In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Yesterday I talked about the peculiar pattern that's connected quasi-political violence over the past 18 months. But also yesterday, we saw the latest in an entirely different class of crime , seemingly random but horrific attacks on otherwise anonymouis citizens by repeat offenders on public transit. A man is in custody after a reported stabbing on the Charlotte Area Transit System Blue Line light rail early Friday evening, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police said. Medic confirmed it responded around 5 p.m. near the stop along North Brevard Street and East 25th Street. One person was being treated for serious injuries, according to the agency. On Saturday morning, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department confirmed detectives identified 33-year-old Oscar Solarzano as a suspect. . . . Court records indicate Solarzano was intoxicated on the light rail train and challenged the victim to a fight, and was shouting at others prior to the stabbing. His address was listed as an ad...

Over the past 18 months, beginning with Thomas Crooks in Butler and moving through Ryan Routh, the attempted assassin in Palm Beach; Luigi Mangione, who shot the UnitedHealthCare CEO in Manhattan; a whole string of Tesla arsonists; Robin Westman, the Minneapolis school shooter; Tyler Robionson, the Charlie Kirk assassin; and now Brian Cole Jr, the J6 attempted pipe bomber, we've had a remarkable menagerie of weird figures who've burst into the public consciousness through various acts, or attempted acts, of quasi-political violence. To some extent, we've got the problem that experienced homicide detectives frequently pose: "What does a murderer look like? He looks like any of the people behind you in the checkout line." But actually in these cases, they do have something in common: their lives are obscure; they're reclusive; they have minimal or no social media profiles; they have at best spotty employment histories; their political beliefs are at best i...

The basic details of this story continue to be sketchy; they can be found here and many other places. But I keep listening for dogs that aren't barking. The most obvious is Jake Tapper's need to gaslight the world and claim the suspect, Brian J Cole, Jr, is a "white man" . It's no great step to recognize this contradicts the January 6 narrative that it was a Republcan insurrection, and it goes quite a way to explain why then-FBI Director Wray didn't want to touch the case. A more interesting question is what it reveals about the current inner workings of the FBI and Justice Department. Attorney General Bondi, FBI Director Patel, and Deputy Director Bongino so far appear to be justified in congratulating themselves for the catch, as they did in yesterday's press conference : “Today’s arrest was the result of good, diligent police work and collaboration on a case that languished for four years under the prior adminis...

I vaguely knew that there was some sort of fraud involvoing the terrorist organization al-Shabaab in Minnesota, but this story brings up another, completely different one : Around $250 million was handed out by the Minnesota government to provide meals to schoolchildren during the pandemic from 2020 onward. Instead, it was pocketed by corrupt business owners, including Salim Ahmed Said. He’s the co-owner of Safari Restaurant, where [Rep Ilhan] Omar held her 2018 congressional victory party. Said was found guilty in August of stealing over $12 million for serving 3.9 million “phantom” meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. He blew much of the money on a $2 million Minneapolis mansion and a $9,000-a-month shopping habit at Nordstrom, according to prosecutors. . . . Most of the money in Minneapolis was funneled through the now-defunct nonprofit Feeding Our Future. It allowed both nonprofits and for-profit businesses to be reimbursed with taxpayer money for feeding k...

I noted last month that media, both alt and legacy, had built up the idea that the governor elections in both New Jersey and Virginia were tossups in the polls and even potential upsets. Instead, we got predictable results in both, blue states electing Democrats. Then, almost immediately, we got both alt and legacy media pushing the idea that the special election in the Tennessee 7th House district was a tossup and could be an upset. For instance, intellectual welterweight Glenn Reynolds in the New York Post , the day before the election: This week, a special election in Tennessee’s 7th District, pitting GOP military veteran Matt Van Epps against far-left candidate Aftyn Behn, will show them just how far their base can take them. Going by conventional wisdom, this should be a walkover for Van Epps: The district leans Republican by 10 percentage points, and Van Epps’ policy positions echo those of the previous incumbent, former Rep. Mark Green, who resigned in July to...

Trump's media people, especially 2.0, are pretty darn good, while it's clear that only the B team is left at the Washington Post. I was wondering all Sunday why they dropped the big war crime story -- maybe the biggest scoop since Deep Throat -- on Black Friday, Nov 28, in the middle of a four-day weekend, when everybody would be bloated with Thanksgiving leftovers or off to the Black Friday sales. And then they just stood there while the White House got its ducks in a row the following Monday, which was yesterday. By then, even Real Clear Politics was having doubts : "What happened in this case depends on the sequence," [Carl]Cannon said [on the RCP podcast]. "These stories are not precise. Did Hegseth say 'kill them all' after the first drone strike had disabled this boat?" Tom Bevan suggested these reports are conveniently timed following the recent video from Congressional Democrats urging service members to disobey illegal ...

Robert Spencer asked over the weekend , "Hey, Why Was the DC National Guard Shooter Naked Except for a Pair of Socks?": The first photograph that circulated of Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who shot two National Guard members in Washington on Wednesday, murdering one of them, showed him lying on a gurney, naked except for a pair of socks. Initial reports took due notice of this odd fact, without making any attempt to explain it[.] I'll get back to this. But via the New York Post : A leading national refugee agency was warned multiple times that the Afghan terror suspect accused of murdering one National Guard member and critically injuring another was spiraling into mania and mental illness beginning in 2023, according to a bombshell email leak. Despite this, and an alleged failure to maintain his mandated contact with state social services, he still managed to win asylum in April of this year. Rahmanullah Lakanwal‘s behavior was so ...