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Hold them accountable! Why was Keith Gibbson treated leniently by authorities in Delaware?

After all of the stories about the murder of Christine Lupo, you’d think that The Philadelphia Inquirer would make a bigger deal about the capture of Keith Gibbson,[1]According to the Delaware News-Journal, his name is spelled with two Gibbson, but the Inquirer has it as Gibson, which is the more common spelling. her suspected killer.

Suspect in Dunkin’ killing is also being investigated in at least five other homicides in Philly and Delaware, police say

Keith Gibson, 39, was expected to be charged in the murder of Christine Lugo, 40, and was being investigated for several other similar killings in recent months.

by Chris Palmer | June 9, 2021

The man suspected of fatally shooting the manager of a Dunkin’ doughnuts store during a robbery in Fairhill on Saturday is also a person of interest in at least five other homicides in Pennsylvania and Delaware, police said Wednesday.

Keith Gibson, 39 — who was arrested in Wilmington on Tuesday — was expected to be charged in the murder of Christine Lugo, 40, Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said Wednesday at a virtual news conference. Police said Lugo was shot in the head inside the Dunkin’ she managed on the 500 block of Lehigh Avenue after she gave Gibson $300 while being threatened at gunpoint.

In addition to that crime, Vanore said, detectives in Philadelphia and Delaware were investigating Gibson’s possible links to several other killings: Two men found shot to death in a North Philadelphia store in January, the slaying of Gibson’s mother at her East Falls workplace in February, the robbery and fatal shooting of an employee at a cellphone store in Elsmere, Del., last month, and the killing of a man during a street robbery in Delaware early Sunday.

Vanore said Gibson — who was paroled in 2020 after being imprisoned for a previous killing in Delaware — was also suspected of committing two robberies there before he was arrested Tuesday.

There’s more at the original.

I wrote, four days ago:

I’m still betting a case of Mountain Dew that, when we find out who the (alleged) killer is, we’ll find out that he has a long rap sheet, and that, had he been treated seriously by the District Attorney, could and should have been behind bars at 5:51 AM last Saturday morning. That’s hardly a risky bet: that’s what we always seem to find out about these killers.

From the Delaware News-Journal:

This is not the first time Gibbson has been arrested for violent crimes.

In 2008, Gibbson was one of three men charged in the robbery and fatal shooting of Stanley “Savon” Jones.

According to Delaware Online/The News Journal archives, Gibbson, along with Wilmington residents James Hinson and Kelly Gibbs, robbed Jones in the early hours of July 6, 2008.

Gibbson then shot Jones and the three fled the scene.

Jones’ body was found on North Rodney Drive in Edgemoor Gardens with an apparent gunshot wound to the upper body.

The three were charged with murder, but the charge was changed to manslaughter after the men took a plea.

Gibbson was sentenced to eight years in prison, followed by two years of probation.

Superior Court documents show that Gibson has violated his probation repeatedly.

So, after murdering a man in 2008, why was Mr Gibbson allowed to plead down to manslaughter in Delaware? Was the evidence against him shaky enough that prosecutors were afraid that he might be acquitted at trial? Or is it that accepting a reduced charge plea bargain was the quick, easy and less expensive path to follow.

In Delaware, second degree murder is a Class A felony, the punishment for which is, “not less than 15 years up to life imprisonment to be served at Level V except for conviction of first degree murder in which event § 4209 of this title shall apply.”[2]Delaware code, §4205(b)(1). Had Mr Gibbson been charged with, tried for, and convicted of second-degree murder in 2008, with a 15 year minimum sentence, none of which could be suspended,[3]Delaware Code, §4205(d), “Where a minimum, mandatory, mandatory minimum or minimum mandatory sentence is required by subsection (b) of this section, such sentence shall not be subject to … Continue reading Mr Gibbson would still have been behind bars on Saturday, June 5th, and Christine Lugo, and all of the others Mr Gibbson is suspected of killing would still be alive today, assuming, of course, that Mr Gibbson was their killer.

Will anyone in Delaware be held responsible for the decisions to allow him to plead down? Nope, sure won’t! But I can at least hope that every one of the people responsible for the decisions to treat Mr Gibbson so leniently will realize that he is partially responsible for the murders Mr Gibbson (allegedly) subsequently committed. Perhaps if we started holding such people accountable for the consequences of their decisions, prosecutors, judges and parole officials would start doing their duty and keep these miscreants behind bars for as long as legally possible.

Assuming that Mr Gibbson is indeed the killer, at least we have an answer as to why he murdered Miss Lupo after she had complied and given him the cash: he just plain enjoyed killing people! No sentence, no threat of prison, is a deterrent to someone like that.

Delaware has no death penalty, and while capital punishment is legally possible in Pennsylvania, District Attorney Larry Krasner never seeks it. Even if Mr Krasner sought a capital sentence, no prisoner in the Keystone State has been executed since the reimposition of capital punishment unless he ‘volunteered’ for it by voluntarily dropping his appeals. Assuming that he is convicted of these killings, Mr Gibbson will spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars.[4]Regular readers of The First Street Journal know that I am opposed to capital punishment. This past was informational only, and should not be read as a desire that he be sentenced to death. It’s just too bad he wasn’t sentenced to that in Delaware, when the First State had that chance; several innocent people who are in their graves today would still be alive.
______________________________
Also published on American Free News Network.

References

References
↑1 According to the Delaware News-Journal, his name is spelled with two Gibbson, but the Inquirer has it as Gibson, which is the more common spelling.
↑2 Delaware code, §4205(b)(1).
↑3 Delaware Code, §4205(d), “Where a minimum, mandatory, mandatory minimum or minimum mandatory sentence is required by subsection (b) of this section, such sentence shall not be subject to suspension by the court.”.
↑4 Regular readers of The First Street Journal know that I am opposed to capital punishment. This past was informational only, and should not be read as a desire that he be sentenced to death.
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Two men sentenced for assault during a #BlackLivesMatter protest Unfortunately, the judge just might grant 'shock probation'

Dylan Dempster (Fayette County Detention Center)

In keeping with the McClatchy policy of not publishing mugshots, the Lexington Herald-Leader told us about two of the #BlackLivesMatter protesters going to jail:

Lexington men who pleaded guilty in summer protest altercation sentenced to jail time

By Morgan Eads | June 10, 2021 | 11:49 AM EDT

Two men were sentenced Thursday to a year in jail for charges related to an altercation last summer during racial justice protests in Lexington.

Kaulbert Wilson and Dylan Dempster, both 20, received their sentences Thursday morning after pleading guilty in April to the charges against them. Both were initially facing felony charges, but after their charges were amended in their pleas, the most serious charge against each was a class A misdemeanor.

Wilson pleaded guilty to second-degree riot, fourth-degree assault, second-degree disorderly conduct and two counts of third-degree criminal mischief. Dempster pleaded guilty to amended charges of second-degree riot and two counts of third-degree criminal mischief.

Kaulbert Wilson (Source: Fayette County Detention Center)

The incident is detailed in the rest of the story. The defendants claimed that the people they assaulted used “a racial slur,” as though that somehow excuses assault and battery. Sadly, prosecutors allowed the defendants to plead down; they should both have felonies on their records.

Judge Thomas Travis told the attorneys for the two criminals that there were post-sentencing remedies available, including, unfortunately, “shock probation,” which could have them released at any time. The judge said he would consider such motions if filed.

Translation: these guys are going to (mostly) get away with it.

Of course, while the Herald-Leader (sort of) subscribes to the McClatchy policy of not publishing mugshots, the newspaper’s ‘reporting partner,’ WKYT-TV, Channel 27, does not. Being a visual medium, television stations like mugshots, and the mugshot of Mr Wilson came from WKYT-s website. The First Street Journal definitely does not go along with the policy of hiding mugshots, especially when these two are not just criminal suspects but actually convicted criminals. Let the world see who they are!

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The Pennsylvania state legislature slaps down Governor Tom Wolf

From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Legislature votes to immediately end Pa.’s coronavirus disaster declaration while keeping waivers in place

Republicans said terminating the emergency order was what Pennsylvanians demanded when they granted the legislative branch new powers during the May primary.

by Sarah Anne Hughes | June 10, 2021 | 12:29 PM EDT

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania legislature has voted to immediately end Gov. Tom Wolf’s coronavirus disaster declaration using a new power granted to the legislative branch by primary voters, while also keeping in place certain regulatory waivers.

Republicans who advanced the resolution said terminating the emergency order was what Pennsylvanians demanded when they approved two constitutional amendments last month in what was widely seen as a referendum on the administration’s pandemic response.

Due to the wording of the constitutional amendments, this resolution is not subject to a veto by the Governor. And it should be pointed out that the people of the Keystone State voted against the Governor on this.

“What happened to tyranny, guys?” Rep. Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) asked his Republican colleagues sarcastically. He called the vote to end the emergency order “political theater,” as all mitigation orders, save for a universal masking requirement, are no longer in place.

The mask mandate is the most visible symbol of the tyranny, and the most hated one.

That the tyranny of Governor Wolf, as well as that of Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY), was almost over, as those governors have gradually pulled back on their illegal and unconstitutional orders, does not mean that tyranny should not be fought, that those who support our constitutional rights should somehow forgive the tyrants, and leave things in place for the tyrants to use again.

Philadelphia was scheduled to end its mask mandate tomorrow.

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The Special Snowflakes™ get upset over everything! History is especially upsetting to them

The Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, was fought on October 8, 1862, between Major General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio and Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s Army of Mississippi. From Wikipedia:

The Battle of Perryville, also known as the Battle of Chaplin Hills, was fought on October 8, 1862, in the Chaplin Hills west of Perryville, Kentucky, as the culmination of the Confederate Heartland Offensive (Kentucky Campaign) during the American Civil War. Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg‘s Army of Mississippi[b] initially won a tactical victory against primarily a single corps of Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell‘s Union Army of the Ohio. The battle is considered a strategic Union victory, sometimes called the Battle for Kentucky, since Bragg withdrew to Tennessee soon thereafter. The Union retained control of the critical border state of Kentucky for the remainder of the war.

On October 7, Buell’s army, in pursuit of Bragg, converged on the small crossroads town of Perryville in three columns. Union forces first skirmished with Confederate cavalry on the Springfield Pike before the fighting became more general, on Peters Hill, when the Confederate infantry arrived. Both sides were desperate to get access to fresh water. The next day, at dawn, fighting began again around Peters Hill as a Union division advanced up the pike, halting just before the Confederate line. After noon, a Confederate division struck the Union left flank—the I Corps of Maj. Gen. Alexander M. McCook—and forced it to fall back. When more Confederate divisions joined the fray, the Union line made a stubborn stand, counterattacked, but finally fell back with some units routed.[9]

Buell, several miles behind the action, was unaware that a major battle was taking place and did not send any reserves to the front until late in the afternoon. The Union troops on the left flank, reinforced by two brigades, stabilized their line, and the Confederate attack sputtered to a halt. Later, three Confederate regiments assaulted the Union division on the Springfield Pike but were repulsed and fell back into Perryville. Union troops pursued, and skirmishing occurred in the streets until dark. By that time, Union reinforcements were threatening the Confederate left flank. Bragg, short of men and supplies, withdrew during the night, and continued the Confederate retreat by way of Cumberland Gap into East Tennessee.[9]

Considering the casualties relative to the engaged strengths of the armies,[4] the Battle of Perryville was one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. It was the largest battle fought in the state of Kentucky.[10]

There’s more at the original.

Though the Confederate States assumed that Kentucky should just naturally be part of the CSA, the Bluegrass State never seceded from the Union, declaring neutrality between the USA and CSA instead at first. Later, the state legislature petitioned the Union for support. Kentuckians fought on both sides, some 35,000 for the Confederacy and 125,000 for the Union.

The city of Perryville isn’t much of a much, with a population of fewer than 1,000 people, but the town logo has, horrors!, offended some of the Special Snowflakes™.

You see, the town logo has the Confederate flag on it. Oh, not as some homage to the Confederacy, but as a remembrance of the battle, about the only thing of note for the area. It also has the American flag on it as well, and the date of the battle. The Perryville Battlefield State Historical Site is nearby.

From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Central Kentucky town had a Confederate flag on its city logo. That may be changing.

By Karla Ward | June 8, 2021 | 9:00 PM EDT | Updated: June 9, 2021 | 9:29 AM EDT

The Perryville city council voted last week to form a committee to work on a redesign of the city’s logo, which currently includes images of the Confederate flag.

Perryville’s logo became a topic of discussion at the May council meeting, when Councilman Tim Simpson suggested putting up Perryville city flags between the American flags hanging along Second Street, according to a city Facebook post.

“It really never even crossed my mind as far as what it was and what it looked like,” Councilwoman Kelly Gray said in an interview Tuesday, until she took a good look at the city’s logo that night.

“I’m looking at the flag, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, we cannot do that,’” she said.

There’s a good deal more at the original.

One wonders: why would Mrs Gray be so very upset over a logo depicting the battle when she and her husband Adam have claimed to be very concerned with historic preservation?

Perryville residents Kelly and Adam Gray have been sued by the Kentucky Heritage Council over alleged changes they made to a historic property. The couple say they only improved the property and are “baffled” by the suit.

The civil suit, filed in Boyle Circuit Court, concerns a structure at 122 N. Bragg St. in Perryville.

The suit claims the historic structure, referred to as the Bond House, has been altered in violation of a Preservation and Conservation Easement, which allowed the Grays to benefit through reduced property tax payments. . . .

According to the suit, KHC claims when the Grays bought the building, the deed described it as subject to all easements and restrictions, and that the property must be “maintained forever substantially in the condition it was in” at time of purchase.

The suit describes several changes the Grays made to historic attributes of the home, including wood windows, brick nogging, interior and exterior doors, interior wood trim and interior plaster walls and ceilings.

The suit also states the defendants caused or allowed a signature from a soldier at The Battle of Perryville that was located on a plaster wall to be removed, as well as historic stair elements from the property.

Maybe it was the signature of a Confederate soldier?

“We could have saved ourselves an immense amount of money if we had just built a brand new house from the ground up, but because we have a passion for historic preservation and for Perryville, we thought it was more important to save a piece of history despite the extra costs that we knew would come along with that,” Kelly Gray said. She said she and Adam Gray “value historic preservation … and want our children and grandchildren to have the privilege of seeing these historic structures standing 100 years from now. However, in the end we are really on the same team, which continues to baffle me. Why is an organization suing us for doing exactly what they fight for each and every day?”

Judging by the photos in the Danville Advocate-Messenger, the Grays are on the right side of history as far as the restoration is concerned; the building was condemned and looked like it was about to fall down. But for a lady who claimed she has “a passion for historic preservation,” why is she so opposed to celebrating the history of the region? Yes, the Confederates fought there, but they also lost the initiative in Kentucky in part because of that battle; General Bragg’s Army had to retreat from the state, and the Union dominated Kentucky through the rest of the war.

Historic preservation means preserving history, not denying it, yet that is what Mrs Gray wants to do. My good friend Robert Stacy McCain[1]Yes, I mean “my good friend” in a different way than I did when I so described Amanda Marcotte. 🙂 wrote:

But as the American patriot John Adams famously said, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

Sadly, today’s left are trying to prove Mr McCain wrong: the ‘state of facts and evidence’ can be altered if they are incorrectly taught, or not taught at all. The dedicated historic preservationist Kelly Gray wants to what, say that the Union won a great victory at Perryville, by fighting against nobody?

The Special Snowflakes™ are just so terribly, terribly offended by the Confederacy and slavery, things which died in this great land 156 years ago. There are no Confederates left, there are no former American slaves remaining alive. History itself is now the perceived enemy of the snowflakes and the #woke[2]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading.

The Perryville logo does not somehow celebrate the Confederacy; it states that a great battle was fought there, 158½ years ago. If someone were to walk the streets of that small town and ask, what the heck does that symbol mean, a knowledgeable resident could say that yes, a Civil War battle was fought there, and the result was that the Confederates were forced out of Kentucky as a result. Ought not that to be a history the snowflakes would want?

References

References
↑1 Yes, I mean “my good friend” in a different way than I did when I so described Amanda Marcotte. 🙂
↑2 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.
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Living rent-free in their pumpkin heads 4½ years after Mr Trump left office, #TrumpDerangementSyndrome still reigns large in the left

I recently mentioned my good friend Amanda Marcotte, and suggested that she might have a case of #TrumpDerangementSyndrome. Miss Marcotte, ex- of Texas and ex- of Brooklyn, now resides somewhere in South Philadelphia,[1]No, I don’t know her exact address, and wouldn’t publish it if I did. but, for all of her voluminous writings on Salon, never seems to mention the goings on in her home town. People in Philly are outraged over the senseless murder of Christine Lugo, but not a word about it did I see on her Salon page or in her Twitter feed.[2]Miss Marcotte has blocked me from seeing her tweets, but it’s really simple: all that I have to do is log out of Twitter, and then I can see anyone’s feeds I want.

Donald Trump has been out of office since January 20, 2021; that’s 4½ months ago, but Miss Marcotte just can’t let him go. Her last five stories, as of 8:30 PM EDT on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, when the screencap to the right was taken, were All About Trump. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

But it isn’t just Miss Marcotte who has The Donald living rent-free in her head. Toni Williams of The Victory Girls wrote about Mara Gay’s traumatic, traumatic! encounter with, horrors!, American flags!

Mara Gay is a member of the New York Times Editorial Board and writes about New York City for that publication. She is also an MSNBC contributor. Memorial Day weekend she ventured out to Long Island and saw, gasp, pickup trucks, Trump flags and, the horror, American flags. The experience left her overwrought.

What is it about the women of MSNBC? Nicolle Wallace, Rachel Maddow, Yamiche Alcindor and Mara Gay are all seemingly hateful and bitter women. Andrew Sullivan called Maddow condescending and smug. That’s the kindest thing you can say about any of these women.

I happen to love this time of year. We have Memorial Day (the last Monday in May), Flag Day (June 14) and Independence Day on July 4th. I get jazzed by flags, parades and John Phillip Sousa marches. Growing up, even my Liberal friends loved the flag. We all ran to the parades. Our parents, regardless of their politics, all flew the flag. Remember how after the September 11, 2001 attacks everyone flew our spectacular American flag? Five years ago on Flag Day, our Nina wrote a beautiful post about the flag. You can read it here. That beautiful flag covered my Dad’s coffin. When someone you love, who served his country, lies under that flag, maybe you have a special passion for it.

MSNBC has their Morning Joe program with Joe and Mika. That is where contributor Mara Gay started off talking about the continued threat of President Donald Trump and ended up talking about her fear of pickup trucks, Trump flags and the American flag:

Here are some portions from Real Clear Politics and my commentary:

The reality is here that we have a large percentage of the American population — I don’t know how big it is, but we have tens of millions of Trump voters who continue to believe that their rights as citizens are under threat by simple virtue of having to share the democracy with others. I think as long as they see Americanness as the same as one with whiteness, this is going to continue. We have to figure out how to get every American a place at the table in this democracy, but how to separate Americanness, America, from whiteness. Until we can confront that and talk about that, this is really going to continue. . . . .

I was on Long Island this weekend, visiting a really dear friend and I was really disturbed. I saw, you know, dozens and dozens of pickup trucks with expletives against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags, and in some cases, just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing, which essentially the message was clear, this is my country. This is not your country. I own this.

Miss Gay saw American flags, being waved by people, on the Memorial Day weekend. That’s kind of a time when we would expect to see the flag displayed, right?

Miss Gay, like Miss Marcotte above, is being triggered by the flag, and by President Trump, and by the fact that there are a few people, yes even in New York, who voted for him.

On June 7th, Washington Post columnist Max Boot, screamed in his headline, “Too many people are still underestimating the Trump threat.”

People, Donald Trump is out of office. Even if he runs for President again, the next election is 3½ years away, and he’ll be 78 years old by then, if he’s still alive.

The obvious question now is: will Mr Trump really be living rent free in these people’s head for another four or eight or twelve years to come?

References

References
↑1 No, I don’t know her exact address, and wouldn’t publish it if I did.
↑2 Miss Marcotte has blocked me from seeing her tweets, but it’s really simple: all that I have to do is log out of Twitter, and then I can see anyone’s feeds I want.
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And another two bite the dust

Lexington, Kentucky, had gone 18 days without a homicide, but I suppose that it was too good to last. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

2 men shot dead in Lexington: 1 was left in a vehicle, another killed outside a club

By Jeremy Chisenhall | June 9, 2021 | 7:05 AM EDT | Updated 4:33 PM EDT

Two men are dead after separate shootings Tuesday night and early Wednesday, according to Lexington police.

The fatal shootings were the 17th and 18th homicides in Lexington this year, according to Lexington crime data. The city set a record last year with 34. At this point in 2020, Lexington had reported 12 homicides for the year.

Sadly, this is incorrect; the victims are teh 18th and 19th murder victims in the city.

I can understand why Jeremy Chisenhall made the error: the Lexington Police Department has not updated its homicide investigation page in a long time, with the May 9th killing of Mar’Quevion Leach as the 16th and last victim listed, but the Herald-Leader reported on the murder of Demonte Washington, 28, on May 22nd. Since Mr Chisenhall was not the reporter on that story, he may have missed it completely.

Police found the first shooting victim around 11:35 p.m. Tuesday, according to Lt. Ronald Keaton. The victim was a 28-year-old man who had been shot and left in a vehicle in the 200 block of Hedgewood Court in the Woodhill area. . . . .

The city’s second overnight shooting occurred outside The Office, a gentleman’s club in the 900 block of Winchester Road.

Keaton said police were called to the location around 2:35 a.m. for a report of shots fired outside. The victim was already dead when officers arrived, Keaton said. He said it was unclear if the victim or anyone involved in the shooting was a patron at the club.

As of Mr Chisenhall’s most recent update, there was little information about the victims or any suspects available.

Nineteen homicides in 160 days. That doesn’t put Lexington in similarly-sized St Louis’ class, with the Gateway City having 82 homicides to date, or Louisville’s “more than 80,” but Louisville, with 617,790 people is twice Lexington’s size.[1]The Louisville metropolitan area has about 1,265,000, while Lexington, the borders of which extend to the Fayette County line, doesn’t really have a ‘metropolitan area.’ Still, Lexington is on pace for 43 murders in 2021, which would shatter last year’s record of 34, and the long, hot summer hasn’t really begun yet.
___________________________
Update: June 10, 2021, at 2:20 PM EDT:

While I didn’t get personal credit, Mr Chisenhall did update the homicide numbers:

CORRECTION: The total number of homicides in Lexington this year was incorrectly stated in a previous version of this story.

References

References
↑1 The Louisville metropolitan area has about 1,265,000, while Lexington, the borders of which extend to the Fayette County line, doesn’t really have a ‘metropolitan area.’
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Charles Booker’s misplaced priorities

Charles Booker, from his Twitter profile.

As I previously noted, the hearts of the editors of the what my, sadly late, best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal must have been all aflutter when former, one-term state Representative Charles Booker (D-43rd District) of Louisville announced that he was forming an exploratory committee to see if he should run for the 2022 Democratic nomination against incumbent Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). In 2020, the editors endorsed the hard-left Mr Booker against faux moderate Amy McGrath Henderson for the nomination to run against Senator Mitch McConnell. After Mrs Henderson won the primary by an unexpectedly-close margin, the editors endorsed her against Mr McConnell, where she lost in a landslide.

Well, being the news junkie that I am, I went ahead and followed Mr Booker on Twitter, and he had this one up on Tuesday:

Really? Well, a whole lot of Kentuckians would disagree with Mr Booker. In 2010, Dr Paul defeated Democratic nominee Jack Conway, who had already won a statewide election to become the state’s Attorney General, 755,411 (55.69%) to 599,617 (44.26%) to win his seat in the United States Senate. Anything over 10% is considered a landslide win. Then, in 2016, Senator Paul defeated then-Mayor Jim Gray of Lexington 1,090,177 (57.27%) to 813,246 (42.73%) for re-election.

Mitch McConnell? In 2014, Senator McConnell defeated Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes 806,787 (56.2%) to 584,698 (40.7%), and in 2020 he stomped Mrs Henderson 1,233,315 (57.8%) to 816,257 (38.2%), despite her spending $90.8 million to ‘just’ $60 million by the incumbent senator.

If you visit Mr Booker’s (exploratory) campaign website, you’ll see a letter from him on the front page. In it, he said, “We all want a society where every single person can be safe in their homes without the fear of being killed by the government agencies we pay to protect us.”

Yeah, I get it: he’s channeling the killing of Breonna Taylor, the ex-girlfriend of a notorious Louisville drug dealer, who died when police returned fire from her then current boyfriend when they broke in, serving a legitimate no-knock warrant.

But, really, Mr Booker is worried about people being killed in their homes by police, an extremely rare event, when, as of May 30th, there had been 76 murders in his home town?

That’s 30 more murders than at the same time in 2020, a 65.22% increase. It was more than double the 33 homicides at the same time in 2019.

Louisville saw 92 criminal homicides in 2019, and almost doubled it to 173 in 2020. Louisville is currently on pace for a new record of 185 murders for 2021, and the long, hot summer hasn’t begun yet, but Mr Booker is worried about Breonna Taylor? One of us believes that Mr Booker’s priorities are misplaced.

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It has come awfully late in the game, but at last it has come! Governor Beshear has been slapped down by the courts!

As we have frequently noted, Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) has been trying to run out the clock with his ’emergency’ decrees under KRS 39A. The Kentucky state Supreme Court, on April 16th, decided to hold a hearing on the disagreement between courts in Franklin and Scott counties over the Governor’s executive orders, and then set June 10th, a date then eight weeks into the future, for a hearing.

On May 6th, Governor Beshear announced that he would loosen the restrictions, but not eliminate them entirely, effective just before the Memorial Day weekend. Then, on May 14th, the Governor announced that almost all restrictions would be lifted on Kentuckians, including the hated mask mandate, even for those who are not vaccinated against COVID-19. He had, the previous day, followed the Centers for Disease Control’s recommendations, and stated that “fully vaccinated” Kentuckians could dispense with face masks.

Well, today is June 8th, just two days before the state Supreme Court hears oral arguments, and three days before our dictatorial Governor will (supposedly) lift almost all of his emergency COVID-19 orders. But today, the Boone County Circuit Court declared the Governors actions to be illegal and unconstitutional.

THEREFORE, JUDGMENT IS HEREBY ENTERED in favor of Plaintiff and DECLARATORY RELIEF is GRANTED in that the Court finds and declares that all actions taken by Defendants, Hon. Andrew Beshear, as Governor, Mr. Eric Friedlander, as acting Secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and Dr. Steven Stack, M.D., as Commissioner for the Department of Public Health, and all emergency orders imposed by said defendants, or that are being continued by said defendants, are unconstitutional, void and without any legal effect, to the extent that the same are in conflict with, or otherwise contrary to, House Bill 1, Senate Bill 1, Senate Bill 2, and House Joint Resolution 77, as passed by the 2021 session of the General Assembly.

Here’s the decision:

Boone Circuit Court Order by Chris

This should have come at the end of March, not today, but it is at least a bit of a relief that it has occurred.

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That which you sow, so shall ye reap

I might not have bothered with this story had the dead criminal’s name not been Winston Smith. Winston Smith is the protagonist of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.

Winston Smith, apparently nicknamed “Boogie,” was a wanted felon in GeorgeFloydeapolis, and wound up on the wrong end of a gun. On Thursday, June 3rd, United States Marshals tried to arrest Mr Smith on a felony-arms charge. Mr Smith decided that no, he wasn’t going to go quietly, and “exchanged gunfire” with the marshals. He died of multiple gunshot wounds, the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office reported Saturday morning.

As always, Mr Smith’s family demanded answers from authorities.

“I want body camera footage … we want to see that footage of what actually happened,” Smith’s brother, Kidale Smith, told reporters Friday.

“And all other security surveillance as well,” chimed in Waylon Hughes, identified as a friend of the victim.

Of course, Mr Smith wasn’t really a bad guy!

His family claims the angry social media posts don’t reflect the man they knew.

Smith “was a comedian,” his sister Tiesnia Floyd told reporters Friday, adding, “So this doesn’t sound like him.”

She admitted he had a criminal record, but said her brother was trying to improve his circumstances.

Being a convicted felon, Mr Smith was legally barred from possessing a firearm, but it seems that that ‘common sense gun control law’ was not one which Mr Smith chose to obey:

Police officials in Minnesota say the U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force attempted to arrest 32-year-old Winston Boogie Smith on June 3 for a warrant for being a felon in possession of a firearm, the Associated Press reported. As sheriff’s office deputies assigned to the task force approached Smith’s vehicle, he reportedly refused to comply with orders and pulled a handgun. Officials confirmed Smith fired at least one shot from inside his car.

A statement from the Marshal’s Service said Smith was in a parked vehicle and “produced a handgun resulting in task force members firing upon the subject.” Smith died at the scene from wounds from two deputies’ shots.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension reported that state investigators found a gun in Smith’s car along with a spent cartridge indicating Smith fired from inside his vehicle, the AP article states.

Robert Stacy McCain noted Mr Smith’s anger at the killing of another convicted felon, George Floyd:

In the aftermath of the shooting, Smith’s social media activity came under scrutiny after we found posts on his Facebook profile in which he bragged about shooting a police officer if he was shot at and would not surrender “like the rest.”

“Officer please don’t shoot at me cuz ima [I’m gonna] shoot back I ain’t so sucker like the rest I ain’t going with my hand up” Smith wrote in a Facebook post in September 2019.

In other posts, shared days after the death of George Floyd as the city of Minneapolis erupted in riots, Smith wrote about burning down police stations and starting a “war” against law enforcement. “justice is an eye for eye u kill one of mine we need one of yours that’s justice!,” he wrote in one of the posts.

Smith was sentenced to 48 months in prison in October 2018 for aggravated robbery in the first degree but the judge stayed his sentence and let him out on parole.

Wait a minute! If he was sentenced to four years in the clink in October of 2018, he should still be alive today, behind bars, but alive. Mr Smith is now stone-cold graveyard dead because a soft-hearted and soft-headed judge stayed his sentence and let him out on parole!

“We got guns and bullet proof vest too or should be able to get em … why not just rush these fucks and start this war they keep asking for!” he raged on Facebook.

“Fuck justice anyway bitch justice is an eye for eye u kill one of mine we need one of yours that’s justice! Right or wrong fuck being right cuz they keep doing us wrong.

“I’m down with the burn everything government not touch shit else I don’t even need to loot I’ll buy my shit just kill them dirty ass cops off we tired of being scared at the red light!” he wrote.

Those Facebook posts quoted were from September 12, 2019 — before George Floyd was killed — and May 28, 2020, both after he was treated very leniently by the criminal justice system. It would seem that being easy on Mr Smith didn’t teach him any lesson.

Mr McCain began his post on the subject with a seemingly rhetorical question:

What is the goal of the Black Lives Matter movement? To make it impossible to arrest and prosecute criminals? Because that would seem a logical inference from recent events in Minneapolis.

Those “recent events” are several nights of rioting, burning and looting Mostly Peaceful Protests™. But Mr McCain hit the nail on the head: to the American left, the victims of crime might as well be written off. They are already dead, or maimed, or robbed or raped, and bringing their killers or assailants or robbers to justice doesn’t make those victims any less victimized, it doesn’t bring the dead back to life. Pursuing ‘justice’ at this point simply contributes to ‘mass incarceration.’

But when the American left promote lawlessness, they may find that they get lawlessness. And when the mob take over, the left will find themselves among the first stood up against the wall.

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