Author Archives: Dana Pico

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Solomon Jones on race

Despite my massive brainpower, I will admit to being unable to understand some people. Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, and WURD radio host Solomon Jones would be one of those who baffles me.

Of the twenty Inquirer columns you will see if you click on the link in the above paragraph, sixteen are about race and racism. Mr Jones is an educated and successful man having been graduated, cum laude, with Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from Temple University in 1997. He went on to be published in Essence, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Magazine, and the Philadelphia Weekly. It doesn’t surprise me that his June 11th column is, again, about race, but what he wrote certainly does:

It’s time to support the Black men in Philadelphia being destroyed by gun violence

Our city needs to pay for job training, therapy, and other resources so that the streets aren’t young men’s only option.

By Solomon Jones | Friday, June 11, 2021

In the streets of Philadelphia, young Black men are the likeliest victims of gun violence, and they are dying at the hands of men who look like them. Some say this is evidence that racism has no role in the murders that have spread through our community like a virus. But that’s not true. Racism is at the core. It’s just hard to see that truth through all the blood.

I know this because I run the non-profit ManUpPHL. Through a simple initiative called Listening to the Streets, we’ve spent weeks talking to some of the men who come from the Philadelphia neighborhoods that are beset by gun violence. To put it more accurately, we’ve spent weeks listening to them. In doing so I have been humbled, because they’ve taught me how much I don’t know about what’s happening in the streets of my city. They’ve taught me the underlying reasons for the gun violence, and they’ve shown me that many of the solutions being bandied about will not work.

This is not to say no one is trying. In fact, the opposite is true. Many people and organizations are trying, including city officials seeking to spend $100 million to address gun violence. But not even that much funding will stop the bloodshed if it is simply thrown into old solutions that are not drawn from the streets.

There’s a lot more at the original, but one thing is clear: Mr Jones is an articulate man. It was what came next that surprised me:

What we see now is the end result of systemic racism. The most glaring example of that is the billions spent on segregated schools that hold back the Black community. Naicere Simmons, a 26-year-old man from North Philly who participated in Listening to the Streets, explained it this way.

“It’s like I go to school, I graduate school, the only job I can get is McDonald’s? For real? No, I’m cool. I’m going to the block. Ain’t nobody trying to finish all them years of school, and then they say, ‘Yeah, you got to go to a trade school and do two years over here, and then maybe you can get a job over there, or maybe you can do another two years and maybe you can get a job again.’

“Then these white companies and big construction companies, they got nephews, brothers, uncles, all that, that they grandfather went to school and just taught them that s–t. They didn’t go to trade school and all that. They was taught it. We don’t have it. Our mentors and father figures either dead or in jail.”

You know how you get a job in a construction company? You go to a jobsite and ask for one! You’ll start out as a laborer, but if you pay attention, if you try, you’ll learn, you’ll pick up things, and you can become something more than a manual laborer.[1]In Philadelphia’s heavily unionized environment, this might be more barriers to advancement. How do I know? That’s what I did!

So, Mr Simmons went to school, and was graduated from high school, but he can’t speak English! The only job he can get is working for McDonald’s? McDonald’s isn’t that bad; the turnover is high, so someone with drive and ambition can get ahead working for McDonald’s, if he’ll just try. Really, just what kind of better job will give him an opportunity if all he speaks is a pidgin English? And the articulate Mr Jones, in his column, told us why Mr Simmons wasn’t successful, simply by quoting him directly.

Mr Jones is not all wrong in his column. He contends that the money poured into Philadelphia’s schools is misspent, not stressing the right things.

So how do we solve the problem right now? Not by pouring money into recreation centers. Our participants told us that in the most violent neighborhoods, those centers are not safe. Not by pouring more money into schools that have failed repeatedly, no matter how much money they’ve received. Not by putting the money into traditional approaches that have done precious little to measurably reduce gun violence.

If we are to decrease gun violence, we must start by listening to the men who are living it. And then we must spend the money where it belongs — on them. Pay them to do on-the-job training in careers where there is room for advancement. Pay them to attend the therapy they need to overcome the trauma of the gun violence they have witnessed. Pay them to show their scars to the generations coming up behind them. Pay them to live.

An old friend of mine who had a plumbing business told me his secret to being able to make good money: it was because he was willing to stick his hands into other people’s [insert slang term for feces here]. That’s a nasty job, but by being willing to do that nasty work, he was earning what would today be six figures. Electricians? Electrical work isn’t fun; it can mean working out in the sun when it’s 100º or in unheated buildings when it’s 12º F outside. Pulling wire is no joke, and the detail work of connecting switches and circuit breaker boxes when your finger are numb from the cold is difficult, but if you can learn that trade, you can make decent money, and you’ll never be out of work.

And the most important skill of all is a simple one: the ability to go to work, on time, every day. It seems so simple, but it’s amazing how many people can’t do that.

Mr Jones is wrong about one thing: the education of children, regardless of sex or race, begins not at school but in the home. If the kids need to be ‘fixed’ by the time they get to school, it is almost always too late. The schools are not designed to fix kids; the schools are supposed to provide students who are already trying to take the right path with the tools they need to succeed on that path. Children need their fathers, living with and married to their mothers. The ones who don’t have that are behind from the very start.

References

References
↑1 In Philadelphia’s heavily unionized environment, this might be more barriers to advancement.
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Andy Beshear: Lying through his scummy teeth!

As we have previously noted, the state Supreme Court has consolidated the cases against the General Assembly’s new laws restricting Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) ’emergency’ powers under KRS 39A, and a lawsuit against the Governor exercising those powers. The state Court then set June 10th, then eight weeks away, to hear oral arguments in the cases. That means, in effect, that the Governor will continue to exercise authority the General Assembly denied him, for at least 3½ months after the state legislature took its action, and, in all likelihood, a couple of months after that.

Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY)

Several lawsuits were filed in state courts last year to stop the Governor’s emergency decrees under KRS39A. On July 17, 2020, the state Supreme Court put a hold on all lower court orders against Mr Beshear’s orders and directed that “any lower court order, after entry, be immediately transferred to the clerk of the Supreme Court for consideration by the full court.” Three weeks later, the  Court set September 17, 2020, another five weeks later, to hear oral arguments by both sides.

The Court then waited for eight more weeks to issue its decision, until November 12, 2020, which upheld the Governor’s orders.

If the Kentucky Supreme Court, officially non-partisan but in practice controlled by the Democrats, follows the same pattern, a second eight week delay will mean a decision around the first week of August! Even if that decision supports the duly passed laws of the General Assembly, the state courts will have given the Governor half a year to exercise power that the General Assembly restricted.

On May 6th, Governor Beshear announced that he would loosen the restrictions, but not eliminate them entirely, effective just before the Memorial Day weekend. Then, on May 14th, the Governor announced that almost all restrictions would be lifted on Kentuckians, including the hated mask mandate, even for those who are not vaccinated against COVID-19. He had, the previous day, followed the Centers for Disease Control’s recommendations, and stated that “fully vaccinated” Kentuckians could dispense with face masks.

‘A huge relief.’ Businesses, politicians celebrate end of KY COVID-19 restrictions.

By Alex Acquisto and Daniel Desrochers | June 11, 2021 | 6:00 AM | EDT | Updated: 7:45 AM EDT

A year of mask-wearing and social distancing ends Friday, as Kentuckians were given clearance to stop taking routine precautions against spread of COVID-19 for the first time since the virus initially invaded the state.

Gov. Andy Beshear first required masks be worn in public places and around others outside one’s household in July of 2020 as a way to blunt the spread of the disease and has renewed that order each month since.

On Friday, that order was lifted, along with restrictions on crowd capacity in restaurants and most other businesses, ripping off the state’s COVID-19 protective band-aid.

So, despite the best efforts of Republicans, Governor Beshear has pretty much gotten away with his dictatorial and unconstitutional actions. At this point, the battle is to keep him from being able to do it again.

KY Supreme Court hears arguments on limiting the governor’s power during emergencies

By Jack Brammer | June 10, 2021 | 1:37 PM EDT | Updated June 11, 2021 | 7:57 AM EDT

A day before Gov. Andy Beshear is to remove most COVID-19 restrictions in Kentucky, the state Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments on Beshear’s challenge of Republican-backed laws that limit his authority to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and other emergencies.

Chief Justice John D. Minton Jr. said after nearly two hours of oral arguments on two related cases that the state’s highest court will rule “as quickly as we can.” A decision is not expected for several weeks.

The state Supreme Court last year unanimously ruled that Beshear’s orders were legal but that was before the legislature passed laws earlier this year restricting the governor’s powers.

There’s a lot more at the original, but basically the Governor’s attorney was arguing that the Governor had to have the powers he exercised.

After the court hearing, Beshear told reporters that a governor’s emergency powers certainly “have to be large enough with a one-in-every-hundred year pandemic that creates the deadliest year in our history, it has to be significant and strong enough to do what’s necessary there.”

“You look back at different things that this legislature has tried to do in the midst of this pandemic and they would have not had the courage to step up and mandate masks, which we know from the experts is absolutely necessary,” he said. “We would have looked like the Dakotas and not what we looked like here in Kentucky.”

The Governor was lying through his scummy teeth. The laws did not prevent him from issuing declaring a state of emergency or issuing executive orders under it; what hey did was to limit those orders to thirty days unless the General Assembly specifically authorized an extension. The legislature passed House Joint Resolution 77, which granted extensions to some, but not all, of the Governor’s executive orders, but did not include the hated mask mandate, and then highly partisan Judge Phillip Shepherd issued an injunction against that, saying that the Governor’s existing executive orders and emergency regulations constituted “proper responses to a public health crisis.” That’s a political judgement, not a legal one.

Mr Beshear was pissed off that the legislature did not agree with all of his executive order, only some of them. Saying that the legislature “would have not had the courage to step up and mandate masks, which we know from the experts is absolutely necessary” is a political argument, not a legal one.

Republicans, frustrated by the courts’ refusal to rein in the Governor’s mandates, ran against the Governor and his actions in the 2020 elections, and the voters rewarded Republicans with 14 additional seats in the state House of Representatives, for a 75-25 majority, and two additional seats in the state Senate, out of 17 being contested, for a 30-8 majority in that body. The state legislature, in passing the bills at the beginning of this year’s session, was doing whet the voters of Kentucky wanted them to do. The Governor does not like that the voters did not agree with his dictates.

Mr Beshear, who was very, very, very concerned about the law when he was state Attorney General and doing his best to frustrate Governor Matt Bevin (R-KY), doesn’t seem to care much about the law anymore, not when the law is a problem for him. He has argued necessity, as though the Governor’s personal judgement of what is necessary somehow trumps or supersedes the law.

Well, not just no, but Hell no! The law is the law, and the constitution is the constitution, and no Governor, not Mr Beshear or anybody else, should have the authority to just suspend or ignore parts of it.

Alas! I am not confident that the state Supreme Court will follow the law; they’ve been far too compliant with the Governor’s wishes. But, with the restrictions over, there is no reason at for the justices to ignore the laws passed by the General Assembly other than the argument of what might happen sometime in the future.

The real solution for Kentuckians will come on November 7, 2023, when they will have the chance to vote this wannabe dictator out of office.

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Hold them accountable! Why was Keith Gibbson treated leniently by authorities in Delaware?

After all of the stories about the murder of Christine Lupo, you’d think that The Philadelphia Inquirer would make a bigger deal about the capture of Keith Gibbson,[1]According to the Delaware News-Journal, his name is spelled with two Gibbson, but the Inquirer has it as Gibson, which is the more common spelling. her suspected killer.

Suspect in Dunkin’ killing is also being investigated in at least five other homicides in Philly and Delaware, police say

Keith Gibson, 39, was expected to be charged in the murder of Christine Lugo, 40, and was being investigated for several other similar killings in recent months.

by Chris Palmer | June 9, 2021

The man suspected of fatally shooting the manager of a Dunkin’ doughnuts store during a robbery in Fairhill on Saturday is also a person of interest in at least five other homicides in Pennsylvania and Delaware, police said Wednesday.

Keith Gibson, 39 — who was arrested in Wilmington on Tuesday — was expected to be charged in the murder of Christine Lugo, 40, Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said Wednesday at a virtual news conference. Police said Lugo was shot in the head inside the Dunkin’ she managed on the 500 block of Lehigh Avenue after she gave Gibson $300 while being threatened at gunpoint.

In addition to that crime, Vanore said, detectives in Philadelphia and Delaware were investigating Gibson’s possible links to several other killings: Two men found shot to death in a North Philadelphia store in January, the slaying of Gibson’s mother at her East Falls workplace in February, the robbery and fatal shooting of an employee at a cellphone store in Elsmere, Del., last month, and the killing of a man during a street robbery in Delaware early Sunday.

Vanore said Gibson — who was paroled in 2020 after being imprisoned for a previous killing in Delaware — was also suspected of committing two robberies there before he was arrested Tuesday.

There’s more at the original.

I wrote, four days ago:

I’m still betting a case of Mountain Dew that, when we find out who the (alleged) killer is, we’ll find out that he has a long rap sheet, and that, had he been treated seriously by the District Attorney, could and should have been behind bars at 5:51 AM last Saturday morning. That’s hardly a risky bet: that’s what we always seem to find out about these killers.

From the Delaware News-Journal:

This is not the first time Gibbson has been arrested for violent crimes.

In 2008, Gibbson was one of three men charged in the robbery and fatal shooting of Stanley “Savon” Jones.

According to Delaware Online/The News Journal archives, Gibbson, along with Wilmington residents James Hinson and Kelly Gibbs, robbed Jones in the early hours of July 6, 2008.

Gibbson then shot Jones and the three fled the scene.

Jones’ body was found on North Rodney Drive in Edgemoor Gardens with an apparent gunshot wound to the upper body.

The three were charged with murder, but the charge was changed to manslaughter after the men took a plea.

Gibbson was sentenced to eight years in prison, followed by two years of probation.

Superior Court documents show that Gibson has violated his probation repeatedly.

So, after murdering a man in 2008, why was Mr Gibbson allowed to plead down to manslaughter in Delaware? Was the evidence against him shaky enough that prosecutors were afraid that he might be acquitted at trial? Or is it that accepting a reduced charge plea bargain was the quick, easy and less expensive path to follow.

In Delaware, second degree murder is a Class A felony, the punishment for which is, “not less than 15 years up to life imprisonment to be served at Level V except for conviction of first degree murder in which event § 4209 of this title shall apply.”[2]Delaware code, §4205(b)(1). Had Mr Gibbson been charged with, tried for, and convicted of second-degree murder in 2008, with a 15 year minimum sentence, none of which could be suspended,[3]Delaware Code, §4205(d), “Where a minimum, mandatory, mandatory minimum or minimum mandatory sentence is required by subsection (b) of this section, such sentence shall not be subject to … Continue reading Mr Gibbson would still have been behind bars on Saturday, June 5th, and Christine Lugo, and all of the others Mr Gibbson is suspected of killing would still be alive today, assuming, of course, that Mr Gibbson was their killer.

Will anyone in Delaware be held responsible for the decisions to allow him to plead down? Nope, sure won’t! But I can at least hope that every one of the people responsible for the decisions to treat Mr Gibbson so leniently will realize that he is partially responsible for the murders Mr Gibbson (allegedly) subsequently committed. Perhaps if we started holding such people accountable for the consequences of their decisions, prosecutors, judges and parole officials would start doing their duty and keep these miscreants behind bars for as long as legally possible.

Assuming that Mr Gibbson is indeed the killer, at least we have an answer as to why he murdered Miss Lupo after she had complied and given him the cash: he just plain enjoyed killing people! No sentence, no threat of prison, is a deterrent to someone like that.

Delaware has no death penalty, and while capital punishment is legally possible in Pennsylvania, District Attorney Larry Krasner never seeks it. Even if Mr Krasner sought a capital sentence, no prisoner in the Keystone State has been executed since the reimposition of capital punishment unless he ‘volunteered’ for it by voluntarily dropping his appeals. Assuming that he is convicted of these killings, Mr Gibbson will spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars.[4]Regular readers of The First Street Journal know that I am opposed to capital punishment. This past was informational only, and should not be read as a desire that he be sentenced to death. It’s just too bad he wasn’t sentenced to that in Delaware, when the First State had that chance; several innocent people who are in their graves today would still be alive.
______________________________
Also published on American Free News Network.

References

References
↑1 According to the Delaware News-Journal, his name is spelled with two Gibbson, but the Inquirer has it as Gibson, which is the more common spelling.
↑2 Delaware code, §4205(b)(1).
↑3 Delaware Code, §4205(d), “Where a minimum, mandatory, mandatory minimum or minimum mandatory sentence is required by subsection (b) of this section, such sentence shall not be subject to suspension by the court.”.
↑4 Regular readers of The First Street Journal know that I am opposed to capital punishment. This past was informational only, and should not be read as a desire that he be sentenced to death.
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Two men sentenced for assault during a #BlackLivesMatter protest Unfortunately, the judge just might grant 'shock probation'

Dylan Dempster (Fayette County Detention Center)

In keeping with the McClatchy policy of not publishing mugshots, the Lexington Herald-Leader told us about two of the #BlackLivesMatter protesters going to jail:

Lexington men who pleaded guilty in summer protest altercation sentenced to jail time

By Morgan Eads | June 10, 2021 | 11:49 AM EDT

Two men were sentenced Thursday to a year in jail for charges related to an altercation last summer during racial justice protests in Lexington.

Kaulbert Wilson and Dylan Dempster, both 20, received their sentences Thursday morning after pleading guilty in April to the charges against them. Both were initially facing felony charges, but after their charges were amended in their pleas, the most serious charge against each was a class A misdemeanor.

Wilson pleaded guilty to second-degree riot, fourth-degree assault, second-degree disorderly conduct and two counts of third-degree criminal mischief. Dempster pleaded guilty to amended charges of second-degree riot and two counts of third-degree criminal mischief.

Kaulbert Wilson (Source: Fayette County Detention Center)

The incident is detailed in the rest of the story. The defendants claimed that the people they assaulted used “a racial slur,” as though that somehow excuses assault and battery. Sadly, prosecutors allowed the defendants to plead down; they should both have felonies on their records.

Judge Thomas Travis told the attorneys for the two criminals that there were post-sentencing remedies available, including, unfortunately, “shock probation,” which could have them released at any time. The judge said he would consider such motions if filed.

Translation: these guys are going to (mostly) get away with it.

Of course, while the Herald-Leader (sort of) subscribes to the McClatchy policy of not publishing mugshots, the newspaper’s ‘reporting partner,’ WKYT-TV, Channel 27, does not. Being a visual medium, television stations like mugshots, and the mugshot of Mr Wilson came from WKYT-s website. The First Street Journal definitely does not go along with the policy of hiding mugshots, especially when these two are not just criminal suspects but actually convicted criminals. Let the world see who they are!

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The Pennsylvania state legislature slaps down Governor Tom Wolf

From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Legislature votes to immediately end Pa.’s coronavirus disaster declaration while keeping waivers in place

Republicans said terminating the emergency order was what Pennsylvanians demanded when they granted the legislative branch new powers during the May primary.

by Sarah Anne Hughes | June 10, 2021 | 12:29 PM EDT

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania legislature has voted to immediately end Gov. Tom Wolf’s coronavirus disaster declaration using a new power granted to the legislative branch by primary voters, while also keeping in place certain regulatory waivers.

Republicans who advanced the resolution said terminating the emergency order was what Pennsylvanians demanded when they approved two constitutional amendments last month in what was widely seen as a referendum on the administration’s pandemic response.

Due to the wording of the constitutional amendments, this resolution is not subject to a veto by the Governor. And it should be pointed out that the people of the Keystone State voted against the Governor on this.

“What happened to tyranny, guys?” Rep. Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) asked his Republican colleagues sarcastically. He called the vote to end the emergency order “political theater,” as all mitigation orders, save for a universal masking requirement, are no longer in place.

The mask mandate is the most visible symbol of the tyranny, and the most hated one.

That the tyranny of Governor Wolf, as well as that of Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY), was almost over, as those governors have gradually pulled back on their illegal and unconstitutional orders, does not mean that tyranny should not be fought, that those who support our constitutional rights should somehow forgive the tyrants, and leave things in place for the tyrants to use again.

Philadelphia was scheduled to end its mask mandate tomorrow.

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The Special Snowflakes™ get upset over everything! History is especially upsetting to them

The Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, was fought on October 8, 1862, between Major General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio and Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s Army of Mississippi. From Wikipedia:

The Battle of Perryville, also known as the Battle of Chaplin Hills, was fought on October 8, 1862, in the Chaplin Hills west of Perryville, Kentucky, as the culmination of the Confederate Heartland Offensive (Kentucky Campaign) during the American Civil War. Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg‘s Army of Mississippi[b] initially won a tactical victory against primarily a single corps of Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell‘s Union Army of the Ohio. The battle is considered a strategic Union victory, sometimes called the Battle for Kentucky, since Bragg withdrew to Tennessee soon thereafter. The Union retained control of the critical border state of Kentucky for the remainder of the war.

On October 7, Buell’s army, in pursuit of Bragg, converged on the small crossroads town of Perryville in three columns. Union forces first skirmished with Confederate cavalry on the Springfield Pike before the fighting became more general, on Peters Hill, when the Confederate infantry arrived. Both sides were desperate to get access to fresh water. The next day, at dawn, fighting began again around Peters Hill as a Union division advanced up the pike, halting just before the Confederate line. After noon, a Confederate division struck the Union left flank—the I Corps of Maj. Gen. Alexander M. McCook—and forced it to fall back. When more Confederate divisions joined the fray, the Union line made a stubborn stand, counterattacked, but finally fell back with some units routed.[9]

Buell, several miles behind the action, was unaware that a major battle was taking place and did not send any reserves to the front until late in the afternoon. The Union troops on the left flank, reinforced by two brigades, stabilized their line, and the Confederate attack sputtered to a halt. Later, three Confederate regiments assaulted the Union division on the Springfield Pike but were repulsed and fell back into Perryville. Union troops pursued, and skirmishing occurred in the streets until dark. By that time, Union reinforcements were threatening the Confederate left flank. Bragg, short of men and supplies, withdrew during the night, and continued the Confederate retreat by way of Cumberland Gap into East Tennessee.[9]

Considering the casualties relative to the engaged strengths of the armies,[4] the Battle of Perryville was one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. It was the largest battle fought in the state of Kentucky.[10]

There’s more at the original.

Though the Confederate States assumed that Kentucky should just naturally be part of the CSA, the Bluegrass State never seceded from the Union, declaring neutrality between the USA and CSA instead at first. Later, the state legislature petitioned the Union for support. Kentuckians fought on both sides, some 35,000 for the Confederacy and 125,000 for the Union.

The city of Perryville isn’t much of a much, with a population of fewer than 1,000 people, but the town logo has, horrors!, offended some of the Special Snowflakes™.

You see, the town logo has the Confederate flag on it. Oh, not as some homage to the Confederacy, but as a remembrance of the battle, about the only thing of note for the area. It also has the American flag on it as well, and the date of the battle. The Perryville Battlefield State Historical Site is nearby.

From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Central Kentucky town had a Confederate flag on its city logo. That may be changing.

By Karla Ward | June 8, 2021 | 9:00 PM EDT | Updated: June 9, 2021 | 9:29 AM EDT

The Perryville city council voted last week to form a committee to work on a redesign of the city’s logo, which currently includes images of the Confederate flag.

Perryville’s logo became a topic of discussion at the May council meeting, when Councilman Tim Simpson suggested putting up Perryville city flags between the American flags hanging along Second Street, according to a city Facebook post.

“It really never even crossed my mind as far as what it was and what it looked like,” Councilwoman Kelly Gray said in an interview Tuesday, until she took a good look at the city’s logo that night.

“I’m looking at the flag, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, we cannot do that,’” she said.

There’s a good deal more at the original.

One wonders: why would Mrs Gray be so very upset over a logo depicting the battle when she and her husband Adam have claimed to be very concerned with historic preservation?

Perryville residents Kelly and Adam Gray have been sued by the Kentucky Heritage Council over alleged changes they made to a historic property. The couple say they only improved the property and are “baffled” by the suit.

The civil suit, filed in Boyle Circuit Court, concerns a structure at 122 N. Bragg St. in Perryville.

The suit claims the historic structure, referred to as the Bond House, has been altered in violation of a Preservation and Conservation Easement, which allowed the Grays to benefit through reduced property tax payments. . . .

According to the suit, KHC claims when the Grays bought the building, the deed described it as subject to all easements and restrictions, and that the property must be “maintained forever substantially in the condition it was in” at time of purchase.

The suit describes several changes the Grays made to historic attributes of the home, including wood windows, brick nogging, interior and exterior doors, interior wood trim and interior plaster walls and ceilings.

The suit also states the defendants caused or allowed a signature from a soldier at The Battle of Perryville that was located on a plaster wall to be removed, as well as historic stair elements from the property.

Maybe it was the signature of a Confederate soldier?

“We could have saved ourselves an immense amount of money if we had just built a brand new house from the ground up, but because we have a passion for historic preservation and for Perryville, we thought it was more important to save a piece of history despite the extra costs that we knew would come along with that,” Kelly Gray said. She said she and Adam Gray “value historic preservation … and want our children and grandchildren to have the privilege of seeing these historic structures standing 100 years from now. However, in the end we are really on the same team, which continues to baffle me. Why is an organization suing us for doing exactly what they fight for each and every day?”

Judging by the photos in the Danville Advocate-Messenger, the Grays are on the right side of history as far as the restoration is concerned; the building was condemned and looked like it was about to fall down. But for a lady who claimed she has “a passion for historic preservation,” why is she so opposed to celebrating the history of the region? Yes, the Confederates fought there, but they also lost the initiative in Kentucky in part because of that battle; General Bragg’s Army had to retreat from the state, and the Union dominated Kentucky through the rest of the war.

Historic preservation means preserving history, not denying it, yet that is what Mrs Gray wants to do. My good friend Robert Stacy McCain[1]Yes, I mean “my good friend” in a different way than I did when I so described Amanda Marcotte. 🙂 wrote:

But as the American patriot John Adams famously said, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

Sadly, today’s left are trying to prove Mr McCain wrong: the ‘state of facts and evidence’ can be altered if they are incorrectly taught, or not taught at all. The dedicated historic preservationist Kelly Gray wants to what, say that the Union won a great victory at Perryville, by fighting against nobody?

The Special Snowflakes™ are just so terribly, terribly offended by the Confederacy and slavery, things which died in this great land 156 years ago. There are no Confederates left, there are no former American slaves remaining alive. History itself is now the perceived enemy of the snowflakes and the #woke[2]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading.

The Perryville logo does not somehow celebrate the Confederacy; it states that a great battle was fought there, 158½ years ago. If someone were to walk the streets of that small town and ask, what the heck does that symbol mean, a knowledgeable resident could say that yes, a Civil War battle was fought there, and the result was that the Confederates were forced out of Kentucky as a result. Ought not that to be a history the snowflakes would want?

References

References
↑1 Yes, I mean “my good friend” in a different way than I did when I so described Amanda Marcotte. 🙂
↑2 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.
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Living rent-free in their pumpkin heads 4½ years after Mr Trump left office, #TrumpDerangementSyndrome still reigns large in the left

I recently mentioned my good friend Amanda Marcotte, and suggested that she might have a case of #TrumpDerangementSyndrome. Miss Marcotte, ex- of Texas and ex- of Brooklyn, now resides somewhere in South Philadelphia,[1]No, I don’t know her exact address, and wouldn’t publish it if I did. but, for all of her voluminous writings on Salon, never seems to mention the goings on in her home town. People in Philly are outraged over the senseless murder of Christine Lugo, but not a word about it did I see on her Salon page or in her Twitter feed.[2]Miss Marcotte has blocked me from seeing her tweets, but it’s really simple: all that I have to do is log out of Twitter, and then I can see anyone’s feeds I want.

Donald Trump has been out of office since January 20, 2021; that’s 4½ months ago, but Miss Marcotte just can’t let him go. Her last five stories, as of 8:30 PM EDT on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, when the screencap to the right was taken, were All About Trump. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

But it isn’t just Miss Marcotte who has The Donald living rent-free in her head. Toni Williams of The Victory Girls wrote about Mara Gay’s traumatic, traumatic! encounter with, horrors!, American flags!

Mara Gay is a member of the New York Times Editorial Board and writes about New York City for that publication. She is also an MSNBC contributor. Memorial Day weekend she ventured out to Long Island and saw, gasp, pickup trucks, Trump flags and, the horror, American flags. The experience left her overwrought.

What is it about the women of MSNBC? Nicolle Wallace, Rachel Maddow, Yamiche Alcindor and Mara Gay are all seemingly hateful and bitter women. Andrew Sullivan called Maddow condescending and smug. That’s the kindest thing you can say about any of these women.

I happen to love this time of year. We have Memorial Day (the last Monday in May), Flag Day (June 14) and Independence Day on July 4th. I get jazzed by flags, parades and John Phillip Sousa marches. Growing up, even my Liberal friends loved the flag. We all ran to the parades. Our parents, regardless of their politics, all flew the flag. Remember how after the September 11, 2001 attacks everyone flew our spectacular American flag? Five years ago on Flag Day, our Nina wrote a beautiful post about the flag. You can read it here. That beautiful flag covered my Dad’s coffin. When someone you love, who served his country, lies under that flag, maybe you have a special passion for it.

MSNBC has their Morning Joe program with Joe and Mika. That is where contributor Mara Gay started off talking about the continued threat of President Donald Trump and ended up talking about her fear of pickup trucks, Trump flags and the American flag:

Here are some portions from Real Clear Politics and my commentary:

The reality is here that we have a large percentage of the American population — I don’t know how big it is, but we have tens of millions of Trump voters who continue to believe that their rights as citizens are under threat by simple virtue of having to share the democracy with others. I think as long as they see Americanness as the same as one with whiteness, this is going to continue. We have to figure out how to get every American a place at the table in this democracy, but how to separate Americanness, America, from whiteness. Until we can confront that and talk about that, this is really going to continue. . . . .

I was on Long Island this weekend, visiting a really dear friend and I was really disturbed. I saw, you know, dozens and dozens of pickup trucks with expletives against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags, and in some cases, just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing, which essentially the message was clear, this is my country. This is not your country. I own this.

Miss Gay saw American flags, being waved by people, on the Memorial Day weekend. That’s kind of a time when we would expect to see the flag displayed, right?

Miss Gay, like Miss Marcotte above, is being triggered by the flag, and by President Trump, and by the fact that there are a few people, yes even in New York, who voted for him.

On June 7th, Washington Post columnist Max Boot, screamed in his headline, “Too many people are still underestimating the Trump threat.”

People, Donald Trump is out of office. Even if he runs for President again, the next election is 3½ years away, and he’ll be 78 years old by then, if he’s still alive.

The obvious question now is: will Mr Trump really be living rent free in these people’s head for another four or eight or twelve years to come?

References

References
↑1 No, I don’t know her exact address, and wouldn’t publish it if I did.
↑2 Miss Marcotte has blocked me from seeing her tweets, but it’s really simple: all that I have to do is log out of Twitter, and then I can see anyone’s feeds I want.
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And another two bite the dust

Lexington, Kentucky, had gone 18 days without a homicide, but I suppose that it was too good to last. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

2 men shot dead in Lexington: 1 was left in a vehicle, another killed outside a club

By Jeremy Chisenhall | June 9, 2021 | 7:05 AM EDT | Updated 4:33 PM EDT

Two men are dead after separate shootings Tuesday night and early Wednesday, according to Lexington police.

The fatal shootings were the 17th and 18th homicides in Lexington this year, according to Lexington crime data. The city set a record last year with 34. At this point in 2020, Lexington had reported 12 homicides for the year.

Sadly, this is incorrect; the victims are teh 18th and 19th murder victims in the city.

I can understand why Jeremy Chisenhall made the error: the Lexington Police Department has not updated its homicide investigation page in a long time, with the May 9th killing of Mar’Quevion Leach as the 16th and last victim listed, but the Herald-Leader reported on the murder of Demonte Washington, 28, on May 22nd. Since Mr Chisenhall was not the reporter on that story, he may have missed it completely.

Police found the first shooting victim around 11:35 p.m. Tuesday, according to Lt. Ronald Keaton. The victim was a 28-year-old man who had been shot and left in a vehicle in the 200 block of Hedgewood Court in the Woodhill area. . . . .

The city’s second overnight shooting occurred outside The Office, a gentleman’s club in the 900 block of Winchester Road.

Keaton said police were called to the location around 2:35 a.m. for a report of shots fired outside. The victim was already dead when officers arrived, Keaton said. He said it was unclear if the victim or anyone involved in the shooting was a patron at the club.

As of Mr Chisenhall’s most recent update, there was little information about the victims or any suspects available.

Nineteen homicides in 160 days. That doesn’t put Lexington in similarly-sized St Louis’ class, with the Gateway City having 82 homicides to date, or Louisville’s “more than 80,” but Louisville, with 617,790 people is twice Lexington’s size.[1]The Louisville metropolitan area has about 1,265,000, while Lexington, the borders of which extend to the Fayette County line, doesn’t really have a ‘metropolitan area.’ Still, Lexington is on pace for 43 murders in 2021, which would shatter last year’s record of 34, and the long, hot summer hasn’t really begun yet.
___________________________
Update: June 10, 2021, at 2:20 PM EDT:

While I didn’t get personal credit, Mr Chisenhall did update the homicide numbers:

CORRECTION: The total number of homicides in Lexington this year was incorrectly stated in a previous version of this story.

References

References
↑1 The Louisville metropolitan area has about 1,265,000, while Lexington, the borders of which extend to the Fayette County line, doesn’t really have a ‘metropolitan area.’
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Charles Booker’s misplaced priorities

Charles Booker, from his Twitter profile.

As I previously noted, the hearts of the editors of the what my, sadly late, best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal must have been all aflutter when former, one-term state Representative Charles Booker (D-43rd District) of Louisville announced that he was forming an exploratory committee to see if he should run for the 2022 Democratic nomination against incumbent Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). In 2020, the editors endorsed the hard-left Mr Booker against faux moderate Amy McGrath Henderson for the nomination to run against Senator Mitch McConnell. After Mrs Henderson won the primary by an unexpectedly-close margin, the editors endorsed her against Mr McConnell, where she lost in a landslide.

Well, being the news junkie that I am, I went ahead and followed Mr Booker on Twitter, and he had this one up on Tuesday:

Really? Well, a whole lot of Kentuckians would disagree with Mr Booker. In 2010, Dr Paul defeated Democratic nominee Jack Conway, who had already won a statewide election to become the state’s Attorney General, 755,411 (55.69%) to 599,617 (44.26%) to win his seat in the United States Senate. Anything over 10% is considered a landslide win. Then, in 2016, Senator Paul defeated then-Mayor Jim Gray of Lexington 1,090,177 (57.27%) to 813,246 (42.73%) for re-election.

Mitch McConnell? In 2014, Senator McConnell defeated Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes 806,787 (56.2%) to 584,698 (40.7%), and in 2020 he stomped Mrs Henderson 1,233,315 (57.8%) to 816,257 (38.2%), despite her spending $90.8 million to ‘just’ $60 million by the incumbent senator.

If you visit Mr Booker’s (exploratory) campaign website, you’ll see a letter from him on the front page. In it, he said, “We all want a society where every single person can be safe in their homes without the fear of being killed by the government agencies we pay to protect us.”

Yeah, I get it: he’s channeling the killing of Breonna Taylor, the ex-girlfriend of a notorious Louisville drug dealer, who died when police returned fire from her then current boyfriend when they broke in, serving a legitimate no-knock warrant.

But, really, Mr Booker is worried about people being killed in their homes by police, an extremely rare event, when, as of May 30th, there had been 76 murders in his home town?

That’s 30 more murders than at the same time in 2020, a 65.22% increase. It was more than double the 33 homicides at the same time in 2019.

Louisville saw 92 criminal homicides in 2019, and almost doubled it to 173 in 2020. Louisville is currently on pace for a new record of 185 murders for 2021, and the long, hot summer hasn’t begun yet, but Mr Booker is worried about Breonna Taylor? One of us believes that Mr Booker’s priorities are misplaced.