The Other McCain

‘He’d rather be dead than
go back to prison,’ says mother
of man killed in Sparks standoff

Category: Iran, Israel, Joe Biden

Biden’s Gun Control Policy Won’t Work

Posted on | April 13, 2024 | Comments Off on Biden’s Gun Control Policy Won’t Work

Most media accounts of what Joe Biden did this past week assert that his administration has “closed the gun show loophole.”

Except, of course, there was no such thing as a “gun show loophole.” It’s a propaganda phrase invented by the anti-gun fanatics who want to prevent law-abiding citizens from defending themselves.

“Every year, thousands of unlicensed gun dealers sell tens of thousands of guns without a background check, including to buyers who would have failed one — domestic abusers, violent felons, and even children. This single gap in our federal background check system has caused unimaginable pain and suffering. Today, as the head of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, I am proud to say that all gun dealers must conduct background checks no matter where or how they sell.”
— Kamala Harris

Who are these “unlicensed gun dealers,” ma’am? Here is a brief explanation of what the so-called “loophole” is:

To sell guns commercially, whether from a store, at a gun show, out of your house or out of the back of your van, you need to be federally licensed as a dealer. This sales permit is called a Federal Firearms License, or FFL. Any sale an FFL holder makes must be to someone who passed the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) check on the day of the sale, and that is true whether the sale is in a store, at a gun show or out of the trunk of a car.
To buy a gun from a licensed dealer, regardless of the setting, you have to show a government-issued photo ID, you have to fill out a form that requires your identifying information, and you must answer a series of yes/no questions about your criminal background, whether you are the actual buyer and your citizenship status. The dealer will then call NICS to process your background check, which normally takes 10 to 90 minutes, depending on request volume and whether you have a common name. . . .
If you go to a gun show, basically all of the tables showcasing guns are manned by FFL dealers who have to process background checks, as they are “engaged in the business of dealing guns.” If you are commercially selling firearms, you are “engaged in the business of selling guns,” and if that’s the case, you’re a dealer and therefore need to be licensed. So, in practice, there isn’t much of a gun show loophole — at least not the way gun-controllers want us to believe.
If you are engaged in the business of selling lots of guns without an FFL and without background checks at a gun show or online, that isn’t a loophole; you’re committing a federal crime.

What the “loophole” rhetoric is actually about is an attempt to classify almost any person-to-person transfer of a weapon as a transaction requiring a background check, and essentially classifying people as criminals for selling a gun to their friend, relative or neighbor. In other words, if I’ve got a rifle and need some cash, while my buddy has $400 and wants to buy my gun, I would have to go to a licensed dealer and get him to do a background check on my buddy. The Biden rule would classify all firearms owners as potential weapons dealers and make it a federal crime for you to ever sell your guns to anybody.

Meanwhile, however, the Biden administration isn’t prosecuting actual criminals who violate existing federal law:

A 2022 report indicated that 42 percent of rejected firearms background checks were denied due to prior felony convictions. The report also indicated that in 2017, 12 of 12,000 people denied a gun purchase were prosecuted. It is a federal felony for a prohibited person, like a convicted felon, to attempt to purchase a firearm – and yet, in the most recent year for which data is available, the federal government prosecuted 0.1% of the attempts. That’s a bad joke.
In this, as in so many things, the Biden administration is indulging in a useless, ineffective virtue signal. This law and this rule will have no visible effect on crime . . .

This is what Democrats and their media friends will never tell you — they are against putting criminals in prison. They want to put Donald Trump in prison, but they don’t want to put criminals in prison, because most criminals are Demorats (which is why most Democrat-controlled states allow convicted felons to vote). Why is violent crime out of control? How are convicted felons getting guns? Is it because, as Vice President Harris would have you believe, “thousands of unlicensed gun dealers sell tens of thousands of guns without a background check”? Or is it because criminals steal guns? Anybody can research this question, but journalists employed by the liberal media won’t do that, for some reason.

Who is shooting whom? Simple question — how many shootings are there in America every year, and who are the perpetrators? Are most shootings committed by Trump voters and NRA members? Is it because of the “gun show loophole” that these criminals are armed? Or is it because the criminal justice system is a revolving door that keeps putting repeat offenders out on the street? As I say, anybody can research these questions, but nobody at CNN is ever going to do that work.

Anthony Wade was 34 when he died March 29 in Sparks, Nevada, after shooting a cop who pulled him over for a traffic violation. Police on Friday released video of the incident, during which Wade fled after shooting the cop, crashed his car, ran on foot, broke into two different homes where he attempted to hide out, and ambushed police when they came after him. Anthony Wade was a convicted felon who, as such, was prohibited from owning firearms. He’d been a criminal his whole life:

Wade’s criminal history started when he was a juvenile, according to court documents.
Those records are sealed, but were referenced when Wade pleaded guilty in 2009 to burglarizing a house when he was 18. The 16- to 72-month prison sentence was waived as long as Wade kept out of trouble.
But five months later, Wade was found drinking in a downtown Reno motel room with other underage kids. He was arrested under the alias Jamal Jerome Smith. During the arrest, he assaulted a police officer.
Wade pleaded guilty and his probation was revoked. He was sent to the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City to serve out the original burglary sentence of up to 72 months plus six months for the assault.
Jamal Jerome Smith again shows up in arrest and court documents in 2020 for a 2015 armed robbery at a Sparks nightclub. That case was eventually dropped, with prosecutors citing a lack of admissible evidence.
There may be other cases where Wade was a suspect and a criminal record that spans other states, according to Kendall Holcomb, public information officer for the District Attorney’s Office. . . .
Debra Wade said she knows the investigation will show her son was at fault for firing first. But she saw in her son a man trying to get his life back together so he could have a better relationship with his three children.
He was living with her and collecting disability.

“Collecting disability”? What disability did he have? But never mind that. Instead, we need to ask, where did Anthony Wade get that gun? Did he save up his disability checks to make that purchase? Did he buy it through the “gun show loophole”? Or is it more likely that Anthony Wade, the convicted burglar, stole that gun during a burglary?

You won’t see this story on CNN. They’re not going to ask questions that undermine the narrative about “Gun Violence Prevention.”

NEW: Governor DeSantis responds to a reporter's question about the Biden Administration attempting to "close the gun show loophole." ??

DESANTIS: There's no gun show loophole. This is propaganda. ?

"Clearly they don't have legislation … so it's another example of Biden… pic.twitter.com/PRpg3LdPob

— Christina Pushaw ? ?? (@ChristinaPushaw) April 12, 2024

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Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 04.12.24

Posted on | April 13, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.12.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
You have three days left to get your taxes done. Don’t ask me for help, I’m swamped.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: O.J. Simpson Dead, FISA Back? Porchetta, Traditional Japanese Salted Salmon, and So what is a three star Michelin chicken dinner like?
Twitchy: Iowahawk Demystifies The “Latine” Thing, It Wasn’t The Trial, It Was The Murders – AP WRECKED Over OJ Obituary, and Stephen King’s Weak & Creepy Attempt To Paint Republicans As Pedos Over AZ Abortion Law Backfires Badly
Louder With Crowder: TV Host Responds Perfectly To Annoying Guest Who Announces Preferred Pronouns In Greeting: “You are not a plural person”, David Hogg gets WRECKED on gun control by girl who survived Chinese communism, Denver is overrun by illegals, so they are going to (checks notes) defund the police and the firemen, and “Triggered and unsafe”: American-flag clad dance squad KICKED OUT of competition over small group who cried about their patriotism
Vox Popoli: Economics is Fake, Air Supremacy in Ukraine, Clown World Finds Out, The Return of National Economics, and What Leverage is That?
According To Hoyt: Economics is not Wishcasting, The Wrong End Of The Stick, and About the Handbasket
Monster Hunter Nation: Correia Mocks Your Major
L’Ombre de L’Olivier: Attack of the Drones Revisited
Upstream Reviews: Avenging Angels,
Gab: The Old Temple vs. The New Temple

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Everyone Procrastinates, also, What We Need is a Crusade
American Conservative: A Plan to Infuse American Values into State Department Hiring, also, The 2024 Elections Are a Warning for Turkey’s Right
American Greatness: DEI Cronyism and Woke Grifters, Trump Is Right: Democrats, Even Jewish Ones, Hate Israel, and The U.S. Must End Engagement (and Biden’s Neo-Engagement) With the PRC Now
American Thinker: The Brainwashing of America, Democrats Will Champion Despicable Pedophilia Within Five Years, or Less, and FBI: Decline and Fall
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Red Thursday News, also, Rule Five Climate Rule Friday
Babalu Blog: 18th century slaves in Cuba were better fed than Cubans today, Cuba admits increase in drug use, especially among youth, Cuban dictatorship prepares celebrations for Havana’s 505th birthday while the city is in ruins, and Díaz-Canel blames ‘lazy’ Cubans for food crisis, calls for unpaid ‘volunteers’ to work in the fields
BattleSwarm: The Juice Is Loose From Life, also, LinkSwarm For April 12
Behind The Black: Russia and SpaceX complete launches, Japan and NASA ink lunar deal, Red China Announces Quequiao-2 is successfully operating in lunar orbit, Amazon: First operational launch of Kuiper satellites delayed, Remember, the climate data foisted on us by NOAA is based 30% on nonexistent weather stations, and A local California commission looks to restrict launches at Vandenberg
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday, also, Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: What, Precisely, is the Issue with ‘Elites’? (updated)
Da Tech Guy: There is Irony and there is “You’ve Got to Be Shitting Me” Irony Iranian Ayatollah Edition, President Trump’s Abortion Statement was strategically sound and constitutionally correct, and Pintastic NE 2024 Day 1 – Oh the Things you can Play!
Dana Loesch: Dexter Reed Killed Dexter Reed
Don Surber: Never Trumpers continue losing, also, Trump has them on the run
First Street Journal: No Riots: Dexter Reed will not get his George Floyd moment
Gates Of Vienna: Think No More
The Geller Report: The “Death to America” Party, Hamas Throwing Away International and Israeli Food They Haven’t Sold, and FBI Considered Labeling Ashli Babbitt A Terrorist Following Death By Capitol Police On J6
Hollywood In Toto: Hollywood Triples Down on Sequels, Remakes and Reboots, also, John Cleese on Cancel Culture: An ‘Organized … Totalitarian’ Movement
The Lid: Woke Video Game Producers Now Refute Their Whole Game as a Work of of ‘Colonialism’, also, Man Linked to Radical Islamic Terror Group Enters U.S. after Border Patrol Released Him TWICE
Legal Insurrection: Anti-Israel Activists Planning Multi-City ‘Blockade’ on April 15th With Aim of ‘Causing the Most Economic Impact’, Media/Activists Broaden Push for ‘Latine’ After Spectacular Failure of ‘Latinx’, California’s $24 Billion Effort to Combat Homelessness is a Complete Failure, U.S. and Israel Reportedly Conclude Most Hostages Held In Gaza Are Dead, Maxine Waters Complains About Being Confronted in Restaurant, After Telling People to Confront Trump Officials in Restaurants, and Israel Should Ignore Input From People Who Hate Them
Michele Catalano: 1994 Part 4, Feeling kind of blue, and 1994 Part 5
Nebraska Energy Observer: Let’s chat, also, Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Kentucky Hiring Mark Pope Was Not The Popular Move, But What Did Fans Expect After Being Turned Down By Others, Dan Hurley’s Outlook On Recruiting: Avoid Players With Garbage Parents, 76ers Roasted On Social Media After They Unveil Tiny Allen Iverson Statue, University Of Cincinnati Surprises Kelce Brothers With Impromptu Graduation Ceremony, CNN Tries To Justify OJ Simpson Acquittal In Name Of Systemic Racism, and Christen Harper’s Bachelorette Party Is Underway In Mexico & Her ‘Last Rodeo’ Got Started With A Bikini Party
Power Line: The Latest Romper Room Temper Tantrum at Yale, Can Biden Buy the Election? How Desperate Is the Biden Campaign? and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Bipartisan Walz-Houlahan Bill Protects JROTC Programs
Shot In The Dark: In Case You Didn’t Have Enough Reason To Be Nervous This Weekend, Good Generic News, Oops, and An Intellectual Palate Cleanser
STUMP: RIP Yokozuna Akebono, Dead At 54, also, OJ Simpson Dead – Let’s Review The Racial Gap In Prostate Cancer Mortality
The Political Hat: Quick Takes – Towards Genetically Engineered Catgirls: Brain Implants; Designer Chromosomes; Clever Dogs?
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, Biden’s Ironclad Promise, Democratic Congresswoman showcases tax exemption as reparation, American veteran flees to Russia and joins their army, Army helicopter pilots to receive more training hours, and New word, France leads the way!
Transterrestrial Musings: Confessions Of A Rocket Boy, Good News, The Shrinking And Withering Middle Class, OJ’s Obituary, and The Evolution Of Niceness
Victory Girls: Biden Administration Rebuked By Senate On Car Emissions, also, Military Rot Is Institutionalized, Can It Be Stopped?
Volokh Conspiracy: Supreme Court Rules There Is No “Legislative Exception” to the Takings Clause
Watts Up With That: California Sets New Rule for Chevron, Gas Price Is Expected to Rise, Biden Is Spending $1 Trillion to Fight Climate Change. Voters Don’t Care, “We need to be honest” – Building Renewables is Expensive, and Net Zero? Fossil Fuels Are Leaving Us Before We Leave Them
The Federalist: Alvin Bragg Kicks Off Another Frenzied Lawfare Trial With Weakest Case Against Trump Yet, The Devil And Communist China Tries To Prevent Future CCP Victims By Remembering Past Ones, Biden Plans Giant Expansion Of Two National Monuments In 130,000-Acre Land Grab, Georgia Law Restricting Ballot Traffickers From Filling Out Your Application Goes To Trial, Pro-Abortion Terrorist Gets Lighter Sentence Than Peaceful Pro-Life Activists, and Why Can’t Deep-Red Ohio Accomplish Anything For Conservatives?
Mark Steyn: Cheating, Stealing, and Censoring, Kippers, Kedgeree and Kiev, and Both of the Above…er, Below

Category: Linkagery

Total Eclipse = Total Insanity

Posted on | April 12, 2024 | Comments Off on Total Eclipse = Total Insanity

The lunatic is on the grass.
Remembering games
And daisy chains and laughs.
Got to keep the loonies on the path . . .

Generally speaking, insanity is more often associated with the moon than the sun, which is why we call crazy people lunatics. However, it’s important to remember that the moon is what causes a solar eclipse, by passing between the sun and the earth. We were not in the “path of totality” during Monday’s eclipse, but my wife traveled to Ohio as chaperone on a field trip to see it, and made the round trip without incident. The same could not be said for a certain Georgia woman . . .

A crazed woman opened fire on a Florida interstate — shooting two drivers — because “God” told her to do so via the solar eclipse, she said, according to police.
Taylon Nichelle Celestine, 22, left her Holmes County motel Monday and told motel staffers that she was directed by “God” to go on a shooting spree in relation to the total solar eclipse — even though the Sunshine State was not anywhere near the path of the astronomical phenomenon.
Celestine, driving a purple Dodge Challenger with Georgia plates, got onto Interstate 10 at the 112-mile marker and began firing at other vehicles within five miles of getting on the highway in Washington County, Florida Highway Patrol said.
She allegedly shot at a passing car on the interstate several times. The male driver of the vehicle was grazed by a bullet on the arm and was struck with glass fragments when a bullet shattered his window, the agency said.
He pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway and Celestine kept on driving, police said.
The reckless shooter — reportedly armed with both an assault rifle and handgun — kept driving west on I-10 and opened fire on a second vehicle near the 107-mile market, according to highway patrol.
That driver was shot in the neck and was rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment, the agency said.
Celestine continued driving until highway patrol troopers caught up to her near the 96-mile marker and pulled her over. . . .
She was taken into custody without incident and sent to Holmes County Jail, where she was booked on charges of attempted murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, and improper discharge of a firearm.

“God told me to go on a shooting spree,” said no sane person, ever.

As crazy as this was, it was not the craziest incident inspired by the eclipse. That dubious honor goes to California “astrology influencer” Danielle Johnson, a/k/a “Danielle Ayoka”:

Danielle Ayoka is a certified Reiki Master Teacher, who is also trained in over 10 different alternative healing modalities. At a young age, Danielle had a near death experience at 3 years old, which served as her rite of passage into Shamanism. Coming from a rich lineage of Indigenous Shaman and Medicine Women, Danielle’s spiritual gifts began to blossom. Danielle began her tutelage with her personal healer in 2011, after beginning her own healing journey. After 3 years of intensive training, Danielle began to expand her abilities by creating a unique method of healing that combined her training along with her knowledge of energy, physics and psychology. After going to undergrad for Psychology, Danielle decided she wanted to go beyond the mundane limitations of the traditional theraputic methods of healing and started her professional career.
Offering services which include rituals, intuitive guidance, remote healing and astrology, Danielle has developed a grounded approach to total healing for the everyday struggles we face and experience in our lives. With clients world-wide, Danielle has helped subscribers in Argentina, Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Japan, China, India, Australia, South Africa, West Africa, London, Korea, New Zealand, Spain and many more. Combining science, alternative healing, developmental psychology and statistical research on the impactful physiological effects that emotions and trauma have on our overall health and well-being, Danielle offers a unique approach to healing the mind body and soul.

Well, ma’am, how’s that “unique approach” working out for you?

Danielle Johnson was worried about the eclipse.
The astrology influencer and “divine healer,” who went by the name Danielle Ayoka online, called the upcoming astronomical event “the epitome of spiritual warfare” and told people they needed to “pick a side,” in posts Thursday on X.
Less than three days later, in the early morning before the partial solar eclipse, Johnson left a trail of tragedy in her wake: her partner stabbed to death in the kitchen of the family apartment in Woodland Hills, her 8-month-old baby dead after being pushed from Johnson’s moving Porsche Cayenne on the 405, and Johnson herself dead after crashing her car on Pacific Coast Highway in Redondo Beach.
Found by investigators lying about the Woodland Hills apartment: tarot cards and black feathers.
Law enforcement sources confirmed to The Times on Wednesday that Ayoka — who was active online as an R&B recording artist as well as an astrologer offering self-help and healing sessions for a fee — was Johnson, the suspect in the two deaths.
The LAPD has said little publicly about the motive in the deaths and stress the investigation is ongoing. Lt. Guy Golan, homicide supervisor for the LAPD Valley Bureau, said Johnson and her partner, 29-year-old Jaelen Allen Chaney, had no documented history of domestic violence or calls to the Los Angeles Police Department. There were no prior indicators of domestic strife, Golan said.
With no clear motive, investigators believe that the eclipse may have been a factor in the killings because of some of the things Johnson wrote just days before, according to sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Under the Ayoka moniker, Johnson issued a torrent of antisemitic screeds, conspiracy theories and alarmist warnings on Thursday and Friday. . . .
In late March, she posted a GIF of a tapered candle surrounded by leaves, calling it a “free eclipse protection candle for your mind and body” and advising users to “like to activate.” But as the eclipse drew nearer, her posts grew more alarming. On Friday she wrote an all-capital message: “If any spiritual account is not revealing the truth right now they are fake. They are lies. They have sold out and are on the wrong side. Wake up!” . . .

Despite her penchant for offensive posts, Johnson was popular online, with more than 100,000 followers on X who liked her increasingly worrying messages. Years ago she became a darling of the media, with numerous sites such as Refinery 29 and the Fader posting glowing reviews of the “clairvoyant” Johnson’s skills at giving followers “dead on descriptions of each zodiac sign and [guiding] them to wellness through detailed moon rituals.” She would often make posts about specific zodiac signs and how they were being affected at the time by astrological movements. . . .
Johnson started pursuing astrology and reiki — an energy healing technique — about a decade ago . . .
Johnson said . . . she was descended from Cherokee medicine women and was born with the ability to see spirits and a heightened intuition.

Astrology, “energy healing,” Cherokee medicine women as her ancestors, “heightened intuition” — how stupid do you have to be, to give money to someone on the basis of such preposterous claims? And yet, apparently people did give her money, because she was driving a Porsche:

She offered weekly aura cleanses for $2.99 ($1.99 for members of her site) as well as a healing series that was $150 per month for five months . . .
She also offered a $6.99 per month home purifying cleanse that stripped people’s residences of “stagnant energy,” citing better sleep and an increased “vibration” as some of the benefits. Activating the service was simple: purchase the cleanse, get a piece of paper and title it “home purifying cleanse” and write your address on it. Then tuck it away in a safe place, she wrote.
Her neighbors recognized Johnson’s kitchen in candlelight ceremonies she would host for her followers. . . .
[Dr. Natalie Rasgon, a Stanford professor of psychiatry] said it was likely that Johnson had underlying mental health issues.

(Thanks for that insight, professor!)

Investigators offered this account of the morning of the killings:
Johnson stabbed Chaney in the heart early Monday morning as he was on the couch. The evidence suggests that she attempted to drag his body out of the upscale apartment in the Woodland Hills Montecito Apartments complex, but at some point abandoned the effort and dragged his body back into the apartment’s kitchen.
The effort left bloody footprints in the corridor outside, and she was spotted with a noticeable limp in the aftermath. She then fled the apartment complex with her two daughters — one of them 9 years old, the other 8 months — ramming a gate with her car on the way out.
Shortly before 4:30 a.m., she shoved her older daughter out of the car with the infant in the girl’s arms as her vehicle neared the Sepulveda Boulevard/Howard Hughes Parkway exit. The older child survived the fall and escaped traffic, but the infant was killed.
Roughly half an hour later, police in Redondo Beach responded to reports that a black Porsche Cayenne crashed into a tree while driving more than 100 mph on Pacific Coast Highway near Vincent Street. The driver, who was pronounced dead at the scene, suffered massive injuries that made her identification difficult.
Two hours later, police arrived at Johnson’s apartment after a neighbor reported finding Chaney stabbed to death.

What’s the difference between “heightened tuition” and “underlying mental health issues”? Not much, I suspect. But what about the people who signed up for Danielle’s “weekly aura cleanses”? Are they going to get their $2.99 refunded? How will they get rid of the “stagnant energy” now that Danielle’s smashed into a tree at 100 mph?

Well, none of my ancestors were tribal shamans, and I make no claims in regards to intuition or an ability to cleanse anyone’s “aura,” but let me share with you these few words of wisdom:

CRAZY PEOPLE ARE DANGEROUS!

That will be $2.99, thanks.

Category: Crime

America Cries Out in Agony: ‘If Only Norm Macdonald Were Still Alive Today!’

Posted on | April 11, 2024 | Comments Off on America Cries Out in Agony: ‘If Only Norm Macdonald Were Still Alive Today!’

There are many varieties of humor, but overkill — complete and total overkill — is too seldom noted among them. There’s something hilarious about watching a guy grab hold of a joke and then just pounding away on it until you’re like, “Oh, my God, he’s going there again!”

Such was the genius of the late great Norm Macdonald:

He was removed as host of SNL’s Weekend Update in 1998, allegedly for relentlessly mocking O.J. Simpson during his murder trial, offending producer Don Ohlmeyer who was a close friend of Simpson.

Speaking of overkill, how many times did O.J. stab Nicole? It’s been so long since the trial, I’ve forgotten, but she was nearly decapitated:

She had been stabbed multiple times in the head and neck, but there were few defensive wounds on her hands, implying a short struggle to investigators. The final wound inflicted ran deep into her neck, severing her carotid artery. A large bruise in the center of her upper back with a corresponding foot print on her clothing indicated to investigators that, after killing Goldman, the assailant returned to Brown’s body, stood on her back, pulled her head back by the hair and slit her throat. Her larynx could be seen through the gaping wound in her neck, and vertebra C3 was incised; Brown’s head barely remained attached to her body.

You don’t need a Ph.D. in criminal forensics to understand that such an attack — cutting her neck so deep that the blade goes all the way to the spinal column — indicates a deeply personal motive, such as one might expect from an enraged ex-husband, for example. And the fact that the assailant killed two people (including Ron Goldman, who’d made the mistake of offering to escort Nicole home) would suggest the attacker was very muscular. Say, for example, a Heisman Trophy running back who spent more than a decade in the NFL. But this is mere speculation, of course, since I’m not a certified expert in such things.

Everybody knows that accused criminals are “presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,” but everybody also knows that O.J. was guilty as hell. Unfortunately, this crime occurred before there was widespread surveillance video, which left the prosecutors the task of making their case with physical evidence and testimony that failed to persuade the jurors, thus giving rise to the legal shorthand term “O.J. jury.” For example, if you’re a business owner in a city like Baltimore or Philadelphia who gets sued for discrimination, even if you know you’re innocent, your lawyer is likely to advise you to settle the case out of court, because if you take it to trial, you might get the “O.J. jury,” i.e., a bunch of black jurors whose ignorance is exceeded only by their malice.

O.J.’s acquittal was a wake-up call for anyone who was paying attention to what the jury was actually saying: No way they were going to convict a black man of anything, no matter how guilty he was.

This happened just a few years after the Rodney King riots in L.A., and the racial hostility surrounding the Simpson case was intense, but you weren’t supposed to mention it — the media were in complete denial about the obvious motivation of the jurors who refused to convict Simpson. There was a lot of blah-blah-blah from TV talking heads about the errors made by the prosecution, while ignoring the overwhelming evidence of Simpson’s guilt. If O.J. didn’t kill his ex-wife, who did? Who else had a motive? These were obvious questions, for which the defense never offered any cogent answers, and no intelligent observer ever had anything like a “reasonable doubt” about Simpson’s guilt.

Amid all this uproar — three months after the murders, but before the trial started — Norm Macdonald began his stint as host of “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live, and he hammered away on the O.J. case week after week, continuing to do so years after the trial ended. The real beauty of his overkill approach was how Norm would be doing a story about something else and then — surprise! surprise! — it was just a setup for another O.J. joke. Yes, sir, you could say Norm Macdonald had a comedic killer instinct, and you know who else had a killer instinct?

Anyway, it was nearly 30 years ago O.J. Simpson murdered two people and got away with it because of that wretched jury. Today, when the news broke that O.J. was dead, I was watching CNN (so you don’t have to) and wishing I was instead watching the old SNL bits with Norm Macdonald doing what comedians used to do, namely making you laugh by saying Things You’re Not Allowed to Say. See, that was what made it so funny — everybody knew O.J. was guilty, but nobody in the mainstream media would say so. And yet every Saturday night, Norm Macdonald was on TV saying the truth, and it was laugh-out-loud funny. Too bad Norm didn’t live long enough to be here when O.J. finally kicked the bucket.

Remembering O.J. Simpson with 11 minutes of Norm Macdonald shitting all over him.pic.twitter.com/p8xVKdiu4c

— CONSEQUENCE (@consequence) April 11, 2024

UPDATE: Thanks to the commenter who reminds us of the conclusive clue, the size 12 Bruno Magli shoe print. Indeed, how could anyone have dismissed this evidence? This was an unusual and expensive brand of shoes and, even if you wish to theorize about some random stranger having a motive to kill Nicole Brown Simpson, what were the chances that this hypothetical murderer would be wearing size 12 Bruno Magli shoes? But the members of the O.J. jury obviously were not keen on the process of logical deduction, and so the killer was acquitted.