Declan M. Hurley

Philadelphia recently re-elected its "progressive reformer," District Attorney Larry Krasner, an advocate for freeing prisoners and ending cash bail. In a July interview with Vox, Krasner bragged about pushing Philadelphia's jail population down to its 1985 level: So [Philadelphia] is a city where, not so many years ago, there were 15,000 people in county custody. By the time I took office, there had been some good efforts to reduce it. When I took office in January 2018, we had 6,500. That number was down to about 4,800 before the pandemic hit. The pandemic hits, and we and other criminal justice partners, including the public defender’s office, we make very concerted efforts to reduce the jail population even further, so it won’t become a superspreader. And we got those levels down to 3,800, the lowest level of incarceration in Philly since 1985. People end up in jail because they commit crimes, as a rule of thumb, so it is logical that cutting the jail population by 7...

Data aggregated by Jeff Asher of AH Datalytics, LLC indicates that in American cities, there were considerably more murders in 2020 than in 2019. Asher's data also show that Republican-administered cities performed marginally better than Democratic ones. Regarding the statistics, the  Dispatch  reports, "Most cities' data are up to date as of December or November, but a few were last updated at the end of September." Image: Orange County Register Asher considered 57 cities, including major metropolises like Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. Of these 57, murders were up in 51, down in four, and constant in two. Cities administered by Democrats performed worse than those with Republican mayors. In the 42 cities with a Democratic mayor, 38 (90.5%) had more murders in 2020 than in 2019. Overall, murders in Democratic cities were up 38% relative to 2019. For example, Atlanta had 150 murders in 2020, compared to 95 at the same point in 2019. Their percent increase is th...

California and New York have taken a heavy-handed approach to the coronavirus pandemic, whereas Florida has a laissez-faire outlook. Nonetheless, Florida is managing better case, death, and hospitalization statistics than California and New York. Image: Wall Street Journal California objectively performs well only when it comes to testing. On December 27th, California performed the most tests in relative and absolute terms—380,154 (i.e., 0.96% of the state population)—compared to 130,299 in New York (0.67%) and 62,641 in Florida (0.29%). Perhaps because of the testing trends, Florida had the fewest cases in relative and absolute terms: 7,157 (i.e., 0.033% of the state population). This statistic compares favorably with 50,141 cases in California (0.127%) and 7,623 in New York (0.039%). Florida also had the fewest hospitalized COVID patients in relative and absolute terms—5,910 (i.e., 0.028% of the state population)—compared to 20,059 in California (0.051%) and 7,183 in New York (0.037%...

By opposing a $1,200 check to each American and $500 for each dependent, Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wisconsin) pushed Congress toward a $600 check for each American making less than $75,000 and $600 for each dependent. In so doing, Johnson saved the taxpayer at least $89 billion. Ron Johnson ( Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ) Based on my calculations, there are at least 191,400,280 Americans making less than $75,000 a year, as there are 255,200,373 adults and 75% of income earners make less than $75,000 a year. Carrying over that 75% statistic, there are also at least 49,835,000 dependents (as there are 66,447,000 people under 18). These numbers are a bit low, as they yield a sum of 241,235,280—i.e., a cost of $144.74 billion after the Johnson intervention. The actual cost  of the handouts will be $166 billion. Prior to Johnson's intervention, the cost of the $600 checks to people making less than $75,000 a year would have been at least $229.68 billion (191.4 million times $1,200) an...

In the 2020 election for the United States House, the Democrats won 222 seats and the Republicans 212. The representative for New York's 22nd district remains undecided, with Republican nominee and former Congresswoman Claudia Tenney ahead by just 12 votes. From the Cook Political Report Since the Democrats won more than 218 seats (the majority threshold), they are strictly the majority party in the House. However, they are precariously shedding members from their ranks, as President-elect Joe Biden appointed three Democratic congresspeople—Marcia Fudge of Ohio, Deb Haaland of New Mexico, and Cedric Richmond of Louisiana—to posts within his administration. If Tenney ends up winning in New York, the Democratic majority would plunge to just 219 seats, putting them within a couple of seats of being a plurality party. Biden would then have to think long and hard about appointing any more House members absent the intervention of special elections, which are certain to return Democrats...

In the 2020 election in Compton, California, President Donald Trump won the largest proportion of the vote for a Republican since 1972, and the most votes for a Republican since 1964. Compton's demographic breakdown is 68% Hispanic or Latino, 28.9% African-American, and 1.2% non-Hispanic white. Trump's gains in Compton are consistent with his national performance among nonwhite voters, which was the best for any Republican since  Richard Nixon in 1960. The data for these graphs came from Wikipedia , which compiles data from the office of the California secretary of state.

The RealClearPolitics polling average in Pennsylvania is Biden +3.7, with polls ranging from Trump +2 (InsiderAdvantage) to Biden +7 (Quinnipiac). I predict that President Donald Trump will narrowly win the state. Consider Muhlenberg College’s most recent poll for the Morning Call , which pegs Biden’s support level at 49% and Trump’s at 44%. 2016 election in PA Consider also that Muhlenberg’s final 2016 poll had Clinton up 48% to 42%, a six-point lead. Trump ended up winning the state by a little less than a point. The cross-tabs tell us why Muhlenberg was wrong: they found Trump only marginally leading males (45% to 43%), whites (49% to 42%), and independents (41% to 38%). The final results for these categories, per CNN exit polls , were 57% to 40%, 56% to 40%, and 48% to 41%, respectively. Thus, I am skeptical of some of the findings from Muhlenberg’s most recent poll, which shows that Trump’s lead is 49% to 43% among men and 52% to 44% among whites. Further, Muhlenberg has Trump ...