‘Right Wing Death Squad’? Bizarre Claims About Texas Outlet Mall Gunman

Posted on | May 7, 2023 | 1 Comment

When it was first reported that the gunman in the shooting at the Premium Outlets mall in Allen, Texas — about 30 miles north of Dallas — was named Mauricio Garcia, I thought, “Well, that’s weird.” It was also reported that police needed a translator to talk to the gunman’s family, which would suggest that they are recent immigrants. From such few tidbits of information, one could hardly draw any conclusion about the killer’s motive, but then it was reported that he was wearing a “RWDS” (Right Wing Death Squad) patch and that his social media postings included “neo-Nazi” stuff. This does not compute.

Garcia had once worked as a security guard, but it appears his license expired three years ago, and then there is this:

Garcia had been living in some form of transient lodging, according to the law enforcement source. Law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation told ABC News that preliminary information developed in the probe indicates that the shooter was in the U.S. Army in 2008 and was “removed due to mental health concerns.”

So, he was too crazy for the Army, had lost his security guard license and had apparently moved out of his parents’ home into “transient lodging.” These are more tidbits that could be interpreted to mean different things. I’ve seen two mug shots of this guy on Twitter, but don’t know if they’re verified. I’ve also seen people claiming the guy had gang tattoos, but can’t verify that, either. Probably none of this matters, in terms of the overall media narrative, which is mainly about blaming the guns.

Category: Crime, Texas

Fake Indian Syndrome

Posted on | May 6, 2023 | Comments Off on Fake Indian Syndrome

“Cultural appropriation” is now so frowned upon that the friendly face of the Land O’ Lakes maiden has been banished as racist, although it is far from clear how anyone was harmed by butter package labels. We’re not supposed to question the logic of these Crusades of the Anointed, but rather just accept the claims by some group of “activists” about what is offensive — rename the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians, banish Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben from the grocery shelves, do whatever the activists say, because to do otherwise is racist.

Much of the energy behind these revisionist crusades comes from the progressive hives of academia, where identity politics has been weaponized as the ultimate arbiter of power. To be white, male or heterosexual — or, God forbid, all three — is to partake of unjust privilege, according to scholars tutored in the power-matrix ideologies of Foucault, et al., who see the world as a conspiracy of oppression aimed at women, racial minorities and those on the LGBTQ spectrum of sexuality.

This paranoid obsession with identity has had the effect of incentivizing fraud, as in the notorious case of Elizabeth “Fauxcahontas” Warren, who spent years falsely claiming to be Native American in order to qualify as a “diversity” hire in academia’s affirmative action regime. Such cases are apparently common, as in the recent example of Kay LeClaire:

The University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW Madison) awarded a $5,000 residency to Kay LeClaire, a woman recently exposed for faking her Native American ancestry.
LeClaire is the latest “pretendian” who profits by providing art or expertise to universities, museums, or other institutions, all of which are pushing for inclusivity in curriculum, faculty makeup, and exhibitions.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that LeClaire served as “community leader in residence for the Center for Design and Material Culture,” a residency dedicated to “the development of a toolkit and curriculum around cultural appropriation.”
John Lucas with UW-Madison Communications told Campus Reform that “LeClaire is a prominent figure in the community,” and the university learned about her faked ancestry “through reports on social media and local media.”
“LeClaire’s campus residency was ending at the end of 2022,” he continued. “She resigned before the formal end date. It will not be renewed.”

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.) Among the weird details of Kay LeClaire’s story is that in 2019, she protested against a new Madison nightclub calling itself The Winnebago. This was a perfectly logical name, as the club’s address was 2262 Winnebago Street. In the wake of LeClaire’s protest, the club changed its name to The Burr Oak, but the street is still called Winnebago, so what exactly was the “social justice” benefit?

It is claimed that “Winnebago” has an etymology that is derogatory, and articles supportive of LeClaire’s protest made reference to the tribe “on whose stolen ancestral lands Madison sits,” to which any sensible person can only reply: “So?” Is there some proposal that all the white people should leave these “ancestral lands” so that they might be reclaimed by the tribe’s descendants? The current population of Madison is 269,840. The entire Ho-Chunk Nation (said to be the original occupants of this region) numbers less than 7,000. The city of Madison constitutes about 77 square miles of land. Between reservation and trust lands, the Ho-Chunk Nation controls about 16 square miles of land in Wisconsin, none of which seems to be near Madison. So how does the naming of a nightclub on Winnebago Street in Madison become controversial, with local media making noise about “stolen ancestral lands”?

Such controversies are fundamentally irrational, as the activists are not interested in anything other than inciting an emotional reaction, appealing to “progressive” sentiment about the historical injustices suffered by various victim groups, whose supposed grievances are leveraged to gain political advantage. Kay LeClaire started making a public spectacle of herself as an indigenous activist around 2017, claiming to have various ancestral claims to Native American identity, until some anonymous person on the Internet began researching her genealogy and determined that, in fact, LeClaire’s ancestry is German, Swedish and French Canadian. And, as I say, such “pretendians” are a proliferating phenomenon in academia, especially in Canada: Professor Carrie Bourassa (University of Saskatchewan), President Vianne Timmons (Memorial University of Newfoundland), and Gina Adams (Emily Carr University), among others, prompting a very obvious inquiry: “Why so many Canadians pretend to be indigenous.”

The demand for increased indigenous representation in Canadian universities is the main motive for the cases there, but the U.S. certainly has no shortage of such frauds:

An anthropology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, whose identity as Native American had been questioned for years apologized this week for falsely identifying as Indigenous, saying she is “a white person” who lived an identity based on family lore.
Elizabeth Hoover, associate professor of environmental science, policy and management, said in an apology posted Monday on her website that she claimed an identity as a woman of Mohawk and Mi’kmaq descent but never confirmed that identity with those communities or researched her ancestry until recently.
“I caused harm,” Hoover wrote. “I hurt Native people who have been my friends, colleagues, students, and family, both directly through fractured trust and through activating historical harms. This hurt has also interrupted student and faculty life and careers. I acknowledge that I could have prevented all of this hurt by investigating and confirming my family stories sooner. For this, I am deeply sorry.”
Hoover’s alleged Indigenous roots came into question in 2021 after her name appeared on an “Alleged Pretendian List.” The list compiled by Jacqueline Keeler, a Native American writer and activist, includes more than 200 names of people Keeler says are falsely claiming Native heritage.

Adrienne Keene has an exhaustive examination of Hoover’s fakery, complete with obituaries and census records about Hoover’s actual ancestors, the majority of whom came from upstate New York, north of Albany, and none of whom had any connection to the tribes from which Hoover claimed descent. Much like Liz Warren, Hoover used the claim of “family lore” to defend her appropriation of indigenous identity, but doesn’t it seem curious that an academic with proven abilities as a researcher would have never taken the time to investigate her own family tree? So much data is now available online that anyone can research their genealogy quite easily — not like the pre-Internet era, when you had to scroll through lots of microfilm of census records. This makes it difficult for someone like Hoover to defend herself by claiming she made an innocent mistake, basing her identity claims on “family lore” when it would be so easy to verify or disprove such tales of indigenous ancestry. No, it is entirely fair to assume that such deceptions are deliberate, and that academics like Hoover are trying to game the system, enhancing their career potential by adding extra “diversity” to their resumés.

Category: Education, Racism

In The Mailbox: 05.05.23

Posted on | May 6, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.05.23

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: War: Cinco De Mayo
Twitchy: Ayanna Pressley – “Clarence Thomas Must Resign”, Adam Schiff Laughed Off Twitter For Cringe Star Wars Tweets, and Check Out This Brutal Split-Screen As DHS Head Mayorkas Claims “The Border Is Not Open”
Louder With Crowder: Viral video of an empty Bud Light stand at Fenway Park proves what enormous trouble the company’s in, Woke nincompoops are coming after “Bluey,” accuse the world’s greatest dad of being a fat shamer, and Neil deGrasse Tyson Gets Obliterated, Out-Scienced on Twitter by…Steak-umm.
Vox Popoli: U-Stasi in Action, also, Running Out of Rabbits
According To Hoyt: It’s The End Of The World, The Order of Consequences, and Throwing Darts At Popcorn
Monster Hunter Nation: The Futility of Trying
Stoic Observations: Several AI Scenarios

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Supporting, Not Transforming, American Agriculture, also, The War on Porn Is Not Enough
American Greatness: Soros-Backed St. Louis Attorney Kim Gardner Resigns, Israeli Whistleblower With Info on Biden Corruption Disappears in Cyprus After Saying Biden Regime Wants to ‘Bury Him’, and Colorado Teachers’ Union Passes Resolution Declaring that Capitalism ‘Inherently Exploits Children’
American Power: ‘Rochelle Walensky is a monster for what she did during the Covid pandemic.’
American Thinker: Savor Trump’s Electoral Landslide — Until the Phantoms Vote, also, US Weakness Invites Iranian Attacks on Shipping in the Gulf
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Global Currency Friday
Babalu Blog: Elderly man in Cuba faints from hunger while walking down the street, Cuban Catholic bishops should make no concessions to the Castro dictatorship, and Cuban dictatorship seals pact with Russia to launch ‘Russian-Cuban investment initiative’ (aka colonization)
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm for May 5
Behind The Black: ESA finally admits — sort of — that private enterprise can do it better, Lockheed Martin reorganizes its space divisions to better compete in the new commercial market, Celestis recovers astronaut’s remains from suborbital rocket explosion, Hubble captures shadows on star’s outer accretion disk cast by inner accretion disk, and The modern corrupt legislative way of doing business: Know nothing, fund everything!
Cafe Hayek: Oren Cass Again Grossly Understates the Rise In Ordinary Americans’ Wages
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Feed the Bums (BudLight) Tuppence a Can
Don Surber: Keeping Us Confused
Gates Of Vienna: Shanked on the Bus in Eupen, also, All Your Kids Are Belong to Us
The Geller Report: El Paso Declares Border Migrant ‘State of Emergency’, Soros-Backed Prosecutor Kimberly Gardner Resigns As Missouri AG Moved To Have Her Forcibly Removed From Office, and Emails Show Former CIA Director Mike Morell Conspired with CIA Director John Brennan to Call the Hunter Biden Laptop Story, ‘Russian Disinformation.’
Hogewash: H is for “Hot” and “Huge”, Fact Checking the Fact Chekists, I’m Not Making This Up, You Know, and Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Hollywood In Toto: Woke Killed Comedy (Check Out the Frightening Numbers), also, Richard Dreyfuss: Oscar’s New Diversity Rules ‘Make Me Vomit’
The Lid: Joe Manchin: Biden Won’t Like Him When He’s Angry
Legal Insurrection: Duke University Students Launch Campaign to Disinvite Law Prof Over Her LGBT Opinions, New York State Now Banning Natural Gas Hookups in Some New Construction, ‘Radical DEI Bureaucracy’ Reportedly Created at University of Texas, U. Albany Prof Arrested for ‘Obstructing Pro-Life Display and Then Resisting Arrest’, and UC-Berkeley Prof Admits She’s a White Person After Claiming She was Native American Her ‘Whole Life’
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Veronika Rajek Done With Tom Brady, Parties With Shaq, David Njoku, Deion Sanders Is Turning Over Colorado Roster With Help From NCAA Rule; AD Rick George Fully Supports, Big 12 Will Spice Up Telecasts With XFL-Like Production Including In-Game Player Interviews, Mic’d Up Coaches, NESN Turns Off Twitter Comments After First Female D1 Baseball Player Blows First Pitch, Tommy Tuberville Says Megan Rapinoe Would Work At A Grocery Store If She Had To Compete Against Men, and Cam Newton Blames Hairstyle As Reason He’s Not In NFL
Power Line: Thoughts from the ammo line, Sheldon Whitehouse plays Elmer Fudd, and The Ruling Class at Play
Shark Tank: Cory Mills Calls Biden Cartels’ MVP, also, DeSantis Ends Legislative Session by Bashing Child Castration/Mutilation & Pedophiles
Shot In The Dark: Profile In Cowardice, Communicating With The MN DFL Part X, and Deadsville
STUMP: Podcast: Choices Have Consequences – Pension Obligation Bonds
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – The Nixon Presidency
This Ain’t Hell: Friday Short Takes – Army/Navy shortfalls, Sludge Light down, Valor Friday, Neighbor claims that a veteran was behind pounds of pasta dumped in the woods, Marine veteran places Jordan Neely in chokehold, Kathy Hochul wants justice, and Proposed rule change would require U.S. government approval for land related purchases near eight military bases
Transterrestrial Musings: About That Attack On The Kremlin, Our Disastrous Educational System, and The Need For responsive Space
Victory Girls: Hunter Laptop Letter Was Planted As Debate Cover For Joe
Volokh Conspiracy: Is It “Abuse of Corpse” to Have Sex on Mattress That Partly Covers Your Ex-Girlfriend’s Dead Body?
Watts Up With That: Silence of the Grid Experts, also, Biden and the Bank Crash – Why Biden’s Green Energy Push is Driving US Banks into Insolvency
Weasel Zippers: Kamala Harris’ Word Salad Of The Day: “Very Good In Terms Of Us Addressing The Concern”, also, Denver City Council Member: Tax White-Owned Businesses And Give It To Black, Brown-Owned Businesses
The Federalist: Conservatives Won The Word ‘Woke.’ Now It’s Time To Reclaim Accurate Language Everywhere, From Canning ESG To Cracking Down On Crime, Here’s The Major Wins DeSantis Scored For Floridians This Week, Republicans Move To Curb Biden’s Federal Interference In Elections, Of Course Prince Harry Thinks He Can Break Our Immigrations Laws, Everyone Else Does , and Pro-Life Pediatricians Org Survives Cyberattacks Just Weeks After Judge Rules In Its Favor In Abortion Pill Case

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Category: Linkagery

Why Is Ex-Fox Producer Abby Grossberg Trying to Encourage Anti-Semitism?

Posted on | May 5, 2023 | Comments Off on Why Is Ex-Fox Producer Abby Grossberg Trying to Encourage Anti-Semitism?

Today I was scanning headlines at Memeorandum, when I spotted this one from Rolling Stone:

Producer Tells All: How Tucker Carlson Became the GOP’s MAGA Puppeteer
A former producer on Tucker Carlson’s show is revealing just how far the Fox host went to bully top Republicans to come on his show and bend the knee to the MAGA agenda.
Carlson terrified top Republicans with threats to “destroy” them if they failed to do his bidding and used his platform to push a personal agenda on the party’s leadership, Abby Grossberg, who worked as a producer for Carlson’s show starting in August 2022, tells Rolling Stone.
Grossberg says Carlson pressured Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to militarize the southern border, tried to threaten Rep. Michael McCaul over military aid to Ukraine, and pushed Kevin McCarthy — then the aspiring House Speaker — to create the Republican-led committee on the “Weaponization of the Federal Government.”
Grossberg, a former senior producer for Tucker Carlson Tonight, filed a lawsuit in March against the right-wing TV host and Fox News, alleging Carlson and Fox fostered a workplace climate of misogyny and toxicity during her tenure at the company. . . .

You can read the whole thing, but the details don’t matter nearly so much as the glaring fact — which I’m sure anti-Semites must be feasting on — that Tucker got sabotaged by a Jew. It’s just a bad look, OK?

Is there any awareness within the Jewish community of how important it is that they avoid acting in ways that might be interpreted as confirming the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes? Because if so, somebody forgot to tell Abby Grossberg, who might as well be an AI simulation of the Untrustworthy Jew stereotype. If she didn’t actually exist, some neo-Nazi propagandist would have invented her. Being a philo-Semite myself, I hate to see Jews giving aid and comfort to their enemies, which is basically what Abby Grossberg has done by backstabbing Carlson.

As a member of the Appalachian-American community (we can call ourselves “hillbillies,” but consider it an insult if others use “the H-word”), I try to be conscious about avoiding stereotypical hillbilly behavior. There’s a reason why I never learned to play the banjo, and why I don’t drink moonshine whiskey. There are no broken-down old trucks up on blocks in my front yard, and my wife is not my cousin.

Concern for the reputation of my own frequently stigmatized ethnic group inspires me to strive to avoid certain behaviors, and I would hope that other Southerners share my sense of the importance of not acting like redneck trash. Why then do some Jews seem to be oblivious to the way their behavior might encourage anti-Semitism? I mean, a belief isn’t a prejudicial stereotype if you can illustrate it by actual examples, and any Jew-hater can now point to Abby Grossberg and say, “See?”

Truly, she is a shanda fur die goyim.

Category: Fox News

In The Mailbox: 05.04.23 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | May 5, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.04.23 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: How Is That Bail Reform Working Out?
EBL: The Windsors, also, May the 4th be with you
Twitchy: #TwitterFiles Comes For The CBC, NYC’s Mayor Adams Hits Back At Occasional Cortex Over Death Of Subway Crazy, and Heretic Minister Proclaims “Jesus Was A 30-Year-Old Black Man On The Subway”
Louder With Crowder: Anheuser-Busch issues another statement on Bud Light disaster, claims it was “just one can”, Student speaks out after tranny whipped out penis in girls bathroom, assaulted smaller girl who disagreed, and Alex Jones shares what his Tucker Carlson sources tell him REALLY happened
Vox Popoli: The Death of Cities, also, History for Europe

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Roman Lessons From Milley, Greek Lessons From Milley, and Dieu et Mon Droit
American Greatness: Left-Wing Justice Sotomayor Took $3M from Book Publisher, Didn’t Recuse Herself from Cases, Jim Jordan Demands Answers as to Why Supreme Court Protesters Were Not Arrested, and All Hail Greg Abbott, Conqueror of Woke Sanctuary Mayors
American Thinker: Unprecedented Rise in Hate Crimes against American Churches, also, The Countdown of Good vs. Evil – The 2024 Presidential Election
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily San Franmeltdown News
Babalu Blog: Reports from Cuba: Tired of Cuban inefficiency, Vietnamese abandon their successful rice project, Lifestyles of the Rich and Communist: Fidel Castro’s grandson goes skydiving during fuel crisis, Cuba claims one million tourists in first four months of 2023, half of them Canadian, and Texas update – Who’s challenging Senator Ted Cruz now?
BattleSwarm: Ted Cruz Draws A 2024 Challenger, also, Lina Hidalgo’s Continued Contempt for Transparency
Behind The Black: SpaceX launches 56 Starlink satellites into orbit, Maxar sale closes and company goes private, Two interacting galaxies, both with active supermassive black holes at their center, Two Russian astronauts shift airlock on ISS during 7-hour spacewalk, and Today’s blacklisted American: Biden administration threatens to shut down Catholic hospital system because of a candle
Cafe Hayek: Common-‘Good’ Statism
CDR Salamander: Our Navy Needs More Of The War, Less Of The College
Chicago Boyz: Whatever happened to FEE’s Fresh States Project?, also, Nuclear News Update
Da Tech Guy: YouTube Censors FilmLadd So Let’s Post His Video Here, also, Transableism is the next cause de jour that will be crammed down our throats by Leftists
Dana Loesch: It’s Almost Riot Season – The Left’s New Cause Celebre
Don Surber: SCOTUS Is The Left’s New Trump
First Street Journal: In trying to avoid calling street gangs gangs, The Philadelphia Inquirer has again beclowned itself, also, Remember when we were told that it was nobody else’s business what people did in their bedrooms?
Gates Of Vienna: Pope Francis Promotes the Great Replacement
The Geller Report: Whistleblower Says Joe Biden Engaged In “Bribery Scheme With a Foreign National,” ‘Money for Policy Decisions’, SEAL Who Helped Kill Bin Laden Fuming Over Navy’s Drag Queen Ambassador: ‘Can’t Believe I Fought Bor This Bullsh–t’, and The Border is Lost: Biden is Sending 1500 Troops As Title 42 Set to Expire
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, also, Death of a Planet
Hollywood In Toto: Could Guardians Vol. 3 Follow in Ant Man’s Tiny Footprints?, Comedy Coward – Roy Wood Jr. Trembles Before VP Harris, and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Beclowns Itself (Again)
The Lid: Lawless San Francisco Is Becoming A Disaster Zone, also, Dem’s Smear Campaign Against SCOTUS Conservatives Boomerangs On Sotomayor
Legal Insurrection: Nordstrom Closing Two Stores in San Francisco, Citing Crime and Safety Issues, Environmental Activists Sue FAA Over SpaceX Starship Rocket Launch, ‘Dream Defenders’ Protesters Furious That DeSantis Staffer Ate Cake During Their ‘Occupation’ Of Gov’s Office, Colorado Teachers Union Passes Resolution Claiming Capitalism ‘Exploits Children and Public Schools’, and Nonbinary Child of Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark Gets Probation for Assaulting a Cop
Nebraska Energy Observer: Boy, oh boy
Outkick: Oakland A’s Fans Chant ‘Sell The Team’ During Home Game, San Francisco Beat Writer Calls Sam Darnold ‘Most Talented Thrower 49ers Have Ever Had’, Kentucky’s John Calipari Upset That Older Players Are Dominating College Basketball, Jay Williams The Latest ESPN Employee To Be Triggered By The ‘Mount Rushmore’ Metaphor, and Nikola Jokic Whiteness Cost Him The NBA MVP
Power Line: Another Biden Bribery Allegation, Postscript on the National Vote Compact, and In defense of Justice Thomas
Protein Wisdom Reborn: The Stephen Colbert Interview – Uncensored
Shark Tank: DeSantis Set To Sign Protection Of Medical Conscience Into Law
Shot In The Dark: Irrelevant, From The “Being A DFLer Requires Suspending Logic & Reason, If You Ever Had Any” Files, and Communicating With The MN DFL Part IX
The Political Hat: Gender Madness – Transitioning Is A One Way Street, Transitioning Is A Flip-Flop, and Lying To Parents About Children Transitioning
This Ain’t Hell: Pakistan gets US Aid for Transgenders, Sergeant Daniel Perry denied retrial, Gov. Abbott wants to pardon him, and Good girl on carrier
Transterrestrial Musings: AI And The Screwfly Succession, also, The New Ugly Americans
Victory Girls: Atlanta Shooter Caught. Now What, Media?, also, It’s Not About Ethics, It’s About Making SCOTUS Toe The Democrat Line
Volokh Conspiracy: Trump To Remove Criminal Prosecution To Federal Court
Watts Up With That: European Green War on Agriculture: Farmers Banned for Life if they Want Compensation, The Elephants in The Room, and “80% Renewables by 2030 – Its Bullsh*t”
Weasel Zippers: College Professor Banned From Using Words “Male” And “Female” In Research Over Fears of “Misgendering”, Jaw-Dropper: WH Credits Biden For Opening Schools When He Took Office, California’s Slavery Reparations Panel Hints At $1.2 Million Payments To Each Black Resident, and Palestinian Terror Groups Fire 104 Rockets At Israel In One Day
The Federalist: Thanks To The Brave Men Who Saved New York Subway Riders From Jordan Neely, Yes, The Trans Movement Is Coming For Your Kids, Maine Seeks To Enshrine Democrats’ Unpopular Abortion Extremism In State Law Against Citizens’ Wishes, NBC Fabricates Fake Trans Propaganda About Montana Mom Who Cared For Suicidal Daughter, Gov. Kemp Signs Bill Banning Dark Money From Georgia Elections, Dashing Democrats’ Latest Infiltration Efforts, and Alaska Court Rules State House Candidate Should Never Have Been Removed From Special Election Ballot
Mark Steyn: Snerdley Sings Sondheim?, also, Relationship of Fools

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Category: Linkagery

BREAKING: Soros-Funded Kim Gardner Will Resign as St. Louis Prosecutor

Posted on | May 4, 2023 | Comments Off on BREAKING: Soros-Funded Kim Gardner Will Resign as St. Louis Prosecutor

Just Monday, I wrote about this situation (“Another Soros-Funded Disaster”), and now it has quickly moved to a resolution:

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner announced Thursday that, after weeks of blistering pressure from Missouri lawmakers, she would indeed resign, effective June 1.
In a letter addressed to Gov. Mike Parson, Gardner makes no mention of the turmoil in her office nor the extensive staff departures in recent weeks. Instead, she says she is stepping down to prevent the state legislature from passing a bill that would strip her of most of her power and “permanently remove the right of every St. Louis voter to elect their Circuit Attorney.”
“The most powerful weapon I have to fight back against these outsiders stealing your voices and your rights is to step back,” she writes. “I took this job to serve the people of the City of St. Louis, and that’s still my North star.”
News of her departure sent shockwaves through the halls of the two courthouses in downtown St. Louis where victims, defense attorneys, judges and even Gardner’s own staffers had complained for months about critical office departures and widespread dysfunction. It also reverberated through the Capitol in Jefferson City where lawmakers had been debating a bill to strip her of power.
At the same time, the news left questions about who would handle upcoming hearings, communicate with victims and pick up the pieces of an office that now has roughly a third of the attorneys as when Gardner took office.
Gardner declined to speak to a Post-Dispatch reporter about her decision as she left an all-staff meeting at the Carnahan Courthouse on Thursday afternoon.
Gov. Mike Parson will appoint Gardner’s replacement. His spokeswoman said Thursday morning that he would “begin the process to fill this office vacancy.”
Gardner, 47, St. Louis’ first Black circuit attorney, swept into office in 2017 in a national wave of victories for progressive prosecutors, who pledged to be a unifying force and build public trust in the criminal justice system.
Gardner quickly came under scrutiny within months of taking office for mass staff departures. She then about a year into office indicted sitting Gov. Eric Greitens for taking a partially nude photo of a woman in a Central West End basement without her consent. But charges were eventually dropped, an investigator she hired pleaded guilty in federal court to concealing documents in the case and Gardner herself was reprimanded by the Missouri Supreme Court and forced to pay a $750 fee in an ethics case over her office’s mishandling of evidence.
She continued to face public scrutiny over her “exclusion list” of St. Louis police officers, whose work she didn’t trust, and for her decision to charge a Central West End couple with brandishing guns at racial justice protesters.
Still, Gardner was re-elected for a second term in late 2020 in a landslide. She pledged to continue fighting for equality and criminal justice reforms in St. Louis.
But her second term brought more staff departures, leaving her with half the number of attorneys as when she took office. The state legislature filed bills that would strip her of most of her power.
Then in February, the scandals intensified when a car speeding through downtown streets crashed, pinning between two vehicles a teen visiting St. Louis for a volleyball tournament, and leading to the amputation of both of her legs. The car’s driver, Daniel Riley, had remained free after court delays, despite violating his bond dozens of times.
Gardner’s office was widely blamed for delaying Riley’s trial and not filing to revoke bond. She, in turn, blamed a judge for not accepting a bond reduction request and released a statement: “This is not the time for finger-pointing,” she said then.
The reaction was swift. Scores of people, including former allies, began calling for Gardner’s resignation. Bailey filed a lawsuit seeking her removal.

Good-bye, and good-riddance.

Category: Crime, Missouri

Crazy People Are Dangerous: Can You Guess Where ‘Defund the Police’ Leads?

Posted on | May 4, 2023 | Comments Off on Crazy People Are Dangerous: Can You Guess Where ‘Defund the Police’ Leads?

Jordan Neely encounters surprising consequences.

Ever since Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, the TV in my home office has been tuned to CNN — I watch, so you don’t have to — and they’ve been giving hourly attention to the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man who died after he went berserk in a New York City subway train and got put in a chokehold by a 24-year-old Marine Corps veteran. “Outrage grows,” according to a headline in the New York Daily News, which quoted a city official: “We must not become a city where a mentally ill human being can be choked to death by a vigilante without consequence.” The same official promoted #DefundThePolice in 2020, but now he’s complaining about vigilantes? You elect Alvin Bragg as your district attorney, turn loose thousands of dangerous criminals on your streets, and then you act surprised when it comes to this?

Law enforcement sources said Neely had “numerous” arrests on his record, including for drugs, disorderly conduct, and fare beating — and that he had been living on the streets with a recorded history of mental illness.
At the time of his death, he had a warrant out for his arrest in a November 2021 case where he was accused of assaulting a 67-year-old woman in the East Village, the sources said.

How “numerous” were his arrests? Forty-two arrests between 2013 and 2021 — a habitual criminal, with an outstanding warrant for assault, and yet where was he? On the subway, screaming psychotic gibberish at the passengers. And did I forget to mention he was crazy?

Jordan Neely has been a menace to NYC subway riders.

He allegedly attempted to shove someone onto the subway tracks just days earlier. He was berating passengers and threatening them with an aggressive speech.

That’s when the marine stepped in to neutralize the situation. pic.twitter.com/IeIau9RxJS

— Xaviaer DuRousseau (@XAVIAERD) May 4, 2023

There is a backstory:

Jordan Neely, the homeless man choked to death on the subway, sank into a deep depression after his mother was brutally murdered by his stepfather in 2007 — and was not properly treated for his mental illness, friends and family told The Post.
Neely, who died Monday afternoon after being held in a chokehold for 15 minutes by a straphanger, descended into “a complete mess” after his mother, Christie Neely, was reportedly strangled to death and then stuffed into a suitcase when he was just 14, according to his aunt, Carolyn Neely.
“My sister Christie was murdered in ‘07 and after that, he has never been the same,” Carolyn, 40, said.
“It had a big impact on him. He developed depression and it grew and became more serious. He was schizophrenic, PTSD. Doctors knew his condition and he needed to be treated for that.”
Carolyn, who described herself as Jordan’s closest living relative, said she pleaded with judges and doctors to help get the proper care for her nephew, but to no avail.
“The whole system just failed him. He fell through the cracks of the system,” she said.
Christie Neely was murdered by Shawn Southerland, then 50, who stuffed her dead body in a suitcase and threw it on the shoulder of the Henry Hudson Parkway . . .

“To no avail” — it is nearly impossible to help people who are this severely deranged. The only thing that can be done — and what used to be standard practice, until the ACLU and other liberal do-gooders sued for the “rights” of the mentally ill — is to lock them up in the looney bin and feed them powerful antipsychotics (Haldol, Thorazine, etc.) until you can get them calmed down enough to participate in therapy. Even with such a forcible intervention program, the prospect of recovery isn’t very good. But now, thanks to “deinstitutionalization” (i.e., turning the kooks loose on the street to fend for themselves) there is no hope of recovery at all.

As a result, public safety is endangered, and a city as big as New York has thousands of these untreated psychotics roaming the streets, but why bring up Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at this point?

But you said nothing on thesehttps://t.co/yQ47tr0xjP

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 4, 2023

Like so many other liberals, AOC simply refuses to acknowledge that the problems she’s complaining about have been caused by liberal “reform” policies. There was a time when someone like Jordan Neely would have been wearing a straitjacket inside a padded cell, but instead, he got turned loose and went strolling down F**k Around Street until he finally arrived at the intersection with Find Out Avenue.

Remember: Crazy People Are Dangerous.

Category: Crime, New York

In The Mailbox: 05.04.23 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | May 4, 2023 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Didn’t get this done last night because my slow-ass DSL connection took forever to upload this video, which is mostly about death and was inspired by Cobb’s video that I’ve linked below. Almost immediately after I’d finished uploading it, the internet died, so I gave up, went to bed, and got up way too early this morning.
Silicon Valley delenda est.