The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

HUGE: Challenger O’Connor Defeats BLM Pittsburgh Mayor in Democratic Primary

Posted on | May 21, 2025 | 2 Comments

Generally speaking, I’m against “common sense” Democrats. As a conservative, I want to see the Democratic Party destroy itself by embracing the most extreme ideas of the progressive fringe. From that perspective, Corey O’Connor’s victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for mayor of Pittsburgh is actually bad news, because the guy he was running against, incumbent Mayor Ed Gainey, is the pluperfect example of everything wrong with the Democratic Party. Gainey “has been a vocal supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement” and, when he was a member of the Pennsylvania state legislature in 2020, he joined a “protest on the floor of the state House to demand a special session on police reform.” Democrats want to be the party of cop-hating racial demagoguery? As a Republican, I say, “Go for it!”

Likewise with Gainey’s embrace of “affordable housing” mandates. Understand that I am not against affordable housing. The problem is the use of mandates and regulations to impose so-called “affordable housing” in places that contradict actual market conditions. These policies do more harm than good. Common sense would suggest that, if you can’t afford to live where you want to live, maybe consider moving someplace cheaper, but the advocates of “affordable housing” mandates apparently imagine there is a right to live wherever you want, and therefore impose mandates that are essentially futile attempts at price-fixing.

Gainey’s election as Pittsburgh mayor in 2021 was hailed as a “progressive” victory, but now that’s all come crashing down:

Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor defeated Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey in the city’s hotly contested Democratic mayoral primary, The Associated Press projected Tuesday, after a race which garnered national attention as a notable proxy fight between progressives and center-left Democrats.
With more than 85% of the vote in, O’Connor led Gainey 54%-46% in the nominating contest.
Tuesday’s election was one of the first major Democratic primaries since the 2024 election in which the party’s progressive and center-left wings faced off. And the mayoral race followed an election cycle where Democratic governance of cities took center-stage in Republican campaign messaging.
Gainey and his allies painted O’Connor, the county controller and the son of a former mayor, as beholden to President Donald Trump and monied real estate interests, pointing to campaign donations from Trump backers and developers. . . .
Gainey, the city’s first Black mayor, won a contested primary in 2021, knocking off incumbent Mayor Bill Peduto in a three-way primary with a plurality of the vote. . . .
The Pittsburgh mayoral race elevated housing policy to the forefront of the local discussion. Gainey has sought to enact inclusionary zoning policies throughout Pittsburgh that require new developments to set aside at least 10% of units for affordable housing. Those policies currently apply to only a few neighborhoods, and O’Connor came out against making inclusionary zoning citywide policy.

So, Pittsburg’s first black mayor tried to portray O’Connor as an evil MAGA racist and still lost the Democratic primary? This is very discouraging to those of us Republicans who are trying to trick Democrats into nominating an AOC/Crockett ticket in 2028.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett

My dream of having Democrats relegate themselves to permanent loser status is jeopardized by results like Tuesday’s primary in Pittsburgh — a white male with “common sense” defeating the BLM mayor — and now I can only hope Democrats nationally don’t get a clue from this outcome.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!



 

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Category: Democrats, Pennsylvania

In The Mailbox: 05.20.25

Posted on | May 21, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.20.25

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

“This sho’ nuff is some weird shit to be seeing in the middle of this desert.” -Clean

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Chinese Solar Panel Inverters Contain Kill Switches
EBL: Sunny, First Nicaean Council, Murderbot, Biden’s 2022 slip-up about having cancer draws renewed scrutiny, and Rand Paul and Dana Loesch not fans of the “Big Beautiful Bill”
Twitchy: TikTok Video Shows Why People Lied About Why They Voted For Trump, Megyn Kelly Calls Out Jake Tapper TO HIS FACE For HIs Biden Coverage, and Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) Butthurt Over Ashli Babbitt Settlement
Louder With Crowder: Media freaks out on JD Vance for asking Joe Biden question we’re ALL asking, “You don’t like the fact they are White”, CNN reporter asks Tim Dillon if podcasters have too much political power, Marco Rubio went scorched Earth defending the MAGA agenda against Democrat senators, and The shrill harpies from “The View” make insane claim Joe Biden would have NEVER hidden having cancer while president
Vox Popoli: Scott Adams and the Adverse Effect, He Never Got His War, Goodell’s Paradox, and Vibrancy in Los Angeles
Defending The Wood Perilous: Listening To Acts
Jim McCoy: Ready Player One
The Bugscuffle Gazette: No, I don’t think I will
Stoic Observations: The Sin of Sloth

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: At Harvard, the ‘Cathedral’ Clashes with Curtis Yarvin
American Greatness: Working Out Is Right Wing, and That’s a Good Thing
American Thinker: We’re Living Barack Obama’s Racial Legacy In Real Time, Race Fatigue in the United States, Universal Income? It’s Already Here, and Traitors Benedict Arnold and Jake Tapper
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Political Shocker News
BattleSwarm: China: Shut Up And Get On The Cart
Behind The Black: China launches communications satellite, Air Force issues draft approval of second SpaceX launchpad at Vandenberg, Space station startup Voyager Technologies about to go public, SpaceX launches another 23 Starlink satellites, and More missions to Apophis when it flies past Earth in 2029?
Cafe Hayek:In the Dugout With Mike Stenhouse
CDR Salamander: If We Are Reducing GOFO Numbers
Don Surber: It’s not Trump they fear – it’s you
Gates Of Vienna: The Dawn of a New Day in Telephony, Honor Killings: Party Like It’s 1099,  and Martel And Macron
The Geller Report: DoD IG Finds 8,000 HIGH-RISK Transactions on Taxpayer-Funded Government Credit Cards, UN Refuses to Participate In Distributing Gaza Aid Because New System Prevents Hamas From Stealing It, CBS News President Resigns, UK, Canada, France Side With Hamas, Threaten Israel – Ceasefire or Else, and NYC Mayoral Terror Candidate Zohran Mamdani Refused to Sign a Resolution Denouncing the Holocaust, Leads Pro-Hamas Rally Calling for Boycott of Israel
Hollywood In Toto: Jewish Rapper’s Cancellation (Mostly) Ignored by Press. Again, Tim Dillon Brutally Roasts CNN to Its Face, Jon Stewart Ignores His Critical Role in Biden Cover-Up, and Actress Ellen Barkin Slams Trump, Not Biden, Over Critical Issue
The Lid: Blue State Vermont Dumping Unworkable Electric Vehicle Mandates
Legal Insurrection: Civil Rights Complaint Targets 44 Major Law Firms Over Race-Based Hiring, General Motors Plans Fight to Undo the California EV Mandate, David Axelrod Says Talk of Biden Mental Decline Should be ‘Set Aside’ After Cancer Diagnosis, HHS Cancels $60 Million in Grants To Harvard Over Antisemitism, and Hegseth Orders Special Panel to Examine Afghanistan Withdrawal
Matt Taibbi: The Oracle of Omaha Calls It A Career
Outkick: Nick Saban Praises President Donald Trump For His Interest In Helping Make College Sports Great Again, Angel Reese Shares TikTok Video Belittling Caitlin Clark As Scared ‘White Girl’, Sunday Night Baseball MLB Ratings Show Why ESPN Made Another Huge Mistake, Indy 500 Is Officially Sold Out For First Time In Almost A Decade; 350,000 Fans Expected, and Can’t A Billionaire Get Some Privacy While Spanking His Bikini-Clad Fiancée On His Super-Yacht?
Power Line: Victory in Maine, The Democrats’ Base Turns Out, and Vindication of Liz Collin
Shark Tank: State Rep. Basabe to Honor Military With Memorial Day Weekend Skydive
Shot In The Dark: One Sunday Morning At “Brunchily”, and Why?
STUMP: Taxing Tuesday – SALT Drama Continues
The Political Hat: Queer Flag Flap In Idaho
This Ain’t Hell: Retired Navy Four Star Convicted, “Napalm Girl” controversy, Profanity banned at an Army battalion, VA POW claims questioned, and Ashli Babbitt’s estate reportedly to receive nearly $5M settlement from DOJ
Transterrestrial Musings: The Next Starship Flight
Victory Girls: LaMonica McIver Charged In Delaney Hall Detainee Riot
Watts Up With That: Greenland Temperature Updates, “Renewable” Electricity Champion Denmark Now Looking into Nuclear, and Steve Milloy Says Senate Should Ignore The Parliamentarian On Electric Vehicles
The Federalist: Media Ignored Biden’s Health After Spending Years Obsessing Over Trump’s, Hegseth Launches Special Task Force To Investigate Biden’s ‘Chaotic’ Afghanistan Withdrawal, The AI Epidemic On College Campuses Exposes How Broken Our Higher Education System Is, Whoever Ran Biden’s White House Deserves The Plank And More For Forcing Endless Disasters On Americans, and Banks, Grassley Press Pentagon IG For Answers On Mark Milley’s ‘Alleged Misconduct’
Mark Steyn: No Change, and Decay, also, Lie, Lie, and Lie Again

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In The Mailbox: 05.19.25

Posted on | May 20, 2025 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Don’t Bring an Axe to a Gunfight, also Sinko de Mayo
EBL: Marty, Anne Boleyn, The Brutalist, Supreme Court Lifts Injunction Blocking Trump From Lifting Protections To Illegal Venezuelans, and Bongino and Patel: Who Killed Epstein?
Twitchy: Pro-Palestine UCLA Student Hunger Striker Blames College For Her Hospitalization, Rep. Comer Thinks They’ve ID’d the Staffers Who Were Using Biden’s Autopen, and CBS News CEO Steps Down Amidst Trump Lawsuit
Louder With Crowder: Chicago’s woke mayor says he only hires Blacks – now Trump’s DOJ is on the case, Bernie Sanders admits OUT LOUD that Democrats are the ones who are a threat to democracy, Trans Athlete Who Promised To Beat Women For The “Haters” Gets First Place In Sectionals, GOP congressman SHUTS DOWN Democrats over their latest LIES about Trump’s tax cuts, and Hey, remember when Joe Biden (accidentally?) admitted to having cancer in 2022?
Vox Popoli: Joe Biden’s Cancer, The World’s Most Deranged Morning Show, and MAILVOX: Advice From the Terminated
Upstream Reviews: Blood, Sweat, & Steel
Bugscuffle Gazette: Well, that sucks
Jim McCoy: Never let the writer get bored
Stoic Observations: What Obama Said 14 Years Ago

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: I don’t need to be fluent in Latin
American Conservative: Christians Should Oppose Feds’ Targeting Sex Company
American Greatness: Trump’s First 100 Days – A Gold Standard for the History Books, DHS and Secret Service Launch Investigation Into Former FBI Director James Comey’s ’86 47? Instagram Post, ‘Is It Any Wonder Fauci Sought a Preemptive Pardon?’, “Judges Are Not Presidents”, and Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) Charged With Assaulting ICE Officers at N.J. Detention Facility
American Thinker: Want to Understand the Modern Democrat Party? Look no Further than Apocalyptic Cults, President Trump in One Word, and Will the Supreme Court Succumb to Democratic Party Pressure?
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
BattleSwarm: Why Democrats Won’t Go On Podcasts, Wokeness = Dying Alone, and Federal Court Strikes Down Biden Tranny Business Guidelines
Behind The Black: Third stage of India’s PSLV rocket fails during launch, Chinese pseudo-company completes another launch from sea platform, Ispace borrows $35 million, In telling us why they are fleeing Trump America, three Yale professors prove they are unqualified for their jobs, and What satellite did the Varda capsule fly past during its return last week?
Cafe Hayek: Oren Cass Marshals Fallacies, Another Open Letter to Pres. Trump, A “China Shock” Mystery, and Full Text of Gramm’s and Boudreaux’s “Trump’s Tariffs Are as Bad as Bidenomics”
CDR Salamander: Preparation of the Seabed Battlefield
Chicago Boyz: The Real Tragedy of Joe Biden
Da Tech Guy: Meanwhile In the Dynasty 1973 League AL Alpha Division
Dana Loesch: How Long Will The Press Cover For Biden?, 
Don Surber: Scraping Joe Biden off their shoes
First Street Journal: The left lie through their scummy teeth, also, Will Bunch: #TrumpDerangementSyndrome much?
Gates Of Vienna: She Had the Wrong Skin Color to Die an Austrian
The Geller Report: Biden Battling ‘Most Aggressive Type’ of Prostate Cancer with Bone Metastasis, Masked Jihadis Assault Israel Day Parade Attendees, Israel’s Yuval Raphael’s Places Second in Eurovision final, But for Israelis, She is Number One, HHS Halts Recommendation of COVID Shots for Children & Pregnant Women, and Government Censorship Project Boasted of Suppressing Trump Message, Defunding Newsrooms
Hollywood In Toto: I Come in Peace – The B-Movie Classic Time Forgot, This Greedy Prime Video Move Must Go, The Humiliating Advice American Dirt Author Got Post-Cancellation, Bill Maher Says Democrats ‘Own’ America’s Broken Education System, and No Beloved Character Is Safe from Horror Makeovers
The Lid: U.S. Army Begins Eliminating Transgender Soldiers
Legal Insurrection: East Coast Citizen Groups Sue Over Unlawful Authorization of Empire Wind Project, Habba Charges NJ Democrat Congresswoman With Assault After ICE Facility Confrontation, DHS Slams Tim Walz for Describing ICE as ‘Trump’s Modern-Day Gestapo’, California U.S. Attorney Cracking Down on State’s Sanctuary Laws, and Schumer Gets a Smackdown After Trying to Pin Bridge Collision on Trump
Matt Taibbi: Ode to scum 
Outkick: Caitlin Clark vs. Angel Reese Rivalry Has Me Hooked. Which Is Fantastic News For The WNBA, Rep. Burgess Owens Says Alleged Nike Trans Youth Athletes Study Is ‘Pure Evil’, Kentucky Basketball Rallies Around Tornado Victims, As Mark Pope Skips Recruiting Event To Help Clean Up, Pigeon Gets Drilled By Line Drive Ahead of Reds, Pirates Face-Off, and CBS’s Jenny Dell Goes Cowgirl, Maggie Sajak Slips Into A Tiny Black Dress & MSNBC Plays Dumb About Biden
Power Line: Newark Insurrection, Downgrade, Tim Walz, call your office, and Missing airline slump
Shark Tank: Hold The Bible! Could Mark Merwitzer’s Oath SNAFU Topple His Career & Change State Politics Forever?
Shot In The Dark: It. Never. Fails. also, A Tale of Two Tales, 
The Political Hat: Infringing On The Right To Keep And Bear Arms In Nevada
This Ain’t Hell: Forced reset triggers cleared to be sold, Army Vet Joe Don Baker dies, Mexican Navy tall ship collides with Brooklyn Bridge – Two sailors dead, Jacksonville (FL) Man Gets 3 Months in Prison for Faking Service, and Remember Tuberville’s General/Flag Officer Hold?
Transterrestrial Musings: Jake Tapper, Wasting Away In Wind and Solarville, and Sad News
Victory Girls: The Democrat Professional Racketeers Will Never Apologize To Robert Hur, also, Joe’s Cancer Diagnosis – This Is Jill’s Fault
Watts Up With That: From Manure Mountains to Train Terrors – 4 Bizarre Fears Humans Left Behind, Trump’s Energy Shake-Up – Green Dream Fades Fast, ‘Not Judiciable By Any Court’, No Banana Apocalypse – Why The Guardian’s Climate Scare Over Bananas Falls Flat, and Blackouts as Bliss? Why Some Celebrate Power Outages as a Return to ‘Connection’
The Federalist: SCOTUS Oral Argument In Nationwide Injunction Case Illustrates Courts’ Coup Against Trump, Reaction To IVF Bombing Proves Even The People Who Destroy Embryos Know They’re Human, Outcry Over White South African Refugees Shows Democrats’ Goal Is Control, Not Compassion, Relive Karine Jean-Pierre’s Worst Moments Covering Up Biden’s Decline, and ‘There Are Chinese Spies At Stanford’: Bombshell Report Reveals CCP Student Espionage
Mark Steyn: Offed by Ofcom, Shell Games, Grim Up North – Michael Caine in Get Carter, Europoppin’! and Who’s Afraid of the Weeping Willow?

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Rule 5 Sunday: Head On

Posted on | May 19, 2025 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

This week’s appetizer is courtesy of Rule 5 Texan (Rule5Tweets) on X. No connection to the Bachman-Turner Overdrive album.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule 5 Drumming Chimps Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: Saturday Night Girls With Guns, MAGA SCOTUS Meh, Scheherazade, “Sittin’ On The Dock of the Bay”, This Could Change The Film Industry Forever, Robin Hood, Save The Afrikaners, “Cocktails For Two”, Happy Mothers Day, and “Like My Mother Does”

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Sterre Meijer – the Skater Girl, Humpback Whale Spotted in Potomac River, Fish Pic Friday – Shark Fit Natalie, Tattoo Thursday, Watermen Sue the Feds Over Rockfish, The Wednesday Wetness, Tuesday Tanlines, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Palm Sunday, MDDNR Encourages Smaller Fishing and Trump Looks at Suspending Habeas for Illegal Aliens

BACON TIME: Rule Five Friday – A Trip To Hooterville

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

In The Mailbox: 05.18.25 (Sunday Substackery)

Posted on | May 18, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.18.25 (Sunday Substackery)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Clearing the tabs now to prevent a hideous Monday.
You may recall Stacy occasionally mentioning KiwiFarms, an invaluable source for information on lolcows and violent mutants on the internet. They’re having a fundraiser.
Things aren’t going well for Zilla. Pray for her if you have a moment.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

No Moxie, only coffee

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: The Real Biden White House Org Chart
EBL: MAGA SCOTUS Meh , Mexican tall ship hits Brooklyn Bridge, Recreating ancient Roman bread (Panis Quadratus), and Mount Saint Helens
Twitchy: Dems Losing Their Minds Over Trump’s “Don’t Stop Believing” Music Video, Clark Dominates Reese In WNBA Opener That Had Everything But Good Basketball, and Bongino Says “Priceless Observing Some Of The Same Apologists Who Misled America For Years”
Louder With Crowder: Female “pastor” is here to tell you the “church” is pro-abortion and pro-all the other woke things, Greatest sheriff in America calls out male prostitute for being “one ugly woman”, Leftist college student can’t understand why no one cares about her pro-Gaza hunger strike, Democrats Are Once Again Demanding Reparations For People Who Have Never Been Slaves, and Congressman introduces bill to study the adverse effects of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) on the progressive brain
Vox Popoli: The Vaxx is Working, Space is Green, The Fatal Kiss, and Why Were They Even There?
Bugscuffle Gazette: Facebook Delenda Est, Pepper Spray, 
Toni Airaksinen: Prof who called Jewish synagogues “Temples of Satan” has been fired, 
Stoic Observations: Brains Are A Cheap Commodity, 
Postcards From Barsoom: The Left Turns Right, 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Glenn Reynolds: Report From Down South
STUMP: Best Wishes To Former President Biden – A Prostate Cancer Diagnosis

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The Ultimate ‘Pro-Choice’ Logic? Weird New Terrorist Threat Emerges

Posted on | May 18, 2025 | Comments Off on The Ultimate ‘Pro-Choice’ Logic? Weird New Terrorist Threat Emerges

When I first heard the news that a bomb blast had wrecked a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, the question of motive immediately intrigued me. This particular clinic was known for in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, and the thought occurred to me that perhaps the bomber was a Catholic extremist (because the Catholic Church opposes all such artificial interventions in the reproductive process).

By late yesterday, the FBI was calling it an act of “terrorism” and unnamed sources were telling the media that it was apparently a suicide car bomb, with the perpetrator dying in the blast. Mysterious as this was — suicide bombers are a phenomenon we usually associate with radical Islam — my speculation about the bomber’s motive never came close to the truth, which is weird beyond my imagination:

A 25-year-old self-described “pro-mortalist” has been identified as the attacker who detonated a car bomb outside a fertility clinic in Palm Springs Saturday — killing himself and injuring four other people, according to sources.
Guy Edward Bartkus, of Twentynine Palms, is believed to have detonated an explosive device in his car outside the American Reproductive Centers, which performs IVF treatments, egg collections and other procedures, law enforcement sources told The Post.
Bartkus allegedly described his fanatical pro-death beliefs in written and recorded manifestos as being against bringing people into the world without their consent to spare them from future suffering, KCAL news reported. . . .
The FBI had confirmed the suspect was the sole fatality of the bombing.

A couple more facts: Bartkus was apparently a follower of a YouTuber who calls himself Efil Blaise, who posted a total of 45 videos about his “pro-mortalism” philosophy during 2022 and has since disappeared.

YouTube death cult guru Efil Blaise

The second relevant fact: On his web site, Bartkus said his “best friend” named Sophie had recently died, and that she and he “had agreed that if one of us died, the other would probably soon follow.” This was apparently a reference to “Sophie Tinney, 27, who died on April 20 of multiple gunshot wounds to the head in a home in Fox Island, Washington. Tinney’s boyfriend, Lars Eugene Nelson, 29, was later charged with second-degree murder in connection to her death.” Tinney evidently had asked her boyfriend to kill her — assisted suicide.

What’s going on here? What we are witnessing is, I would argue, a consequence of the secularization of culture. The self-described advocates of Science and Reason have succeeded so well in their war against God that many young people now see no meaning or purpose to life. Without any sense of moral law — and no sense of duty or obligation toward the divine author of the law — some turn to hedonism, while others embrace a Nietzschean nihilism. And it seems that many of them take seriously the preaching of “choice” as the ultimate ideal, as well as the anti-human gospel of environmentalism, where human existence is supposedly destroying the planet. The lunatic Bartkus left a manifesto:

The manifesto states that existence causes suffering and argues for a “peaceful” death to prevent future harm, like a “disease or accident.” One section of the site expresses an extreme anti-natalist worldview, stating, “The end goal is for the truth (Efilism) to win, and once it does, we can finally begin the process of sterilizing this planet of the disease of life.”
“Life can only continue as long as people hold the delusional belief that it is not a zero sum game causing senseless torture, and messes it can never, or only partially, clean up. I think we need a war against pro-lifers,” it continued.
The website also addresses religious criticism by dismissing the belief in God. “I just wanted to say, your god definitely doesn’t exist, but if he did, I’d choose satan over your evil god. Did you ever think that maybe the bible is just slander against satan, and that satan just realized what a f***ing creep your god is?”

Speaking of dangerous lunatics, Hillary Clinton:

Crazy People Are Dangerous.



 

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Category: Terrorism

FMJRA 2.0: Hanging In There

Posted on | May 17, 2025 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Hanging In There

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Not as good a week as last week, but we’ll take it. Lost two of our three games against the Twins, one when Bob Johnson blew a 4-3 lead in the ninth inning and the other when our hitters just couldn’t get it done against Jim Barr. Our sole win, oddly enough, came when we ripped Stan Bahnsen for five runs behind Jim Kaat. Then we went home to RFK to face the Expos, and the shoe was on the other foot. Charlie Hough vultured the win in Game #1 after blowing the save for Spaceman Lee, Joe Coleman went the distance for his 13th win in game #2, but our hopes were dashed for a sweep when we could only score two runs off Luis Tiant. Still, we’re 56-62, eight games behind Pete’s Brewers, tied with the Twins, and still hoping for a .500 finish or a wild card spot. Either is good.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

The Greatest Legal Mind of Our Era
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: A Week of Wins!
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Rule 5 Sunday: San Romero Knights
Animal Magnetism
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.13.25
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

‘He’s No Stranger to Us’: The Problem of Our ‘Revolving-Door’ Justice System
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.14.25 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.15.25 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.15.25 (Evening Edition)
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.16.25
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

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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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