84-Year-Old Allegedly Shoots Innocent Teen Through a Door, NYC Will ARREST People With This TOY Gun, Biden's Serious Primary Challenger is Gaining in the Polls (The Five for 04/19/23)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
I’ve got a couple of exciting projects to (hopefully) share in Friday’s edition.
For now, let’s dive into the news.
[one]
Protestors took to the streets of Kanas City over the shooting of a teenager, who thankfully survived.
NBC News reports:
The shooting of a Black teenager who rang the wrong doorbell after mistaking the residence for one a block over has sparked outrage on social media, a weekend protest and calls for the shooter’s arrest.
Nationally prominent civil rights attorneys Lee Merritt and Ben Crump announced Sunday that they were taking the case and promptly criticized authorities in Kansas City, Missouri, for releasing the man who opened fire, who they said is a white man.
Ralph Paul Yarl, 16, was released from the hospital Saturday after he was shot just before 10 p.m. Thursday.
Yarl, a high school junior whose teacher said his goal is to study chemical engineering in college, was shot once in the head and a second time in the arm, Merritt and Crump said in a joint statement.
"There can be no excuse for the release of this armed and dangerous suspect," the lawyers said.
Kansas City police said the child mistook a residence in the 1100 block of Northeast 115th Street for the location of his siblings, who were at a home in the 1100 block of Northeast 115th Terrace, according to NBC affiliate KSHB of Kansas City.
Demonstrators targeted the location Sunday as word of the shooting started to reach a national audience through social media.
Protesters marched toward the residence where the shooting took place, chanting “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!”
Wait a minute, I thought the Woke crowd wanted to eliminate cash bail, even for alleged murderers (like Illinois has).
Three things can be true at the same time:
A. It’s very possible the shooting was racially motivated.
B. The accused is 84 years old, and facing decades in prison. In other words, he’s going to die in there. Probably very soon.
C. Neither A. nor B. cancels out a person’s right to a fair trial by their peers.
I’m unsure of what the protesters are protesting for here? This looks like and open and shut case, and this geriatric would-be murderer will die behind bars.
The protest signs read “Make the Arrest” (KC police did…immediately) and “Justice for Yarl” (nothing can make this poor teenager un-shot, but the police and courts have acted swiftly here…what is unjust?)
What more could we do to punish him, under the law?
[two]
Frank Sinatra famously said of New York “if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”
Yeah, unless you have a Nerf style gun. The above graphic is not a joke…it was put out by the New York Police Department’s official social media accounts.
Meanwhile, the mother of a murdered veteran torched the city’s justice system this week.
A New York City mother testified that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office treated her and her family "like garbage" as she sought the prosecution of those responsible for the death of her son.
Madeline Brame appeared before the House Judiciary Committee's field hearing in NYC on Monday, testifying about her son's murder and the years-long court battle that followed. Brame blasted both Bragg's handling of the case and the larger New York judicial system, saying millions of taxpayer dollars were being wasted even as crime spiked.
Bragg has let "all types of criminal elements free to do what they want, when they want, however they want, to whomever they want, with no consequences – no deterrence," Brame testified. "Millions and billions of our hard-earned taxpayer dollars are going to fund organizations that are doing absolutely nothing to deter this crime."
"I propose that not another dime of our federal tax dollars be pumped into [soft policing organizations] until they can produce measurable outcomes of the effectiveness of what they are doing with our tax dollars," she continued. "And as for this district attorney's office, if he is receiving one penny of federal dollars, you need to pull that funding until he starts doing his damn job and prosecuting crime."
Brame's son, Army Sgt. Hason Correa, was stabbed nine times in front of his father in 2018. His attackers were alleged to be Mary Saunders, her brother and another man. Prosecutors worked on the case for more than four years, but Bragg's office was unable to prove that Saunders had knowingly assisted Correa's murder.
If New York citizens are fined or arrested for toy guns that are very obviously toys, that takes police and prosecution resources away from real crimes.
And NYC can’t even bring murders to justice.
[three]
President Biden will be the rare sitting President to face a serious Primary challenger for re-election.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launches his unlikely bid for the Democratic presidential nomination Wednesday with the support of 14% of voters who backed President Joe Biden in 2020, an exclusive USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds.
That is surprising strength for a candidate who has a famous political name but is now known mostly as the champion of a debunked conspiracy theory blaming childhood vaccines for autism.
In the survey taken Saturday through Tuesday, only 67% of Biden's 2020 supporters said they would support him for the Democratic nomination over his current challengers. Kennedy stands at 14%, and self-help author Marianne Williamson, a quixotic candidate for the nomination last time, is at 5%. Another 13% are undecided.
The poll was taken by landline and cellphone of 600 Biden voters, identified from national and state polls from 2020 to 2022. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
I guess I should say USA Today “reports,” since the paper seems to be Big Mad that Kennedy is (or was?) anti-vaccine-mandate.
The continuing downward spiral for journalism continues…and the major outlets are often no better written than bedroom blogs these days.
Anyway, RFK Jr. may have a shot at this thing.
[four]
It’s a…rough week to be Fox News.
Fox News agreed Tuesday to pay $787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems, settling a lawsuit brought by a company that was repeatedly smeared on air with fantastical claims of helping to rig a presidential election and marking an abrupt end to one of the most consequential and closely watched media cases in decades.
The eye-popping figure — the largest publicly disclosed monetary settlement ever in an American defamation action — averted what could have been an even costlier outcome for Fox and its parent company, Fox Corp., had the suit gone to a jury. Dominion had sought $1.6 billion, and several pretrial rulings had strengthened its claims.
The settlement agreement came with only a grudging acknowledgment by Fox that it had been wrong in repeatedly airing false statements that backed up President Donald Trump’s bogus claims of election fraud after the 2020 election. Fox’s hosts and guests had repeatedly depicted Dominion, the maker of voting machines and software, as at the heart of a conspiracy to change votes to hand Joe Biden the election.
As expected, CNN gloated over the news:
Uhh, Mr. Tapper…your network had to pay Nick Sandman $250 million, so perhaps it’s a good idea to just shut up.
Of course, nobody really saw Tapper say that live, because CNN has just 400,000 viewers (1/3 of Fox News).
When I was doing radio, TV and journalism in Chicago simultaneously…I had a larger audience than CNN is currently drawing.
By myself.
[five]
At this point, I would assume most of us realize recession is all but certain (or, more likely, already here), but things got…stranger…this week.
The growth of the U.S. economy stalled in recent weeks as businesses took out fewer loans and banks tightened credit standards, the Federal Reserve said in its latest Beige Book report.
“Overall economic activity was little changed in recent weeks. Nine Districts reported either no change or only a slight change in activity this period while three indicated modest growth,” the Fed said.
The Beige Book is compiled by the Richmond Fed based on information gathered from the 12 regional Fed banks. The latest report is based on information collected on or prior to April 10.
Although growth was weak, there were no districts that reported an overall decline in economic activity. That suggests the economy is actually stronger than it was at the start of the year when the January Beige Book recorded slight decreases in activity in three districts and one significant decrease.
Perhaps another way to read this is that businesses are not expanding, but consumers are still spending.
Until the next one,
-sth
"When I was doing radio, TV and journalism in Chicago simultaneously…I had a larger audience than CNN is currently drawing.
By myself."
That had me ROFL!