Author Archives: Dana Pico

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The Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer asked for “radical new thinking” and “radical realism” I'm guessing that they won't like my "radical new thinking" and "radical realism"

About fifteen years ago, I worked for a ready-mixed concrete company in suburbs of Philadelphia, and one of my responsibilities was driver recruitment. The biggest problem? More than half of potential recruits couldn’t pass the drug test!

The greatest anti-poverty program is a job, and a huge percentage of those in poverty in Philadelphia have made themselves ineligible for decent jobs through their own choices to use drugs. Reducing poverty cannot come from the top down, from boards and commissions and charities. It must come from the bottom up, from a community which refuses to use drugs and will not tolerate those who sell drugs.

I know, I know, it’s just horribly politically incorrect to say this, but poor people are poor primarily due to their own choices.

Solving Philly’s poverty problem requires radical thinking — and realism | Editorial

The Inquirer Editorial Board | November 22, 2020 | 6:00 AM EST

One of the great challenges of living in a city with the high poverty rate that has long dogged Philadelphia is how to remain optimistic that the proposals designed to alleviate it can work.

The past few decades have seen many attempts to “solve” the poverty problem, both nationally and locally. Mayor John Street launched a $300 million anti-blight program called the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative. In 2013, Mayor Michael Nutter launched the Shared Prosperity program, designed to streamline and maximize available aid to people. Both had their successes, but change in the poverty rate was incremental.

The latest effort, a “Poverty Action Plan” was released in early March from City Council and a committee including Darrell Clarke, Maria Quiñones Sanchez and Allan Domb. Last week, Council announced the creation of a new nonprofit to implement the plan, funded with a $10 million grant from the city.

The plan, originally described as a “moonshot” designed to lift 100,000 people out of poverty by 2024, offers a set of sweeping actions: seven strategies that range from providing a basic income to individuals and wage tax refunds to adult education and job training stipends. It creates a Poverty Commission, described as a public-private partnership including city and state government, philanthropies, universities and civic institutions like the United Way. In addition to a fund, it creates a dashboard to measure progress.

The commission also assembled a staggering number of people: five co-chairs, 19 full committee members, and 57 additional people spread over three separate committees.

So, 81 people, probably none of them truly poor themselves, involving government employees, philanthropies, universities and civic institutions. Philadelphia is going to have yet another anti-poverty program put together and run by the elites, most, and possibly all of whom have never been poor, have never, to use the expression of Robert E Howard, had their lives nailed to their spines, trying to put together a program for people who are not like them.

Many are familiar names who have been at the front lines of fighting poverty for years, if not decades. While it will take a large, all-hands-on-deck effort to make inroads, it is of concern that, especially in this town, many people means many politics, and many often-conflicting agendas. And the last eight months have complicated things further, since many organizations will be fighting for their own survival.

Translation: the same people who have “been at the front lines of fighting poverty for years, if not decades,” and failed, will be at it again. Is there any reason to expect different results?

Part of leadership is setting goals that are slightly out of reach. But leadership must also recognize that there needs to be a possibility of success, especially confronting complicated problems like poverty. Lifting 100,000 people out of poverty will take vision and optimism. But it will also take a lot more than $10 million – and a lot longer than four years. Solving this crisis requires a capacity for radical new thinking as well as radical realism.

“Radical new thinking as well as radical realism”? I can provide the Inquirer Editorial Board with that, but I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t like it. But perhaps, just perhaps, some actual plainspokenness is needed here.

There are three things which have to be done to reduce poverty in Philadelphia, and they need to come from within the poorer, primarily black, communities.

  1. People have to stop using drugs! The Philadelphia Police can only do so much to find, stop and arrest drug dealers. Drug dealers exist because people want to use drugs, and they will continue to exist as long as people are willing to buy and use drugs. But drugs lead to lost employment opportunities as employees in a lot of fields are subject to pre-employment, random and post-accident drug tests, as well as lowered productivity when on the job even if applicants get past the drug screens. Drug use leads to other poor lifestyle decisions, and syphons money from people’s earnings into useless spending which does not improve their situations or enable them to save.The neighborhood has to take action that the police cannot, to drive out the drug dealers and give them no shelter or security. The dealers need to be shunned as the neighborhood cancers they are.
  2. Neighborhood women and girls need to step up and take leadership roles. Most of the bad behavior, from petty crimes all the way up to Philadelphia’s exploding murder rate, comes from young males, and, if we are brutally honest about it, young black males. But there is one thing that young males value more than anything else: sex. Young women in poor neighborhoods need to stop rewarding the bad behavior of young males with sex. The guys who stay in school, the ones who try to make something of themselves, they are the ones that young women in the neighborhoods should date.This is something that their mothers, and the other older women in the neighborhoods, need to stress to younger women as they grow up.

    This point will be denounced as horribly sexist, but I am far beyond caring about that. You may think it sexist, but it is true nevertheless.

  3. Fathers in the neighborhood must step up and take responsibility. Almost every negative social statistic, for suicides, for criminal behavior, for dropping out of school, and for out-of-wedlock childbearing, is much higher for people who grow up without their fathers present in the home. Young women should not date young men who are unlikely to stick around if the woman gets pregnant, and young women should not let themselves get pregnant by men to whom they are not married. Single parenthood is very often a one-way ticket to poverty, at far greater rates than are the case for two-parent homes.Again, that point will be condemned as sexist, but there is one incontrovertible fact: pregnancy and child rearing put a much greater burden on women than men, and if the man is absent, 100% of the burden falls on the woman. Men who impregnate women and then refuse to step up and do their duty as fathers need to be shunned in the neighborhoods.

There are many other behaviors that only people in the neighborhoods can fix, only the individuals involved can change, but they are all part of the three points made above. The various ‘civic leaders’ the Editorial Board mentioned can stress these things, but only the people on the ground in their neighborhoods can actually change behavior.

Readers can denounce me as sexist or racist or whateverist, but it doesn’t matter to me; I am retired, living out in the country, and I can’t be fired for writing something some people will find uncomfortable. Because uncomfortable or not, the points I have made are true, and any rational examination of the facts will bring the reader to the same conclusions.

This is the “radical new thinking” and “radical realism” the Inquirer’s Editorial Board wanted. That it is not #woke, nor sufficiently sparing of the feelings of some, that it is horribly politically incorrect does not mean it should not be examined for whether it is true or not. That it puts much of the blame for poverty on the behavior of the poor will be seen as unjustifiably harsh, but harsh or not, it is still true.

Poor behavior leads to unfortunate consequences, consequences which are often far beyond what people would like to believe. No well-intentioned committee of 81 committed fighters against poverty, no brilliant Mayor of perfectly good motivations, and no priest nobly absolving parishioners of their confessed sins can change the consequences of poor and economically inefficient behavior.

The solution to poverty can be encouraged by all of those people, but the implementation of the solution has to come from the people in poor communities themselves.
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Cross-posted on RedState.

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Church leaders in Kentucky decline to agree with Governor Beshear’s request to close down But one idiotic pastor has practically dared the Governor to change his request to an order

We have previously noted Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) request that churches in the Bluegrass State suspend in-person worship services through Sunday, December 13th. I pointed out that, as long as it was a request, rather than an order, the Governor was acting within his free speech rights. Churches, on the other hand, are acting in their First Amendment rights of Freedom of peaceable Assembly and Free Exercise of Religion regardless of which way they chose to go on Mr Beshear’s request.

Well, it seems as though many churches are honoring the Governor’s request by stating that they will continue to exercise great caution, but will remain open. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

After Beshear’s request, some churches cancel services. Others ‘draw a line in the sand.’

By Karla Ward | November 21, 2020 | 08:42 PM EST | Updated 8:57 PM EST

While a number of congregations are complying with Gov. Andy Beshear’s request to halt in-person worship services through Dec. 13, others are reluctant to return to having only virtual services.

“I feel very strongly that churches have to draw a line in the sand,” Pastor Denny Whitworth, of the Bread of Life Assembly of God, wrote in a post on the church’s Facebook page. “I am concerned that this recommendation will possibly extend beyond the time frame laid out, this is always the trend. We are essential to our community and it is an opportunity to reach people for the kingdom of God, who may not be reached unless our doors are open.”

That’s an absolutely valid concern. The Governor’s initial church closure wasn’t a request, but an unconstitutional order, one he nevertheless got away with, and it lasted for nine weeks. On March 13th, he asked churches to cancel services, but many did not. So, on March 19th, he made it an order, with which almost all churches complied. In May, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order allowing churches to reopen, and on May 24th, we were ever-so-graciously allowed to attend Mass again.

The Governor even sent the State Police to record license plate numbers on cars in church parking lots on Easter Sunday, Easter Sunday! to order the owners of the vehicles into quarantine.

Whitworth said the congregation will cancel fellowship meals until January, and he urged attendees at services to wear masks “coming in building and leaving” and to continue social distancing and other measures.

Several churches that said they plan to continue holding in-person services mentioned that they have taken careful steps to try to keep from spreading COVID-19.

This is what the Diocese of Lexington has done. My pastor holds Mass outside if the weather allows, though now that it’s the latter half of November, that’s a vanishing option. The Diocese insists on masks and social distancing, which has not been a problem even inside the church; my parish is a very small one.

Pastor Jeff Fugate, from his parish website.

Pastor Jeff Fugate of Clays Mill Baptist Church said many people, especially the elderly, may need to stay home, but the church does not plan to halt in-person services.

“There are many of us that are able and anxious to be in church for services,” Fugate wrote on his Facebook page. “I refuse to allow Governor Beshear who promotes the liquor business, abortion business and gambling . . . and keeps them open, to take away or threaten a Constitutional right of a church to assemble. If we as Patriotic Americans continue to sit back and allow this type of control to take place without resistance we are going to lose/give away our freedoms.”

Now that’s a man I can admire! But then he kept running his mouth:

Fugate said in an interview Saturday that the church had 500 to 600 people in attendance at its worship service Nov. 15. Most attendees, he said, do not wear masks. In addition, he said the church buses are running again, picking up a few hundred children for Bible classes each Sunday.

A church service at Clays Mill Baptist Church, picture from the parish website. The photo is not dated, so it could be from well before last March.

Way to go, Mr Fugate! Way to announce to the world, and Governor Beshear, and the Jessamine County Health Department, that what other congregations are doing to try to limit the spread of COVID-19 your church and you are not doing and, apparently, have no intention to do. Way to taunt the county and state into taking some sort of action.

If the Governor reads about this, and the Herald-Leader is delivered in Frankfort, the state capitol, Pastor Fugate has pretty much dared him to change his request to an executive order. Local people probably knew about how large the congregation is, and that masks weren’t being worn, and that occupancy restrictions weren’t being observed, but they could ignore it as long as nobody rocked the boat.

Pastor Fugate rocked the boat.

Was the Governor deterred from making his request an order by the federal judge’s ruling in May? I can’t read his mind, so I do not know, but Pastor Fugate, bless his heart, is trying to tempt the Governor into trying an order again. Yeah, he’d lose in court, again, but that would take several weeks and cost churches thousands of dollars. [1]Every Southerner knows just what “Bless your heart” means in a sentence like this

Governor Beshear hasn’t made it an order, at least not yet. In that, he has not violated Kentuckians’ freedom of religion or right to peaceable assembly, at least not in church. Though there are many, many things about which to criticize the Governor, this is not one of them. But now Pastor Fugate has virtually challenged the Governor to make it an order, and that’s just stupid.

The hornet’s nest on the corner of your porch really isn’t much of a problem . . . unless you poke it with a stick. Brother Fugate — I think that’s the appropriate form of address for a Baptist minister — has poked the hornet’s nest with a stick.

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↑1 Every Southerner knows just what “Bless your heart” means in a sentence like this
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The shutdowns are about more than just missing some Christmas presents

While I have noted the complaints of Lexington restaurateurs in response to Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) three-week indoor dining ban, Kentucky isn’t the only place in which government’s over-zealous response to COVID-19 is destroying businesses and throwing people out of work. Mayor Jim Kenney (D-Philadelphia) has done even worse. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Six-week shutdown could mean a ‘year without Christmas’ for Philly businesses

by Sam Wood and Katie Park | November 18, 2020

Beleaguered business owners and city residents, who had reconfigured their work lives to survive the pandemic’s first wave, latched onto a now-ubiquitous sentiment on Tuesday: Hang on. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

The City of Philadelphia imposed new business restrictions on Monday that will go into effect at the end of the week. Sectors of the local economy will be required to shut down or severely curtail operations until at least Jan. 1.

Until New years Day? Even Governor Beshear only ordered closure for three weeks, at which point he could, conceivably, reissue the restrictions, while Mr Kenney decided he’d just destroy the rest of the year.

“For millions of people, this could be the year without a Christmas,” said Stephen Mullin, principal at Econsult Solutions and a former city director of commerce during the Rendell administration. “We’ll see unemployment bouncing up significantly again.”

The poor will be hit disproportionately as minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, and restaurants disappear, he predicted. The next six weeks will be tougher than in the spring and will probably endure into the new year. And businesses are pushing back and taking their complaints directly to City Hall.

With a salary of $218,000, Mr Kenney isn’t worried that COVID-19 shutdowns will put him in the poorhouse; that’s reserved for the working class people. He’s been in city government for most of his adult life, spending 23 years as a city councilman before being elected mayor; government is really the only thing he knows. Being on the wrong side of government edicts and regulations? That’s something he does not know.

The shutdown order comes at a critical time. It’s only with the holiday shopping season that many retailers begin to generate their best sales of the year. The order also puts a kibosh on Christmas parties and the peak of tourism in Philadelphia.

Translation: Jeff Bezos will get even richer, as more and more people will be shopping online, while ‘brick-and-mortar’ stores will suffer, many completely failing, and their employees will be laid off from jobs which will never return.[1]Restaurants are frequent business failures, which are followed by subsequent restaurant start-ups. But in the current economic and regulatory climate, the next wave of restaurant start ups will be … Continue reading Property owners will not be paid the rent they are due, which means that some property maintenance will not get done.

There’s a lot more at the original, including noting that Center City shops have lost a tremendous amount of business, because telecommuting has dramatically reduced the number of office workers. Office occupancy, the story stated, is down 85% from prior to the outbreak.

But this personal story is the one which really needs to be quoted:

Fran Cassidy, general manager of the Sporting Club at the Bellevue, was furious at the shutdown orders, which he considers unnecessarily draconian.

Business at the luxury fitness center had already crashed to 50% of its pre-pandemic level, Cassidy said. Of his 4,200 members, just 2,000 had returned. Though he believes there “hasn’t been a single case of COVID-19 among his clients,” he will have to issue pink slips to the Sporting Club’s entire staff.

“They’re devastated. How can you not be? It’s the holiday season. We had to tell 90 employees they’d be laid off,” Cassidy said. “In eight or nine days, it’ll be Thanksgiving. And that’s the news we had to deliver.”

Perhaps ninety employees from one business makes more of an impact than twenty million people on unemployment. Twenty million is a number that starts to fall outside of people’s consciousness, but ninety, that’s 45 to 50 homes. Where I lived in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, I can see that as the entire street from my former house to the beginning of the street. That’s a number of houses that I could see, every day, on my way home from work. That’s a number that I can visualize, a number of houses I could see and recognize, a number of houses in which I knew or at least recognized people.

The street on which my family lived in Mt Sterling, when I was growing up? There are fewer than fifty houses on the entire street.

And that’s a number of houses that I could see dark, as they had to conserve electricity,[2]Many states have banned utility shutoffs for non-payment due to the economic crisis, but eventually that will end, and eventually people will have to repay their back bills. that’s a number of houses I could see having potatoes and beans for supper one night, and beans and potatoes the next, because the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), what used to be called Food Stamps, doesn’t really feed a family all that well.

What happens when the hot water heater fails? A no-eviction order means that the tenants can’t be put out on the street, but can a landlord who has not been receiving his rent be forced to repair or replace it if he has no money? A no-foreclosure order might mean that a family can’t be evicted if they haven’t been able to pay their mortgage, but if they have lost their jobs, can they afford a new hot water heater? A quick look at Lowe’s website showed it’s least expensive hot water heater cost $319.00.

In Pennsylvania, if your automobile insurance lapses, the insurance company is required, by law, to report it to the state, and your license plates are immediately suspended for a minimum of ninety days, unless you can present proof that you kept your insurance by contracting with another company before the old insurance lapsed. If you have an insurance payment of $300 due, and you don’t have it, too bad, so sad, must suck to be you, but your plates are suspended. Since the Commonwealth stopped issuing license plate stickers and went to automatic scanners in patrol cars, the police will see you if you are driving with expired or suspended plates.

Very few of the elites, and big city mayors and state governors are most certainly among the elites, really understand what it is like to be poor, what it is like to live paycheck-to-paycheck, and how even a single setback can throw people into a deep hole. The Federal reserve reported, in 2019:

  • If faced with an unexpected expense of $400, 61 percent of adults say they would cover it with cash, savings, or a credit card paid off at the next statement — a modest improvement from the prior year. Similar to the prior year, 27 percent would borrow or sell something to pay for the expense, and 12 percent would not be able to cover the expense at all.
  • Seventeen percent of adults are not able to pay all of their current month’s bills in full. Another 12 percent of adults would be unable to pay their current month’s bills if they also had an unexpected $400 expense that they had to pay

Perhaps the math are too complicated for the elites, but $400 is a full week’s gross pay for someone earning $10.00 an hour, but Mayor Kenney is throwing exactly those people out of work not for a week, but for six weeks. Doing the more complicated math, adding in the 7.65% Social Security and Medicare withholding, Pennsylvania’s 3.07% state income tax withholding, and Philly’s 3.8712% wage tax for city residents, a person needs to be paid $11.53 per hour to take home $400 for a forty hour week.

COVID-19 is serious, and in some cases — not many — can be fatal. But poverty is serious, and unemployment can be fatal in itself. For the people who needn’t fear the economic consequences of shutdown orders themselves, it’s quite easy to say that these shutdowns are necessary, and something through which we just have to fight. But for the people who do bear the consequences of the shutdowns, it’s more than just losing Thanksgiving dinner due to gathering restriction orders, more than no presents under the Christmas tree, it’s a big government boot stomping into a life already lived at the hard edge of survival.
_________________________________
Thanks to Robert Stacy McCain for the link!
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Cross-posted on RedState.

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↑1 Restaurants are frequent business failures, which are followed by subsequent restaurant start-ups. But in the current economic and regulatory climate, the next wave of restaurant start ups will be long delayed.
↑2 Many states have banned utility shutoffs for non-payment due to the economic crisis, but eventually that will end, and eventually people will have to repay their back bills.
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Another draconian decree from the Pennsylvania Soviet Socialist Republic

The Department of Health of the Pennsylvania Soviet Socialist Republic has issued yet another draconian decree:

Did you catch that. Secretary of Health Dr Richard Levine[1]Dr Levine is a male who is so delusional that he thinks he is female, and goes by the name ‘Rachel.’ In its continuing mission to normalize transgenderism, the credentialed media always … Continue reading is ordering Pennsylvanians that they must wear face masks in their own homes if anyone who does not live there enters the residence.

One has to ask: just how do Governor Tom Wolf (D-PA) and Secretary Levine plan to enforce this order? Will the Philadelphia Police knock on row house doors if an officer spots an unfamiliar vehicle parked out front, just to make certain everyone inside is masked up? Will the police in Harrisburg conduct random checks, especially on Thanksgiving day, ready to confiscate drumsticks and arrest the entire family?

Pennsylvania has made violation of Dr Levine’s orders a criminal offense:

Administrative Code of 1929, 71 P. S. § 1409, states that:

Every person who violates any order or regulation of the Department of Health, or who resists or interferes with any officer or agent thereof in the performance of his duties in accordance with the regulations and orders of the Department of Health, shall, upon conviction thereof in a summary proceeding before a justice of the peace, alderman, or magistrate of the county wherein such violation or offense is committed, be sentenced to pay a fine of not less than ten ($10.00) dollars and costs nor more than fifty ($50.00) dollars and costs, such fine to be paid to the county in which the violation or offense is committed. In default of payment of such fine and costs the offender shall be sentenced to be confined in the proper county jail for a period of thirty days.

The Pennsylvania Disease Prevention and Control Law of 1955 35 P.S. § 521.20(a):

Any person who violates any of the provisions of this act or any regulation shall, for each offense, upon conviction thereof in a summary proceeding before any magistrate, alderman or justice of the peace in the county wherein the offense was committed, be sentenced to pay a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars ($25) and not more than three hundred dollars ($300), together with costs, and in default of payment of the fine and costs, to be imprisoned in the county jail for a period not to exceed thirty (30) days.

27 Pa. Code § 27.8(a):

A person who violates any provision of the [Disease Prevention and Control Act of 1955] shall, for each offense, upon conviction thereof in a summary proceeding before a district justice in the county wherein the offense was committed, be sentenced to pay a fine of not less than $25 and not more than $300, together with costs, and in default of payment of the fine and costs, shall be imprisoned in the county jail for a period not to exceed 30 days.

Lubyanka Prison in Moscow.

Note: a criminal trial is not required, but a “summary proceeding” is sufficient to fine you or lock you up!

Will the Secretary send you to Lubyanka prison? A summary proceeding, meaning that there is no trial by jury, and you can be locked up for up to a month? Not just no, but Hell no!

I no longer live in the Keystone State. Were I subject to Pennsylvania state laws, I would be in violation, this weekend as my daughter will be visiting the farm from her house in Lexington, and again on Thanksgiving day, when we will be having dinner at her house. We will not be in violation of Kentucky’s indoor gatherings restrictions, in that there will be only two households present and fewer than eight people there, and the mandatory mask order does not apply in individual homes. I’d like to say that I’d be in violation of it, but I won’t.

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↑1 Dr Levine is a male who is so delusional that he thinks he is female, and goes by the name ‘Rachel.’ In its continuing mission to normalize transgenderism, the credentialed media always refer to him as ‘Rachel,’ and no longer note that he is ‘transgender. The First Street Journal, in accordance with its Stylebook, does not go along with such stupidity, and always refers to people by their biological sex and proper name.
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The Catholic Diocese of Owensboro decides to remain open Governor Andy Beshear's request is denied!

As we previously noted, Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) wants all churches to close:

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear asked religious leaders across the state to immediately suspend all in-person gatherings at their houses of worship for the next three or four weeks, the president of the Kentucky Council of Churches said Thursday.

“This is a request from the governor, not a mandate, and it seems perfectly reasonable given the situation we are in with COVID-19,” said Kent Gilbert, who is also pastor of the historic Union Church in downtown Berea.

Gilbert was not certain if the request was until Sunday, Dec. 13 or through Dec. 13. The governor’s office did not immediately respond to questions about Gilbert’s comments.

If the Governor simply requested that churches ‘suspend’ services, then he was acting within his own First Amendment rights, his freedom of speech. If he attempts to order churches to close, then he is violating our free exercise of religion. His order restricting weddings and funerals to 25 or fewer guests, that we noted previously, is obviously unconstitutional, but the truth is that he got away with an order closing churches last March.

Well, at least some churches aren’t going to knuckle under:

Statement from Bishop William Medley, Diocese of Owensboro

November 19, 2020

“In consultation with the Archbishop of Louisville, the Bishops of Covington and Lexington, and the Catholic Conference of Kentucky, the Diocese of Owensboro wishes to announce that for the present the Catholic Churches of western Kentucky will continue our public worship as we have the last several months. Occupancy of churches will be limited to no more than 50%, facial coverings will be required, and physical distancing will be maintained.

This formula has proven successful and we cannot confirm even a single instance of transmission of the COVID-19 virus through our churches and our worship.

We acknowledge the difficult circumstances we face in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and appreciate Governor Andy Beshear’s efforts to promote the common good and the safety and well-being of our citizens.

We urge all citizens to heighten their observance of mandates. We pledge to continue our collaboration with healthcare officers throughout our region.

In regards to school closures, Governor Beshear yesterday (Wednesday, November 18, 2020) issued a mandate regarding the suspension of in-person classes for both public and private schools. In regards to our Catholic schools, this is disappointing as we believe that we have demonstrated that our schools can operate safely with the well-being of children uppermost in our actions.

In consultation with other Kentucky bishops, all Catholic schools in the state will comply with the governor’s directive.”

Regrettably, Bishop John Stowe, of the Diocese of Lexington, has not made any statement on the subject that I have been able to find, either in his Twitter feed or the Diocesan website. This is something that parishioners need to know. We normally get our parish bulletin via email on Saturday, so we should be notified in that if Mass is cancelled, but this is something the Bishop should have addressed and made public by today at the latest.

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Karens gotta Karen! Are we really living in a society in which snitching for violations of COVID-19 rules has become acceptable, become the norm?

If there’s such a thing as karma, this Karen ought to feel the wrath of it. If her neighbors know who she is, they should immediately ostracize her. From the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot:

Virginia Wesleyan women’s basketball player says she was dismissed from school over Thanksgiving gathering; others disciplined

By Ray Nimmo | November 19, 2020 | 8:31 PM EST

Multiple members of the Virginia Wesleyan University women’s basketball team have been suspended from on-campus housing and face additional sanctions from the athletic department, the college acknowledged Thursday.

Virginia Wesleyan did not say what those additional sanctions are, or how many players were disciplined. The school said an off-campus gathering led to the suspensions and said in a statement that “protocols have been repeatedly communicated throughout the campus community, athletic department, and all teams.”

Senior forward Makenna McSweeney, in graduate school for business administration, disputed that and said she has been dismissed from the school in the wake of hosting a Thanksgiving team-only gathering of 13 people.

The ‘gathering limit’ in Virginia is 25 people, not a lower number that people are used to reading about in other states. A gathering of 13 people did not constitute a violation.[1]I have presented this only for information purposes; this does not mean that I accept the idea that the government, at any level, can simply suspend our constitutional right to peaceably assemble. Thus, being punished for a gathering of fewer than 25 people must be a school rule, not the state’s.

An altercation between a neighbor and player occurred near the end of the two-hour event, and McSweeney said the neighbor’s subsequent call to the school led to the punishment.

So, what was the complaint? The article notes that “charges have been filed,” but does not give any details. What charges? Was the altercation physical or just verbal? And if the altercation involved only one player, that player not being Miss McSweeney, why is she the one being dismissed from VWU?

“We were called in (Wednesday), myself and the teammate that was in the altercation,” McSweeney said. “They said the neighbor had basically threatened to sue the school if we were not dealt with. The only claim they had is that we had a social gathering. The school can’t give us an explanation for (the punishment).”

OK, perhaps Miss McSweeney should have been dismissed from the college, for her atrocious grammar, but she is, apparently, being kicked out because she had her friends on the team over for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner. The officious little prick Karen got her way, getting the team members kicked out of their dorms, and Miss McSweeney expelled from school.

It should be noted that Virginia Wesleyan is the same college which fired forced professor Paul Ewell to resign after another officious little prick made public a private Facebook message in which he asked those who voted for Joe Biden to ‘unfriend’ him.

Is this really to where we’ve come? Are we really living in a society in which snitching for violations of COVID-19 rules has become acceptable, become the norm? The routine violations of our constitutional rights, the complacent acceptance of such by so many people, and the busybody nature of the “I’m going to tell on you!” over things which are not, and cannot be, crimes has led to far more damage to our society than the virus ever has.

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↑1 I have presented this only for information purposes; this does not mean that I accept the idea that the government, at any level, can simply suspend our constitutional right to peaceably assemble.
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It’s so easy for state Governors to order other people to lose their jobs The Democrats always claimed to be the party of working people, but they don't seem to understand that working people need to work!

COVID-19 is serious, and can be fatal. But there are other things which can be fatal as well, homelessness for one, especially if you have minor children. And eventually, the no evictions and no foreclosure orders will have to be ended.

From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

As Beshear closes dining in, restaurant owners say ‘This is the breaking point’

By Janet Patton | November 18, 2020 | 4:37 PM EST | Updated: 6:31 PM EST

Gov. Andy Beshear’s new capacity restrictions on Kentucky restaurants and bars could not have come at a worse time, Lexington restaurant owners said Wednesday.

Pushed to the brink by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic hardships it has brought, many were facing a tough holiday season already with just 50 percent capacity and waning outdoor seating.

Beginning Friday, they will be limited to takeout and outdoor seating until Dec. 13. Beshear announced Wednesday that all indoor restaurant seating will be closed.

“This is the breaking point,” said Heather Trump, co-owner of Shamrock Bar & Grille and the Cellar. Most were hoping to hang on to the beginning of college basketball season, when business was expected to pick up.

Limited just to carryout, she said, “you will see 30 percent of restaurants never come back.”

There’s more at the original.

So, what happens to all of the people employed at restaurants and bars, people once again being laid off, and with a large percentage of those businesses never to reopen? If the businesses fail, the workers can’t be called back to work. And while restaurants fail all the time, and are normally replaced by other restaurants — I remember one building in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, which had a new restaurant every year for four straight years — who’s going to decide to take the risk to open a new restaurant under these conditions?

Of course, the Governor has ordered the halt of all in person classes in the Commonwealth, both public and private, meaning layoffs for many education employees — teachers’ aides, school bus drivers, custodians, security guards, guidance counselors and the like — and will force many working parents, primarily women, to either miss work, because they have to stay at home to care for their children, or pay for all day day care, if they can find it, leaving them working for nothing.

When these people eventually wind up on the streets, some of them are going to be just as dead as if they had died from COVID-19.

And now His Excellency the Governor wants to close the churches as well:

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear asked religious leaders across the state to immediately suspend all in-person gatherings at their houses of worship for the next three or four weeks, the president of the Kentucky Council of Churches said Thursday.

“This is a request from the governor, not a mandate, and it seems perfectly reasonable given the situation we are in with COVID-19,” said Kent Gilbert, who is also pastor of the historic Union Church in downtown Berea.

Gilbert was not certain if the request was until Sunday, Dec. 13 or through Dec. 13. The governor’s office did not immediately respond to questions about Gilbert’s comments.

If the Governor simply requested that churches ‘suspend’ services, then he was acting within his own First Amendment rights, his freedom of speech. If he attempts to order churches to close, then he is violating our free exercise of religion. His order restricting weddings and funerals to 25 or fewer guests, that we noted yesterday, is obviously unconstitutional, but the truth is that he got away with an order closing churches last March.

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Dictators gotta dictate! When state Governors get away with dictatorial actions once, they'll keep doing it until someone stops them

It is no surprise that those once drunk with power would again imbibe when there were no consequences for the previous drunken spells.

As we have previously noted, Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) has gotten away with unconstitutional restrictions on people’s freedoms because the sheeple allowed him to do so. And now, proclaiming that COVID-19 is rising too fast, he is doing it again. From the Louisville Courier-Journal:

Gov. Andy Beshear unveils new coronavirus restrictions for Kentucky

By Grace Schneider and Emma Austin | November 18, 2020 | 4:19 PM EST | Updated: 4:42 PM EST

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced multiple new restrictions Wednesday as the state continues to see a surge in coronavirus cases, including:

  • All public and private K-12 schools will close to in-person instruction starting Monday through the end of the semester. The only exception is for elementary schools in counties outside the red zone, which may reopen on Dec. 7 if the school follows all guidelines.

Uhhh, since when does the state have authority over private schools?

Beginning on Friday and lasting until Dec. 13:

  • All restaurants and bars will close to indoor dining services. Outdoor dining is still allowed, with some limitations.
  • Gyms are limited to 33% capacity, and no group classes or indoor games are allowed. Masks are required.
  • Indoor gatherings should be limited to two families, not exceeding a total of eight people.
  • Attendance at wedding and funerals is limited to 25 people.

If the situation is so dire, I have to ask, why are gyms being allowed to open at all? After all, if dining inside a restaurant is too hazardous to be allowed, why isn’t working out inside a gymnasium?

Outdoor dining is still allowed, albeit with restrictions? The low for tonight in Lexington is forecast to drop to 36º F. While Friday, Saturday and Sunday have forecast highs in the low sixties, starting Monday it gets colder again, with daytime highs in the low fifties, and nightly lows in the thirties and, beginning Saturday the 28th, dropping below freezing. Might as well just close ’em down for everything other than take-out.

“Indoor gatherings should be limited to two families, not exceeding a total of eight people.” If the Governor is stating that gatherings should be limited, then he is simply exercising his freedom of speech to ask Kentuckians to do this. If there are some sort of executive orders mandating this, then they are in violation of our First Amendment rights of peaceable assembly.

And sorry, but weddings and funerals are (normally) religious events, and no Governor, no state, no President and no government at any level have the power to prohibit the free exercise of religion.

The General Assembly must, in its next session, this January, pass strict limits on the Governor’s emergency powers under KRS 39A. The Governor must never be allowed to attempt to restrict our constitutional rights, and in other emergency decrees must have his authority limited to only fourteen days without calling a special session of the state legislature to either pass laws to extend them, or revoke the orders.

The Governor, intoxicated with power as he is, had no intention of meeting with the legislature over his decrees:

Beshear was asked at Friday’s (July 10, 2020 — Editor) news conference on COVID-19 why he has not included the legislature in coming up with his orders. He said many state lawmakers refuse to wear masks and noted that 26 legislators in Mississippi have tested positive for the virus.

Translation: he did not believe the General Assembly would give him his way, so he was not going to allow them any say in the matter at all.[1]The state Constitution calls the legislature into session once a year, in January, for a limited time. The Governor may call a special session of the legislature at any time, but the legislature does … Continue reading

Fortunately, the 2020 elections expanded the already strong Republican control in the legislature; the GOP will have veto-proof margins in both houses of the General Assembly. But we really cannot simply wait for the legislature to act; Kentuckians need to protest now, to show the legislators that we are opposed to the Governor’s actions.
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Cross-posted on RedState.

References

References
↑1 The state Constitution calls the legislature into session once a year, in January, for a limited time. The Governor may call a special session of the legislature at any time, but the legislature does not have the authority to call itself into session.
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Could the credentialed media get any more fawning of Joe Biden?

Sometimes I believe that this would be the more accurate spelling.

The Democrats and their willing allies in the media have attacked President Trump every way of which they could possibly think, reasonable or otherwise, and I suppose that it worked: they defeated Mr Trump in the 2020 election. Now The Philadelphia Inquirer is praising Joe Biden, and slamming the President, because Mr Biden has pets while Mr Trump does not:

Major and Champ Biden are about to make the White House warm and furry again

by Alfred Lubrano | November 16, 2020

Of the more than 500 million Americans who’ve ever lived, fewer than four dozen have ascended to the presidency.

It’s hard to relate to a group that exclusive. But pets that dig up the Rose Garden, chew tassled loafers in the West Wing, and have accidents under the Resolute Desk are the great equalizer: There are more Americans who live with animal friends — around 66%, studies show — than those who don’t.

“Pets humanize presidential figures who seem remote,” said Andrew Hager, historian-in-residence at the Presidential Pet Museum, formerly in Williamsburg, Va., now awaiting a new home. “Seeing the most powerful person in the free world romping on the floor with a dog looks so much more like you or I — a very different image than a person in a suit behind a podium.”

When he moves into the White House in January, the already avuncular President-elect Joe Biden will morph into Romper-in-Chief, cavorting with two German shepherds, 12-year-old Champ and nearly 3-year-old Major, who will become the first shelter animal to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Biden and his grandchildren picked out Major at the no-kill Delaware Humane Association in Wilmington in 2018.

For the last four years, the White House has been a kibble-free zone. Although President Donald Trump has been accused of emitting racist-rousing dog whistles, he hasn’t owned an actual dog.

Yeah, no bias there, huh?

My family have pets. We have had cats around for as long as I can remember, but until we moved to the farm, we never had a dog. Why? Dogs require a lot more room to run around, and until we moved here, we never had what I thought to be enough room. Now we have the room, and my wife brought home a puppy in May of 2019. This summer, another dog just moved in. No, we didn’t seek him, but he just moved in on his own.

We have an outdoor feeder for the cats, and that has meant that we’ve had ‘visitor’ cats show up to eat as well. Floyd, our 21-toed polydactyl cat, just showed up, skinny as a rail, charged in the house when I opened the door and immediately attached himself to my wife. Right now, we have four cats, two dogs and two chickens, plus any other critters which just show up. Living on the border of the Daniel Boone National Forest, animals abound here; we see deer on the property frequently, and I’ve found bobcat tracks. There are bears and coyotes in the forest, and the dogs regularly growl and bark when they sense creatures I cannot see in the National Forest.

So, I’m not exactly an anti-pet person.

Yet President Trump is.

“Donald was not a dog fan,” wrote the outgoing president’s first wife, Ivana, in her memoir, Raising Trump. “And Chappy [her poodle] had an equal dislike of Donald.”

Trump is believed to be the only president other than James Polk (in office from 1845 to 1849) not to have a pet, Hager said, adding, “Even the impeached, sad, racist, drunk Andrew Johnson fed flour to mice friends he kept.”

To which I say, “So what?”

Mr Trump, long before he became President, moved around a lot. He had his suite in Trump Tower in Manhattan, his golf course digs in New Jersey, and his resort home in Mar-A-Lago in Florida. Believe me, it was no fun at all moving four cats from Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania to the farm in Kentucky, and we only had to do that once; what would it be like having to move pets around between New York, New Jersey and Florida several times a year?

Pets are simply not part of Mr Trump’s lifestyle, and he recognized that, apparently early on. If he wouldn’t be a good ‘father’ for pets, then he shouldn’t have them, and chose wisely enough not to do so, even though it might have helped him politically.

In 2017, Trump reportedly said he was “embarrassed” by the cats, snake, and rabbit (Marlon Bundo, subject of two children’s books) living with Vice President Mike Pence and his family. The Atlantic reported that the menagerie inspired Trump to label the Pences “low-class” and “yokels.”

“Animals are so against the Trump Fifth Avenue brand,” said Hager, who credits Trump for being “self-aware enough” to realize it’s best he avoid bonding with all creatures, great and small. In February 2019, the famously germaphobic president said his getting a pet “feels a little phony.”

And he apparently wasn’t phony.

So now the media are fawning over Mr Biden’s dogs. He adopted from a rescue shelter! He might have named a dog in honor of his late son, Beau!

The Inquirer article wasn’t listed as “Lifestyle” or “Human Interest” or “Opinion.” It was presented as a straight news story. Mr Biden hasn’t even taken office yet, but The Philadelphia Inquirer is already working on his 2024 re-election campaign.
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Cross-posted on RedState.