Archive for 2022
August 13, 2022
CHICAGO: 54 People Shot Over Weekend – New Policy Stifles Cops’ Ability to Chase Criminals.
Chicago police data released last week show that murder is down 16% compared to 2021, but up 30% compared to 2019. Overall violent crime is up in Chicago by 35% this year compared to 2021, with theft up 66% and motor vehicle percent up 51%.
Superintendent Brown faced criticism earlier this summer, when his department released a new policy that limits when police officers are allowed to engage in foot pursuits. The new policy requires that the chase only be done “if they believe a person is committing or is about to commit a felony, a Class A misdemeanor such as domestic battery, or a serious traffic offense that could risk injuring others, such as drunken driving or street racing.”
This policy was enacted a year after two Chicago police chases ended in the deaths of a 13-year-old suspect and a 22-year-old, both of whom were fleeing from police and were armed.
Chicago police are still keeping busy focusing on the important issues vexing the city, though: Chicago police will divert some cops from neighborhoods to protect movie sets: report.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: See the huge solar wings of China’s space station in motion above Earth.
CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR PROPOSES $1.4 BILLION LOAN TO KEEP NUCLEAR PLANT OPEN:
California Governor Gavin Newsom is proposing to give PG&E Corp (PCG.N) a $1.4 billion government loan to extend the life of a nuclear power plant it runs by as much as a decade as the state seeks to shore up electric reliability while moving away from fossil fuels, his office said on Friday.
The proposal, which would have to be introduced as a bill in the state legislature, is the latest in a series of steps California has made this year to reconsider its 2016 decision to retire the Diablo Canyon power plant by 2025.
California wants to produce all of its electricity from clean sources by 2045, but has faced challenges with that transition, such as rolling blackouts during a heatwave in 2020.
Strict Covid lockdowns and rolling blackouts? Californians sure got it good and hard in 2020. And yet Larry Elder was a reach too far for the state’s voters.
THINGS ARE GOING SWIMMINGLY ON THE PUBLIC HEALTH FRONT: First U.S. polio case in years sparks alarms from New York to California.
The polio patient is a 20-year-old unvaccinated man who traveled to Hungary and Poland earlier this year and was hospitalized in June, the Washington Post reported, citing a public health official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The New York Times reported that the patient is a member of the Orthodox Jewish community.
Genetic analysis of a polio virus sample from the patient indicates that it was picked up from a person who had received the oral polio vaccine, which has not been used in the U.S. since 2000, health officials said.
The oral vaccine contains a weakened live polio virus.
The spread of “wild” virus to unvaccinated people was once considered a feature, rather than a bug, since even people who didn’t get the live-virus vaccine could be “vaccinated” by exposure to people who did. It was, however, controversial at the time.
Meanwhile, of course, the unsatisfactory Covid vaccine experience has probably reinforced vaccine skepticism in general.
READER FAVORITE: Alpha Grillers Instant Read Meat Thermometer. #CommissionEarned
DOES ANYBODY EVEN CARE ANYMORE? FDA: 3 at-home COVID-19 tests needed to confirm negative result.
HOW IT STARTED: Starbucks barista arrested for spitting in police officers’ beverages.
How it’s going: Crime Driving Chain Businesses Out of Cities.
Starbucks has announced that it is closing many stores over crime concerns, often in cities led by progressive prosecutors. This development could be fodder for a joke about progressive hipsters whose voting inclinations wind up costing them their venti frappucinos. But these closures risk leaving citizens in the most troubled areas with ever-dwindling opportunities to buy basic necessities for their families.
Starbucks was an early and loud adopter of every progressive whim. The coffee chain demanded implicit-bias training for all employees. After police in Philadelphia removed two black men—who refused to buy anything—from a store at an employee’s request, Starbucks apologized and opened its stores to anyone and everyone.
But the rising tide of crime in progressive cities has proved too much even for the coffee behemoth. Citing safety issues, Starbucks is closing stores in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, and its hometown of Seattle. Each of these cities has a radical prosecutor dedicated to non-prosecution of even serious crimes, such as George Gascon in L.A. and Larry Krasner in Philly. The next time you can’t get a good cup of coffee in one of these cities, consider whom you voted for in the district attorney’s race.
Speaking of which: ‘Woke’ NYC Starbucks now a haven for junkies and homeless. “‘Starbucks got too woke too fast,’ said java joint regular Constantine Dobryakov. ‘Now some customers are too scared to go in because you’ve got a bunch of homeless people sleeping in there. They got to be ready to kick people out and not give everyone a free cup of coffee. You give them a finger and they’ll take a hand.’”
BUT HE DIDN’T GET ELECTED, DID HE? Roy Moore wins defamation case against Democratic PAC, jury awards him $8.2M.
ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: NPR: Salman Rushdie hospitalized as police seek motive in stabbing.
Police identified the suspect as Hadi Matar, 24. He was arrested after the attack at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit education and retreat center where Rushdie was scheduled to speak.
Matar, of Fairview, New Jersey, was born in the United States to Lebanese parents who emigrated from Yaroun, a border village in southern Lebanon, Mayor Ali Tehfe told The Associated Press.
Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses” drew death threats after it was published in 1988. It was viewed as blasphemous by many Muslims who saw a character as an insult to the Prophet Muhammad, among other objections. The book was banned in Iran where the late leader Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death.
Police said the motive for the Friday attack was unclear.
Related: Iran media hails stabbing of ‘apostate’ Salman Rushdie, praises assailant.
FASTER, PLEASE: Breakthrough: Ignition confirmed at California fusion reactor.
IS THE NEW YORK TIMES A LIBERAL NEWSPAPER? OF COURSE IT IS: Source Backs Bari Weiss Account That the New York Times Wanted to Run Tim Scott Op-Ed By Schumer.
The New York Times has repeatedly denied the explosive account from former Times journalist Bari Weiss that a senior opinion-page editor instructed a colleague to “check with” Senator Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) before running an op-ed from Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.). But a second source with direct knowledge of the matter has backed up Weiss’s story to National Review. The source also quoted a message sent by a senior editor at the time insisting that the Times check with Schumer — even providing the email address of Schumer press representative Justin Goodman.
The second source also revealed that Scott’s op-ed, which focused on the Republican senator’s police-reform package, was initially solicited by the Times — as opposed to having been pitched to the newspaper — a detail that was not clear from the original account.
New York Times owner Tom Cotton really has a lot to answer for here.
(Classical reference in headline.)
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Aren’t Electric Vehicles Becoming More Affordable?
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: ‘The FBI Raid On Melania’s Closet Was Justified,’ Says Merrick Garland Wearing Gorgeous New Evening Gown And Sun Hat.
To be fair, he really looks fabulous in that rig:
SPYWARE PROTECTION: Hands-on with Lockdown Mode in IOS 16.
THE BANNINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES: Twitter Suspended Paul Sperry, but He’s Still Reporting Some Troubling Things About FBI Raid.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Making oxygen with magnets could help astronauts breathe easy.
BIDEN VOTERS POSTING THEIR L’S ONLINE: David Brooks: Did the FBI just reelect Donald Trump?
According to a Trafalgar Group/Convention of States Action survey, 83% of likely Republican voters said the FBI search made them more motivated to vote in the 2022 elections. More than 75% of likely Republican voters believed Trump’s political enemies were behind the search rather than the impartial justice system, as did 48% of likely general election voters overall.
In a normal society, when politicians get investigated or charged, it hurts them politically. But that no longer applies to the GOP. The judicial system may be colliding with the political system in an unprecedented way.
What happens if a prosecutor charges Trump and he is convicted just as he is cruising to the GOP nomination or maybe even the presidency? What happens if the legal system, using its criteria, decides Trump should go to prison at the very moment that the electoral system, using its criteria, decides he should go to the White House?
I presume in those circumstances Trump would be arrested and imprisoned. I also presume we would see widespread political violence from incensed Trump voters who would conclude that the Regime has stolen the country. In my view, this is the most likely path to a complete democratic breakdown.
In theory, justice is blind, and obviously no person can be above the law. But as Damon Linker wrote in a Substack post, “This is a polity, not a graduate seminar in Kantian ethics.” We live in a specific real-world situation, and we all have to take responsibility for the real-world effects of our actions.
America absolutely needs to punish those who commit crimes. On the other hand, America absolutely needs to make sure that Trump does not get another term as president. What do we do if the former makes the latter more likely? I have no clue how to get out of this potential conflict between our legal and political realities.
We’re living in a crisis of legitimacy, during which distrust of established power is so virulent that actions by elite actors tend to backfire, no matter how well founded they are.
My impression is that the FBI had legitimate reasons to do what it did. My guess is it will find some damning documents that will do nothing to weaken Trump’s support. I’m also convinced that, at least for now, it has unintentionally improved Trump’s reelection chances. It has unintentionally made life harder for Trump’s potential primary challengers and motivated his base.
Flashback: How David Brooks created Donald Trump.
JUST LIKE PEOPLE: For older dogs, risk of dementia rises with hearing loss.
THE ATTACK ON SALMAN RUSHDIE IS AN ATTACK ON US ALL:
The thought of it turns the stomach. A man stabbed for writing a book. And not just any man, but Salman Rushdie. The author with the price on his head. The author of the The Satanic Verses, the novel burned by Islamists around the world. The author whose act of ‘blasphemy’ at the tailend of the 20th century showed us just how deep the problem of Islamist intolerance is – and just how deep Western liberal cowardice is in the face of this most violent and unhinged variant of cancel culture.
We are all praying for Salman Rushdie today, even us godless types. He was airlifted to hospital yesterday after being stabbed multiple times in the neck and abdomen on stage at an event in New York. Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wylie, says he is on a ventilator and unable to speak. ‘Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged’, he says. Those who believe in freedom the world over are willing him to pull through.
We are not yet sure why the suspect – 24-year-old Hadi Matar from New Jersey – rushed on stage and stabbed Rushdie in reportedly crazed fashion. But we can make an educated guess. For more than 30 years Rushdie has lived under an execution order. On 14 February 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him and anyone involved in publishing his ‘blasphemous’ fourth novel. He went into hiding for nine years. The book’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death in 1991. Its Turkish translator narrowly escaped an Islamist arson attack in 1993, which claimed the lives of 37 others.
Read the whole thing.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Polio found in sewage in NYC; health officials urge vaccination.
ROGER SIMON: Can a GOP Congress Stop the New IRS Gestapo?
Naturally, conservatives are alarmed, even terrified, that the IRS could be so politicized. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has been rushed into the fray to reassure us, through a “directive”:
“Specifically, I direct that any additional resources—including any new personnel or auditors that are hired—shall not be used to increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels,” she said.
Would Yellen, the woman who told us inflation was transitory and that there was no recession, lie to you? Or if she has issued such a “directive,” does it have legal force? And what are these historical levels anyway? What part of history is she referring to?
I have a two-word of rebuttal to Ms. Yellen: Lois Lerner.
From the Daily Mail:
“After nearly two years of jockeying with Congress over the IRS’s history of discriminating against conservative nonprofit groups, former official Lois Lerner won’t be charged with a crime for defying a congressional subpoena and refusing to answer questions.
“U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen, on his last day in office, told House Speaker John Boehner in a seven-page letter that Lerner could wrap herself in the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, even though she offered a self-serving opening statement before clamming up during a May 22, 2013, hearing.”
With 87,000 new employees, almost all avid statists—who else would join the agency—we are headed for déjà vu all over again, i.e., Lerner’s “historical level,” only worse in a yet more divided time. (As someone once said, “Personnel is policy.”)
So to Republicans in the House and Senate, speechify all you wish, but start really acting now, being concrete, even before you might have majorities. Get with the smartest conservative tax lawyers you can find and figure out some way to put a halt to as much of this as possible. Throw a wrench in the machine.
Keep America free. It’s barely hanging on.
As Mark Steyn has written, maybe it would be easier to list which federal agency doesn’t have its own personal SWAT team?