“Because there you go to jail”

by · Feb 6, 2024 11:03 am

The Approved Progressive Narrative tells us that criminal penalties have no deterrent effect. After all, people are just driftwood on the ocean, carried wherever the current takes them, so it is unfair and ineffective to punish people whose currents have taken them to commit crimes against other people.

Every once in a while, though, a common-sense contradiction of the Approved Narrative slips through the censorship net, even on media dedicated to promoting it.

Here is a transcript from CNN This Morning on February 2. John Miller, CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst, was reporting on the illegal aliens who attacked NYPD police officers and were promptly released. He noted that although most migrants are hard working, there is a criminal element among them.

These individuals, I went over their rap sheets yesterday, multiple charges, grand larceny, robbery, attempted robbery, grand larceny, grand larceny.

This particular crew operated on mopeds and scooters. They were doing organized retail theft. They were doing snatches on the street, iPhones, iPads, clothing, so on and so forth. One of them that they are still seeking has ten charges on one day because he’s part of a pattern that’s been going on.

And I’m looking at the dates that their arrest started, which is probably close to when they got here. They’ve only been here a couple of months. So, what the detectives are telling me is they have crews here that operate in New York, do all their stealing, then go to Florida to spend the money and then come back. And I’m like, well, why don’t they just stay and steal in Florida? And they said, because there, you go to jail.

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Governor Newsom Proves He’s Clueless About Crime

by · Feb 2, 2024 3:07 pm

California Governor Gavin Newsom was caught on a Zoom forum Wednesday demonstrating that he has no idea how the crime policies he has supported have increased crime, particularly retail theft, across the state. David Propper of the New York Post reports that on the forum the Governor recounted that when he was preparing to check out during a recent visit to a Sacramento Target store, a man walked right out the door with stolen merchandise. Newsom asked the clerk “why didn’t you stop him.” The female clerk responded “She goes, ‘oh, the governor.’ Swear to God, true story on my mom’s grave. ‘The governor lowered the threshold, there’s no accountability.’ I said that’s just not true.” He told her that California’s Proposition 47 made the penalty for thefts of $950 or higher “the 10th toughest in the nation.” The Governor then told the clerk he wanted to see her manager.

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The Problem With Execution by Nitrogen Gas

by · Feb 1, 2024 2:57 pm

In a press release earlier this week The United Nations Office on Human Rights condemned the execution of convicted hitman Kenneth Smith by nitrogen gas as “outrageous” and amounted to “State sanctioned torture.”  The U.N “experts” noted that:

“Smith reportedly took over 20 minutes to die. Witnesses to the execution said that Smith remained conscious for several minutes as he writhed and convulsed on the gurney, gasping for air and pulling on the restraints, shaking violently in prolonged agony.”

Based on that description, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday that the White House found the the use of nitrogen gas “very troubling.” She added that President Joe Biden has “broad concern about the death penalty.”  Not so broad one guesses to prevent his Attorney General from seeking the death penalty for Payton Gendron, who murdered ten people at a Buffalo Grocery Store in 2022.  Smith only beat and stabbed a woman to death for $1,000.

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Inviting Lawlessness

by · Feb 1, 2024 1:10 pm

Last weekend seven illegal aliens attacked two New York police officers in Times Square, beating and kicking them in the head and face. The incident was recorded on security cameras. The New York Daily News reports that six were arrested and charged with assault on a police officer before being released without bail. Five of the six are citizens of Venezuela, one is facing trial for an earlier assault and robbery. All were invited to enter the U.S. illegally by the current president. These criminals are fortunate to be in New York City. They live in tax-supported shelters where they receive free food, clothing and medical care. They don’t worry about being deported because New York is a sanctuary state.  While assaulting a police officer in most other states would put you in jail with high or no bail until trial, in New York City you get released on your own recognizance.  It is doubtful that any of these criminals will show up for trial, and even if they do, progressive Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is likely to cut them a deal to plead guilty for malicious mischief and release them on probation. Think I’m kidding, this is standard procedure in New York under its criminal justice reforms, supposedly adopted for racial justice, as noted in a recent post.

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As Crime Increases, Newsom Releases Murderers and Closes Prisons

by · Jan 29, 2024 12:07 pm

Last month the California Board of Parole Hearings, which is under Governor Newsom’s authority, approved parole for child murderer Patrick Goodman.  Goodman, a repeat felon, beat his girlfriend’s three-year-old son to death in 2000.  Sean O’Driscoll of Newsweek reports that the little boy died of a broken neck, broken ribs, a severed bowel, a severed artery and fifty separate external injuries.  In 2002 Goodwin was convicted of murder and child abuse in San Francisco and sentenced to 25-years-to-life.  Twenty-one years later, after fifteen minutes of deliberation, the two Board  Commissioners announced, “We find that Mr Goodman does not currently pose an unreasonable risk to public safety and is therefore suitable for parole.”  Assistant District Attorney Victoria Murray-Baldocchi pleaded with the Commissioners not to parole Goodman.

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First Nitrogen Hypoxia Execution Completed

by · Jan 26, 2024 9:04 am

The first execution by nitrogen hypoxia was completed yesterday, as Alabama finally executed paid hit-man Kenneth Smith for the murder of Elizabeth Sennett 35 years ago. The hit men stabbed Mrs. Sennett and beat her with a fireplace tool in her home in Colbert County, Alabama. See this story at al.com, published in 2022 and updated yesterday. They had been hired by her husband, who self-executed before he could be charged.

As I have noted several times on this blog, hypoxia is painless, as I know from personal experience in Air Force flight training. Unconsciousness would normally be quick, but one thing we cannot control is the inmate’s resistance by holding his breath. That is apparently what happened yesterday. The AP reporter who witnessed the execution reports that Smith shook the gurney for about two minutes. Some of this was likely voluntary movement while conscious, and some may have been involuntary movement while unconscious. This was followed by several minutes of heavy breathing.*

The WSJ has this story, with video clips from Alabama DOC Commissioner John Hamm and Jeff Hood, identified as Smith’s “spiritual advisor.” Continue reading . . .

Gascon’s False Promise About Zero Bail

by · Jan 25, 2024 11:31 am

Last year when Los Angeles County was considering adopting a zero bail policy, progressive District Attorney George Gascon announced his support saying that letting criminal defendants out without posting bail was safe and would make more of them return to court for trial.  Michael Ruiz of Fox News reports that Gascon’s claims regarding zero bail have turned out to be false.  The most recent example is Victor Duartemacias, one of LA county’s many catalytic converter and car thieves, who led police on a high speed chase the day after Thanksgiving.  Duartemacias was driving a stolen car when he blew through an intersection and smashed into Pedro Barrera’s pickup.  The pickup was hit so hard it knocked down a light pole as the stolen car burst into flames.  Barrera lost an arm in the crash, and died a month later in intensive care.

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Walking Back Drug Decriminalization

by · Jan 23, 2024 2:23 pm

A common source of error in public policy is finding something wrong and “fixing” it by going too far in the other direction. The Oregon Legislature appears to be waking up to the reality that the state went too far in decriminalizing drugs, according to this report by AP.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Democratic lawmakers in Oregon on Tuesday unveiled a sweeping new bill that would undo a key part of the state’s first-in-the-nation drug decriminalization law, a recognition that public opinion has soured on the measure amid rampant public drug use during the fentanyl crisis.

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California Leads the Nation

by · Jan 22, 2024 3:18 pm

A Californian is four times more likely to be killed in a hit and run accident than a person living in New York or Illinois. Marc Sternfield of KTLA reports that data from the National Traffic Safety Board indicate that more than one out of every ten fatal car accidents in the state were hit an run incidents. The national average of traffic fatalities that involve a hit and run driver is 6.33%.  It is 10.48% in California. The city with the highest hit and run death rate is San Francisco at 22% followed by Los Angeles with 15%. Most of the Californians killed by hit an run drivers were pedestrians. California also leads the nation on the number of stolen vehicles according to 2022 data with over 202,000, nearly twice as many as the second-place state of Texas. So the next time a California politician brags about the state being a national leader, believe him.

Illegal Charged With Fatal DUI Crash

by · Jan 19, 2024 11:30 am

An illegal alien from El Salvador, who has been deported four times, is facing vehicular homicide and DUI charges for killing a Colorado mother and son while driving drunk. Greg Norman and Greg Wehner of Fox News report that on December 12, Jose Guadalupe Menjivar-Alas was driving a pickup at high speed in the town of Broomfield when he crashed into a car driven by 47-year-old Melissa Powell, killing her and her 16-year-old son Riordan. Menjivar-Alas had been convicted of drunk driving four times since 2007 and was deported after serving each sentence. Colorado is among the twelve sanctuary states in the U.S. which resist federal efforts to deport illegal aliens.