Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Biden has a press conference


And pulls off the following:
  • Forgets the name of his local newspaper
  • Accidentally cites name from list of "approved" reporters
  • Puts sign language translator to sleep waiting for verbal fumbling to stop
  • States he is "constantly tested" for cognitive decline
  • Confuses Jefferson and Lincoln memorial in several ways

News wars!

NBC Sources: Trump Didn’t Learn About The Russian Bounties On U.S. Troops Until The Story Broke In The Papers


So now we have two outlets, the AP and the New York Times, claiming that he was briefed about the matter and another, NBC, claiming that he wasn’t. With a whole bunch of other media outlets silent on the matter, for the moment.

So if you go through all of the media speculation, media drama, and media fake news, what you are left with is very simple. At some point in time, there was raw unverified information that suggested the Russians were offering a bounty for the Taliban and others to kill Americans. However, according to every known source, the information was flimsy, the sourcing was limited, the plot was uncorroborated, and there was no consensus in the intelligence community that there was anything legitimate to the information.

By all logical accounts, top leadership from every state involved only had this information revealed to them recently, as in when the "new stories" broke. While there is an open agreement that some raw intelligence did exist (in some form), there is a firm agreement from everyone involved that this information was never found credible enough to pass along to the President or anyone else up the food chain.

It seems fairly amazing that once again the liberal side of this country is willing to toss aside any and all semblance of logic or common sense and run with a story that quite literally has no proof to suggest it is true. As pointed out by certain intelligence people in our Government, whoever attempted to "leak" information like this either was woefully misinformed as to how intelligence gathering works, or was openly being dishonest. So this person was either stupid or a liar. Take your pick.

Moreover, now we have media disagreement with competing sources that are saying the opposite things. So even our fake news cannot keep this particular story straight. But everyone with any degree of intellectual honesty understands that this is not a legitimate story and the implications demanded with the fake story is little more than dishonest Trump bashing.

Monday, June 29, 2020

Yes... let's defund those police departments!


I wonder what the crime rate is in CHOP right now?

Shooting at Seattle’s CHOP protest site kills man, leaves 14-year-old in critical condition
One man was killed and a 14-year-old boy was wounded early Monday morning when they were shot at 12th Avenue and Pike Street in the protest area known as CHOP, in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
Harborview Medical Center spokesperson Susan Gregg said two people were brought in with gunshot wounds, with one arriving in a private vehicle around 3:15 a.m. and the other brought in by Seattle Fire Department medics about 15 minutes later.
Police said the dead man and wounded boy were “presumably” the occupants of a white Jeep Cherokee SUV into which “several unidentified people” had fired shots.

So apparently giving the CHOP community another 72 hours to disband was another blockbuster idea from Seattle leadership. This has become a cluster fuck and who knows how it all ends at this point. The sad things is that nobody will likely ever know who shot the various people or who was responsible for the two murders.

There is no accountability without law enforcement.

Of course, some will these voters will vote for him anyways!

38% of Voters Think Biden Has Dementia

Nearly four-out-of-10 voters believe Joe Biden has dementia. Most voters, including just over half of Democrats, feel it is important for the likely Democratic presidential nominee to publicly address the issue.

I would offer that the other six out of ten voters just haven't been paying any attention to Dementia Joe or are suffering from dementia themselves.

We now have racist bedrooms?

Realtors Change Name of ‘Master’ Bedrooms

I am really just over the crazy, but here we are, now lefties are changing the names of “master bedrooms” and “master sommeliers” and who knows what’s next? Master’s degrees? MCs at events and in bands? Masterpiece? Master at Arms? Chess master?

Seriously? We cannot no longer call the largest bedroom a master suite anymore? Is there really someone, somewhere complaining about this? Or are we just making up shit as we go along now? All I can say is that it's a world gone mad!

Sunday, June 28, 2020

The ridiculousness of the NY Times Russia United States Taliban "story"...

or should we call it a tall tale?



This is one of those times where the story is so far out of the bounds of any reality that you have to wonder why anyone would actually believe it. Let's look at what we have:

  • No source for the story willing to go on record
  • No actual documentation or information for the story
  • No actual details for the story
  • Not a single confirmation from anyone associated with the story
  • Not even a single shred of factual evidence that the story is true

More to the point, this is silly conspiracy theory that would hook up multiple governments and organizations and everyone associated with every one of them has openly offered outright denials. Nobody from the US Government has offered anything but a denial. Nobody from the Taliban. Nobody from the British Government. Nobody from the Afghan Government. Nobody from the Russian Government.

There once was a time that a news story required something other than the word of a reporter that something was true. It required evidence of some sort. Someone on record confirming it. Some documentation. Or at the very least, you would have had enough known information that fit into reality to the point where it could be confirmed with simple logic.

But alas... all you need today to be a reporter at the NY Times or WaPo is a hatred of Donald Trump and a vivid imagination. Then the liberal rag will be happy provide you with a national forum!

Idiotic conspiracy theory 101!

The Covid-19 virus has killed almost three times the amount of people living in blue states as the amount of people living in red states. Moreover, blue state are seeing a death rate almost two and a half times higher than red states. 

But liberals demand that the spread of the virus is the result of conservatives watching Fox News! 


Wouldn't then make sense that more people would be dying in red states than in blue states, if a conservative news network was responsible for the outbreak? Oh wait, that would actually be logical and we are talking about a complete tin-foil hat, idiotic conspiracy theory here! Sorry, my bad!

Transparancy

Numbers from Florida




Unlike my state, which loves to hide the actual demographic breakdown of how different people are affected by Covid, some states love to be transparent about what is happening. You wouldn't know it by all of the crazy talk of the historically horrifying Florida pandemic, but as of a few days ago only 505 people under the age of 65 have passed from Covid in the sunshine state (making up 16% of the overall deaths).

Over the past seven days, the number of new hospitalizations in Florida was 1205 (according to Covid Tracking Project). That is an increase from the 1072 reported the week before, but still does not match their peak of nearly 1400 back in mid-May. The number of new deaths was 252. Which was up last week by approximately 30 deaths, but it is still down from the peak numbers back in May.

One has to keep in mind, that the "peak" in Florida was never what it was in most states. Their total deaths per million (158) puts them 28th place in the nation. That number is dwarfed by states like New York and New Jersey which has over ten times the amount of death per million (1699, 1617).

Nobody likes the fact that cases seem to be "spiking" in several states, but the explanations seem to concede that the number of cases are not correlating or causing the same degree of hospitalizations or deaths that earlier positive case results were providing. Perhaps this is due to more testing, more lightly symptomatic people being tested, or the fact that this increase in positive testing is largely driven by the millennial age group (who seem less susceptible to the effects). 

But at the end of the day, this has seemingly provided more fodder for certain people to point fingers at those they feel are not doing the proper things in weighing the effects of the virus with the effects of the economic impact.  But it's especially raw when you have a Governor (Cuomo) who many believe put policies in place that led to thousands of deaths, criticizing other states whom are sitting with fatality rates less than a tenth of his.


Sunday Funnies


























Saturday, June 27, 2020

Washington Post Fact Checks the President!

So out of all the listed cities, only one (Jacksonville) is run by a Republican.
So that makes the claim false?  
Would have been better off leaving this one alone. 

Public service announcement!

Let's put criminals in jail where they belong!


There is more to this than just one ruling...

Federal Judge: Cuomo And De Blasio Can’t Limit The Size Of Outdoor Religious Services If They Didn’t Care About Limiting The Size Of Protests

Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio could have just as easily discouraged protests, short of condemning their message, in the name of public health and exercised discretion to suspend enforcement for public safety reasons instead of encouraging what they knew was a flagrant disregard of the outdoor limits and social distancing rules. They could have also been silent. But by acting as they did, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio sent a clear message that mass protests are deserving of preferential treatment.

I have to say that the overwhelming liberal advocation for the public protests with no real regard for the health issues that they seem so eager to protect in any other activity was a bigger problem that has led to more than just this one ruling. The idea that these powers to be so blatantly made Covid-19 a political pawn has undermined the entire case for social distancing and other mandates.

This is not to say that it's not safer to maintain your distancing, it's probably a good thing to wear a mask when you will be in close quarters, and there is no real "need" to seek out public places with lots of people at this point. But being encouraged to do so is one thing. Being ordered to do so (but only in certain situations that seem to be guided exclusively by politics) is another.

Without a legitimate medical or scientific reason, many Governors have determined that it's perfectly acceptable to protest and riot in larger groups. But then these same Governors want to ban things like church services. This is blatant political pandering and last time I checked political pandering was not part of the constitution or the bill of rights.

Such hypocrisy should not be part of our society... period.

Friday, June 26, 2020

Covid-19 time line...

So when should an uptick of cases start to lead to an uptick in deaths?
  • Let's assume that people who test for Covid do not do so for at least a few days after garnering symptoms. I doubt many people get a cough or some congestion immediately go in for testing. However, they say by day seven that breathing is quite labored and by then one would think that most have either been tested or are going in for testing. 
  • For sake of argument, let's say the average person would test for Covid-19 somewhere between five to seven days into it. But, of course, nearly all of your testing sites have to send out your swab to a lab before you actually get results. Most places will tell you to expect three to five days. From personal experience (my son was tested) and from anecdotal stories, the average right now is closer to two to three days. 
  • So by the time a positive Covid-19 test has been confirmed and reported, the person in question is likely somewhere between a week to two weeks into the virus. The median time for someone to become hospitalized in an ICU unit is approximately twelve days. This suggests that there would be only a few days lag between a positive test and a new hospitalization. In some cases the hospitalization might actually precede the positive test result.
  • Once hospitalized, the average time to death is approximately a week. The average time for someone to be released after beating Covid is approximately ten days. 
  • What this tells us is that the time it should take for a reported new cases to turn into a new death (all things considered) would be somewhere between a week to ten days. 

We have now had approximately three weeks where the number of positive tests nationally (day to day) have been more than they were the week before (with only a couple of exceptions). But on the flip side we have seen a decrease in the number of deaths going back to the beginning of this month in all but two days.

So while people keep "expecting" all of the new positive test results to start turning into a steep increase in deaths, the reality is that we should have already been seeing a fairly strong uptick in deaths. I am not saying that we will not see an uptick in deaths over the next couple of weeks, but I also wouldn't bet my mortgage that we will see anything dramatic (like we are seeing with new cases).

Rather, what I might expect is that we may see a leveling off of deaths from a week to week standpoint. Last weekend we saw the first day under 300 deaths since March. That's a pretty low bar to pass under again. I would like to see it happen, but I wouldn't bet my mortgage on that either.

Ultimately if we compare the number of deaths we are seeing today compared to the number of deaths we were seeing in April and May (when we were seeing the same amount of new cases) the differences are staggering. That cannot be accounted for by any sort of lag time or anything short of completely different circumstances. What exactly is different today vs what we were seeing in April and May is not entirely known. Lot's of hypotheses for why this is, but nothing that can explain it completely.

Question of the day?

Since everyone (including Fauci and Birx) now believe that we have as many as ten times the actual cases that is being reported, then what's with the "up in arms" over how many "reported" cases we are seeing? California processed over 100,000 tests yesterday alone.  Florida essentially doubled their amount of reported tests results yesterday (52,000) over what they have been doing. We had a record 637,000 tests processed across the country yesterday and the testing continues to get more robust as we move forward.


The only "tangible" numbers here that cannot be over or under stated by any significant margin remains hospitalizations and deaths. The number of "new" hospitalizations has not seemed to risen dramatically in any of the states where they have seen a large number of cases (at least those states who report on this number). Florida saw a peak number of new hospitalizations back in mid-May and has yet to see that number again. Deaths have decreased nationally by a week day to week day comparison for 22 of the 24 days so far this month. That is not a fluke.

Now one thing to keep in mind is that some are now using cumulative or "active" hospitalizations as a means to show a chart with much steeper curves. This is misleading for the very reason that many people already in a hospital or long term care facility might have tested positive for Covid and will continue to be listed as being a Covid hospitalization as long as they remain hospitalized. This is why "new hospitalizations" (and not cumulative hospitalizations) are what you want to be looking at.

At the end of the day, as much as many will want to sound the alarm, until the bottom line number that everyone really cares about (deaths) start to increase in a notifiable fashion, I don't see people wanting to our government to go back to quarantine and stay at home orders.

Sure they do!

The U.S. Military Has a Boogaloo Problem
The U.S. military appears to have a brewing boogaloo problem. Active-duty military are flocking to online networks frequented by the anti-government movement, known for its meme culture and Hawaiian shirt-clad adherents, who are often called Boogaloo Bois…
Boogaloo members planning mayhem and white supremacy!
An analysis of some of the largest private Facebook groups catering to the boogaloo movement found that scores of members self-identified as active-duty military on their personal profiles.

This is one of the most dangerous supremacy movements that has not actually done anything dangerous in the history of our country. In fact, I might offer that this "is" the most dangerous supremacy movement in the history of the entire world that has yet to actually "do" anything.

But, like big foot, Elvis, and the Loch Ness monster, there are alleged sightings of these Hawaiian shirt wearing Boogaloo popping up all over the internet. The pictures are generally fuzzy and show the Boogaloo hiding or running away, but those Boogaloo watchers are closing in on the movements and whereabouts of these elusive creatures.

Everyone is hoping and preying that we can get this under control, so we can get back to burning down neighborhoods, destroying historical monuments, attacking police officers, attempting to take over portions of cities, and the rest of these politically correct forms of law breaking taking place in 2020.

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Another Sullivan Flynn bit of irony...

Does anyone else recall back in the day when all General Flynn wanted was to be sentenced and get on with his life, and Judge Sullivan kept putting things off at the bequest of Special Counsel who demanded that he hadn't provided enough information to warrant a lessened sentencing?


Seems like Sullivan had no problems keeping the General and his family in legal limbo for a matter of what has now become years, for a crime that generally would have involved at most 30-60 days in jail and a fine. After all, George Papadopoulos only got 14 days for supposedly lying to the FBI.

Seems like quite a big deal being made out of a petty crime that didn't even involve General Flynn being actually questioned under oath or even questioned in an actual criminal investigation (which would have required Flynn be read rights, allowed an attorney, etc).

Some on the left are demanding that someone "appeal" the Appeals court ruling, but I am not even sure at this point what it would accomplish. Even if Sullivan decided to sentence General Flynn, the President would immediately pardon him anyways.

Is this how Polling works in 2020?


North Carolina:
- PPP - Biden +2
- Gravis - Trump +3
- CNBC - Biden +2
- Civtas Harper - Trump +3
- NYTimes - Biden +9

Michigan:
- Trafalgar Group - Biden +1
- CNBC - Biden +2
- NYTimes - Biden +11

Arizona -
- CNBC - Biden +1
- NYTimes - Biden +7

Pennsylvania 
- CNBC - Biden +2
- NYTimes -Biden +10


Obviously polling doesn't look good for the President right now, nor do I expect it to change much in the near future. In fact, if history is our guide, most pollsters won't provide us with their real honest to goodness polling results until a week to ten days before the election. In 2016, it wasn't until the last two weeks or so that Hillary's larger leads started evaporating into the three to five point leads that nearly everyone showed at the end.

As I pointed out the other day, Hillary still held double digit leads in a double digit amounts of polls released within 30 days of the election. I don't see any reason why we will not be seeing these same double digit Biden leads until November actually rolls around. Then, of course, all of the pundits will feint confusion as to why all of the polling converged (again) in the last stages of the election cycle.

Harry Enten has been working overtime trying to convince everyone that Biden is running ahead of the pace that Clinton was running. He seems to take stock in the idea that a 48-38 polling lead is significantly better than a 46-36 polling lead, as it puts Biden closer to where he needs to be. I neither agree or disagree with this theory at this point. I see little use in polling taking place in the middle of significant events that will likely not be what we are talking about in October and November.

I would also offer that Enten misses the larger point. In 2020 (especially in the state polling) there was quite literally two different subsets of polling. If you graphed out the polls, you would have seen almost no polling showing the race where the cumulative average (mean) was. What you saw was two groupings of poll results. One subset of polls showing Clinton doing considerably better than the average and one subset showing Trump doing considerably better than the average.

My personal experience in watching these sorts of polling is that generally the answer is not found in the middle, but rather one subset or the other subset will ultimately be correct and the other wrong. The difference between the two will almost always be assumptions about who will show up to vote. It seems that every year there are pollsters who make assumptions that "this" is really the year that the electorate will shift dramatically. Then there are other pollsters who keep themselves tied closely to historical demographic turnouts and poll accordingly. Those assumptions lead to wildly different results.

Once you eliminate those assumptions and focus on the raw numbers, the cross tabs were not all that different in 2016 between the pollsters. Based on my own assumptions about the demographic outlook (tied exclusively to historical averages and not opinion) I was able to use cross tabs (and only cross tabs) guess the final result within a couple of tenths of a percentage point. Moreover, my spreadsheet did not move up and down all that much over the course of time. It never got any higher than about a four point Hillary lead, even when she was leading by double that in national averages.

We are already seeing this separation in many of the State polling (as pointed out in my opening numbers). You see many pollsters showing the race very close (as it was in 2016) and then you will see many others showing Biden with large leads. The answer, however, is likely not to take an "average" of those two subsets. Accuracy, in this case, will be to figure out which subset will be right, and plan accordingly.

This is no longer about protests...

These are little more than angry mobs randomly destroying things for the sake of destruction

Hans Christian Heg (an anti-slavery activist and abolitionist who actively
 fought slave catchers and died from battle wounds fighting for the Union in the Civil War).
His statue was tossed into a nearby lake in Madison Wisconsin. 

Look, I suppose you could use the excuse that protesters are just stupid and ignorant and otherwise believe that "every" statue is offensive and that there is no real reason to remember anything about our history... good, bad, or indifferent.

Obviously some people can have legitimate beefs about certain things, but if we literally tore down every monument, every statue, every building, burned down every park, all in the name of social justice, we would have nothing left.

Like it or not, history happened. Only a true fascist would want to erase our history and attempt to replace it with one that didn't actually exist, because such a thing might be more palatable. The left has already destroyed the very concept of "science" by rejecting the absolute nature of testing and proof. They have now turned their sights on history.

Not everything is subjective or a shade of grey. Some things are just so. It's called reality. Not everyone likes it, but you can only change what happens moving forward, not what happened in the past.

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

The irony of the Flynn ruling...

So what exactly was Judge Sullivan attempting to suggest or accomplish? Above and beyond Judge Sullivan's obvious dislike of General Flynn, it would appear that Sullivan wanted to question the motives and decision making of the DOJ and prosecutors who decided to drop the case.


In reality there isn't anything "that" unusual with new information coming forward and people taking back their pleas (as much as Sullivan tried to pretend that action to be some sort of contempt). What Sullivan was realistically questioning was the highly politicized manner in which this case was handled. The fact that Sullivan appeared completely disinterested in the portions where Flynn was charged, and focused solely on where the charges were dropped is not just curious, but deeply relevant.

Here is what the Appeals Court stated:
In this case, the district court’s actions will result in specific harms to the exercise of the Executive Branch’s exclusive prosecutorial power. The contemplated proceedings would likely require the Executive to reveal the internal deliberative process behind its exercise of prosecutorial discretion, interfering with the Article II charging authority…. Thus, the district court’s appointment of the amicus and demonstrated intent to scrutinize the reasoning and motives of the Department of Justice constitute irreparable harms that cannot be remedied on appeal.
So the court ruled that the ENTIRE purpose of Sullivan's request was (in and of itself) an interference into the executive branch's prosecutorial decision making. Not only did Sullivan not have the right to question the motives for why Flynn's charges were dropped, but even the suggestion that the prosecution would be forced to explain themselves constituted irreparable harm. 

While this was the argument being made by the prosecution all along, the media framed the argument largely from the standpoint of whether or not the prosecution had good cause to drop the charges. It turns out that the DOJ was right all along, and that Sullivan was not even entitled to hear any sort of argument from the prosecution in the first place.

So it never did matter how Sullivan would have ruled. His point was likely to create a political fallout for the prosecution, by forcing the prosecution to reveal their reasoning to the court (and public). That is what it was all about, and that is exactly what the appeals court stated was not proper.

Certainly we now know why this sort of ploy has never been tried prior, and will not likely be tried again. 


Court of Appeals rules in favor of Flynn!

Judge Emmet Sullivan must dismiss the charges! 


It’s all over but the shouting, and perhaps one last bit of red tape. Within the last hour, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals issued a writ of mandamus ordering Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the charges against Michael Flynn. The vote broke 2-1 on the order, which might have come as a surprise after the arguments two weeks ago in court over the Department of Justice motion to dismiss.

I have to admit that like most everyone else, I was a bit surprised by the ruling. Not because I ever thought that Sullivan would be able to prosecute Flynn on his own, but that it appeared that the Appeals court was not really wanting to rule one way or the other, when technically Sullivan hadn't issued his own ruling.

Of course, that sort of just prolongs the issue. If the appeals court ultimately agreed with the Flynn/DOJ argument that the decision to drop the charges was outside the authority and jurisdiction of the Judge, then why wait until you got the ruling from Sullivan. I believe ultimately this is what eventually happened and why the ruling was made.

The dissent is interesting in that it challenges the Appeals court's authority to issue the ruling, stating that it had never made such an order before. Of course, there had never been a district judge who decided to hold another trial in lieu of the first one being dismissed.

At the end of the day, judges and justices are already wanting to be legislators. We don't need them to be prosecutors as well.

Twitter could be putting themselves in legal jeopardy

President Trump Vowed to Enforce the Law, So Twitter Censored Him Again
Unhinged lefty protesters gave descended upon Washington D.C. and they gathered in Lafayette Park again, which is near the White House. Their goal: to topple the statue of Andrew Jackson, one of our finest presidents. Unlike other statues across the country, law enforcement moved in to prevent its destruction. Our own Julio Rosas had just hopped off a plane from Atlanta and quickly went to cover these antics. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt tweeted, “I just left Lafayette Square where another so-called “peaceful protest” led to destruction tonight. Let me be clear: we will not bow to anarchists. Law and order will prevail, and justice will be served.”

So let's be clear here folks. Those folks who use twitter to plan or promote events that quite literally are advocating breaking of laws are perfectly acceptable. On the flip side, twitter is censoring anyone who suggest that this lawlessness will be prevented?
“This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about abusive behavior. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible,” read the citation.
This tweet was temporarily censored, until twitter decided to put it back up

I am no legal expert here, but it seems to me that twitter opens itself up for possible DOJ or Judicial action for this sort of behavior. While such "social justice" destruction might be popular in certain political circles, that doesn't make it legal and it doesn't make those in charge of upholding the law the bad people inciting violence.

Seems to me that if Twitter wants to allow criminal activity to be planned on their media platform, that would constitute aiding and abetting. But if they actively work against the actual law enforcement or others who are legally sworn to stop this, that makes them possibly even more legally suspect.

Twitter and others seem to be banking on the concept that public opinion will not stand for the atrocity of police or law enforcement actually preventing the law from being broken. I think ultimately they may be wrong, and even if there is a public opinion in favor, that doesn't change the laws that exist.

In this case, they reversed course and the President's tweet is back on twitter without any restrictions, as it should be. But I suspect it took a call from someone in the DOJ to let Twitter know that there are very real consequences for using a public platform to promote criminal behavior and violence and actively work against the very law enforcement tasked to prevent it.

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Bubba Wallace noose incident?

FBI and NASCAR says it was a harmless misunderstanding and not an act of racism...
  • Apparently the issue wasn't that a rope hanging in Bubba Wallace's garage was recently found. 
  • Apparently the rope (which was a garage door pull rope) has been hanging in that garage for close to a year, long before Bubba Wallace even used the garage. This was confirmed by photographic evidence.
  • Apparently garages were recently reassigned and Wallace got one of the several garages with the same sort of hanging rope, which apparently prompted someone to suggest that it was put up there as a racist attack against Wallace, which of course it wasn't.  
Go figure... 

Hospitalizations and ICU stats for Covid-19

NYC shootings. Worse since 1996

But let's defund the police, shall we? 

People in New York City are hearing a lot of loud bangs in their neighborhoods these days, and it’s not people getting an early start on Independence Day fireworks. The majority of it is gunfire. Over the past few weeks, there has been a surge in shootings, and all of these events can’t be written off to the recent riots taking place around the George Floyd protests. So just how bad is it? According to the NYPD, the number of shootings thus far in the month of June is the worst they’ve seen since 1996.

The article in question suggests that certain people in the know are suggesting that this is the new normal. With bail reform and early release and Covid release, there is simply way more criminals on the street and way less criminals in jail.

Of course, according to liberals, these people shooting other people are not really criminals. They are just victims of systemic racism that is causing them to have to turn to crime and violence to get by. So it would actually be racist to attempt to stop it or put anyone who commits crime into jail.

Better to call a social worker, or perhaps just provide some reparations to help them get by? Pretty sure that's the story you will hear from de Blasio and gang!


California (not Florida) appears to be the real Covid hot spot!

So California had 5500 new cases and 47 new deaths reported yesterday. That made up 17% of the new cases and 13% of the new deaths.  California nearly doubled the amount of new cases that Florida reported, while nearly quadrupling the amount of new deaths reported in the Sunshine state.


Oddly, I have yet to see any of the usual suspects (Nate Silver, Josh Marshal, Markos, etc) tweet excessively about how badly things are going for California and how much better the leadership has been in New York in handling Covid-19. Obviously, I have no clue why this is. Unless, of course, it fails to fall under the blue state good, red state bad narrative?

Moreover, Florida fell to number three yesterday as it pertained to new cases and barely cracked the top ten for number of deaths. While I didn't see much on twitter regarding the state of Florida yesterday, I did see several examples of people exclaiming that Mississippi was the new hot spot on the news that they reported 1265 new cases and 35 new deaths. The issue here is that Mississippi has not been reporting daily numbers, and what was reported yesterday was a cumulative total of the previous five days. Ahem.


Seattle Mayor now in agreement with Police commissioner

CHOP must go! 
Mayor Jenny Durkan has been doing her best to downplay the danger of having an autonomous zone in the middle of Seattle, suggesting it wasn’t much different from a summer block party. Then, over the weekend, three people were shot in two separate incidents and one 19-year-old died from his injuries. Now Mayor Durkan is singing a different tune. She announced today that it was “time for people to go home.”

So now the mayor also agrees that CHOP is not a good idea. The trouble here is that the mayor probably doesn't get to decide this. Quite obviously the members of CHOP have barricaded themselves off, they have armed patrols, and don't appear in any hurry to disband their little experiment. I am not sure why the Mayor believes what she says will really matter much in the grand scheme of things.

Perhaps had she agreed with the police chief upfront and not ordered police to abandon the area (thus creating CHAZ/CHOP) none of this would have happened. But the Mayor and the rest of the CHOP apologists may now find out that keeping an area secure is way easier than retaking an area that you've already lost. How do you begin to retake this area without enormous amounts of violence and confrontation.

It's not just that people have been shot, someone was killed, fights are breaking out, there are complaints of thefts, and all sorts of other social problems. Everyone seems to forget that these children (for the most part) do not own any of this property and the rightful owners of the property in question are being deprived of one of their most basic liberties: to be allowed to have and use what they bought and paid for and not just have it taken from them.

The first responsibility of any government (local to federal) is to protect it's citizens. In this case, the people who live, work, and run businesses in this area are fundamentally left without any such protection. Moreover, the decision not to protect them was made completely out of political considerations and in direct contrast with those basic responsibilities.

So the next question is what now? If the mayor actually believes that this will disband peacefully, then she probably has another thing coming. Does she have the fortitude to take it back by force when the community leaders fail? Doubtful. I strongly suspect we will see another classic display of feckless liberal leadership in times of crisis that has become the staple of 2020.

May we live in interesting times.

Monday, June 22, 2020

More reasons to defund the police!

Chicago Weekend: 104 Shot, 14 Killed Including 5 Children
Chicago saw its highest number of gun violence victims in a single weekend this year with 104 people shot across the city from Friday evening to Monday morning, 14 of them fatally. Five of those killed were minors.
The weekend saw more shooting victims but less fatalities than the last weekend of May, when 85 people were shot, 24 of them fatally — Chicago’s most deadly weekend in years
.