This really isn’t much of a surprise, because when the #BlackLivesMatter marchers rioted through 2020’s Summer of Hate, they mostly burned stuff in heavily black neighborhoods. Continue reading
Category Archives: Crime
Hold them accountable!
We have mentioned many times before the ‘reluctance’ of the credentialed media to report on crime these days, because, in the words of Philadelphia Inquirer publisher Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes, who has basically told readers that the newspaper she runs will not report on things which could lead to a negative image of minority populations, that the newspaper she runs will self-censor the truth in favor of “anti-racism” and social justice. We have also said, that black lives don’t matter, at least not to The Philadelphia Inquirer, which only reports on homicides in the City of Brotherly Love in which the victim is an ‘innocent,’ a ‘somebody,’ or a cute little white girl is the victim.
Well, the following killing, not in Philly, but Baltimore, made the national news, because the victim was someone of note! Continue reading
Even in liberal Philadelphia, decent people don’t want the junkies next door!
On September 14th, the Philadelphia City Council passed an ordinance to prohibit supervised drug consumption sites across most of the city. Outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney is appalled!
Mayor Jim Kenney is vetoing a bill that prohibits supervised injection sites in most of the city
Kenney’s move sends the bill back to City Council, which is poised to override his veto this week and make the legislation law.
by Aubrey Whelan and Anna Orso | Wednesday, September 27, 2023 | 8:00 AM EDT | Updated: 10:42 AM EDT
Mayor Jim Kenney plans to veto legislation that prohibits supervised drug consumption sites across most of Philadelphia, writing in a letter to City Council that the bill is “troublingly anti-science and misleading.” Continue reading
Charges against police officer dismissed, so the Usual Suspects riot
Philadelphia’s George Soros-sponsored, “restorative justice” District Attorney, Larry Krasner, and his army of inept minions, in their eagerness to prosecute city police officers, nevertheless failed in court on Tuesday:
A Philadelphia judge on Tuesday dismissed all charges against former city Police Officer Mark Dial, ruling that prosecutors had not presented enough evidence to show that his fatal shooting of Eddie Irizarry while on-duty last month was a crime.
The result? The Usual Suspects decided that a riot was in order! Continue reading
Killadelphia: Turn on, tune in, get dead!
We have said, many times, that black lives don’t matter, at least not to The Philadelphia Inquirer, which only reports on homicides in the City of Brotherly Love in which the victim is an ‘innocent,’ a ‘somebody,’ or a cute little white girl is the victim. However, as we have also noted, the newspaper sometimes tries to make ‘innocents’ out of some younger homicide victims, as reporter Anna Orso did with 13-year-old Marcus Stokes, shot while allegedly on his way to school, even though he was sitting in a possibly disabled car which had been sitting on a corner for weeks, not on his way to school, and in the car several minutes after he would have been late for school.
Well, this time it’s reporter Ellie Rushing’s turn! Continue reading
Was Deep Space Nine prescient?
It was a single paragraph in The New York Times which caught my attention:
About 171,000 people living in California are homeless, a total that, stunningly, accounts for nearly one-third of all the homeless people in the United States.
According to the Census Bureau’s July 1, 2022 guesstimates of population, California had 39,029,342 residents, out of a total of 333,287,557 people in the United States. 39,029,342 ÷ 333,287,557 = 0.11710410779, or the Pyrite State having 11.71% of our total population. Why, then, does California have “nearly one-third of all the homeless people in the United States”? Continue reading
Democrats really, really hate our constitutional rights! (Part 2)
We noted, just yesterday, that Democrats really, really hate our constitutional rights! The immediate point of that article was to note how Governor Michelle Cordova[1]While the Governor of New Mexico does not respect her husband enough to have taken his last name, as per The First Street Journal’s Stylebook, we do not show such disrespect to him, and always … Continue reading (D-NM) tried to ban the open or concealed carrying of firearms in the city of Albuquerque and its surrounding county, Bernalillo, including by residents who have gone through the process and obtained concealed carry permits, by executive order.
But Governor Cordova is hardly the only one who wants to take away your constitutional rights under the Second Amendment! Far-left Govenor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) wants to do the same.
Gov. Gavin Newsom Officially Calls for Convention to Change US Constitution
by Richard Moorhead • Friday, September 15, 2023 • 3:19 PM PDT
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is eyeing a change to the United States Constitution.
The state’s legislature on Thursday approved a resolution in support of Newsom’s call for a 28th Constitutional amendment, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The amendment would enshrine a list of Democratic gun-control policy priorities into federal law.
Can we tell the truth here? The “list of Democratic gun-control policy priorities” is really the bare minimum away with which the left believe that they can achieve under the Second Amendment. The left would like nothing more than to implement the New York law invalidated by the Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen 597 U. S. ____ (2022), laws which virtually prohibited the private ownership of firearms, even for self-defense, unless government officials judged that you had a good enough reason to be issued a permit . . . and living in a crime-ridden area wasn’t a good enough reason.
The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States ought to be easy to understand:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
But, of course, there are always those, including those who are themselves guarded by armed men, who do not want Other People to be allowed to keep and bear arms. And thus we’ve had the Second Amendment violated for more than 200 hundred years, as various states passed laws to restrict Americans from owning firearms. In United States v Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876), the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment only prohibited the federal government from banning private ownership of firearms:
The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendment means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the National Government.
That the First Congress, which wrote the Second Amendment, would have thought that the right to keep and bear arms could ever be limited by governments, federal or state, when the first battle of our Revolution was fought because patriots in Massachusetts were resisting Royal Governor Thomas Gage’s firearms confiscation orders, and when many Americans were living on the frontier, needing guns to hunt for game, and to defend themselves from the Indians.
Under the ridiculous Cruikshank decision, states, counties, and municipalities could ban the private ownership of firearms. It took until District of Columbia v Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), for the Court to hold that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, and McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010) incorporated the Heller decision to apply to the states. A full 219 years passed between the ratification of the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court finally applying it to the states.
Back to the originally cited article:
California is requesting a Constitutional convention to enshrine the amendment. For the amendment to be considered, two-thirds of state legislatures would have to vote in favor of a convention, according to the Times.
The proposed “Right to Safety Amendment” would limit legal gun ownership to adults 21 and older, enact universal federal background checks on gun sales, create a mandatory “reasonable waiting period” for gun purchases, and ban the purchase of many forms of semiautomatic rifles.
The article as cited here included a photo of Governor Newsom behind a podium with the heading “Gun Safety Laws Work,” but unless the gun laws include the total prohibition of firearms, they really haven’t worked. As we noted yesterday, Governor Cordova stated:
We’ve passed common-sense gun legislation, including red flag laws, domestic violence protections, a ban on straw purchases, and safe storage laws; dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to a fund specifically to help law enforcement hire and retain officers; increased penalties for violent offenders and provided massive support to intervention programs,
yet she decided that those “common-sense” gun laws were not enough, as New Mexico, which has the third-highest firearms mortality rate in the nation. Chicago, which has strict gun control laws, is one of our nation’s leaders in homicides. And, as we have previously documented, in Pennsylvania, where the gun laws are uniform throughout the state, Philadelphia, with 12.08% of the Commonwealth’s population, had over half the homicides in the Keystone State. The numbers don’t lie.
The Democrats don’t want to look at the actual causes of violence, and have reliably informed us that criminals people only break the law — racist laws which were passed by white supremacists, I would like to point out — because they have been poor, disenfranchised, and condemned to live in disinvested-in neighborhoods segregated by redlining, and are struggling just to survive. Instead, they mostly ignore crime in the inner cities, and react only when an innocent is shot and killed, as Mrs Cordova did, as Mr Newsom did, because it is wholly politically incorrect to look into the actual causes of crime, the actual causes of shootings and killings.
It’s not as though the Democrats don’t know the truth; it’s that they can’t handle the truth, the truth that most crimes, and most shootings, and most killings do not occur because the laws are lacking, but because there are cultures in our larger cities which enable crime in those areas.
References
| ↑1 | While the Governor of New Mexico does not respect her husband enough to have taken his last name, as per The First Street Journal’s Stylebook, we do not show such disrespect to him, and always refer to married women by their proper names. We do not, however, change the direct quotes of others. |
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Democrats really, really hate our constitutional rights!
Vacations are wonderful, but for a blogger, they do have a downside. When I heard about the executive order by Governor Michelle Cordova[1]While the Governor of New Mexico does not respect her husband enough to have taken his last name, as per The First Street Journal’s Stylebook, we do not show such disrespect to him, and always … Continue reading (D-NM) to ban the open or concealed carrying of firearms in the city of Albuquerque and its surrounding county, Bernalillo, including by residents who have gone through the process and obtained concealed carry permits, I really, really, really wanted to write about it, but, alas!, I didn’t have my computer with me.[2]I use a desktop, not a laptop, because I hate laptops, I despise laptops, I abominate laptops.
Mrs Cordova said, from the very beginning, that she expected legal challenges, but she waxed wroth when Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen, stated that his department would not enforce her order, because it was unconstitutional.
New Mexico governor’s gun ban draws bipartisan backlash
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s suspension of concealed and open carry gun rights in the Albuquerque area ignited opposition from Democrats and Republicans alike.
By Zoë Richards | Monday, September 11, 2023 | 7:28 PM EDT
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is facing harsh criticism from both sides of the aisle over her recently issued order suspending certain gun rights in Albuquerque and its surrounding county.
Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, on Friday announced a 30-day ban on the right to carry open or concealed firearms in public in an effort to curb gun violence and illegal drug use in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. State police were tasked with enforcing the order, which carried fines for violations.
The announcement prompted a string of lawsuits and ignited opposition from Democrats and Republicans alike.
Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen, a Democrat, said Monday he would not enforce the ban, which he called “unconstitutional.”
This order will not do anything to curb gun violence other than punish law-abiding citizens from their constitutional right to self-defense,” Allen said at a news conference.
It’s unconstitutional. So there’s no way we could enforce that order,” he added.
It wasn’t just the Sheriff who saw the Governor’s order as unconstitutional; as reported by William Teach, both here and on his website, Federal District Court Judge David Urias issued a temporary restraining order:
blocking key parts of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s executive order suspending open and concealed carry across Albuquerque and the surrounding Bernalillo County for at least 30 days.
U.S. District Court Judge David Urias issued the order on Wednesday, blocking the portion of the order that prohibits lawful gun owners from carrying their guns in public for 30 days, ruling that it’s not enforceable.
“The violation of a constitutional right, even for minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury,” Urias said during the hearing.
State Attorney General Raul Torrez, also a Democrat, informed Governor Cordova that his office and he would not defend her order in court, saying that it was both unconstitutional, and wouldn’t have any meaningful impact on public safety. Plainly put, the Attorney General said what everyone ought to understand: the people shooting up Albuquerque aren’t the ones who go through the legal process to obtain concealed carry permits in the first place. Criminals are criminals precisely because they don’t obey the laws!
Naturally, the Governor was highly, highly upset that Sheriff Allen dared to defy her Führerbefehle:
“I don’t need a lecture on constitutionality from Sheriff Allen: what I need is action,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement in response to a request for comment.
Translation: the Governor doesn’t care if her diktat is actually constitutional, she expects the Sheriff to carry out her orders!
“We’ve passed common-sense gun legislation, including red flag laws, domestic violence protections, a ban on straw purchases, and safe storage laws; dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to a fund specifically to help law enforcement hire and retain officers; increased penalties for violent offenders and provided massive support to intervention programs,” she added. “We’ve given you the tools, Sheriff Allen — now stop being squeamish about using them. I will not back down from doing what’s right and I will always put the safety of the people of New Mexico first.”
Translation: the Governor believes that what she claims will increase the safety of the people of the Land of Enchantment trumps their constitutional rights!
Is Mrs Cordova saying that Sheriff Allen is not enforcing the “red flag laws, domestic violence protections, a ban on straw purchases, and safe storage laws,” as violations come to his attention? Have there been ‘red flag’ warnings in which law enforcement did not investigate and take action is warranted under that law? Have ‘domestic violence’ violations not led to arrests or prosecutions?
If there’s one thing the Democrats really hate, it’s the Constitution of the United States, and the enumeration of our rights. Benjamin Franklin, a man who dared to sign his name to our Declaration of Independence, said, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately,” had something to say about people giving up their rights for a little bit of temporary safety, but, in reality, what Governor Cordova and many other Democratic politicians want to do, to Do Something about crime, will do virtually nothing about crime. Governor Cordova stated that New Mexico had “passed common-sense gun legislation, including red flag laws, domestic violence protections, a ban on straw purchases, and safe storage laws”, yet she also claimed that those things had simply not done enough. I have previously noted how a Lexington man didn’t care about an “emergency protection order/domestic violence order, and possession of a handgun by a previously convicted felon,” obtained one anyway, and wound up shooting and killing his estranged wife. The gang bangers in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia, about whom I’ve expended a significant amount of bandwidth, haven’t been stopped from getting guns and shooting people by laws banning minors and previously convicted felons from having firearms, or people without permits from carrying them on the city’s mean streets.
Safe storage laws? When people buy firearms because they fear for their own safety, the last thing that they want is to have to unlock their firearms when bad guys are breaking into their homes!
But the Democrats don’t care about any of that! They want to be seen as Doing Something, even if it is unreasonable. When even the left-wing e-zine Slate says that she’s doing it wholly wrong, you know it’s bad:
Last week, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a public health emergency over gun violence in her state and imposed a 30-day ban on public carry in Albuquerque. Lujan Grisham’s diagnosis of the problem is surely correct; her proposed solution, however, is astoundingly misguided. The governor has leveraged an emergency health law to suspend a right protected by state statute, the state constitution, and Supreme Court precedent. Whether that right should exist is beside the point; it does exist in New Mexico today, pursuant not only to court decisions but also democratically enacted laws. By suspending it unilaterally, Lujan Grisham has claimed an alarming new power to revoke well-established individual rights by executive order. And she has done so in the most blundering way possible, ensuring a backlash that will only empower citizens, activists, and politicians who view all firearm restrictions as an existential threat to personal liberty.
The population of Albuquerque, according to the Census Bureau’s July 1, 2022 guesstimate, is 561,008, of whom 49.8% are Hispanic, of all races, 37.4% are non-Hispanic white, 14.1% are biracial, 4.8% are American Indians, and 3.2% are black. Yet, when the Albuquerque Police Department released their 2023 homicide statistics as of July 2nd, they showed 54% of identified suspects as being Hispanic, 23% being black, 7% being Indians, and 16% as being white. If the problem is the gun laws, shouldn’t the problem affect every demographic group at least roughly equally?
The problem in Albuquerque is the culture in Albuquerque, just like it is in Philly, in St Louis, in Chicago, and everywhere else in the United States, but the Democrats can’s say that, now can they? Governor Cordova certainly seems unwilling to say that, so she goes after the people who are not the problem, the law-abiding citizens of the city. She’s rather attack people’s constitutional rights than actually identify and address the problems.
References
| ↑1 | While the Governor of New Mexico does not respect her husband enough to have taken his last name, as per The First Street Journal’s Stylebook, we do not show such disrespect to him, and always refer to married women by their proper names. |
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| ↑2 | I use a desktop, not a laptop, because I hate laptops, I despise laptops, I abominate laptops. |
Democrats Now Want Ground Rules On Presidential Impeachment
Where was Evan Davis (D) during the unhinged impeachments of Donald Trump? He worked for the Democrats who were looking to impeach Nixon. But, now, with a potential impeachment of Biden (really, I’m not sure the House GOP has the cajones, and there are too many squishes who might vote against even having an investigation), Davis wants to argue that rules need to be set
We need to set ground rules for presidential impeachments
Constitutional scholar Garrett Epps has called presidential impeachment “the atomic bomb of domestic politics.” It should not become a conventional weapon of political polarization.
We’re on the verge of that, however, if we as a nation don’t set a floor under the grounds for presidential impeachment.
Doing so requires public discussion of the impeachable offense of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” contained in the U.S. Constitution. What is it? What does it cover?
As a task force leader in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s inquiry into the impeachment of former President Nixon, I saw this question wrestled with first-hand. After detailed study, we concluded that “[b]ecause impeachment of a President is a grave step for the nation, it is to be predicated only upon conduct seriously incompatible with either the constitutional form and principles of our government or the proper performance of constitutional duties of the presidential office.” What does that then preclude?
You know what it precludes? “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” That’s it. It should be serious, but, as usual, Democrats blew that out the window during the Trump years, and tried to get there during the Bush43 years. We warned you wackos that if you wanted to play games with Trump it could blowback on you
First, it requires that a president be impeached only for offenses committed while serving as president. There can be no violation of the constitutional duties of the presidential office until one becomes president. Moreover, the weight of historical precedent is key in fixing the scope of impeachable offenses: The four presidential impeachments and 15 judicial impeachments have all been for conduct while in office.
Actually, it doesn’t. Nothing in the passage from Article II Section 4 makes that claim. What if we found out the president killed someone before he/she took office? Can they not be impeached? Damned right they can. But, see
Yet there is talk on Capitol Hill of impeaching President Biden for actions taken either while vice president or in the four years between his terms as vice president and then president. As shown, the Constitution does not envision a president being put out of office for something that took place before he was elected to the office. Similarly, American voters should not be disenfranchised based on actions taken by an individual before being elected president. There are other legal remedies for such actions.
And there it is: Democrats want to exclude the crimes by Biden before he was President. Nope. That’s not going to fly.
One claimed ground for impeaching Biden, for instance, is that as vice president he conditioned aid to Ukraine on the firing of a corrupt prosecutor to help a Ukrainian company on whose board his son served. Putting aside the problem of basing presidential impeachment on conduct as vice president and the factual implausibility and speculative nature of this claim, the alleged conduct is not a crime or the abusive solicitation of a personal benefit in return for official action.
Influence peddling and extortion, especially using The People’s money, is a crime. Mr. Davis could go to jail for extortion. Why not Joe Biden?