Author Archives: Dana Pico

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The Feds believe that conservative Catholics are an extremist threat FBI Director Christopher Wray flat out lied to Congress about Bureau's surveillance of Catholics

We reported, last February, on the story that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was targeting “Radical Traditionalist Catholics”, with a memo from the FBI office in Richmond, Virginia:

Kyle Seraphin, who was a special agent at the bureau for six years before he was indefinitely suspended without pay in June 2022, published the document, “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities,” on UncoverDC.com.

A priest elevates the Eucharist after consecrating it during a Latin Mass. Photo by Andrew Gardner/Creative Commons

“In making this assessment, FBI Richmond relied on the key assumption that [racially or ethnically motivated extremists] will continue to find [radical-traditionalist Catholic or RTC] ideology attractive and will continue to attempt to connect with RTC adherents, both virtually via social media and in-person at places of worship,” the document from January 23 states.It adds that “RTCs are typically categorized by the rejection of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) as a valid church council; disdain for most of the popes elected since Vatican II, particularly Pope Francis and Pope John Paul II; and frequent adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist ideology. Radical-traditionalist Catholics compose a small minority of overall Roman Catholic adherents and are separate and distinct from ‘traditionalist Catholics’ who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II teachings and traditions, without the more extremist ideological beliefs and violent rhetoric.”

Once this was disclosed, the FBI quickly told us that this was the product of one field office, and was withdrawn because it didn’t meet the Bureau’s standards of quality. Director Christopher Wray said:

We do not conduct investigations based on religious affiliation or practices, full stop. We have also now ordered our inspection division to take a look at how this happened and try to figure out how we can make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.

Yeah, uh huh, right.

From The Wall Street Journal:

The FBI and ‘Radical’ Catholics

New evidence suggests the bureau probe was wider than director Christopher Wray said.

by The Editorial Board | Wednesday, August 9, 2023 | 12:02 PM EDT

Remember the tempest this year when the Federal Bureau of Investigation was found to be targeting some Catholics as “extremists?” The bureau cast it as the work of a single rogue field office. Well, it looks like the effort was more widespread than our G-men admitted to the public.

That’s the news from a less-redacted internal FBI document released Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee. Chairman Jim Jordan wants more information from the FBI on how broad this investigation really was.

This story began in February when a whistleblower leaked a heavily redacted January report from the FBI’s Richmond office: “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.”

The document defined “radical-traditionalist Catholics” as those who attend the Latin Mass and who frequently adhere to “anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist ideology.” The agents relied on half-baked “open-source” reporting from liberal outlets to justify more bureau investigation.

“Open source” reporting, huh? Brittany Bernstein noted that the FBI report was sourced from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left source which supports just about every #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading position out there, and calls the Moms4Liberty extremists because they don’t want the public schools pushing the homosexual and transgender agendas. A screen capture of the Catholic organizations that the SPLC considers to be “Radical Traditional Catholic Hate Groups” in the United States can be found here.[2]Full disclosure: Yes, I am Catholic, but have little opportunity to attend a Tridentine Mass. Due to my significant hearing loss, a Traditional Latin, or Tridentine, Mass, in which the priest … Continue reading

FBI headquarters quickly said the report didn’t meet its “exacting standards” and had been withdrawn. FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Judiciary Committee in July that the report was “a single product by a single field office.” He added that “as soon as I found out about it, I was aghast and ordered it withdrawn and removed from FBI systems,” and he said he began an internal probe.

On July 25 the FBI finally provided the committee with a less-redacted version of that Richmond document. The report says that its information on Catholics was “primarily derived” from an “FBI Richmond contact”; an “FBI Portland liaison contact” who informed on a subject who “gravitated to” traditionalist catholicism; and an “FBI Undercover Employee” who reported on a subject who attended a Catholic church in California.

It also says the FBI’s Los Angeles field office “initiated an investigation” into a subject, and that the Richmond office “[c]oordinated with” FBI Portland to prepare the field report. In other words, this was a widespread bureau effort. Why was this suspicion about religion so widespread at the FBI?

The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal might not be able to answer that question, because the answer involves their own culture. The federal government, including the FBI, are dominated by the same Ivy League, northeastern elites as the Journal, and, to them, there’s a frightening issue. Remember the exchange between Center For American Progress fellow John Halpin and Hillary Clinton’s communications director Jennifer Palmieri, in the e-mails hacked by Wikileaks:

Mr Halpin: Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) …they must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations.

Miss Palmieri: I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals.

It’s all the same thing to them: Catholicism is ‘acceptable,’ as long as it is the go-along-to-get-along Catholicism of Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, attending Mass on Sunday, but with political positions completely subservient to the Democratic Party. Actual Catholicism, with its prohibition on homosexuality, transgenderism, and abortion, scare the poop out of them, and must be not just conservate but actually threatening. That the ‘radical traditional Catholics’ are becoming a stronger, if nevertheless in the distance, voice in the Church worries them that, Heaven forfend!, they might just become politically stronger.

Also troubling is the FBI’s decision to redact the Portland and Los Angeles roles from the original version of the Richmond document it provided Congress in March. In a letter with the less-redacted version, acting assistant FBI director Christopher Dunham said the redactions had been necessary to protect “information specific to ongoing criminal investigations.”

What “ongoing criminal investigations”? What crimes were the FBI investigating that tied them in with Catholics who prefer the Tridentine Mass? Have any of those investigations resulted in charges against anybody?

Well, we may not know the answers to those questions, but we do know one thing: the Director of the FBI deliberately lied to Congress! What is going to be done about that?

Of course, we know the real reasons: while the Catholic Church is opposed to prenatal infanticide, those wicked ‘radical traditional Catholics’ tend to be more intensely devout, and more politically conservative, and we can’t have that, can we? President Biden is both a Democrat and a Catholic, but we have seen just how much he prioritizes the former over the latter.

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.

By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.

↑2 Full disclosure: Yes, I am Catholic, but have little opportunity to attend a Tridentine Mass. Due to my significant hearing loss, a Traditional Latin, or Tridentine, Mass, in which the priest celebrates the Eucharist ad orientem, with his back to the people, I would be completely lost.
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Teri Carter wants “common sense gun legislation”, but that will only inhibit the law-abiding Criminals will still get firearms, because they are one of the tools of their trade

Teri Carter, of Anderson County, Kentucky, describes herself in her Twitter biography as a “Kentucky Columnist — Fighting for common sense gun laws — Rescue dogs rule”. She tweeted at 9:14 AM EDT on Thursday, August 10, 2023:

I’m going to a conference to discuss common sense gun legislation. But I can’t tell you where I’m going for safety reasons. I didn’t even know where I was staying until a few weeks ago, which I have to keep private.

What kind of civilized society lives like this?

Naturally, I asked her just where she was going to this conference, because I rather doubt it would be held someplace in which she would be in any real danger. After all, even if this conference is in Chicago or Philadelphia or Washington, it’s unlikely to be in any of the combat zone areas. Not a lot of nice hotels and conference centers in Tioga-Nicetown!

I further asked Mrs Carter:

Just what do you consider to be “common sense gun legislation”? Remember: the vast majority of shootings are being committed by people already legally prohibited from owning firearms due to their age or a past felony conviction.

Whether she’ll answer my questions I do not know. I wouldn’t be surprised if she blocked me on Twitter, but since she states that she is also a columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader, a newspaper to which I subscribe, I’ll be able to see whatever she publishes there.

As of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, August 10th, there have been 258 ‘official’ murders in Philadelphia in 2023, and if that seems like a horrible number, it’s actually down from the past three years, and Philly might actually see fewer than 500 homicides this year. Lexington has seen 13 murders as of July 25th, which is just half of the number at the same week in 2023.

I would note at this point that the Lexington Police are not including in that number the murder of an unborn child, even though Rigoberto Vasquez-Barradas, 24, is charged with Fetal homicide, first degree. (KRS §507A.020), which is a capital offense.

Just after noon on Thursday, Captain Joseph Busa of the Philadelphia Police Department’s 39th District reported that his officers had arrested a 13-year-old for attempting to carjack a vehicle and in possession of stolen firearm. We noted on Monday that 15-year-old Rasheed Banks, Jr, had been arrested for the attempted carjacking which resulted in the murder of 50-year-old Michael Salerno in South Philly. Those boys were legally prohibited from possessing handguns, but did anyway, and at least in one case, the weapon in question was stolen.

So, what “common sense gun legislation” does Mrs Carter believe would have stopped young Mr Banks, or the unnamed 13-year-old, who were not only in possession of firearms they were legally barred from having, but willing to use them to try to steal someone else’s car?

It seems so simple, so simple that even the most kind-hearted leftist could understand it: criminals don’t obey the laws! They don’t care if it is illegal for them to have firearms, because firearms are one of the tools of their trade, and something they find necessary to have to ply their trade.

What will “common sense gun legislation” do if passed? Such would make it more difficult for law-abiding Americans to purchase firearms, while doing virtually nothing to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals.

But that’s all part of it: today’s left, which abhor the notion that ordinary citizens can own firearms, know that there’s virtually nothing that new legislation can do to stop the bad guys from getting weapons, but feel that they have to Do Something, so they’ll try to pass laws which will disarm the people who do obey the laws. The quaint notion that the best thing that could be done to reduce crime is to prosecute crime to the fullest extent of the law, and incarcerate criminals for as long as the law allows, seems not to have occurred to people like the George Soros-sponsored, police hating prosecutors who have been elected in some of our major cities, though, to be fair, I do not know if Mrs Carter feels that way.

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Chickenhawks in the Church

Pedophilia is defined as a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children, while hebephilia is that attraction to children in the early stages of puberty, approximately ages 11 to 14, and ephebophilia is the attraction to teenagers in the later stages of puberty, approximately 15 to 19.

Archdiocese of Philadelphia agrees to $3.5 million settlement in priest sexual assault lawsuit

The lawsuit alleged that Pastor John Close raped a boy at St. Katherine’s of Siena in Wayne in 2006.

by Nick Vadala | Wednesday, August 9, 2023

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia will pay $3.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that one of its priests sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy in Delaware County nearly two decades ago.

Filed in 2020, the lawsuit alleges that Pastor John Close raped the boy at St. Katherine’s of Siena in Wayne in 2006. The plaintiff, whose name was withheld in court filings, was attending a Confraternity of Christian Doctrine program there, and Close was the head of the parish.

During a class, the boy became upset, fearing eternal damnation. He was sent to Close’s office, the pastor took his confession, and then raped him, according to the lawsuit. Afterward, the lawsuit says, Close told the boy that he was absolved of his sins, but he would be eternally damned if he told anyone about the assault.

While the age of the victim at the time of the assault was not given, he is 31 years old today, and the rape was 17 years ago. That means the victim was 13-to-15 years old at the time. Was that hebephilia, or was it ephebophilia? You know what? It doesn’t really matter, because urban slang gives us a far better definition: a chickenhawk, older males who prefer younger boys as sex partners.

Close, who was ordained in 1969, worked at several parishes and Catholic schools in the region throughout his 42 years in the ministry, including Christ the King parish, Cardinal O’Hara High School, Archbishop Wood High School, and the Cathedral of Basilica Saints Peter and Paul. He was placed on administrative leave in 2011 in connection with the reinvestigation of another alleged case and retired the following year. He died in 2018. . . . .

Spokesperson Kenneth A. Gavin said in a statement that the archdiocese “acknowledges settlement in this matter and the resolution it brings.” He added that the organization had no knowledge of the allegations against Close until the plaintiff’s lawyers reported them in July 2019, after the pastor’s death.

“In accordance with policy, the archdiocese reported the allegation to law enforcement,” the archdiocese said.

Is that true? Not according to the plaintiff!

The lawsuit argued that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was notified of a pattern of behavior from Close that put children in danger as early as 1976. That year, a pastor at Blessed John Neumann parish in Bryn Mawr (now known as St. John Neumann parish) reported that Close had teenage boys in his room at the rectory at odd hours, including overnight. As a result, Close was transferred to another parish, and “the archdiocese did not warn that next parish of this past behavior,” according to court documents.

Another alleged victim came forward several times starting in the late 1990s, reporting that Close had sexually abused him in 1969 when he was an altar boy at Christ the King parish in Philadelphia. The Archdiocesan Review Board investigated but could not substantiate the allegation, and it was dismissed, court documents say.

In 2011, following the release of a second scathing grand jury report that accused the church hierarchy of harboring more than two dozen priests suspected of abuse, a third alleged victim of Close came forward. That person said Close sexually assaulted him while he was a student at Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster in the early 1990s, when Close was the principal. The Archdiocesan Review Board again found the accusations could not be substantiated.

According to court documents, the archdiocese learned of at least two additional allegations. A woman in 2011 reported that a friend had told her that Close “messed around” with him at Cardinal O’Hara High School in Springfield in the 1970s. The review board found this to be unsubstantiated. And in 2014, a boy alleged that Close sexually abused him at Christ the King in the 1970s, but archdiocesan investigators were unable to make contact with the boy, court documents said.

We know of over $80 million in Church settlements, and there are other cases in which settlements were reached, but the amounts were not disclosed, and the vast majority of it is due to the Church sheltering chickenhawks.

Homosexuality has been a huge problem within the Catholic priesthood, and that problem has spilled out in the form of predator priests. while it is wholly politically incorrect to say, the sexual abuse of minors in the Church has been a problem of homosexuality: the vast majority of sexual abuse by Catholic priests has been against boys rather than girls. The John Jay Report noted that, of the abuse cases it studied, between 1950 and 2002, stated:

The largest group of alleged victims (50.9%) was between the ages of 11 and 14, 27.3% were 15-17, 16% were 8-10 and nearly 6% were under age 7. Overall, 81% of victims were male and 19% female. Male victims tended to be older than female victims. Over 40% of all victims were males between the ages of 11 and 14.

Despite attempts by the politically correct, you cannot explain that huge disparity by saying that boys were simply more available to priests years ago. This isn’t a matter of random selection, but of chickenhawk priests deliberately choosing which victims to groom and then assault.

How many parishioners have we lost over this? How many previously devout, Mass-attending Catholics have left the Church over the thoroughly disgusting cases of bishops — some of them predators as well — simply moving the abusers to another parish, without informing the new parish that the priest had ‘problems’? How many parishes have we had to close because there were no longer enough parishioners to keep them open? How many priests could have been moved into positions in which there was almost no contact with minors? And how many could and should have been referred to law enforcement, but were not?

This is what happens when you sweep things under the rug: as you keep doing that, the lump of material under the rug becomes more noticeable, and the debris under the rug became so large that the Church started tripping over it.

It isn’t just the Catholic Church, of course. We reported on Wednesday morning how a 49-year-old Henry Clay High School English teacher and Lutheran Church ‘youth volunteer’ was arrested for sexual offenses with children, and noted over a year ago how a Philadelphia high school teacher had groomed and started sexually abusing a teenaged girl, and others in the school knew about it and did nothing. But if it isn’t just the Catholic Church, the Church has definitely gained a negative reputation for having let it happen, and is often the first ‘suspect’ in people’s minds when they turn to the subject.

Pope Benedict XVI, in 2005, had the subject addressed, and the Congregation for Catholic Education released an instruction stating that homosexual men should not be admitted to seminaries to study for the priesthood. Naturally, the left went bonkers, with one former priest asking Why Isn’t Celibacy Enough? The answer, of course, is that celibacy would be enough if the chickenhawk priests actually remained celibate! The sexual abuse scandals which have rocked the Church occurred because too many priest could not remain faithful to their vows of celibacy.

What Pope Benedict recognized, that the oh-so-politically-correct left couldn’t stand, is that homosexuality among priests was, while not the sole contributor to the sexual abuse scandals, certainly the largest part. What about 81% of the victims were boys, and the two most abused age groups were, in order, 11-to-14-year-old boys, followed by 15-to-17-year-old boys can’t they understand?

Pope Benedict was right: admitting those with “homosexual tendencies” to the priesthood is a recipe for disaster, and had already been a disaster.

There is only one real solution, and that is to admit heterosexual married men to the priesthood. Not only will they not be preying on young boys, but they will have a sanctified outlet for their sexual drives, and can have a normal family life. We already have married priests, both in the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, but a few hundred married former Anglican priests who converted to Catholicism, and it hasn’t somehow been a disaster for the Church.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! * Updated! * Stupid is as stupid does.

Kevin Lentz, photo by Fayette
County Detention Center, and is a public record.</span<

As we are all aware, the teachers unions in our country, including the Fayette County Education Association, have nothing but the best of intentions when it comes to students in our public schools. Nothing, nothing! can stop them in the pursuit of a top notch education for students!

Lexington high school teacher charged with 17 sexual offenses involving minors

by Valarie Honeycutt Spears | Tuesday, August 8, 2023 | 4:01 PM EDT | Updated: 5:32 PM EDT

A Lexington teacher charged with multiple counts of sexual offenses involving minors was placed on leave by the Fayette County district Tuesday, according to officials and records.

Kevin Lentz was an English teacher at Henry Clay High School, Fayette County Public Schools spokesperson Dia Davidson Smith told the Herald-Leader.

The 49-year-old Mr Lentz faces these charges:

  • KRS §531.310(2)(b), 7 counts: Use of a minor in a sexual performance, which is a Class B felony if the minor us under 16 years of age. Under KRS §532.060(2)(b), the sentence for a Class B felony is imprisonment “not less than ten (10) years nor more than twenty (20) years”. The sentence shall include an additional five (5) year period of postincarceration supervision which shall be added to the maximum sentence rendered for the offense.
  • KRS §531.030(2), 10 counts: Distribution of obscene matters to minors, which is a Class A misdemeanor if a first offense, and which is how Mr Lentz is charged. Under KRS §532.090(1), the sentence for a Class A misdemeanor shall not exceed twelve (12) months.
  • KRS §524.100, 6 counts: Tampering with physical evidence, which is a Class D felony. Under KRS §532.060(2)(d), the sentence for a Class D felony is imprisonment “not less than one (1) year nor more than five (5) years.”

The charge of tampering with physical evidence requires that the accused believes “that an official proceeding is pending or may be instituted,” so to be guilty of this, Mr Lentz had to know that the police suspected him of the other offenses, that he knew the authorities were closing in.

Mr Lentz has been employed by the Fayette County public schools for 18 years, since August 11, 2005, which leads me to wonder: is this something he (allegedly) recently started, or has this been going on for years and years?

Public school teachers are (supposedly) not stupid, and Fayette County requires that teachers of Mr Lentz’s seniority have attained a Master’s degree. If you are a teacher, you just can’t not know that this kind of thing means a very long and unpleasant stay in the state penitentiary. As Leroy Jethro Gibbs said, to some college students he was interrogating, “Believe me, son, you will not do well in prison.” Just how can someone be that stupid?

These are the kinds of charges that the Commonwealth’s Attorney should not allow to be the subject of any lenient plea bargain; if convicted of use of a minor under 16 in a sexual performance, he should get the maximum sentence of twenty years, which will almost certainly be run concurrently rather than consecutively, as I would prefer — keep him locked up for 140 years! — which would keep him in prison until he’s 69 years old, something he might not survive anyway.
_____________________________
Update! 11:05 AM EDT

I had wondered, even though I didn’t include it in my original, which was posted at 8:47 AM, whether Mr Lentz’s alleged victims were male or female, since Mrs Spears’ original never mentioned the sex of the victim or victims at all. Now, we know.

Henry Clay teacher exchanged obscene photos in texts with 9-year-old boy, citation alleges

by Valarie Honeycutt Spears | Wednesday, August 9, 2023 | 9:24 AM EDT | Updated: 9:59 AM EDT

A Henry Clay High School teacher induced a 9-year-old boy to send photos of his genitals in a text and also sent the boy adult pornography, a police citation alleges.

Kevin Lentz, 49, asked the boy to delete the conversations “so his parents wouldn’t know,” according to the Lexington Police Department citation. Lentz reportedly sent the child more than 10 images of pornography.

The incident occurred in July, the citation said.

There’s more at the Lexington Herald-Leader original.

Yeah, Mr Lentz, if convicted, will not do well in prison.

More, while part of Mrs Spears original that I did not quote stated that the county schools’ spokeswoman simply referred reporters to the police as far as to whether the alleged victim was a Henry Clay High School student, if he is a nine-year-old boy, the victim is too young to have been in high school. It turns out that he was also a church ‘youth volunteer,’ and though Mrs Spears did not identify at which church it was, it has been reported elsewhere that it was at Lexington’s Faith Lutheran Church.

Fayette District Judge Lindsay Thurston set a $50,000 bond and ordered Lentz to not have contact with minor children as a condition of his release, according to court documents. He remained in the Fayette Detention Center Wednesday morning.

Mr Lentz is innocent until proven guilty, so a reasonable bail amount had to be set; In Kentucky, only those accused of murder can be denied bail. Now that this information has been exposed, I suspect that Mr Lentz time at the Fayette County Detention Center will be disagreeable if he doesn’t make bail quickly.

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Will Larry Krasner send this case to juvenile court?

We previously reported on the identification of 15-year-old Rasheed Banks, Jr, as the alleged killer of Michael Salerno during a carjacking attempt, and pointed out that The Philadelphia Inquirer had not covered that story. A check of the newspaper’s website shows that they never did catch up to reporting on that.

However, now that young Mr Banks has been captured, the Inky has covered it:

15-year-old suspect arrested in fatal attempted carjacking in South Philadelphia

On July 12, Michael Salerno, 50, attempted to prevent a carjacking of his vehicle on the 1100 block of Porter Street when he was shot in the head.

by Robert Moran | Monday, August 7, 2023

Authorities on Monday arrested the 15-year-old boy wanted in the fatal shooting of a 50-year-old man during an attempted carjacking last month in South Philadelphia.

Rasheed Banks Jr. was apprehended in Camden by Philadelphia agents of the U.S. Marshals and members of a regional New York and New Jersey fugitive task force, the U.S. Marshals Service Philadelphia announced.

Naturally, the Inquirer did not publish the photo that Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News used in his tweet, nor young Mr Banks’ mugshot, which the Philly television media had and published.

Why not? Remember: publisher Elizabeth Hughes has mandated that the newspaper will be an “anti-racist news organization,” and would censor the news if the news happened to be too politically incorrect.

But what, exactly, is the Inky trying to hide? Yes, they did not publish young Mr Banks’ photo, but let’s tell the truth here: simply publishing his first name, Rasheed, tells every reader that the suspect is black. The newspaper isn’t fooling anyone!

The real question now is: will the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating ‘progressive’ Philadelphia District Attorney, Larry Krasner, charge Mr Banks as an adult? I have heard that Mr Krasner has never offered up a juvenile for an adult charge, though I can’t document that. But if young Mr Banks is indeed the murderer — and he is innocent until proven guilty — and is charged as a juvenile, the longest he could be held in juvenile confinement is until he reaches age 21; then he would have to be released, and his juvenile record sealed.

That’s six years, six years for wanton, willful murder.

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The Philadelphia Inquirer does some good reporting . . . and then they hide it

We have previously noted some articles in The Philadelphia Inquirer marked as exclusive for paid subscribers. The newspaper has a digital paywall which allows non-subscribers a limited number of articles a month before it descends and blocks access to all articles, but even if you haven’t tried to open an Inky article for months, the subscribers only block will stop you from accessing those stories. Nevertheless, the story below is one that should have been available to more Philadelphia readers!

Yes, the Inquirer does have to make money to stay in business, and the economic condition has been serious enough that the Leftist Lenfest Institute for Journalism has sent out begging letters to subscribers at least thrice that I have documented, so perhaps the $285.48 that I’ve been paying still isn’t enough.

Jim Kenney raised money to boost progressive candidates but spent it on consultants and restaurant tabs

Of the more than $780,000 that Kenney PAC has spent over the last three years, only about $60,000 went to other campaigns. The money has also gone to political operatives and miscellaneous expenses.

by Sean Collins Walsh | Monday, August 7, 2023 | 5:00 AM EDT

In early 2020, things were looking good for Mayor Jim Kenney, who had just coasted to reelection after a productive first term and was eyeing statewide office.

In June of that year, he launched Kenney PAC, a political action committee that he said would “help progressive candidates in the forthcoming legislative races in Pennsylvania defeat extremist pro-Trump Republicans.”

Giving money to Democrats across the state would have built goodwill for a mayor little known outside Southeastern Pennsylvania, and news of the PAC helped fuel speculation that Kenney might run for U.S. Senate or governor in 2022.

Well, those “extremist pro-Trump Republicans” haven’t had much success in the Keystone State, but the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sure hasn’t benefitted under those ‘progressive’ Democrats! Under Mayor Kenney, the City of Brotherly Love, the town he was (supposedly) running, in 2020, the year he launched Kenney PAC, went from 356 homicides — which the Philadelphia Police have now revised down to 353 — to 499, and there are serious reasons to believe that the number was actually 502, as initially reported.

We have noted, several times, the change in the Philadelphia Police Department’s statistics, down from the 502 homicides initially reported for 2020, down to 499, one short of the then-all-time record of 500, set during the crack cocaine wars of 1990, under the ‘leadership’ of then-Mayor Wilson Goode, he of MOVE bombing fame. I made a totally rookie mistake, and failed to get a screen capture of that, but a Twitter fellow styling himself NDJinPhilly was apparently smarter than me that particular time, took the screen shot, and then tweeted it to me.

2020 was the year of the unfortunate death while resisting arrest of the methamphetamine-and-fentanyl-addled convicted felon George Floyd in Minneapolis, and riots broke out in many cities, including Philly, but the change in attitudes continued far beyond 2020; Philly saw a whopping 562 homicides in 2021, a number which blew the old record completely apart, along with 190 deaths marked ‘suspicious’. 2022 saw an improvement of sorts, with the official number of homicides down to 516, which was still second all time.

Why, it’s almost as though Philly could have used those “extremist pro-Trump Republicans” running the city!

Back to the Inky:

But of the more than $780,000 that Kenney PAC has spent over the last three years, only about $60,000 went to other campaigns, according to an analysis of campaign finance reports. Instead, the PAC’s money has primarily gone to benefit operatives close to Kenney — who abandoned his hopes of higher office after his popularity tanked starting in 2020 — and to pay for miscellaneous expenses, such as events, hotel rooms, and restaurant bills.

You know what that is? That’s actually good, investigative reporting, which makes me wonder why the newspaper’s Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Gabriel Escobar decided to restrict the article to subscribers only. If there’s anything in the Inquirer’s reporting which should draw in new subscribers, it’s the “high-impact journalism“, “speaking truth to power“, and “high-impact election reporting” the Leftist Lenfest Institute told us the newspaper delivered, yet that’s just what Mr Escobar, or possibly one of his minions, restricted.

I’ve quoted a lot of the article, and cited my sources, as always, but unless you are a subscriber, you can’t even check to see if I’ve lied to you; that bothers me.

I can’t simply quote the whole thing, and I really wish that more people could read it for themselves, but I’ll note briefly here that reporter Sean Collins Walsh pointed out that the top ten donors to Kenney PAC, roughly $399,000 out of $850,000, were all building trade unions; the unions had also been the primary contributors to the Mayor’s two campaigns. Mayor Jim Kenney has just plain checked out, marking time until he’s no longer in the job. The members of those very same unions are the working men of the city who are at risk from the bullets flying around town, especially in the working-class neighborhoods.

What the unions bought with their support of Mr Kenney is greater danger for their members and their families! Perhaps some of those “extremist pro-Trump Republicans” could have done a better job? After all, it hardly seems that they could have done worse!

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Anti-Semitism is a serious problem, but restricting the Freedom of Speech and of the Press is not the way to fight it

We reported, on Thursday, how someone had distributed white supremacist flyers in Lexington’s Kenwick neighborhood, flyers contained in baggies, using rice to weigh them down enough not to be swept away by the wind. The Lexington Police Department was investigating, with Lt Dan Truex stating that the LPD were “very interested in identifying” “who possibly left those flyers,” yet, at the end of the Lexington Herald-Leader’s report, the Department spokesman was either unable or unwilling to specify just what actual crime had been committed or what charges the distributor of the flyers might face.

Now, thanks to a tweet from my good friend and occasional website pinch hitter, William Teach, I found this from WRAL News:

Hundreds of anti-semitic flyers distributed in at least 5 north Raleigh neighborhoods overnight

Hundreds of anti-semitic flyers appeared in at least five north Raleigh neighborhoods overnight.

Sunday, August 6, 2023 | 11:12 AM EDT | Updated 4:14 PM EDT

Anti-Semitic flyers distributed in Raleigh. Photo via WRAL News. Click to enlarge.

Hundreds of anti-semitic flyers appeared in at least five north Raleigh neighborhoods overnight.

Someone really needs to educate the WRAL intern that subtitles are supposed to be significantly different from the main headline! 🙂

The flyers link to a website to an organization called Goyim Defense League, which is currently tracked as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law.

While I have exactly zero support for the so-called Goyim Defense League, telling me that the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center — the name of which WRAL got slightly wrong — classifies an organization as a “hate group” doesn’t impress me in the slightest. The SPLC has similarly trashed Moms 4 Liberty, a group trying to protect children from the far-left transgender agenda, even though the ‘transgender’ lobby are trying to impose control of people’s speech.

One woman, who wished to remain anonymous, discovered a multitude of fliers left on neighbors’ driveways while taking an evening walk in Fairfax Hills. Just three minutes away, another woman reported more hate flyers in her own neighborhood of Hickory Hills. Just a few more minutes away, another neighbor near North Hills reported finding one of the flyers.

North Ridge also woke up to anti-semitic flyers in their driveways. According to neighbors, there’s a notable Jewish population in North Ridge due to its walkable distance to the Orthodox Synagogue on Falls of Neuse Road. The synagogue appears to be very close to all of the neighborhoods targeted.

Unlike the Lexington situation, in which the white supremacist flyers were distributed in the heavily white, as in 89.9% white, Kenwick neighborhood, the Raleigh incident was somewhat close to a Jewish neighborhood. Nevertheless, unless an actual threat was communicated, it should be protected speech.

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said a person caught distributing these flyers could be charged with ethnic intimidation if the it contains a threat.

That’s a Class 1 misdemeanor, meaning someone convicted of that crime could face up to 120 days in jail.

Unlike the Lexington flyers, which, from the single image I could find of them, simply directed readers to a website, the Raleigh flyers shown in the WRAL report had a much larger variety of things printed. However, in the admittedly limited views shown, I could see no actual threat. Rather, the flyers made fanciful and stupid claims about Jews, including a reference to the long-debunked Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the creation of Russian anti-Semites around 1902-3, a time in which Tsar Nikolai II was still an absolute monarch. Laughably, the Raleigh flyers date the Protocols as 1897, before they were written. No one with any knowledge of this stuff who isn’t already anti-Semitic is going to swallow this junk.

Anti-Semitism is a serious problem, but the way to fight it is not to restrict the freedom of speech and of the press. If you find anti-Semitic, or in the Lexington case, white supremacist garbage, just pick it up and throw it in the trash.

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Why was ‘Peanut’ out on the streets in the first place?

My good friend — OK, OK, I’ve never met him in person, but with the internet, I have a lot of good friends I’ve never physically met! — Robert Stacy McCain, in his continuing series Crazy People Are Dangerous, tells us about the suicide-by-cop of Ryant ‘Peanut’ Bluford of San Francisco.

The police video of the shooting was released Friday, showing that Bluford had a pistol in his waistband, which he later aimed at police before he was shot. Despite all this, however, some people continued to ask why police couldn’t “de-escalate” the situation. The obvious answer is that Ryant Bluford didn’t want it to be “de-escalated.” Ryant Bluford was crazy and wanted to die in the proverbial hail of police gunfire.

The police have yet to confirm whether Mr Bluford actually fired a shot at the police, though Mission Local reported:

Bluford’s friends and family also said he had a gun, and fired once at the officers; they pointed on Thursday to a chalk circle on the street, where they said the casing from Bluford’s bullet had landed.

In reality, it doesn’t matter: you aim a gun at the police, and they do not have to, nor should they have to, hold their fire until first fired upon.

Mr McCain’s theme is that Mr Bluford was crazy, which he was, but that’s not the part of the story I find most important:

Bayview neighbors lament police shooting death of Ryant ‘Peanut’ Bluford

Friends, family say slain man feared, detested police after more than decade behind bars

by Gilare Zada, Griffin Jones, and Joe Rivano Barros | Thursday, July 27, 2023

Peanut, before getting shelled. Photo via R S McCain.

The Bayview man shot and killed yesterday afternoon by San Francisco police officers, 41-year-old Ryant Bluford of San Francisco, was known as “Peanut” to friends and family. They recalled him as a loving father, brother, cousin and friend — while acknowledging the violent crime in his past.Neighbors interviewed Wednesday night and Thursday morning said Bluford struggled with mental illness and had a disdain for the police, the result of more than a decade spent in prison for various serious offenses.

Bluford was convicted in the 2006 gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in San Francisco, and spent more than a decade in prison as a result. He was again charged, in 2022, for domestic violence and sexual assault.

Oh, Heaven forfend! Mr Bluford “has a disdain for the police,” he “feared (and) detested police,” because he was locked up for the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl? Apparently the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the mission of which is, “building what will become the “California Model” – building safer communities through rehabilitation, education, restorative justice and reentry,” didn’t do much correcting or “rehabilitation, education, restorative justice and reentry” when it came to Mr Bluford. After spending “more than a decade” of a 14-year sentence behind bars for the 2006 gang rape, Mr Bluford was later accused with domestic violence and sexual assault. That means at least one more person was assaulted and raped by a man who was supposed to be corrected and rehabilitated for the same crime.

The details of the gang rape, and the fact that Mr Bluford orally, vaginally, and anally raped the victim, identified only by her initials, can be found here. Mr Bluford and his codefendants were sentenced to just 14 years in a plea deal. And that makes me wonder: why were Ryant Bluford, Eddie Perkins, Vincent Timmons, and Allen Releford offered a 14-year sentence, rather than taking this to trial and getting them locked up for the rest of their miserable lives. The plea deal was:

one count each of forcible kidnapping (count 1; Pen. Code, § 207, subd. (a)) with an admitted gang enhancement (§ 186.22, subd. (b)(1)(c)), and aggravated assault (count 12; § 245, subd. (a)(1)), for fixed aggregate prison terms of 14 years.

The dropped charges were:

forcible rape in concert (count 2; §§ 261, 264.1), forcible vaginal insertion of a gun in concert (count 3; §§ 289, 264.1), forcible anal and vaginal insertions of a bottle in concert (counts 4-5; §§ 264.1, 289), forcible oral copulation in concert (count 6; §§ 264.1, 288a, subd. (d)(1)), forcible sodomy in concert (count 7; § 286, subd. (d)), gang participation (count 8; § 186.22, subd. (a)), carrying a concealed gun in a vehicle (count 9; § 12025, subd. (a)(1)), firearm identity tampering (count 10; § 12090), and possessing cocaine base for sale (count 11; Health & Saf. Code, § 11351.5). Most dismissed counts carried multiple enhancements ranging from handgun arming and use, increased risk from moving a kidnap victim, to gang furtherance. An amendment of count 1 to forcible kidnapping (§ 207, subd. (a)) from kidnapping in concert for purposes of rape eliminated sentence exposure to a life term (§ 209, subd. (b)(1)).

One thing we do not know is how willing the victim was to testifying against Messrs Bluford, Perkins, Timmons, and Releford. It has to be conceded that the plea bargain might have been reached to keep the victim from having to testify to such a traumatic assault. But the notion that Mr Bluford was ever let out of prison is repugnant; the gang rape of a 16-year-old, of anyone, should result in life in prison without the possibility of parole!

Back to Mission Local:

Neighbors described the shooting as a tragedy.

“He had four kids and a wife, two were twins. He did the best he could,” said a friend of Bluford’s, who gave his name as Tyke, saying Bluford’s mental health worsened after time in prison. “He was in the pen for 12 years; he had some mental issues from that.”

I don’t know about you, but, to me, the tragedy is that Mr Bluford got out two years early.

At the Bayview intersection, Bluford’s family lit candles. They described Peanut as a man who had been through the wringer, and criminal records show past convictions for rape and other violent crimes.

When journolists[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their … Continue reading start using the subject’s nickname in an article, in other than a direct quote, you know that they are trying to raise sympathy for him!

He had a fearful association with police, neighbors said, one borne from a lifetime of negative experiences dealing with law enforcement: According to criminal records, Bluford was charged with kidnapping, rape, assault with a deadly weapon, and various other crimes in 2006; he was incarcerated in 2008, according to criminal records, and friends and family said he spent more than a decade in prison.

Then in 2022, he was charged again, with domestic violence, sexual assault, and criminal threats. It was not immediately clear if he was convicted and imprisoned for these alleged crimes.

“You have to think about the kind of trauma someone has experienced with the police,” said one neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous. “He looked done, driven to suicide by cop.”

Oh, so Mr Bluford experienced “trauma” because of the police? Some people might be more concerned with the trauma the girl he and three other thugs raped suffered.

“He had a lot of mental health issues,” said another anonymous neighbor. “He had a family. He loved his kids. A lot of people around here have mental issues.”

As Mr McCain pointed out, Joe Biden got 85.26% of the vote in San Francisco, so yeah, a lot of people there must have mental health issues! 🙂

That neighbor, for her part, wished there had been a non-violent response initially to de-escalate the situation — or at least a less-lethal one.

“It’s like there’s no logic. They don’t ask what’s going on, they don’t even think to just ask. They need more training with people with mental health issues,” she said. “When it comes to African Americans, they use force and think later. Even if they felt he was a threat, they could have Tased him or shot him in the leg.”

Well of course the locals were upset that Mr Bluford was sent to his eternal reward. But at least Mission Local added important information:

San Francisco police, however, do not carry Tasers. And are not trained to shoot-to-wound.

Shooting someone is the use of deadly force, and if you are legally justified in shooting someone, you are legally justified in killing him. Shooting to wound is neither legally required nor very smart.

Naturally, the news source had to throw in a racial angle:

Since 2000, 19 of the 61 people shot and killed by SFPD were Black — 31 percent; 18 of them were Black men. That rate is disproportionate to the city’s population: Black people make up about five percent of San Francisco.

The odd notion that perhaps, just perhaps, black men males might engage in activities, activities such as Mr Bluford aiming at and apparently firing upon the police, which get them shot at a greater percentage of the time seems not to have entered the minds of the reporters.

At some point, people have to drop their sympathy for criminals. Who knows, perhaps the bad guys can eventually mentally reform, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be treated responsibly for the criminal acts that they have committed.

Releasing Mr Bluford, which seems to have occurred in 2020, which would have put it in the same timeline with the releases of prisoners due to COVID-19, was the release of a violent criminal, and it was one which led him to be able to be charged with a subsequent sexual assault crime. Someone else, at least one someone, became Mr Bluford’s victim at a time when he could have been still behind bars.

I’ll put it bluntly: releasing violent criminals early, releasing them even one day before the maximum time that they can be kept locked up legally, increases the danger to the community.
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Also posted on American Free News Network. Check out American Free News Network for more well written and well reasoned conservative commentary.

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.
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Are the Lexington Police trying to stifle someone’s #FreedomOfSpeech? If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

My good friend William Teach’s website tagline is, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”

Free Speech America tweeted, “The Left has turned America into a totalitarian society. This is a clear violation of the 1st Amendment,” as they retweeted another post, showing a “Young man (being) arrested for sharing the Bible on a public sidewalk. Blatant violation of the 1st amendment of The Constitution. Every one of those cops should be fired and sued.”

In something pathetically laughable, when I clicked on Free Speech America’s tweet, to get the tweet url, I got this instead: “This Tweet is from a suspended account. Learn more,” referring to the tweet showing the arrest.

I guess that I screen captured the original just in time!

Then there was this story, a few days old, from the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Lexington neighborhood wakes up to white supremacy flyers; police investigating.

by Taylor Six | Sunday, July 30, 2023 | 1:29 PM EDT

Lexington police are asking the public for help in identifying any individuals responsible for leaving Aryan Freedom Network flyers in one neighborhood.

Image from Kenwick Neighborhood Association. The Herald-Leader did not include this image in its story.

Some residents of the Kenwick neighborhood woke up to find baggies on their sidewalk that had white supremacy propaganda flyers inside with rice.The flyer reads: “You know who else was condemned for ‘hate speech?’ Jesus Christ” The flyer also advertises the “Aryan Freedom Network” and a website.

A post was shared on the Kenwick Neighborhood Association Facebook page asking for anyone to report the baggies to police, and check home security footage to identify possible suspects.

“(R)eport the baggies to the police”? The distribution of flyers is obviously not opposed by the Kenwick Neighborhood Association, as neighborhood member Leeann Murphy had this posted on the neighborhood association’s Facebook page, on August 2nd, after the ‘Aryan Freedom Network’s’ message was delivered:

Hi all – We are looking for someone to deliver upcoming flyers to the 3rd block of Bassett Ave. Our regular person is not available to deliver this time around. Please email me if you are willing to do this important task😀. Thank you in advance. Leeannmurphyky@gmail.com

Back to what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal:

“What we are interested in is who possibly left those flyers — that is what we are very interested in identifying,” said Lt. Dan Truex with the Lexington Police Department.

Really? Why are the police “very interested in identifying” who distributed the baggies?

Truex told members of the neighborhood that extra patrol will be out for all three shifts for the next two weeks to increase police presence.

“Hopefully this helps deter it from happening in the future,” Truex wrote on social media.

So, the Lexington Police Department want to “deter” someone from expressing his opinion? How is that not the government trying to restrict someone’s freedom of speech?

At the conclusion of Taylor Six’s report came what I see as the money line:

Truex was not able to share what charges a suspect could face for the flyers, citing an open investigation.

So, the police were unable to, or at least would not, specify an actual crime that they believe the distributor of the flyer committed. Littering, perhaps? But, if so, then wouldn’t Leeann Murphy’s solicitation for someone to distribute flyers, clearly approved by the Kenwick Neighborhood Association’s Facebook page, also constitute an attempt at littering?

And the Lexington Police Department will have an “extra patrol” in the neighborhood, on all three shifts, for the next 14 days, over littering?

The photo of the flyer that I have included contains no visible threat, though the bottom line is obscured by the rice weighing down the baggie. If there is more on the reverse side of the flyer, such has not been indicated in either Miss Six’s story or anywhere else I could find. An 89.9% ‘white’ neighborhood, it would not seem a likely target for racial threats.

The hand-written copy of the proposed articles of amendment passed by Congress in 1789, cropped to show just the text in the third article that would later be ratified as the First Amendment.

It’s obvious: all of the hullabaloo is over the content of the message delivered, but the content of the message is what is protected by the First Amendment. Protection of the Freedom of Speech isn’t required for pictures of kittens or advertisements for homes for sale; we have a specified Freedom of Speech to protect the objectionable messages, to protect people who say things with which others disagree from being persecuted by the government.