This was one of the most amazing dance performances I’ve ever seen. The video doesn’t do it justice, so you’ll have to use your imagination. This is just a short excerpt:
Nothing says fairness like appointing Letitia James
Governor Hochul apparently wants to make sure the Cornell frat men don’t get off:
Eiglarsh believes that the move to assign AG James to the case is not for her to conduct an investigation, but rather to indict the men.
“The governor is not assigning her for an independent investigation,” Eiglarsh said. “It’s, ‘Go bring justice,’ and justice is defined by indicting some of these kids. But keep in mind you can’t lump them all together. Each of these kids’ — their lives are precious. Same way the alleged victim is — each one. There needs to be proof beyond, and to the exclusion of, every reasonable doubt that meets the elements of the crime of a statute in New York. I think she’s going to find a way to bring charges.”
Banfield said that people should withhold judgment until “every scrap” of evidence has been reviewed, comparing the case to the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case, in which three men were falsely accused of rape.
Hochul and James are excellent examples of what happens when the left completely takes over a state, and there is no need anymore to even have a pretense of fairness or evenhandedness. Here’s an almost humorous statement by James (at the very end):
Reporter: “Attorney General, on your Facebook page three days ago, you wrote, ‘What this young woman has been forced to endure is horrific and unacceptable. I’m holding her in my heart and in my prayers. To her and to all survivors, you’re not alone. We stand with you.’ Why did you affirm her allegations as fact without doing your own fact-finding investigation? And to the governor, why did you appoint an official who made a public statement affirming those allegations as fact as someone who’s supposed to be doing an investigation?”
New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D): “I will answer that. I have every confidence in our Attorney General to do what she has always done. Look at the facts, examine the record, and draw the proper conclusions. That’s exactly what’s going to happen in this case. Attorney General, please.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James: “I will not comment on a Facebook post.”
“A Facebook post” – that’s her very own Facebook post that she won’t comment on – because she doesn’t need to.
Who hired the extremist co-pilot, and why?
The Wall Street Journal is out with an exclusive alleging that the co-pilot who stabbed his captain on FlyDubai Flight 1073 as they flew between Dubai and Tel Aviv earlier this week, nearly downing the aircraft, had been banned from flying in his home country of Oman “over concerns he had adopted radical ideological views,” and that, despite the ban, FlyDubai hired the man anyway, “allowing him to pilot on the sensitive route connecting the United Arab Emirates and Israel.”
FlyDubai operates at two airports in Oman, Muscat and Salalah, but the aspiring terrorist co-pilot couldn’t fly those routes due to the ban. According to the Journal, whether the Omani government shared their concerns about the co-pilot’s radicalization with other countries or airlines is unable to be determined. But if he was hired by an airline that operated in a country in which he was prohibited from flying, it would seem that the carrier at least knew of the ban and would be curious as to the nature of the ban. Regardless, the route between Dubai and Tel Aviv is obviously subject to heightened scrutiny and security, and given that Israel doesn’t allow pilots whose passports are from countries with which it does not have diplomatic relations to land in the country — which includes Oman — that FlyDubai assigned this man to that route anyway is alarming and needs to be fully investigated.
Negligence, or malign intent on the part of the airline? Will we ever learn the answer? I doubt it. I think the tale will fade from view without our ever knowing.
The story itself, however, is one of feel-good heroics. So many brave heroes – the pilot and so many of the passengers – plumber, dentist, all.
We can celebrate, but the line between celebration and tragedy is often paper-thin, and that is true here. The plane could easily have broken apart from the forces that damaged the rudder. The new pilots might have had trouble landing it. The dentist who brought the plane out of a precipitous dive might not have acted properly or in time.
And yet, tragedy was averted and we can cheer.
Why was Christa Pike the only one of the three people involved in the murder who got the death penalty?
Three teenagers brutally murdered another teenager over thirty years ago. The crime was especially cold-blooded and horrific. One, Christa Pike, received the death penalty. The other two did not.
Christa Pike, now 50, has been in prison since she was 18 years old over the murder 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. She wasn’t the only one found guilty — but she is the only one who ended up on death row.
According to the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Slemmer was a 19-year-old Job Corps participant when she was tortured and murdered behind the agriculture campus steam plant on January 12, 1995. Pike and two others — 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp and 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson — were also involved.
Shipp – who was Pike’s boyfriend at the time – was found guilty but because he was 17 years old he was ineligible for the death penalty. Pike was 18 and received the death penalty. Peterson – also 18 – is alleged to have been the lookout, and agreed to testify against the other two:
However, Peterson, who was initially indicted on a first-degree murder count, cooperated with police and entered a guilty plea to an information charge of being an accessory after the first-degree murder, according to Knox News.
Where is Shadolla Peterson now?
In exchange for testifying against Pike and Shipp, Peterson received 460 days in jail and a six-year probation sentence.
Pike was the only white defendant; the other two are black. Did this factor into the decision? I have no way of knowing, but the differing sentences seem to have more to do with the different ages of Shipp and Pike, plus Peterson’s cooperation.
Does this differential treatment based on one year of age bother you at all? It bothers me. In addition, most of the coverage till now has maintained that it was Christa Pike who carved a tetragram into the victim. But this is apparently untrue; in a post-conviction hearing, Shipp confessed to doing it.
Legally, it doesn’t much matter. They could all be argued to have been guilty of felony murder, including Peterson, had the prosecutors wanted to treat the perps that way. But I assume they needed Peterson’s testimony to convict the others, and let her walk.
Open thread 10/3/2026
Slowly improving
And I mean slowly.
I’m talking about my physical health, not my mental state. My grief is, if anything, worse, as it all sinks in more and more.
But at least my fever is gone. I’ve entered a stage where I’m still “off” in the GI sense, still coughing but not as much, still tired but able to be on my feet most of the day. That’s progress.
Even though my son had a negative COVID test, our symptoms have been so perfectly COVID-like that I decided to test myself today. I would have bet a significant amount of money it would be positive. But I would have lost that bet: negative.
I don’t know the exact name of what I’ve got, but I can tell you I never want to get it again.
Not-so-lethal injection
The attempted (and failed) execution of Christa Pike is grisly and extremely disturbing on almost every level. It starts with the 1995 murder itself, segues into the long delay before carrying out the sentence, and then the failure of the lethal injections to work.
Something is very rotten in the state of Tennessee:
Christa Pike was in critical condition Thursday and receiving “lifesaving care” at a hospital, her lawyers said, a day after a failed attempt to execute her pushed Tennessee’s governor to halt further executions this year and order an independent review.
Pike, who was sentenced to death for a 1995 murder, was taken to a hospital Wednesday night after surviving a double dose of the drug Tennessee uses to execute prisoners.
“We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment,” attorney Randy Spivey said during a news conference. “But we know she is alive right now.”
The failed execution, which one death penalty expert described as unprecedented, led Republican Gov. Bill Lee to order a review, calling what happened “deeply disturbing” and indefinitely postponing Pike’s execution and another one that had been scheduled for this year. It also reignited the debate over the state’s execution procedures, including its single-drug lethal injections.
A horror show.
I guess voters have gotten tired of all the winning
It makes no sense to me, but all signs are that the US voting public is poised to put Democrats in charge of Congress. As time passes, I become more and more convinced that voters operate through pique and illogic. Things aren’t perfect? Turn the bums out and put in the far greater bums.
I guess they want to see endless and meaningless impeachment theater again.
Meanwhile, the economy is doing rather well, although you wouldn’t know it from the MSM:
Ah yes, the midterms.
As I’ve said, you can make a case that the economy is great or that it’s bad.
You can bet that between now and November, the Democrats and the media — but I repeat myself — will be focusing on the bad.
It’s an old playbook, one that Bill Clinton’s pollster Mark Penn wielded to defeat President George H.W. Bush in 1992.
The economy had actually recovered from a brief recession in 1991, but voters thought otherwise — because the media told them so.
“There is often a huge disconnect between belief about the economy and the true economic state of affairs,” Penn wrote in his 2007 book “Microtrends.”
“Until the statistics are actually published, people tend to assess the economy through the eyes of the national media.”
During the 1992 election, Clinton repeatedly told us we were experiencing the worst economy in 50 years.
The press echoed that message dutifully.
But as Penn recounted with glee, “The statistics that came out after the election showed that the period leading up to November had actually been a period of record growth.”
Whether this is the best of economies, the worst of economies, or something in between, you can bet that for the next month-plus we’ll be told it’s the worst.
Then there’s the Iran War – in which very few Americans have died or even fought. It’s come down to an economic war at the moment, one we seem to be winning. And Hormuz is pretty much open.
Let’s see, what else? Crime way down. Border closed.
One fear I have is that, as older cohorts die off and are replaced by the young who’ve been steeped in decades of miseducation, the trend to the left will only increase.
In the meantime:
As you struggle to pay your own bills, are you prepared to pay the bills for millions of non-citizens, too? That’s what Democrats are proposing – and every GOP campaign ought to be all over it. pic.twitter.com/tRD9omXTbW
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) September 24, 2026
Open thread 10/2/2026
Health update
I’m still recovering from the flu – slowly. That, combined with the emotional devastation of the loss, has made me feel weak and stressed.
I’m definitely trying not to rush things. I lie down a couple of times a day, which is an improvement over being in bed most of the time. My son had to leave today and unfortunately didn’t accomplish too much while he was here, because he was sick, too. He came down with it a couple of days before I did – probably having caught it on the airplane coming here – and then gave it to me.
Whew.
News roundup
(1) The RAF Fairford plot surfaces again, and Andy Burnham claims Iran is somehow behind it. This story keeps morphing and morphing.
A UK-Iranian dual national has been arrested on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts in connection with the incident at RAF Fairford, counter-terror police have said.
The 27-year-old man was arrested in Westminster, London. A second man, a 26-year-old UK national, has also been questioned under caution, and two properties in the area have been searched.
(2) FlyDubai hired a pilot who was clearly a risk for terrorism, and then they had him fly a Tel Aviv route. This guy appears to have been a smoking gun, and we still don’t know his name:
The prime minister [Netanyahu] went on Fox & Friends to state, “The attacker, the co-pilot who attacked the captain, is now being interrogated, but here’s what we do know: First, we know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination.”
Netanyahu pointed out that an Omani should never have been allowed to copilot a flight to Israel in the first place, precisely to avoid terrorist attacks. “Well, he was an Omani national, and we have constraints that say you can’t have pilots from countries that don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel.” Oman has been consistently supportive of the Iranian regime in its ongoing conflict with Israel this year.
Unconscionable.
(3) Ah, but the FlyDubai terrorism incident never happened, according to many people – or bots, or hired anti-Israel shills – on X. It’s just a staged op, like all the other news stories the left doesn’t like.
Or it did really happen, but had it succeeded it would have been justified.
See some of the tweets on this thread, for example.
(4) Attack the Texas Capitol building because you hate AIPAC? Makes zero sense. But why should it make sense?
(5) Meanwhile, Graham Platner’s (remember him?) replacement Troy Jackson has been jabbering away about how Israelis are committing genocide in Gaza. So much so that he decided to issue an apology:
In reiterating his view that that the three-year-old Israel-Gaza war “is a genocide,” Jackson said in the interview, “There are people here in Maine that don’t like to use that term only because, you know, they’re Jewish and, you know, what that means to them with the Holocaust.” …
On Wednesday, Jackson did not walk back his view of the conflict but apologized for offending Jews.
Jackson said in a written statement, “I believe what’s happening in Gaza is genocide, and I also understand that word carries particular weight for many Jewish families given the Holocaust—the genocide of six million Jews. In trying to acknowledge that, I misspoke and made a generalization about Jewish Mainers’ views that doesn’t reflect what I meant to say. I apologize for the pain that caused.”
In the interview, Jackson called for the U.S. to stop providing arms to Israel and labeled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a war criminal.”
In his apology on Wednesday, Jackson continued, saying, “Mainers hold a range of deeply considered views, and I promise I will always listen and work to approach these conversations with the care and respect they deserve. In the U.S. Senate, I’ll fight antisemitism and work for lasting peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis.”
Sure thing. Very believable. Hope you never see the inside of the Senate.
(6) This sounds like a forward-looking idea:
“Warfare, however, has changed dramatically and suddenly,” according to Hegseth’s memo. “Advanced computing now enables precise, low-cost weapons to be produced at massive scale. These systems increasingly threaten our costly legacy platforms and disrupt our force projection. Urgent change is required.”
The Cornell gang rape allegations
I suppose you’ve read about the Cornell fraternity gang rape allegations:
New details are emerging in the case of a former Cornell University student who claims she was drugged and gang-raped for multiple hours inside a fraternity house in October 2024.
The woman — identified only as Jane Doe, who was 20 at the time of the alleged incident — recently filed a civil lawsuit against seven then-Chi Phi fraternity members and the university, claiming they failed to protect her and prevent the alleged assault. While Cornell conducted an internal investigation, and expelled or suspended several of the men, no criminal charges were brought against the accused at the time.
The Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office confirmed on Monday, Sept. 28, that it will be reopening the criminal investigation amid pressure from the community and will bring the evidence to a grand jury. The DA said the woman’s sworn statement from November 2024 was different from what she alleges in the civil lawsuit, while her attorney claims investigators never followed up on her allegations.
You need to read the whole thing to get the picture of what is being alleged and whether her story changed. She initially was very drunk but says the sex was consensual, but then other men entered the scene and the situation changed to rape, although her memory is murky due to having ingested multiple substances. As with so many such cases, it becomes virtually impossible to tell what really happened, except that it reflects very poorly on everyone involved.
Because I’ve been blogging so long, I have written on the subject before – not about the Cornell case, but on related cases. Here’s a post of mine that’s nearly twenty years old but still relevant. Please read.
ADDENDUM:
I’m completely with Paglia on this:
The eternally-validated Camille Paglia on the Cornell case.
"The sexual revolution must be undone because middle-class women can't handle it. They cannot take responsibility for their own actions."
pic.twitter.com/FEXSjUd7M0— Suffragent (@Suffragent_) October 1, 2026