Author Archives: Dana Pico

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“Progressive” campaign workers, both packing heat, get into a shootout in Philly Nope, they weren't evil, reich-wing Republicans.

Screen capture from OnePA website, taken at 10:20 AM EDT on May 9, 2023. Click to enlarge.

When people tell you who they are, believe them!

What does OnePA support? They support depriving property owners of their rights by opposing eviction for non-payment of rent. They are, simply put, socialists and a group opposed to law enforcement. And naturally, they support Helen Gym Flaherty!

A Philly campaign worker for a progressive political group fatally shot another canvasser in East Germantown, police say

Both men were canvassing for the city’s upcoming primary election on behalf of OnePA. Police said it was not immediately clear what sparked the shooting.

by Sean Collins Walsh, Chris Palmer, and Ellie Rushing | Monday, May 8, 2023 | 9:44 PM EDT

A 46-year-old man was fatally shot on Monday afternoon in East Germantown while canvassing for the city’s upcoming mayoral primary, police said, in an incident that stemmed from a dispute with a 22-year-old man, who was also canvassing on behalf of OnePA, a progressive-leaning political group.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the 22-year-old to shoot the older man, and police declined to identify either of them.

The tragedy on the campaign trail came one week before high-stakes mayoral and City Council elections that have been defined by debates about public-safety issues amid the city’s ongoing gun violence crisis.

OnePA Executive Director Steve Paul said members of the group were “heartbroken, and our condolences and sympathy are with their family.”

At this point in the article, an advertisement appears, something that stops a lot of readers.

“Today, a One PA team member tragically lost their life,” Paul said in a statement. “We are mourning this senseless loss and continuing to gather the facts and investigate what happened.”

Paul previously worked in the Council office of Helen Gym, who is now a mayoral candidate running in the May 16 primary with the backing of OnePA and other progressive organizations. The group is also canvassing on behalf of Council candidates Seth Oberman-Anderson, Rue Landau, Amanda McIllmurray, Isaiah Thomas, and Erika Almirón.

So, it took Inquirer reporters Sean Collins Walsh, Chris Palmer, and Ellie Rushing six paragraphs to let readers know that the canvassers were canvassing for Helen Gym Flaherty. If a reader’s only news source was the Inky — mine isn’t — wouldn’t he wonder for whom OnePA was canvassing? I sure hope his attention span was long enough to get past the first advertisement!

The 22-year-old — who was in legal possession of his handgun — remained on the scene afterward the shooting and was taken to the homicide unit to be questioned by detectives, according to Chief Inspector Scott Small. The 22-year-old’s car was also still on the street after the crime, Small said, and OnePA pamphlets could be seen in its passenger seat.

Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said the victim and the man accused of shooting him knew each other and began arguing after they “happened upon each other” on the 2000 block of Church Lane[1]At or near the intersection with Lambert Street, near the Church Lane Food Market, a bodega. around 4 p.m. Vanore was not certain what the argument was about, but said detectives were investigating the possibility that it related to an existing dispute.

Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, the head of the Police Department’s homicide unit, said that the two men “had always had a beef,” and that when they crossed paths on the street, the 46-year-old pulled out a gun — which was not registered to him — and the 22-year-old then pulled his firearm, shooting the older man once in the armpit.

The shooter claimed that he was acting in self-defense, but the important part to note is that both men were packing heat, one of them illegally, while canvassing, in broad daylight, for Mrs Flaherty. No wonder the guy carrying illegally was part of OnePA, ’cause he certainly seems to support the voting ‘rights’ of felons.

The candidate, of course, prefers sending “non-police mental health mobile crisis units” to reduce the city’s “gun violence” crisis, but perhaps there were no social workers in the canvassing crews.

Mrs Flaherty expressed sorrow, but made it clear that the shooter and his victim were not part of her official campaign.

In a statement issued Monday night, Gym said she was “devastated to hear about the tragic death of a canvasser today.”

“My thoughts are with the family of the victim, the One PA community, and everyone impacted by this irrevocable loss,” Gym said. “Though the canvasser was not part of our campaign, this loss is deeply felt by all of us.”

If Mrs Flaherty, who promises to “Get illegal guns off our streets,” and to “Provide interventions to stop those in the path of violence,” had anything to say about people canvassing for her carrying guns, the Inquirer never mentioned it.

References

References
↑1 At or near the intersection with Lambert Street, near the Church Lane Food Market, a bodega.
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Helping without helping

I guess that I was wrong . . . sort of.

I had said, on Twitter, that The Philadelphia Inquirer would not publish the photos of two escaped criminals, one of whom was accused of murder, even though the other media in the City of Brotherly Love did. After all, publishing their mugshots might help in apprehending them, and, of course, since the suspects are both black, publishing their photos would be raaaacist. Much of the professional media in the city have criticized Fox29’s Steve Keeley for his crime coverage, for that very reason. Cherri Gregg of WHYY, the Philadelphia affiliate of National Public Radio, wrote:

I rarely speak badly of news outlets — BUT Steve Keeley FOX 29’s coverage of crime — definitely makes me cringe. Crime coverage can be very harmful and scares people.

I have been working with my fellow Board Members at Law & Justice Journalism Project to train journalists to do better. Our crime coverage must be community centered — otherwise it can be harmful, sensationalized and disproportionate to what is really happening. AND who gets harmed?? Black and brown people… Black communities and Black men.

Shockingly enough, the Inquirer did cover the story, and I am amused:

Two men, including one charged with 4 murders, escaped from a Philly jail, police say

The escape happened around 8 p.m. Sunday night but was not made public until Monday evening.

by Samantha Melamed | Monday, May 8, 2023 | 8:48 PM EDT

Two men escaped from the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center on Sunday at 8:30 p.m., but their absence was not noticed until Monday afternoon, Prisons Commissioner Blanche Carney said at a news conference Monday evening.

One, Ameen Hurst, 18, was charged with four homicides, including the killing of Rodney Hargrove, who had just been released from a Philadelphia jail when he was gunned down on prison grounds in 2021.

The other, 24-year-old Nasir Grant, faces drug and gun charges.

“The goal right now is to make sure these two individuals are apprehended and brought back into custody,” Carney said, adding that both U.S. Marshals and the Philadelphia Police have joined that effort.

Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore of the Philadelphia Police Department described Hurst as “a very dangerous individual,” and said, “We are looking for the public’s help to get him back.”

I’m sorry, but this is just rolling on the floor funny. The jail, the Philadelphia Police, and U.S. Marshalls are all seeking these suspects, one of whom is described as extremely dangerous, and the “anti-racist news organization” that the Inquirer promised to be published a picture which showed enough to the suspects for readers to tell that they are both black, but not detailed enough to help readers really identify them if they passed them on the streets.

You can click on the screen captured image I took from the Inky’s article to enlarge it, but even full-sized, the photos won’t really help. At least as of the writing of this article, at 8:53 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 9th, the newspaper has not included photos large enough to readers to be able to identify the escapees.

The escape occurred less than a week after the correctional officers’ union, Local 159 of AFSCME District Council 33, entered a vote of no confidence in Carney’s leadership. They said she had failed to adequately respond to a staffing crisis that has risen to more than 800 vacancies, or 40% short of a full complement.

The prisons have been subject to a monitor appointed by a federal judge since last year, in response to a class-action lawsuit alleging inhumane and unconstitutional prison conditions.

I’ll admit it: I can’t imagine why anyone would want to be a prison guard. But, when I consider that the city’s Police Department is over 500 officers understaffed, and non-uniformed city staffing is also under authorized strength, perhaps, just perhaps, it’s time to entartain the possibility that the City of Philadelphia is a crappy place to work, period.

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I’ve said it before: today’s left are pro-choice on exactly one thing! Now Joe Biden wants to regulate your dishwasher

Remember the commercial in which mom washes the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, and the little girl asks, “So what does the dishwasher do?”

Now, I will admit it: we clean the dishes before they go in what we call the dishrinser, because I’ve installed a couple of dishwashers in my lifetime, and considering the dishwasher drain lines, and the fact that I would have to be the one to clean them or change them if they got clogged, that simply seems the best way to avoid disaster. And now Joe Biden wants to make things worse!

Now Biden is going after your DISHWASHERS: Appliances would have 27% less power and 34% less water in new White House crackdown to fight climate change

  • New rules will force dishwashers to meet harsh water and energy efficiency targets

  • It marks the latest chapter in Biden’s war on appliances that his administration claims will save Americans money

  • The DoE quietly slipped out the rule changes ahead of Cinco de Mayo festivities on Friday

by James Franey | Monday, May 8, 2023 | 1:10 PM EDT | Updated: 3:45 PM EDT

Joe Biden will face fresh accusations of meddling in the lives of American households after his administration announced a green crackdown on dishwashers.

His Department of Energy quietly released tighter rules for the home appliances on Friday afternoon as millions of people across the country prepared to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. . . . .

The rules, which form part of the administration’s climate change agenda, would slash water use by more than one-third and cut energy use limits by 27% for dishwashers in the U.S.

Any changes would only apply to new models on sale once the new rules have officially come into effect, expected to be 2027.

The new rules would force manufacturers to limit dishwashers to using 3.2 gallons of water per cycle, far below the current federal limit of 5 gallons.

There’s more at the original.

Now what would all of that do? If you have to cut the amount of water used, then you have to be using something else to clean the dishes, which has to mean better detergents and higher-pressure pumps. Reducing the amount of water used means less water in which to suspend solids cleaned from the dishes, which means an increase in clogged drain lines. This could be a bonanza for plumbers!

And if energy use limits are to be decreased by 27%, how are engineers going to get more pressure out of the pumps?

Of course, water isn’t actually saved by this, because water isn’t lost. Using more water simply means that more grey water goes into the sewer, to be cleaned at the water treatment plant, or into the septic tank, where it is filtered out through the drain field and returned to the soil. Some may evaporate into the atmosphere, where it is eventually returned to the ground as rain or snow.

This also means an increase in the price of new dishwashers, because all of the new engineering has to be paid for, but the activists have never cared about the costs to consumers.

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Hold them accountable! The good old boys’ network strikes again

I have frequently called out The Philadelphia Inquirer for poor reporting, so it is only fair when I note when they do good journalism.

The quiet handling of rape allegations at two Philly health institutions

How Jefferson and Rothman dealt with an alleged sexual assault involving an orthopedic surgeon and a medical resident.

by Wendy Ruderman | Monday, May 8, 2023

It was almost midnight and Jessica Phillips, a doctor training in orthopedic surgery, was one of the few guests remaining at a pool party that surgeon John Abraham hosted each summer for Thomas Jefferson University medical residents at his nine-bedroom Main Line home.

Phillips sat in an Adirondack-style chair by a stone fire pit with Abraham, a (Thomas) Jefferson (University) professor and division chief at the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute, a private practice whose physicians work at the university’s hospitals.

The band had packed up, and caterers had cleared the wine glasses and plates smeared with cocktail sauce. Abraham handed her a lit Cuban cigar. She later remembered being so drunk she dropped it on her pants.

The medical resident remembered little else afterward. In flashes, while in and out of consciousness, she recalled Abraham on top of her on the ornate rug in his library. She awoke in his bedroom naked and bruised, she later told multiple investigators.

In Abraham’s recollection, Phillips pulled him on top of her on the library floor, court records show, while his judgment was impaired by alcohol. Nonetheless, in a text message sent to his boss after the party, Abraham acknowledged it was “unethical” to have sex with a medical resident.

It’s a very long story, and there’s a lot of he said/she said in it. Both physicians were intoxicated, both married, though Dr Abraham, then 43-years-old, was going through a divorce, and neither was really capable of consent. As her supervisor, Dr Abraham was contractually barred from a sexual relationship with a subordinate. An investigation resulted in no criminal charges. This is being made public because both Dr Abraham and Dr Phillips are suing.

The events of the June 2018 party spurred three separate investigations and three lawsuits – all now rolling back the confidentiality that usually cloaks how major institutions handle sexual misconduct claims. The cases chronicle sex, power and money in the male-dominated world of orthopedic surgery.

Both Phillips and Abraham say they were victims. They blame Jefferson and Rothman for protecting their institutional interests despite federal regulations that are supposed to ensure sexual assault cases are dealt with fairly.

Ahhh, yes, “protecting their institutional interests”. That’s what “institutions” do!

Jefferson used the threat of federal reporting requirements to force Abraham out of its hospitals while evading formal reports that would let other institutions know what happened.

Then Jefferson’s and Rothman’s leadership brokered a deal that avoided a sexual misconduct hearing and ultimately closed an investigation opened under the federal Title IX law prohibiting sex-based discrimination.

Rothman’s all-male board of directors decided not to fire Abraham. Instead, they restricted him from working in Jefferson’s hospitals or interacting with Jefferson residents. Eventually, they moved him to a hospital network not affiliated with Jefferson in New Jersey.

I remember when then-District Attorney Seth Williams went hard after Monsignor William Lynn, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s supervisor of priest assignments, who was convicted on one of two counts of child endangerment for “knowingly placing minors in danger when he reassigned troubled priests to parishes where they would have access to children.” Msgr Lynn wound up serving almost three years of his three-to-six year sentence, when his conviction was overturned, twice actually, for Mr Williams and Judge Teresa Sarmina misapplying the law.

So, with all of this, why isn’t current Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner going after Thomas Jefferson University and the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute for doing what is a very similar thing? According to the Inquirer, Rothman basically moved Dr Abraham to someplace where his conduct wasn’t widely known, and to a hospital network outside of their control . . . and their liability.

Amid investigations by the university and Rothman, Abraham said, a Jefferson top doctor offered him a deal in a private conversation: Take a voluntary leave, and we won’t report the alleged sexual misconduct.

Congress generally expects health institutions employing doctors accused of wrongdoing to file a report into the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), a federal tracking system.

Hospitals must query the data bank before credentialing a newly hired doctor to ensure that the person hasn’t gotten into trouble elsewhere. Data bank reports also go to state licensing boards.

In court depositions, Abraham recalled getting a phone call from Edmund Pribitkin, chief physician and executive vice president of Jefferson Health, telling him that he had to take an immediate leave of absence from Jefferson.

If he didn’t do as told, Pribitkin said, the sexual assault allegations would go before the hospital’s medical executive committee and they’d likely have to report him to the NPDB, according to Abraham.

So, Rothman essentially blackmailed Dr Abraham into taking an immediate leave, by saying that the Institute would commit a crime by not reporting the sexual assault allegations. Perhaps it’s not just the District Attorney who needs to look into this, but the United States Attorney as well, given that this is an allegation of violation of federal law.

There’s a lot more information at the Inky’s original, and it’s not limited to subscribers, though if you access more than a few articles a month, the paywall does come down.

As a Mass-every-Sunday Catholic, I was very disappointed with the allegations against Msgr Lynn. At most, I saw what he was alleged to have done as a crime by Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, but when this became a criminal case, the Cardinal, by then retired, 88-years-old, and suffering from cancer and dementia, couldn’t be tried. Early in the trial, Judge Sarmina ruled that Cardinal Bevilacqua was able and competent to give testimony as a witness in the case, but just two days after her ruling, the Cardinal died in his sleep. But while Mr Williams and Judge Sarmina misapplied the law as it stood, which resulted in an unfair, and eventually reversed, conviction, the point that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia shuffled around offending priests to keep them from being defrocked or, worse, charged, tried, and convicted in sexual abuse cases was a valid one. Supervisory officials such as then Pennsylvania State University President Graham Spanier, Athletic Director Tim Curley, and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz, who was responsible for oversight of the campus police department, were all held accountable for covering up former Assistant Football Coach Jerry Sandusky’s rape of a young boy, though they were incarcerated for just a couple of months each.

The Inquirer’s story is the first step, and now law enforcement needs to look into this case. Yeah, there are some wealthy and powerful interests involved here, people able to pay for major league legal help, but the potential prosecution has plenty of money as well. Hold them accountable, and maybe some other good old boys network will think twice before covering up things.

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Danielle Outlaw will probably fire another good cop

To be a Philly cop, you must be politically correct and like totally #woke!

A Philly detective who handles sex crimes is under investigation for allegedly posting crude tweets about women, police say

Ron Kahlan’s account often tweeted vulgar sexual innuendo and used boorish language. Internal Affairs is investigating, police said.

by Chris Palmer and Ellie Rushing | Sunday, May 7, 2023 | 4:21 _PM EDT

A detective in the Philadelphia Police Department’s special victims unit who is assigned to investigate sex crimes is under internal investigation for a series of offensive tweets posted on his account over the years, including a number of crude sexual remarks about women.

“The only reason [I’m] watching the Phils now is because [of] the hot chick behind the on-deck circle!!!” read a tweet posted on Ron Kahlan’s Twitter page in 2012. That post was among the tamest of the tweets Kahlan allegedly wrote that were shared Saturday by an Instagram account called WatchOutPhilly.

In 2012? Holy calculator, Batman, that was 11 years ago! More, it was the latest of the tweets shown in the links; all of the rest pictured are dated in 2011.

In others, Kahlan’s account replied to pages such as “@ILikeGirlsDaily” with vulgar sexual innuendo and boorish language.

Many of the tweets in question were from 2011 or 2012, according to an Inquirer review. In more recent years, Kahlan’s account — which used the handle “@rkppd” — tended to comment instead on politics, often by making disparaging remarks about Democrats, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs.

If you read the entire article, you will note that nowhere in it is any contention that he wrote in any way differently about male Democrats. And the Inky’s story does not indicate any of the social media activities “with vulgar sexual innuendo and boorish language” occurred later than 2012.

In February, his account re-tweeted a post from another account asking if Christine Blasey Ford — the woman who accused then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault — should be arrested.

So, he didn’t write it himself, but retweeted someone else. And a lot people have thought that Dr Ford’s completely unsubstantiated allegations, in an attempt to deny Justice Kavanaugh confirmation, should entail some consequences for her, especially given that Mr Kavanaugh had actually kept detailed engagement calendars from the time, and none indicated that he ever attended the event Dr Ford alleged that he did. Why shouldn’t Dr Ford’s false allegations subject her to some negative consequences?

The Inquirer continues to note that the case has been turned over to Internal Affairs.

Many of the tweets on Kahlan’s page were crude, including comments about woman’s appearances and vulgar descriptions of sex acts.

Shockingly, it appears that Detective Kahlan is a normal male, attracted to women. No wonder the left are appalled!

You know what else isn’t in there? There are no allegations that the Detective unjustifiably threw any cases.

Kahlan, a 24-year veteran of the force, is not the first Philadelphia officer to come under scrutiny for his social media presence. In 2019, advocates with the Plain View Project published a database of racist or offensive Facebook posts or comments made by hundreds of city cops.

The Police Department went on to fire 15 officers and discipline dozens of others for what they wrote, an unprecedented undertaking. Still, some officers have since won their jobs back in arbitration proceedings mandated under the city’s contract with the police union.

So, the city engaged in a rush to judgement, and had to reinstate some of the officers.

Clearly, the standard is that a Philadelphia police officer must have zero social media presence, unless all of his postings are either innocuous things about birthdays and puppies and kittens, or politically support Democrats. I’m pretty sure that if Detective Kahlan had tweeted “Helen Gym is very attractive,” it would have been acceptable.

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‘Decarceration’ is deadly to black Americans The problem is not mass incarceration; the problem is that not enough people are incarcerated, for not a long enough time.

It was two months ago that Congress, which is normally hands off but does have jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, rejected the city’s attempt to overhaul its criminal law, an attempt which would have reduced or eliminated mandatory minimums.

Crime has increased in our nation’s capital, increased dramatically this year. The chart at the right is from the city’s Metropolitan Police Department, and was current as of 12:00 AM EDT on Friday, May 5th. You’d think that the residents of the District would want safer streets, but the far-left leadership apparently do not.

Well, the city’s retiring police chief has spoken out:

In D.C., many killers were previously jailed. We deserve better.

by Colbert I King, Washington Post Columnist | Friday, May 5, 2023 | 3:24 PM EDT

The average person arrested for homicide has been arrested 11 times previously, said D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III during a March news conference on D.C. crime with Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D). Contee’s widely publicized statement drew a comment from Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-Ga.), an outspoken opponent of the D.C. Council criminal code reform bill that Congress recently rejected. Carter said the chief’s statement “means that before someone commits the horrible act of ending an innocent life, they’ve already left — at least — 11 other victims in their wake.”

D.C. police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck told me this week that Contee’s statement was based on data in the department’s records management system. Asked for clarification on the meaning of the number, Sternbeck said, “The 11 prior arrests include various crimes, and not just homicide offenses.” Contee, who is retiring in June, added another dimension to the arrest data. He said during the news conference that “the average homicide victim … also has been arrested 10 or 11 times prior to them being a homicide victim.”

Is anyone really surprised by that? While the numbers may vary from city-to-city — and many of my reports deal with Philadelphia — the trend is the same, bad guys killing other bad guys.

A December 2021 analysis of shootings and homicides in the District, conducted by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, sheds some light on both the scope of gun violence and Contee’s observations regarding D.C. arrest histories.

The NICJR report aggregates what is anecdotally known or suspected. It found that across homicides and shootings, victims and suspects are demographically similar — about 96 percent of those in both categories in homicides and nonfatal shootings were Black, while about 65 percent were between the ages of 18 and 34. Roughly 90 percent were male.

In addition, and to underscore Contee’s statements, approximately 86 percent of homicide victims and suspects were previously known to the criminal justice system. About 46 percent had been incarcerated, according to the report.

So, if both killers and victims are very likely to have been, to use the euphemism, “previously known to the criminal justice system,” wouldn’t one very powerful way to reduce homicides be to prosecute them seriously, and incarcerate them to the maximum allowed under the law, because criminals, and apparently their victims as well, aren’t out on the streets and able to kill or be killed.

If you decide to do a Google search for mass incarceration, you’ll get “About 24,400,000 results”, and at least the first one shown are all lathered up about the horrors of mass incarceration. The Sentencing Project tell us:

Fifty years ago, the United States embarked on a path of mass incarceration that has led to a staggering increase in the prison population. Today, almost 2 million individuals – disproportionately Black Americans – are incarcerated in our nation’s prisons and jails. The prison population has grown 500% since 1973, the year America began to sharply increase its prison population.

But when the statistics given above noted that 96% of the murders and shootings in Washington, DC, had both perpetrator and victim being black, in a city where only 43% of the population are black, the notion that incarcerated prisoners are “disproportionately black Americans” seems kind of silly; incarceration depends on who actually commits crimes, not on their percentage of the population.

Nor is Washington somehow different. While few police departments report racial breakdowns on a daily basis, the St Louis Metropolitan Police Department does, and in a city in which 44.8% of the population are black, 87.8% of murder victims so far this year have been black, and 35 out of 38 identified suspects, 92.1%, were also black.

Yet the ‘decarceration‘ movement is all about the fact that so many black Americans are in jail, ‘disproportionately’ to their percentage of the population, but seemingly far less disproportionately to the who are committing crimes.

Simply put, the decarceration movement is all about getting more black Americans murdered! Oh, the #woke and #BlackLivesMatter activists might not realize it — or admit it if they do — but that’s what the statistics show.

The problem is not mass incarceration; the problem is that not enough people are incarcerated, for not a long enough time.
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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.

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Remember when we were told that it was nobody else’s business what people did in their bedrooms?

Sometimes the stupidity gets piled so high and deep that I wind up just shaking my head. Yeah, I realize that some people just feel that they have to top the past sexual revelation, and when I find myself saying, “Well, this takes the cake,” I have to realize that something even dumber will soon arise.

When my boyfriend transitioned into my girlfriend, men started to regularly hit on her. It feels like they’re erasing our queer relationship.

Story by insider@insider.com (Lucy Aalto) • Tuesday, May 2, 2023

When Summer came out as transgender, the people around us — both the people we knew and complete strangers — started treating us differently.

I’m shocked, shocked! that people would treat a couple who previously fit in, at least on the outside, as normal, would be treated differently when they ‘transitioned’ into not normal.

Now that we both identify as women, people treat me like a queer woman for the first time in my life, even though I had been openly identifying as bisexual for years. But I was most surprised by the amount of attention we got from strangers in public, especially from men.

The author, Lucy Aalto, may have “been openly identifying as bisexual for years”, but how would strangers have known that?

Before Summer’s transition, our relationship passed as heterosexual. In other words, when Summer identified as a man, I was straight in the eyes of everyone I knew. My bisexuality was easily erased.

When Summer came out as trans and started identifying as a woman, everything changed. As Summer grew into her newfound femininity, people close to us finally noticed I was queer.

While they were all mostly accepting, they had some inappropriate questions. “How do you have sex?” someone asked me as if the configuration of our genitals had changed in the few short months since Summer’s coming out. “A woman wants to be with a man, right?” Summer’s mother asked, looking for assurance that we weren’t just roommates now.

I knew these questions — misguided as they were — came from a place of ignorance, not malice. They were a natural and expected part of Summer’s transition. But for me, they meant something else. I’ve long identified as queer, but for the first time, I was being treated as openly and visibly gay. This brought me mixed feelings. Sure, I’m now being seen for who I truly am, but it comes with the “othering” that so many queer folks experience.

I’m old enough to remember when we were told that it was nobody else’s business what people did in their bedrooms, but this is different on a completely different level. Miss Aalto stated that she is bisexual, but was apparently bothered when people she didn’t know didn’t know that. Now, people are perceiving her as a lesbian, because she’s hooked up with someone who is trying to appear to be a woman, and the couple are into public displays of affection, but that bothers her as well. There’s just no satisfying some people!

The first thing I noticed was the looks. People took note of us in public so much more. Before, the only time I’d felt this way was when we visited my hometown, where the population is majority white. I, too, am white, but Summer is ethnically Chinese. It was clear that some of the locals were not used to interracial relationships. If we felt scrutinized before, it multiplied by 10 the first time we visited after Summer’s transition began.

It’s actually pretty simple, though the author doesn’t seem to recognize it: ‘transgenderism’ is not seen as normal, by the vast majority of the public. Even those who support the cockamamie idea that girls can be boys and boys can be girls as an abstract concept are going to react differently when they actually meet someone who’s trying to do it. This is the bringing the “what we do in our bedroom” part into the public domain.

The author continues to tell us that “Summer” is very physically attractive, and he gets hit on by men — who are obviously drunk or stoned enough not to realize that “Summer” isn’t really the chick they want — when they are in public, even in an obviously ‘coupled relationship.

Of course, the majority of this flirtation comes from men. I don’t fault them for “shooting their shot.” Hell, she’s my girlfriend. If anyone finds her attractive, it’s me. But the male attention doesn’t stop when we’re together. . . . .

It’s a strange dichotomy: We’re so publicly a queer couple now, but some men choose to ignore we are together. It feels like my queerness is being erased in a whole new way.

This is where it really gets amusing: the author doesn’t blame men from “shooting their shot,” she says, but then she tells us that she really does resent it, because strangers aren’t recognizing that she’s a lesbian. More, “Summer” Tao wrote, just two months ago, telling us that he and Miss Aalto were in an “open relationship,” and that he was also into dating men.

We’ve decided to pay no mind to the opinions of strange men. Similarly, we ignore the increased looks in public.

I will not hide my beautiful, queer relationship because others find it strange or want to ignore it. They’re welcome to stop looking whenever they want.

LOL! They’ve “decided to pay no mind to the opinions of strange men,” yet here Miss Aalto is, telling us how much she does mind the opinions of strangers.

At least Mr Tao and Miss Aalto, but really for a lot of the abnormal population, the population who once told us that what they do in their bedrooms is nobody else’s business, very much want other people to have some idea what they do behind closed doors. In a strange way, it’s a form of “arm candy,” men wanting other people to know just what a hot babe they’ve scored, to gain some sort of one-upsmanship and envy over other men, to improve their status by broadcasting that they’ve got a trophy wife or girlfriend. Miss Aalto is acting pretty much the same way, at least from what she has written, but she doesn’t realize what she’s doing.
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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.

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In trying to avoid calling street gangs gangs, The Philadelphia Inquirer has again beclowned itself.

We have frequently mocked, as have others, when we were reliably informed by what I have frequently referred to as The Philadelphia Enquirer[1]RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt. that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes had “beefs” with other cliques, so we must replace the term “gang-bangers” with “cliques of young men” or “clique beefers”. District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office seem to prefer the term “rival street groups.” Somehow, some way, the #woke[2]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading publisher and editors and journolists[3]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 at our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper just can’t bring themselves to say the word “gang.”

And here they go again!

West Philly street group members charged with three shootings, including two homicides

The investigation follows a December bust by the District Attorney’s Office’s Gun Violence Task Force

by Jesse Bunch and Ellie Rushing | Tuesday, May 2, 2023

Philadelphia law enforcement officials on Tuesday announced the arrests of four people affiliated with West Philadelphia street groups who they say are responsible for committing multiple shootings in 2021 that left two people dead.

The District Attorney’s Office, following an investigation that took longer than a year, said it has charged four people connected with the street groups known as “56st” and “524″ for their roles in the shooting deaths of two people in Southwest Philadelphia, as well as shootings that injured three others.

Roderick Williams, 23, faces charges of murder, attempted murder, and firearms violations in the shooting death of 21-year-old Michael Mines in April 2021, said Jeffrey Palmer, assistant supervisor of the District Attorney’s Office’s Gun Violence Task Force.

Williams is affiliated with “56st,” Palmer said, a group based in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood that also goes by “Christy Rec,” a reference to the nearby recreation center.

There’s more at the original.

The Inky’s original was 693 words long, in which I counted 11 uses of the word ‘group’ or ‘groups,’ and no use at all of the words ‘gang’ or ‘gangs.’ The previous Inquirer article linked in the blurb also used the words ‘group’ and ‘groups,’ but, in the sixth paragraph down, did use the description “rival gang”, almost certainly for prosaic reasons, since reporters Rodrigo Torrejón and Ellie Rushing used the word group earlier in the same sentence.

One wonders if they got the backs of their hands smacked by Inquirer Editor and Senior Vice President Gabriel Escobar. 🙂

Of course, the Inky, which publisher Elizabeth Hughes promised to make an “anti-racist news organization,” is very, very worried about anything which could cast doubt on that:

A group of Black community advocates criticized a recent Inquirer investigation as racist and harmful

Advocates said the story perpetuated unfair stereotypes. The Inquirer’s editor said “the goal here was to bring a serious issue to light, and the story has done that.”

by Chris Palmer | Monday, May 1, 2023

A group of prominent Black community advocates gathered Monday to criticize a recent Inquirer investigation into how the city awarded millions in anti-violence grants as racist and harmful, calling it an unfair portrayal of the difficult work advocates have long been performing in communities suffering from high rates of gunfire.

Speaking at a news conference in North Philadelphia, Reuben Jones, executive director of the nonprofit Frontline Dads, said the story — which found that a city-run grant program had invested in some community nonprofits without budgets, employees, or directors — perpetuated racist stereotypes, including the notion that Black people from poor neighborhoods can’t be trusted to responsibly manage taxpayer money.

Standing before a group of about two dozen other advocates, Jones said: “These are the community members that represent healing … in the community that you don’t respect, that you don’t value, that you don’t trust.”

There’s more at the original, but the Inky’s story was basically pointing out that several — not all — of the organizations granted the funds did not have the kind of internal organizational structure which allowed either efficient spending or responsible reporting of expenditures.

But the city’s grant program (with administrative costs it totaled $22 million) was also marked by a politicized selection process that flushed millions of dollars into nascent nonprofits unprepared to manage the money — resulting in millions of dollars left unspent and tens of thousands unaccounted for, an Inquirer investigation has found.

Is that racist?

Speakers at Monday’s news conference defended the work that many grassroots organizations do, saying many have provided services for years without any outside funding or recognition. They said advocates frequently have to adjust tactics or spending to respond to the needs of participants, many of whom are difficult to reach — and that their groups should not be criticized for having to change course.

Holston was among the speakers who said the city needs to distribute more funding to grassroots organizations led by Black men and women. He added that critical reporting could make that more difficult to achieve.

“Do not bash the city for actually doing what we asked: To be creative and take a risk in the middle of an emergency. That’s what they’re supposed to do,” Holston said. “When you bash them like that, we can’t get them to do that again.”

You know what wasn’t in the article? There were no claims that the investigative article by the Inquirer actually got anything wrong, just that it was harmful for the newspaper to actually investigate the subject. But the Inky was worried enough that the top editor, Mr Escobar, felt the need to respond, something he rarely does.

So, if simply questioning what a civic organization does with government money is racist, I have to ask the next question: is referring to gangs, the word most people would use, racist, so racist that the Inky has to use the awkward formulation “street groups”? It’s not as though readers don’t know that the newspaper is referring to gangs.

Do the editors and journolists of the Inquirer simply assume that all readers will see the word ‘gang’ and read ‘black’? It’s not like all gangs are black gangs, but perhaps the denizens of the newsroom believe that they are.

In striving to become an “anti-racist news organization,” the Inquirer has beclowned itself. The vast majority of readers would have seen nothing special about the words ‘gang’ or ‘gangs,’ but the newspaper went through the blatantly obvious verbal contortions in a way which makes readers pay attention to the awkward phraseology, something which can only lead readers to do the opposite of what the Inky is trying to do, downplay the notions of gangs.

References

References
↑1 RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt.
↑2 From Wikipedia:

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

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

↑3 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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Killadelphia Dear Philadelphia Inquirer: Don't tell us a story, just tell us the truth!

We previously noted the killing of three Philadelphia teenagers in a quadruple shooting in the 5900 block of Palmetto Street, and how The Philadelphia Inquirer gave us several paragraphs telling us what good kids the victims were. I expressed some doubt about that, given an odd line noting the belief of the Philadelphia Police Department that the alleged shooters then took the surviving victim to the hospital.

We then pointed out, the following day, the seeming editorial slant of the Inquirer to tell us that some juvenile victims of homicide are as pure as the wind-driven snow, even if the early evidence seems to cast doubt on that.

Well, here we go!

‘Transaction’ gone wrong led to the shooting of four teens in Northeast Philly on Friday, police say

The victims’ families, meanwhile, are grieving and preparing to bury their children.

by Ellie Rushing | Monday, May 1, 2023

Police say they have identified two people who are wanted in connection with a quadruple shooting in Northeast Philadelphia on Friday that left three juveniles dead and another seriously injured, and investigators believe the violence was the result of a “transaction” gone wrong.

Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, head of the Homicide Unit, said that around 2:15 p.m., two groups of young men arrived in separate cars on the 5900 block of Palmetto Street, and went inside a rowhouse “for some sort of transaction.”

But at some point during the meeting, shortly after 3:15 p.m., something went wrong and gunfire erupted, Ransom said.

“Some sort of transaction,” huh? Just what sort of “transaction” in a private residence can result in gunfire?

Ransom declined to say what the transaction involved, citing the ongoing investigation.

Drugs? Perhaps selling guns? The police haven’t told us, but my imagination isn’t quite good enough to guess what sorts of legal “transaction” could have been involved, despite the characterization in the previous Inky story telling us what great kids the victims were.

Ransom said two cousins are wanted in connection with the shooting: Tyree Lennon, 22, and Taj Lennon, 15.

No, of course the Inquirer didn’t provide us with Tyree Lennon’s mugshot; that came from Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News. Mr Keeley continued, in the series of tweets, to tell us something about the older Mr Lennon:

22yr old WANTED by @PhillyPolice in TRIPLE MURDER of 14, 17 & 18 yr olds on Palmetto St. had just been released by a judge & put on house arrest just 15 days before the three teens shot & killed at the home. He had already (violated) the house arrest in the days before murders.

2/3 Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office requested $1 Million bail. Judge then reduced that to 10% of $400k & put him on house arrest. He had three bench warrants. One for violent attack on 11 month old baby in the SAME Palmetto Street house where murders happened Friday.

3/3 Law Enforcement sources say on October 24, 2020, Tyree Lennon bit 11 month old baby on face, leg & arm drawing blood. Sources say he then beat & strangled baby’s mother. @phillypolice had “violent struggle with Lennon” when they arrested him that day & he had ghost gun on him.”

4/ on April 13th, just 15 days before the triple murder, @philadao (Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office — DRP) asked for over $1 Million bail on all of (Lennon’s) prior gun & aggravated assault charges. Bench warrant court Judge reduced it & permitted house arrest release.

5/ He had already violated the house arrest before the murders in Palmetto Street house. Another bench warrant for that house arrest violation was issued the day after the triple murder April 29th.

Tweets slightly edited by The First Street Journal for spacing and clarity.

As we have previously noted, the rest of the professional media in Philly don’t much like Mr Keeley reporting the facts when it comes to crime, but the Inquirer story had no details on Tyree Lennon other than his name, and a site search of inquirer.com for “Tyree Lennon”, at 12:42 on Tuesday, May 2nd, returned no other stories mentioning him.

Some have stated on Twitter that it was Judge Jacki Lyde-Frazier who reduced Mr Lennon’s bail. If this is true, how do we hole Judge Frazier-Lyde accountable for reducing the bail to a level that Mr Lennon could manage, to let him out of jail, to (allegedly) shoot four people? When even the notoriously police-hating, soft-on-crime District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office are requesting a million-dollar bail amount, you know that they believed that Mr Lennon was a real threat and flight risk.

Back to the Inky:

Two others, ages 15 and 16, have also been charged with illegal gun possession in connection with the incident. Police believe the teens dropped off a 16-year-old, who had been shot in the stomach at the Palmetto Street shooting, at Jefferson Frankford Hospital on Friday afternoon. Police recovered their vehicle, a Ford Edge, crashed nearby shortly after and arrested the teens.

There’s a lot of information we haven’t been given. Were the two teens arrested with the Lennons, or were they with the victims? Whichever it was, they were carrying firearms illegally.

“My son was a good kid,” said Khalif Frezghi’s mother, who asked not to be named for privacy reasons. “He was caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

We really can’t expect a murder victim’s mother to say anything other than something good about him, but if he was at the Lennons’ for an unspecified but very probably illegal “transaction,” he was more than at “the wrong place, at the wrong time,” but also there for the wrong thing, with the wrong people, as well.

After the previous quoted paragraph were more, telling us what good kids the deceased were, and the Inquirer published them uncritically. The Inky is still trying to push the image that the deceased were just innocent little angels, trying to tell us a story rather than simply telling us the truth.