Crime

The Murdaugh trial is twisted true crime at its peak

The murder trial of prominent South Carolina patriarch Alex Murdaugh has it all: two deaths, a lethal drunken boat accident, a suicide-for-hire plot, the mysterious death of the family's housekeeper and a suspicious hit-and-run. That's why the case has caught the attention of true crime fanatics and the national media — ABC News, Discovery, HBO, CNN and Netflix have all taken a stab at various documentaries and podcasts. Others still might find themselves lost in the schadenfreude of watching a powerful and wealthy family descend into tragedy. The Murdaugh family has long exercised a significant amount of legal influence in the Low Country region of South Carolina.

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Behind bars: should rap lyrics be used as evidence in court?

Last May, a rapper who performs under the name Young Thug was arrested and named in a gang indictment in Atlanta. Right now, the trial relating to that arrest, the YSL RICO case, is underway. Fellow rapper Gunna and no less than twenty-six other young men associated with their Young Slime Life music collective, have been arrested and charged under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization, or RICO, statute for “alleged gang activity.” In the post-Black Lives Matter era, the case has become something of a cause célèbre, with prominent figures in the entertainment industry and beyond arguing that Young Thug and Gunna are essentially on trial because they are flashy young black men – who, in Thug’s case, may also be gay or bisexual.

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National Park Service clears prominent DC homeless encampment

The National Park Service cleared a major homeless encampment in downtown Washington, DC on Wednesday, a move that eased local residents and infuriated activists. McPherson Square, located just blocks from the White House, has been effectively cordoned off from the rest of the public since the proliferation of the tent city during the pandemic. The Spectator was the first to report in December that the NPS would start enforcing its no camping policy on park land in the nation’s capital. Signs went up around McPherson Square last month warning the inhabitants of the tent city that they would be removed on February 15.

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A love letter to Philadelphia

In the run up to the Super Bowl, writers were tripping over themselves trying to capture the essence of the Philadelphia Eagles Fan™. Most of these observations focused on the degenerate behavior of a few diehards after key games, or the nonsensical yet diverse array of superstitious traditions (looking at you, guy who runs into the underground pillars on the Broad Street Line on purpose). Some dug up the old chestnut about Santa Claus getting pelted by snowballs at an Eagles game — ignoring that many of the fans responsible for that misadventure died without ever seeing the Birds win a ring.

Gavin Newsom has no right to talk about other states’ crime rates

Gavin Newsom is running for president. Sure, he hasn’t announced it and has claimed he’s “all in” for Biden, but he’s increasingly taking time off from personally disrupting the nation’s Dapper Dan supply chain in order to weigh in on national issues, measure the drapes, and attempt to troll Republican governors. His latest salvo, directed toward Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was sworn in as Arkansas’ governor about 15 minutes ago, claims that “While [Sanders] touts public safety, here is what she skips over: Arkansas has the one of the highest murder rates in the nation.” This is, of course, true. In 2020, the last year for which CDC stats are available, Arkansans have a much greater chance of being murdered than Californians.

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Lori Lightfoot: footloose and fancy-free as Chicago crime soars

Cockburn found himself grimacing over his Monday morning mimosa as he watched a viral video of Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot “dancing” in the snow-strewn streets of the crime-ridden city she is supposed to govern. Lightfoot is under fire for her behavior at a Lunar New Year parade, as her lighthearted attitude contrasts sharply with the recent release of somber Chicago Police Department data showing crime reports have surged 59 percent this month compared to last January. Of course Cockburn is not surprised that Lightfoot would be so nonchalant in such a moment. Her city's crime problem is, after all, nothing new. According to the Washington Examiner, “the city has experienced an overall 33 percent increase in crime since 2019, the year Lightfoot was sworn in as mayor.

Does your mass shooting suit my worldview?

In the wake of Saturday’s horrific shooting at a Lunar New Year celebration in the heavily Asian neighborhood of Monterey Park, California, Democratic lawmakers sprang into action, speculating that the violence may have been racially motivated. Hours later it emerged that the shooter was himself also Asian. The frequency of mass killings in this country is harrowing. But Cockburn finds such tragedies are made all the more gruesome when politicians so often jump ahead of the facts, ascribing motivations or reasons to the violence that are politically beneficial to them or fit their ideological framework. Representative Adam Schiff, for example, pegged “bigotry towards AAPI individuals as a possible motive.

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The double standard over Biden’s classified documents

President Biden said Tuesday he was “surprised” to learn that in November his lawyers had found classified documents in his former office at a Washington think tank. No doubt he was equally shocked when more classified docs turned up in his Delaware home. Yet the tone of the mainstream media seems to be that boys will be boys. Since Biden is being so cooperative with authorities after being caught red-handed, maybe this has nothing in common with Donald Trump's cache of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Or Hillary's cache on her private e-mail server. Could there be a double-standard? Biden had some/several/a bunch of classified documents while Trump had hundreds so that's different.

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The battle for Los Angeles drags on

On the surface, the contrast between the two candidates in the Los Angeles mayor’s race couldn't be starker. Rick Caruso – a white, family-friendly mall impresario with a sparkling tan and pristine suits — against Karen Bass — a black female nurse-turned-community organizer-turned congresswoman. Yet, when Bass and Caruso were asked at the closing of their initial debate, “What is one word to describe the state of Los Angeles?” they both had the same answer: “Crisis.

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Why didn’t Democrats pay a price for their extremism?

The modern political pundit is a voice in the wilderness, a self-styled beacon of truth against a pampered and bought-off establishment. Yet to cut against the trend: I was wrong about last night's midterms. I thought it was going to be a Republican rout. Even after the Dobbs decision came down and Democrats saw a boost in the polls I still didn't think abortion would ever trump inflation and crime in the minds of voters. And while 2022 didn't see a blue wave, it sure didn't see a red wave either. Instead the scene this morning looks a lot like the status quo. If current vote totals hold, then the Senate will remain 50-50 with Kamala Harris breaking the tie, while Republicans haven't flipped enough congressional seats to retake the House.

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Another blue day for red New Yorkers

Lee Zeldin’s fairytale run for governor of New York fell short on Tuesday as he lost by roughly five points to incumbent Kathy Hochul. The race began months ago, and at first seemed out of reach for the Long Island congressman. But a strong campaign focused on crime pulled him to within striking distance before petering out. To put the race in perspective, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, whom Hochul replaced after his resignation in 2021, won the governorship by twenty-two points in 2018, and most prognosticators saw a similar romp in the cards for Hochul when the 2022 cycle began. But in the end, though he captured the imagination of the nation, Zeldin could not capture the governor’s mansion in Albany.

Rich, scared celebs back pseudo-Republican Rick Caruso for LA mayor

Nothing brings people together quite like crazy, violent homeless people destroying your city. So it is that a hodgepodge of Hollywood types — Snoop Dogg, Kim Kardashian, Elon Musk, Gwyneth Paltrow, Katy Perry, Chris Pratt, Maria Shriver, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and billionaire Robert Kraft and his wife — are publicly supporting Rick Caruso, the former Police Commission president, Republican-turned-Democrat running for Los Angeles mayor against Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass. Caruso’s campaign message is one that resonates in a rundown city rife with crime.

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Tim Ryan’s phony ‘moderate’ persona

Tim Ryan is cunning. Facing an ultra-tight race against J.D. Vance for Ohio’s US Senate seat, Ryan is hedging his bets by running as a Republican on the Democratic ticket. Ryan strikes me as willing to do and say whatever it takes to win — more so even than your average career politician (he is 49 years old, has served in the US House since 2003 and was in the Ohio State Senate before that). Lately, in an attempt to appear “moderate,” Ryan has been adopting Republican talking points and throwing his own party under the bus. But a trip down memory lane shows Ryan for what he really is: someone who voted “with President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 100 percent of the time this Congress,” and only voted in line with President Trump 16 percent of the time.

Union Station is the perfect backdrop for Biden’s speech

Less than a week out from the 2022 midterm elections, the White House announced that President Joe Biden would be delivering a speech warning of alleged "threats" to democracy. The backdrop for the address tonight that will almost assuredly accuse his fellow countrymen of being extremists and traitors? Washington, DC's Union Station. In many ways, Union Station is the ideal backdrop for a speech by the leader of the Democrat Party. It is the perfect embodiment of what the left's foolish and deranged policies have done to our nation: reduced a once thriving and majestic place into a crime-infested trash heap. Just seven years ago, I interned down the street from Union Station.

A woman sits with her dogs outside Union Station March 22, 2016 in Washington, DC (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

We should be better than Paul Pelosi conspiracy theories

Always give it three days. This is a golden rule of journalism that requires reporters and commentators to wait when speculating on big salacious stories. It's a rule that works, but not when it's ignored, as it has been by both sides of the political spectrum in the case of the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the Speaker of the House. Democrats pounced, as usual, on their claims of MAGA extremism; meanwhile, too many on the right have indulged in disgusting conspiracy theories about the assault. On Sunday morning, less than two days after the news of the assault broke, the new Twitter head honcho Elon Musk weighed in. Responding to a tweet by Hillary Clinton alleging a political motive, Musk tweeted that there was a tiny chance that something else had prompted the violence.

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Don’t let paranoid progressives ruin Halloween

There was a time in recent memory (i.e., my childhood) when on October 31, kids dressed up in whatever costumes they wanted, roamed their neighborhoods at dusk and even past dark, accepted candy from strangers, and had an innocently fun time trick-or-treating. Their parents were aware of this Halloween tradition and approved of it, as did most Americans. Fast-forward to now, and Halloween is just another enjoyable tradition-turned-casualty of pretend progressive paranoia.

A healthy Fetterman would have lost the debate too

Last night’s debate between Pennsylvania US Senate candidates Republican Mehmet Oz and Democrat John Fetterman, was, as The Spectator’s own Ben Domenech described it, “political malpractice.” Watching Fetterman mumble, stumble, stutter, and glitch his way through answers made Joe Biden on a bad day sound like FDR delivering his stirring “Fear Itself” speech. But stroke or no stroke, Fetterman has no record to laud, and the policies he promotes are indefensible. Fetterman showed why he is unfit to serve right off the bat when the moderators (the real stars of the show) asked the candidates, “What qualifies you to be a US senator?” Both Oz and Fetterman seemed to confuse this basic question with “Why are you running?

A Republican takes the lead in… New York?

After two weeks of tightening polls in the race for governor of New York, a survey released Friday showed a one point lead for Republican challenger Lee Zeldin in his race against incumbent Kathy Hochul. This is a political bombshell in the making, and one would have expected some kind of major pivot or shakeup from the Democrats. But thus far, at least on the issues that matter most, Hochul’s tank has been empty, despite a weak effort on Saturday to address rising crime in the subway. This past week, Hochul was on Long Island, not far from Zeldin’s home, to talk about a state initiative to fix potholes. Yes, potholes.

The town John Fetterman ran is in ruins

Braddock, Pennsylvania Americans concerned about the economy — once again voters’ top priority — are turning their backs on the left. “Democrats’ momentum stalls amid economy worries,” reports CBS. “Republicans Gain Edge as Voters Worry About Economy,” echoes the New York Times. The Democratic platforms on policies that affect people personally — crime and public safety are other major concerns — are not winning. And there’s no one worse at delivering, and delivering on, the left’s failing messaging than John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania’s US Senate seat. I’m a Pennsylvanian and have never understood Fetterman’s appeal. At all.

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I wanted to leave California before it was cool

When I was about eleven years old my favorite Barbie was Midge from the California Dream collection. Barbie’s BFF, she had auburn hair and freckles. Midge came with roller skates and a blue visor and I loved her. My sister had California Dream Barbie and we would pop in the Beach Boys Greatest Hits cassette tape and pretend we were living in California for hours upon hours, day after day. We wore that cassette tape out, screaming the lyrics to “California Dreamin’” on cold winter days in Connecticut. I imagined Midge was me, cruising down the boardwalk with the wind in my hair and the sun on my cheeks. My dreams of being a California girl began in those afternoons lost in fantasyland.

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