Category Archives: Freedom of Religion

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Not old enough to grow a man’s beard, but old enough to do a man’s crime! And now he'll do a man's time, but will he learn a real man's lessons?

In 25 years, John Nusslein will be 44 years old; in 25 years, Chung Yan Chin will still be dead.

We should have, I suppose, some gratitude that carjacking is a federal offense, and such cases can be tried in federal court, rather than in a state court in which Philadelphia’s George Soros-sponsored, police-hating, and softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney, Larry Krasner, has no say in the charges or outcomes. Nevertheless, Mr Nusslein will eventually be a free man, while his victim will still be pushing up daisies. Continue reading →

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But no, it’s not about Anti-Semitism at all!

Drexel University is a private research university in Philadelphia, dating from 1891, and now separated by only an alleyway between 32nd and 33rd Streets in the University City section of the city. For undergraduates in general programs, total cost of three quarters per year, including housing, is $83,818 for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Police investigating vandalism at Drexel Jewish center as ‘hate crime,’ university says

Video shows masked individuals removing letters from the sign outside the Raymond G. Perelman Center for Jewish Life, the university’s president said.

by Robert Moran | Tuesday, April 2, 2024 | 7:48 PM EDT

Drexel University said Tuesday that police were investigating as a hate crime the vandalism of a sign outside the Raymond G. Perelman Center for Jewish Life. Continue reading →

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Whenever there is a truth you cannot tell, that is a truth you must tell!

J K Rowling, the author of the brilliant Harry Potter books, is a stone liberal, one who decided to tell readers that Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, is homosexual. Miss Rowling never mentioned anything about her vision of Professor Dumbledore as being queer in the actual series of books, and the only mention of sexuality in the series is all about normal sexual interests. Her description of how nerdy teenaged boys felt about having to ask out girls to the Yule Ball in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when the main characters would have been 14-years-old, amazed me in how a middle-aged woman could so accurately portray a teenaged boy’s thinking and feelings and utter terrors at having to ask out a girl for the first time. But, even as liberal as she is, she understands that males cannot ‘transition’ into females, and vice-versa. Continue reading →

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Political speech by public school teachers

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

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Having been incorporated by the Supreme Court to apply to state and municipal governments as well, it presents a high bar to governments to restrict speech. However, one place in which governments, and employers, can restrict speech is when the speaker is at work; no one reasonably holds that an employee could harm his employer through his at-work speech. We also have laws prohibiting government employees from political activities while working at their jobs.

Well, this story caught my eye:

Central Bucks says teacher’s anti-Israel social media posts don’t violate policies. Some parents say he’s ‘brainwashing’ kids.

Youssef Abdelwahab, a Spanish teacher and adviser to Central Bucks West’s Muslim Student Association, has posted extensively on social media criticizing Israel.

by Maddie Hanna | Saturday, March 16, 2024 | 5:00 AM EDT

A Central Bucks West High School teacher did not break district rules with his anti-Israel advocacy, district officials said this week after reviewing complaints by parents that his social media posts spread antisemitic content and inspired a Muslim student group to do the same.

Complaints about Youssef Abdelwahab, a Spanish teacher and adviser to the high school’s Muslim Student Association, were investigated by the Central Bucks School District, according to acting superintendent James Scanlon, who said he couldn’t provide details on personnel matters.

“There were no policy violations,” Scanlon said.

Several parents criticized Abdelwahab during a school board meeting Tuesday night, accusing him of “brainwashing” students through an Instagram account set up for a business he runs selling durag head coverings with designs inspired by kaffiyehs, a traditional Arab headdress viewed by supporters of the Palestinian cause as a symbol of fighting for Palestinian rights. Abdulwahab’s critics have also circulated a 45-page letter addressed to Scanlon that called for his firing.

So far, that’s just news, and while I completely and unambiguously support Israel, I also support Mr Abdelwahab’s First Amendment rights to believe and say and publish whatever foolishness he wants.

But I do not support him being allowed to do so in school.

Very far down:

Teachers’ speech has been controversial in Central Bucks in recent years. The new Democrat-led board recently rolled back a policy enacted by the previous Republican majority that barred teachers from advocating to students about “partisan, political or social policy issues.” The measure was criticized as targeting Pride flags and support for LGBTQ students.

Odd how it doesn’t seem to have been criticized as having prohibited teachers supporting Donald Trump or conservative policies. Those have as little place in the public schools as supporting homosexuality and transgenderism.

The letter to district officials charged that Abdelwahad had violated that policy while it still was in effect, alleging that he “advocated to students” through his Instagram account and his role with the Muslim Student Association.

The letter highlighted a poster at the high school for a Feb. 27 event hosted by the association encouraging students to protest the state’s financial support for Israel. The poster invited students to “collectively write a letter to PA state treasurer listing ways we can better use the $$ here in PA, rather than for killing more innocents in Gaza.”

Under the direction of another teacher, Central Bucks students wrote letters in support of Israel, according to a former Central Bucks West student who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting. “The situation is deeply insensitive to our Palestinian students,” said the former student, Ginny Morgan, who came to the U.S. as a Syrian refugee and described being bullied and targeted by jokes about 9/11 while a student in the district.

It ought to be obvious: teachers should not be pushing students politically in either direction.

Morgan also pushed back on criticism of students wearing kaffiyehs, which the letter to Scanlon described as popularized by former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Wearing a keffiyeh is “hate speech that is made to evoke a fear reaction in Jewish and Israeli students when they see it,” the letter said, citing case law to contend that student free speech — while largely protected — is not unlimited in public schools.

So, it seems that precious little feelings on both sides are being hurt. But unless the school is going to mandate uniforms, students can wear kaffiyehs if they wish . . . and kippahs as well, though the article did not mention them. The two are different in one respect: a kaffiyeh is a political symbol, while a kippah is a religious one. High school students are not exactly known for their sense of moderation.

If Mr Abdelwahad is stupid enough to support the rapists and murderers in Hamas, out-of-school, that’s his right. But the district does need to be monitoring more closely the political speech of teachers and staff while in school.
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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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When the media play Nurse Ratched, be Randle Patrick McMurphy!

The First Street Journal is committed to doing something really, really radical, and that is telling the truth. In the pursuit of that, I have published our Stylebook,[1]I give complete permission to anyone else who likes our Stylebook to adopt it as his own, with the appropriate reference, of course! something rarely done these days. In it, I noted:

Those who claim to be transgender will be referred to with the names, honorifics, and pronouns appropriate to the sex of their birth; the site owner does not agree with the cockamamie notion that anyone can simply ‘identify’ with a sex which is not his own, nor that any medical ‘treatment’ or surgery can change a person’s natural sex; all that it can do is physically mutilate a person.

Our Stylebook was first published on November 12, 2020, so this is not a new thing for this website. But USA Today seems to think we are hurting other people by telling the truth.

‘A matter of physical safety’: What it means to deadname someone and the impact it makes

by Clare Mulroy | Monday, March 11, 2024 | 6:02 AM EDT | Updated: 9:57 AM EDT

Merriam-Webster named “authentic” its 2023 Word of the Year, but other top contenders included “indict,” “rizz” and “deadname.” These words reflect increased search and cultural impact.

“Deadnaming” is one word that’s coming up on the campaign trail – the local one, that is. In Ohio, three out of four transgender candidates have been challenged or disqualified based on an elections law that penalizes candidates who don’t put their former names on petitions, the Associated Press reported.

But what is a deadname and what does it mean to call someone by it?

Deadnaming is when someone refers to a transgender or nonbinary person by a name they used before transitioning. This is often the name they were assigned at birth, also called a deadname.

In other words, it is telling the truth! Bradley Manning might really, really, really believe that he’s a woman named “Chelsea,” and he actually got his name changed legally, but he’s not a woman, and never will be. Referring to him as “Chelsea” is lying, not just to him, but to yourself.

Deadnaming can be intentional or unintentional. Both instances cause harm.

“It isn’t just a matter of comfort (for trans people), it’s a matter of physical safety,” Olivia Hunt, the policy director at the National Center for Transgender Equality told USA TODAY. “How you address someone tells them a lot about how you view them as a person and also communicates to other people how they should treat that person.”

So, it seems that Miss Mulroy believes that I should deliberately lie, not only to be polite, but to not do so is a “matter of physical safety” for the ‘transgendered.’ Sorry, but deliberately lying is not polite. This isn’t a matter of “Do these jeans make me look fat?” kind of questions, but ones of objective reality.

In the year 2525, if man is still alive, when an anthropologist digs up the grave of Chad Malloy, a ‘transgender’ writer who calls himself “Parker,” as the anthropologist is trying to figure out what society was like in the early 21st century, before the nuclear devastation of World War III, he will examine the remains scientifically. Five hundred years from now, the soft tissues will have long decayed away, and the anthropologist will have just the skeleton. He will examine the structure of the pelvis, and write down in his notes — perhaps with a quill pen and ink on parchment; who knows how much we will have recovered from the war? — “The subject was male,” which will be an objective conclusion based on the scientific fact that males and females have different pelvic structures.

And if there is still some recoverable DNA from the remains, and the technology still exists to examine that, the anthropologist will discover that the subject has XY, rather than XX chromosomes, and will again write in his notes, “The subject was male.” This will be an objective fact.

There are no federal laws surrounding deadnaming, though local and state legislature have moved in both directions in recent years – some providing legal security for trans and nonbinary individuals’ name and pronoun usage and others forcing them to use deadnames in school settings.

In 2021, California became the first state to ban colleges from deadnaming students on university records. Social media apps have updated their use guidelines to ban deadnaming. In 2023, Discord added deadnaming and misgendering to its hate speech guidelines. TikTok banned both in 2022. Twitter, on the other hand, quietly rolled back its former policy against deadnaming and misgendering in April 2023.

We have previously reported on how The New York Times gave major OpEd space to Andrew Marantz, a staff writer for The New Yorker, to tell us that Free Speech Is Killing Us, and to Mr Malloy to tell us How Twitter’s Ban on ‘Deadnaming’ Promotes Free Speech. It seems as though the guardians of the so-called Fourth Estate just don’t like interlopers! Greg Bensinger, a Times Editorial Board member, wrote that “Twitter Under Elon Musk Will Be a Scary Place,” because Mr Musk was significantly loosening the editorial censorship on Twitter, was allowing more actual freedom of speech. Heaven forfend!

And now Miss Mulroy, who did go further to tell readers the legal difficulties the ‘transgendered’ face in trying to change their documents, is telling us that simply telling the truth, something I always do, is seriously harming the ‘transgendered.’ Sorry, but nope, I do not go along with that, and I will not cease telling the truth.

George Orwell wrote, in his dystopian novel 1984, “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” What Miss Mulroy, and so many others in the credentialed media, are telling us is that we must reject objective truth, and go along with the subjective claims of the mentally ill. The inmates are running the asylum, and the staff are going right along with it. When the government and the credentialed media play Nurse Ratched, be Randle Patrick McMurphy!

References

References
↑1 I give complete permission to anyone else who likes our Stylebook to adopt it as his own, with the appropriate reference, of course!
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Chaya Raichik and Libs of TikTok save the taxpayers a million bucks!

Chaya Raichik, wearing a t-shirt with an image of Taylor Lorenz crying about something, from her Twitter feed.

We have previously noted Chaya Raichik, the creator of the Twitter site Libs of TikTok. LoTT’s schtick is to find the silliest things leftists put on the social media site Tik Tok, and snark them for sensible people on Twitter. Basically, LoTT is mocking people for their own exposed stupidity, and Mrs Raichik has found an absolutely unGodly amount of that stupidity. The left have been so outraged about the site that Washington Post writer Taylor Lorenz spent a lot of time and effort to dox Mrs Raichik, exposing the previously anonymous Tweeter, seemingly in the hope of getting her fired from her position as a Brooklyn real estate saleswoman.

Meet the woman behind Libs of TikTok, secretly fueling the right’s outrage machine

A popular Twitter account has morphed into a social media phenomenon, spreading anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and shaping public discourse

by Taylor Lorenz | Tuesday, April 19, 2022 | 6:00 AM EDT

On March 8, a Twitter account called Libs of TikTok posted a video of a woman teaching sex education to children in Kentucky, calling the woman in the video a “predator.” The next evening, the same clip was featured on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News program, prompting the host to ask, “When did our public schools, any schools, become what are essentially grooming centers for gender identity radicals?”

Libs of TikTok reposts a steady stream of TikTok videos and social media posts, primarily from LGBTQ+ people, often including incendiary framing designed to generate outrage. Videos shared from the account quickly find their way to the most influential names in right-wing media. The account has emerged as a powerful force on the Internet, shaping right-wing media, impacting anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and influencing millions by posting viral videos aimed at inciting outrage among the right.

The anonymous account’s impact is deep and far-reaching. Its content is amplified by high-profile media figures, politicians and right-wing influencers. Its tweets reach millions, with influence spreading far beyond its more than 648,000 Twitter followers. Libs of TikTok has become an agenda-setter in right-wing online discourse, and the content it surfaces shows a direct correlation with the recent push in legislation and rhetoric directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community.

There’s more at the original, but Miss Lorenz wound up doing Mrs Raichik a favor, as she now has a guesstimated net worth of $800,000, and that’s only expected to grow.

And it should grow: it seems that Mrs Raichik has saved the taxpayers of the United States a cool million bucks!

John Fetterman and Bob Casey pulled support of LGBTQ William Way Community Center after LibsofTikTok kink parties tweet

On Wednesday Fetterman said he only withdrew the $1 million funding request to fend off anticipated Republican attacks, while Casey’s office defended pulling the money.

by Julia Terruso and Aliya Schneider | Wednesday, March 6, 2024 | 3:36 PM EST | Updated: 4:48 PM EST

U.S. Sens. John Fetterman and Bob Casey both signed letters Tuesday requesting to pull federal funding for the William Way Community Center after learning the LGBTQ-focused nonprofit rents its space for BDSM-kink parties.

But Wednesday, Fetterman (D., Pa.) said his staff withdrew the $1 million funding request to fend off anticipated Republican attacks, while Casey’s office defended pulling the money.

Casey spokesperson Mairead Lynn said the Pennsylvania Democrat believes “that consenting adults have the right to do whatever they want in their free time, but these types of appropriations projects warrant the highest level of scrutiny on behalf of taxpayers.”

Fetterman distanced himself from the decision to pull the funding, first telling reporters in Washington he had no knowledge of it, despite his signature appearing on the letter and then later issuing a statement saying the decision was made because of presumed incoming Republican opposition.

“(A)fter learning the LGBTQ-focused nonprofit rents its space for BDSM-kink parties,” huh? I’ve quoted four paragraphs above, but you have to scroll past an advertisement, four more paragraphs, and another advertisement, to get to how the Distinguished Gentlemen from Pennsylvania learned about those “BDSM-kink parties:

News of the funding consideration went viral after the controversial far-right social media account LibsofTikTok, which is operated by Chaya Raichik and is notorious for sharing anti-LGBTQ views, condemned Casey and Fetterman for supporting the allocation, calling attention to the fetish parties.

Raichik wrote that the funding “includes $1M of your tax dollars to go towards renovating an LGBTQ Center in PA which boasts rooms to try BDSM and s*x f*tishes and hosts BDSM and s*x k*nk parties. There’s even a k*nk party happening there this weekend!”

“(C)ontroversial far-right social media account”? “(N)otorious for sharing anti-LGBTQ views”? The article authors make no bones about it: they are fully supportive of the homosexual and transgender agenda.

Going unmentioned in the article is the controversy over the wholly legitimate arrest — though with Philadelphia’s hard left District Attorney not pressing charges — of Philadelphia’s “executive director of the Office of LGBT Affairs” and his ‘husband,’ Darius McLean, Director of Empowerment Programs at the Arcila-Adams Trans Resource Center of the William Way Community Center, due to ‘Celena’ Morrison driving a vehicle with an expired and suspended car, and Mr McLean then stopping to try to interfere with the citation. Messrs Morrison and McLean claim that they were taking the vehicle for repairs, certainly a legitimate trip, but not one which justifies driving an unlicensed vehicle on the public streets. Perhaps Senators Casey and Fetterman were unwilling to associate themselves with any support of the William Way Center at that moment in time.

It’s a simple truth: Mrs Raichik and her “controversial far-right social media account” have would up saving the taxpayers a million bucks!

At the end of the Inquirer’s story:

William Way has struggled to get federal funding this year. In July, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee voted down several requests for funding of LGBTQ centers, including William Way and two others in Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan’s district.

All three of the organizations had received similar funding in the past.

That’s a start! I, of course, not only don’t see why the government should be funding private “LGBTQ centers”, but cannot see why we should be funding any supposedly private organizations with taxpayers’ dollars. The William Way Center should be able to support itself with private donations, and if it can’t, then it does not deserve to stay open.

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Clearly, I should be watched, perhaps even arrested for Wrongthink.

We have previously reported on the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its supposedly abandoned policy of surveilling “Radical Traditionalist Catholics.” That story has pretty much faded away, but I seriously doubt that everyone in the FBI has forgotten that we are the absolutely greatest threat to America!

Well, the US is not the only nation which engages in such silliness!

UK Government Report: ‘Lord of the Rings’ Fans May Be Potential ‘Far-Right’ Terrorists

Catholic Vote News Feed | Groundhog Day, February 2, 2024

We have Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Shakespeare, and Homer on our bookshelf. Clearly, I should be watched! Photo by D R Pico.

CV NEWS FEED // A now-viral report by British government counterterrorism program Prevent stated that classic novels by authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis can be “red flags” for possible “far-right extremism.”

“We prevent vulnerable people from being drawn into extremism,” Prevent claims on its website. Prevent goes on to describe itself as a “government-led, multi-agency” program that “aims to stop individuals becoming terrorists.” Its website elaborates that “police play a key role” in the program’s efforts.

The Daily Caller’s Kay Smythe reported that while Prevent “was founded to support counter-terrorism efforts” it “has gradually swayed into a focus on only extremists from Islam and ‘far-right’ ideological mindsets.”

“[T]he programme’s attempts to address right-wing extremism were even more inept than some of its attempts to address Islamist extremism,” British author Douglas Murray noted in a February 2023 Spectator piece.

Murray pointed out that Prevent was once “advised by left-wing activist groups like Hope not Hate.”

“Such groups have long believed that the definition of far-right should encompass, for instance, many people who supported Brexit,” he added.

My old Bible, using an Israeli 20 shekel note as a bookmark.

It’s not just Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit which are in our bookcase, but I also have a Bible, a Catholic Bible, complete with an Israeli ₪20 note being used as a bookmark therein! The bookmark is currently in the Book of Job, because that was the Catechism lesson I taught this morning. I’m even on our parish council.

Even worse: one of the parishioners in our very small parish is trying to get a Knights of Columbus chapter set up, and has asked me to sign up.

Representative Jim Jordan reported that in its zeal to track down the January 6th kerfufflers, the:

federal government flagged terms like “MAGA” and “TRUMP,” to financial institutions if Americans completed transactions using those terms.

What was also flagged? If you bought a religious text, like a BIBLE, or shopped at Bass Pro Shop.

Heaven forfend! Clearly, I should be watched, perhaps even arrested for Wrongthink.

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Journolism: The credentialed media don’t exactly lie, but they conceal politically incorrect facts

We have previously reported that today’s professional journalists rarely deliberately lie to us, but that they often omit rather important parts of the story. This was an Associated Press story, an ostensibly straight news piece, in which the writer managed to omit the most important part of the story. Read on and you’ll see why I frequently refer to journolists[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their … Continue reading as opposed to journalists! Continue reading →

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.
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Liz Magill is not just toast, but toast which has fallen on the floor, buttered side down

We have previously reported how University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill has completely fouled up the school’s response to the antiSemitism on campus, costing the Ivy League university the good will of its many deep-pocket alumni donors.

Well, she may have just fired herself! From The Philadelphia Inquirer: Continue reading →