News You May Have Missed For June 14, 2023

 

Trump, the Indictment, and Biden.

Two new polls – Quinnipiac University and Economist/YouGov strongly indicate that the indictment of Trump on 37 federal charges is not hurting him.  Though I have found these pollsters to be inaccurate in the past, comparing their previous results to their current ones gives us an indication of the direction, if any, of voter shifting opinions. Quinnipiac’s latest poll has Trump’s favorable/unfavorable rating at -22%, which is 6 points worse than their May 22 poll (before the indictment was unsealed) when they had him at -16.  But, Economist/YouGov’s latest poll has Trump’s favorability rating at -11%, which is 7 points better than their Poll ending June 6 (before the indictment was unsealed) which was -18%. Taking these two polls together indicates that there is no movement in how registered voters see Trump – in spite of the indictment. What makes this more interesting is comparing Trump and Biden’s favorable/unfavorable numbers.  For this comparison I prefer to use the Real Clear Politics (RCP) averages.  Even though the RCP averages contain polls conducted prior to the indictment being unsealed, I believe they’re a better indicator than either Quinnipiac’s or Economist/YouGov’s polls, when comparing the two candidates. RCP has Biden’s favorable/unfavorable rating at -15.1 and Trump’s as -15.7.  The difference seems to me statistically insignificant. Finally, remember polls over a year out are meaningless in trying to predict who will win what.  However, they can show shifting positions among voters, and what is shown here is that Trump, at least initially, has not been hurt by the indictment.  Of course, that can change depending on how he decides to go forward.  If he shoots from the hip he can, and most likely will, shoot himself in the foot.  If he stays focused and rational, he may be able to turn this into a positive.  

A Travesty:  Rochester, Minnesota man given 180 days in jail for raping two children.

This is a bit old but is just now getting a little traction and needs to have more publicity than it has received. Mohamed Bakari Shei, a 20-year-old male was sentenced on January 30, 2023, on three charges of First Degree Criminal Conduct relating to sexual assaults on two children who were between 4 and 9 years old.  His jail sentence?  180 days.  With good behavior he’ll serve no more than 116 days and does not have to register as a sex offender. Due to a long and convoluted mess involving COVID lockdowns and the fact that Shei was a juvenal when the assaults occurred the DA was faced with several procedural problems.  So, the DA entered into a plea agreement with the sexual abuser.  But it gets worse, the plea agreement called for:

• No prison time;
• a stay of adjudication
• dismissal of two out of three charges; and
• Upon completion of probation all charges against him will be dismissed and will not be on his criminal record.

The judge ignored the no jail time and imposed a staggering low 180 day jail sentence. This travesty of justice is one of the major reasons people are losing, or have lost, faith in our judicial institutions.  As for the procedural problems that could have resulted in Shai walking free, well I suspect those were dues as much to the negligence of the DA as it was the COVID lockdowns.  If it was due entirely to the lockdowns, then the Minnesota leadership is supremely incompetent for not foreseeing these potential problems and implementing procedures to prevent exactly this type of situation. Racism.  I strongly believe racism must not be tolerated in any form.  A jury in Camden, New Jersey agrees and ordered Starbucks to pay $25.6 million to a woman who they fired because she was white.  $25 million in punitive damages and $600,000 in compensatory damages.  Still pending before the court are claims of $2.5 million for lost wages and $1 million for attorney fees. The jury found that Starbucks fired Shannon Phillips, a regional manager, to counter the race-based backlash it was receiving over one of the stores in her area of responsibility calling the police on two black people who were sitting in a Starbucks but not ordering anything.  At trial it came out that it was corporate policy for stores in high crime areas to call the cops on people sitting in a store but not buying anything.  The store that called the cops was located in high crime area. In other words, Starbucks fired Ms. Williams to appease mob demands for racial equity because the store in her area of responsibility followed corporate policy that created a firestorm of race-based protests.  So of course, because Ms. Williams was white Starbucks terminated her to quell the race-based protests.  Unbelievably stupid, not to mention illegal. This is how the justice system must work – apply the law in an equal manner based on the facts.  Alas, today this seems more the exception than the rule.   When Racism Meets Stupid. An anti-gun group calling themselves “Here 4 The Kids” organized what was supposed to be a weeklong rally where white women would sit on the lawn of Colorado’s State Capitol to force Gov. Polis to sign an executive order:

• “Declaring a 30-day state of emergency;”
• Suspending the sale of all firearms; and
• Ordering “a total ban on all guns and a comprehensive, mandatory buyback program.”

Yea, aside from the fact that it would be unconstitutional, the state could not afford to buy back all the guns in Colorado. It’s estimated that during the first five months of this year alone, Colorado citizens bought 230,000 firearms. That’s stupid you say, but not racist.  Well hold your beer! The Here 4 The Kids organizers specifically stated: “we are asking Black folks and other marginalized and vulnerable communities to sit this one out and allow the White women and their privileged bodies, their privilege, and their power to show up.”  Yea, that’s pretty racist, ok, just flat out racist. These privileged and powerful “White women” expected 25,000 people to show up for a week.  How did that work out, you ask?  Well, depending on which news source you use, the estimated turnout on the first day was 2,000, or 1,500, or 500-800 or in the “hundreds.” After that estimates weren’t given because for the next 2 days only a few people turned up. Guess those powerful “White women” weren’t so powerful after all.  On the upside, Gov. Polis didn’t have to worry about signing an unconstitutional executive order.  To be fair, to his credit he said he wouldn’t sign it regardless of the turnout.