Author Archives: Dana Pico

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The killing of a black man in Philadelphia is as commonplace as a traffic jam on the Schuylkill Expressway.

The main page of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website listed, at 2:45 PM EST, the following stories:

Five main page stories referencing race.

You know what wasn’t on the main page? Not one single story about the black men being killed on the streets of the City of Brotherly Love. According to the Philadelphia Police Department, as of 11:59 PM EST on November 10th, 427 people have bled out their life’s blood in the city’s streets so far this year, a 40% increase over the same day last year. Those 427 homicides are good for 7th place all time on Philly’s homicide list . . . with 51 days left in the year. With a rate of 1.356 killings per day, Philadelphia is on track for 69 more homicides in 2020, for a grand total of 496, which would easily push 1989’s 489 murders out of the way for 2nd place.

But, not to worry: 1990’s record of 505 seems out of reach.

Maybe, like Roger Maris’ 61 home runs in 1961, they’ll put an asterisk beside this year’s 2nd place finish, given that it’s a leap year, and Philly had an extra day for mayhem.

According to the Philadelphia shootings victims dashboard, 244 out of 295 fatal shootings in the city (as of November 8nd) were of black males; that’s 82.7%. Yet if there has been a story about this in the Inquirer, I have missed it.

I did, however, find this Letter to the Editor:

Letter: Do black lives matter to the Philly media?

by Will O’Brien, Philadelphia | Posted: March 22, 2016 | 3:01 AM EDT

Do black lives matter to media?

A recent stabbing in Rittenhouse Square was certainly tragic, and I grieve for the family and friends of the victim (“Rittenhouse Stabbing Arrest,” Tuesday). But I have to express my frustration that, once again, the murder of a white person merits front-page coverage as well as follow-up stories, updates on the arrest, and almost certainly coverage of the trial months from now. At the same time, numerous murders in communities of color are relegated to the back pages, often with little more than a paragraph – and practically never with follow-up stories.

One local television newscast started with cursory coverage of two killings in an African American neighborhood before leading into the Rittenhouse Square incident with “But the big story tonight . . .” And it continued to be a lead story several days later.

This has been the infuriating and persistent pattern in the Inquirer and other Philadelphia media for all of the 30 years I have lived here. This sends a very strong message that white lives are more valuable than black and Latino lives. The death of a white person is seen as more important, more newsworthy, and more tragic than the death of a person of color. This is precisely why the Black Lives Matter movement is urgently needed and why many white people’s response that “all lives matter” is a milquetoast assertion that ignores harsh social realities.

Our media must do better by not playing into and even affirming long-standing racist attitudes that have wounded our society for too long.

Since Mr O’Brien has lived in Philadelphia for 30 years, he must remember the days and days coverage of the murder of Cute Little White Girl Rian Thal.

His letter was 4½ years ago, before George Floyd, before Breonna Taylor and before Walter Wallace, all heavily covered by the Inquirer and the rest of the credentialed media. Their killings were covered because they wound up being political flashpoints.

But the hundreds of black Philadelphians, primarily black males? Unless the victim was a Somebody, the Inquirer didn’t care. If the victim is a white male, and the shooting probably accidental, yeah, that merits not just one but two stories.

Mr O’Brien’s letter was written in 2016, when the city saw 277 homicides. Philly left that total in the dust somewhere around August 18th. I did not note the date that homicide #277 occurred, but noted that at the end of August 17th there had been 276 homicides.

As of 11:59 PM EDT yesterday (August 17, 2020), 276 homicides were recorded in the City of Brotherly Love. That’s a 31% increase over the same day last year, more than the entire year’s murder totals in 2013 and 2014, and just one fewer than the entire year total for 2016.¹

In 230 days, Philadelphia has seen 276 homicides. That’s 1.2 murders per day. With 136 days remaining, if the average holds, that’s an additional 163 homicides, for a projected total of 439 people.

I don’t know how many gang-bangers in Philadelphia read The First Street Journal or my stories on RedState, but sometimes it seems that they’ve taken what I’ve written as a personal challenge. Philadelphia’s good citizens raised that 1.2 homicides per day in mid-August to 1.356 by the 10th of November, not quite three months, and the projected total from 439 to 496.

Mr O’Brien asked, “Do black lives matter to (the Philadelphia) media?” The short answer is no, they don’t matter, because, to be very blunt about it, another black man dying in Philly’s streets just isn’t news anymore. The murder of a black man in the city is as commonplace an event as a traffic jam on the Schuylkill Expressway.
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Cross-posted on RedState.

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Karens gotta Karen!

As we have previously noted, Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY), the Lexington city government and the University of Kentucky have been very, very worried about people getting together and partying. On July 20, 2020, Governor Beshear had Eric Friedlander, Secretary for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and Steven J Stack, Commissioner of Public Health, issue an Order restricting gatherings of people, including on their private property, to ten or fewer persons. Unlike the Governor’s mandatory face mask order, which Mr beshear keeps reissuing every thirty days, the order linked above has no expiration date, and I have been unable to find any source which states that it has been lifted.

The past weekend in the Bluegrass State has been sunny and warm, in the upper seventies to low eighties, as we are enjoying a brief Indian Indigenous American summer. That, I suppose, explains a lot of weekend parties, despite the fact that the sadly-not-very-good UK football team had an open date last Saturday.

Well, whenever people are having fun, there will always be some Karens around to try to stop it. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Parties pushing the pandemic? Lexington police got 90 party complaints in 2 weekends

By Jeremy Chisenhall | November 9, 2020 | 2:27 PM EST | Updated: November 9, 2020 | 4:22 PM EST Parties in Lexington haven’t slowed down despite record-high COVID-19 case counts in the city the past two weeks. The Lexington Police Department said it received complaints about 60 large parties during Halloween weekend and another 30 over the just-completed weekend of the Breeders’ Cup. The parties were primarily in areas near the University of Kentucky campus, police spokeswoman Brenna Angel said. In comparison, there were 30 party complaints during the weekend of the Kentucky Derby, according to Lexington police. On average, there have been about 20 to 30 party complaints each weekend since classes resumed, Angel said. The city began a partnership in early October with UK police, and the deal was intended to increase patrols and tamp down on college game day parties. The partnership has continued as the university police department’s schedule has permitted, Angel said. The departments will partner to patrol the city for UK’s home football game against Vanderbilt University Saturday, Angel said.

Miss Angel had previously said that while an executive order signed by Governor Beshear on July 20 mandated that non-commercial gatherings must be limited to 10 people or fewer, police and local health department officials have said they can only do so much.

“There is nothing we can enforce regarding gatherings on private property,” Angel said.

The gatherings limit order delegated the enforcement authority not to the police but to the state and local health departments. The Lexington Police Department could try to break up or cite parties which were excessively loud or encroaching onto other people’s property, and the University Police, even though some of the officers have ridden along with the city police, have no authority off of campus property.

Daniel Cartier, a UK student, said he’d seen fellow students “party constantly and receive zero punishment.” “It just boggles my mind how UK (doesn’t) at the absolute minimum require bi-weekly testing and contact tracing for all their students,” he said.

Congratulations to Mr Cartier! Not many men males — and here I am assuming, from his first name, that he is male¹ — would publicly identify themselves as Karens.

A video shared to Reddit showed a large party in a Lexington backyard during the weekend. Commenters thought it was likely the partiers were students. “You really think college kids are gunna not party just because some old bureaucrats at the school say so? Maybe the administration at the school should have not allowed kids back to Lexington and just remove the possibility of kids in large gatherings with no masks or social distancing,” one commenter said.

The video, which appears to have been taken via cell phone, is only four seconds long and too distant to positively identify any of the participants.

This is what I have said all along: it’s amazing to think that college administrators would not have expected college students back on college campuses to have college parties. Perhaps some of our collegiate administrators and local officials are just not quite as smart as they would like people to believe.

State Treasurer Allison Ball (R-KY) noted that the Governor’s orders frequently violated our constitutional rights:

Ball said her report offered insight for lawmakers if they take up legislation to redefine the scope of the governor’s power to issue executive orders in times of crisis. She suggested that the law be amended to reinforce safeguards on religious, free speech and assembly rights protected by the U.S. Constitution. “It’s not fair to the people of Kentucky that they have to resort to federal courts to make sure that their constitutional rights are protected,” Ball said. “This could be dealt with pretty clearly if it’s included in legislation.” Senate President Robert Stivers later told reporters that lawmakers will review the subject of executive powers, saying: “I think we will clearly define what can be done.” “Are there needs for (executive) powers? Without a doubt,” he said. “But what type of limitations can you put on them so people have the ability to have … access to their church and access to the freedoms that are guaranteed by both the Kentucky and the United States constitution.” Republican lawmakers have complained for months that the Democratic governor, who was elected last year, hasn’t reached out to them to discuss his coronavirus-related actions. Republicans hold overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate.

That quote was from prior to the election; the 2020 elections have expanded the Republicans’ majorities further than even they had hoped.

Kentucky Republicans expanded their dominant 62-seat supermajority in the state House on Tuesday, flipping at least 10 seats occupied by Democrats and defending several targeted incumbents. By Wednesday morning, Republicans had picked up at least 10 of these seats from Democrats and led in three more races in Democratic-held districts where most of the votes were counted. This would give Republicans a 72 to 28 supermajority in the House chamber, with the possibility of expanding to 75 seats once the other races are called.

Translation: the GOP has a veto-proof majority in the state House of Representatives. In the state Senate, in which the GOP previously had a veto-proof majority of 28-10, Republicans picked up two more seats, for a 30-8 majority.

Governor Beshear would not consult with the General Assembly on his COVID executive orders, because he knew that the legislators would not give him carte blanche. As we have previously noted, the Governor had no intention of doing so:

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.

Now, if the General Assembly passes legislation to limit the Governor’s ’emergency powers’, and Mr Beshear vetoes it, as I would anticipate, Republicans have more than enough votes to override a veto.

But this still points out a problem: the Governor began issuing his executive orders to deal with COVID-19 last March. Various lawsuits resulted in injunctions against different parts of the orders, but, on July 17th, the state Supreme Court halted all state court efforts to block the orders. Then, three weeks later, the Court set September 17th to hear oral arguments on those cases, which meant that Mr Beshear’s executive orders would continue in force, without any recourse to the state courts to challenge them, for two more months before the state Supreme Court would even allow arguments against them.

As of this morning, two days shy of eight weeks after the oral arguments, the state Supreme Court has still not issued its ruling as to whether the Governor’s challenged orders are legal. 116 days have passed since the Kentucky Supreme Court halted all state court efforts by citizens to challenge the Governor’s orders, and we still have no ruling.

Rights delayed are rights denied. And with the news that a 90% effective COVID vaccine has been developed, it’s not difficult to see the state Supreme Court simply not ruling at all until next year, to see if the Governor suspends the challenged orders — the mandatory mask mandate is not part of the challenged orders — so the case can be dismissed as moot.

But even if the Court issues its ruling later today, and upholds the suspended injunctions against the Governor’s orders, Kentuckians’ rights will have been suspended for months. If we have to wait until the General Assembly takes action, we’re looking at almost a year in which our rights have been suspended and violated.

Cross-posted on RedState.

¹ – Perhaps an odd thing for a man named Dana to do, I suppose, but whatever!.

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Oh, please let it be true! Mitt Romney to Joe Biden's cabinet?

Jacob Palmeiri wrote that Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) has been asked to join Joe Biden’s cabinet, as Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Salt Lake Tribune published There’s speculation that Joe Biden might consider Mitt Romney as secretary of state.

Let’s face facts: Mr Romney wouldn’t be any worse than anyone else that Mr Biden might nominate, and in either job, he’d be under the orders of the next [shudder] President. If he’s nominated for anything, in some faux reach across the aisles move, Republicans in the Senate should vote to confirm him . . . and get him out of the United States Senate.

The Utah state legislature is dominated by the Republican Party, 59-16 in the House and 23-6 in the Senate. Governor Gary Herbert is a Republican. Utah Code Section 20A, Chapter 1, Part 5, Subsection 4(a) specifies that, in the event of a vacancy in one of the United States Senate seats:

The governor shall appoint an individual to temporarily fill a vacancy in the office of United States senator from one of three individuals nominated by the Legislature, each of whom is a member of the political party of which the prior officeholder was a member at the time the prior officeholder was elected.

As politically conservative as the Beehive State is, Mr Romney resigning his Senate seat means that an actually conservative Republican would be appointed to fill the seat prior to a special election. More, I would have a real concern, if the GOP wins only one of the two Senate runoff elections in Georgia, leaving the GOP with an only 51-49 advantage, that Senator Romney might just switch to the Democratic Party, leading to a 50-50 tie, and thus giving Kamala Harris Emhoff the tie breaking vote, and the Democrats control of the Senate.

So, yeah, Mr Biden, please, please, please pick Mr Romney for your cabinet!
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Cross-posted on RedState.

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Blaming the Libertarian Party

Our too-few readers know that while I support lower-case libertarianism to the extent possible, I don’t have a lot of use for the upper-case Libertarian Party. But this kind of Libertarian-blaming in The Wall Street Journal is pretty much stupid, because it is based on a false assumption:

Libertarians Spoil the Election

Jo Jorgensen exceeds Biden’s margin in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia.

By Walter E. Block | November 8, 2020 3:34 PM EST

Did the Libertarian Party throw the election to Joe Biden? Maybe. At this writing nominee Jo Jorgensen’s vote total exceeds Mr. Biden’s margin over President Trump in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, enough to change the outcome.

In 2000 the Green Party was accused of ruining things for the Democrats. Did Ralph Nader throw the election from Al Gore to George W. Bush? The cognoscenti are still divided, but the 2020 parallels are strong. Probably most Green voters would have gone Democratic if forced into a binary choice. Similarly, on the Libertarian-O-Meter, Mr. Trump scores much higher than Mr. Biden.

In this, Walter Block, the writer, assumes that the vast majority of Miss Jorgensen’s votes would have gone to President Trump. But of the four states he mentioned, Nevada has been ‘blue’ for several election cycles, including 2016, and Arizona has been electing Democratic senators as well. It’s previous Republican senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, were not exactly hard-line conservatives. Pennsylvania being carried by Mr Trump in 2016 was a surprise; no Republican had carried the Keystone State since the elder George Bush did it in 1988.

That these states were ‘battleground’ states was no surprise; the media had been pushing that seemingly forever. If those who voted for Miss Jorgensen were really preferred Mr Trump to Mr Biden, they knew that their votes mattered, in a way that Libertarian votes in Kentucky or California or New York did not, and could have chosen to vote for the President. That they did not, in a known-to-be-close election, where their votes really could make a difference, tells me that they didn’t want to vote for Mr Trump, period.

Yes, the Donald is a protectionist, and free trade is the preferred policy of those who favor economic and personal liberty. But when it comes to lowering taxes and easing regulations on business, the party of the elephant is far more closely aligned to the libertarian philosophy than that of the donkey. Mr. Trump has appointed conservatives to the Supreme Court, not libertarians like Randy Barnett, Clint Bolick, Jacob Huebert, Gregory Rome or Brandon Thibodeaux. But supporters of the freedom philosophy prefer judges who adhere to the U.S. Constitution over those who make things up as they go along.

In contrast, Mr. Biden is a puppet in the marionette hands of out-and-out socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Yes, there are some issues on which libertarians are closer to Democrats, such as Oregon’s decriminalization of heroin and cocaine. But these are few and far between.

This is why I have said that, like the TEA Party, the future for libertarians, and the Libertarian Party, is to fold itself into the Republican Party.

The national Libertarian Party started in 1971, several state parties earlier. In 1969 I had the honor to run for the New York Assembly. My motto was “Disassemble the Assembly.” I didn’t win; I’m not sure my vote total reached triple digits. But I’ve been a staunch member of the party ever since.

If Dr Block believes that the GOP is far closer to libertarian ideals than the Democrats, he should, as “a staunch member of the party,” be working for exactly what I have advocated: getting the Libertarian Party involved in Republican politics. The purpose of a political party is to unify and get people with your particular policy views elected into government office, to put your views into governing policy. In that, the Libertarian Party has been a rather spectacular failure.

Of course, Dr Block might not be the best choice of a person to do this, and I am stunned that The Wall Street Journal provided him with print space. Why? Because Dr Block has defended racial segregation.

Now, he did that in typical libertarian fashion, stressing the right to free assembly and association includes the right to not associate with people with whom you do not wish to associate. It’s actually a reasonable argument, but certain arguments that are philosophically reasonable are simply so far out of the mainstream — and The Wall Street Journal is nothing if not mainstream — that making them in polite society is to excuse oneself from polite society. Dr Block wrote, in 2013:

What sticks in my craw here is that crack about Woolworth’s lunch counter. I cannot be 100% sure, I wish this man would write more clearly, but in my interpretation Selley is saying that this firm was not justified in refusing to serve black people; the implication is that the so called Civil Rights Act of 1964 was entirely justified. Of course, one of the basic tenets of libertarianism is the law of free association. No one should be compelled, at the point of a government gun, to associate with anyone else, against his will. Compelling Woolworths to seat blacks is thus incompatible with libertarianism. It was a violation of their private property rights over their establishment.

Free association is a very important aspect of liberty. It is crucial. Indeed, its lack was the major problem with slavery. The slaves could not quit. They were forced to “associate” with their masters when they would have vastly preferred not to do so. Otherwise, slavery wasn’t so bad. You could pick cotton, sing songs, be fed nice gruel, etc. The only real problem was that this relationship was compulsory. It violated the law of free association, and that of the slaves’ private property rights in their own persons. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, then, to a much smaller degree of course, made partial slaves of the owners of establishments like Woolworths.

Emphasis mine.

One can make the argument that “the major problem with slavery” was its denial of free association only if one ignores that slaves were treated as property and not as human beings. Saying that “otherwise, slavery wasn’t so bad” ignores the fact that slaves could be, and some were, beaten, raped or even killed, because the slaveowners could do so with impunity. He makes his arguments much as a college sophomore might at a drunken party — I know; I once was a college sophomore — with just enough education to know a few facts without any concept of the larger world around him. In the internet era, none of your philosophical discussions are truly private, and your past arguments will always be carried over to your present situation.

In one way, Dr Block is simply the Libertarian Party, writ small. The official Party’s strange combination of ideological purity on the part of some of its staunchest advocates combined with its willingness to nominate people like William Weld for Vice President in 2016 runs off people who might otherwise be more inclined to appreciate libertarian philosophy. It’s no wonder that Libertarian candidates always lose.
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Cross-posted on RedState.

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Korean businesses matter, too!

The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page is only updated “during normal business hours, Monday through Friday,” so it was no surprise to me that, at 10:05 AM EST on Sunday morning, the same number of homicides that was specified on Friday, 411, was still showing. And when I checked the main page of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website, though there were follow-up stories on the death of Walter Wallace, Jr, the knife-wielding man who was advancing on two police officers, I did not find a single story indicating that anyone else had been murdered on the city’s frequently bloody streets.

But I did find one story about racism related to the death of Mr Wallace:

Korean American business owners, among hardest hit by looters, feel victimized and alone

by Sam Wood | October 31, 2020 | 5:01 AM EDT

For many of the nearly 100 beauty supply stores in Philadelphia, it was another rough week.

From Monday to Wednesday, thieves and vandals broke into at least 17 stores, making off with merchandise and even store fixtures. The losses were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In some cases, thieves struck again at shops that were damaged previously during a more widespread outbreak of looting that flared in May after police in Minneapolis killed a man there. The damage and theft this week erupted after news broke Monday of how police had shot and killed Walter Wallace Jr. in West Philadelphia.

“Some owners tried to call the police, but they didn’t respond,” said Sharon Hartz, president of the Korean American Association of Greater Philadelphia, an advocacy organization for many of those who operate the supply shops. “A few had a chance to get police but when they came, they dismissed it. Groups of 20 to 30 people came to loot at a time. It was scary.”

Her group provided a count of damaged shops. “Some of the stores, they’re thinking of closing down for good,” she said.

A count, I would note, that was not included in the Inquirer story.

I have to admit: I wonder about the job of Sam Wood, the reporter who wrote the article, and the editor who approved it, because it implies the question of racism against Korean business owners by the #BlackLivesMatter demonstrators. Remember: Stan Wischnowski, 58, was fired resigned as senior vice-president and executive editor of the Inquirer, following a newsroom protest reminiscent of the rebellion of the #woke at The New York Times that got OpEd section editor James Bennet fired to resign following his decision to allow a sitting United States Senator to publish an OpEd piece the #woke didn’t like, after the headline “Buildings Matter, Too” was used in an article on the loss of historic architecture in the riots over the death of drug-addled convicted felon George Floyd in Minneapolis.

I picked “Korean Businesses Matter, Too” as the headline for this article after writing the previous paragraph. Claira Janover could not be reached for comment.

There’s considerably more at the Inquirer original, noting that businessmen of Korean descent in the city were afraid for their businesses, many having been looted, and that some of them have hired private security, a business expense they certainly do not want, and that at least a few have been camping out in their businesses, armed with handguns and shotguns to protect themselves from looters.

The article may have given us a few facts, but it was also an example of poor journalism. Not only did it fail to give us the number of businesses damaged, even though it stated that the number was provided, but it failed to provide any links to its sources among the Korean American Association of Greater Philadelphia and the Korean American Chamber of Commerce for Philadelphia. It did not address whether Korean-owned businesses are being singled out more than businesses owned by those of other racial or ethnic groups, nor tell us whether Korean-owned businesses are more heavily concentrated in black neighborhoods, nor tell us how prevalent other-than-black-owned businesses are in predominantly black neighborhoods. Given that Asian, and particularly Korean, owned businesses were heavily targeted during the 1992 riots in Los Angeles, that seems like a particularly glaring journalistic lapse.

Nor does the story address that most glaring of politically incorrect facts: what percentage of the looters destroying these Korean businesses are black? In a story about racial unrest, wouldn’t the information about race be considered part of the story?

Of course, I am mocking current editorial standards in the credentialed media. Editors decided, many years ago, to not include racial statistics in any form that might contribute to racism. Walter Wallace, Jr, could be identified as black, because he was the victim of a almost certainly justified shooting by police officers. The victims of the looting being identified as Korean-Americans? Again, they were the victims. But perpetrators of crimes? They must not be identified by race, because that could lead to bad impressions based on race, to racial stereotypes being formed.

So there we have it: good, complete journalism is being squashed because good people don’t want to tell you a bad truth, because bad truths might result in, horrors! bad opinions, or even Thoughtcrime.

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Authoritarians gotta authoritarian!

Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s (D-MI) executive orders to fight COVID-19 have been declared unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court, but the Governor continues to try to enforce them via other means.

And now, Governor Whitless Whitmer, through the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, is trying something even more draconian:

Michigan orders restaurants to collect customers’ information amid COVID-19 surges

by Craig Mauger and Beth LeBlanc | October 29, 2020 | Published: 3:26 PM CDT; Updated: 7:04 PM CDT

Lansing — Michigan restaurants will have to begin tracking the names and numbers of customers in case of COVID-19 outbreaks starting Monday under a policy announced Thursday as the state experiences surges in cases of the virus.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services unveiled orders that limit non-residential indoor gatherings without fixed seating to 50 people — the limit was 500 — and restrict individual table sizes at restaurants to six people.

The health department’s order on Thursday came on a day when Michigan set a daily case record at 3,675, along with 41 more deaths. That’s the most new confirmed cases in a single day during the seven-month pandemic for the state.

The coronavirus trends in Michigan are “incredibly concerning,” said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, the state’s chief medical executive. As of Wednesday, the state reported 1,348 adults with COVID-19 in hospitals, three times the 405 adults with COVID-19 in hospitals one month ago.

“We are taking targeted actions via the order to address areas that are particularly severe sources of spread, and we are issuing guidance that is a very clear road map for what we need to do bring cases down,” said Robert Gordon, the director of the Department of Health and Human Services.

There’s more at the original.

According to Wikipedia, only three countries still require internal passports, red China, North Korea and Russia. Will Governor Whitless Whitmer decide that Michigan must have such, because not everybody entering a restaurant will have an identification.

As far as I can tell, the directive does not require restaurants to check identifications. Were I a Michigander, my reaction would be to get plenty of cash, and when asked for my name and address, identify myself as Snodgrass Q McGuillicuddy of some fictitious street, and give as my telephone number as (313) 596-2200, which is the number of the Detroit police department.

I’m waiting for Governor Whitless Whitmer to issue orders requiring that all automobile license plates be recorded in Michigan restaurant parking lots, the way Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) once did in church parking lots, just in case restaurant patrons do not identify themselves accurately.

Will Bunch, a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, this morning posted an article entitled “Rising tide of violence, propaganda reveal Tuesday’s stakes for America: freedom or fascism?” Mr Bunch, a very liberal writer, claimed that it was President Trump who was the fascist.

I know there’s some kind of corollary to Godwin’s Law that any piece that mentions fascism in America — it can’t happen here, right? — must be discounted as hysteria. But as I write I find myself at a loss for any other word for the growing embrace of brown shirt-style violence both by vigilantes and, increasingly, by pro-Trump uniformed cops, even as the president’s political movement has taken on a cult-like embrace of “Order” with a capital “O.”

Yet, it isn’t President Trump who has ordered that everyone patronizing a restaurant must be identified and recorded, is it? It wasn’t an evil reich wing Republican who prohibited gatherings of more than three families for Thanksgiving, was it? Was it the Department of Homeland Security who ordered the police to stop anyone with New York plates for questioning, and sent police and the National Guard “going door-to-door” in coastal communities, asking people if they’ve been to New York and requesting their contact information, or was it the Democratic Governor of Rhode Island?

Perhaps the real corollary to Godwin’s Law is that anyone who uses it is likely to be supporting fascism from his ‘side’ of the debate far more than the target of his claim? Nahhh, that’s very much overly broad, but it is wryly amusing, at best, that the side Mr Bunch sees as supporting freedom is the one which is employing restrictions on our constitutional rights, for our own good, of course!, in the fight against COVID-19.
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The proper way to deal with the not-so-peaceful parts of Mostly Peaceful Protests™

We already know that District Attorney Larry Krasner (D-Philadelphia) hates the police and will not seriously prosecute #BlackLivesMatter protesters who break the law and destroy property, so, to do the right thing, unfortunately, requires that the feds take action. It’s a good thing it was Donald Trump and not Hillary Clinton appointing United States Attorneys! From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Arson charges against prominent West Philly activist draw swift rebuke from protest movement

by Jeremy Roebuck, Posted: October 29, 2020- 10:43 AM

A federal indictment charging a prominent West Philadelphia activist and two others with setting a police car on fire during racial injustice protests this spring was unsealed Thursday, drawing a swift response from protesters and lawyers who questioned the nature and timing of their arrests.

The filing, though sparse on details, alleges Anthony Smith — a social studies teacher and one of the lead organizers of the Philadelphia Coalition for Racial and Economic Legal Justice (Philly for REAL Justice) — was involved in burning a police vehicle during demonstrations outside City Hall on May 30 in reaction to the police killing of George Floyd.

But the document does not indicate whether prosecutors believe Smith, 29, actually set the blaze or assisted those who did or whether they have evidence to suggest he was working in coordination with the other two men charged — Carlos Matchett and Khalif Miller — or any wider group.

All three face charges arson charges that carry a seven-year mandatory minimum sentence upon conviction. They have also been charged with obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder — under a rarely used before this year civil disorder statute that was enacted during the Nixon administration’s efforts to crack down on anti-war and Black Power movements in the late 1960s. They remain in custody pending court appearances later this week.

The .pdf file of the indictment is here.

U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain, who we have previously noted has clashed with Mr Krasner before, released the indictment by grand jury. The Usual Suspects complained about the timing, just a few days prior to the presidential election, and during the Mostly Peaceful Protests™ over the killing of Walter Wallace, Jr, by two Philadelphia police officers as he approached them with a knife that he refused to drop.

Smith’s attorney, Paul Hetznecker, balked at what he described as “the blatant political nature of this prosecution,” noting that his client was arrested less than a week before Election Day for crimes that allegedly occurred five months ago.

“Utilizing the awesome power of the federal government to target activists and select them for federal prosecution during one of the most important social justice movements in our history sends a dangerous message,” he said. “The prosecution of my client, Anthony Smith, a respected teacher and political activist, is part of a broader effort by this administration to criminalize and quell dissent expressed by progressive political movements.”

If Mr Smith truly was involved in the arson of a Philadelphia Police Department vehicle, then he is not only not a “respected teacher,” but is not a person who should be teaching young people at all. What, I have to ask, is Mr Smith teaching his students?

There was a scene on the television series Blue Bloods, in which a leftist teacher was causing problems for Nikki Reagan-Boyle. The fictional student and her mother met with the fictional teacher in the fictional Catholic high school, and there was a picture of Che Guevara on the wall. I laughed at the obvious political message of the program, that one would ever suppose that a parochial school would allow a teacher to have Señor Guevara’s photo displayed, but it does make me wonder what some public school teachers, whose unions are essentially Democratic Party operatives, are teaching their students.

Mr Hetznecker was appalled that the indictment was for crimes that allegedly occurred five months ago? The indictment was brought via a grand jury, something that takes time. Mr McSwain could not move before the indictment was delivered.

Does it send to Philadelphia voters the message that President Trump will try to protect people from lawlessness? I very much hope so!

Since May when Floyd’s death in Minneapolis sparked demonstrations across the country, Attorney General William Barr has urged U.S. attorneys to pursue cases against “violent rioters” using specific charges like the ones deployed against Smith, Matchett and Miller on Thursday.

Nationwide, federal prosecutors have lodged more than 300 felony cases against defendants espousing both progressive and right-wing ideologies connected to the demonstrations, with 20 of them in Pennsylvania, according to research by The Prosecution Project, which has tracked protest-related arrests.

Note the media bias in that paragraph. “(B)oth progressive and right-wing ideologies” would not be politically loaded had it been formulated “both left-wing and right-wing ideologies” or “both progressive and conservative ideologies,” but the way the Inquirer phrased it, bias is indicated.

Of course, if the Justice Department is pursuing cases against both left and right in riot cases, that isn’t bias, other than the structural bias that conservatives are much more likely to do something really radical, and not riot.

In June, FBI agents arrested Germantown massage therapist Lore-Elisabeth Blumenthal, alleging she set fire to two police cars parked outside City Hall during the same demonstration during which Smith, Matchett and Miller are accused of committing crimes.

It’s good that they nailed Miss Blumenthal early on; it’s unfortunate that the cases against Messrs Smith, Matchett and Miller took as long as they did, but, if they are guilty, it will be good to see justice eventually being done.
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This is what ‘Social Justice’ law enforcement gets us

The Philadelphia Police Department Current Crime Statistics page, which is only updated on weekdays, tells us that, as of 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, October 25th, there have been 399 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love. That’s a 40.99% increase over the same date in 2019, and 2019 saw the most homicides in Philly since 2007. That’s 399 homicides on the 299th day of the year. We had previously noted that The Philadelphia Inquirer took no notice of murders in the black community, and at least as of 11:05 AM, the Inquirer’s website main page showed no articles noting the bloody weekend in the city.

Maybe the editors are waiting to break the 400 killings mark?

Doing the math, 399 homicides in 299 days equals 1.334 per day, up from 1.324 just ten days ago. As the weather cools down, homicide rates normally drop somewhat, but not in Philadelphia. With 67 days remaining in 2020, 89 more homicides would be expected if the current rate continues, for a total of 488, just shy of the second place number of 489 in 1989. I suppose that breaking the record of 505 in 1990 is out of reach by now, but with District Attorney Larry Krasner giving petty criminals slaps on the wrist — if even that much — the thugs are out on the street, able to escalate to bigger crimes, who knows, maybe they can break the record.

Mr Krasner’s Twitter page has his self-declared bio: “District Attorney Larry Krasner fights for equal justice for the great people of Philadelphia. A fair and effective criminal justice system makes us safer.” With city homicides increasing every year that he has been in office — 353 in 2018, up from 315 the previous year, then 356 in 2019, not a terribly big jump, and now 399 so far in 2020, with slightly over two months left to go — how, I have to ask, has the “effective criminal justice system” under the District Attorney made the city “safer”?

I’ve harped about Mr Krasner’s idiocy often enough that it doesn’t bear repeating. So, this time, I’ll quote from his Wikipedia biography:

Lawrence Samuel Krasner (born March 30, 1961) is an American lawyer serving as the 26th District Attorney of Philadelphia.[1] Elected to the position in 2017, Krasner campaigned on a platform to reform elements of the criminal justice system, including to reduce incarceration, and took office in January 2018.

During his tenure, Krasner has sought to spearhead criminal justice reform by ending bail payments for low-level offenders, reducing supervision for parolees, and seeking more lenient sentences for certain crimes.[2] Prior to his government service, Krasner had a 30-year career as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney and public defender. He aggressively pursued police misconduct.[3] . . .

Krasner’s representation of Black Lives Matter and Occupy Philadelphia members led many to call him an “anti-establishment” candidate during his 2017 primary campaign for the Democratic nomination.[10][11] He campaigned against existing policies that had resulted in disproportionately high numbers of minority males being jailed and proposed other reforms in criminal justice.[12] Krasner was a featured speaker at the 2017 People’s Summit.[13].  .  .  .

Shortly before the candidacy announcement, John McNesby, president of Lodge 5 of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, derided Krasner’s eventually successful run as “hilarious.” McNesby opposed Krasner’s promise to refuse to prosecute defendants whose detainments were illegally performed so arresting officers could earn overtime pay as well as his history of suing police officers who perpetrated corruption and brutality.[16] Krasner received no major newspaper endorsements.[1] Less than three weeks before the primary, a political action committee supporting Krasner’s campaign received a $1.45 million contribution from billionaire George Soros.[17].  .  .  .

In his first week in office, Krasner fired 31 prosecutors from the District Attorney’s Office, including both junior and career supervisory staff. Up to one-third of the homicide prosecutors in the office were dismissed. Those fired represented nearly a 10% reduction in the number of Philadelphia assistant district attorneys.[25][26]

In February 2018, Krasner announced that law enforcement would no longer pursue criminal charges against those caught with marijuana possession.[27] That same month, Krasner instructed prosecutors to stop seeking cash bail for those accused of some misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.[28] Krasner said that it was unfair to keep people in detention simply because they could not afford bail.[28] He also announced that the DA’s office had filed a lawsuit against a number of pharmaceutical companies for their role in the city’s opioid epidemic.[27] Krasner instructed prosecutors to stop charging sex workers who had fewer than three convictions.[29]

In March 2018, it was reported that Krasner’s staffers were working on creating a sentence review unit–the first of its kind in the country–to review past cases and sentences, and seek re-sentencing in cases when individuals were given unduly harsh punishments.[30] That same month, Krasner instructed prosecutors to reduce sentence lengths to defendants making pleas, refuse to bring certain low-level charges, and publicly explain their reasoning for pursuing expensive incarcerations to taxpayers footing the bills.[31] He said,

“Fiscal responsibility is a justice issue, and it is an urgent justice issue. A dollar spent on incarceration should be worth it. Otherwise, that dollar may be better spent on addiction treatment, on public education, on policing and on other types of activity that make us all safer.”[32]

In 2018, some judges rejected the reduced sentences which Krasner’s prosecutors had sought for juveniles who had previously been sentenced to life in prison.[33] In June 2018, Krasner made an unprecedented request for a comprehensive list of police officers who had lied while on duty, used excessive force, racially profiled, or violated civil rights, an unprecedented move in order to spotlight dishonest police officers and check their future courtroom testimony.[34]

In 2019, Krasner filed a motion in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to declare capital punishment in Pennsylvania unconstitutional. He claimed the death penalty was illegal in the state because of the ban on cruel and unusual punishment in the Pennsylvania Constitution, citing the high turnover rates of convictions by appeals, the racially biased number of sentences given to black and Hispanic defendants, and the large number of convictions overturned due to ineffective counsel.[35]

Following the fatal shooting of Philadelphia police officer James O’Connor IV, Krasner faced criticism from William McSwain, a federal prosecutor appointed by Donald Trump.[36] McSwain, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, blamed the shooting on a prosecutorial discretion decision by Krasner’s office to drop drug charges against suspected killer Hassan Elliott. While on probation for a gun possession charge, Elliott was arrested again on January 29, 2019, for cocaine possession and was released on his own recognizance. Nearly a week later on February 6, Elliott took part in the fatal shooting of Tyrone Tyree. Krasner’s office dropped drug charges after Elliott failed to appear in court, choosing to approve an arrest warrant for Tyree’s murder instead.[36] On March 13, as part of a SWAT unit carrying out an arrest warrant, O’Connor was fatally shot and Elliott was charged. Prosecutor spokeswoman Jane Roh responded to criticism by stating that the office believed murder to be a more serious crime than drug possession and charged Elliott accordingly.[37] On the night of O’Connor’s death, John McNesby ordered activist police to form a human chain at Temple University Hospital entrance to prevent Krasner from entering.[37]

In July 2020, Krasner’s office charged Philadelphia SWAT officer Richard P. Nicoletti with simple assault, reckless endangerment, official oppression, and possession of an instrument of crime. Video footage taken during the George Floyd protests showed that Nicoletti pepper sprayed three kneeling protesters. He pulled down the mask of one woman before spraying her in the face, he sprayed another woman at point blank range, and sprayed a man numerous times in the face while he laid on the ground.[38]

Simply put, Mr Krasner, who hated the police from the beginning, installed a form of ‘social justice’ law enforcement; he was tougher on the police than he was on criminals. He was oh-so-concerned that “disproportionately high numbers of minority males” were charged, convicted and incarcerated, without ever thinking to consider that perhaps, just perhaps, “disproportionately high numbers of minority males” were the ones committing crimes.

There are two kinds of crimes: crimes of evidence and crimes of reporting. If a man rapes a woman on the streets of Philadelphia, as far as the police are concerned, if it wasn’t reported, it didn’t happen. It is commonly assumed that most rapes go unreported, with some guesstimates being as high as 90% not reported. Crimes like robbery might go unreported if the victims do not trust the police or think it will do any good, or are fearful of revenge by the criminals. When your city is stuck with a District Attorney like Mr Krasner, who doesn’t believe in prosecuting criminals, or sentencing them harshly when they are prosecuted and convicted, what reason is there to report that you were robbed?

But murder is different: it is a crime of evidence. It isn’t easy to dispose of a dead body in a way that it won’t be found, especially if you haven’t carefully planned things. You’re looking at 100 to 300 pounds of dead meat, bone and fat, and something which will put off a strong and nasty odor after very little time. The vast majority of dead bodies get found.

Of course, in Philadelphia, a whole lot of murders are open and in public: drive up or drive by shootings, essentially public executions, in which the shooters are only concerned with escape, not hiding the fact that someone was killed.

So when I read that most crime had decreased in Philadelphia, I just flat don’t believe it. Murder isn’t normally an entry-level crime; guys who shoot other people have usually been bad guys before that. And if they’ve been bad guys before that, Mr Krasner doesn’t really believe in getting them locked up for long anyway.

So, when we note that 77.86% of fatal shootings in the city since 2015 were of black males and another 5.01% of black females, (as of October 22, 2020), and know that 88.5% of black homicide victims were killed by black assailants, it becomes pretty obvious that, at least when it comes to murder in Murder City, USA, the killings are by a “disproportionately high numbers of minority males.”

But the esteemed Mr Krasner appears to want to have none of that! He’s more concerned with not having racial disparate numbers of minority members convicted as criminals than he is of helping to make the city safer.

This is what happens when “social justice” is one of your driving motivations. The police and the prosecutors need to just find, apprehend, try and convict offenders regardless of racial considerations.  When you don’t do that, you wind up with, well, with Philadelphia.
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We need to stop pretending that #BlackLivesMatter . . . . . . because in the City of Brotherly Love, it's very apparent that they don't.

The Current Crime Statistics released by the Philadelphia Police Department note that, as of 11:59 PM EDT on October 21st, 391 souls had been sent to their eternal rewards. That isn’t the record, of course, but 2007 is the base year on the Current Crime Statistics website, and that was the number of people killed that year in Philly. This year has now matched that total . . . with 71 days left in the year.

The math is simple: 391 people killed in 295 days so far equals 1.325 people killed every single day. With 71 days left in the year, at that rate the city should see another 94 people sent to their deaths before the ball drops in New York City.

391 + 94 = 485.

That would not be a new record; 1990 holds that dubious honor with 505, killings, and 1989 comes in second with 489, but 485 would be solidly in third place!

According to the Philadelphia Shooting Victims Dashboard, since 2015, 6,129 shooting victims in the city had been black males; that’s 75.59% of them. Another 518 (6.39%) were black females. 1,102 of the shootings, 77.77%, which were fatal were of black males; while black females added another 72, or 5.08%.

I have noted previously that the Philadelphia media aren’t overly concerned with murder victims anymore, unless the victim is a cute little white girl. I suppose that’s reasonable, because the killing of white women is pretty rare: since 2015, only 15 white women were shot to death, 1.06% of the total. Sixty-two white males were killed in that same time frame, 4.38%. A black woman is more likely to be murdered than a white male in the City of Brotherly Love.

At least as of 4:30 PM, The Philadelphia Inquirer hadn’t noted this ‘milestone’ in city killings, but it sure had a big story, from yesterday, still up on the main page:

‘We’re not going to disappear’

Philadelphia Black Lives Matter activists say they’re building the movement beyond protests — they’re confronting the disparities that put people in the criminal justice system in the first place

by Oona Goodin-Smith, Anna Orso and Raishad Hardnett | October 21, 2020

For the umpteenth time this year, they assembled under the ivory glow of Philadelphia City Hall, cardboard signs and megaphones in hand. The air was crisper than when they began the crusade for George Floyd 116 days prior, but the unrelenting chant from the crowd in September was familiar.

“Say her name, Breonna Taylor.”

“Is my brother next?” one woman’s sign read. “This isn’t change,” declared another. “This system has got to go down!” a demonstrator yelled to the crowd.

For activists like Christopher Bowman, protesting is only the beginning.

“The final step is just community advancement,” said Bowman, a Philadelphia teacher who was teargassed and detained on I-676 in June and inspired to cofound I Will Breathe, an organization fighting racial injustice.

The #BlackLivesMatter activists are very, very worried about the cops:

After Philadelphia’s summer of protests against police brutality and systemic racism, activists are moving into a new season. They’re sustaining momentum by expanding their objectives and establishing their own community group model, working in the neighborhoods they want the city to invest in.

But the numbers say that the police aren’t the black community’s problem in Philly. Using the same site, and selecting for “Officer Involved,” we find 23 such shootings in 2015 and 2016, dropping to 13, 12, 9 and 8 (so far) in subsequent years. (The site does not correct for fatal vs non-fatal in this option.)

Eight officer involved shootings thus far in 2020, out of 1,684, which is 0.475% of the total.

The problem isn’t police brutality; it’s brutality within the black community, because the vast majority of the black people in our cities who are murdered are murdered by other black people.

“Our solutions live within ourselves and not within the system,” said YahNé Ndgo, a core organizer with Black Lives Matter Philly. As she sees it, activists are themselves building programming that’s “making a positive difference in our community.”

“We’re not being antipolice. We’re being antiviolence and pro-health and pro-community,” she said. “And [others] will see that we’re building toward all those things and not seeking to remove something and leave a vacuum, but to replace something that is not healthy for our community.”

Some activists spent the summer calling for police abolition, while others believe policing should remain, but have ideas for reform. Across the city, dozens of groups — new and established — protested, and each had unique priorities.

Are there no mirrors in the black community in Philadelphia? The problem isn’t the police, but the members of their own communities. But no one is willing to say that, because, why, that could sound raaaaacist.

Well, the #BlackLivesMatter protesters got what they wanted, even before this year’s protests, with the election of Democrat Larry Krasner as District Attorney. When the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer, surprisingly, endorsed Republican Beth Grossman over Democrat Larry Krasner for District Attorney. Daniel Denvir waxed wroth:

The Philadelphia Inquirer just endorsed mass incarceration

by Daniel Denvir | October 17, 2017

In May, Philadelphians went to the polls and made history, voting by a large margin to back civil rights attorney Larry Krasner in the city’s Democratic primary for district attorney. On Sunday, residents awoke to find that the Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board had endorsed Krasner’s Republican opponent, Beth Grossman, a former top prosecutor in the District Attorney’s Office.

Krasner rallied Philadelphians to an upstart, radical campaign calling for an end to the era of mass incarceration and impunity for police misconduct. The city’s struggling paper of record endorsed a candidate who presided over a nationally infamous civil asset forfeiture program through which prosecutors seized homes and other property from city residents, oftentimes poor and working-class, black and Latino. At least, the editorial gushed, she has “a welcome hesitancy to go for the death penalty.”

Philadelphians want change. The Inquirer board ploddingly declared itself for the enervating cause of defending an intolerable status quo that will most likely be defeated on election day.

But points for consistency: Grossman is the second candidate for top prosecutor the paper has endorsed who has also been backed by the city’s Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5, an unapologetically reactionary officers union headed by a man who recently called Black Lives Matter protesters “a pack of wild animals.” That first FOP-backed candidate the Inquirer endorsed was Rich Negrin, one of Krasner’s primary opponents. Oddly, the board’s praise for Negrin included a note that the “criminal justice pendulum has been swinging in a new direction for some time, away from ‘tough on crime,’” but failed to mention that it was Krasner’s insurgent, movement-based campaign that had swung the primary field to the left.

After a few more paragraphs of such drivel, Mr Denvir wrote:

In reality, the board’s rationale is a pretext to protect an office that has long prized convictions and lengthy sentences regardless of the costs or whether the outcomes comport with any sense of justice. The Inquirer praises Grossman for her career going “after drug dealers, gunslingers, thieves, and blighters” and her “passion for defending the rights of crime victims.” Not a word about mass incarceration. To editorialize in favor of such a brutal status quo is an insult to the Philadelphians on whose behalf the board purports to be writing.

Well, Mr Denvir got his wish: Larry Krasner won the election. And rather than Mrs Grossman going “after drug dealers, gunslingers, thieves, and blighters,” the City of Brotherly Love has a District Attorney who does not do that, who fired a whole slew of veteran prosecutors upon taking office, and who certainly doesn’t believe in “mass incarceration.”

The result? In 2018, Mr Krasner’s first year in office, city homicides jumped from 315 to 353, a 12.06% increase. The following year, homicides held almost steady, rising to 356, but so far this year, 391 people have been murdered in Philadelphia, a 39.64% increase over the same day  last year.

The cost of Mr Krasner’s victory, and the policies Mr Denvir wanted to see put in place, has been written in blood. Philadelphia has seen more murders, many more murders than New York City, which has more than five times Philly’s population.

Philadelphia’s daily average inmate population was 6,409 when Mr Krasner took office, and was down to 4,849 on August 31, 2019. That’s the end, sort of, of ‘mass incarceration,’ but it sure hasn’t resulted in less violence on the city’s streets. The problem isn’t mass incarceration; the problem is that not enough criminals are incarcerated.

Black lives don’t matter, at least not in Philadelphia, because the black community apparently does not care enough about them to address the problem within itself.