Category: General

A UCLA study examining deaths among LA’s homeless population during the Covid-19 pandemic reports that 1,493 died in shelters and on the streets.  Nicholas Morgan of the International Business Times reports that most of the deaths over the 17 month study period (March 2020 to July 2021) were not attributed to the virus.  Roughly 40% of those who died on the streets and 60% who died in temporary housing were killed by drug or alcohol overdoses.   So while most Americans were sheltering in their homes, limiting their interaction with others, wearing masks for protection, and being vaccinated, the homeless, who did none of these things were overdosing on drugs or drinking themselves to death.   The fact that the rate of dying from these causes was much higher in government-funded housing than for those sleeping on the sidewalks is disturbing.  Maybe housing should not be the main focus of efforts to address the homeless.  Perhaps putting the homeless in a controlled environment focused on detox, mental health treatment along with job and life skills development might reduce deaths and actually restore some to self sufficiency.  The study also reveals the fact that homeless deaths in LA have been steadily increasing every year since 2014 and has been over 1,000 annually since 2018.

The new issue of JAMA Psychiatry has an alarming article on trends in illicit methamphetamine use.  Not only are more people using; more are dying:

Among adults aged 18 to 64 years from 2015 to 2019, we found a substantial increase (180%) in overdose deaths involving psychostimulants other than cocaine (largely methamphetamine), but this increase was considerably larger than the growth in the number of adults who reported past-year methamphetamine use (43%), indicating riskier patterns of methamphetamine use.

The toll of drug use is a cancer on our society.

Six People were killed and at least 40 were injured after a 39-year-old repeat felon on parole ran down participants in Waukesha, Wisconsin’s annual Christmas Parade on Sunday.  18 of the victims are children and 10 are in intensive care.  Michael Ruiz of Fox News reports that the suspect, Darrell Brooks, Jr.  had a 50 page rap sheet of criminal charges going back two decades, and was free on bail awaiting trial on charges of battery, domestic abuse, resisting arrest and bail jumping.  Current Wisconsin law does not consider these to be serious crimes and does not hold criminals in jail who were on parole or probation when they are arrested for them.  Last February Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a democrat, vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature which required offenders who commit new crimes while on parole or probation to be returned to prison or jail.  In his veto message Evans expressed his support for “policies that focus on rehabilitation and reduce incarceration, particularly the over-incarceration of poor people and people of color.”  Brooks was one of the “people of color” Evans protected from over-incarceration.  Continue reading . . .

Here’s the headline from the CNN story (no, not Breitbart):  “A California couple vanished after stealing millions in Covid-19 relief funds. They left a goodbye note for their three kids.”

Look, we don’t want to be too judgmental here.  The kiddies got a goodbye note! There might even be a jar of peanut butter left in the pantry.  And Covid relief has been over-hyped anyway.  Please, can we put away the sourpuss Puritanism?

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As noted in an earlier post, a Black Lives Matter (BLM) leader in New York City has threatened riots, fire and bloodshead if Mayor-elect Eric Adams restores the police department’s 600 member Anti-Crime Unit, which was disbanded last year.  In a piece in today’s Daily Mail, Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald breaks down the impact that decision last year had on crime in the Big Apple.  The unit had for several years, removed thousands of guns from gang members on New York streets and played a critical role in controlling violent crime.  In June of 2020 after several days of BLM riots over the death of George Floyd, which ravaged the city and injured 400 officers,  Police Commissioner Dermott Shea and Mayor Bill de Blasio  “desperate to show their sympathy with the anti-cop forces” disbanded the unit.  “Though stopping and questioning suspects short of making an arrest is a constitutional power, Shea labeled such stops as `brute force.’  The fall-out from Shea’s announcement was immediate.

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In a 5-3 decision today the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a stay of execution for Oklahoma murderer John Grant.  Sean Murphy of the Middletown Press reports that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals had granted a stay yesterday for Grant’s scheduled execution today.  Today’s action by SCOTUS makes it likely that the execution will be carried out.  It will be the first execution in Oklahoma since 2015.  Grant was serving a 150-year sentence for several armed robberies when in 1998, he dragged a female prison cafeteria worker into a closet and stabbed her 16 times with a homemade shank.  Along with Grant, four other condemned Oklahoma murderers lost their federal District Court suit last week seeking to block their pending executions, arguing that the state’s three drug protocol might cause pain in violation of  the 8th Amendment bar against cruel and unusual punishment.

Update:   Grant was executed on Thursday night.

The answer is yes, according to a Los Angeles Times OpEd by former Los Angeles District Attorneys Ira Reiner and Gil Garcetti and former federal prosecutor Miriam Aroni Krinsky.   Their piece “Stop obstructing criminal justice reforms.  It’s making us less safe,”  cites evidence-based polices like the ones progressive LA District Attorney Gascon “is implementing in Los Angeles hold people accountable without relying on extreme sentences, and they save taxpayer dollars that could be invested in things that actually have an impact on crime, such as public health, housing, education and violence prevention.”  The trio point to the 1980s and 90s when, “California embarked on a disastrous social experiment…….that ratcheted up punishment in criminal cases.  The negative impact of these policies overwhelming fell on poor, Black and brown communities.”   Let’s take a look at that negative impact.

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“A recent poll from Morning Consult/Politico found that 78 percent of voters believe that violent crime is a major problem in the United States, and nearly as high a percentage thought that the problem is getting worse,” as noted by Josh Crawford and Abigal Hall of the Pegasus Institute.  Their piece in Real Clear Policy points out that while media attention regarding violent crime and homicide is focused on large cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, “it’s midsize cities in the middle of the country which have seen the largest increases in violent crime.   Murder has exploded in Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Birmingham, for example – but perhaps no city better illustrates this reality than Louisville.”

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In 2003, progressive hedge fund billionaire George Soros emerged as a major player in national politics when he gave $23 million in a failed attempt to defeat George W. Bush.  In the years that followed he continued to pour millions into liberal causes and national campaigns and in 2020 was the largest single contributor to liberal candidates and causes in the entire country, giving a reported $50 million to PACs funding campaigns ranging from Joe Biden for President to progressive candidates for local district attorney races.  Since 2015, Soros’ New York based Open Society Foundations (there are three) have funneled millions through a network of non-profit “527″ groups spread across the country, to encourage the adoption of laws reducing sentences for habitual criminals and to elect district attorneys who refuse to seek the death penalty for murderers, refuse to prosecute drug dealers, thieves and wife beaters, and seek the shortest sentences possible for violent offenders.

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