Category Archives: Culture

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Very compassionate academics want “juvenile” definitions extended beyond age 18, so they can let violent twenty-somethings be “reformed” I say that, if you kill someone, you should never, ever get out of prison

What is adulthood? In one way, our Constitution specifies adulthood, with the Twenty-sixth Amendment:

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Much of the impetus for this came from the Vietnam war, in which 18-and-19-year-olds could be and were drafted and sent to fight in Southeast Asia, but most states had set their voting ages at 21. Growing up in Kentucky, I did have that then-rare privilege of being able to register to vote at 18, as both Georgia and the Bluegrass State had previously lowered their voting ages to 18, but it barely made a difference: the only election in which I was able to vote as an 18-year-old when such wasn’t available in all of the other states was the May primary in 1971. 🙂

Nevertheless, adulthood has had different definitions throughout time, for different purposes. The ages of consent for sex vary across our country, set by the states, not the federal government, and several of them specify 16 or 17 as the age of consent. And, in our then older, wider Western civilization, most people were married by age 16, if not earlier. Eleanor of Aquitaine, for example, was first married at age 13, and such was in no way unusual in the twelfth century. Her eldest son, Henry the Young King, was married at age 17, though his father, King Henry II, waited until the ripe, old age of 19 to marry Eleanor! Marriage at an age in which girls were still in puberty was considered a societally and religiously practical thing, as it kept illegitimacy down.

And now come Tina M. Zottoli, an associate professor in the department of psychology and director of the Legal Decision Making Lab at Montclair State University, Tarika Daftary-Kapur, a professor of justice studies at the same school, and Kim Echevarria, a doctoral student in the department of psychology there. Though they say nothing about ages of consent for sex, or to be able to vote, they are very, very upset that 18-year-olds are being held responsible as adults for breaking the law:

An 18-year-old is not an adult, brain science shows. The criminal justice system is failing our kids.

The criminal justice system must stop considering teenagers as adults, and offer more chances for rehabilitation to people in their late teens and early 20s.

by Tina M. Zottoli, Tarika Daftary-Kapur, and and Kim Echevarria, For The Inquirer | Ash Wednesday, February 14, 2024 | 7:00 AM EST

In November, the state of Texas executed Brent Brewer for a homicide he committed in 1990, when he was 19 years old. If Brewer had committed the crime a day shy of his 18th birthday, he would be alive today. In fact, he might even be free.

That’s how much difference a day can make.

The authors go on to tell us that:

In 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States abolished the death penalty for people whose crimes were committed before age 18. Then, between 2010 and 2016, the court tightly restricted the cases for which a youth could receive a sentence of life without opportunity for parole. As a result, the number of people serving sentences of life without parole for crimes they committed as teenagers dropped from 2,300 in 2016 to fewer than 1,500 in 2020.

But you know what the three academics don’t tell us? They don’t give readers the name of Robert Laminack. Mr Laminack got his death sentence in 1990, at the hands of Mr Brewer. Mr Brewer has now been sent to his eternal reward, and, on this Ash Wednesday, a committed Catholic like me can at least hope that he repented of his sins and sought absolution for them, that his eternal reward might not be Hell.

As our regular readers, both of them, know, I am opposed to capital punishment; I wish that Mr Brewer had not been executed. However, one almost throwaway sentence from the authors really annoys me:

In fact, he might even be free.

Well, yes, he might, but whether still behind bars, or released from prison, Mr Laminack would still be stone-cold graveyard dead. The authors, who couldn’t even bring themselves to name Mr Brewer’s victim, seemingly don’t care about that. As we previously reported, 17-year-and-363-day old Quadir Humphrey has been charged with the apparently-senseless murder if 16-year-old Tyshaun Welles, when he (allegedly) fired almost randomly into a crowd at the Philadelphia City Hall SEPTA subway station. The three academics wrote, ” The court further acknowledged — correctly — that youth who commit crimes can be rehabilitated.”

Well, young Mr Humphrey wasn’t rehabilitated, despite being in custody, twice, on June 4, 2021 on a gun charge, and again on March 4, 2023, on a stolen car charge, neither of which had been adjudicated on the day that he (allegedly) shot Mr Welles. Even if charged and prosecuted as an adult, Mr Humphrey, if convicted, cannot be sentenced to either death or life without parole, but Mr Welles will still be dead. That, to paraphrase the three academics, is how much difference two days can make.

Our work following juvenile homicide offenders released from sentences of life without parole in Philadelphia shows that the court got the science right. Among the first 174 released, only six (or 3.4%) were rearrested within an average two-year follow-up, and only two (or 1.1%) were convicted, both for minor offenses. In comparison, the two-year rearrest rate for homicide offenders nationally is 30%.

Like Brewer, some of the individuals in our study had originally been sentenced to death. But unlike Brewer, they had not yet turned 18 when they committed their crimes, so they were given a chance to show us that they could change.

Those paragraphs fall under the category of lies, damned lies, and statistics! From the City Controller’s office, on January 15, 2022:

The increase in gun violence coincided with other concerning gun-related trends. As gun violence surged over the last six years, clearance rates — the share of cases solved by the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) — for homicides and non-fatal shootings declined. In 2020, just 37% of fatal shootings were cleared by the PPD. At the same time, the number of individuals arrested for illegal gun possession increased by more than 100% between 2015 and 2020. While gun possession arrests have drastically increased, conviction rates — the share of cases prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Office (DAO) that result in conviction — for gun possession declined. Between 2015 and 2020, the share of illegal gun possession cases resulting in conviction fell from 65% to 42%. . . . .

In 2015, clearance rates for non-fatal shootings were already low at 27%. As non-fatal shooting victims increased by more than 80% from 2015 to 2020, clearance rates continued to decline. The clearance rate reached a low point in 2020, when only 19% of non-fatal shooting incidents were cleared by the PPD. This clearance rate translates to nearly 1,500 non-fatal shooting incidents for which no arrest was made in 2020.

So, when the three academics tell us that the arrest and conviction rates were low in the City of Brotherly Love, they are basing their claims on statistics from a crippled Police Department under the thankfully-departed, failed Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, and the refusal of the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating and criminal-loving District Attorney Larry Krasner to seriously prosecute some crimes, including gun crimes.

More, the authors restricted their statistical study to “an average two-year follow up,” something which is not only a short period of time, but one which, if they described it accurately in their article in the Inquirer, was shorter than two years in some cases.

The authors indicated their bias in their own linked (supposedly) academic study, when they stated:

Moreover, in light of the growing recognition that addressing the incarceration epidemic will necessitate re-evaluation of long-term prison sentences for individuals who were convicted of violent offenses, these outcome data have implications far beyond just those that pertain to the resentencing and release of juvenile lifers.[1]Resentencing of Juvenile Lifers: The Philadelphia Experience, page 1 of the report, page 2 of the .pdf file.

On page 3 of the document, the authors refer to the “crisis of mass incarceration,”[2]ibid, page 3 of the report, page 4 of the .pdf file. as though mass incarceration is a problem, rather than not enough people being incarcerated, for not a long enough period of time.

Considering that the overwhelming majority of individuals who commit crime — even serious crime—“age out” of criminal behavior, the societal benefits of continued incarceration are called into question, especially in comparison with the costs.[3]ibid, page 3 of the report, page 4 of the .pdf file.

There is a huge problem with the study. The authors are speaking, in the quoted parts above, about offenders previously sentenced to life, or what they have referred to as “virtual life,” by which they mean sentences of 50 or more years, studied in a re-sentencing project, but drawing inferences on juvenile offenders whom they hope to receive much shorter sentences. As they stated previously:

A subset of 38 cases were considered for resentencing by both the prior and current administrations. The average sentence offered in these cases by the prior administration (District Attorney Seth Williams) was 38.8 years; under Krasner, the average offer in these cases was 27.6 years. Across all cases, this difference equates to an additional reduction of 394 years.[4]ibid, page 2 of the report, page 3 of the .pdf file.

An offender really can “age out” of prime criminal activity years, after he has spent 38.8 years, or even 27.6 years, behind bars, but the type of lenient treatment the authors like and want to see continued under Mr Krasner when it comes to juveniles, does not lead to any ‘aging out’.

On page 6 of the report, page 7 of the .pdf file, the authors note that all of the juvenile offenders resentenced following a life sentence were murderers,, meaning that their victims are dead, never again to draw another breath of life. They noted that 38% of them were convicted of Second degree murder, felony murder, which means a homicide committed during the commission of another felony, robbery (78%, home invasion (16%), and “drug-related” offenses (6%), but does not require that the convicted be the one who actually pulled the trigger. The verbiage is such that the reader could infer that none of the 38% were the ones who pulled the trigger, but the charge of First-degree murder in Pennsylvania requires premeditation, not just the adrenaline-fueled, split-second reaction involved in a felony.

In their Inquirer OpEd, the authors concluded:

Of course, whenever a line is drawn, there will be errors at the margins. But if we, as a nation, continue to maintain the most severe of criminal sanctions — the death penalty, and life without parole — and if we justify these sanctions partly on the basis that they ought to be reserved for people who cannot be reformed, we must acknowledge that the dividing line between 17 and 18 years mistakenly classifies far too many young people as irredeemable.

And therein lies the assumption which destroys their entire article: “if we justify these sanctions partly on the basis that they ought to be reserved for people who cannot be reformed.” Not just no, but Hell no! When the result of the crime is that someone else is killed, we should not be looking at whether or not his killer can or cannot be reformed, but the fact that someone’s life was taken from him, and that the killer should not be released until the dead person comes back to life.

References

References
↑1 Resentencing of Juvenile Lifers: The Philadelphia Experience, page 1 of the report, page 2 of the .pdf file.
↑2 ibid, page 3 of the report, page 4 of the .pdf file.
↑3 ibid, page 3 of the report, page 4 of the .pdf file.
↑4 ibid, page 2 of the report, page 3 of the .pdf file.
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CNN reporter Barbie Latza Nadeau accidentally tells the truth, though I’m sure she is appalled by it

I spotted this following story thanks to a tweet from William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove. Mr Teach noted that CNN seemed far more concerned that an alleged gang rape of a 13-year-old girl in Sicily would benefit conservative politicians — called the “far-right” by CNN — than they were about the fact that a young teenager was raped!

An alleged gang rape shocks Italy, and provides fodder for an ascendant far right

By Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN | Sunday, February 11, 2024 | Updated: 5:27 AM EST

Rome CNN — Italy has been shaken by the alleged gang rape of a 13-year-old girl in front of her boyfriend in a public park in the Sicilian city of Catania, the latest in a string of shocking sexual attacks in the country.

The case is reminiscent of two alleged gang rapes last summer. A group of seven men and teenage boys between the ages of 15 and 18 are currently on trial for the alleged rape of a 19-year-old girl in Palermo in August.

Weeks later nine young men were arrested and charged with allegedly raping two cousins aged 10 and 12 near Naples and broadcasting the attack live on social media. They, too, are facing trial.

Last month’s alleged gang rape in Catania has become not only a symbol of violence against women in the country, but a cause célèbre for Italy’s far-right government. The seven suspected perpetrators were all Egyptian migrants, three of them under the age of 18, Catania police confirmed to CNN.

There’s more at the original.

As we previously reported, a ‘migrant’ from Venezuela has been arrested for trying to shoot an New York City Police Officer, and wounding a tourist in Times Square. Neither the United States as a whole, or New York more specifically, has a “far-right” government to which to tie that crime, and somehow, some way, CNN didn’t cover the story of the arrest of Jesus Alejandro Rivas-Figueroa at all, or at least a site search for Rivas-Figueroa conducted at 12:55 PM EST this morning returned no stories on the subject.

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, came to power in September 2022 on an anti-immigration platform, but her efforts to curb irregular migration into the country have so far been unsuccessful.

How interesting that CNN reporter Barbie Latza Nadeau characterized Prime Minister Meloni and her government as “far-right,” and then linked an article which said, among other things, “She was nowhere near as far-right as some had feared, and the multilingual career politician was at ease with global world leaders.” 🙂 Perhaps if she had been more stringently “far-right” Italy would have been more successful in intercepting and turning around the ‘migrants’ boats.

The CNN writer then had a several paragraph section beginning with, “Italy has long struggled with the problem of gender-based violence,” even as she noted that the parliament has passed measures to more greatly criminalize such.

The legislation was inspired by the case of Giulia Cecchettin, a 22-year-old woman murdered by an ex-boyfriend. She was one of 118 femicides in Italy last year. In 2022, women were the victims of 91% of homicides committed by family members, partners or former partners, according to the European Data Journalism Network.

“Violence against women is a phenomenon that’s more or less present in all countries, caused by structural causes like the disparity between men and women, stereotypes and prejudices,” Elena Biaggioni, vice president of D.i.Re, a national association that coordinates anti-violence centers and women’s shelters, said last June.

Speaking at a protest after a pregnant woman was allegedly stabbed to death by her partner, she added: “But of course in countries where there’s a macho culture and sexism is stronger, like Italy, this violence is justified in a different way.”

Yet in the latest case, officials have centered their attention on the background of the alleged perpetrators.

So, are you convinced yet that this is not really a problem of the illegal immigrants, but Italy, and wicked Italian men in general? It’s not the fault of the illegal immigrants, but the problem is that “officials” who have focused on the “background of the alleged perpetrators.” That’s pretty clearly what Miss Nadeau wants you to believe. But next comes the money line, though I doubt that the CNN writer realized it:

The judge investigating the most recent case, Carlo Umberto Cannella, said the suspects were likely to reoffend because they were not “accustomed to civilization.”

Absolutely right! Islamic ‘civilization,’ if you can call it civilization at all, simply is nothing like Western civilization, and Judge Cannella told the truth. Islamic ‘civilization’ has produced, in the 21st century, an Iran which jails and occasionally beats to death women who don’t properly wear a headscarf, an Afghanistan where girls cannot be educated past the sixth grade, women are forced to wear head-to-toe burkas, and must be accompanied by a responsible male if they leave the home. Islamic ‘civilization’ has produced Hamas, which used murder and deliberate rape to terrorize Israeli civilians, and Da’ish, which throws homosexuals off of tall buildings.

They are not Westerners, and if we try to think of them as Westerners or expect them to behave as Westerners, we are deceiving ourselves and endangering actually civilized people.

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Killadelphia: A public service homicide? One bad guy dead, another in jail

Jahsir Walke mug shot, via Steve Keeley, Fox29 News.

Meet Jahsir Walke, 16, of foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia, and you can say goodby to him as well. No, unlike Robert Stacy McCain’s use of a similar line, young Mr Walke has not gone on to his eternal reward, but we can have some real hope that he will disappear into a Pennsylvania state penitentiary, and never see the sun from outside again.

So, what did young Mr Walke do? Well, the first part of the problem is that he is just plain stupid. At just 16 years of age, he thought it was wise and cool and all gangster to walk around carrying a firearm. Oddly enough, the fact that he was violating gun control laws didn’t seem to give him pause, and certainly did not stop him from carrying, something which must surely shock the left.

Mr Keeley posted his notice of the crime at 4:23 PM EST, but, at least as of 8:52 PM, The Philadelphia Inquirer has nothing on the story; I am not surprised.

On Monday, January 29th, officers of the 19th District responded to a “Man with a gun” call at the Martinez Food Market, a corner store bodega at 5453 Master Street, in the Hestonville neighborhood in West Philadelphia. Upon arrival, they found Nafiese McClain, a 19-year-old black male, shot twice. He was transported to Penn Presbyterian Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

According to initial reports, Mr McClain entered the bodega and brushed past two young black males, one of whom was Mr Walke, and then assaulted a third black male in the back of the store. Mr Walke then pulled his weapon from the waistband of his pants, and shot Mr McClain twice. This wasn’t some after dark crime, but happened at 1:37 in the afternoon.

Of course, as is the case virtually everywhere these days, it was all caught by a security camera, Mr Walke was identified as the shooter, and a week later he’s behind bars.

So, what do we have? A 19-year-old tough guy treats a couple of teenagers rudely, then starts to pound on a third man, for a thus far unreported reason. Then, one of the two teenaged tough guys pulls out his gun, and sends Mr McClain straight to Hell.

If I was to be cynical, I’d call this a public service homicide. Mr McClain seems to have been a good-for-nothing punk of whom West Philly is well rid, and young Mr Walke another useless consumer of food, water and oxygen, whose disappearance into the state pen can only benefit the decent people in the neighborhood. Being a juvenile, his record is almost certainly sealed, but a 16-year-old carrying? The probability that Mr Walke has a record himself would seem pretty high.

Through Sunday, February 4th, the City of Brotherly Love had seen ‘only’ 27 homicides, down from the 41 on the same date last year. With 35 days having elapsed in the year, the city is seeing fewer than one homicide per day, 0.7714 per day. While even one murder is one too many, in Philly terms, 0.7714 killings per day is pretty good, and the lowest number on this date since 2018. And when we consider the victim and the killer, this just might be a win/win.

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The Freedom of Speech comes with an obligation of responsibility; people are responsible for what they say.

I have always believed in the freedom of speech, that people should be absolutely free to say whatever they wished. But I also believe that the speaker is not somehow immune from the consequences of his speech. The Supreme Court noted that freedom of speech doesn’t extend to yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded theater, or “fighting words,” but both of those incidences are concerns about the consequences of what someone says, causing a stampede in which people are injured, or getting your jaw jacked because you angered someone enough to hit you in the mouth. From USA Today:

Posting ‘Zionists must die’ is awful. But it shouldn’t get student kicked out of college.

Cornell should balance protecting students and campus staff with protecting free speech.

Continue reading →

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We’re not really serious about rape Don't look for complicated answers when there are simple solutions to the problem

We have previously reported on sex crimes against minors in Kentucky, and this morning, the Lexington Herald-Leader continued an investigative effort that began at the end of 2022, with the story “Kentucky’s laws on teacher sexual misconduct are weak. Here’s what needs to change.

Kentucky lawmakers failed to address teacher sex abuse last year. Will they in 2024?

by Beth Musgrave and Valarie Honeycutt Spears | Thursday, February 1, 2024 | 11:00 AM EST | Updated: 11:30 AM EST

Andrew Zaheri, mugshot via Rowan County Detention Center and is a public record.

It started with massages for leg cramps after soccer practice when she was 14.Andrew Zaheri’s attentions to the teenage girl quickly escalated, according to court documents.

No, of course what my best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal didn’t include Mr Zaheri’s mugshot, but at The First Street Journal we believe such to be public records, and do publish them. Continue reading →

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Because Larry Krasner won’t put the bad guys in jail, the decent people of Philly are putting themselves behind bars

Ho hum, another Friday night, and more gunfire in the City of Brotherly Love. As we noted here, Thye Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jenice Armstrong lamented that “if (Kasheeda) Jones had been white, and driving a minivan, her death could be national — or even international — news. But in Philly, it was just another Friday night.”

Well, last Friday night’s shooting is big news, because a Philadelphia Police officer was shot. Fortunately, he was not killed, and the punk who shot him is now laying on a slab at the morgue.

Philly police officer shot and suspect killed after ‘scuffle’ erupts in corner store

The shooting happened around 8:45 p.m. inside a store at the corner of North Mascher and West Cambria Streets. Police were searching for a man who they said picked up the suspect’s gun and fled.

by Robert Moran | Friday, January 26, 2024 | 9:23 PM EST | Updated: 11:49 PM EST

A police officer was shot Friday night in the Fairhill section of North Philadelphia and the suspected shooter was killed by the officer’s partner during a confrontation inside a neighborhood store, police said.

The shooting happened around 8:45 p.m. inside the store at the intersection of North Mascher and West Cambria Streets.

The “store” at the intersection? Google Maps Streetscape shows us this “store,” and it calls itself the Jennifer Tavern, with a nice picture of a frothy mug and “Ice Cold Beer” in snow-capped letters. A photo in the Inquirer’s story shows the same place, if less clearly.

“Shots fired! Shots fired!” an officer told police dispatchers, then reported that an officer was down.

The injured police officer, who was not identified, was transported to Temple University Hospital, where he was reported in stable condition with two gunshots to the right thigh, Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel said at a news briefing around 11 p.m. outside the hospital.

The suspected shooter also was transported to Temple and was pronounced dead, Bethel said. . . . .

Said a visibly angry Bethel: ”I’ve been here too many times. It is unacceptable.”

That statement, along with the newspaper’s photo of the Commissioner, reminded me eerily of very similar pictures of then-Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, saying the same things after yet another police officer had been shot. Fortunately, this officer will survive.

A Philadelphia crime blogger who goes by the amusing Twitter handle Stinky Feat has looked up the dead punk’s rap sheets, and posted a long series showing how the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating and criminal fellating loving District Attorney, Larry Krasner, and his minions in the District Attorney’s office gave extremely lenient breaks to a persistent criminal and felon, including a 3-to-23 month sentence, immediately paroled, which would, had he actually served it, kept the criminal behind bars through March of this year. Instead of looking forward to getting out in a month or so, he’s now laying on the slab in the morgue.

Did the soft-hearted and soft-headed Mr Krasner really do this punk any favors? I will admit to having snarkily tweeted that we just didn’t understand and appreciate what a super-genius the District Attorney is, with his incredible policy of getting the bad guys killed and thus off the streets without the good taxpayers of the Keystone State having to provide them with three hots and a cot for years on end.

2800 block North Mascher Street, via Google Streetscapes. Click to enlarge.

While others are looking at the thug now assuming room temperature’s criminal record, I have been looking at things in a different manner: I looked at the neighborhood. The 2800 block of North Mascher Street shows older Philly rowhomes, many with metal bars on first-floor windows and front doors, in the Fairhill neighborhood, in what the Inquirer was very upset is called the Philadelphia Badlands. The people there have, in effect, put themselves in jail to try to protect themselves from the criminals who Mr Krasner has not and will not put behind bars.

The 28-year-old felon who will now never turn 29 has a criminal record dating at least as far back as New Year’s Eve of 2015, when he was just 20; if he had a juvenile record, that is sealed. And if perhaps not this particular person having now gone to his eternal reward — I do not know if he lived in the Badlands personally — the city has allowed enough people who do terrorize the decent folks in Philly to push themselves into living behind bars themselves.

2818 North Mascher Street.

This is 2818 North Mascher Street. Would you want to live in this house, in a neighborhood so bad that the owners had to build themselves a jail cell? Zillow shows nearby 2845 North Mascher Street, which does need interior work, currently for sale, for a whopping $74,500. There are a lot of similarly-priced homes in the neighborhood.

New Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins expressed her outrage at the shooting, and she has promised to clean up nearby Kensington of its junkies and open-air drug market, and while Kensington is the most infamous of the bad areas — though not actually in the Badlands definition — the problems are far more widespread. The problem is the culture in these areas, a culture which doesn’t seriously educate kids growing up to be decent, law-abiding citizens. The left want to blame it on poverty, but I grew up poor, too, and I didn’t knock over liquor stores or shoot up bars and bodegas. And is it’s too late for that won’t-reach-29-years-old punk, law enforcement, strict law enforcement, has to be part of the solution. Philly needs to start showing kids growing up that they’re more likely to end up behind bars if they break the law than Mr Krasner is willing to put them.

And that’s the sad part: because of lenient treatment, because Mr Krasner and his minions don’t want to put the bad guys behind bars, the decent residents have felt the need to do it to themselves.

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Awww, what a shame this is! Democratic Socialists of America go all in on their support for Hamas, and donations dry up.

One thing to remember: those who are marching in support of the ‘Palestinians’ and Hamas tend to be younger, and poorer, and are usually not the kind of people who contribute to candidates and political organizations. Had I actually thought about this before, I would have guessed it, but now that it’s been brought to my attention, I do have a smile on my face while I type and drink my coffee.

From National Review:

Democratic Socialists of America in ‘Financial Crisis’ following Brash Support for Hamas

by Haley Strack | Monday, January 22, 2024 | 8:53 AM EST

The Democratic Socialists of America are in a “financial crisis” that will require seven-figure budget cuts and staff layoffs to correct.

News of the DSA’s financial condition surfaced as the group leads anti-Israel protests nationwide; including a pro-Hamas rally held in New York just one day after Hamas’s October 7 massacre.

“The current deficit will force us to make 7-figure budget cuts. This will require us to make painful decisions that will impact all levels of the organization. … Given our current financial state, we do not believe we can have a healthy, democratic, and effective organization while spending the amount we currently do on staff,” Alex Pellitteri, Kristin Schall, and Laura Wadlin, members of the DSA 2023-2025 National Political Committee, wrote in a proposal published last week.

For those of you who might be stymied by National Review’s paywall, you can read it for free here.

Awww, I just can’t put into words how saddened I am that the DSA will have less money to spend on trying to destroy the United States. And it pegs the irony meter that the Democratic Socialists are being hit hard by the capitalist economy. 🙂 As the New York Post’s Carl Campanile put it:

The situation appears to be a case of an organization that blindly seeks utopia and professes support of the working class clashing with reality — forcing it to have to balance a budget like the rest of America and even contemplate layoffs hated by labor unions.

Further down:

Many American progressives believe that DSA has abandoned its domestic political commitments to go all in on the pro-Palestinian cause, executive director Zioness Amanda Berman, told the New York Post.

On the matter of Israel, DSA dissented from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Senator Bernie Sanders (D., Vt.), two of the country’s most prominent progressives, in the days following Hamas’s attack. Instead of condemning the mass rape and murder of Israelis, as Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders did in October, the DSA said on October 7 that “today’s events are a direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime—a regime that receives billions in funding from the United States.”

“After Hamas’s brutal invasion of Israel on October 7, DSA doubled down on their strategy of going deep and long on antisemitism, thinking it might get them out of the hole,” Berman said. “Instead, this depraved idea dug them even deeper. True progressives, whether in the grassroots or in political leadership, will continue rejecting this extremist group and its hateful ideas in the name of true justice and equity, including for Jewish Americans.”

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain, “Democratic Socialists of America Now Planning Layoffs Amid Financial ‘Crisis’“

American Jews tend to be politically liberal and are overwhelmingly Democratic voters:

  1. Jewish adults are more likely to identify as Democrats (50%) than Republican (17%) and are more liberal in their political views (43%) than conservative (22%).
  2. Compared to the overall US electorate, Jewish adults are more likely to be Democrats (50% versus 31%) and liberal (43% versus 26%).
  3. When including independents and Others who lean toward the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, the disparity in party affiliation between Jewish adults and all US adults increases. Sixty-three percent of Jewish adults identify as Democrats or lean Democratic, compared to less than half (45%) of US adults.
  4. Among age groups, Gen Z Jewish adults include the lowest percentage of Democratic identification (43%) and the highest percentage of independents (43%). When including Democratic/Republican leaning, a greater percentage of Gen Z adults identify as Democrats or lean Democratic (65%) compared to older Jewish adults (61%).
  5. Jewish women identify as Democrats or lean Democratic at a greater percentage than Jewish men, similar to the pattern among all US adults, though to a larger degree.
  6. For both Jewish adults and all US adults, those with a college degree have higher rates of liberal identification and are more likely to identify as Democrats or lean Democratic.
  7. Just over one third of Hispanic and Black/other non-Hispanic Jewish adults identify as liberal, though 70-80% identify as Democrats or lean Democratic.

Look at that fourth numbered bullet point: the very group on which the DSA depend most philosophically are also the group which identify less with a political party have the lowest percentage affiliation with political groups. And the DSA have just trashed their brand with other liberals. Why it’s almost as though the baristas living ten to a two-bedroom fifth-floor walkup on 96th Street and the unemployed gamers and incels living in their parents’ basements spend their allowances on things other than political contributions.

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Homeless People Are Dangerous

I’m adapting the title of this article from Robert Stacy McCain’s series “Crazy People Are Dangerous,” because the ‘suspect’ in this case almost certainly is crazy. Really, don’t you have to be a bit nuts to pull out a knife and start stabbing someone else?

Philly DA charges man with assault for stabbing in SEPTA’s 15th Street Station

Jason Howard, 33, was charged with aggravated assault and related crimes for allegedly stabbing another man around 4 a.m. Thursday.

by Rodrigo Torrejón | Friday, January 19, 2024 | 2:58 PM EST

A 33-year-old man who authorities say stabbed a man in the back multiple times in the 15th Street SEPTA subway station on Thursday morning has been charged with aggravated assault and related crimes.

Jason Howard attacked the 28-year-old victim after a confrontation around 4 a.m., a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office said Friday.

Both men were experiencing homelessness and likely taking shelter in the subway station when they apparently got into an argument and Howard pulled out a knife, authorities said.

I do so love the newspaper’s stylebook, which tells us that both the victim and (alleged) perpetrator were “experiencing homelessness,” rather than just saying that they are homeless. CBS News tells us that they were “unhoused.”

The following video report is from Fox 29 News, because The Philadelphia Inquirer would never, ever publish photos or other material which would show the image of the suspect!

Police reviewed surveillance footage and a SEPTA police officer later spotted Howard at the station, wearing the same clothing as the assailant in the video, as he stepped off a train on the Market-Frankford Line, said SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch. Philadelphia police arrested Howard on the 1500 block of Walnut Street shortly after, he said.

The Market-Frankford Line, huh? I’ve suggested before that it should be called the MF Line, because nothing good happens on it!

The Transit Police recovered a knife from the suspect, though it has not been reported whether that knife was the one which was used to stab the victim. Mr Howard is currently being held in lieu of $275,000 bail, something which a homeless man is unlikely to have or be able to raise.

We have previously noted that the city is far behind on its payments to privately-run homeless shelters, and it’s January, so yeah, the “unhoused” will seek shelter from the bitterly cold wind chills.

Former District Attorney Seth Williams tweeted, “Why drive when @SEPTA is so easy today! @SEPTAPHILLY“, and a lot of people replied with comments about how unsafe the system is. It wasn’t just this stabbing; Tyshaun Welles, an apparently good kid, was killed at the very same SEPTA station, allegedly by Quadir Humphrey, who just started shooting, apparently not aiming specifically at young Mr Welles, but just because he’s a thug with a criminal history who decided to be stupid.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a federal government agency that, with a name like that, shows how serious the problems are just by its existence, reported that, in 2022, 21% of “individuals experiencing homelessness” reported having a serious mental illness, and 16% reported having a substance use disorder. They also reported a 16% increase in “individuals experiencing chronic homelessness between 2020 and 2022,” which tells us just how much President Biden’s claims that the economy is doing just great are lies.

Let’s be honest here: homeless people are dangerous! With a (probably underestimated) 21% being seriously mentally ill and others besides that 21% — though there is certainly some overlap in these percentages — being alcoholics and junkies, that’s a lot of people you do not want to be around.

This is serious stuff. New Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins has promised to clean up the blatantly public drug market and the homeless encampments in Kensington, but that leads to the obvious question: if she kicks the homeless out of their camps, where will they go? One of the obvious answers is that they’ll go into the SEPTA train and subway stations!

Mrs Mullins is absolutely right: Kensington has to be cleaned up, but it’s not just that neighborhood. Kensington’s Allegheny Station is right along the MF Line, and the junkies will go where they know.

SEPTA needs increased ridership, and a $1.00 fare increase, to pay its bills and a city concerned about ‘climate change’ wants more Philadelphians to use public transportation, but Philly can’t get there if SEPTA stations become nothing but shelters for homeless junkies and crazy people. Over seventy years of unbroken Democratic Party and trade union rule has turned the City of Brotherly Love into what it is today. Mrs Mullins should be given a chance to do what she promised, but the problems in Philly are far greater than anyone is willing to admit.

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Well, of course that’s it!

It was just a single sentence in a Newsweek article on the #woke — whom I regard as just boneheadedly stupid — boycotting an event because Bethany Hamilton was competing:

Bethany Hamilton’s Transgender Remark Sparks Boycott of Women’s Event

by Matthew Impelli | Wednesday, January 17, 2024 | 12:17 PM EST

Bethany Hamilton, picture from her Facebook page.

Pro-surfer Bethany Hamilton’s past comments about transgender individuals in sports have sparked a boycott of an upcoming women’s event in Wisconsin.

Over the past several months, there has been ongoing controversy surrounding the inclusion of transgender individuals into different sports categories. At least 20 U.S. states have imposed legislation that bans transgender women from competing in female sports categories, with many conservatives arguing that transgender women have an advantage over biological females.

On Tuesday, WLUK-TV in Wisconsin obtained a letter signed by dozens of community members in Oshkosh criticizing a decision by the Women’s Fund of the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation to name Hamilton as a keynote speaker for the 2024 Power of the Purse event. Continue reading →