Probably Not His First Crime

Posted on | May 17, 2025 | 2 Comments

Sometime when you have nothing better to do, try a Google search on “vehicular homicide carjacking,” and you’ll be sure to find some genuinely tragic stories of innocent people dying because of criminal activity. Never mind for now why I did such a search and learned of a heinous crime this week in Riverside County, California:

The man who allegedly stole a 79-year-old’s vehicle from a Norco carwash, then dragged him for about a half mile to his death as he was partially in the car, has been charged with first-degree murder.
Ryan Hewitt of Corona made a court appearance on Wednesday for carjacking and first-degree murder charges for the May 12 incident. His arraignment was continued to May 27.
On Monday around 12:30 p.m., a witness called the sheriff’s department saying they saw a man get in the driver’s seat of a vehicle and drive away, with the vehicle’s owner still partially in the rear seat.
Investigators say the victim was at a carwash near the Arco gas station on Hidden Valley Parkway, vacuuming his car, when the suspect jumped into the driver’s seat and took off.
Riverside County Sheriff’s Department officials said the victim was ejected from the car after being dragged for about a half mile. Corona police found the man after he fell from the car. He was taken to a hospital but died from his injuries.
Deputies located the stolen car and took the suspect into custody.
“During the investigation, the victim’s SUV was located unoccupied near the intersection of Polk Street and Magnolia Avenue in the city of Riverside,” said a statement from deputies.
“Investigators began working closely with members of the Riverside Police Department and ultimately detained a male near the intersection of Magnolia Avenue and Tyler Street.”
The victim has been identified as Corona resident James Norman. He was better known to friends and family as Jim, a beloved father, grandfather and Army veteran.

Because it’s California — and not, say, Florida — we don’t have any information about Ryan Hewitt’s prior criminal history, but I’ll bet dollars to donuts that he’s got the proverbial record as long as your arm. It is seldom the case that a criminal begins his career with murder, after all. More specifically, however, Hewitt was also charged with “illegal possession of a firearm,” which we may interpret as meaning that he is a convicted felon and thus prohibited from firearm possession.

If you know anything about criminal behavior, you must know this: Before a suspect is charged with murder, he’s probably already committed a lot of other crimes, including crimes for which he was never arrested. In fact, there are many thousands of murderers out walking the streets of America, having gotten away with it. Consider that in Chicago, there were 617 homicides in 2023, and the police department reported that Chicago detectives “cleared 319 homicides this year, bringing the homicide clearance rate to 51.70% — the highest since 2019.” Simple arithmetic tells you that 298 homicides went unsolved in 2023 — the killers are still out there. Further investigation reveals that Chicago reported 779 homicides in 2020, 805 in 2021, 715 in 2022 and 581 in 2024, meaning that during this five-year period there were a total of 3,497 homicides in Chicago. The “clearance rate” for Chicago homicides was never more than 52% in any year during this period, so that means roughly 1,700 murderers in Chicago who didn’t get caught since 2019.

Guess what? The homicide clearance rate isn’t much better (and in some cases is worse) in other major U.S. cities. How many killers never got arrested in Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans, Memphis, Atlanta, etc.? Some graduate student could probably analyze the data and come up with an estimate of the total number of unprosecuted murderers running loose in the country, but my point is that it is not a small number. And if you are shocked that the clearance rate for homicide cases is barely 50% in many cities, wait until you find out about non-fatal shootings. That is to say, if you get shot and don’t die, what are the chances that the person who tried to kill you gets arrested? In Chicago, “more than 19,000 people [were] wounded in shootings . . . since 2018. The Chicago Police Department has made arrests in 1,200 of those cases,” i.e., 94% of non-fatal shootings went unsolved. Whether you classify non-fatal shootings as aggravated assault or attempted murder, these are very serious crimes, and the perpetrators of such crimes are very dangerous people. Yet more than 18,000 would-be killers are roaming the streets of Chicago, probably still carrying firearms, ready and willing to shoot somebody else.

About 700 words ago, I said, “Never mind for now why” I did that search for “vehicular homicide carjacking,” but the time has come for me to introduce you to a Cornell University professor, Peter Enns.

Professor Enns and his book, ‘Incarceration Nation’

The professor was quite popular after the 2016 publication of his book, the thesis of which is about “how shifting public opinion on issues of crime and punishment led to the rise of mass incarceration in the United States. . . . Public opinion matters immensely in the U.S. criminal justice system” (emphasis added). In other words, according to Professor Enns, the reason there are so many criminals behind bars is not because they have committed crimes, but rather that Americans are guilty of what he calls a more “punitive” opinion about criminal justice. It’s as if the actual facts of crime are irrelevant to incarceration (“mass” or otherwise).

Well, you can Google “recidivism rate,” too:

A 2019 study found that within five years of release, 70% of prisoners reoffended. . . .
Recidivism statistics in the U.S. are bleak. A 2021 Bureau of Justice Statistics study found that 66% of people released from prison in 24 different states in 2008 were re-arrested within three years. At the decade mark, 82% had been re-arrested.

Whatever public opinion on the matter may be, the reality is that a very large percentage of serious crime is committed by a comparatively small number of habitual criminals. If you identify, arrest and convict such repeat offenders, and put them behind bars, there is a tremendous benefit to public safety. Yet, as is demonstrated by the Chicago homicide statistics, about half of all murderers get away with their crimes in some urban jurisdictions, and more than 90% of non-fatal shootings go unsolved, with the result that many thousands of dangerous criminals are still out on the streets, endangering public safety. The urban crime menace is not a matter of public opinion, it’s a deadly reality. Just this week (“‘He’s No Stranger to Us’: The Problem of Our ‘Revolving-Door’ Justice System”) I examined a perfect example of the recidivism problem, and I have little doubt that this fatal carjacking case in California will prove to be another such example. Crime is about behavioral patterns.

Now let’s hear more from Professor Enns:

“I developed a measure of punitiveness over time and discovered that politicians were reacting to public opinion instead of the other way around,” said Enns, associate professor of government. Public opinion, not politicians, was driving changes in the criminal justice system. . . .
As the crime rate increased between 1960 and 1990, the media offered heavy coverage of criminal activity. “But it’s well known that crime is not accurately reported,” says Enns. “There’s an overemphasis on violent crimes and crimes committed by minorities, which gives people a skewed view.”
However, Enns’s research offers the first evidence that despite this skew, changes in media coverage of crime closely match changes in the actual crime rate. Enns credits the media’s influence for the peak of public punitiveness in the 1990s, resulting in laws like three-strikes-you’re-out and mandatory sentencing.
High incarceration rates have continued despite a declining crime rate since the 1990s. Nevertheless, Enns shows the crime rate does influence the incarceration rate. Previous research, he says, has failed to uncover the causes of mass incarceration by not analyzing changes in the incarceration rate.
Another point Enns makes is the benefit of incarceration in crime reduction decreases as incarceration increases. The reason is simple: the worst criminals are locked up first. As a result, spending more money to lock more people up turns out not to be as effective at reducing crime as spending that same amount of money on more police.

So he says, although (a) the professor’s ability to make cause-and-effect analysis seems questionable, (b) he was still in college during the 1990s, and (c) he’s spent the past 18 years teaching at an Ivy League university and I’m not sure a faculty gig in Ithaca, New York, is the best place to formulate an accurate view about crime in America. The average cop in Chicago certainly knows more on the subject than does Professor Enns. If you want a good laugh, check out this tweet:

Gosh, I wonder why the U.S. incarceration rate is not the same as in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland? It’s so mysterious. However, if you took a police officer from Finland or Denmark, and transferred them to the West Garfield Park neighborhood in Chicago, probably within six weeks, they’d be like Kurtz in the Congo: “Exterminate all the brutes!”

Let’s end this 1,500-word post where it started, with the results of a Google search about fatal carjackings:

JACKSONVILLE, Florida: Rodney Wesley, 20, has been charged with grand theft auto, carjacking, theft, leaving the scene of a crash involving death, vehicular homicide, and resisting without violence as the result of a bizarre crime spree in February. He is accused of causing a multi-vehicle pileup on Interstate 295that killed a 66-year-old man.
SEATTLE, Washington: Jahmed Kamal Haynes, 48, faces charges of first-degree murder and first-degree animal cruelty after police say he killed 80-year-old Ruth Dalton by getting into her passenger seat, pushing her out of her car, and running her over last August, and also stabbing her dog. “Haynes’ criminal record includes six felony convictions dating back to 1983, including vehicular homicide and robbery in 1999.”
PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, Maryland: Deandre Boyd, 25, and two 16-year-old juveniles were charged with murder and carjacking in connection with an August crime spree that killed 38-year-old Fernando Alvarenga Cuellar, who was shot to death during an attempted robbery.
COLUMBUS, Ohio: Gerald Dowling Jr., 19, and two 16-year-olds were charged last July with murdering a 29-year-old single mother, Alexa Stakely. Police said the teens stole Stakey’s SUV with her 6-year-old son asleep inside, and that they ran her over with her own vehicle while she was trying to rescue the child.
LOUDOUN COUNTY, Virginia: Jose Aguilar-Martinez, 21, is charged with killing 54-year-old Melody Waldecker last July, when he carjacked her and ran over her with her own vehicle at a 7-Eleven. Aguilar-Martinez is an illegal alien from El Salvador.

These are mere anecdotes — random occurrences plucked from the headlines found by a Google search — and I cannot say that any particular conclusion is proven by such methods. My experience and knowledge, however, lead me to surmise that in none of these deadly cases were the suspects committing their first crime. Maybe the problem is we don’t have enough “mass incarceration,” or else all these carjacking victims wouldn’t be dead. But I’m not an Ivy League professor, so nobody’s paying me to write a book about it.

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Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 05.16.25

Posted on | May 17, 2025 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

The racism and hypocrisy of the Episcopalian Church is disgusting.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Take Public Transit? Maybe When It’s Safe
EBL: Justice Thomas Mic Drop, The Dam Busters, and The Foggy Dew
Twitchy: Potions Of Biden’s Forgetful Interview With Robert Hur Released, New Orleans Cop Causes A Spectacle During Presser For Escaped Prisoners, and Evasive Illegal Alien Has Short-Lived Aquatic Adventure In North Carolina
Louder With Crowder: Kid Rock ANNIHILATES Bruce Springsteen, Trans athlete BRAGS about plans to steal more opportunities from real girls, Harry Sisson (aka Temu David Hogg) drops cringeworthy anti-Trump content on a “date” to brag about what a “real man” does, An illegal migrant killed a Colorado woman as he was driving over 90 MPH, and Trump’s new approval ratings are in, and CNN’s polling guru was forced to report news his network is gonna HATE
Vox Popoli: The Charade is Ending, Free Trade is Deader than Dead, and Negotiating with the Agreement-Incapable
According To Hoyt: The Martian Chronicles – Reading the Future of the Past, You Lays Down Your Bet, Cold War Kids Are Hard To Kill, and I Know When I Don’t See It
Upstream Reviews: Upstream Reviews Presents, also, Cirsova Spring 2025,
Jim McCoy: Wyverns Never Die,
Cedar Sanderson: Full-time writer

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Are Neocons Losing ‘Antisemite’ As a Blanket Smear?
American Greatness: The Decivilizing of America, Would the Left Finally Explain the Inexplicable? DNI Tulsi Gabbard: Comey Should Be ‘Put Behind Bars’ For ‘Issuing a Hit on President Trump’ , House Judiciary Committee Will Investigate Democrat Threats to ICE Facilities, and Did the Biden Administration Fudge Jobs Numbers?
American Thinker: Air Force One, President Trump…and The Art of the Deal, also, The Free Market That Isn’t – Trump, Big Pharma, and the Price of Courage
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Drumming Chimps Friday
BattleSwarm: Who Won The India-Pakistan War? also, LinkSwarm for May 16
Behind The Black: SpaceX launches 26 Starlink satellites, Premature fairing release cancels first launch of Gilmour’s Eris rocket, Kazakhstan denies rumors that Russia plans to abandon Baikonur, Astronomers detect evidence of numerous protoplanetary disks in three molecular clouds near the galactic center, and FAA issues revised launch window and flight restrictions for future Starship test flights
Cafe Hayek: Beware “Balance of Payments” Statistics, Reason 21,884,906, On Real Median Household Net Worth, Remember That Trump’s Core Justification for Tariffs Is Not Based on Revenue But That Tariffs Will Allegedly Protect American Industry, and For Trump, That’s a Bug, Not a Feature
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: The Bathrooms of Loudoun County
Da Tech Guy: How Bad Was Kamala? The Left Preferred Playing Weekend at Joey’s for a year to Her in the White House leading the party
Don Surber: No one is above the law, but
First Street Journal: Covering their own asses!
Gates Of Vienna: Putting the Boot In, also, Violent Culture-Enriching Theatrics in a Bordeaux Courtroom
The Geller Report: Hamas Celebrates Murder of Pregnant Jewish Mother En Route to Hospital to Give Birth, also, Corrupt Ex-FBI Director James Comey Calls For Trump’s Assassination
Hollywood In Toto: FLASHBACK: Colbert Taunts Robert Hur Over Biden Testimony, also, Can We Please Stop Cruel Attacks on Older Stars?
The Lid: Dopey Mich. Democrat Dumps Trump Impeachment Effort after His Own Party Tells Him to Cut It Out
Legal Insurrection: U.S. Officials Identify ‘Rogue’ Communication Devices in China-Built Solar Power Units, SCOTUS Keeps Hold On Deportation of TdA Under Alien Enemies Act, Newsom Slashes Funds to Planned Parenthood in His Budget, Gov. Stitt Announces $4 Billion Aluminum Plant for Oklahoma, and Free Speech Advocate at Yale Claims She Was Arrested for Something She Never Said
Matt Taibbi: Who Started The Lawfare Era?
Outkick: Call Britney Griner? Former Utah State Star Jarred Shaw Could Face Death For Smuggling Weed Into Indonesia, Kirby Smart Has Strong Opinion On Congress Stepping In To Help NIL, New York Knicks Demolish Hobbled Celtics In Game Six To Reach Eastern Conference Finals, Juan Soto Gets Blasted By Boos In Return To Yankee Stadium, Fans Turn Their Backs, and Olivia Dunne Let’s The Cheeks Breathe To Start Summer, MAGA Bikini Congresswoman Vs. Comey & Kid Rock’s Rant!
Power Line: The Passing Parade, Expectations, NYU Embarrassed Again, and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Donalds Slams Former FBI Director Comey Over Seashell “Threat”
Shot In The Dark: Remember When Insurrection Was Evil?
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: Where Are We Headed in Nicaragua?
This Ain’t Hell: The dumbassery of a 747, Valor Friday, and Trans Troops Out
Transterrestrial Musings: Lunar Water, also, Trump’s America
Victory Girls: AOC Absent as Queens Confronts Brothel Crisis
Watts Up With That: Liability for Climate Change – An Inequitable Economic Disaster, Climate Dogma and the ‘Ignorance of Experts’, Energy Department Could Ax Costly Renewable Energy Offices, and Friday Funny: Where Have All the Protests Gone?
The Federalist: How Two Big School Choice Measures In Federal Budget Bill Would Revive America, From Schumer’s ‘Whirlwind’ Threat To Comey’s ‘8647,’ Assassination Prep Is The Left’s MO, The Left Ultimately Just Wants To Throw Conservatives In Prison, Here’s What Would Happen If The Trump Administration Used The Comey Standard Against Comey, and The Left’s Outcry Over South African Refugees Exposes Their Anti-White Bigotry
Mark Steyn: Enablers of Evil, Holy Mess – Anthony Quinn in The Shoes of the Fisherman, and Memories of Tomorrow

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In The Mailbox: 05.15.25 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | May 15, 2025 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

It’s reported that Hungarian troops have been moved to the Ukrainian border.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Canada Versus Free Speech
EBL: This Could Change The Film Industry Forever, also, “We have not called for killing off the white South Africans, at least for now.”
Twitchy: James Comey Posts Alleged Call To Murder Trump On Instagram, Comey’s Not So Cryptic Post Caught The Attention of DHS, FBI, AND the Secret Service, and Self-Proclaimed CEO Of The Tolerant Left Goes After Matt Walsh, Gets Rekt
Louder With Crowder: Woke mom praises daughter’s teacher for encouraging her… to believe she is a cat, Migrant lectures reporter why legal citizens owe him a brand new house, Jerry Seinfeld offers perfect response to latest pro-Hamas NYer accusing him of genocide, and Blue-haired leftist makes her unhinged case on why child predators deserve “dignity” outside an ICE detention center
Vox Popoli: Homer in Leather, Speaking of Zero Empathy, The People Have Spoken, and The End of Airpower Confirmed
Postcards From Barsoom: Word of Power Levels of the Rising Sun
Stoic Observations: A Feudal Domino
Toni Airaksinen: GUEST POST – ChatGPT Is Bullshit (Partly) Because People Are Bullshitters
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Woo-Hoo!
Gab: Everything Is About To Change

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Frankenpope
American Conservative: The Illusion of American Generosity
American Greatness: Dem Lawmaker Facing Calls For Expulsion and Arrest After Allegedly Assaulting ICE Agents Outside Detention Center in NJ, Making Automobiles Great Again, The Real First 100 Days, and Hyperbole, Lies, and Delusions
American Thinker: Trump’s Necessary Foreign and Domestic Revolution, Want Diversity? Start With Professional Sports, Germany’s Fiscal Suicide, America, the Juristocracy, and Will Trump Suspend Habeas Corpus for Illegals?
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday, Animal’s Daily Man Bites Dog News, Animal’s Hump Day News, Animal Magnetism LIVE Ep. 45 – Iowa, Alabama and Accents, and Animal’s Red Thursday News
BattleSwarm: Child Sex Trafficking Ring Busted, Houthis Get Brrrrrrted, Two Texas Election Integrity Bills Pass, Paxton Wrests $1.375 Billion From Google, and Worldcon Uses AI To Hunt Wrongthink
Behind The Black: Curiosity looks uphill at boxwork and future travels, NASA says Perseverance observed the first visible-light aurora in March 2024, Gilmour scrubs launch attempt today, Norway signs the Artemis Accords, and Axiom’s next commercial manned flight to ISS delayed at least one week
Cafe Hayek: Americans Have No “Consumption Addiction”, Oren Cass Continues to Be Mistaken, Yes to Market-Driven Foreign Investment; No to Protectionist-Driven Foreign Investment, The Triumph of Economic Freedom, and The Economic-Understanding Deficit Grows
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Chicago Boyz: The Death of South Africa, Interesting Finds, Fone Fakery And Other Follies, How Canadians Can Save the World, and An Unexpected Defeat
Da Tech Guy: The #Unexpectedly Chronicles Worshiping the Narrative over Christ South Africa Edition
Dana Loesch: James Comey Calls To “86” Trump, also, SCOTUS Has A Chance To Stop The Madness – Will They?
Don Surber: Ending the censorship monopoly
First Street Journal: In defense of the single family home, also, Bureaucrats gotta bureaucrat
Gates Of Vienna: The Federal Office for the Protection of the Regime, Meanwhile, in Austria, Meanwhile, in France, The Burial of Democracy in Germany, and Get That Infidel Chick Out of the Courtroom!
The Geller Report: President Trump in Qatar Proposes US Take Control of Gaza and Create a “Freedom Zone”, Islamic State Terror Plot By Muslim Michigan Army National Guardsman Thwarted at U.S. Military Base, Supreme Court to Hear Trump Challenge to Universal Injunctions by Radical, Rogue Judges, President Trump Calls on Saudi Arabia to Join Abraham Accords Recognizing Israel, and Deranged Democrats Hold Up Trump Nominee for Ambassador to the Vatican as Formal Papal Installation
Hollywood In Toto: ‘Greg Gutfeld’s What Did I Miss?’ Upends Game Show Landscape, Mission: Impossible-Final Reckoning Ends on Sour Note, Can Ryan Coogler Save Ironheart?, Kimmel & Clooney Have Some Serious Explaining to Do [UPDATE], and The Return of the R-Rated Comedy?
The Lid: Republicans Propose Rules to Prevent Non-Citizens from Receiving Food Stamps, About Time – Texas Cancels Construction of Radical Muslim Sharia City, and Lag Ba’Omer: Igniting the Flame of Unapologetic Zionism
Legal Insurrection: Secretary RFK Jr. Brilliantly Battles Democrats in Contentious Budget Hearing, Gavin Newsom Retreats from Free Health Insurance for Illegal Aliens, African National Congress Issues Disturbing Statement on Plight of South African Refugees, Jake Sullivan Claims Biden’s Debate Performance ‘Was a Shock to Me’, and Many Americans Hold Negative Views of the Ivy League, According to New Survey
Matt Taibbi: A Tale of Two Litigations,
Outkick: Possibly Insane Ohio Lawmaker Proposes Bill To Prevent Buckeyes From Playing At Noon on Fox, Scottie Scheffler Blasts PGA Championship Conditions, Ruling, After Brutal Shot, Twins Teammates Leave Game After Totally Preventable Collision, NASCAR Wife Gianna Blaney Vacations In Body Paint, Hailey Van Lith’s Dominant SI Debut & Coddled Angel Reese, and College Football Playoff Switching To ‘Straight-Seeding’ For Upcoming Season?
Power Line: Modern-Day Racism, George Floyd Riots 2.0, and All the king’s horses
Shark Tank: Jose Regalado Skips Silver Bluffs Debate While Ralph Rosado Shows Up For Voters
Shot In The Dark: Written In Sand, MCCL – PLINOS? Obsolete? Marketing! and Girl Boss Movies
STUMP: Good News! Drug Overdose Deaths Are Down Over 25% In 2024
The Political Hat: Secular Religiosity, Trans-Zodiac, Brainwashing The Subconscious, and Quick Takes – Purportedly Peer Reviewed Madness
This Ain’t Hell: Pentagon to Reagan National Airport hotline was down since March 2022, Cheap missiles, Biden counter terrorism memo targeted conservatives, How do you kill a drone? and How do you kill a Drone? Part 2
Transterrestrial Musings: The Current Artemis State Of Play, The Decivilizing Of America, Persuasive Beats Abrasive, She Makes A Compelling Case, and Watergate
Victory Girls: Saudi Arabia Pulls Out All The Stops For President Trump, Lutheran Queer Prom Hosted for 14–24 Year Olds—Complete with HIV Testing, and Providence Raises the Palestinian Flag—And a Middle Finger to America
Watts Up With That: Saving Greenery From the Greens, Thank Democrats for California Gasoline Prices, and Am I a Stooge of the Climate Alarmist Left?
The Federalist: Parents Of Boys ‘Wrongfully Accused’ For Objecting To Girl In Locker Room Slam Loudoun Schools, The Media Kept Rooting For A Tariff-Driven Recession. The Data Keep Disappointing Them, Delusional Leftists Compare Judge Indicted For Helping Illegal Evade Arrest To Harriet Tubman, Sending Medicaid And Food Stamps Back To States Will Reduce Costs, Not Merely Shift Them, and NY Times Publisher Laughably Claims His Paper ‘Reported Deeply’ On Biden’s Decline
Mark Steyn: The New Canada, Live Around the Planet – Dancing With The Sauds, Diversity and Its Discontents, England’s Police State, and Happy Birthday to You

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In The Mailbox: 05.15.25 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | May 15, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.15.25 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

“Journalists are the enemy of the people” – Komi Shoko

Oh, look, it’s Thursday again. Surely this will be the day I get caught up.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: What Happens When Health Care is a Government Budget Item?
EBL: Robin Hood, also, Save the Afrikaners
Twitchy: Audience Reaction To “Comedian” Leslie Jones’ Meltdown “Hating Trump Folks” Says So Much, Axios Reports Fears Over Tariffs Killing The Economy “May Be Overblown”, and X Has Zero Sympathy For Rep. Tlaib (D-Gaza) Blubbering On House Floor
Louder With Crowder: Trump’s Economy Wins Pile Up And The Left Can’t Stand It, Chuck Todd, pretending he didn’t know Biden was in cognitive decline, unloads on Chuck Schumer, Tom Cruise needs less than ten words to shut down reporter’s silly Donald Trump question, Media Claimed Trump Admin Deported A “Teen With No Criminal Record,” Turns Out They Missed A Huge Detail, and Joe Rogan makes shocking discovery about media’s “Maryland Man” hoax
Vox Popoli: That Explains a Lot, Praise for UATV, Hungary Moving on Transcarpathia, Saint Inconnu the Hatless, and Vibrancy > Christianity
Cedar Sanderson: A Measure of Success
The Bugscuffle Gazette: You’re An Idiot, Part 2
Toni Airaksinen: Kentucky Doctor Called Jews “The New Nazis”, GUEST POST – I Was An Award-Winning Jewish Journalist For Twelve Years – Until I Got Canceled By A Bot

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: The Maritime-Industrial Base Won’t Rebuild Itself
Dana Loesch: Democrats & False Prophets Finally Found Some Refugees They Don’t Like,
Don Surber: Trump triumphs in Saudi Arabia

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In The Mailbox: 05.14.25 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | May 14, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.14.25 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

“Episcopal Church refuses to resettle Afrikaners, ends partnership with Federal government”

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Dad Yells at Car Burglars, Daughter Gets Shot
EBL: DNC Vice Chair David Hogg Experiences FAFO, also, Extinct Animals The Ancient Egyptians Saw
Twitchy: Here’s What Debbie Dingell Claims She Was Thinking About With Her Eyes Closed During A Hearing, Episcopal Bishop Says Helping White Folks Contradicts Their Mission, and Jerry Nadler Calls Shri Thanedar’s Impeachment Push “Idiotic”
Louder With Crowder: David Hogg calls for Democrats to help young men get laid… so now the DNC is voting to fire him from his job, UK police ransack home of former officer over claims of an antisemitic tweet… except it wasn’t, and now he’s suing, Why The Left Hates White Refugees Fleeing South Africa, and Remember Bernie Sanders’ “Oligarchy Tour” on a private jet?
Vox Popoli: Putin Calls Out Kiev, Science “Discovers” Auras, The Narrative is Always Wrong, Col Macgregor Calls Out AIPAC, and Empathy is Uncommon
The Bugscuffle Gazette: You Are An Idiot, Part 1
Stoic Observations: My Middle Class Revisited,
Toni Airaksinen: Yale Graduates Wield “Vulva Energy” To Fight Climate Change In “The Anthropussy” Zine
Postcards From Barsoom: Monster Podcast Update
Upstream Reviews: Allies of Convenience,

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: How Do You Fight Through The Pacific Dead Zone?
Don Surber: Red China accepts 30% tariff
STUMP: Taxing Tuesday – Commentary Roundup On The Big Beautiful Bill

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‘He’s No Stranger to Us’: The Problem of Our ‘Revolving-Door’ Justice System

Posted on | May 14, 2025 | 1 Comment

On the afternoon of April 1, 2024, a woman ran into a convenience store in the Tampa suburb of Seffner, Florida. Her face was covered in bruises, according to Ashraf Zakhar, the clerk who was working the counter: “She was screaming and crying and said ‘I need help. I need help.’ She just ran to the bathroom and locked herself in.” The clerk called 911 and police showed up. It turned out that the woman had been held captive for more than two months, beaten and terrorized by 48-year-old Walter Medina.

Habitual criminal Walter Medina

Medina was previously convicted of false imprisonment — twice. The first time he was convicted was in the 90s and the second time was in 2010. He served four years in prison for the more recent conviction.
“He’s no stranger to us,” said Amanda Granit, a public information officer with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. “The details of this horrific case that we’re talking about this week also appear to be what he’s done in the past.”

Is it too much to ask that, when police catch a dangerous criminal, the courts sentence the perp to something more serious than a slap on the wrist? Whatever the sentence was the first time Walter Medina committed false imprisonment, certainly his sentence should have been more than four years the second time he committed the same crime.

Do the prosecutors and judges in Hillsborough County have no understanding of their role in securing public safety? It is unfortunate that some people — obviously including some judges and district attorneys who ought to know better — think of prison in terms of punishment and, on the basis of that mistaken premise, they proceed to the erroneous belief that it is “mercy” to avoid imposing lengthy sentences on convicted criminals. Perhaps they need to talk to the victim in this case, and ask her what she thinks about the “mercy” of putting a vicious animal like Walter Medina back on the streets.

If the criminal justice system fails to protect the public from such monsters — violent repeat offenders — what good is “democracy”? A government that does not protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens has failed in the only purpose that any legitimate government serves. Of course, some criminals will evade justice, because cops can’t catch every suspect, but what about a case like this? The cops did their job, twice apprehending Walter Medina, and obtaining evidence sufficient to convict him, but somewhere between the guilty verdict and the time the judge pronounced sentence, something went badly wrong. However much time Medina served in the 1990s for his first conviction, it wasn’t enough to deter him from re-offending, so that he faced justice again in 2010 — and yet got only four years behind bars?

Bad enough that a woman was heinously abused because the Hillsborough County courts failed to put Walter Medina away for 15 or 20 years, but do you have any idea how many lives were put at risk in order to catch Medina this time? See, in fleeing from Hillsborough County, Medina made the mistake of heading east into Polk County.

If you know anything about Sheriff Grady Judd, you know that Polk County is just about the last place any criminal wants to be. So the Polk County deputies found Walter Medina, who led them on a chase onto I-4, where the Florida Highway Patrol took over and chased the perp into Orange County. Video of that pursuit is one of the scariest I’ve ever seen, and I’ve watched a whole lot of police chase videos.

Not only were dozens of innocent motorists endangered by Medina’s reckless driving, but the troopers chasing him were also endangered. That alone should be enough for a 10-year prison sentence, beyond and above whatever the sentence is for what Walter Medina did to that poor woman he held captive for more than two months. It would be wrong if this vile human stain ever gets out of prison, but certainly he ought not to be turned loose before 2050. Lock him up and throw away the key.

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Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 05.13.25

Posted on | May 14, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.13.25

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Unsurprisingly, I was too exhausted last night when I got into Vegas to do anything blogwise.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

Pope Leo’s response would most likely be something along the lines of “My son, you have no power here.”

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Canada’s War on the Disabled, also EV Fires Becoming a Much Bigger Problem
EBL: Antarctica Before It Froze, San Diego Bay showing signs of improvement after reef balls installed, Cocktails for Two, Happy Mother’s Day, and US China Trade Deal?
Twitchy: Double-Take Earthquake, Venezuelan Gang Targets Rural America, and Pelosi Set Straight On Republicans Ripping Away Health Care From Millions
Louder With Crowder: Male pitcher from Tim Walz’s state is dominating girls’ softball, but he says he’s trans, Turns out Pope Leo’s brother is pretty BASED, Jasmine Crockett says YOU’RE the ones who are “inherently” violent, Nashville Mayor sells out taxpayers, creates new fund to help illegals with housing and more, and Amazon driver busted using a customer’s home as a toilet… more than ONCE in the same day
Vox Popoli: When Society Fears its Veterans, The Emptiest of Threats, Build a Reserve, What Shakespeare Really Wrote, and Will Trump Put America First?
The Bugscuffle Gazette: My Heart Has Joined The Thousand, also, Why Do You Still Listen?
Stoic Observations: The Asymmetry Of Truth, also, A Barbell Strategy
Upstream Reviews: Majority
Toni Airaksinen: Help Me Visit Israel?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: The U.S. Navy Is Sleepwalking Into Defeat
Dana Loesch: RFK Jr.’s Troublesome Autism Registry
Don Surber: Trump had a great weekend; the media did not
STUMP: Ohio STRS Update – Teachers Losing Control?

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Category: Linkagery

Rule 5 Sunday: San Romero Knights

Posted on | May 11, 2025 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

This young lady is cosplaying Juliet Starling from the video game Lollipop Chainsaw, in which Ms. Starling is a cheerleader/zombie hunter dealing with a zombie outbreak at her high school on her birthday. Evidently a pretty good game if you like chopping up zombies with chainsaws.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.