Category: A Victory!
In Cincinnati, the Reds are on a hot streak, winning their last ten games and overtaking the Brewers, who are 4-6 in their last ten games. The Pirates have gone from first to fourth place in the division after losing ten in a row and 13 of their last 15.
Also moving up in the NL Central are the Chicago Cubs, who have won three in a row and are 8-2 in their last ten games. Their archrivals, the Saint Louis Cardinals, visit London Stadium for two games this weekend.
But when Monday arrives in Chicago, when the weekend’s box scores are pored over, when the runs, hits, errors, and wild pitches are discussed and argued about, there will be another, much bleaker set of statistics also discussed: the number of people shot and killed over the weekend. Based on recent history, we can safely predict that between 40 and 50 people will be shot in the Windy City between Friday and Sunday and that between 5 and 10 of them will die.
It’s sad to say, but these numbers have come to be discussed as casually as baseball scores, so routine is the mayhem that grips Chicago, especially in the summer months. Faced with this grim tide of blood in the streets, Chicago’s new mayor, Brandon Johnson, attributes it to “disinvestment” and a lack of jobs. “We have already identified 2,500 additional positions that we can hire young people for,” Johnson said at a press conference on Tuesday. “And there are businesses that are stepping up,” he continued, “to make sure that they’re doubling the amount of young people that they’re hiring.”
Which prompts some questions for the mayor. The invaluable website CWB Chicago recently reported on an attempted carjacking that occurred early Monday morning in the city’s Bucktown neighborhood. In the video included at the linked story, we see two men exit a white car (which itself is believed to have been stolen) and approach the 52-year-old male victim, who is on the sidewalk next to his parked car.
The victim appears to offer little if any resistance, yet one or the other of the suspects (perhaps both) shoots him in the back. The suspects then flee in the car they arrived in, leaving the victim bleeding in the street. The man survived, perhaps finding some measure of comfort in knowing his was not among the 477 vehicles carjacked in Chicago so far this year.
And now those questions, Mayor Johnson. Consider the callousness of the two suspects shown in that video. Consider those who committed the 477 completed carjackings this year and the 1,674 completed last year and the 1,848 the year before that. Consider those responsible for the 293 homicides committed so far this year in Chicago and the 1,113 non-fatal shootings, and don’t forget the 4,085 robberies, an average of more than 23 each and every day.
What magical “investment” will serve to lower these numbers, and which businesses should be expected to hire the people responsible for these crimes? And, assuming such people are willing to accept honest employment, who should be expected to patronize a business that employs them?
No matter what success the Cubs may have this season, it’s going to be a long summer in Chicago. Who could have imagined Chicagoans would come to miss Lori Lightfoot?
A good guy with a gun shot an alleged armed attacker in Las Vegas’s Turnberry Towers condominium just after 3 p.m. Friday.
KTNV reported that the attacker was “a man wearing a helmet” who “had an AR-15 and other weapons.”
The man who stopped the reported attack is employed in the building where the incident occurred and remains unidentified.
KLAS noted that Turnberry Towers resident Benjamin Teal said he pulled up to the building as the incident was unfolding, and the valet told him where to take cover: “My valet comes out waving his arms saying, ‘There is a guy with a gun, turn around and go the other way,’ and so we go down to the basement the first level where the valet parking is and then we heard about six to seven or eight gunshots.”
Teal added. “It was pretty distinguishable to be a gunshot.”
The alleged attacker was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
You have to be kidding,right !?! (Note to self maybe its time to move to Israel?)
Back gate auto dealers anticipate used Dodge Charger demand increase
Receiving should be fun
STRIP MALLS IN BAD PARTS OF TOWN, U.S.A. — The sounds of champagne bottles popping echoed through recruitment centers over the weekend as recruiters celebrated the news that the Supreme Court blocked President Joe Biden’s attempts to cancel college loans.
“Man, what a huge relief it is for us, the nation’s military recruiters, to know that people who took on crippling predatory loans in search of making better lives through education for themselves and their offspring may still have to turn to us for relief,” said Army Master Sergeant Kim Babcock.
On a 6-3 vote along ideological lines, the Supreme Court ruled that the Executive Branch had no standing to cancel the debt of 40 million borrowers.
“The good news is that we now have a list of 40 million Americans who thought for a few years that they wouldn’t have these massive, interest-bearing debts to pay off. Jackpot!” shouted Air Force Tech Sergeant James Tchaikovsky.
Suicides in the active-duty military increased in the first three months of 2023 compared to the same time last year, according to a newly released Pentagon report. The Defense Suicide Prevention Office revealed in its quarterly report that the overall number of active-duty suicides — 94 — from January through March was up 25% compared to the number of troops — 75 — who took their own lives in the first three months of 2022. (Joshua J. Seybert/U.S. Air Force)
WASHINGTON — Suicides in the active-duty military increased in the first three months of 2023 compared to the same time last year, according to a newly released Pentagon report.
The Defense Suicide Prevention Office revealed in its quarterly report that the overall number of active-duty suicides — 94 — from January through March was up 25% compared to the number of troops — 75 — who took their own lives in the first three months of 2022.
“Every death by suicide is a tragedy,” according to the report. “Data includes all known or suspected suicides (both confirmed and pending) as of March 31, 2023.”
The Army had the greatest increase in suicide deaths, from 37 to 49. The Marine Corps increased from eight to 14. The Air Force had one additional suicide compared to 2022 and there was no change for the Navy or Space Force, the Defense Department report states.
The 94 active-duty suicides are the most that the military has seen since 97 were reported in the second quarter of 2021. Among reserve troops and the National Guard, the report said suicide figures did not change between the first quarter of 2022 and the same period this year.
Pentagon data have shown a rise in military suicides in the past decade, including a significant spike in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, and the Defense Department has spent millions of dollars on efforts to try to prevent them.
In May, the department enacted the long-awaited Brandon Act to let troops seek mental health services confidentially and any time that they need it. It’s named after Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Brandon Caserta, who committed suicide in 2018. According to Defense Department data, there were almost 29 suicides per 100,000 troops in 2020 — up from 17.5 per 100,000 in 2010. That figure fell to 24.3 per 100,000 in 2021, but it still represented a serious uptick in suicides compared to most of the 2000s and 2010s.
“There is still a gradual increasing trend for suicide in the military over a 10-year period, and we need to see a sustained long-term reduction in suicide rates to know if we’re really making progress,” Beth Foster, executive director of the Pentagon’s Force Resiliency Office, said when the 2021 Annual Report on Suicide in the Military came out in the fall.
The Defense Suicide Prevention Office was created by a Pentagon task force in 2011 to find more effective suicide prevention methods. Earlier this year, the Pentagon’s Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee, after studying the problem for a year, made several recommendations, including restricting troops’ access to firearms, imposing waiting periods for gun and ammunition purchases and raising the minimum age for buying both to 25. Firearms are used in about two-thirds of all active-duty military suicides, according to the Defense Department. The Pentagon is reviewing the recommendations.
The second quarter ended June 30 and the Defense Suicide Prevention Office traditionally doesn’t issue an updated suicide report covering that period until October. The Pentagon’s comprehensive yearly study on military suicides also is typically released in October. This year’s will analyze 2022.
“The numbers presented in this report are preliminary and subject to change as previously unknown suicide cases are reported and some known cases are further investigated,” the four-page report states. “Caution should be used when making comparisons across groups and/or interpreting changes in suicide counts across time.”
In addition to Pentagon-wide programs, each of the military services has its own suicide program designed to provide help for troubled troops. Further, the national suicide prevention hotline was streamlined last year and became available by dialing 988. Pressing “1” after calling the number takes callers to the Veterans Crisis Line. Service members and veterans can also text 838255 or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net for help.
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I really think that the Joint Chiefs need to SERIOUSLY look into this and fix the causes of this Tragedy!
For example, Operational Tempo, Army Speak for having the Troops doing way too much work & less & less down time.
Also the Big Guys need to start pounding down on a Units leadership for missing the signs of suicide.
I myself would be relieving the Commanding Officer & Senior NCOs of that command for not doing their job of looking out for their people! Plus I would get on the Chaplains and the MDs too as that is one of their jobs too! As they need to get off their butts & get out into the barracks and housing units of the base.
As I am willing to bet that if you do that a few times. Then the word would get out through through the back channels of the Officers Club & NCO Club asap.
Now granted this would not cure the problems of suicide in the service. As there is always going to be someone who is going to check out no matter what. But it would get the numbers down a lot. Grumpy
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