“Quite suddenly, the horrific story of the Uvalde elementary-school shooting has shifted from questions about the gunman — why no one thought to report his strange and menacing behavior to police, and how he managed to obtain several thousand dollars’ worth of weaponry and ammunition — to just what happened when he entered the school. The official accounts from authorities have changed quickly. Apparently, almost everything we were told by law-enforcement authorities in the immediate aftermath of the shooting was inaccurate, and this is now a story about police showing up to an ongoing school shooting, taking fire, retreating, and then waiting an hour for backup.
A gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at a South Texas elementary school walked unopposed onto school grounds, state law enforcement officials said Thursday — and once he was inside, it took police an hour to stop him. . . .
“He was not confronted by anybody,” Victor Escalon, a DPS official, said during a press conference Thursday. The agency is leading the investigation into the shooting along with Uvalde police.
He offered new details about the timeline of the law enforcement response Thursday, saying local police officers were the first to arrive at the school — about four minutes after the gunman entered — but had to fall back after taking gunfire. Officers tried to negotiate with the shooter, he said, but the man “did not respond.”
Escalon said most of the gunfire from the shooter occurred when he first entered the school but added that he continued to fire shots — some at police — as officers attempted to make contact.
It took officers an hour to kill the gunman once he was inside as law enforcement officers called “everyone that’s in the area” to help, then waited for “specialty equipment” and body armor and organized a tactical team to reenter the school, Escalon said.
Asked whether officers should have gone in sooner, Escalon said, “That’s a tough question. . . . I don’t have enough information to answer that question yet.”
Let me help you with that, Texas Department of Public Safety South Regional Director Escalon: Yes, officers should have gone in sooner. When elementary-school children are being shot or at risk of being shot by a crazed gunman, an armed police officer is obligated to intervene.That is their job. They take an oath to serve and protect. If you’re not willing to confront an ongoing threat in a circumstance like that, why did you become a cop?…”
Which begs the question why no one inside locked the school down in response to the shooting, or why it apparently took law enforcement so long to react? We’re afraid at this point we have more questions than answers.
“I think we’re at the stage where the only thing that’s actually going to potentially prevent and intentionally have an effect are measures around the schools, especially elementary schools, to harden them, to make it much more difficult for someone to break in with a gun and keep shooting. And that will require better perimeter measures, not having the doors open where people can come in, but also police officers on site. And that’s unfortunate. It wasn’t too long ago where we didn’t have airport security. Anyone could walk up to the gate. And now, 20-25 years later, we have intense security at airports and in office buildings we never had. And now we do. And I’m afraid we’re at the point where we’re going to have to have it at schools. I mean, our most precious resources in these schools, are young children, and we have to take care of them and protect them.”
But not at the expense of the 2nd Amendment rights of the rest of the country.
As Andrew Pollack accurately observes…
We have $40B to send to Ukraine to protect their borders, but we can’t protect our children in our country. What are our children worth?
Politicians on both sides voted to send that money to Ukraine, I don’t want to hear that we don’t have a budget to secure our schools. #FixItpic.twitter.com/Tc47afV0ng
If you want to know how Democrats maintain their monopoly in the Illinois capital of Springfield despite their flagrant mal-governance, look no further than their legally questionable gambit to conscript businesses into helping them get re-elected.
As part of this year’s budget, Democrats delayed for six months the 2.2-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax increase that was set to take effect in July. In 2019 Democrats doubled the gas tax to 38 cents a gallon and indexed it to inflation.
Illinois property taxes are the highest in the Midwest, and so are its gasoline prices, which average $4.97 a gallon compared to $4.33 in Wisconsin, $4.59 in Indiana, and $4.16 in Missouri and Iowa. Some of the price disparity also owes to Illinois’s higher cost of doing business.
Delaying a tax increase is Democrats’ idea of a tax cut. But Democrats worried they wouldn’t get political credit for this act of political beneficence so they required gas stations to post “clearly visible” signs, at least four by eight inches, stating in bold print that “As of July 1, 2022, the State of Illinois has suspended the inflation adjustment to the motor fuel tax through December 31, 2022.”
Gas stations that fail to post the signs are guilty of a petty offense and could be fined $500 a day—this in a state where shoplifters often go unprosecuted. Democrats weren’t shy about their political motive.
During a legislative hearing, Democratic state Rep. Michael Zalewski stated the signs would remind “pumping Illinoisans that . . . as a result of the work of the General Assembly the [cost of living] adjustment has not gone into effect” and that as drivers pump gas, “their gaze will fix upon the pump and maybe they’ll read about the good things we did.”
Last week gas-station owners sued the state for violating their speech rights under the Illinois and U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit says the law requires gas retailers “to choose between making a political statement they do not wish to make to their customers or the general public on behalf of the State of Illinois” or face criminal penalties.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that government can’t compel corporations to carry political messages with which they disagree. Courts have also ruled that governments can mandate that businesses disclose ostensibly factual information only for limited purposes, such as preventing fraud and protecting public safety. The Illinois law does neither and has no public-interest rationale.
It’s a naked ploy to promote the re-election of Democratic lawmakers. Public anger over the state’s high taxes and rising prices could endanger their legislative supermajority and perhaps even the fate of Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is running for re-election this fall. Democrats are therefore trying to pose as tax cutters even as they slam businesses with more regulatory burdens. Springfield as usual.
Welcome to Illinois: This state stinks…
Speaking of states which reek of corruption, the WSJ tells us…
“Iran secured access to secret U.N. atomic agency reports almost two decades ago and circulated the documents among top officials who prepared cover stories and falsified a record to conceal suspected past work on nuclear weapons, according to Middle East intelligence officials and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The International Atomic Energy Agency documents and accompanying Persian-language Iranian records reveal some of the tactics Tehran used with the agency, which is tasked with monitoring compliance with nuclear nonproliferation treaties and the later 2015 nuclear deal. The U.S. and the IAEA have said for years that Iran has failed to answer questions about its past nuclear work in a cat-and-mouse game that continues to this day and now complicates a revival of the nuclear deal, which lifted most international sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on Iran’s nuclear activities.
Middle East intelligence officials said the IAEA documents, marked confidential by the agency, and Iranian records were circulated between 2004 and 2006 among senior Iranian military, government and nuclear-program officials. The agency was investigating information that suggested Iran had worked on nuclear weapons.
…The IAEA, based in Vienna, declined to comment on the documents and didn’t respond to questions about its handling of security.“
What a surprise.
And in today’s installment of the EnvironMental Moment, courtesy of the New York Post via Jeff Foutch we learn…
“British banking giant HSBC has suspended a top executive who argued during a recent public presentation that the financial risks of climate change were overblown and exaggerated by central bank officials and other policymakers. The suspended employee, Stuart Kirk, is global head of responsible investment at HSBC’s asset management division. He made the remarks during a presentation titled, “Why investors need not worry about climate risk.”
Kirk stated his view that warnings about climate change have “become so hyberbolic that no one really knows how to get anyone’s attention at all.” “I wouldn’t normally mind that. Twenty-five years in the finance industry, there’s always some nutjob telling me about the end of the world,” Kirk said. “I’ve dealt with gold bugs my entire financial career, the roof’s going to cave down, Y2K. Does anyone remember Y2K, anyone old enough? The lifts didn’t stop.”
Kirk was suspended after an internal investigation into his presentation, the Financial Times reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. His speech took place at the FT Moral Money Summit. But sources familiar with the presentation’s planning told the outlet that its “theme and content” were “agreed internally” before the event took place.
HSBC said it could not comment on individual employees’ situations…”
This is in accord with the practice of tyranny throughout human history: As Alan Clark noted in Barbarossa, what matters is not what’s true or false, but exclusively what is believed.
Moving on, here’s a trio of interesting items certain to sate the curiosity of inquiring Conservative minds:
(3). Would it shock anyone to know records show Michael Sussmann billed the Clinton Campaign for work on a “confidential project“ the day of his meeting with…
Here’s a second shot of the juice: When it comes to Sussmann…
As does Hillary, Comey and every other corrupt clown involved in a scandal that dwarfs Watergate.
Which brings us, inappropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s these from the lovely Shannon…
…Ed Hickey…
…and Balls Cotton:
Enjoy the weekend, and remember those who made it possible.
Magoo
Video of the Day
Joe Concho on why Beto is the dictionary definition of desperate, though we must say The Obamao’s attempt to link the killing of 19 innocents in Uvalde to the death of career criminal George Floyd is both irresponsible and reprehensible.
Tales of The Darkside
If the substance of this speech sounds familiar, it’s because we’re hearing a version of it from Progressives and their MSM mouthpieces on a daily basis.
On the Right Side
A Candice Owen documentary well worth your time and money.
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