Author Archives: Dana Pico

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Once again, the Lexington Herald-Leader chooses to break McClatchy policy, and publish photo of a criminal suspect Why? I suspect it's because he's white

It has been awhile since we last mentioned the McClatchy Mugshot Policy:

Publishing mugshots of arrestees has been shown to have lasting effects on both the people photographed and marginalized communities. The permanence of the internet can mean those arrested but not convicted of a crime have the photograph attached to their names forever. Beyond the personal impact, inappropriate publication of mugshots disproportionately harms people of color and those with mental illness. In fact, some police departments have started moving away from taking/releasing mugshots as a routine part of their procedures.

To address these concerns, McClatchy will not publish crime mugshots — online, or in print, from any newsroom or content-producing team — unless approved by an editor. To be clear, this means that in addition to photos accompanying text stories, McClatchy will not publish “Most wanted” or “Mugshot galleries” in slide-show, video or print.

Any exception to this policy must be approved by an editor. Editors considering an exception should ask:

  • Is there an urgent threat to the community?
  • Is this person a public official or the suspect in a hate crime?
  • Is this a serial killer suspect or a high-profile crime?

If an exception is made, editors will need to take an additional step with the Pub Center to confirm publication by making a note in the ‘package notes‘ field in Sluglife.

Oddly enough, I have never been able to find the McClatchy mugshot policy officially published anywhere, but after the apparently internal memo went out, but on August 20, 2020, then Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a McClatchy newspaper, reporter Nichole Manna published it in a tweet.

The Lexington Herald-Leader is another McClatchy newspaper, so you would assume that that newspaper would follow the policy, right?

‘Brazen theft.’ Former University of Kentucky student accused in $67 million fraud

by Bill Estep | Thursday, February 16, 2023 | 11:27 AM EST | Updated: Friday, February 17, 2023 | 11:21 AM EST

Screenshot of Herald-Leader logo and accompanying photo, taken at 11:45 AM EST on Friday, February 17, 2023. Click to enlarge.

A former Lexington resident and University of Kentucky student has been accused of siphoning $28 million from a company and using it for expensive personal purchases, including a $16 million jet and a luxury box at a sports arena.

Christopher S. Kirchner was charged with wire fraud in a federal criminal complaint.

Authorities arrested him Valentine’s Day at his home in a gated community in Westlake, Texas, according to court records.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a separate civil complaint against Kirchner, 35, alleging he lied over and over to investors in raising $67 million for his company, Slync.io, and drained much of it for himself even as the company didn’t meet payroll at times.

“This case concerns an offering fraud orchestrated by Kirchner . . . involving his brazen theft of over $28 million of investor funds to fund his lavish lifestyle,” SEC attorneys said in the complaint.

Read more here.

So, Mr Kirshner is accused of a rather serious felony, and the story is of some interest in Kentucky, but I have to ask: under which of the three mugshot policy exceptions does Mr Kirshner’s case fall?[1]In writing this story, I initially saved Mr Kirshner’s photo from the story itself, but decided instead to take a screenshot, including the newspaper’s logo, to prove what I have stated, … Continue reading Is Mr Kirshner an urgent threat to the community? He had his initial court appearance, in Texas, earlier this week, and was released pending a trial. Clearly federal law enforcement in Texas did not consider him to be an urgent enough threat to hold him without bail. Is he a public official or the suspect in a hate crime? No, he is a private individual, and no hate crime is either charged or alleged. Is he “a serial killer suspect or a high-profile crime?” He isn’t charged with killing anyone, and wire fraud isn’t exactly what anyone would call a “high-profile crime.”

So, why did what my best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal break policy and include Mr Kirshner’s photograph? There’s nothing in reporter Bill Estep’s story which indicated that Mr Kirshner is a previously convicted criminal, and if he is acquitted — and remember: he is legally innocent until proven guilty — he will have been harmed, according to the McClatchy policy statement that “The permanence of the internet can mean those arrested but not convicted of a crime have the photograph attached to their names forever.”

Mr Estep has been with the newspaper for a long, long time; it would seem improbable that he would have been unaware of the McClatchy policy. If Mr Estep went ahead and published this story, under his own byline, without getting approval of Editor Peter Baniak, he again violated policy. Whether Mr Baniak actually did approve the publication of Mr Kirshner’s photograph is unknown.

As regular readers know, The First Street Journal does not share the McClatchy policy’s concerns, and regularly publishes photos of those accused of crimes. I do not object to the newpaper publishing Mr Kirshner’s photograph; I do object to the hypocrisy being shown by publishing it.

There is, of course, more. As we have previously reported, the newspaper has previously published photos of white suspects, including this, and especially this one, in which the mugshots of five white convicted criminals were published, out of nearly two dozen inmates affected.

Let me be clear about this: my strong impression is that the editor and staffers of the Lexington Herald-Leader have been far more guarded about publishing photographs of black criminal suspects and convicted criminals than white suspects and convicted criminals. I suspect, but cannot prove, that this is more than just an unconscious bias, but a deliberate policy choice, because these ‘exceptions’ to the policy have occurred far too often to be obvious coincidences.

References

References
↑1 In writing this story, I initially saved Mr Kirshner’s photo from the story itself, but decided instead to take a screenshot, including the newspaper’s logo, to prove what I have stated, in case it is edited out later.
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Once mayoral candidates wanted to bypass Larry Krasner, The Philadelphia Inquirer leapt to his defense

Yup, I expected this.

Despite the tremendous rise in crime, the Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer endorsed District Attorney Larry Krasner for re-election on Monday, May 9, 2021, a day in which the City of Brotherly Love was reporting 183 homicides thus far that year, 46 more than the same day the previous year, and 1.4186 per day. The Editorial Board wrote at the time:

The Democratic primary for Philadelphia district attorney has been drawing national attention, and understandably so. Aside from its colorful main characters — an incumbent DA who’s a national icon in progressive circles, opposed by a former assistant DA whom he’d fired when he took the job — the race hinges on a powerful question: Is dramatic criminal-justice reform possible in a time of rising gun violence and murder rates?

No one can dispute the numbers: Philadelphia experienced the most homicides in 2020 in nearly 60 years, and 2021 is off to an even worse start. The first-term incumbent district attorney, Larry Krasner, notes that this spike parallels a national trend, and he insists it isn’t connected to his programs aimed at curbing mass incarceration. But his opponent, Carlos Vega, argues that Krasner’s approach to prosecuting gun offenses is too lenient — citing recent reports on low conviction rates for such crimes — and that the “bad guys” all know it. . . . .

A complex, relatively recent spike in gun violence isn’t a reason to return to the mass incarceration regime of yesteryear, but a challenge to do better.

It’s all that you need to know: the #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 Editorial Board supported Mr Krasner’s very effective efforts at reducing “mass incarceration.” That criminals who could have been in jail but were not behind bars because of Mr Krasner’s policies, such as Hasan Elliot, were killing people just didn’t seem to matter to the Board.

Now, three current mayoral candidates, three Democratic mayoral candidates, have said they will find ways to circumvent the George Soros-sponsored District Attorney, to get those accused of violent crimes prosecuted by the United States Attorney, under federal law, rather than state law under Let ’em Loose Larry.

As we previously reported, the Editorial Board are perfectly aware that Philadelphians don’t feel safe in the city, and that the “percentage of Black and Hispanic Philadelphians who feel unsafe in their neighborhood is double the percentage of white Philadelphians.” Of course, teh Board blamed that not on crime, not on criminals, but the internal segregation in the city.

And now it seems that the Board are aghast that some politicians, some Democratic politicians want to cut the District Attorney out of the loop:

Circumventing DA Larry Krasner is not the answer to city’s gun woes | Editorial

A consistent theme that emerges in conversations on public safety in Philadelphia is, some say, how difficult Krasner makes it for others to work with him. It is critical they keep trying.

by The Editorial Board | Thursday, February 16, 2023 | 8:07 AM EST

Gun violence is one of the defining challenges facing Philadelphia, and whoever wants to be the next mayor must have answers on how to ensure public safety. But while there is room for debate on solutions, securing long-term results will require a coordinated effort across city government — no matter how difficult some agencies are to work with.

LOL! I find it interesting that the Editorial Board have restricted this to paid subscribers only.[2]Though the Inquirer does have a paywall, non-subscribers can usually get around five ‘free’ articles a month, with the website tracking IP addresses to determine that. You could, and I … Continue reading Given that the Lenfest Institute, the non-profit organization which owns the Inquirer sent out yet another begging letter to subscribers on February 12th, you’d think that they’d want a wider audience for their editorial, if they thought it would express a popular sentiment.

That includes the office of District Attorney Larry Krasner, who — to the consternation of his critics — has questioned the efficacy of pursuing charges against those who are carrying guns without a permit.

The Inquirer very much supports increased gun control, yet it does not seem as though the Board are questioning Mr Krasner’s reluctance to enforce an existing gun control law. How does that work?

Skipping down a few paragraphs, in which the Board note that yes, under Mr Krasner, there has been a significant decrease in convictions under the Violation of the Uniform Firearm Act, and that many people, including Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw believe has led to increased crime. The Board itself recognized that “convictions on gun cases have mostly declined since Krasner took office in 2018.”

The District Attorney has blamed the decrease in convictions on poorer cases brought by the Philadelphia Police Department, but that doesn’t explain why there were more convictions previously on cases brought by that same Department.

The embattled district attorney, who was impeached last year by the Republican-controlled state House, told The Inquirer that any effort to circumvent his authority was an attempt to undo the will of the voters and compared it to the politically motivated impeachment.

“Some of the candidates for mayor are not in touch with Philadelphians,” he said. “This office has never enjoyed more love and support than it enjoys right now.”

That may be the case, but what love and support Krasner has is a result of his focus on restorative justice, not his often abrasive and condescending professional demeanor.

And there it is: the Board love Mr Krasner’s ideas about “restorative justice.” We recently noted the concept of restorative justice as stated by the University of Wisconsin Law School:

Restorative justice is a set of principles and practices that create a different approach to dealing with crime and its impacts. Restorative justice practices work to address the dehumanization frequently experienced by people in the traditional criminal justice system. Instead of viewing a criminal act as simply a violation of a rule or statute, restorative justice sees this action as a violation of people and relationships.

Restorative justice seeks to examine the harmful impact of a crime and then determines what can be done to repair that harm while holding the person who caused it accountable for his or her actions. Accountability for the offender means accepting responsibility and acting to repair the harm done. Outcomes seek to both repair the harm and address the reasons for the offense, while reducing the likelihood of re-offense. Rather than focusing on the punishment meted out, restorative justice measures results by how successfully the harm is repaired.

What, exactly, would be ‘repairing the harm’ to a shooting victim? How would one ‘repair the harm’ to someone who has been murdered? Given that the Board have recognized that a very significant number of Philadelphians, 70% of them, see public safety as the most important issue facing the city, and that two-thirds of residents have heard gunshots in the city over the past year, it would seem to me that the harm is citywide, as the people who haven’t been robbed or carjacked or stabbed or shot yet are still fearful that they could be the next victims. How can a criminal malefactor repair that harm?

There’s a lot more, with the Board noting that Mr Krasner doesn’t play well with others, and is zealous in his anti-police crusade, something with which the Board are wholeheartedly in support. They concluded:

Ultimately, for the sake of Philadelphia, it is far better for whoever is elected mayor to find a way to partner with the district attorney.

After all, it isn’t politicians who bear the brunt of leadership failures on public safety, it is vulnerable Philadelphians who must live with the everyday reality of gun violence outside their doors.

You know, that’s true enough: the city shouldn’t have to go around one of its elected officials, and the city shouldn’t have to bring in the Feds because local law enforcement won’t do its job. But Mr Krasner won his elections, in landslides, because actual law enforcement is not what a whole lot of city voters want. They want things to be nice, and they’d like things to be peaceful, but they also want things to be nice and peaceful without the police around, as though that were actually possible.

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 Though the Inquirer does have a paywall, non-subscribers can usually get around five ‘free’ articles a month, with the website tracking IP addresses to determine that. You could, and I have before I subscribed, gotten five on your home computer, then five more on your smart phone as long as it wasn’t using your home WiFi for access, than five more on your computer at work.
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Senator Karen Berg thinks that Jack can be Jill . . . and wants the public schools to enforce that

Kentucky, one of the most conservative and Republican states in the nation, elected Democrat Andy Beshear to be Governor of the Commonwealth in 2019. The previous Governor, Republican Matt Bevin, had tried to take serious action to restore the state’s employee pension fund to greater financial stability, and the teachers in the Bluegrass State went absolutely ape! Out of 1,442,390 total votes cast, then-Attorney General Beshear beat Governor Bevin by 5,189 votes, with 28,425 going to Libertarian John Hicks.

Having a Democrat as Governor has led to all kinds of mischief in Kentucky. Mr Beshear’s handling of the COVID-19 panicdemic[1]No, that’s not a typographical error; I spelled it panicdemic deliberately, because unreasoning panic is how the United States reacted to the disease. was to order churches closed — a decision eventually ruled illegal, but not until churches had been closed for nine weeks, including through Easter Sunday[2]Governor Beshear ordered the Kentucky State Police to record license plate and vehicle identification numbers of cars parked in one church parking lot on Easter Sunday, to order people who attended … Continue reading — “non-essential” businesses closed, mask mandates and the other intrusive measures. He ordered people not to have gatherings of more than ten people, from more than two households, for Thanksgiving in 2020, an order I am happy and proud to say we violated.

Another bit of horrible mischief was the appointment of other Democrats to fill executive positions in the Commonwealth, including the Commissioner of Education. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

KY education chief defends state pronoun guidance after legislators’ attacks, bills

By Valarie Honeycutt Spears and Austin Horn | Monday, February 13, 2023 | 5:13 PM EST

Kentucky Education Commissioner Jason Glass spoke out Monday in response to lawmakers’ criticism about a state guidance document recommending the use of a student’s preferred pronouns and legislation that seeks to strengthen “parental rights” in schools.

In a Monday email to state education employees, Glass referenced his comments last week to the House Education Committee, where he was testifying about long-standing shortages in the educator workforce.

“While I was happy to share information with them about the shortages we are facing and trend lines in the teacher workforce,” Glass said, “I was disappointed with the turn the meeting took toward the end of the time I was there. Instead of staying focused on what we can do to support the teaching profession, some of the legislators ended up focusing on guidance the agency produced regarding use of student’s preferred names.”

At the meeting, lawmakers openly criticized Glass and the guidance, calling it part of a “woke agenda” driven by Glass.

The guidance says, in part, school leaders should consult with their local board counsel for advice on specific issues in their districts. It is considered best practice to recognize and use a student’s preferred name and pronouns when these preferences are requested, the document said.

If a student voluntarily discloses their sexual orientation or gender identity to an educator with the assumption that this information is to be kept private, it is best practice for the educator to maintain that confidence and keep the information confidential, the document recommends.

There’s more at the original. While what my best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal has a paywall, non-subscribers can access a couple of free articles a month.

As we have previously noted, the Central Bucks (Pennsylvania) School Board required teachers, administrators and staff to use students’ proper names, references and pronouns as recorded in school records, unless the individual student’s parents approved a change. This was done to avoid legal repercussions if a particular student wanted to claim he was the opposite sex, and his parents sued the school for ‘enabling’ gender transition. By setting up a system under which parents can ‘opt in’ to allowing their ‘transgendered’ students to be identified by their ‘preferred’ names and pronouns, the District is also setting up a policy which allows parents to choose not to go along with that silliness, and thus protect the District from being sued into penury.

While no such lawsuit has been filed in the Bluegrass State thus far, that doesn’t mean one couldn’t happen if teachers follow the Commissioner of Education’s ‘guidance’. Quite frankly, I hope that such does happen, sooner rather than later. More, I want to see not just the school systems sued for this, but the school administrators, staff, and teachers who go along with such nonsense.

Of course, the newspaper, which as we have previously reported makes endorsements uniformly rejected by voters in the sixth congressional district and the state as a whole, is very much on the side of the homosexual and ‘transgender’ lobby:

Sen. Berg: Please listen to a grieving mother. ‘Parents rights’ bills are dangerous. | Opinion

by state Senator Karen Berg (D-26th District) | Friday, February 10, 2023

I have been proud to represent the people of Kentucky and fight for their rights and well-being since being first elected in 2020. However, this proud moment was marred by a deep personal loss — my transgender son, Henry, who I loved with all my heart, took his own life. This tragedy has forced me to confront the harsh reality where discrimination and bigotry against the LGBTQ+ community are all too common.

We have previously noted Senator Berg, who is actually a physician, a diagnostic radiologist, who should understand the very elementary biology of sex differences, and her acceptance of her daughter’s transgenderism. While all of the sources I could find give only Miss Berg-Brousseau’s first name as “Henry,” and use the masculine pronouns and references to her, at The First Street Journal, we always tell the truth: Miss Berg-Brousseau was female, regardless of what she and her mother wanted to believe. The Herald-Leader uncritically wrote that Senator Berg’s daughter was her son. As is so often the case, the newspaper’s stylebook calls for referring to the ‘transgendered’ by the gender they claim to be, not the sex they actually are, and the use of the preferred ‘pronouns’ and faux name they chose. All of this is subtly designed to be courtesy, but also to normalize ‘transgenderism’ as something real.

Now, bills like Senate Bill 150 are being introduced in our state legislature and sold as “parental choice,” but in reality, they are nothing more than a dangerous attack on our children. These bills aim to limit the authority of the Kentucky Board of Education and the Kentucky Department of Education concerning parental rights and a student’s use of pronouns, prohibit school policies from keeping student information confidential from parents, and even require school personnel and students to use pronouns for students that do not conform to that student’s biological sex.

Perhaps Dr Berg isn’t that good a doctor, because she just referred to a ‘transgendered’ student’s ‘gender identity’ as his “biological sex.”

These measures are not just misguided. They are cruel and harmful. Bills like SB 150 send a message to LGBTQ+ students that they are not valued or respected and put them at greater risk of discrimination and harm, whether self-harm or bullying. They also undermine the ability of teachers and school staff to create safe and inclusive environments for all students, and they limit the ability of schools to provide the support and resources that our children need to thrive.

Senator Berg could, if she chose, try to amend SB 150 to allow, as the Central Bucks policy does, schools to refer to ‘transgendered’ students by their preferred names, pronouns and other gendered references if the student’s parents were notified and consented. But that isn’t what she wants; she wants the public schools — which, due to compulsory education laws, have what is, in effect, a captive audience — to keep a student’s ‘transgender identity’ a secret from the parents. While it’s difficult to imagine that parents could fail to notice these things, or that the gossip of neighborhood parents and other students would escape the parents’ notice, Senator Berg does not want them notified.

Of course, Dr Berg wants ‘transgenderism’ normalized as well:

The provision in SB 150 to establish requirements for public schools’ courses, curriculums, or programs on human sexuality is particularly concerning. These courses and curriculums should provide accurate and comprehensive information on human sexuality and gender identity in a way that is inclusive and respectful of all students. Requiring a specific perspective on these subjects limits educational opportunities and spreads harmful, inaccurate information about the LGBTQ+ community.

Actually, the public schools should not be presenting programs on human sexuality at all; that is the job of parents. But any curriculum on human sexuality is going to have a “specific perspective,” either normalizing and accepting what the federal government has euphemistically referred to as “minority sexual orientations,” or not doing so, which the homosexual and ‘transgender’ advocates would find terrible. Dr Berg is pushing a specific agenda. Dr Berg is wanting the public schools in Kentucky to push the acceptance of a transgender student as being the sex he claims to be rather than the sex he is; she wants the schools to push the notion that Jack is really Jill — or vice versa — with the schools enforcing the chosen names, pronouns, and other gendered references the ‘transgendered’ prefer, regardless of the beliefs of other students and other students’ families.

It isn’t much of a step to see another student referring to Jack as Jack rather than Jill being punished for bullying for not accepting the notion that Jack is really Jill.

In her OpEd piece, Dr Berg mentioned nothing about her daughter’s mental illness, I suppose because it would undermine the political goal she is trying to achieve. But it’s not a secret, as even Dr Berg previously admitted:

This lack of acceptance took a toll on Henry. He long struggled with mental illness, not because he was trans but born from his difficulty finding acceptance.

Henry Berg-Brousseau is seen with his politician mother Karen, father Bob, a marketing director, and sister Rachael, a rabbi. Photo from the Daily Mail. Click to enlarge.

To be blunt about it, young Miss Berg-Brousseau would have found ‘acceptance’ difficult even if people around her accepted her claim to be a boy. A photo of the family shows Miss Berg-Brousseau as being shorter than her mother and sister, as well as obese. Were she an actual boy who grew up that way, “he’d” have been the last picked for a team in Phys Ed, and been dateless as high school girls, real girls, would have rejected “him” for more masculine guys. As an adult, she might somehow ‘pass’ as a male, if no one asked any questions, but she’d have been the least impressive of ‘guys’. A female claiming to be male does not change the sexual dimorphism which exists in human beings, and Miss Berg-Brousseau grew up with a height much more typical of females than males.

You know, I get it: Dr Berg really, really, really wants to believe that her daughter was actually her son, and she wants her daughter to be honored for what she claimed to be. She is suffering the personal tragedy of having lost her child, and that is a devastating thing, but it doesn’t make her right.

More, I understand that some people think that it’s just common courtesy to accept the ‘transgendered’ as who and what they claim to be, rather than what they actually are. But people have a right to think for themselves, and if they do not want to agree that Jack is really Jill, they have that right, and the public schools should not be enforcing a perception that girls can be boys and boys can be girls. The ‘transgendered’ need mental help, to help them to come to terms with what they are, not coddling to continue their delusions of what they think they should be.

References

References
↑1 No, that’s not a typographical error; I spelled it panicdemic deliberately, because unreasoning panic is how the United States reacted to the disease.
↑2 Governor Beshear ordered the Kentucky State Police to record license plate and vehicle identification numbers of cars parked in one church parking lot on Easter Sunday, to order people who attended services into self-quarantine.
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Killadelphia: Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw has a Department in complete disarray

The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page shows 54 homicides through 11:59 PM EST on Monday, February 13th, three more than the previous day, which is actually more than Broad + Liberty’s homicide tracker.

As we previously reported, there was a decline in the rate of homicides in Philadelphia that began last November, and that had continued into early this year, but the number of killings had begun to exceed the 2020 total, and 2020 finished with an ‘official’ 499 murders. Now the total, while lower than in 2021 and 2022, is 20.0% higher than 2020. It’s a bit too early to derive any strong statistical trends, because even though this winter has been mild, homicides normally increase significantly in the summer.

Naturally, The Philadelphia Inquirer didn’t have any stories on these on their website main page, but on their specific crime page I was able to find Hit-and-run drivers killed two people after the Super Bowl and 4 dead, 5 injured in shootings during a violent (Saturday) overnight in Philly.

From the 2023 Mummer’s Parade in Philadelphia. Click to enlarge.

But the Inky did note the disarray in Commissioner Danielle Outlaw’s Police Department. Yes, a very large grain of salt has to be taken with this, given that the newspaper and its Editorial Board absotively, posilutely hate the police, there’s nothing I’ve seen which tells me that their reporting is false.

Lacking accountability, some Philly cops follow checkered path to high-ranking positions | Editorial

Apparently, one way to get ahead in the Philadelphia Police Department is to first get fired. No wonder some officers act as if they are above the law.

by The Editorial Board | St Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2023 | 6:00 AM EST

As Philadelphia endures record numbers of shootings and murders, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw implemented a second department shake-up in less than a year, which included promoting several dozen officers and transferring others.

Whether her actions result in safer streets remains to be seen. Given some of the officers who were commended, let’s hold the applause for now.

One of the promoted officers was fired in 2020 after allegedly supervising a meeting where officers were instructed to falsify reports in drug cases. He was also accused of attacking a female officer, hurling racist insults, and hiding information from the District Attorney’s Office. Last year, an arbitrator found the officer’s dismissal violated policy and reinstated him with back pay.

A second officer who was promoted had been dismissed in 2013 after he was charged with aggravated assault and stalking his girlfriend. The charges were dropped after a witness failed to appear in court, and the officer was reinstated.

A third officer who was promoted had been suspended for three days in 2011 after he lost his gun. Three years later, he was suspended for six days after improperly releasing three shooting suspects without questioning them, confiscating their weapons, or entering their information into police records.

Further down:

The message to many who are already wary of the police — as well as to many young officers learning the ropes — is that apparently, one way to get ahead in the Philadelphia Police Department is to first get fired. For that, you can thank the Fraternal Order of Police, which protects all cops, even the rotten apples.

Indeed, when it comes to being a Philly cop, fired rarely means fired. About 70% of officers disciplined in incidents from 2011 to 2019 had their cases overturned or reduced, The Inquirer found.

Of course, the Inky loves unions, at least unions other than the FOP and their own News Guild of Greater Philadelphia. The police officers’ union is doing what a union is supposed to do, protect its members. If the Philadelphia Police Department has been disciplining or firing officers without proper procedure, that’s on the Department and the city.

But promoting such officers? That doesn’t look so good. This is the Commissioner’s second top brass reorganization in half a year.

Then there’s this:

Eight more Philly cops were benched amid widening probe into a city antiviolence program

The officers’ guns were taken after an Inquirer investigation found they were improperly paid $76,000 in city funds to coach boxing. Children of police also got thousands of dollars to participate.

by Max Marin, Samantha Melamed, and Jeremy Roebuck | St Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2023 | 6:00 AM EST

Eight Philadelphia police officers have been placed on restricted duty and stripped of their service weapons — and the FBI is investigating — after an Inquirer report revealed that the officers had improperly received tens of thousands of dollars in city antiviolence grant money.

A police spokesperson confirmed the reassignments of the officers as well as a civilian police staffer. Together with a police captain who resigned last week, they pocketed more than $75,000 from a $392,000 city grant issued to Epiphany Fellowship Church for a program called Guns Down Gloves Up, city records show. City employees are not allowed to be paid from such grants.

The captain who resigned? He was scheduled to be another of the officers promoted, but resigned over other issues, including chronic absenteeism. Why would Commissioner Outlaw plan on promoting a district captain who was frequently absent? Did she not know that he was offnot on duty a lot?

In addition, children and relatives of police officers collected at least one third of funds paid to participants in the youth boxing program — more than $5,000 in prepaid debit cards, records obtained by The Inquirer show.

The program, according to its grant application, was supposed to use those debit cards to attract young people in North Philadelphia’s 19121 zip code who are at risk of becoming involved in gun violence, thereby improving police-community relations in the neighborhood. Yet, public records indicate that several of those teens and young adults reside in Delaware County or in the city’s Mount Airy neighborhood.

The program made its first payments in December of 2021, which was almost two years into Commissioner Outlaw’s watch. And she is responsible for whatever happens on her watch.

The Commissioner serves at the pleasure of the Mayor, and Mayor Jim Kenney, who brought Miss Outlaw in from the left coast in February of 2020, will be out of office at the end of the year, and Commissioner Outlaw will be out with him; none of the serious mayoral candidates will want to retain a police commissioner with her record.

The Philadelphia Police Department is in obvious disarray, with shake-ups, suspensions, firings, and a failure of the Commissioner to have her officers’ backs. She is hardly the only failed Philadelphia official, but she’s certainly very prominent among the failures.

There was, of course, very little reason to think that she’d actually be a success. When she was hired to be Police Chief in Portland, Oregon, this fawning tribute was written about her by Oregon Public Broadcasting, including this tell-tale line:

“She is the personification … [of] a current 21st-century mindset in police and policing in the community,” said Derald Walker, president of Cascadia Behavioral Health. . . . .

“When she left the room, there was an audible collective sigh that represented an incredible impression,” Walker said. “I think it’s going to be very hard to see her negatively, and for those people who have an ax to grind with police, to vilify her.”

Translation: Mr Walker thought that the incoming Police Chief wouldn’t offend the people who already didn’t like the police, then he thought her someone who would soft-peddle enforcement of the law.

Well, soft-peddling law enforcement just plain doesn’t work! And Miss Outlaw’s tenure as Commissioner has been an utter, utter failure, with officers leaving in droves, the Department hundreds of officers undermanned, and enough of a lax atmosphere that some officers think that it really doesn’t matter if they cheat the taxpayers.

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Some of the environmentalists seem to want us to return to nineteenth century living

The two articles were not that far apart on the main page of The Wall Street Journal’s website. The first was rather innocuous:

Ford Invests $3.5 Billion in Michigan Battery Plant With Chinese Partner’s Technology

The facility will help the auto maker reach a goal of producing 2 million electric vehicles annually later this decade

By Ryan Felton and Nora Eckert | Monday, February 13, 2023 | 1:47 PM EST

Ford Motor Co. is investing $3.5 billion to build a battery plant in Michigan with help from China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.  Ltd., a win for the auto maker’s home state, which has seen many recent automotive projects head elsewhere.

Also see: William Teach: White House Climate Cult Czar Met With Private Ecoloons Group On Banning Gas Stoves

The facility, which will be built in Marshall, Mich., about 100 miles west of Detroit, is expected to create about 2,500 jobs, Ford said Monday. The auto maker said a wholly-owned subsidiary would manufacture the battery cells using technology and expertise provided by CATL, the world’s largest maker of batteries for electric vehicles.

Ford is seeking to boost its domestic EV-making supply chain to help it produce 2 million electric vehicles a year globally by the end of 2026. The company has secured about 70% of the battery capacity needed to reach its 2026 goal, it has said.

Auto makers are working to secure key minerals and build battery factories as they rush to produce more electric vehicles. Financial incentives for North American production of battery cells and materials included in the federal Inflation Reduction Act passed last year has accelerated those efforts, executives and analysts say.

There’s a lot more at the original, mostly business-related to battery production. But to the right and just a hair further down was this gem:

The Climate Crusaders Are Coming for Electric Cars Too

A new report makes clear the ultimate goal: tiny, uncomfortable apartments and bicycles for all.

By Allysia Finley | Sunday, February 12, 2023 | 3:15 PM EST

Replacing all gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles won’t be enough to prevent the world from overheating. So people will have to give up their cars. That’s the alarming conclusion of a new report from the University of California, Davis and “a network of academics and policy experts” called the Climate and Community Project.

The report offers an honest look at the vast personal, environmental and economic sacrifices needed to meet the left’s net-zero climate goals. Progressives’ dirty little secret is that everyone will have to make do with much less—fewer cars, smaller houses and yards, and a significantly lower standard of living.

Of course, that’s just the introduction, and fairly alarmist, but Allysia Finley, the article author, was a Californian, educated at Stanford, and a writer for the Stanford Review and later the Orange County Register. She has seen, first hand, the idiocy of the left coast and how, too often, the silliness that starts in the Pyrite State metastasizes to other parts of the country.

Further down she notes:

The report concludes that the auto sector’s “current dominant strategy,” which involves replacing gasoline-powered vehicles with EVs without decreasing car ownership and use, “is likely incompatible” with climate activists’ goal to keep the planet from warming by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial times. Instead, the report recommends government policies that promote walking, cycling and mass transit.

I’ve never lived in New York, and can only imagine what having to lug home your groceries on the subway would be like. But a short time in an apartment on a very narrow street on San Marco Island, in Venice, where there are no cars allowed, drove home to me the joys of having to shop for groceries in a small store, and then carry them all back to the third floor apartment. As I approach my seventieth year, though I’m still in pretty good shape, I have to wonder for how much longer I could do that.

It does, though, explain the small refrigerator and tiny kitchen; it’s not like you’d lug a week’s worth of groceries home!

Governments, the report says, could reduce “financial subsidies for private vehicles,” such as on-street and free parking. They could also impose charges on pickup trucks and SUVs (including electric ones) and build more bike lanes. Urbanites who suspect the expansion of bike lanes in their cities is intended to force people to stop driving aren’t wrong.

But what about suburbanites who need cars to get around? Reducing “car dependency” will require “densifying low-density suburbs while allowing more people to live in existing high-density urban spaces,” the report says. Translation: Force more people to live in shoe-box apartments in cities by making suburbs denser and less appealing.

Perhaps, to New Yorkers, that doesn’t sound like anything too much different from their lives today, but most people don’t live in Manhattan. And even in New York City, people in Queens and — horrors! — Staten Island aren’t living in the fifth-floor walkups that so many people associate with NYC.

All this may sound crazy, but it isn’t a fringe view on the left. A Natural Resources Defense Council report last year on lithium mining also concluded that the government needs “to reduce long-term dependency on single-passenger vehicles.” The Inflation Reduction Act included billions of dollars to promote bicycling and so-called livable neighborhoods.

Me? I live on a farm, and the nearest grocery store — and not that great a one — is six miles away, and a decent one is about 25 miles from our humble abode. Of course, I depend on my F-150 for work on the farm, but urban writers really don’t understand anything about that.

The looming shortage of minerals will cause prices for EVs—the only cars Americans will be allowed to buy if Mr. Newsom and his green friends have their way—to rise inexorably. Soon Americans may not be able to afford to buy a car even with a government subsidy. Then they will have no choice but to use mass transit or dust off their old 10-speed bike.

Note, too, that there won’t be nearly enough minerals to make the massive batteries necessary to back up an electric grid powered by unreliable wind and solar. So Americans will have to consume less energy—for instance, by setting their thermostats to 80 in summer and 65 in winter—and pay more for it.

Progressives’ ultimate goal is to reduce consumption—and living standards—because they believe humans are a menace to the Earth.

I would like to think that even the most dedicated of environmentalists would realize that what they want is simply not compatible with modern, American life, but I worry that the people who won’t be seriously affected, the New Yorkers who live in multi-million-dollar apartments in Central Park West, or luxury apartments in Center City Philadelphia within walking distance of their law offices, those who’ll be able to afford a luxury electric vehicle even if the mass of the plebeians will not, will somehow buffalo the mass of the public into thinking that this is the only way.

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The credentialed media really, really, really hate being held to account Taylor Lorenz is just hopping mad that not everything in the world revolves around her

Taylor Lorenz is a Washington Post journolist[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 about whom we’ve reported several times. Miss Lorenz first came to my attention when she doxed Chaya Raichik, a Brooklyn-based real estate salesperson who was the creator of the Twitter site Libs of TikTok. My good friend Amanda Marcotte of Salon loved that LoTT was doxed, doubtlessly hoping that Chaya Raichik, a Brooklyn-based real estate salesperson and LoTT creator would lose her job, and posted a hope that Mr Musk’s buyout of Twitter results in the whole thing being killed.

Then, a month later, we noted that Miss Lorenz, who found it so necessary to expose Miss Raichik, was simply appalled that the political resistance to President Biden’s attempt to create a Ministry of Truth Disinformation Governance Board within the Department of Fatherland Homeland Security forced the proposal to be ended. The proposed Minister of Truth board administrator, Nina Jankowicz, worked in the press room at Volodymyr Zelensky’s campaign headquarters, which calls into question just how impartial she could have been in fighting ‘disinformation’ concerning the Russo-Ukrainian War.

She later complained about someone else being doxed, a journalism student who had written a critical article about her subject: Continue reading →

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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The utter bovine feces of ‘restorative justice’ How does 'restorative justice' repair the harm done when the victim is stone cold graveyard dead?

In Robert Stacy McCain’s “Everything Is White Supremacy: Inside America’s New Maoist ‘Struggle Sessions’“, I noted a smaller part of something he quoted:

In their “transformative-justice” workshop, my students learned to name “harms.” This language, and the framework it expresses, come out of the prison-abolition movement. Instead of matching crimes with punishments, abolitionists encourage us to think about harms and how they can be made right, often through inviting a broader community to discern the impact of harms, the reasons they came about, and paths forward. In the language of the anti-racism workshop, a harm becomes anything that makes you feel not quite right.

There’s a serial rapist loose in Philadelphia, with four reported sexual assaults near the Broad Street SEPTA line, and, with rape being a crime often not reported, I have to wonder what the perp’s real number of assaults is.

So, I have to ask: how can the “harm” this rapist has done to at least four women in the City of Brotherly Love “be made right”? How can the “harm” done to the 46 people murdered so far this year in Philly “be made right”? Yeah, I can think of one way, involving a rope and an oak tree, but the prison abolitionists would not support that alternative, would they? Continue reading →

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To the left, liberal politics are far more important than Freedom of Religion Jennifer Palmeiri said the quiet part out loud: to the left, religious faith is determined by politics, rather than the other way around.

As we noted on Friday, an FBI “Analyst” submitted a proposal to monitor traditional Catholics who prefer the Tridentine, or Traditional Latin, Mass, “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics,” or RTEs, he called them, because “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists,” or RMVEs might be interested in using Latin Mass Catholics to spread their goals.

Someone leaked a hand-redacted, redacted by magic marker, copy of the “FBI internal use only” document, and the Bureau decided, rather quickly, that they ought to withdraw the document entirely.

FBI retracts leaked document orchestrating investigation of Catholics

By Tyler Arnold and Joe Bukuras | Thursday, February 9, 2023 | 3:15 PM EST

The FBI says it is retracting a leaked document published on the internet Feb. 8 that appears to reveal that the bureau’s Richmond division launched an investigation into “radical traditionalist” Catholics and their possible ties to “the far-right white nationalist movement.”

In response to an inquiry from CNA, the FBI said it will remove the document because “it does not meet our exacting standards.”

Really? The document is ‘sourced’ citing far-left political sources, including Salon, The Atlantic, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. If there are less biased sources, they were redacted from the document. It’s so bad that it makes me wonder: if it was a great departure from the Bureau’s “exacting standards,” why wouldn’t the document author have realized it, and the Bureau have flagged it before it was leaked? Or is the document not really that great a departure from those “exacting standards,” which calls into question just how “exacting” those standards really are. Continue reading →

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We wicked Catholics and our Assault Rosaries!

My good friend — OK, OK, I’ve never actually met her, but people can become good friends over Twitter these days — Christine Flowers says, in her Twitter biography, that she has an “open carry permit for (her) assault rosary.” That was a mocking reference to an article by Daniel Panneton in The Atlantic, originally entitled “How the Rosary Became an Extremist Symbol“, about which I have previously written.

The Atlantic got plenty of pushback about it, and twice changed the article headline and subheading — the title “How Extremist Gun Culture Co-Opted the Rosary: The AR-15 is a sacred object among Christian nationalists. Now “radical-traditional” Catholics are bringing a sacrament of their own to the movement” isn’t shown in the screen captures tweeted by Taylor Marshall — imaged to the left, but the internet is forever.

And now we find out that some in the federal government, specifically the FBI, see Catholics, at least some Catholics, as evil subversives. From National Review:

FBI Internal Memo Warns against ‘Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology’

by Brittany Bernstein | Wednesday, February 8, 2023 | 5:14 PM EST

The FBI’s Richmond field office released an internal memo last month warning against “radical traditionalist Catholic ideology,” and claiming it “almost certainly presents new mitigation opportunities,” according to a document shared by an FBI whistleblower on Wednesday.

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. Continue reading →