Author Archives: Dana Pico

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Ok, OK, this was bad, but really, I’m sure that were about to turn their lives around, any day now!

We have previously noted that The Philadelphia Inquirer gave OpEd space to child activists Donna Cooper and Anton Moore, to tell us that people’s brains are not fully mature until their mid-20s, and how, rather than incarceration, we should provide those juveniles accused of non-violent offenses with more opportunities for reform. But, rather than being all sympathetic, I instead noted retired Sgt Marc Fusetti’s tweet, which pointed out that two of the three initially arrested for the Burholme shooting had been treated leniently, for non-violent offenses as juveniles, and then went out and, allegedly, of course, shot eight people at the SEPTA bus stop in a targeted hit. I also noted that the Philadelphia Police Department already had a mugshot of the fourth suspect, 17-year-old Asir Boone, which meant that he, too, had a previous ‘encounter’ with law enforcement.

Well, the Burholme shooting net gets wider and wider!

Police arrest 15-year-old they say staked out Northeast shooting victims, texting gunmen ‘go’ as targets walked by

Jeremiah Jefferson is the fifth person to be arrested and charged in a shooting that left eight teens injured in the Northeast.

by Ellie Rushing | Thursday, March 21, 2024 | 5:08 PM EDT | Updated: 7:14 PM EDT

Jeremiah Jefferson, mugshot via Philly Crime Update.

A 15-year-old who police say acted as a lookout for the gunmen in the Burholme shooting, standing inside a nearby Dunkin’ and texting “go” to the shooters as their targets walked by has been arrested, police said Thursday.

Jeremiah Jefferson is expected to be charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, and related crimes for his alleged role in the shooting at a bus stop in Northeast Philadelphia earlier this month that left eight students injured. He is the fifth person to be charged in connection with the March 6 shooting.

Jefferson was inside the Dunkin’ next to the gas station, while his friends with guns were seated in a blue Hyundai parked outside, said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.

Young Mr Jefferson was allegedly on the lookout for the intended victim in the shooting, described his own clothes so the shooters wouldn’t aim at him, sent photos of the two intended targets, and then, in a final text, simply said, “Go”.

If young Mr Jefferson has a juvenile record, that information has not yet been released, or, more probably, leaked. About the only good thing about this is that, at 15-years-old, there’s at least a reasonable hope that he hasn’t knocked up some girl and further polluted the gene pool, because this fine young gentlemen, if he did that of which he is accused, is dumb as a box of rocks. The last thing Philly needs is more stupid babies born.

Police on Thursday also announced that they intended to charge (Anhile) Buggs, (18), with a separate homicide that occurred in mid-February on the 5800 block of Rising Sun Avenue. In that shooting, 20-year-old Kristopher Dowling was killed just before 9 p.m. while he was walking with a friend to get pizza.

Dowling’s mother, Ivory, said police told her Buggs, who is from Olney, had been driving around the Lawncrest area with others, searching for someone to shoot as part of a back-and-forth feud between groups from Lawncrest and Olney.

The retaliation had been ongoing for years, she said — it was one of the reasons why she moved her family from Lawncrest, their home of 19 years, to Abington two years ago.

That’s two planned and premeditated shootings for Mr Buggs. Let me be clear about this: there’s no reforming this gentleman, and he needs to never see another sunrise outside of prison. His accomplices in the Burholme shootings? They, too, are waste cases, completely lost souls who might, if they’re lucky, find the Lord while they’re in prison, but they, too, should never get out. They are too evil, and too stupid, to ever walk among free society again.

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When a reporter has more of an agenda than an understanding of economics and business.

We have twice reported on the decisions of Wawa to close down some stores in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia. The late Josh Kruger complained bitterly about such.

This crime is not new, and The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the Headhouse Square Wawa “will become the sixth Center City Wawa to shutter since 2020.”

So, you would think that an article in the newspaper on food ‘deserts’ in some Philly neighborhoods would at least mention crime. But, if you did think that, you would be wrong.

About 40 million people in the United States don’t have access to a full-service grocery store

The 2023 update of the Limited Supermarket Access Study examines the lack convenient access to health food options across the nation — and in Philadelphia.

by Lynette Hazleton | Thursday, March 21, 2024 | 5:00 AM EST

What food is available has everything to do with the food stores that are available.

When the food store is a full-service supermarket, like the ShopRite in Parkside, it usually means you will have the access to a wider variety, higher-quality and lower-cost food, explained Michelle Schmitt, a senior policy analyst at The Reinvestment Fund (TRF) as she walked around the bustling 15-year-old supermarket.

As you can see, the article wasn’t produced by the regular Inquirer staff, but the Leftist Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the non-profit which owns the newspaper. I have previously noted that, as a subscriber, I sometimes receive begging for donations letters from the Leftist Lenfest Institute.

When you don’t have the same access to high quality food as you do to chips, fast food and soda, it can contribute to an unhealthy eating pattern that can ultimately lead to chronic disease.

How is it that Lynette Hazelton, the Philly native who reported this story, couldn’t bring herself to note that the densely-populated rowhouse neighborhoods which make up a significant part of the city’s neighborhoods don’t really have room for a huge Giant Food Mart? Yes, there are corner bodegas in most of the neighborhoods, where you can get those chips, fast foods, soda, beer, lottery tickets, and the occasional bullet in your chest. But the kinds of supermarkets that Miss Hazelton envisions take up around ten acres when parking lots are included.

Schmitt is the main author of the 2023 update to the Limited Supermarket Access (LSA) study which determines who is and is not well served by their grocery store. The official definition for limited supermarket access is 500 people in a low income tract where urban members are more than a mile and rural shoppers are more than 10 miles to a full service store. It is the fourth update since 2010 and the first to include Alaska and Hawaii.

The big take away: about 40 million Americans live without easy access to healthy food options.

Take Parkside, Belmont and Mantua neighborhoods of West Philadelphia. Together they are home to roughly 48,755 residents. Virtually all the blocks are very densely populated, 66% Black and almost half the people had an annual income of $25,000 in 2021, the latest data available.

This was some sloppy writing. Did Miss Hazeltom mean that $25,000 was the median income?

While this is the neighborhood many traditional stores would overlook, it is the type of neighborhood that the LSA study showed was in desperate need of a supermarket.

OK, why would “many traditional stores” overlook those neighborhoods? The author noted that “Virtually all the blocks are very densely populated,” which means less available area to put in a ten-acre supermarket. The neighborhoods are mostly poor, and grocery stores “operate on razor-thin profit margins. The industry average is between one and three percent, far below other retail sectors. With such lean margins, grocery stores rely on high sales volume and inventory turnover to thrive.” Then you throw in Philly’s crime rate, and the obvious question is easy to determine: how could a supermarket make a profit there?

Supermarkets were once associated with suburbs, and by the 1970s seven out of every ten food dollars were spent there. But also supermarkets did not place their businesses in low-income communities which lead to real consequences.

This paragraph alone tells you just how poor Miss Hazelton’s article was. The source she hyperlinked told her that grocery stores in Philly were mostly the ‘corner grocery store’ type, operating in the rowhouse neighborhoods, yet somehow, she couldn’t figure out that those neighborhood structures dictated the kinds of grocery stores that were there. In more rural areas, we had “general stores” before supermarkets were developed, and many lament that so few of those old general stores exist. Alas! The old general store that was near where I now live went out of business, became someone’s auto repair shop for a while, and is now a small volunteer fire station. Kroger and Giant and Aldi forced those old country general stores out of business, but in the suburbs and rural areas, there was the physical room for supermarkets.

Perhaps it’s as simple as the reporter having more of an agenda than an understanding of economics and business.

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Political speech by public school teachers

The hand-written copy of the proposed articles of amendment passed by Congress in 1789, cropped to show just the text in the third article that would later be ratified as the First Amendment.

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Having been incorporated by the Supreme Court to apply to state and municipal governments as well, it presents a high bar to governments to restrict speech. However, one place in which governments, and employers, can restrict speech is when the speaker is at work; no one reasonably holds that an employee could harm his employer through his at-work speech. We also have laws prohibiting government employees from political activities while working at their jobs.

Well, this story caught my eye:

Central Bucks says teacher’s anti-Israel social media posts don’t violate policies. Some parents say he’s ‘brainwashing’ kids.

Youssef Abdelwahab, a Spanish teacher and adviser to Central Bucks West’s Muslim Student Association, has posted extensively on social media criticizing Israel.

by Maddie Hanna | Saturday, March 16, 2024 | 5:00 AM EDT

A Central Bucks West High School teacher did not break district rules with his anti-Israel advocacy, district officials said this week after reviewing complaints by parents that his social media posts spread antisemitic content and inspired a Muslim student group to do the same.

Complaints about Youssef Abdelwahab, a Spanish teacher and adviser to the high school’s Muslim Student Association, were investigated by the Central Bucks School District, according to acting superintendent James Scanlon, who said he couldn’t provide details on personnel matters.

“There were no policy violations,” Scanlon said.

Several parents criticized Abdelwahab during a school board meeting Tuesday night, accusing him of “brainwashing” students through an Instagram account set up for a business he runs selling durag head coverings with designs inspired by kaffiyehs, a traditional Arab headdress viewed by supporters of the Palestinian cause as a symbol of fighting for Palestinian rights. Abdulwahab’s critics have also circulated a 45-page letter addressed to Scanlon that called for his firing.

So far, that’s just news, and while I completely and unambiguously support Israel, I also support Mr Abdelwahab’s First Amendment rights to believe and say and publish whatever foolishness he wants.

But I do not support him being allowed to do so in school.

Very far down:

Teachers’ speech has been controversial in Central Bucks in recent years. The new Democrat-led board recently rolled back a policy enacted by the previous Republican majority that barred teachers from advocating to students about “partisan, political or social policy issues.” The measure was criticized as targeting Pride flags and support for LGBTQ students.

Odd how it doesn’t seem to have been criticized as having prohibited teachers supporting Donald Trump or conservative policies. Those have as little place in the public schools as supporting homosexuality and transgenderism.

The letter to district officials charged that Abdelwahad had violated that policy while it still was in effect, alleging that he “advocated to students” through his Instagram account and his role with the Muslim Student Association.

The letter highlighted a poster at the high school for a Feb. 27 event hosted by the association encouraging students to protest the state’s financial support for Israel. The poster invited students to “collectively write a letter to PA state treasurer listing ways we can better use the $$ here in PA, rather than for killing more innocents in Gaza.”

Under the direction of another teacher, Central Bucks students wrote letters in support of Israel, according to a former Central Bucks West student who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting. “The situation is deeply insensitive to our Palestinian students,” said the former student, Ginny Morgan, who came to the U.S. as a Syrian refugee and described being bullied and targeted by jokes about 9/11 while a student in the district.

It ought to be obvious: teachers should not be pushing students politically in either direction.

Morgan also pushed back on criticism of students wearing kaffiyehs, which the letter to Scanlon described as popularized by former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Wearing a keffiyeh is “hate speech that is made to evoke a fear reaction in Jewish and Israeli students when they see it,” the letter said, citing case law to contend that student free speech — while largely protected — is not unlimited in public schools.

So, it seems that precious little feelings on both sides are being hurt. But unless the school is going to mandate uniforms, students can wear kaffiyehs if they wish . . . and kippahs as well, though the article did not mention them. The two are different in one respect: a kaffiyeh is a political symbol, while a kippah is a religious one. High school students are not exactly known for their sense of moderation.

If Mr Abdelwahad is stupid enough to support the rapists and murderers in Hamas, out-of-school, that’s his right. But the district does need to be monitoring more closely the political speech of teachers and staff while in school.
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Also posted on American Free News Network. Check out American Free News Network for more well written and well reasoned conservative commentary.

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Could Daniel Pearson be a conservative? Whether he realized it or not, he was pushing "broken windows" policing

I have said that my good friend Daniel Pearson — OK, OK, I think he knows who I am, but we’ve never met other than in debates on Twitter — is an editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and that makes him a liberal, but he’s not a far left whacko, and conservatives can actually talk to him. And, other than the fact that he appears to be holding a disgusting Philly cheesesteak in his Twitter biography photo — a hot, freshly baked Philly pretzel would be more than acceptable, but cheesesteaks are vile — I pretty much like him.

But this morning, I had to consider that, Heaven forfend!, he might actually be a conservative! He tweeted:

The idea that people skip fares because they don’t have the cash isn’t supported by any evidence.

People skip fares because they are entitled jerks. Period. That’s why so many fare evaders are also smoking and assaulting people on transit.

Then:

And:

Honestly, Penn and Drexel should crack down on these students. There’s no excuse for disrespecting your host city.

I could have written that, and as both of our regular readers know, I’m as evil a reich-wing conservative as they come!

OK, OK, I know: Mr Pearson is no conservative, but if he’s a Democrat, he’s at least a moderate Democrat, the kind of people conservatives could respect, even if we disagreed with him on some issues. He, or at least the Editorial Board for which he does most of the writing, clearly despises former President Trump, and there’s the problem that even moderate Democrats supporting other Democrats enables the far-left of that party — Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema and perhaps even John Fetterman, I’m referring to you — but if we’ll never get the moderate Democrats to become Republicans, at least their existence within a party which sometimes seems to have gone completely off the rails of the sensibility train somewhat restrains the hard left impulses.

The Philadelphia Daily News article Mr Pearson linked:

SEPTA: Felonies down after crackdown on fare-evaders

New stats from SEPTA show that an increased focus on busting fare-jumpers has helped curb crime in the subways.

by Vinny Vella | February 5, 2015 | 3:01 AM EST

MICHAEL, a Frankford teen, is a poster boy for all the wrong reasons.

Last year, Michael – a pseudonym, because most of his offenses were committed as a juvenile – was cited 15 times in six months for hopping onto a SEPTA train without paying, law-enforcement sources said.

It got so bad, one SEPTA Transit Police officer told the Daily News, that the cashiers at his most frequently visited stations began to recognize him and would tip off police before he even approached their windows.

In November, six days after his 18th birthday, Michael was hit with his first fare-evasion citation as an adult. Three weeks later, he was cited again, this time with an added charge of resisting arrest, according to court records.

Did “Michael” do something really radical like go to jail for his (alleged) crimes? We know that District Attorney Larry Krasner and his minions would almost certainly not do anything like that to him, but reporter Vinny Vella’s article was written in 2015, when Michael Nutter was Mayor, Charles Ramsey was Police Commissioner, and Seth Williams was District Attorney. Under those three gentlemen, Killadelphia’s homicide total in the previous year was 248, and if it spiked to 280 the next year, it had steadily come down during their tenure.

Now, he’s seemingly straightened up and flying right: He hasn’t been arrested since.

And to hear SEPTA tell it, cracking down on fare-evaders like Michael – who authorities say also has been involved in at least two cellphone thefts – has done wonders for reducing felonies committed on the city’s subways.

“People jumping turnstiles are not heading to the library or going to see grandmom,” said Chief Thomas Nestel, head of SEPTA’s Transit Police. “They’re getting on the system to engage in activity that is either criminal or disorderly.”

There’s more at the original, but this is just more evidence that “broken windows” policing works. We don’t know if “Michael” stopped using SEPTA, or just started paying the fare to keep the Transit Police away from him. But the crime numbers dropped overall, and that does follow the greater enforcement of fare evasion.

More, “Michael’s” fare evasion as a juvenile didn’t seem to do much to him, but once he became an adult, and got a resisting arrest charge added to his offenses, his behavior changed. And this shows just how badly Mr Krasner’s leniency has affected the City of Brotherly Love. We have previously noted the Burholme SEPTA bus stop shooting, and how at least three of the four (alleged) shooters — three did the shooting, while a fourth drove the stolen getaway car — had previous juvenile offenses which could and should have had them already behind bars, but did not. Harsher treatment might not have mentally and morally reformed them, but at least putting criminals behind bars means that they are not out on the streets committing crimes! Had Mr Krasner and his office treated the three Burholme (alleged) shooters more seriously, there might have been eight fewer people shot in Philly twelve days ago.

Who knows? Perhaps Dayemen Taylor, deliberately targeted and murdered at another SEPTA bus stop just two days previously, would still be with us. We don’t know that yet, there’s no public information on the Ogontz shootings perpetrators has been made public, and we don’t know if they were previous offenders, but I’d bet euros to eclairs — my version of dollars to doughnuts — that yup, they have previous records.

Mr Pearson? Whether he realized it or not, he, too, was advocating “broken windows” policing, going after the small-time, first time, ‘lower’ offense level malefactors, before they reached the level of shooting, and sometimes killing, other people. Murder, and attempted murder, are not normally entry-level crimes. It doesn’t always work, individually, because prison isn’t something which normally makes people better, but it can be something that at least encourages them not to do the stuff that would send them back to prison.

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A junior judge takes a stupid decision

Just in case I couldn’t thing of a good subject on which to write today, my good friend Robert Stacy McCain gave me some direction!

Judge dismisses gun charge against convicted felon; ruled as unconstitutional

by Natalia Martinez | The Ides of March, 2024 | 11:47 AM EDT

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Prohibiting a convicted felon from possessing a gun is unconstitutional, according to a Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge’s ruling.

Judge Melissa Logan Bellows filed the order this week, dismissing the possession charge against a convicted felon and persistent felony offender, Jecory Frazier.

The motion to dismiss was filed by Louisville Attorney Rob Eggert in October on behalf of his client. Eggert claimed the state’s law does not trump the Second Amendment. Bellows agreed, making the first ruling of its kind in Jefferson County.

Trisha Lister, an attorney at Eggert’s office, wrote the motion.

She believes Bellows’ opinion was well-written.

She told WAVE News Troubleshooters the Second Amendment does not single out convicted felons. She said the charge has been not been equally enforced and is used as a way to keep people of color from having guns. Lister stated over 70% of those prosecuted on that standalone charge are minorities.

And there we have it: the attorneys for the defendant were concerned that “over 70% of those prosecuted on that standalone charge are minorities,” so naturally, the lawyers assumed that such a statistic was generated by racism rather than the possibility that “over 70% of those prosecuted on that standalone charge are minorities” because over 70% of the violations of KRS §527.040 were committed by minorities. That statistic is not addressed in Judge Bellows decision.

The .pdf file of Judge Bellows decision is here, and it is fairly brief, only eight pages.

The Judge based her ruling on District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), which established that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not one restricted to the militia, and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), which set the standard that restrictions on our Second Amendment rights must have a significant history based on the original understandings of our rights, rather than something novel.

The Court held that “when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct” and the Government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

The Judge then launches into an argument I find strained:

In Heller, the Court stated that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons . . .” 554 U.S. at 627. The majority opinion in Bruen makes no mention of Heller’s reference to felon in possession laws. Instead, the admonition appeared in a concurring opinion. 142 S. Ct. 2162 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring).

A curious argument, given that Heller specifically stated that felons could be barred from owning weapons, and Bruen did not overturn that part, because Bruen made no mention of that particular part, the Court must not have meant for it to continue. This alone is a point of contention that I suspect the Commonwealth will appeal.

But, to me, the oddest part of the Judge’s argument is that, other than one sentence in which she noted that the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, she ignores it completely. Perhaps the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Jefferson County did not bring it up, even though it is through the Fourteenth Amendment that the Court ‘incorporated’ the individual right to keep and bear arms to the states, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010). The Fourteenth Amendment specifically states, in part:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Emphasis mine.

It’s simple: the Fourteenth Amendment specifically allows the states to deprive a person of his constitutional rights if due process of law is followed, and the felony convictions of Jacory Frazier were obtained through the due process of law.

Let me state clearly here: I am not an attorney!

So, who is Judge Bellows? She was elected Judge of the Kentucky Circuit Court for Circuit 30, division 7, in 2022, in a non-partisan race, to an eight-year term. People unfamiliar with the Bluegrass State’s judicial system might jump to the conclusion that she was appointed by either Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) or the evil President Trump, but neither is the case.

Defense Attorneys make all kinds of outlandish arguments to try to get their clients off, and in most cases, those arguments don’t work, even though judges do have to take such arguments seriously. In this case, a junior judge took an outlandish argument very seriously, and actually agreed with it.

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NIMBY! Don’t you dare build windmills where we can see them from the beach!

In November of 2020, the good people of the Garden State gave 2,608,400 votes, 57.34% of the total, to Joe Biden, and only 1,883,313, or 41.40%, to President Trump. One would think, then, that New Jerseyites must approve of Mr Biden’s plans to develop alternative sources of energy to generate electricity, right?

Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm in New Jersey would have 157 turbines and be 8.4 miles from shore

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will begin an environmental review of the Atlantic Shores project on Monday.

by Wayne Perry, Associated Press | The Ides of March 2024 | 1:39 PM EDT

ATLANTIC CITY — An offshore wind power project proposed for New Jersey would have 157 turbines and be located 8.4 miles from shore at its closest point, data released by the federal government Friday shows.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it will begin an environmental review Monday of the Atlantic Shores project. It released key details of the project in announcing the environmental review.

New Jersey energy regulators approved Atlantic Shores’ 1,510 megawatt project in 2021. It would generate enough electricity to power more than 700,000 homes.

The federal agency said the project’s operations plan proposes two potential export cable corridors that would make landfall in Sea Girt, N.J., with a second one either in Asbury Park or in the New York City area, possibly on Staten Island.

But naturally, there are plenty of people who are opposed, because, Heaven forfend!, they might be able to see the tops of some of the turbines, and the power cables running onto the shore, and sea birds might be killed, etc, etc, etc.

The groups Protect Our Coast New Jersey and Defend Brigantine Beach and Downbeach filed an appeal to the approval last week in state court, saying that power contracts granted to the project developers violate state law that mandates that any increase in rates for offshore wind must be exceeded by economic and environmental benefits to the state.

In 2020, New Jersey generated 65,060,636 MegaWatt hours of electricity, but used 74,442,735 MWh, meaning that the Garden State imported 14.42% of its total electricity consumption. With an average retail price of 14.80¢ per kWh, electricity was 19.74% higher than the national average of 12.36¢/kWh. Just as an economic calculation, one would think that the good, liberal voters of New Jersey would want this project. But no, they would prefer to import electricity from Pennsylvania, which exports 39.29% of the electricity it generates — primarily by burning natural gas — and West Virginia, which exports 41.79% of the electricity it generates, primarily by burning coal. Much better to do that than to possibly see the tops of the windmill blades from the beach!

Liberal New Jersey will need the electricity, too. As William Teach reported, the state plans to ban all fossil-fueled new car sales by 2035, the New Jersey Star-Ledger is demanding quicker action than that, and the majority of the voters in that heavily “blue” state just don’t want plug-in electric vehicles.

They will be made to comply, but they don’t want the sparktricity that they use generated anyplace where they can see it.

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What the government tells us isn’t what people actually see.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” — George Orwell, 1984

Once again, the Democrats are touting the great economy, telling us that wage increases are now running at a greater rate than inflation.

Consumer prices up 3.1 percent from January 2023 to January 2024

February 22, 2024

Over the year ended January 2024, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers increased 3.1 percent. Food prices rose 2.6 percent, while energy prices decreased 4.6 percent. Prices for all items less food and energy increased 3.9 percent from January 2023 to January 2024, compared with increases of 5.6 percent in the year ended January 2023 and 6.0 percent for the year ended January 2022.

3.1% is still higher than the Federal Reserve’s target of 2.0%, but not terrible, right. But, let’s do a bit of math. The January 2021 to January 2022 inflation rate for all items was 7.5%, from January 2022 to January 2023 it was 6.4%, and over the last year, it has been 3.1%.

$100 x 1.075 = $107.50, x 1.064 = $114.38, x 1.031 = $117.93.

Inflation is cumulative, and using the federal government’s own numbers, consumer prices for all items are 17.926% higher than they were when Joe Biden became President.

How about groceries, listed as “Food at home” by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s up 20.97%. Energy? That’s up 31.70%, despite the 4.6% decrease from January 2023 to 2024.

Why do I separate out food and energy? The Bureau of Labor Statistics, along with other government agencies, do that, because they describe them as too volatile, and don’t give a clear enough picture. But, more importantly to me, food and energy are the things people buy most frequently, as we have to eat every day, and fuel our vehicles every week, if not more often. Those are the things where people actually see inflation most often.

What about wages? Over the same period of time, wages have increased 17.087%, slightly less than the overall inflation rate, but significantly less than the inflation rates for the two things people have to buy most frequently. Prices for appliances may have grown at a significantly lesser rate, but how often do people actually buy washing machines or refrigerators?

Shelter? With wages having increased 5.0% over the past year, rental and mortgage expenses have jumped 5.7%.

Heather Long first came to my attention when she was an economics reporter for CNN. She wrote, on September 16, 2016:

Problem: Most Americans don’t believe the unemployment rate is 5%

by Heather Long | September 6, 2016 | 3:18 PM EDT

Heather Long

Americans think the economy is in far worse shape than it is.The U.S. unemployment rate is only 4.9%, but 57% of Americans believe it’s a lot higher than that, according to a new survey by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.

The general public has “extremely little factual knowledge” about the job market and labor force, Rutgers found.

It’s another example of how experts on Wall Street and in Washington see the economy differently than the regular Joe. Many of the nation’s top economic experts say that America is “near full employment.” The unemployment rate has actually been at or below 5% for almost a year — millions of people have found jobs in what is the best period of hiring since the late 1990s.

But regular people appear to have their doubts about how healthy America’s employment picture is. Nearly a third of those survey by Rutgers believe unemployment is actually at 9%, or higher.

Republican candidate Donald Trump has tapped into this confusion. He has repeatedly called the official unemployment rate a “joke” and a even “hoax.”

There’s more at the original.

I noted, at the time — in a post that is locked up, with so many others, in a file that’s stuck in my server somewhere when I got this site ‘fixed’ from some real technical problems — that what Americans believed, that unemployment was “actually at 9%, or higher,” was correct, if you looked at U-6 rather than the ‘official’ U-3 unemployment rate.

  • U-1: Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force
  • U-2: Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force
  • U-3: U-3 Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate)
  • U-4: Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers
  • U-5: Total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other persons marginally attached to the labor force, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force
  • U-6: Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force.

NOTE: Persons marginally attached to the labor force are those who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for work. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule.

The August, 2016 U-6 rate was 9.6%, which I said was right in line with American’s perception of it.

Now it’s March of 2024, and the Democrats keep telling us, just like they did in 2016, that the economy is just fine, thank you very much. But while the issue is different, inflation rather than unemployment, the effect is the same: what the government tells us is the case is not what people see as reality when they go to the grocery store, or fill up their gasoline tanks. I’m hoping that the outcome in November is the same, that the Democratic presidential nominee is returned to the status of private citizen.

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This is what happens when you don’t lock up criminals! At least three of the Burholme shooters were previously treated leniently, and learned the lesson that they'll always get away with crime.

As we reported in this comment, the Philadelphia Police had identified the fourth suspect in the Five Points mass shooting, and gave that suspect, a 17-year-old juvenile, until Wednesday morning to surrender to police, or they would release his name and photo. He didn’t surrender, and federal marshals did what they said they’d do.

 

Marshals identify 4th suspect in Burholme bus stop shooting that wounded 8 teenagers

Asir Boone, 17, is wanted on attempted murder and related charges in the March 6 shooting at Rising Sun and Cottman Avenues.

by Jesse Bunch | Wednesday, March 13, 2024 | 2:12 PM EDT | Updated: 4:53 PM EDT

U.S. Marshals released information Wednesday about the fourth suspect in the Burholme shooting that left eight high school students injured last week, as law enforcement officials urged the teenager to turn himself in.

Asir Boone, 17, is wanted on attempted murder and related charges, according to a statement from the U.S. Marshals Service.

A $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to Boone’s arrest. The Marshals Service said that Boone frequents the Olney neighborhood and that his last known address was in Germantown.

Shockingly enough, the tweet with the suspect’s name and photo was published on the newspaper’s online story.

I stated three days ago:

The two identified suspects are just 18 years old, and no one has exposed any adult criminal records on them, but no one would be surprised if there are sealed juvenile records.

It was hardly a difficult prediction to make!

The photo of Mr Boone is a police mugshot, dated last year, so this fine young gentlemen had been arrested at least once previously.

Well, my good friend, Sgt Mark Fusetti did some digging!

Note that Sgt Fusetti only identified two of the accused, and only as Suspects #1 and #2. That leads me to suspect that these juvenile records were not officially released, but leaked by someone. I don’t know that, but it’s a reasonable assumption. And now we know that the fourth suspect, young Mr Boone, was also, to use the euphemism, ‘known to the police.’

So, “Suspect #1” had a 2021 charge, for which he received a diversionary judgement, so no criminal conviction. The following year he was caught with a stolen car, and received probation. Then, at some later point, he was charged with receiving stolen property, for which he has not yet been tried.

“Suspect #2” was arrested for receiving stolen property and a firearms charge, and was put on probation just six days before the Burholme bus shooting. It would seem rather obvious that District Attorney Larry Krasner and his minions’ lenient treatment of arrested juveniles hasn’t worked to, as he claims in his Twitter bio, “make us safer.”

We noted, about three weeks ago, that The Philadelphia Inquirer gave OpEd space to two activists, who claimed “Locking teens up won’t make our city safer. It will have the opposite effect, and here’s why.” Well, at least three of the four suspects were not locked up, after committing serious crimes, with two of them having possessed firearms illegally, and they (allegedly) worked together to shoot up a SEPTA bus stop, apparently targeting at least one person, and wounding eight, one very seriously. At least three of the four (alleged) Burholme shooters were not locked up when caught previously, and the police recovered at least one Glock with an extended magazine and a full auto switch modification.

And yet, too many people assume that the only solution to stop youth crime is to lock children up long term.

While there are times when detaining teenagers is warranted, it cannot be the first and only response if we really want to end violence, because it doesn’t address the reasons so many kids are committing crimes in the first place.

Actually, it can. The criminal who is incarcerated or not incarcerated is not the only one who is learning a lesson here. The criminal, teenaged or otherwise, who is not incarcerated, who is treated as leniently “suspects #1 and 2”, and Asir Boone, were, learns the lesson that he’ll always get cut a break; that’s not a lesson the article authors have contemplated.

It’s also the people around the malefactors who learn a lesson, the lesson being either that, hey, these guys got busted, but were let go, so I’ll get let off, too, or the lesson that, dang, my buddies got busted and drew ten years in the state pen. The teenaged delinquents the authors contemplate getting whatever services and education that they expect might get that, were they to get their way, but the kids around the leniently treated criminals won’t; they’ll only see that their buddies got away with it.

Mr Krasner and his liberal minions are responsible for the (alleged) shooters being out on the streets, but the District Attorney and his office are not the only ones responsible. The leftists like the two activists just cited, and thousands of other Philadelphians who excuse crimes — at least when those crimes don’t affect them! — and who voted for Mr Krasner are also responsible.
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I can’t prove a cover up motive in the secrecy of the guilty plea in Josh Kruger murder, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, . . . . It sure seems like somebody wants to keep things quiet!

We have mentioned the murder of Philadelphia’s well-connected homosexual celebrity Josh Kruger many times, though it seemed to me that, once it was revealed that Mr Kruger’s accused killer, Robert Davis, said that Mr Kruger had started a sexual relationship with Mr Davis when he was just 15-years-old, the credentialed media clammed up as much as they could.

19-year-old accused of killing Josh Kruger expected to plead guilty

Robert Davis appeared in court Tuesday morning for the first time since he was charged with killing local journalist and advocate Josh Kruger.

by Ellie Rushing | Tuesday, March 12, 2024 | 11:25 AM EDT | Updated: 3:25 PM EDT

Josh Kruger and his cat, Mason.

The 19-year-old man accused of fatally shooting local journalist and advocate Josh Kruger last fall is expected to plead guilty to murder and related crimes, attorneys said Tuesday.

Robert Davis appeared in court Tuesday morning for the first time since he was arrested in October and charged with killing Kruger, 39, on the steps of his Point Breeze home late one fall night.

Davis waived his right to a preliminary hearing, allowing the case to move forward.

Davis’ attorney and the prosecutor on the case said Davis was expected to plead guilty to third-degree murder and possession of an instrument of crime for his role in Kruger’s death. He would also plead guilty to aggravated assault and illegal gun possession for firing a gun at someone on a SEPTA platform in the weeks earlier, said Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Palmer.

In exchange for the guilty plea, reporter Ellie Rushing told us that prosecutors dropped the more serious first-degree murder charge. Under Title 18 §2502(a), first-degree murder is the intentional killing of a person, (b)second-degree murder is a homicide during the commission of another felony, and (c) third-degree murder includes all other types of murder. Third-degree murder is a first-degree felony. Under Title 18 §1102(a)(1), conviction of first-degree murder results in either a life sentence, or possibly a sentence of death, while for third-degree murder (d) the sentence shall be fixed at not more than 40 years. Prosecutors agreed to a sentence of 15 to 30 years.

Sounds fairly straight-forward, doesn’t it? Not so fast!

The anticipated plea is the latest development in a complex case that drew national attention. But Davis’ decision to waive the preliminary hearing also prevented many details of the crime from being publicly aired — including a potential motive.

And, second paragraph from the end:

With Davis expected to admit his guilt, many of the details behind the crime and Davis’ relationship with Kruger may never be publicly revealed in court.

Yup, there they go. The Powers That Be want to keep Mr Kruger’s dissolute life quiet. The Inquirer reported, on October 2, 2023, that “police investigators recovered troubling text messages between Kruger and a former partner,” and then, on October 11, 2023:

The family’s contentions come as detectives separately discovered and are investigating what multiple law enforcement sources have called explicit photos and messages in Kruger’s phone. The sources, who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, did not say whether the images or messages were connected to Davis, but said they were “disturbing” and have been turned over to the department’s Special Victims Unit for further analysis.

I have no direct knowledge of what was found on Mr Kruger’s phone, but when stuff like that gets “turned over to the department’s Special Victims Unit for further analysis,” most people are going to think of underaged sex partners or child pornography.

Mr Kruger was supposedly a free-lance journalist, and he knew all of the right people in the City of Brotherly Love. I’ve asked before, how many people knew of Mr Kruger’s alleged illegal activities, but, like so much else, everything has been kept hush-hush since the initial revelations emerged.

Miss Rushing’s story practically jumped off the monitor screen at me, screaming, “Cover up! Cover up!” A lenient sentence for murder, and Mr Davis keeps his mouth shut. No trial means no defense attorneys exposing what was on Mr Kruger’s phone, in an attempt to get a favorable verdict for an allegedly abused killer. I can’t prove a cover up motive, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, . . . .