Category Archives: Culture

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Killadelphia: A Philadelphia councilcritter tells us the truth The problem isn't guns; the problem is her rotten constituents

Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier (D-Philadelphia). Photo from her city biography page and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

The Washington Post quoted Philadelphian City Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier, a Democrat who represents the area of southwest Philadelphia in which the mass murder occurred, though possibly in a way she might regret:

Philadelphia City Council member Jamie R. Gauthier (D), who represents areas where the shooting occurred, described her district as “under siege” by gun violence.

“It creates a situation where mostly Black and Brown people can’t be in their neighborhood enjoying summer weather. Kids — anyone — enjoying their block should not live in fear of being shot and killed,” she said Tuesday.

Now that Democrats control the state house for the first time in 12 years following last November’s election, Gauthier said some movement on gun control legislation has started. However, any house bills would still face opposition in the GOP-controlled state senate.

“In Pennsylvania, you have Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in the cities and outside of that, you have a lot of rural areas that don’t look like us and don’t have the same issues with everyday gun violence — and don’t have the same motivation to really cut off access to these types of weapons,” she said. “We have a long way to go to get these kinds of weapons off the street.”

“(D)on’t look like us” means ‘are mostly white,’ or so I inferred, rather different from the Kingsessing neighborhood in southwest Philly. that’s fairly innocuous. But then we get to “don’t have the same issues with everyday gun violence,” and it raises the obvious question: why does Miss Gauthier’s district, why does her city, have “issues with everyday gun violence” when so much of Pennsylvania outside of Philly does not?

I previously wrote that in 2020, there were 1,009 murders in the Keystone State, 499, or 49.45%, of which occurred in Philadelphia. According to the 2020 Census, Pennsylvania’s population was 13,002,700 while Philadelphia’s alone was 1,603,797, just 12.33% of Pennsylvania’s totals.

It got worse in 2021: with 562 homicides in Philly, out of 1027 total for Pennsylvania, 54.72% of all homicides in the Keystone State occurred in Philadelphia. Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, was second, with 123 killings, 11.98% of the state’s total, but only 9.52% of Pennsylvania’s population.

The other 65 counties, with 78.11% of the state’s total population, had 33.30% of total murders. It should also be noted that in comparing 2018 with 2021, the homicide rate for the 65 counties which are not Philadelphia and Allegheny (where Pittsburgh is), barely increased, from 3.38 per 100,000 population, to 3.42, a 1.12% rise, in Philadelphia it jumped from 22.31 to 35.53 per 100,000 population, a 59.21% increase.

Things got slightly better in the City of Brotherly Love in 2022, with 516 homicides officially reported in the Philadelphia, out of 1,015 total homicides for the Commonwealth. That’s still 50.84% of the killings in the Commonwealth!

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: National Media Instantly Sends Philly Mass Shooter Down the Memory Hole

The Census Bureau’s July 1, 2022 population estimates for Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia specifically, were 12,972,008 and 1,567,258 respectively, meaning that Philly had just 12.08% of the state’s population. The homicide rate for the rest of the Keystone State was 4.38 per 100,000 population, while for Philly it works out to 32.92 per 100,000, 7½ times the rest of the Commonwealth.

Strip out the 138 homicides in Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, and the 65 other counties in the Commonwealth had 361 homicides for 10,171,497 people, for a murder rate of 3.55 per 100,000.

Councilwoman Gauthier was born in Kingsessing; she more than represents the third councilmanic district, but this mass killing was in her home neighborhood. She knows it, and has told the truth about it, however inadvertently, so it has to be asked: why is her neighborhood, why is her city, so much worse than the rest of the Keystone State?

Carbon County, 2022 population of 65,460, where I lived before retirement, has had exactly zero murders this year, and a high, for them, number of killings in 2022, two. My former home county has plenty of woods, and there are a lot of hunters there. I remember stopping at the Turkey Hill in downtown Jim Thorpe on my way to work, when buck season began, and I’d see plenty of deer hunters, including some teenagers, in their camouflage gear, and with their weapons in their trucks and Jeeps, and never worried about it in the slightest. Everyone I knew in Jim Thorpe had a firearm of some type, but, shockingly enough, we weren’t killing people at anywhere close to the rate of the City of Brotherly Love.

The Democratic ‘leaders’ in Philly have long been whining that state law does not allow the city to pass and institute gun control laws which are stricter than those of the Commonwealth as a whole, but that begs the obvious question: if the homicide rate in Philly is the fault of the state’s gun control laws, why don’t we see homicide rates across Pennsylvania like are the case in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh?

Dear Councilwoman Gauthier: the problem isn’t the laws, but the rotten people in your neighborhood, the people you represent.
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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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Out-of-control ‘wilding’ teens run Wawa out of Center City, so Josh Kruger blames not the brats, but Wawa

I’ve said it before: Wawa coffee is the best you can buy! Better than Starbucks, better than Doughdaddy’s, better than Dunkin’ Donuts. And in Philadelphia, Wawa sponsors the Independence Day fireworks, as though the city can’t produce fireworks on its own. But Josh Kruger is mad at Wawa!

Hey Wawa, we’ll take Center City stores over fireworks, please

The way Wawa has treated us is hardly worth a parade or fireworks or title sponsor recognition.

by Josh Kruger | Independence Day, July 4, 2023 | 6:00 AM EDT

By now, you’ve seen the commercials and swirling, groovy banners for Wawa Hoagiefest. You might’ve even eaten one of the beloved local brand’s sandwiches at a discount as part of this year’s 15th anniversary of “Hoagie Love” — at least that’s what the convenience chain calls it. Or maybe you’re participating in any one of over 40 Wawa Welcome America community events celebrating America’s independence.

That’s all well and good — if you don’t mind fraternizing with a company that sees you as the enemy.

If you’re confused, that’s OK. I, too, was disconcerted when I came to the realization that Wawa is no good anymore.

Really, folks, if we have any respect for ourselves, we’ll stop this charade and simply speak the truth: It’s time that we as a city broke up with the idea that we are into Wawa because Wawa is definitely not into us. Not when it counts, at least.

Good heavens, what has Wawa done that has so upset Mr Kruger? After a paragraph in which he trashes Wawa’s quick foods, he continued:

Bad food is one thing. Bad manners exhibited by a company that scapegoats the community we live, work, and play in is another matter altogether. This, unlike the terrible food, is personal.

You might remember this dastardly move as Wawa announced the closure of some Center City locations, citing public safety concerns. Just recently, it announced the impending July 16 closure of the landmark Second and South Streets location, too, following neighborhood complaints of public disorder and crime.

After news of the first two closures, The Inquirer’s own Editorial Board somberly wept that the action was a “dire statement about public safety in Philadelphia.”

To me, it was more a dire statement about the ethics of the privately held corporation’s executive leadership.

One would hope that this alleged “dire statement about the ethics of the privately held corporation’s executive leadership” is a statement that the corporation’s executive leadership doesn’t want to see its employees assaulted, injured, or even killed. Such would seem to me to be a pretty positive statement about the leadership!

Mr Kruger combitched that, Heaven forfend!, Wawa was moving into more suburban areas, and starting to sell gasoline. As we have previously noted, at least some Wawas are also installing Tesla charging stations. Gosh, moving into areas with less crime, and meeting a potential customer demand? How evil is that!?!

But then the author complained that Wawa was moving into other dangerous areas:

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: Democrats Kill Each Other in Baltimore; Mayor Blames … Texas, Florida, Alabama?

In 2019, Wawa cheerily announced it was expanding into Baltimore, despite Baltimore’s murder rate of 58 homicides per 100,000 residents. Philly’s rate was a comparatively less horrific 22 that year. Likewise, Wawa has moved aggressively into locations in Florida — such as Jacksonville, where the homicide rate is only slightly better than Philly’s. Other Florida cities like Miami Gardens — also home to multiple Wawas — have homicide rates that are nearly identical to Philly’s.

This is hugely oversimplistic. Yes, the homicide rate in ‘Charm City,’ as Baltimore has sometimes been called, is horrible, far, far worse than Philly’s, but it isn’t just the homicide rate. The editorial Mr Kruger cited pointed out:

The closings come just weeks after about 100 teens ransacked a Wawa in Mayfair. In February, a man was stabbed to death outside of a Wawa in South Philadelphia. On Thursday, a Wawa employee in University City was pepper sprayed during a robbery involving five suspects. In 2020, Wawa cited the pandemic as the reason to close its flagship store at Broad and Walnut Streets.

What foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia is seeing is not just a terrible homicide and shooting rate, but stores robbed and simply trashed, and a law enforcement system that just flat doesn’t care. Philadelphia’s District Attorney, Larry Krasner, a police-hating former defense mouthpiece who believes in ‘restorative justice‘ rather than punishing criminals, has aided and abetted the crime, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw is, put as charitably as possible, overworked and overwhelmed in Philly, though many would say that she’s just plain incompetent and marking time until she can get another job. The Philadelphia Police Department is seriously undermanned, and crimes like ransacking a Wawa just fall far down the ladder in police priorities.

Then there’s Mayor Jim Kenney, who has just plain checked out, marking time until he’s no longer in the job. Mr Kenney says stuff, but doesn’t actually do anything.

With all that money coming in, you’re telling me the company had no more resources to devote to safety in Philly? Was it even efficiently protecting Philly stores?

Can we tell the truth here? The out-of-control teens who have been trashing the Center City stores have been primarily out-of-control black teens, and any resources that Wawa put into “efficiently protecting (its) Philly stores” would quickly be characterized as racist attempts to keep black teens out of the stores, and the Inquirer, the Editorial Board of which so lamented the closing of Center City Wawas, would be among the first to point that out. A committed leftist — or so I judge from his Twitter feed — Mr Kruger probably would as well.

You know, I get it: Mr Kruger, who has admitted that he “used to do a lot of meth,” loves his Wawa coffee — I do, too, and was heartened by the news that Wawa is expanding into the Bluegrass State — but he’s blaming Wawa and its corporate executives for abandoning Center City, when the truth is that Philadelphians, the out-of-control teens and the rotten parents who reared them, have actually run Wawa off.

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Today’s left really, really, really hate Freedom of Speech, and normality

There has been all sorts of leftist angst and hollering and combitching about laws, passed in several states, which ban hormone and surgical ‘treatments’ for minors who believe themselves to have been born the wrong sex. It’s discriminatory, it’s wrong, it will hurt people, and lead to suicides, we are told.

Yet, oddly enough, I never read one thing about this, in a single sentence from Newsweek:

Last week, Michigan banned conversion therapy, the controversial practice trying to “cure” LGBTQ+ people of their sexual orientation and gender identity, for minors in the state.

Yet:

Research shows that lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) teens are at increased risk of suicide and mental health issues like depression and anxiety. One of the most startling statistics: LGBTQ teens consider suicide and make suicide attempts at about twice the national rate for all adolescents.

So, if the left are arguing that not allowing minors who believe themselves to be the opposite ‘gender’ from the sex they were born to receive ‘gender-affirming’ care increases suicide risk, why would they concomitantly want to ban homosexual minors from treatment for their homosexuality if being homosexual increases their risk of suicide?

The homosexual lobby contend that conversion therapy is both harmful and ineffective, and whether it is ineffective medically, those claims have certainly been effective politically. But the real issue is one of reproduction: since homosexuals cannot naturally reproduce without stepping into heterosexuality, ‘losing’ homosexuals to normal sex is an attack on all of them. They hate being called “groomers”, but what else is it when they try their hardest to keep every kid growing up sexually confused, and to reduce the societal stigma attached to homosexuality, what else can we call it?

And now we have this:

Michigan Pronouns Law Declared an ‘Abomination’ by Former Judge

by Giulia Carbonaro | Monday, July 3, 2023 | 9:00 AM EDT

Michigan’s recent bill making it a felony for people to harass or intimidate someone by misgendering them and using the wrong pronouns has sparked controversy in the state, with former judge and television personality Joe Brown calling the measure an “abomination.”

The new measure, House Bill 4474, is part of a package of legislation that would replace Michigan’s existing Ethnic Intimidation Act and would make it a hate crime to cause someone to “feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened” with words.

It expands the existing law to cover sex, sexual orientation, age, gender identity or expression, and physical or mental disability. Religion, ethnicity and race were already included in the previous legislation and will still be covered under the new law.

Michigan has recently been pushing reforms and new measures that would expand the protection of LGBTQ+ rights in the state, going against a nationwide trend that has seen other states moving to limit rights for transgender youth.

There’s more at the original.

Apparently the great state of Michigan, in which Governor Gretchen Whitless Whitmer, a Democrat of course, imposed illegal and draconian executive orders to fight the COVID-19 panicdemic, believes that the Freedom of Speech guaranteed to all of us under the Constitution of the United States can, should, and must be regulated to spare the precious feelings of the ‘transgendered.’ I wonder: while I do not live in Michigan, and have never set foot in that state, could I be punished because my website is available there?

Under the bill — which makes it a hate crime for a person to threaten another by deliberately using the wrong pronouns with an intimidating purpose — offenders would be guilty “of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or by a fine of not more than $10,000.”

This is what today’s left do: they elevate ‘group rights’ over those of the individual, to support the goals of the State — at least, as long as they control the State — above the individual rights protected by our Constitution. If the law passes, which has not yet happened, it will take someone actually charged and convicted of this ‘crime’, appealing the conviction through multiple layers of courts, to get it reversed, even though simply referring to Bruce Jenner as Bruce Jenner doesn’t hurt anyone. Such a person could wind up serving a sentence in prison before it could ever be reversed.

If someone wants to refer to Bradley Manning as ‘Chelsea,’ that’s perfectly up to them, and no skin of my nose, even if I see it as both silly and stupid; that’s within their free speech rights. But the lower house of the Michigan state legislature would make it a crime to refer to Mr Manning as Bradley, or as Mr Manning.

Bill Blankschaen and Erick Erickson coined the phrase, “You will be made to care“. An issue about which most sensible people would not care — it’s none of my business if Harry wants to become Sally — is becoming one in which the homosexual/transgender lobby are trying to use the power of the State to force people to go along with their kinks and delusions; that makes it other people’s business.

We have pointed it out previously: the left are smart enough to know that if they can control the language used, they can subtly, and perhaps not-so-subtly, direct your thinking. If you can get acclimated to calling someone like Richard Levine “Rachel,” and referring to him with the feminine pronouns, the job of the left is half-way done. That some of us stubbornly insist on calling the ‘transgendered’ by their birth names — if we can find them; sometimes I cannot — and using the pronouns and honorifics appropriate to their actual sex not only fights back against the left, but angers them so much that at least some of them want to make it illegal shows just how important they believe it to be.

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Dumb as a box of rocks

Were intelligence indicated by a light, there is a good chance that Dylan Mulvaney would be represented by a 15-watt refrigerator bulb. The backlash against Bud Light for using Mr Mulvaney in any form resulted in a customer backlash and boycott that not only hasn’t faded, but seems to be gaining steam three months after the incident. Executives Alissa Heinerscheid and Daniel Blake, initially reported to have taken ‘leaves of absence,’ have reportedly been terminated.

Transgender Influencer Speaks Out After Backlash Against Bud Light

Dylan Mulvaney has faced stalking and personal attacks since featuring Bud Light on her (sic) social media in April, she (sic) said, adding that the beer maker did not contact her (sic) in light of the hostility.

by John Yoon | Thursday, June 29, 2023 | 6:49 PM EDT

A transgender influencer whose social media promotion of Bud Light drew attacks from conservatives and a boycott of the brand spoke directly about the controversy for the first time on Thursday, saying that she (sic) had been bullied and that the beer maker had failed to contact her (sic) in light of the hostility.

Since April, when the influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, featured Bud Light in an Instagram video, she (sic) has faced stalking and personal attacks, she (sic) said in videos she (sic) posted on social media.

“What transpired from that video was more bullying and transphobia than I could have ever imagined,” Ms. (sic) Mulvaney, 26, said. “I’ve been followed, and I have felt a loneliness that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

Throughout the controversy, she (sic) continued, Bud Light has not reached out to her (sic). She (sic) was scared to leave her (sic) home while the company failed to stand by her (sic), she (sic) said.

“I was waiting for the brand to reach out to me, but they never did,” she (sic) said. “For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse, in my opinion, than not hiring a trans person at all.”

As per our Stylebook, The First Street Journal does not change the direct quotations of others. And while we realize that many professional media organizations specify using the names and pronouns that the ‘transgendered’ claim for themselves, the use of fifteen separate pronouns plus a feminine honorific to refer to Mr Mulvaney, in the subtitle and five short paragraphs, just 191 words of story text plus 34 words of the subtitle, 7.11% of the total words in the story, seems so excessive in normal prose that we believed we needed to note each erroneous usage.

As for Mr Mulvaney’s complaint that no one at Anheuser-Busch BUD: (%) has “reached out” to him, he, and really anyone brighter than the aforementioned 15-watt refrigerator bulb, ought to realize that he’s simply toxic. Who at Anheuser-Busch, unless directly ordered to by CEO Brendan Whitworth — who has been doing his best to isolate himself from the decisions of his minions — would contact Mr Mulvaney in any way, after seeing what happened to Mr Blake and Mrs Heinerscheid? Anything that anyone from the company said to Mr Mulvaney would be reported to the media by him, possibly with a recording. If it was sympathetic to Mr Mulvaney and his plight, such would be used against the company yet again, potentially costing Bud Light even more sales. If it was of the “Get lost and stay lost” variety, it would also be used against the company, to show that they were just [insert plural slang term for the rectum here]. Any contact with Mr Mulvaney is a lose/lose proposition for Anheuser-Busch at this point. And it would be a Career Limiting Move for anyone to do unless so directed by Mr Whitworth.

Calls for a boycott followed, fueled in part by those who had previously attacked the transgender community. One of the most prominent voices included the musician Kid Rock, who posted a video of himself shooting a stack of Bud Light cases.

Bud Light’s sales plummeted. Since then, two of the company’s marketing executives have gone on leave. The company also said in May that it would focus marketing campaigns on sports and music. This month, Bud Light was dethroned as the nation’s top-selling beer. The brand is still struggling to win back customers.

Bud Light has been criticized by some members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community for its tepid response to the backlash.

But the conservative outburst has spread to brand partnerships that other companies have struck with transgender people. Like Bud Light, the retail company Target shifted its marketing because of opposition to the company’s inclusion of L.G.B.T.Q. communities. The country singer Garth Brooks was criticized when he said at a music event that his new bar in Nashville would serve many types of beer, including Bud Light.

Simply put, it doesn’t matter what the #woke think. Not everyone is ‘woke,’ and when a lot of your customers don’t go along with the far-left ideology, leave politics out of your advertising, or those customers will leave dollars out of your pocket.

“Supporting trans people shouldn’t be political,” she (sic) said. “There should be nothing controversial or divisive about working with us.”

Sorry, but regardless of how Mr Mulvaney thinks things should be, ‘transgenderism’ is controversial and divisive. While Hahvahd educated Mrs Heinerscheid wasn’t as bright as that 15-watt bulb, almost everyone else can see that it is.

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Today’s #woke left sure do hate Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, and democracy . . . when those things go against leftist values

I will admit it up front: when I saw the article on the front page of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website main page, and cited below, I expected one dripping with liberal bias, but it was actually mostly balanced reporting.

Why Moms for Liberty was designated an ‘extremist’ group by the Southern Poverty Law Center

Born out of opposition to COVID-19 mandates in schools, Moms of Liberty pivoted to targeting diversity education and how LGBTQ issues are handled by schools.

by Maddie Hanna | Wednesday, June 28, 2023 | 5:00 AM EDT

Moms for Liberty calls itself a parent empowerment group. But as the polarizing organization arrives in Philadelphia this week for its annual summit, it’s being identified as something else: an “antigovernment extremist group.”

That’s according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the veteran civil rights organization that tracks domestic extremism. This year, the group added a number of “parental rights” groups — the Southern Poverty Law Center refers to them as “anti-student-inclusion” — to its tally of hate and antigovernment extremist groups.

Robert Stacy McCain has done a lot of reporting on the Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC, and pointed out, in an article asking “What counts as hate?“, writing:

by continually expanding the definition of “hate” and “extremism,” and by encouraging censorship and suppression of anyone who dissents from their liberal agenda, the SPLC compels people with more or less mainstream beliefs to engage in the kind of activism practiced by Moms for Liberty. Furthermore  (and, again, I think SPLC staff are too stupid to grasp this), by denoting mainstream groups as proponents of “hate,” the SPLC undermines its own credibility and causes people who are not remotely “extremist” to question the whole rationale of this type of “hate”-hunting enterprise. Like, why should we even care if someone is prejudiced against gay people or black people or Jews or whatever? So long as they are not engaged in any actual criminal behavior, or advocating violence against others, people are free to form their own opinions. This whole business of “exposing” people as holding allegedly dangerous beliefs — which is to say, acting as Thought Police — is antithetical to liberty. And I think more Americans are beginning to reject the type of Thought Police agenda that SPLC pursues.

Of course, in heavily Democratic Philadelphia, where so many seem to despise freedom of speech for the people they oppose, the staff at the American Revolution Museum in Philadelphia, a revolution against the British government spread by freedom of speech and of the press, don’t support allowing the Moms being allowed to speak.

Back to the Inquirer:

Moms for Liberty has accused the Southern Poverty Law Center of espousing “hate” toward its members. Here’s why the organization says Moms for Liberty warrants the designation:

What makes Moms for Liberty an antigovernment group?

Founded in Florida in 2021, Moms for Liberty was born out of opposition to COVID-19 mandates in schools and now claims 285 chapters across 45 states. It pivoted to targeting diversity education and how LGBTQ issues are handled by schools, as part of a broader conservative movement that has accused schools of indoctrinating students around race, gender, and sexuality.

Heaven forfend! Some parents are opposed to the public schools, which have, due to the compulsory education laws in every state, what is, in effect, a captive audience, been teaching, been indoctrinating, beliefs which are opposed to some people’s religious beliefs, and opposed to simple, common sense. It wasn’t so very long ago that girls who like rough-and-tumble, who would go out and get dirty and sweaty playing ball with the boys were called, sometimes admiringly and sometimes not, tomboys, but everyone knew that they were still girls. There was a time in which boys who liked to play with dolls or do somewhat ‘girly’ things were called, never admiringly, sissies, but everyone knew that they were still boys. Now? Now, they’re not what they were born, but one of 1 × 10n new ‘genders,’ you’ve got to call them that, and it’s time to reach for the puberty blockers and surgical scalpel. No one would ever say that public school libraries should have materials showing girls fellating boys, but today’s left — which includes a lot of public school teachers and administrators — are aghast that some people are opposed to having materials in public school libraries which depict boys fellating boys. Many concerned parents do not want this kind of stuff normalized, but if you are a parent who doesn’t want that, the SPLC says that you are a hater and an anti-government extremist.

That messaging is what landed Moms for Liberty on the SPLC’s list, said Maya Henson Carey, a research analyst with SPLC’s Intelligence Project.

“It’s really looking at their overall narrative: that public educators and public schools are attempting to indoctrinate and sexualize children through this radical Marxist agenda,” Carey said.

The SPLC notes statements from Moms for Liberty leaders, including the group’s slogan that “we do not co-parent with the government,” comments referring to “government schools,” support for abolishing the federal Department of Education, and accusations that teachers unions are responsible for indoctrination.

In one example flagged by the SPLC, Moms for Liberty said last year that “the K-12 cartel — also known as the national teachers union (NEA) — met and drafted a proposal to replace the word ‘mother’ with ‘birthing person.’” Describing the proposal as “insane,” Moms for Liberty said that “as the teachers union pushes an agenda focused on everything but educating our children, American parents are rising up, taking back our school districts and putting the focus back on educating our children.”

We have previously reported how The Washington Post kowtowed to the #woke by headlining an article with “pregnant people” in both the title and body, and a site search of the Inquirer’s website returned 2,905 references to “pregnant people,” 1,062 references to “pregnant person,” 1,643 references to “birthing person,” and 4,669 references to “birthing people.” Is that what the Inky’s stylebook now requires? Is it surprising that sensible people would note these assaults on language and attempts to normalize transgenderism and the notion that men can get pregnant and have babies?

Well, perhaps the SPLC were not surprised at that, but Maya Henson Carey said that the SPLC cited such objections as part of the reason Moms for Liberty was declared to be an “anti-government extremist” group.

After several paragraphs in which Dr Carey claimed that the Moms must be raaaaacist, comparing their objections to critical race theory, the education of which has a strong political component, she went on:

Moms for Liberty has also opposed policies accommodating transgender students and has referred to gender dysphoria as being “normalized by predators.” And while Moms for Liberty has said it’s focused on removing inappropriate sexual content, efforts to ban books from libraries have disproportionately targeted stories about LGBTQ people or people of color, Carey said.

It’s certainly true that the Moms are fighting the normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism in the public schools, but that’s what they should be doing. It’s an obvious question: why on earth would the public schools be pushing normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism in the first place? Why would the public schools be pushing something which is opposed by many religions, why would they be pushing something that is directly contrary to the religious faiths of many parents?

Is not the state pushing a particular issue which violates a lot of people’s religious faith in itself a state establishment of religion?

Carey said the education groups represent a trend of “a shift to public spaces” by extremist groups, that “comes with them showing up for school board meetings and running for public office. A lot of these antigovernment and hate groups are really infiltrating the lives of everyday Americans.”

And there you have it: an SPLC spokeswoman is complaining that conservatives are exercising their freedom of speech, and, in what must surely be a horrific attack on democracy, are doing something really radical like running for office in democratic elections!

 

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Fear-mongering from The Nation, as they fear that The South Shall Rise Again!

The Nation is a biweekly ‘progressive’ political journal, whose positions have usually been on the far left end of the American political spectrum. The magazine used a fairly simple drawing to illustrate an article this morning, but I thought a drawing of Pickett’s Charge, from the Battle of Gettyburg, would be more appropriate, because they’re worrying that The South Shall Rise Again!

In the Attacks on Trans Rights, We’re Seeing the Rise of a New Confederacy

These legislative assaults constitute the spear tip of a nation within a nation, threatening the foundations of democracy.

by Nan D Hunter | Monday, June 26, 2023 | 5:00 AM EDT

A right-wing inquisition is singling out young transgender Americans, their parents, their teachers, and their doctors as targets in the battle over what kind of nation we are and want to be. Since 2021, roughly half the states have passed at least one law designed to eliminate medical or educational policies that recognize trans youth and protect them from abuse. According to the ACLU, 20 states enacted 72 new anti-trans laws in the first six months of 2023; more than 200 are in the pipeline.

Anti-trans campaigners seek to create a blanket of repression. Because the recent wave of anti-trans laws was not triggered by a landmark event like the rush of anti-abortion laws enacted in the wake of the Dobbs decision, this new reality has crept up on the country. Major media outlets have struggled to keep up with which laws have been passed in which states. With the exception, perhaps, of the trans people who find themselves in the cross hairs of these new laws, almost no one saw it coming.

The Nation allows non-subscribers three free articles, but you can read it here without going to the magazine’s website. As this article is approaching 2,900 words, you can read the rest below the fold. Continue reading →

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Today’s left see landlords as Snidely Whiplash, tying Sweet Nell to the railroad tracks

In November on 2017, the voters of the City of Brotherly Love voted in a self-proclaimed “progressive prosecutor,” a criminal defense attorney, Larry Krasner, whose campaign website proudly proclaims that:

During his first term, he has supported victims, he has exonerated the innocent, and he has held police accountable. He has reduced future years of incarceration and supervision while helping to drop the jail population. He has focused on the most serious crimes in Philadelphia while working with leaders to address the root causes of violence.

Translation: Mr Krasner hates the police and loves the criminal class. He wants to keep criminals out of jail, and reduce probation times.

His policies include ending criminal charges against those caught with marijuana possession, ending cash bail for those accused of some misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, reducing supervision for parolees, and seeking more lenient sentences for certain crimes. During his time in office, he has advocated for greater police accountability and pursued police misconduct.

Mr Krasner made no secret of his plans when he first ran for office, and the good citizens of Philadelphia elected him to become District Attorney. Clearly, the majority of Philadelphians are perfectly comfortable with hating the police and coddling criminals.

The draconian, economy-destroying reaction to the COVID-19 panicdemic — and no, that’s not a misspelling; panic is exactly how the response should be characterized — included mass job losses, and many communities put eviction moratoria in place, so those who could not — or would not — pay their rent wouldn’t be thrown out of the apartments in which they lived.

Well, evictions have resumed, and the left are unhappy. It’s very difficult to proclaim that people should be able to simply live without paying rent to property owners, so now the left are using the tactic of complaining about how evictions are handled.

‘I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy’: Housing advocates say eviction process in Philly must change

During a two-hour hearing, tenants and attorneys described a system that’s violent and traumatic.

By Aaron Moselle | Wednesday, June 21, 2023 | 5:19 PM EDT

The knock on the door startled Mark Person.

The person waiting outside shocked him.

It was a deputy landlord-tenant officer. And he was there to evict Person from his Roxborough apartment.

“He looked at his watch and said I had 10 minutes, and that he had others to serve and that I had to hurry up and be out. There was no notice of courtesy — just him standing with his hand atop his pistol like a cowboy Western,” said Person.

As has been journalistic practice in recent times, the article begins with a sort of human-interest hook. The original from WHYY, Philadelphia’s National Public Radio station is not behind a paywall.

As we have previously noted, a deputy landlord-tenant officer had an eviction go bad, and a woman, over $8,000 behind in her rent, being kicked out was shot in the head.

Naturally, it didn’t take long before the Usual Suspects were up in arms, as the furthest left Democratic mayoral candidate, Helen Gym Flaherty — who, thank the Lord, lost in the primary — to politicize it. She tweeted:

While details are still coming to light, I’m appalled by today’s shooting at Girard Court Apartments and my heart is with the impacted families.

I’ve raised alarm bells for years about our city’s terrible eviction practices and worked to reform them.

So, what did we have? The family were more than $8,000 in arrears on their rent, which was apparently forgiven by the owner, in lieu of an agreement that they’d move out by the end of 2022. But the family wanted to stay, and petitioned the court to extend, for an unspecified period of time, a petition which was denied. If the eviction was being carried out on March 29th, the tenants had stayed three months beyond their agreed evacuation date.

In a subscribers-only article, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that City Councilcritters:

Jamie Gauthier and Kendra Brooks called for hearings in April after a deputy landlord-tenant officer shot a woman in the head during an attempted eviction lockout in North Philadelphia. Police said a struggle ensued between 35-year-old tenant Angel Davis and the privately contracted officer, who has still not been identified. The deputy discharged a weapon and struck Davis, who was hospitalized in critical condition.

The shooting sparked a protest and shined a light on a shadowy corner of the city’s legal system — one that housing advocates said is long overdue for sweeping reforms. Calls ranged from increased notice before lockouts occur to ramping up social service outreach to higher training standards and transparency.

The liberal councilcritters don’t like the system, don’t like it at all!

Instead of relying on sworn law enforcement personnel, Philadelphia’s courts allow a private for-profit attorney known as the landlord-tenant officer to carry out eviction orders in exchange for the right to collect millions in fees from landlords. The landlord-tenant officer in turn deputizes independent contractors hired to serve final notices and enforce lockouts.

Gauthier, a Democrat who represents West Philadelphia, described it as a profit-driven arrangement that lacked the oversight standards of other government agencies.

“There is no public bidding process, no standard for how to execute evictions, no mandatory training or law enforcement certification for deputies, and no accountability and oversight,” Gauthier said.

There is an unspoken undercurrent in all of this, that the left would like for all evictions to be handled by the sheriff. Some evictions in Philly still are, but the private system is less expensive for property owners, and thus more frequently used. If the City Council can increase the costs for the landlord-tenant officers, the higher costs could bring the landlord-tenant office to become just as expensive as having the sheriff handle things.

Lawmakers gathered reform ideas from housing attorneys and people who have been evicted. Brooks’ office said the Landlord-Tenant Office was created under state law but the city is exploring whether it has power to enact certain reforms — like requiring a detailed contract between the court system and the office. There currently isn’t one in place.

“(H)ousing attorneys and people who have been evicted,” huh? “(H)ousing advocates,” as quoted above, huh? In other words, people on one side of the issue.

And thus we come back to Larry Krasner, the prosecutor elected on a promise not to prosecute so much. Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal is pretty lousy in her job, but at least she hasn’t promised to refuse to do evictions. The obvious question becomes: if the City Council can eliminate the Landlord-Tenant Office, and push all evictions onto the Sheriff’s Department, would the city not see a Democratic candidate for sheriff make a campaign promise not to enforce any eviction orders? That, after all, would make “housing advocates” and their fellow travelers very, very happy, as it would for the people who see landlords as being Snidely Whiplash, tying Sweet Nell to the railroad tracks.

The left have been slowly — and some would argue not-so-slowly — turning the City of Brotherly Love into a crime-and-drug-addiction filled [insert vulgar term for feces here] hole, and if the left can somehow deprive honest people of their property by refusing to enforce evictions, that would be the final straw.
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Killadelphia: 12-year-old killed on his birthday

I have said it numerous times before: The Philadelphia Inquirer only cares about individual homicides when the victim is an innocent, someone already of note, or a cute little white girl.

Well, another innocent kid got killed:

Laron Williams Jr. was killed on his 12th birthday, struck by stray bullets in what may be a drug-related shooting

The Williams family, overwhelmed with grief, on Friday asked for the city’s prayers.

by Ellie Rushing | Friday, June 23, 2023

Laron Williams Jr. was killed on his 12th birthday, struck by stray bullets while crossing the street.

It was 2 p.m., and the child — just a year away from becoming a teenager — walked 50 feet from his East Germantown house to pick up lunch from the sweet woman on Crowson Street who cooks for the neighborhood children. He said goodbye to her, then walked back across the 700 block of East Locust Avenue, headed for home.

But as he did, a man armed with a rifle jumped out of a car up the block and started shooting down the street. At least 11 shots were fired. Two men, ages 47 and 30, were struck multiple times, and fell on top of one another, police said.

And Laron — known to friends and family as “L.J.” — was caught in the line of fire. He was shot in the back multiple times, police said, and collapsed at the base of the stairs of the home he’d lived in all his life. His parents held him until police arrived, and officers rushed him to Einstein Medical Center.

There’s more at the original, but young Mr Williams did not survive. Khalif Chambers, 30, of Germantown, and Riley Darden, 47, of Norristown, the two adults, also perished.

A source with knowledge of the investigation, who was not permitted to speak publicly, said the shooting was tied to an ongoing drug feud.

Well, of course it was!

At least as of the time Inquirer reporter Ellie Rushing published her article, the Philadelphia Police had not made any arrests in the case. Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore stated that at least one of the adult victims may have been deliberately targeted, but declined to address what the motive for the shooting had been.

Miss Rushing then gave readers four paragraphs about young Mr Williams life, before relating the statistics: 205 official homicides as of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, June 22nd:

  • Over 100 persons under 18 shot, including 14 aged 12 or younger
  • 18 minors killed
  • 14 children aged 12 or younger shot, at least seven of whom were struck by stray bullets
  • Roughly 12% of city’s shooting victims were under 18, a slightly higher percentage than during 2021 and 2022

Of course, Philly’s worn-out Mayor, Jim Kenney, had something to say on Twitter, something Miss Rushing noted, and something which was widely mocked. Mr Kenney has had 7½ years in office, and while he is combitching about the state legislature, under Mayor Michael Nutter, his immediate predecessor, the homicide numbers got lower during his term, and his last three years in office, they were under 300 for the year, under 250 in two of them, and the state’s firearms laws were no different then.

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Karen wants to know if you have a gun

It was sometime in 2014, at a physician’s appointment when I still lived in Pennsylvania. The nurse came in to take my vital signs and ask the usual questions about my health. Then she asked me if we had any firearms in the house. I responded that such was none of the doctor’s or her business, and that I found the question offensive.

Now comes this from The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Before playdates, ask about guns at home | Expert Opinion

As a pediatrician and a parent, I approach the question of gun ownership by focusing on general safety. I ask about guns in the same breath as I ask about car seats, pools, and food allergies.

by Katie Lockwood, For The Inquirer | Tuesday, June 20, 2023 | 5:00 AM EDT

Sending your kid on a playdate at a friend’s house? The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that you ask whether the family has guns at home.

And at this point, I recommend that the American Academy of Pediatrics take a long walk off a short pier.

One out of three homes with kids has guns, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Of those, only one out of five homes lock up their guns and store ammunition separately.

If you live in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia, and Dr Lockwood, “a pediatrician with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and associate professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania,” must either live in Philly or at least reasonably close by, and ought to know that Philadelphians have sought concealed carry permits in huge numbers due to the terrible murder rate, and if you have a firearm for family or personal protection, the last thing you are going to do is “lock up (your) guns and store ammunition separately.” When some crazed junkie is trying to break in, or the gang-bangers are out shooting up the street and perhaps your home, when seconds count, the last thing you’ll find practical is having to unlock a safe for your weapons, or go to another room to get ammunition.

Yet the question often goes unasked because we don’t know how to broach a potentially awkward conversation. Others may assume their friends don’t own guns or, if they do, know how to store them safely.

So how do you ask the question? And what do you do if they have guns?

If people “don’t know how to broach a potentially awkward conversation,” could it possibly be because they realize that it’s none of their f(ornicating) business?

As a pediatrician and a parent, I approach the question of gun ownership by focusing on general safety. I ask about guns at the same time as I inquire about car seats, pools, and food allergies:

“Without judgment, wondering if you have any guns in your home? If so, I would ask that they are locked up and stored safely. Also, we don’t have any food or pet allergies. Looking forward to getting together!”

If I was a parent with a minor child in the City of Brotherly Love, I would not take my child to see Dr Lockwood. When a physician or his office inquires about firearms, they are entering the information into your medical records, and, with the HITECH Act of 2009, which mandates that medical records be digitized, ostensibly so that other physicians can access your records if needed, it also creates a record that the federal or state government could search, a backdoor way of instituting gun registration. Pennsylvania does not maintain a firearms registry, and under Pennsylvania 18 § 6111.4, neither the state, nor any local government, nor any law enforcement agency in the Commonwealth can maintain a firearms registry.

And if pediatricians are asking children about whether their parents have firearms, without their parents present, those pediatricians should be sued into penury.

Of course, you can’t trust the government when it comes to firearms. William Teach noted, on June 18th, that:

armed IRS agents rolled into Great Falls’ (Montana) Highwood Creek Outfitters Wednesday and seized dozens of boxes of ATF form 4473s, the background check form containing information on gun purchasers.

The agents hit the store prior to regular business hours, KRTV reported.

Store owner Tom Van Hoose said, “At 7:30, I came in and they pulled in behind me with 20 heavily armed agents.”

Van Hoose believes his store is targeted because he sells guns the White House opposes: “I can only assume that it’s because of the style of weapons that we have and the press that’s so against them. The current administration seems to be hell-bent on getting those guns out of the hands of average Americans.”

The ATF form 4473 has a gun purchaser’s name, address, birthdate, state/city of birth, gender, social security number, and the serial number of any guns purchased in the store. The information is perfectly suited for use in a registry or registry database.

Montana neither requires the registration of firearms nor a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

As for asking parents of your kids’ friends, it’s pretty laughable. “Without judgment, wondering if you have any guns in your home?” Of course she’s exercising judgment; her entire article is an exercise in judgment. The only surprising thing is that her first name isn’t Karen. When Dr Lockwood continues, if someone answers affirmatively that they have a firearm, “I would ask that they are locked up and stored safely,” she’s telling the person asked, ‘If your weapons are not locked away to where they are useless, my kid ain’t coming to your place!’

Before hosting a playdate, I volunteer this information, hoping to destigmatize and normalize asking:

“Hello! Just so you know, we are a smoke-free, gun-free home with a dog and two cats. We don’t have a pool, but bring some boots for muddy play in the creek with adult supervision. Looking forward to seeing you soon.”

I doubt many of the bad guys read the Inquirer, so Dr Lockwood is almost certainly safe, even after having told everybody that there are no firearms in her home. But her statement, if it’s spoken in person the way she wrote it in her OpEd piece, sounds just so darned pretentious.

Dr Lockwood is, of course, a free human being, with the same freedom of speech as anyone else, and if she wishes to stick her nose into other people’s business ask other people if they own firearms, she is perfectly within her rights. But I, too, am a free human being, with my own free speech rights, and it is my right to urge people to react negatively to the question she wants other to ask.