Roundup once again
(1) Here’s the latest development in the sad story of the killing of Ashli Babbitt on January 6, 2021:
The Trump administration will pay nearly $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt, a supporter of the president who was fatally shot by police when she tried to storm the House Speaker’s Lobby during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, according to multiple reports.
After settling with the family earlier this month, the Justice Department agreed Monday to pay a principal of just under $5 million to Babbitt’s estate, which was originally seeking $30 million, the Washington Post reported.
Outgoing US Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said he was dismayed at the decision to settle the lawsuit …
I bet he was.
I’m not going to rehash this particular death, but I think the family absolutely deserved compensation.
(2) Female track athlete bested by a biological male gets on the 1st place podium for a moment:
The audience erupted when Reese Hogan posed for pictures on the first-place podium after the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section Finals.
That’s because Hogan won the triple jump…not the male athlete from Jurupa Valley who defeated her by four feet.
FOUR. FEET.
The male also won in the long jump.
(3) The UK virtue signals by siding with Hamas and against Israel – which is an awfully strange way of virtue-signaling but a common one these days:
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced Tuesday that the United Kingdom is suspending free trade agreement negotiations with Israel and taking other punitive measures, including the imposition of sanctions on West Bank settlers, in response to Israel’s wartime policies during its conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
The announcement followed comments by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier on Tuesday, saying he was “horrified” by Israel’s expanded ground campaign in Gaza.
If they’d been around during WWII, they would have been horrified by the UK’s offensive against the Nazis.
(4) In a 7-2 decision, SCOTUS rules that the Maine legislature must reinstate a member who criticized a trans athlete:
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) handed Maine state Rep. Laurel Libby (R), not to mention free speech, a huge victory Tuesday afternoon by restoring her voting privileges in the Maine House of Representatives. In a 7-2 ruling, with Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissenting, SCOTUS ordered the Maine legislature to revoke the February 15th censure of Libby, which saw her unable to vote on behalf of her 9,000 constituents.
As RedState has previously reported, Libby first got into trouble with some of her Democrat colleagues when she posted to social media the photo of a biological male celebrating his win in a girl’s track and field event. Libby noted that the boy had come in fifth place a year earlier when competing in the same event in the boys division, but emerged the victor when he decided to compete as a girl. Despite the fact that Libby had used a photo that was publicly available, Maine Speaker of the House Ryan Fecteau (D) censured Libby and demanded she apologize for her actions … or else.
That “or else,” as reported earlier in May be our own Bonchie, was stripping Libby of her voting privileges and banning her from speaking on the record.
The dissenters? Jackson and Sotomayor. Wasn’t it Jackson who felt unqualified to determine what’s a woman?
(5) Trump says Moscow is ready to negotiate with Ukraine about a ceasefire, while Putin is hedging. I have my doubts about whether this will bear fruit.
Feel good story from SoCal. It will be interesting to see what the Democrats do to counter this move. Maybe refuse to fingerprint people’ booked into jails
“US Attorneys in Sanctuary Jurisdictions Want to Sign on to Bill Essayli’s ‘Guardian Angel’ Task Force
RedState editor Bob Hoge reported Monday on “Guardian Angel,” the brainchild of U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles Bill Essayli, who was hand-picked by President Donald Trump from the California Assembly for just this type of action and oversight. Under Guardian Angel, Essayli has organized a federal task force made up of ICE, FBI, HSI, DEA, and ATF. The combined agencies work from an office in Downtown L.A., and they do a daily scan of criminal databases that contain fingerprint identification to isolate illegal aliens jailed throughout Southern California who have previously been deported from the U.S. This moves their crime from a local law enforcement issue to the federal purview, because “illegal re-entry” is a federal felony.
Once Essayli and Co. have determined that someone has committed a felony by re-entering the country, the whole game changes:
“As soon as the task force ID’s an alien booked into a local jail who has a previous deportation, they seek a federal criminal warrant on them for felony re-entry, signed off on by a federal judge.
“Unlike an administrative ICE warrant or ICE detainer request, these criminal judicial warrants for 8 USC 1326 *CANNOT* be ignored by sanctuary jurisdictions, and California’s sanctuary state law cannot shield aliens from these criminal warrants. Instead of releasing the alien inmates and ignoring ICE detainers, jails must hand the aliens over to the Feds, regardless of sanctuary policy.”
https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2025/05/20/us-atty-for-la-essaylis-guardian-angel-showing-success-other-ags-want-to-clone-and-replicate-it-n2189350
I donated to Essayli’s campaign because he’s a fighter. We could use him in the assembly, but he will do more good as the US attorney.
1, I think someone should be in prison for a long time. Derek Chauvin agrees.
#4
What surprises me is that she had to take this all the way to SCOTUS as the lower courts all rejected what was an obvious slam dunk 1st Admendment case.
I think I read earlier today about a court observer saying after listening to arguments that KJB is as dumb as rocks, or to that effect.
#5 Oh, “ready to negotiate about a ceasefire”, no less. Wow, success. After at least three ignored Trump’s requests just to cease fire.
This ain’t gonna end well for Trump.
What surprises me is that she had to take this all the way to SCOTUS as the lower courts all rejected what was an obvious slam dunk 1st Admendment case.
==
Not sure it’s a 1st Amendment case, but a case in re the guarantee clause. The Maine house majority maintained she had to apologize for critiquing regime ideology before she could represent her constituents. It was egregious. Nearly every Democrat in the legislature voted for this censure. If you ever get the idea the Democratic Party has finally hit bottom and cannot sink any lower, they’ll prove you wrong.
If, in fact, KJB does NOT know what a woman is then she should have recused herself in this particular judgment.
More likely is that she does not want to know what a woman is, in which case she should resign.
#3
Since the current UK government, in its abject wisdom and criminal perversity, has embarked on a concerted campaign to destroy the country it purportedly is meant to govern, uplift and protect; and since said government has, as well, been tirelessly persuading its Jewish (and other) citizens that they have no future there, then this latest censuring of Israel should be regarded as a mark of honour…and encouragement.
Has Starmer called for Hamas to surrender unconditionally? I must have missed that. He sides with Hamas. Sounds an enemy of humanity or some such.
First we take Manhattan and then we take Berlin.
In case anyone was still wondering why DEI/DIE is an absolutely horrific ideology and MUST be dismantled immediately…unless one’s goal is utter destruction, AKA transformation…
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2025/05/20/patriotic-white-engineers-get-out/
#4 – good comments at the RedState post.
Hoover the Great
“In a democracy, the right of decision belongs to the majority, but the right of representation belongs to everybody.”
John Stuart Mill
SupplyGuy
A black woman voting to take away someone’s voting rights – my how the worm turns.
SupplyGuy
Right, Jackson only opposed because it because it’s not “ripe.” But “ripe” refers to new questions in the law, often the result of new laws, regulations, or technology. There was no “new question” that had to ripen. Freedom of speech is in the Bill of Rights. The idea of taking away an elected Rep’s ability to represent her constituents because the majority Party disagrees with her speech or political views was ripe 249 years ago. It demands an immediate response as it is such an egregious violation.
In re the brief discussion on the Open Thread about a Star Trek NG episode featuring an alien species that spoke in metaphor, and how “strange” that seemed, we actually do the same thing all the time, just not ALL the time.
In the Red State story linked by Bob Wilson, one line by the author, approving of the US Attorney’s game plan, was “Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition.”
Even if you have never heard the old WW2 song by Frank Loesser, you can figure out what is meant.
1) The $5mil is pretty much in line with other “bad shoot” settlements. She was unarmed and not a threat to do violence to result in great bodily injury or death. The “officer” had no justification under the circumstances to use deadly force.
As already mentioned, he should have been prosecuted.
Mike,
From reports I’ve seen, Babbitt was also surrounded by others, including a couple of cops within arms’ reach. Could not have been a threat to anyone. The only reason this was a “good shoot” was that it killed a white republican.
Ran across what appear to be some very interesting data analysis links on this website*
* See https://www.laughingwolf.net/2025/05/20/the-gathering-storm/
Thanks for that link, SoP.
Fascinating stuff….
#1
Babbitt was breaking into a new corridor of the capital building … but not by HERSELF. She was at the head of a large, angry, violent mob (watch the video!), and our government had the right and the obligation to stop that mob, and had approximately one person to do that.
It would have been completely different if she had been by herself.
#5 – Trump says Putin ready to negotiate with Ukraine.
Trump apparently said (preemptively) that India and Pakistan had reached a ceasefire agreement because of his intervention.
Is he just throwing out these bits of good news in the hope he can reap some PR benefit? If so, it will eventually come back to haunt him. Badly.
Babbitt was breaking into a new corridor of the capital building … but not by HERSELF. She was at the head of a large, angry, violent mob (watch the video!), and our government had the right and the obligation to stop that mob, and had approximately one person to do that.
==
Don’t try that with us. We’ve seen the video.
F:
I wrote a post on India and Pakistan; see this. The head of Pakistan said this:
that is certainly one piece of the puzzle, about Soros, which curiously very few sources seem interested in investigating, as for asset stripping in the East Bloc, he was one of those who pushed for a Marshall Plan for the Soviet Union, (thats according to Taibbi) of course that really suggests that was the wrong solution, the system
didn’t lack for money, just a framework to properly employ resources,
the 1992 pound heist seems similar to what we saw in GoldenEye, of course that was done by means of hacking,
something like that happens in the film Sneakers with Kingsley as a former
60s radical, who finds a skeleton key to do his business
Greg Kelly notes the peculiar detail how the first round of Capitol Police, are suddenly ordered out, right before Michael Byrd takes the final shot, that suggests this exercise was to stop the objections to the irregularities, in the electoral count
LTEC you’re lying in the face of clear video evidence. Babbitt was surrounded by full battle rattle armed police when she was shot through the glass door. Its a wonder scumbag Michael Byrd, a bad cop with a bad record, didn’t hit one of those cops too.
I carry concealed, always. If I had shot an unarmed woman, through a glass door, when I was under zero threat of death or grievous bodily harm from her, I’d be sitting in jail the rest of my life. Instead, Byrd was given a bonus, commended, and promoted to Captain by the dems.
He needs to be in prison–I’m not sure why Bondi isn’t pursuing that. I don’t believe he’s received a pardon, but could be wrong.
Meanwhile, LTEC, quit lying.
Amen, brother bill, Amen.
Regarding Babbitt:
This is the only video I’ve seen:
https://nypost.com/2021/01/07/videos-show-shooting-of-ashli-babbitt-during-capitol-siege/
If there are other videos I missed showing a completely different situation, I apologize.
As to whether the police were under “duty to retreat” to save themselves from death or grievous bodily harm …
In general, I think all rioters should be shot unless they can be arrested without harm to police. Of course, on average, this was a relatively minor riot whose perpetrators — and others — were treated horrendously after being arrested, for totally political reasons. I realize that shooting rioters is not the norm, which is why rioting IS the norm.