of 2016, killings in the city have risen from 277 to 315 to 353 to 356 to 499 to last years 562; the number of annual homicides has more than doubled since Mr Kenney took office. The George Soros-sponsored District Attorney Larry Krasner, also a Democrat, took office in 2018, and the homicide rate jumped 59.21% in his four years.

In March alone, while ‘only’ 19 people have been murdered, 73 people have been shot in the city; the gang-bangers are really kind of lousy shots. But while the wounded but not killed can take some solace that they are still alive, that’s only so much comfort.

The cited article goes through some of the steps required to obtain a concealed carry permit, and then we get to this:

Of course, just because you’re denied doesn’t mean you’re not carrying, and carrying without a license is generally a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to five years in prison. But that charge can be upgraded to a felony depending on the circumstances.

“I have a pistol on me at all times,” one local resident who says he was denied a carry license told me. “You’ve got to be crazy not to, the way things are going.”

The leadership of the city continually complain that the state legislature isn’t doing enough in the way of passing gun control legislation, or allowing the city to pass its own, stricter ordinances, but that really doesn’t matter: District Attorney Krasner doesn’t really enforce the gun control legislation that is on the books:

The urgency of Philadelphia’s crisis of fatal and non-fatal shootings will not be met by looking away from shootings. As noted above, City Council has led a valuable “100 Shooter Review,” a title that makes clear what we already know: that shootings are the primary issue. Our efforts must be focused on preventing shootings and holding people who commit shootings accountable, and we should not accept arrests for gun possession as a substitute.[1]100 Shooting Review Committee Report, page 30 of the document, page 32 of the .pdf file.

This is very much in line with Mr Krasner’s statement:

This office believes that reform is necessary to focus on the most serious and most violent crime, so that people can be properly held accountable for doing things that are violent, that are vicious, and that tear apart society. We cannot continue to waste resources and time on things that matter less than the truly terrible crisis that we are facing.

Really? Perhaps, just perhaps, if law enforcement, from the police through the prosecutor, would treat the crimes that “matter less” than homicide seriously, people like the cretin who gunned down Hyram Hill would have been behind bars Monday morning, not out robbing someone, and not putting nine bullets into an apparently innocent victim.

It was then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-New York) who showed everyone the way. Under his Administration, and (mostly under that of his successor, Michael Bloomberg, New York went after the small-time criminals, using the theory that if you prosecuted and punished the ‘entry-level’ bad guys, maybe they’d get scared enough seeing the inside of the penitentiary early that they’d straighten out. Murder, after all, isn’t normally an entry-level crime. Even if it doesn’t set them on a better path, criminals in jail aren’t out on the streets, committing other crimes.

Since Mr Krasner, the social justice and racial justice warrior that he is, does not like putting away criminals, is it any wonder that the citizens of Philadelphia think that they are on their own, that they have to protect themselves, because the city will not?

Pennsylvania law says you can be denied a license to carry if you’re judged to be an “individual whose character and reputation is such that the individual would be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety.” There’s a lot of subjectivity in there, and an appeals process does exist for those who are denied.

The gun-carrying resident I spoke with didn’t bother appealing. He has a history of minor drug violations, a DUI, and various summary and misdemeanor offenses and says he’s more concerned about his personal safety than whether the police say he’s allowed to carry a gun.

“It’s not like they are going to protect me,” he argues.

Of course, the gang-bangers out there shooting people don’t bother with getting concealed carry permits. It’s shocking, I know, but it seems that criminals don’t obey the law!

There’s a lot more at the original, and unlike the Philadelphia Inquirer articles I frequently cite, this one isn’t behind a paywall; it’s worth a read.

References

References
↑1 100 Shooting Review Committee Report, page 30 of the document, page 32 of the .pdf file.
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Big Brother is watching you!

Fortunately, what my, sadly late, best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal, which refuses to publish mugshots of criminal suspects, even when those suspects are previously convicted felons, did publish a photo of what these license plate readers look like. This will enable the bad guys to spot them and then destroy them.

    Lexington to get cameras that read, track license plates. Here’s how they will be used

    by Beth Musgrave | Tuesday, March 15, 2022 | 5:00 PM EDT

    Web capture of photo from the Lexington Herald-Leader. Click to enlarge.

    There will soon be additional video cameras on Lexington streets.

    The city recently partnered with Flock Safety and the National Police Foundation for a one-year pilot study using 25 fixed cameras that automatically read license plates in areas experiencing high crime.

    The cameras are expected to be installed sometime in April. It’s not clear where those cameras will be located.

Normally, I avoid photos from the Herald-Leader, but this one is germane to the article; this is the photo used by the newspaper to show everybody what these devices look like, and I include it as documentary evidence that the paper did publish the photo of what the license plate readers look like. Don’t think that the bad guys won’t spot them. Personally, I hope that the bad guys do spot them, and destroy every last one of them.

Further down:

    Lowe said the cameras will take six or seven images of a vehicle. The license plate will automatically be checked if it is on various lists including Amber alerts for kidnapped children, stolen vehicles or vehicles associated with a violent offenses. If the reader finds a vehicle on that list, law enforcement will be notified.

    Sometimes police also get information from witnesses about cars or trucks leaving a scene. Police can use the cameras to try to find that vehicle, he said.

Lexington Assistant Police Chief Eric Lowe stated that he did not believe that the data gathered could be used for such things as people trying to get access to the data through an Open Records Act request to track someone such as an ex-spouse, but, of course, he doesn’t actually know that, since it hasn’t been tested in a Kentucky court. Nor can he know, now, what changes will be made in the future as far as use of the data gathered will be.

We can’t know, in advance, just what changes will be made to the allowable use of the data, but we know from long experience that whenever the government adds a citizen surveillance method, the uses for it continually expand.

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Six West Point Cadets overdose on cocaine and fentanyl on Spring Break

My younger daughter in Basic Combat Training, Fort Jackson, SC, Fall of 2010, in the center.

When my younger daughter was in Advanced Individual Training for her Military Occupational Specialty, MOS, as a 25U, Signal Support Systems Specialist, at Fort Gordon, Georgia, in the fall and winter of 2010, AIT was interrupted for a ten-day break for Christmas. When she got home, she told us that every soldier was warned that they’d be tested for drug use upon their return to Ft Gordon, and that one guy had said, “F(ornicate) it,” he was going to get high while he was on the break. I guess that he wanted out of the Army, because they had only two weeks left in AIT.

And yup, he lit up the scoreboard when he got back, and I don’t know if he received a dishonorable discharge or not, but that kind of thing follows you for the rest of your life.

That was what came to my mind when I heard about several West Point cadets overdosing on fentanyl-laced cocaine over their spring break. From Le*gal In*sur*rec*tion:

Florida Man Recently Arrested in Connection to Overdoses of Six West Point Cadets

Wilton Manors police have named a suspect arrested as 21-year-old Axel Giovany Casseus.

Posted by Leslie Eastman | Monday, March 14, 2022 | 1:00 PM EDT

Late last week, I reported that six West Point cadets on spring break in Florida overdosed on fentanyl-laced cocaine.

There has been an arrest made in connection to this horrific incident.

Florida cops have arrested an alleged drug dealer they say sold the fentanyl-laced cocaine to several West Point cadets who overdosed during a spring break trip this week.

Axel Giovany Casseus, 21, was jailed Saturday in lieu of $50,000 bail, Local10 News reported.

After identifying Casseus, an undercover police officer was successfully able to purchase 43 grams of cocaine from him for $1,000, according to an arrest report, the network reported.

While in custody, Casseus admitted to selling drugs to the West Point cadets and his phone contained correspondence with them, authorities said.

Casseus faces felony charges as two of the six cadets remain in critical condition.

There’s more at the original.

At least two of the cadets who overdosed were members of the Black Knights football team, which might be why the story made the newspapers in the first place.

While I’m happy that Mr Casseus was caught, and I hope that, if he is found guilty, he spends a long, long, long time in prison, my main concern is that United States Military Academy cadets bought and used cocaine in the first place. West Point cadets are supposed to be some of our best and brightest, in an academy which puts them through rigorous and demanding coursework, and teaches honor above everything.

One would think that some of our best and brightest would have been bright enough to figure out that they might just have to pee in the cup when they returned from spring break. One would think that they would have been told that would happen, but even if they weren’t, West Point cadets should have been smart enough to figure it out on their own.

The cadet honor code is simple: “A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” These six cadets failed to show much honor in buying and using drugs. The cost to educate a cadet at the Military Academy is over $225,000 over four years, and while the stories do not tell us in which years the overdosed cadets are, they just pissed away $60,000 for every year they were enrolled.

More, they took slots over other deserving candidates, ones which we can hope would not have used drugs.

They have to be gone, of course. The Army cannot tolerate officers who use drugs, officers who may well have to discharge enlisted personnel who fail a whizz quiz. They should be fined for the costs the government incurred in providing their education.

Le*gal In*sur*rec*tion reported that not all six of the cadets were using drugs:

Not all of the cadets were using drugs. Two overdosed while “performing life-saving measures.”

That’s hopeful, but it’s still a potential honor code violation, if they knew that the cadets who were using drugs were doing so, and failed to try to stop them.

I would expect that, after this ‘incident,’ every cadet returning from spring break will wind up peeing in the cup; the Academy would be foolish not to do this. And I have to wonder: were these the only drug-using cadets, or are there more?

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The Patricians are just different from us! CNN's disgraced and fired President to get $10 million payoff to keep his mouth shut

The Patricians just aren’t like you and me. If you get canned for some reason — I’m retired now, so I’m beyond the ability of anyone to fire — you might, might! be able able to get a few hundred bucks a week in unemployment benefits. If you are terminated for cause, such as an inappropriate sexual relationship with a subordinate, something which could expose your company to a sexual harassment claim, you might not be able to get even unemployment compensation.

But life is different for the elites. From Le*gal In*sur*rec*tion:

Former CNN Chief Jeff Zucker to Get $10 Million Settlement, Agrees Not to Sue

“if WarnerMedia keeps their side of the deal, in the next week to 10 days, Zucker will receive a one-time payment of around $10 million”

Posted by Mike LaChance | Thursday, March 10, 2022 | 1:00 PM EST

CNN’s former president Jeff Zucker is getting a major golden parachute from his former employer, with the agreement not to sue them.

It’s a pretty good deal for a man who basically destroyed the network’s ratings and brand.

FOX News reports:

Ex-CNN chief Jeff Zucker to receive roughly $10 million from WarnerMedia, won’t sue: report

Former CNN boss Jeff Zucker has reportedly agreed to a deal with CNN parent company WarnerMedia over his swift exit from the network that will award him roughly $10 million in exchange for not suing after being forced to resign last month.

“Details of the confidential package are obviously being kept close to the vest, but sources tell us Zucker made the decision several weeks ago to accept what had been put on the table by his old bosses at the time of his cable news exit. What we do know is that, if WarnerMedia keeps their side of the deal, in the next week to 10 days, Zucker will receive a one-time payment of around $10 million,” Deadline’s Dominic Patten and Ted Johnson wrote, citing “sources.”

It seems that Mr Zucker’s girlfriend, who was not initially fired forced to resign, but quit a couple of weeks later, is also getting a golden parachute of a cool million.

As we have noted previously, Mr Zucker had a net worth of $60 million, plus an annual base salary of $6.3 million, before any bonuses — and how he could ever qualify for a bonus the way CNN’s ratings tanked is beyond me, but he certainly did get them — and Miss Gollust wasn’t exactly living paycheck-to-paycheck herself, with an estimated net worth of $5 million.

It seems that CNN has some dirty laundry the network wants desperately to keep out of the public’s sight. Given that the relationship between the two has been reported, by multiple sources, as an “open secret,” it has to be asked why CNN forced them out over that, rather than the ratings disaster the network had become.

Remember: the excuse for the resignation given was that Mr Zucker and Miss Gollust, both of whom are divorced, failed to report the relationship. But the head of human resources for CNN, Lisa Greene, is also an Executive Vice President, as was Miss Gollust, and the idea that someone who hobnobs with the network’s top brass didn’t know the “open secret” everyone else did is pretty difficult to swallow.

So, what does Mr Zucker know that CNN is so desperate to keep quiet?

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I had no idea that Larry Krasner was Lou Anna Red Corn’s mentor!

It is a story reminiscent of something I’d find in The Philadelphia Inquirer: a lenient prosecutor letting a killer off easy.

    Xavier Hardin, mugshot from Fayette County Detention Center, dated June 15, 2021, and is a public record.

    Lexington man who committed deadly Fayette Mall shooting reaches plea deal. Here’s why

    by Jeremy Chisenhall | Friday, March 11, 2022 | 12:19 PM EST | Updated: 1:06 PM EST

    The man who shot and killed a 17 year old inside Fayette Mall in 2020 has reached an agreement with prosecutors to accept a conviction for manslaughter instead of murder, according to court records.

    Xavier Hardin, 21, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, assault and wanton endangerment charges in the killing of Kenneth Bottoms Jr., after reaching a plea agreement earlier this week, according to court records. Hardin, who was 19 at the time of the incident, also injured two bystanders when he fired shots inside the mall on Aug. 23, 2020.

    Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn said Hardin’s plea agreement was reached through mediation and Bottoms’ family was in agreement with the plea deal. The plea agreement accounted “for the facts of the case,” Red Corn said, which included that “both the defendant and Kenneth were carrying handguns that day at the mall.”

    “There were video recordings of their encounter, and the defendant raised a claim of self-protection,” Red Corn said. “Regardless of the defendant’s claim, he injured innocent persons and put others in harm’s way when (he) started shooting. This is another tragic example of why teens should not be carrying guns in the first place.”

There’s more at the original here.

Messrs Hardin and Bottoms had a long-standing dislike for each other, a “beef” as Lexington Herald-Leader reporter put it. In Fayette Mall, Mr Harin is shown on surveillance video looking over his shoulders, as though worried he was being followed. Eventually Mr Bottoms and three men with him confronted Mr Hardin, and an argument ensued. One of Mr Bottoms’ friends tried to pull him away from the confrontation, but failed.

    One witness testified to police that Bottoms spit on Hardin during the argument, according to court records. Another noted hearing expletives. Another said they heard Hardin ask, “You don’t think I’ll pull it out?”

    As the argument intensified, bystanders started to flee, according to the video. Hardin then pulled a gun out of his waistband and fired.

In other words, Mr Hardin was not defending himself from a deadly assault, but pulled out his weapon and fired. Though Mr Bottoms was also armed, there’s nothing in the story to indicate that Mr Bottoms pulled out his gun.

According to the Fayette County Detention Center, Mr Hardin’s charges are:

  • KRS §507.030: Manslaughter, First Degree, a Class B felony with a sentence of no less than ten years and no more than twenty.
  • KRS §508.060: Wanton Endangerment, First Degree: Class D felony, with a sentence of one to five years in prison
  • KRS §508.020: Assault, Second Degree, Class C felony, penalty at least five years to a maximum of ten years in prison
  • KRS §508.030: Assault, Fourth Degree, Class A Misdemeanor, penalty imprisonment for up to 12 months.
    Hardin is scheduled to be sentenced in May. He faces a maximum of 23 years in prison if his sentences are run consecutively, based on the sentencing recommendations made by prosecutors in the plea agreement. Prosecutors didn’t make a recommendation on whether or not Hardin’s sentences should run consecutively or at the same time.

    If a judge decides to run all his sentences at the same time, he would have to serve at least eight and a half years, based on the prosecutors’ recommendations. He’s required by to serve at least 85 percent of the sentence given to him for his manslaughter conviction because it is a violent offense.

Of course, since Mr Hardin has been locked up since at least May 15, 2021, he has already served 301 days. The jail records are not clear; he was also arrested on August 24, 2020, the day after the murder, and if he was locked up since then, that would be an additional 200 days. He could serve as little as 7 years and 8 months, if locked up since May 15, 2021, or 7 years and one month if he has credit since August 24, 2020. Mr Hardin, who is 21 years old, could get out of prison when he’s still in his twenties!

Had Miss Red Corn not accepted a plea bargain arrangement, had charged him with murder, taken it to trial and gotten him convicted, he could be locked up for the rest of his miserable life, which would protect the citizens of Fayette County. The most we can expect, if the judge decides to run the sentences consecutively, is that he’d get out of jail at age 44, a prison-hardened criminal, and while Mr Bottoms is still stone-cold graveyard dead.

Miss Red Corn has a history of giving killers lenient plea bargains. That’s great for murderers; it’s not so great for the citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

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Killadelphia! Perhaps some introspection on just the numbers. 100 people killed in the City of Brotherly Love.

It was in no way unexpected that the City of Brotherly Love would see its 100th homicide of the year this week; the only question was on which day that would happen. For a numbers geek like me, it has led to some introspection, but first, the report from The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Philadelphia reaches 100 homicides for 2022, outpacing last year

More people have been killed in Philadelphia so far this year than by this time last year, which ended with a record 562 homicides.

by Robert Moran | Friday, March 11, 2022 | 7:00 PM EST

Philadelphia has topped 100 homicides so far in 2022, outpacing the number of killings this time last year, which ended as the deadliest in the city’s recorded history.

The 100th victim was a 28-year-old man who was shot multiple times shortly before 11 p.m. Thursday on the 100 block of North 53rd Street in West Philadelphia. The man was rushed by police to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 12:32 a.m. Friday.

As of Friday evening, the city had not yet named the victim. Fox 29 reported that his family had identified him as Bryheem Barr.

The reporter, Robert Moran, followed the Inquirer’s practice of deleting the victim’s race from the story, even though the Philadelphia Police Department provide it. Of course, the tweet Mr Moran embedded in the story told readers that Mr Barr was black. I wonder if, by disclosing that kind of information, whether Mr Moran will get in trouble!

By March 10 last year, Philadelphia had 92 homicides. The city had a total of 562 homicides in 2021, breaking the previous record of 500 killings reported in 1990.

For comparison, New York City had 488 homicides for all of last year. As of last weekend, the city reported 67 killings so far in 2022.

Chicago this week also reached 100 homicides for the year, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Mr Moran might have made a better comparison had he noted the populations of New York and Chicago, compared to Philly. The Big Apple had 8,804,190 residents, while the Windy City had a population of 2,746,388; the City of Brotherly Love had 1,603,797 souls in the 2020 census. Chicago is 71 percent larger than Philly, with the same number of killings, while New York City is 5¼ times Philly’s size, and has a third fewer total killings.

There had been ‘only’ 96 homicides on March 11, 2021, a jump from 92 the previous day, which means that Philly’s 100th murder is ‘only’ a 4.17% increase over last year; had the homicide been counted on Thursday, when Mr Barr was shot, it would have been an 8.70% increase.

How does this work out? There are different ways to do the statistics, the simplest being the number of homicides divided by the number of days in the year, 70, to come up with a homicide pace of 1.4286 per day, multiplied by 365, projecting to 521.42 homicides for the year. A more complicated way is to take the number of homicides on the 70th day of the year in 2021, and find that 17.08% of 2021 homicides had occurred by March 11, 2021, and, using that number, project that 2022 will see 585.48 killings.

Bryheem Barr, from Kelly Rule, Fox29. Click to enlarge.

I started this article Friday evening, but, as I was running the numbers through my head, I realized that I was doing what others have done: I had reduced Bryheem Barr to a number. Fox29 had a story on him:

‘He didn’t deserve this’: Man slain in Philadelphia’s 100th homicide was “hardworking” father, fiancé

Published March 11, 2022 | 6:30 PM EST

PHILADELPHIA – Authorities believe a Philadelphia father and soon-to-be husband was shot and killed during an attempted robbery Thursday night to become the city’s 100th homicide so far this year.

Family members say 28-year-old Bryheem Barr was walking to his car to go to work just before 11 p.m. near the intersection of North 53rd and Arch streets when the deadly shooting happened.

According to police, Barr was found shot multiple times and driven to Penn Presbyterian Hospital by officers where he died.

A police source told FOX 29’s Kelly Rule that they believe the deadly shooting happened during a robbery and the shooter took Barr’s legally-owned firearm.

One thing we know: if Mr Barr had a “legally-owned firearm,” he was not a convicted felon, and he had gone through the hassle of getting a permit in Philadelphia. This was not a case of one gang banger offing another, the way so many murders in the city happen.

Another is that he was going to work, obviously night shift somewhere.

Barr was a father of three and was soon to be married. His family said he was studying to become a nurse.

“Hardworking, bothers nobody, will give you the shirt off his back will do anything for his family, he wouldn’t hurt a soul,” Lorriane Barr, Bryheem’s aunt said.

There’s a bit more at the original, and that bit more is more than the Inquirer had on its website.

What did the Inquirer have? Yet another story on Thomas Siderio, Jr, the 12-year-old punk kid to took a shot at the Philadelphia Police, and paid the ultimate price for it. Even as sympathetic to young Mt Siderio as the Inquirer could be, the story couldn’t help but disclose that:

  • In 2021, police “were searching a house where he was living after receiving a tip that he’d pulled a gun during a large fight at Second and Porter Streets in South Philadelphia. They found clothes matching a photo taken at the scene, but no gun.”
  • “In recent Instagram posts, TJ could be seen in a ski mask, and there are several references to guns and drug use.”
  • “’He had a tendency to follow the wrong kind of kids,’ said Terry Elnicki-Varela, who works in special education and started helping TJ at school three years ago. ‘He was no angel. Far from it.’”
  • Young Mr Siderio had been failed by both parents. His father who is currently in prison, and “previously spent at least a year in prison in Philadelphia” on a prior conviction, while his mother, Desirae Frame, also has a criminal record, with two drug cases and other arrests for theft, forgery, contempt of court, and receiving stolen property. The son is noted, in the article, as primarily living with a grandmother, but also living with a great-aunt.

Yes, he had a rough life, and little chance of improving it, but he was still a punk.

Mr Barr? If the Inquirer is working on a story to humanize the victim of the city’s milestone homicide, at least as of 8:49 this morning, it hasn’t been published. Instead, the paper is trying their best to excoriate the Philadelphia Police Department, something which can only lead to more killings in the city.

Mr Barr, at least as far as we know — there’s always a risk in taking just the family’s word for things — was a working man, and a law-abiding Philadelphian. For the Inquirer, his story isn’t an important one, save that he hit a certain number in the liquidation lottery. No, the paper would rather spend time and money trying to make a martyr out of a young punk.

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The Philadelphia Inquirer tries to make a 12-year-old punk who shot at police some kind of martyr.

Thomas J Siderio Jr

I have previously noted that The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t like reporting on the not good guys who get gunned down in the City of Brotherly Love, but when an ‘innocent,’ a ‘somebody,’ or a cute little white girl gets killed, the paper is full of stories. I noted when the Inquirer and reporter Anna Orso tried to make an innocent victim out of young Marcus Stokes. In her story on the impact that the murder of Marcus Stokes had on E Washington Rhodes School, Miss Orso wrote, very specifically, that young Mr Stokes “was fatally shot in North Philadelphia on his way to school“, but the evidence, as printed in the Inquirer, indicates that he was not actually on his way to school. He was sitting, with five other young people, in a parked, and possibly disabled, car, many blocks away, fifteen minutes after he was supposed to be in his homeroom at school.

Miss Orso knew those facts; she is listed as either the sole or one of two authors in each of the articles I have cited. Did no one, including she, ever ask themselves any questions about why these young people, “including other Rhodes students“, were sitting in that car, ask themselves what they were doing there?

Miss Orso isn’t a stupid woman. She was graduated from Pennsylvania State University, a highly selective college, that doesn’t accept dummies. She isn’t inexperienced, having worked in journalism for seven years now, including four with the Inquirer.

Now, the Inquirer is trying the same thing with Thomas Siderio, Jr, the 12-year-old shot by the police after Mr Siderio opened fire on them:

    South Philly community mourns TJ Siderio, 12-year-old fatally shot by Philadelphia police officer

    Friends and family mourned mourned TJ this week, holding each other up as the waves of grief often took them off their feet.

    by Rodrigo Torrejón | Thursday, March 10, 2022

    Some would call him Tommy. Others Tom Dog. But most in Thomas Siderio’s tight-knit constellation of friends and family just knew him as TJ.

    A name was important, Pastor Mandell Gross said Thursday morning at Lighthouse Baptist Church in South Philadelphia. It was important during TJ’s short life. And it was important as dozens of TJ’s loved ones gathered at his funeral to say their final goodbyes.

    One by one, Gross asked the young people there, TJ’s friends, to say their names. Though he lamented the reason the community had gathered, Gross told the young people there to mourn the loss that they must try to come together in brighter days too. In TJ’s name.

At that point, the paper included a photo of Mr Siderio, one obviously taken several years earlier.

Four plainclothes officers were in the area, due to the high crime rate in the neighborhood. When they spotted Mr Siderio, who was visibly armed, they illuminated their unmarked car, the boy then shot at the officers, and took off running. One officer was injured in both eyes from flying glass, one remained in the vehicle with him, and two others got out to pursue the perp.

    A lawyer for TJ’s father previously disputed the accusation that the child fired the gun, calling it “egregious speculation” that has not been confirmed by evidence. Video and audio recordings analyzed by The Inquirer show that the gun that police say TJ tossed after shooting into the police car was found five doors down — or roughly 60 feet — from where he was fatally shot.

Sixty feet equals twenty yards, a distance a physically fit 12-year-old boy, who was already at a dead run, could cover in two seconds, but the Inquirer does not mention that.

The sappy article concluded:

    Next to his casket was a sign with a final, loving message from his parents, Thomas Siderio and Desirae Frame.

The elder Mr Siderio, inmate number NS5455, is behind bars at the State Correctional Institute Coal Township, three years into a sentence with at least two more years to serve on gun charges stemming from a murder in 2017. He has prior convictions for resisting arrest, assault, and the attempted theft of a motorcycle. He wasn’t there to have kept his son from running with a bad crowd and carrying a weapon, but, then again, as a convicted felon, he might not have been the best role model.

    “Rest In Peace TJ my son. Love Daddy and Mommy always and forever.”

    After the short sermon finished Thursday morning, the pallbearers gathered to carry TJ to his final resting place at Fernwood Cemetery. Most of the pallbearers were young, just a few years older than TJ.

    They were the friends that became TJ’s family on the streets of South Philadelphia. And with TJ’s face on their chests, the friends gathered for one last picture together, holding the young boy’s memory in their hearts.

An alleged but unconfirmed photo of Thomas Siderio Jr.

Give me a break! Young Mr Siderio was armed, with a stolen laser-sight equipped 9mm Taurus semiautomatic handgun, and he responded to the police lights by raising the weapon and firing it at the cops. This is not the sweet little angel the Inquirer has tried to make him out to be!

What was 12-year-old Mr Siderio doing out on the street, armed and ready to kill? Where was his mother, that she allowed him to have a stolen firearm, that she allowed him to go out into the streets armed? The newspaper’s Editorial Board has already opined that the killing of a young, gun-toting punk who opened fire on police young Mr Siderio should “should make every Philadelphian outraged,” blaming the city for not having safer and saner recreational outlets for boys like Mr Siderio, and blaming the state government for not passing virtue-signaling gun control laws that infringe on the constitutional rights of law abiding citizens but do absolutely nothing to stop criminals, blaming everybody but his father, who provided such a poor role model, and his mother, who didn’t supervise her son, and the boy himself, who knew he was breaking the law, and who took a shot at the police.

Let me be plain about this: had young Mr Siderio gotten away, he’d still be out on the streets, still be carrying a firearm, and still be a menace to every law-abiding citizen in the city. In just two days, March 8th and 9th, 13 people were shot in the city, and three of them died, all of them black males, but the Inquirer didn’t care enough about any of them to have a single story on any of them. I guess there wasn’t anything there out of which the newspaper could portray the victims as somehow innocents or heroic.

Young Mr Siderio is no hero, and he is no martyr. He was a young punk who thought he was a big, tough man, and had he escaped, would almost certainly amassed a long and violent criminal record. It is unfortunate that the manner of his death will cost a good police officer his job, and possible criminal charges, but the odds are high that Philadelphia is better off with Mr Siderio having gone to his eternal reward.