Will we get riots?

That’s a typical Philly response by the Usual Suspects when a police officer kills a criminal suspect!

Officer shot in Kensington standoff, suspect shot and killed by police

The officer, 27, was in stable condition and expected to be released from the hospital Wednesday night.

by Juliana Feliciano Reyes and Heather Khalifa | Wednesday, May 31, 2023 | Updated: Thursday, June 1, 2023 | 7:11 AM EDT

A police officer was shot in the hand during a standoff in Kensington Wednesday evening, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said outside Temple University Hospital. The suspect was killed by police.

2800 block of Ruth Street, via Google Maps. Click to enlarge.

Officers were responding to gunshots at a property on the 2800 block of Ruth Street around 7:30 p.m. when they found a man with a gun hiding in a crawl space, Outlaw said. Officers struggled to get him to exit the crawl space and deployed a Taser while doing so, she said.

“The Taser, to our knowledge, was not effective for whatever reason,” Outlaw said.

Perhaps hiding in a crawl space, perhaps not the best plan.

The 2800 block of Ruth Street isn’t exactly a high-class neighborhood, running parallel, one block away, to Kensington Avenue, a few blocks down from the Allegheny Avenue SEPTA station. While there are no homes currently listed for sale on Ruth Street, Zillow lists 2824 Ruth Street as off-market, but valued at only $82,000.

The suspect attempted to take the Taser, she said.

While the order of events is unclear and pending an investigation, Outlaw said that at some point officers heard a shot and saw an officer fall to the ground. Three police officers fired at the suspect and at least one hit him.

SWAT subsequently entered the building, found the suspect in the crawl space, and he was pronounced dead, Outlaw said.

There is a little bit more in the story, but not a lot, not yet, anyway.

Me, I’m sure, sure! that the deceased was actually trying very diligently to get his life in order, and start to live a decent and respectable life.

It was just yesterday that I wrote about how Rigoberto Vasquez-Barradas, who was charged with fetal homicide in January, was not listed in the Lexington Police Department’s Homicide Investigations page.

Then there was this in this morning’s Lexington Herald-Leader:

Man found dead with gunshot wound, marking Lexington’s first homicide of 2023

by Christopher Leach | Tuesday, February 7, 2023 | 6:41 AM EST | Updated: 8:54 AM EST

Marquis Tompkins, Jr, photo via Evelyn Schiltz of WLEX-TV. Click to enlarge.

Lexington police are investigating the city’s first homicide of 2023 after a man was shot dead Monday night.

Police said the shooting happened just before 7 p.m. on the 500 block of Toner Street, which is close to the Dunbar Community Center. When police arrived they found a man suffering from a gunshot wound inside a vehicle.

That man was pronounced dead on scene by the Fayette County Coroner’s Office, according to police. The coroner identified the victim as Marquis Tompkins Jr., 24.

Police don’t have any suspect information and are asking the public’s help for tips. Anonymous tips can be submitted to Bluegrass Crime Stoppers by calling (859) 253-2020, online at www.bluegrasscrimestoppers.com, or through the P3 Tips app available at www.p3tips.com.

This is the city’s first homicide of 2023. Last year there were 44 homicides, resetting the annual record.

There were no killings last month, marking the first time Lexington went without a homicide in a month since February 2019, according to police.

The first thing I did, when I saw this story, was check back. Christopher Leach, the reporter for what my best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal, wrote both the article cited above and the one on January 24^th, “Lexington man accused of repeatedly kicking pregnant woman, leading to fetal homicide.” Did he simply forget what he wrote just two weeks previously, or is it that, for the newspaper, the killing of an unborn child just doesn’t count as a homicide?

It does under the law, of course, and according to the public records of the Fayette County Detention Center, Mr Vasquez-Barradas is still behind bars, apparently unable to have made his $300,000 bail on his charge of Fetal Homicide, First Degree, which, under KRS §507A.020, is a capital offense,^[1]The penalty for a capital offense under KRS §532.030 is: death; or imprisonment for life without benefit of probation or parole; or imprisonment for life without benefit of probation or parole … Continue reading the same as Murder under KRS §507.020. According to the Detention Center public records, that charge of Fetal Homicide remains in force; it has not yet been reduced.

We already knew that the newspaper’s editorial position supported abortion, with columnist Linda Blackford just loving her some prenatal infanticide. But now the newspaper, which fully reported Mr Vasquez-Barradas’ charges, really, really, really doesn’t want to admit that the killing of an unborn child is a homicide. That the city government, which also supports abortion, doesn’t want to list that homicide on its homicide investigations page, has become obvious by the fact that 18 days after the killing, it has not been listed. To be fair, that page is not updated daily, but by 2½ weeks later, it should have been. If the murder of Marquis Tompkins, which has not yet been listed, is listed without the murder of the unborn child, it will confirm what I have written.

It’s simple, really: if the killing of an unborn child when the mother has not sought an abortion is a homicide, then it is also a homicide, the killing of one human being by another, when done in a deliberate abortion. That’s a fact that the left simply cannot abide.

My Twitter feed frequently shows me stories about how the Russo-Ukrainian War has devastated the Russian economy and how Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has led the country down the toilet. But, alas!, it seems that maybe, just maybe, things haven’t gone quite as we’ve been told. From The New York Times:

Russia Sidesteps Western Punishments, With Help From Friends

A surge in trade by Russia’s neighbors and allies hints at one reason its economy remains so resilient after sweeping sanctions.

by Ana Swanson | Tuesday, January 31, 2023 | 5:00 AM EST

WASHINGTON — A strange thing happened with smartphones in Armenia last summer.

Shipments from other parts of the world into the tiny former Soviet republic began to balloon to more than 10 times the value of phone imports in previous months. At the same time, Armenia recorded an explosion in its exports of smartphones to a beleaguered ally: Russia.

The trend, which was repeated for washing machines, computer chips and other products in a handful of other Asian countries last year, provides evidence of some of the new lifelines that are keeping the Russian economy afloat. Recent data show surges in trade for some of Russia’s neighbors and allies, suggesting that countries like Turkey, China, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are stepping in to provide Russia with many of the products that Western countries have tried to cut off as punishment for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Those sanctions — which include restrictions on Russia’s largest banks along with limits on the sale of technology that its military could use — are blocking access to a variety of products. Reports regularly filter out of Russia about consumers frustrated by high-priced or shoddy goods, ranging from milk and household appliances to computer software and medication, said Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in an event at the think tank this month.

Even so, Russian trade appears to have largely bounced back to where it was before the invasion of Ukraine last February. Analysts estimate that Russia’s imports may have already recovered to prewar levels, or will soon do so, depending on their models.

There’s a lot more at the original, but, put basically, Russia has found new routes of trade, including through Turkey, a NATO member nation, to make up for those cut off by Western economic sanctions. It should have been obvious: with China as an ally, Russia was never going to be hit as hard as Western economic projections had guesstimated, and it’s pretty difficult to restrict technology as long as China is there.

FESCO, the Russian Far East Shipping Company, added a new FESCO Turkey Black Sea Service on the Novorossiysk – Istanbul – Gebze – Novorossiysk route in April of 2022, as the Western sanctions were starting to take hold. Many consumer goods imports by Russia fell following the post-invasion sanctions, but Western brands which were restricted have been replaced by Chinese goods.

We shouldn’t kid ourselves: just because the Western nations have decided that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is horrible does not mean that nations outside of Western culture have just gone along with that. China, for one, has a vested interest in seeing the West waste money and military equipment sending aid to Ukraine, to see it get expended on the Ukrainian battlefields, and if Xi Jinping isn’t all that interested in seeing Russia grow stronger, seeing the West get weaker certainly brings a smile to his face.

China’s only real worry? That Russia will up the ante by using a couple of ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons against Ukrainian positions and supply and transfer depots for Western military hardware. Crossing the nuclear threshold would have Western leaders defecating in their pants, which both Russia and China know and would love to see, but there’s no guarantee that a limited use of nuclear weapons would stay limited.

The war has gone on for eleven months now, and if there will be no real winner between Russia and Ukraine — Russia will continue to see serious sanctions and have a huge loss of military prestige, while Ukraine, even if it somehow ‘wins,’ has been devastated — China has already won. And the longer the war continues, the bigger China’s win will become.

The Philadelphia Police Department have reported 23 homicides so far this year in the City of Brotherly Love, while Broad + Liberty shows 26. That website, having reported the undercounting via the classification of ‘suspicious’ deaths not listed as homicides, is using various police reports as its source.

But regardless of whether we use the Philadelphia Police Department’s statistics, or Broad + Liberty’s, one thing is certain: Through the first 22 days of January, Philadelphia has seen a lot fewer murders than the previous three years.

We had previously noted the decline in the homicide rate in the City of Brotherly Love that began last November, and it at least seems to be continuing into this year. After Hallowe’en, Philadelphia saw 71 homicides, over 61 days, an average of 1.1639 per day. With 23 homicides in 22 days — using the Police Department’s figures — 2023 is seeing 1.0455 per day, or, using Broad + Liberty’s numbers, 26 in 22 days, for an average of 1.1818 per day. Given that only three weeks plus one day have passed, either of those figures is reasonably in line with the numbers seenj over the last two months in the city.

Could Philly see fewer than 500 murders in 2023? The total would have to be ‘just’ 422 to bring the four-year average under Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw under 500 per year, which would be achievable if the homicide rate being seen these first three weeks holds steady for the year, but we all know that murders pick up when summer arrives. But there is at least some hope, at least statistically speaking, that the total will be under 500 this year.

Well, enough of you decided to vote for the abortion party and got fooled by the “we’ll lose our democracy!!!!!” schtick, and, y’all just need to suck it up and deal with the escalating prices. Good job, idiots

The US has just 25 days of diesel supply — the lowest since 2008. Here’s why that’s more alarming than a dwindling ‘oil piggy bank’

The U.S. is facing a diesel crunch just as demand is surging ahead of winter — with only 25 days of supply left, according to the Energy Information Administration.

National Economic Council Director Brian Deese told Bloomberg TV that diesel inventories are “unacceptably low” and “all options are on the table” to bolster supply and reduce prices.

However, even as the stockpiles are being drained, the Biden administration seems to be left with very few sustainable options for long-term relief.

Unlike gas and jet fuel, demand for diesel recovered at a much faster pace from the pandemic. Diesel is used for transporting goods as well as powering construction, farming and military vehicles and equipment. (snip)

The market usually moves into “contango” — the opposite of backwardation, where demand is lower and suppliers build up inventory with the expectation of higher future prices — in the summer. However, strong domestic and international demand, shrinking domestic refining capacity and sanctions on Russian petroleum imports have kept the diesel market tight throughout the year.

So, what can be done?

If diesel inventory continues to run down without the government intervening, the impact on transportation costs for goods could drive inflation up even further.

Deese adds that the Fed has some tools to bolster diesel supply, like the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve, which houses one million barrels of diesel in case of a disruption in supplies.

So, digging into emergency reserves?

Experts have also pointed out that the current 25.8 days worth of diesel only represents what’s in storage — and doesn’t factor in the amount of distillate fuel being produced in the U.S. or imported here. Which means the country isn’t guaranteed to run out of diesel within a month.

But The Washington Post reports that diesel demand is so high, that if a million barrels of diesel were delivered from the Northeast reserves, they would be depleted in less than six hours.

It’s a little late, but, the government could authorize more refineries to be built. That would help. But, they idiot lefties have been destroying refining capacity for decades.

If you’re not helping the mission, you’re hurting the mission. And the mission is to win the White House, Senate, and House in 2024, as well as state general assemblies and governors. This is not helping

Youngkin, like DeSantis, faces Trump’s fury

Fresh off a diatribe against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom he derisively described as an “average” Republican in a Thursday social media post, former President Donald Trump on Friday morning went after another popular Republican governor — Glenn Youngkin of Virginia — in what seemed like a warning meant to dissuade him from seeking the presidency in 2024.

“Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, his proprietary social media network. It is not clear why he falsely insinuated that Youngkin was of Chinese ancestry (the origins of the governor’s name are Germanic), but Trump has a record of rhetoric against China and Chinese people, which during the coronavirus pandemic contributed to anti-Asian rhetoric and violence.

First, Trump did not denigrate Chinese people, he blocked them from coming over near the beginning of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. And, if memory serves, the Democrats and their pet media called Trump a raaaaacist for that. Second, here’s what it looks like in full

Trump now attacking Glenn Youngkin .. pic.twitter.com/eEEPcAMplX

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) November 11, 2022

A less combative and polarizing figure than DeSantis, Youngkin could hold more appeal to suburban voters, who helped him win in the northern Virginia suburbs, which have sometimes been seen as a presidential bellwether. Throughout the fall, he and DeSantis both campaigned for Republican candidates, albeit in different states.

Will he run? Will DeSantis run? How about Greg Abbott, Nikki Haley, Kristi Noem, or Doug Ducey? Regardless, we saw this show in 2016, and we do not need a reboot. It would go over as well as the reboot of Charmed. Not good. His time is past. Much of his schtick has gotten stale and old. Sure, he can fill a concert venue for a speech. But, it should not be about him anymore. It needs to be about taking back the country from the Modern Socialists. He wants to be a celebrity.

I’m moving on. I gave up on Palin back in 2011 (can’t find that post, I think I might have only written it at Right Wing News. Probably have to dig further back in the archives). In a later post here and at RWN on Palin endorsing Trump

Many of you know my feelings on the subject of Sarah Palin. She lost my support politically when she played the will she/won’t she game in regards to running for president last time around. She resigned as Governor of Alaska, supposedly to deal with all the legal issues for all the suits and things aimed her way from Liberals. Many Conservatives thought this would give her the chance to get ready to run for President, especially as she put together a PAC. Then she had her little bus tour, for which she also quit halfway through. She said she was going to do it her way, and did not compete in any debates. Then, after being asked again and again, and missing a self imposed deadline, all while raising lots of money for her PAC off the possibility, she said “no.” Interestingly, many others are coming to the same conclusion, such as Powerline’s John Hinderaker

Maybe not. Today Sarah Palin endorsed Trump, to the delight of theNew York Times. Now they get to call Trump a conservative. I was a fan of Palin, until she succumbed to the siren song of celebrity, abandoned her post as Governor of Alaska and went Hollywood. One thing Palin and Trump have in common is that they are both stars of reality TV shows. Maybe someone needs to explain to both of them that reality television is not great preparation for dealing with reality.

Trump is going too much back to celebrity, he has way too many legal issues (real or not, it matters not). He won’t change, and it’s hurting.

Too be clear, I’m speaking for me, not for The First Street Journal Editor.

Who wants to bet that Biden and his people ignore the rulings?

U.S. judge declares Biden’s student debt relief plan unlawful

A federal judge in Texas on Thursday ruled that President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt was unlawful and must be vacated, delivering a victory to conservative opponents of the program.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump in Fort Worth, ruled in a lawsuit backed by the Job Creators Network Foundation on behalf of two borrowers.

The debt relief plan had already been temporarily blocked by the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals while it considers a request by six Republican-led states to enjoin it while they appealed the dismissal of their own lawsuit.

Biden’s plan has been the subject of several lawsuits by conservative state attorneys general and legal groups, though plaintiffs before Thursday had struggled to convince courts they were harmed by it in such a way that they have standing to sue.

The plan would saddle working and middle class taxpayers with paying off loans that people legally signed for, often getting degrees that can’t bring in the money to repay the loans. And then there are people who are making $100k a year, claiming they cannot repay.

Pittman in a 26-page ruling wrote that the HEROES Act – a law that provides loan assistance to military personnel and that was relied upon by the Biden administration to enact the relief plan – did not authorize the $400 billion student loan forgiveness program.

“The Program is thus an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power and must be vacated,” Pittman wrote.

I’m sure Biden will appeal, but, will he and his people work hard to fight? He got what he needed, lots of youths getting out and voting, minimizing the damage in the midterms. Biden may not even try to take it to the Supreme Court, because, come 2024, Biden and the Dems can promise to fight for loan forgiveness if they re-elect Biden and give him Congress.

Despite this being the Bluegrass State, Kentucky’s second-largest newspaper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, is unabashedly liberal. We have previously noted their editorial endorsements:

• 2020: Joe Biden for President, Amy McGrath Henderson for Senate, and Josh Hicks for 6^th District Representative;^[1]Notably, the editors endorsed Charles Booker over Mrs Henderson in the Democratic primary, saying that he was the more progressive candidate. Mrs Henderson once said, “I am further left, I am … Continue reading
• 2018: Amy McGrath Henderson for 6^th District Representative
• 2016: Hillary Clinton for President, Jim Gray for Senate, and Nancy Jo Kemper for 6^th District Representative
• 2014: Alison Lundergan Grimes for Senate, and Elisabeth Jensen for 6^th District Representative

All Democrats, and all defeated in Kentucky and in the 6^th District. It seems that the Herald-Leader Editorial Board isn’t exactly in tune with the voters of the Commonwealth. Note that the 2016 and 2014 Democratic nominees for the 6^th congressional district were political novices, and the editors struggled to find much good reason to endorse them. Representative Andy Barr (R-KY 6^th District) beat them both by landslide margins.^[2]Dr Malcolm Jewell, one of my political science professors at the University of Kentucky during medieval times, defined a landslide margin as 10% or greater.

In fact, with the exception of the 6^th district race in 2018, the editors’ endorsed candidates lost by landslide margins. Even in 2018, with Mrs Henderson outspending Mr Barr $8,274,396 to $5,580,477, she lost 51.0% to 47.8%.

In her Senate campaign, Mrs Henderson raised $94,120,557 and spent $90,775,744 compared to Senator Mitch McConnell’s $71,351,350 and $64,787,889, only to lose 38.2% to 57.8%. As it happens, Mrs Henderson had the lowest percentage total against Mr McConnell of any of his opponents save sacrificial lamb candidate Lois Combs Weinberg in 2002.

Of course, the newspaper is big, big, big, on protecting homosexual and transgender rights. So, it was with some amusement that I read this article:

What are some warning signs of sexual abuse or grooming? This is what the experts say

by Aaron Mudd | Thursday, September 29, 2022 | 9:00 AM EDT

It’s not lost on parents that the manipulative behaviors perpetrators use to set children up for sexual abuse are designed to be subtle and often appear innocent.

According to child advocate Janna Estep-Jordan, what many may not realize is that in these unsettling situations, perpetrators are also working the parents, too.

“Perpetrators, they groom a child, but they groom a family as well,” said Estep-Jordan, director of operations and prevention education with Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky, an advocacy group that makes the prevention of abuse and neglect of Kentucky’s children its mission.

Discerning between sexually-motivated manipulation and normal child-adult interactions can be difficult at times, as the National Children’s Advocacy Center points out.

So how do you tell the difference between what’s acceptable and what’s not?

Sounds like a useful article, does it not? I am not going to cite all of Aaron Mudd’s, the reporter’s, points, but some really caught my eye:

• Treating a child as if they’re an adult. This behavior often begins with humor: the abuser will tell a risque joke to the child with the aim of getting them slowly acclimated to adult topics. If the tactic backfires, the abuser can fall back on gaslighting: “It’s just a joke” or “Don’t be so sensitive.”
• If the child is of a younger age, Jordan said they may have an age-inappropriate knowledge about sexual relationships. A potential red flag related to this includes children acting out sexual behaviors or recruiting their peers to do the same, Jordan said. The key here is the knowledge of something that a child of that particular age wouldn’t typically know.

I’ve reformatted the second point, which was three separate paragraphs in the original. But when I read these things, what jumped immediately into my mind were the tactics that the homosexual and transgender activists have been using. Heidi Klaassen, a writer for Salon, wrote “Drag is not dangerous: How exposing your kids to drag performance can be a good thing“. There was “DRAG THE KIDS TO PRIDE – A Family Friendly Drag Show,” including children putting money into the thongs of male drag queens dancing.

How is this not treating children like adults, to get them acclimated to adult topics? How is this not providing kids with “age-inappropriate knowledge about sexual relationships?” Yet if conservatives call the homosexual and transgender activists “groomers,” the left wax apoplectic!

I am amused: the very liberal Herald-Leader just warned readers that the very things the far-left sex activists are doing is grooming.

When we noted, just yesterday, that the post-Labor Day surge in homicides in 2021 was not yet showing signs of being repeated this year, we still knew that 2022 would be joining the list of years and mayors in which at least 400 murders had been committed. There was at least some hope that it wouldn’t be the very next day, but there were three more people dead as of 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, September 26^th. Naturally, there were exactly zero stories on this showing on either The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website main page or specific crime page. Fox29’s Steve Keeley noted the ‘milestone’.

2022 is now Philly’s 19^th bloodiest year, a status achieved with more than three months left to go. At a current rate of 1.4870 killings per day, the city is on track for 542.75 murders for the year, still lower than 2021, but very strongly in second-place all time.