Democrats’ Nightmares–African Americans See Racism in Democrat Attacks on Clarence Thomas.

An idea for a poll: Survey black Americans to see if they think racism is any way behind the three-decade-long, never-ending criticism of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

This shouldn’t be a controversial notion. Progressives and Democrats have long attributed racism to criticism of black government officials they like. Only last month, former White House chief-of-staff Ron Klain said racism is behind the criticism of Vice President Kamala Harris (of course along with sexism).

The left never tires of telling us how deeply racism infects the nation, that American institutions are embedded with systemic racism, that white people can’t recognize the unconscious racist attitudes they harbor about people of color, that white children develop racial bias as early as 4 years old, that racism permeates even math and science, that “white privilege” remains an ongoing injustice, and on and on.

With racism so deeply entrenched in American society, criticism of black politicians and government officials can be — even sometimes must be — based on race, according to progressive thinking.

That is, it applies when the criticism is aimed liberal office holders and public figures, according to the progressive narrative. You never heard that accusation when black conservatives are attacked.

That’s a double standard at the heart of liberal cries of racism.

But, if America is so deeply and intrinsically racist, as the far left never hesitates to remind us, why would any black official, including conservatives, be immune from race-based attacks?

Which brings us to the case of Justice Thomas.

Now it’s true that there is a bigger picture at work at the present. The most recent criticism of Justice Thomas comes amid a broad-based Democrat and left-wing assault on the Supreme Court, a full-scale, no-holds-barred campaign to delegitimize the nation’s highest court.

Like the segregationists of the 1950s and ’60s who sought to undermine the high court because of its rulings ending segregation in schools and public places, today’s progressives attack the independence and integrity of the court because they hate its prominent rulings, most notably the one returning the issue of abortion to the people to deal with through their state legislatures.

But the brunt of the anti-court blitz falls on Justice Thomas. And it’s just the latest example.

Continue reading “”

BLUF
The only silver lining in this minatory storm cloud is the fact that such movements, though unconscionably cruel, arbitrary, and destructive, are also astonishingly fragile.

Deliver Us from Reality

“Because he can.”

That’s the answer one has to give to those who ask how Alvin Bragg, a local district attorney in office by the slimmest of margins—and then only because of a huge subsidy from the anti-American billionaire George Soros—can get away with antics like indicting Donald Trump, a former (and, possibly, future) president of the United States, and, now, with charging former Marine Daniel Penny with manslaughter because he (along with at least two others) intervened to stop Jordan Neely from attacking fellow passengers on a New York subway.

Because he can. As a friend remarked when digesting the spectacle of Penny being led away in handcuffs, totalitarian movements often start slowly, almost timidly, but as they gain power, they become more brazen. After a certain point, they do outrageous things just to intimidate the public and demonstrate their power.

We now know that the FBI, the CIA, and other elements of America’s security apparatus intervened directly in the decision making of Twitter and other social media companies to influence the course of the 2020 election. One part of that intervention had to do with organizing 51 senior former intelligence figures to sign a letter declaring that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation.” That was a lie. They knew it was a lie. It didn’t matter. They did it because they knew they could get away with it.

The United States is on the verge of being inundated with thousands upon thousands of illegal aliens. Many are from South or Central America. Hundreds are from China, even though they are crossing that notional line we used to be able to call, without irony, our southern border. Why did the Biden Administration decide to enact a real-life Camp of the Saints invasion of the United States? Because it could. There was no immediate price to pay.

In her classic study, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt makes several observations that bear on our current situation. “There is no doubt,” she observes,

Continue reading “”

May 14

1097 – The Byzantine Siege of Nicaea, under control of moslem Turks since 1081, begins during the First Crusade.

1607 – James Fort, later Jamestown, Virginia is settled as an English colony, the earliest permanent English settlement in the Americas.

1787 –Delegates to the Convention of the States begin to assemble in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation.

1796 – Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox inoculation on James Phipps, the 8 year old son of his gardener.

1800 – The 6th United States Congress recesses, and the process of moving the U.S. Government from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., begins.

1804 – William Clark and 42 men depart from Camp Dubois in modern Illinois, to join Meriwether Lewis and form the “Corps of Discovery” at St. Charles, in modern Missouri, to begin an exploration up the Missouri River region of the Louisiana Purchase.

1836 – The Treaties of Velasco are signed in Velasco, Texas by Interim President David G. Burnet for Texas and Santa Anna for Mexico, concluding  hostilities between the two armies and beginning the first steps toward the official recognition of Texas’ independence from Mexico.

1878 – The last witchcraft trial in the United States begins in Salem, Massachusetts, with Lucretia Brown, an adherent of Christian Science, accusing Daniel Spofford of attempting to harm her through his mental powers.

1913 – Governor William Sulzer of New York  approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation, which begins operations with a $100 million donation from John D. Rockefeller.

1948 –  The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel which establishes a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, is declared by David Ben-Gurion in Tel-Aviv, to come into effect on termination of the League of Nations British Mandate for Palestine at midnight. Immediately after the declaration, Israel is attacked by the neighboring Arab states, triggering the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

1955 – 8 Communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

1973 – The Skylab space station is launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

1988 – A drunk driver traveling the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky, hits a converted school bus carrying a church & youth group from 1st Assembly of God church in Radcliff, Kentucky, killing 27 of the 67 people aboard, becoming the impetus for MADD – Mothers Against Drunk Drivers – to be formed by the mothers of several of the victims.

2004 – Rico Linhas Aéreas Flight 4815, an Embraer EMB 120, crashes into the Amazon rainforest during approach to Eduardo Gomes International Airport in Manaus, Brazil, killing all 33 passengers and crew aboard.

2010 – Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on the STS-132 mission to deliver the first shuttle launched Russian ISS component –  Rassvet. 

2022 –  At a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, 10 people are killed and 3 wounded when shot by a teenage racist.

Observation O’ The Day

For now, the New York City mayor is asking citizens to house illegals in their “spare” property. Soon, he will force landlords to house them. Then he will force homeowners.
It’s the commie way. Go ahead New York, keep electing Democrats.

– Divemedic

Jarrell homeowner shoots suspected burglar entering home

JARRELL, Texas (KXAN) — A homeowner shot a suspected burglar Thursday morning in Jarrell after he forced his way into the home, according to a Williamson County Sheriff’s Office release.

The suspect, identified as 29-year-old Juan Sanchez Palafox, was found dead by WCSO deputies after they were called to the home on County Road 239, the release said.

They let the truth slip out, and then are so stupid, they believe we’re so stupid, we’ll believe they didn’t really mean  what was said.

After “no more guns” comment, Giffords claims she’s seeking common ground

Giffords co-founder and gun control activist Gabby Giffords is out with a new puff piece in Rolling Stone that’s audaciously headlined “cynicism is not an option when it comes to gun control“. Why’s that so audacious? Because the same person who said just a few weeks ago that her goal is “no more guns” is once again claiming that she’s only looking for “common ground” and blaming Second Amendment supporters for “extremism”.

The gun lobby has done its best to divide our nation and to polarize the conversation around guns. They want their base to believe that their Second Amendments rights are under attack, and that threats are lurking around every corner. This extremism drives votes and sells guns.

Rather than relying on extremism, I’ve sought to find common ground. Most Americans agree that gun violence is a problem we need to address. No American wants to worry that their child might not come home from school because of a mass shooting. Policies like closing loopholes in our federal background checks system, making sure every state has an extreme risk protection order or “red flag” law, and ensuring guns are kept away from kids have broad popular support.

Why would anyone believe their Second Amendment rights would be under attack? Could it be the states that are banning commonly-owned firearms and threatening gun owners with prison time for simply holding on to the guns and magazines they lawfully purchased? Could it be the four-figure fees some localities are charging folks who want to exercise their right to bear arms in self-defense? Maybe it’s the activists who are calling on Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to issue an executive order banning all gun sales and ordering a mandatory “buyback”… or the founder of one of the country’s biggest gun control groups who says her goal is simply “no more guns“?

As we wrap our interview in her office, I ask how she keeps coming back to a challenge so deeply ingrained in politics. She pauses for 12 pregnant seconds.

“No more guns,” she says.

Ambler, her aide and adviser, tries to clarify that she means no more gun violence, but Giffords is clear about what she’s saying. “No, no, no,” she says. “Lord, no.” She pauses another 32 seconds. “Guns, guns, guns. No more guns. Gone.”

An aide clarifies that she’s talking about Australia, where gun sales were outlawed after a mass shooting and existing weapons were purchased by the government. Giffords nods in the affirmative. It’s an idealistic goal, for sure, and one perhaps mismatched for the moment in this country. But Giffords has an answer for that: “Legislation, legislation, legislation.”

Time Magazine’s Phillip Elliott is wrong about the Australia gun ban, which didn’t outlaw all gun sales. In fact, there are more guns legally owned in Australia now than before the 1996 ban, which didn’t remove every gun in the country to begin with. In 1996 there were about 3.2-million privately owned firearms in the country. After the compensated confiscation, the number dipped to 2.7-million, but by 2017 there were an estimated 3.6-million guns in the hands of Australians.

Maybe Gabby Giffords herself is unclear about the effects of the Australian gun ban, but there seems to be no doubt about her end goal here in the United States. It’s not red flag laws, storage mandates, or “universal background checks.” It’s “no more guns. Gone.”

So yeah, I think it’s pretty cynical for Giffords and her handlers to pretend she never let the mask slip and revealed her true intentions, especially when she turns around and calls Second Amendment supporters extremists. What position is more extreme: the right to keep and bear arms in self-defense is a fundamental civil right that cannot be infringed upon, or “no more guns”? Where’s the common ground in that statement?

Look, I don’t begrudge Gabby Giffords’ gun control views, even if I don’t agree with them. She’s entitled to her opinion and is free to advocate for any gun control laws she wants. But when she tells a reporter that she wants to eradicate gun ownership and then puts her name behind an opinion piece pointing the finger at gun owners for dividing our nation and polarizing the conversation around guns, she’s engaging in the same cynical and dishonest approach she claims to condemn. I’d have more respect for Giffords if she’d simply come out and announce that the mission of her organization is to repeal the Second Amendment, but I doubt that will ever happen. Giffords may have let the mask slip while talking to Time, but her missive in Rolling Stone shows she knows how to play the gun control long game; claiming moderation and using an incrementalist approach, but always with the end goal of gun prohibition in mind.

“Infringed” – finally – defined by a federal court;  From the summary judgement that prohibiting 18 to 20 year old people from purchasing firearms is unconstitutional.

JOHN COREY FRASER, et al., on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated as a Class, Plaintiff, v. BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, FIREARMS AND EXPLOSIVES, et al., Defendants.

****

The Second Amendment accords protection of “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” by providing that the right “shall not be infringed”  U.S. Const. Amend. II (emphasis added). The Second Amendment is unique in its use of “infringed” for the word does not appear anywhere else in the Constitution. Despite its uniqueness, the term “infringed” has received little attention by scholars or courts. However, Heller took the view that “infringed” “implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right.” 554 U.S. at 592 . As articulated in Heller, the Second Amendment does not serve to grant a right but rather preserves a right that the people already possessed. Therefore, to “keep and bear” serves to identify the right protected, not to define the right in the first instance.

The definition of “infringe” further supports the conclusion that the pre-existing right includes a right to purchase. “Infringe” is defined in modern dictionaries as “to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another.” “Infringe,” Merriam-Webster.com. “Encroach,” in turn, has two definitions: “to enter by gradual steps or by stealth into the possessions or rights of another” and “to advance beyond the usual or proper limits.” “Encroach,” Merriam-Webster.com. Those words have possessed the same meaning since the sixteenth century and the Founders would have understood them in the same way.9 Not simply protecting the heartland of the preserved right, the Second Amendment protects the environs surrounding it to prevent any encroachment on the core protections. Thus, by virtue of the word “infringed,” the Second Amendment ‘s protective textual embrace includes the conduct necessary to exercise the right (“to keep and bear”) and that, as explained above, includes the right to purchase arms so that one can keep and bear them.

*****

Police release name of Nacogdoches man shot after breaking into home

NACOGDOCHES, Texas (KTRE) – Nacogdoches police say it was the intruder who was shot in a home invasion Saturday afternoon.

Brandon Horton, 34, of Nacogdoches was fatally shot after breaking into a home on the 700 block of Rock Oak St.

According to a press release from the Nacogdoches Police Department, two people were inside the home, one female resident and a male friend, when Horton knocked on the door to the residence.

When no one came to the door Horton used a “large metal object” to break down the door and enter the home.

Once inside, while still carrying the object, Horton broke down a door to a bedroom where the male was hiding. The man discharged his firearm, hitting Horton.

The resident and male friend both immediately called 911 after the shooting. Both subjects have been questioned and no charges have been filed.

Miss Swearer hit a line drive out of the park again

11 Defensive Gun Uses Show How Lawful Gun Owners ‘Get It Right’

Often lost in conversations about gun violence is the reality of who is responsible for the bulk of that violence. Most gun crimes aren’t committed by lawful gun owners but by a small subset of repeat violent offenders who already are prohibited from legally possessing firearms.

At the same time, the vast majority of the nation’s millions of lawful gun owners will never use their firearms to harm themselves or others (excluding, of course, actions taken in lawful self-defense).

Nevertheless, sometimes people make questionable—or even downright abhorrent—decisions with their lawfully owned firearms. This was quite apparent in recent weeks as several gun owners made national headlines for all the wrong reasons, recklessly resorting to the use of lethal force when it likely wasn’t warranted.

Although these individuals rightly should have their actions scrutinized, the reality is that Americans with legally possessed guns are far more likely to “get it right” than they are to “get it wrong.”

Almost every major study has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged. In 2021, the most comprehensive study ever conducted on the issue concluded that roughly 1.6 million defensive gun uses occur in the United States every year.

For this reason, The Daily Signal publishes a monthly article highlighting some of the previous month’s many news stories on defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place. (Read other accounts here from past months and years. You also may follow @DailyDGU on Twitter for daily highlights of recent defensive gun uses.)

Continue reading “”

Just me, but it appears the younger man likely knew of the older ones violent past and decided to make his own plans for personal safety.

No charges will be filed in Germantown canvasser shooting, District Attorney’s Office says

Philadelphia prosecutors said the fatal shooting between two canvassers for political group One PA self-defense.

Prosecutors will not charge a 22-year-old man accused of fatally shooting a 46-year-old in East Germantown on Monday afternoon while both were canvassing for a political group. Authorities say the shooting was in self-defense.

Jane Roh, a spokesperson for District Attorney Larry Krasner, said Friday that both their office and the Police Department were in agreement about what happened between two paid canvassers for the progressive group One PA.

“This is nonetheless a tragic loss of life,” Roh said. “We extend our deepest condolences to the loved ones of the decedent.”

Meanwhile, family members of the victim, Eddie Brokenbough, were distraught to learn the father of 10 had been shot, and doubted police accounts of the shooting.

Reports spread that Brokenbough, who was shot once in the armpit and rushed from the 2000 block of Church Lane to a nearby hospital, had pulled a gun on the 22-year-old canvasser, causing the younger man to shoot in what he told police was self-defense.

Both men knew each other, police said, and the shooting stemmed from an “argument,” possibly over an existing dispute.

One PA has said guns are not permitted in its offices or during canvassing, and it has temporarily suspended its canvassing efforts.

The group is an independent expenditure committee that can raise and spend money to boost candidates but is prohibited from directly coordinating with them. This year, the group knocked on doors to promote mayoral candidate Helen Gym and a slate of left-leaning City Council candidates.

Brokenbough was not legally permitted to carry a firearm because of charges in a 2012 shooting, court records show. He was a paid temporary canvasser for OnePA on and off since 2021, the group said. The 22-year-old shooter has been employed by the group since last year.

A spokesperson for OnePA said Tuesday that it complies with laws prohibiting background checks on employees and wouldn’t discuss Brokenbough’s background during the investigation.

One PA Executive Director Steve Paul said following the shooting that the organization was “heartbroken, and our condolences and sympathy are with their family.”

Doesn’t fit the stereotype, must not be real

Black, Millennial, Female and Conservative

Antonia Okafor Cover joined me on Feedback to discuss her transformation from Democrat to Republican and her dedication to the Second Amendment. Antonia is the Director of Women’s Outreach with Gun Owners of America and Founder and President of Empowered, a nonprofit group designed to educate, train and equip young women in the use of firearms for protection on college campuses. The group also helps women advocate for their Second Amendment rights.

Antonia has been working on Second Amendment issue advocacy and firearms education for women for several years and has appeared on and been quoted in major news outlets, and has testified on Capitol Hill. News media are finally starting to cover the steady and growing trend of new female gun owners, which includes a large number of new black female gun owners.

For Antonia, this is not surprising, and she can highlight some of the major reasons women are deciding to empower themselves and buy a gun. Number one on that list is personal protection and self defense.

Antonia shared that her political evolution began when she realized that Democrats’ lack of principles and values, as well as their intolerance of diversity of thought led her to become a Christian and then a conservative who embraced our constitution and more specifically, the Second Amendment.

Women should be empowered to defend themselves and their families and because Democrats offer no real solutions to empower women, this is, indeed, the natural progression in becoming a conservative.

Well, you know the old lines about ducks and buffalo country, right?

Do Gun-Control Democrats Want Us Dead?

Modern politicians don’t ask to kill their opponents right away. There is a ladder of dehumanization to climb as they justify increasing levels of violence. We’ve heard Democrat politicians say that Republicans don’t care about killing children because the Republican legislators won’t pass more gun-control. Not only is that extremist rhetoric, it is murderously dangerous. Look at the facts and it seems gun-control Democrats really want more of us to die.

To quote Democrat Congressman Mike Thompson, “How many more kids need to get murdered before House Republican Leadership steps up and puts gun violence prevention legislation on the House calendar?”

The Democrat party news site DemCastUSA said, “Republicans ..block gun safety reforms while stoking hate. The GOP has blood on their hands while offering ‘Thoughts and Prayers’…”

Let’s look at what Democrat Politicians are asking for. This is what happens after honest citizens are disarmed.

Violent criminals commit about 1.2 million violent crimes a year (2019). Most criminals, about five-out-of-six, don’t use a gun in their violent crimes. In contrast, honest citizens use a firearm about 2.8 million times a year to stop death or great bodily injury. We don’t know how many of those defensive incidents would result in the victim’s death if they were disarmed. We can estimate the answer by assuming that criminals who attack disarmed victims are the same sort who attack armed victims. We are assuming that the criminals stay the same and only the actions of the victims change. That is overly simplistic, but it is a start. In fact, violent criminals become more violent when their victims become more vulnerable.

Here is an example to show you what I mean. If half of violent crimes were aggravated assaults, then we’ll assume that half of the attacks on the newly disarmed victims will remain as aggravated assaults. That may be wishful thinking since we don’t know how many aggravated assaults today were really attempted murders where a victim was able to reduce the severity of the attack because he was armed.

Violent criminals committed about 16.4-thousand murders in 2019. That is about 1.4-percent of the violent crimes. We now have 1.4 percent of what used to be armed defenses, about 38-thousand, now become new murders when the victims are disarmed by Democrat gun-control.

Gun-control Democrats more than tripled the number of murdered victims by disarming the good guys.

Continue reading “”

When Even Artificial Intelligence Doesn’t Want to Address the ‘Gun Violence’ Elephant in the Room

It’s like the other current in “gun control” stories we often move past quickly. I asked ChatGPT a question about that issue we are required to ignore and ChatGPT even danced around it. Here’s the exchange:

Erickson: Break down the 2021 gun crime statistic totals by race of shooter and race of victim

ChatGPT: I’m sorry, but as an AI language model, I don’t have access to real-time data and statistics beyond my knowledge cutoff date of September 2021. Additionally, it’s important to note that collecting and analyzing data on gun violence can be a complex and sensitive issue, and the available data may not always provide a complete or accurate picture of the situation.

However, I can provide some general information on gun violence statistics in the United States based on available data. According to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks incidents of gun violence in the US, there were over 43,000 incidents of gun violence in the US in 2020, resulting in over 23,000 deaths and over 19,000 injuries. The data on the race of shooters and victims is not always available or complete, but based on available information, it appears that gun violence disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic communities.

According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on firearm homicides from 2015-2019, the firearm homicide rate among Black non-Hispanic individuals was 28.5 per 100,000 population, while the rate among Hispanic individuals was 7.8 per 100,000 population. In contrast, the rate among White non-Hispanic individuals was 3.3 per 100,000 population. These numbers suggest that Black and Hispanic individuals are more likely to be victims of firearm homicides than White individuals.

Regarding the race of shooters, data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) suggests that in incidents where the race of the offender was known, Black individuals were disproportionately represented as offenders of violent crime, including firearm-related offenses. However, it’s important to note that this data does not provide a complete picture of gun violence, as it only includes incidents that were reported to law enforcement and where the race of the offender was known.

Overall, it’s clear that gun violence is a serious issue in the US, and efforts to address the problem should take into account the disproportionate impact on Black and Hispanic communities. It’s also important to continue collecting and analyzing data to better understand the nature of gun violence and the factors that contribute to it.

The woke AI can dance around it if it wants, but the reality is that the black and Hispanic communities are disproportionally affected by gun violence, and they are disproportionately affected by gang violence.

Instead of politicians lecturing Americans on AR-15s, which do not account for most gun deaths in the country, maybe they should be talking to the black and Hispanic young men of America who are killing each other and other members of their communities with guns.

There were 48,830 gun deaths in America in 2021. 54% were suicides. 43% were murders. Of those 20,958 murders, 103 were mass shooting victims according to the FBI, and only 3% involved rifles like an AR-15.

Disproportionately and overwhelmingly, the murders caused by guns are through violence in non-white communities, often by gangs. The media focuses on the few mass shooters and the white shooters of non-white victims and chooses to ignore the gangs and the violence in non-white communities. The media demands we ban the AR-15 and rarely comment on handguns.

In other words, the media and the politicians focus on the least used gun for murders and focus on the least common gun deaths all to advance an agenda where, if they really wanted to reduce gun deaths, they’d focus on crime, gangs, and the need for more robust law enforcement. That would actually be politically viable and would actually reduce gun deaths.

But that would not focus on white supremacy, Republicans, and gun owners. It’d cover the problem, not the political opposition.

— Erick-Woods Erickson in The Data and the Silence

Herd of Cows aid North Carolina police pursuit, leading them ‘directly’ to suspect

Police said the cows appeared to be opposed to suspected criminals loitering in their pasture

North Carolina police officers made an arrest with the help of a herd of cows who were happy to narc on the suspect hiding in their pasture.

The Town of Boone Police Department said the suspect, later identified as Joshua Minton, 34, fled from officers during a traffic stop on Tuesday and led the officers and Watauga County Sheriff’s Office deputies on a pursuit. He abandoned his vehicle in the Deep Gap area and ran into an undeveloped area.

Because of the suspect’s “fast and reckless driving,” officers were not immediately close enough to see where he ran to, according to police.

Officers began searching the area for the man and received some unexpected assistance from cows willing to reveal the suspect’s whereabouts.

“Apparently cows do not want suspected criminals loitering in their pasture and quickly assisted our officers by leading them directly to where the suspect was hiding,” police said in a press release. “The cows communicated with the officers as best they could and finally just had the officers follow them to the suspect’s location.”

Minton was apprehended and charged with one count of felony fleeing and eluding arrest with a motor vehicle, driving with a license revoked, and disorderly conduct. He received a $20,000 secured bond and is scheduled to appear in court on June 28, in Watauga County.

The police department thanked the cows for their assistance in finding Minton.

“In addition to thanking our officers and deputies for putting themselves in harm’s way; obviously, we want to express our gratitude to the cows for their assistance,” police said. “This opens up all kinds of questions as to the bovines’ role in crime fighting. Honestly, it is something that we have not considered before now.”

Bob McManus: Alvin Bragg didn’t trust a grand jury to do his bidding in Daniel Penny subway chokehold case.

Daniel Penny, the Marine Corps veteran who fatally subdued a deranged, threatening vagrant on the subway last week, was arraigned Friday on manslaughter charges in Criminal Court.

Anyone who expected differently in DA Alvin Bragg’s Manhattan hasn’t been paying attention.

Penny had put Jordan Neely, a career criminal who was terrorizing the F Train May 1, into a chokehold; Neely subsequently died — and thus the charges.

In less bizarre times — that is, before America lost its bearings on matters of crime, criminals, and simple justice itself — the case wouldn’t be complicated: A vagrant was menacing subway passengers, a straphanger reacted, the vagrant died — and a grand jury could be trusted to do the right thing.

But those days are history.

Continue reading “”

Some people have been saying this for years.

Robert F. Kennedy: It Looks Like Almost Every Mass Shooter Is On SSRI Drugs.

The whole show

“The sense that we are losing control of our own country, by the design of politicians, is creating a fury”.

I wrote that in July 2015 about how Trump alone among candidates at the time understood the power of the illegal immigration issue: “Illegal immigration and open borders have made voters increasingly angry because they reflect the growing lawlessness of society and the willingness of Republicans to capitulate to leftist identity politics.”

https://twitter.com/GriffJenkins/status/1654485971709181959

I wrote this at National Review on July 13, 2015, about how Trump alone among Republican candidates at the time recognized the growing fury at illegal immigration. At that point Trump was polling in the teens, and no one gave him a chance, but he saw what no other Republican in that cycle saw, Trump’s Lesson: Voters Are Furious about Illegal Immigration.

Donald Trump has rocketed to the top, or near the top, of the Republican-primary field by focusing on illegal immigration and border security…. Trump is in the driver’s seat, and his vehicle is the lawlessness reflected in our failure to control illegal immigration in general, and violent illegal-immigrant criminals and gangs in particular….

The media fell all over itself to denounce Trump, as did many Republican candidates and pundits. Trump was called incendiary, insensitive, a clown, not serious, damaging to the Republican “brand,” not what “we” are about, and so on….

Some claim that the rate of murder and crime by illegal immigrants is no higher than for those here legally, but that’s an obfuscation. Any murder or crime by an illegal immigrant is one too many, because that person should not be in our country in the first place….

Sure, Trump mentions other issues such as trade, but it is illegal immigration that motivated at least several thousand people to turn out for what was supposed to be a modest campaign stop in Phoenix. One section in Trump’s Phoenix speech jumped out at me as capturing especially well what is happening on the ground:

When I started . . . I didn’t think the immigration thing would take on a life like it has. I made some very tough statements about people flowing through, because that’s one of the things, to make our country great again, we have to create borders, otherwise we don’t have a country [italics added].

Any Republican who doesn’t understand what Trump was getting at is hopelessly out of touch with the most motivated portion of the electorate, Republican and otherwise.

Illegal immigration and open borders have made voters increasingly angry because they reflect the growing lawlessness of society and the willingness of Republicans to capitulate to leftist identity politics. The sense that we are losing control of our own country, by the design of politicians, is creating a fury — and an opening for a politician willing to recognize that the problem poses an existential threat to our own freedoms.

If Republicans consider Trump a danger to the Republican party in the 2016 general election, then they should start by feeling the people’s pain over illegal immigration, standing with the victims, and looking in the mirror — not at Donald Trump.

My point still rings true, perhaps more true now that Joe Biden has opened the border and encouraged mass illegal migration. Trump still understands, and so does Ron DeSantis who has been very aggressive in Florida against illegal immigration. I don’t think the Republican establishment gets it yet.