Category Archives: Freedom of Speech and of the Press

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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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Democrats really hate #FreedomOfSpeech! More precisely, they hate your Freedom of Speech, but not their Freedom of Speech!

Laura Kavanagh, via Twitter. Have you ever seen a face which looks more like she just stepped in dog poop?

It should have been obvious that bringing in New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has been trying to persecute former President Donald Trump, was a hugely political move to have at what was supposed to be a promotion ceremony for the Fire Department of New York City, FDNY. That some of the rank-and-file firefighters would see it that way, and the fact that firemen are working-class people who are a major part of Mr Trump’s coalition, was too obvious to have penetrated the brains of Democratic political appointees like Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh:

FDNY boss hunts down staffers who booed NY AG Letitia James, cheered for Trump at promotion ceremony

By Susan Edelman and Rich Calder | Saturday, March 9, 2024 | 6:51 PM EST

FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh is hunting down smoke-eaters and other staffers who mercilessly booed New York Attorney General Letitia James – and cheered in support of Donald Trump – during a department promotion ceremony this week, The Post has learned.

There are other forms of protest, not as loud as the ones the firemen used, but which show even greater disrespect. One famously used in the past is to turn their backs to the speaker, and that, too, would make the news and anger the Empire State’s Attorney General even more. But the firemen chose to do what they did, and I see it as within their freedom of speech.

But the Powers That Be within the city are taking this protest in full-Geheime Staatspolizei-mode!

FDNY Chief of Department John Hodges fired off an email to other agency honchos warning a reckoning led by the department’s Bureau of Investigation and Trials was coming over the chorus of boos and chants of “Trump” that James received at Thursday’s event.

“BITS is investigating this, so they will figure out who the members are,” Hodges wrote FDNY chiefs Saturday in the letter obtained by The Post.

“I recommend they come forward. I have been told by the commissioner it will be better for them if they come forward and we don’t have to hunt them down,” he continued.

“(H)unt them down”? Perhaps Chief Hodges might have worded that better, because the way he put it sure sounds like the zeal of the Department of Justice in hunting down the Capitol kerfufflers, tremendous effort to seek out hundreds of protesters, the vast majority of whom were allowed to plead down to a single misdemeanor count, and very little, if any, time in jail.

Actually, it pretty much sounds like the real Gestapo, diligently searching for Jews hiding from the Nazis.

“The [deputy chiefs] shall direct the captain of the company to make a list of those who come forward and send it directly to [FDNY operations]. I realize members might not come forward but they should know that there is clear video of the entire incident and they will be contacted by BITS if they don’t,” he wrote.

A list of talking points for deputy chiefs doing the investigation obtained by The Post said:
“We want the members to come forward. They will come to headquarters to be educated why their behavior is unacceptable.”

“(T)o be educated,” huh? In other words, a serious talking to, that I would hope most would ignore. This is the kind of thing which will generate more sympathy for Mr Trump, not less. The Democrats and the left keep telling us that Mr Trump is an fascist, a Nazi, an authoritarian wannabe dictator, but then those leftist Democrats are the ones trying to exercise authoritarian, dictatorial power over any form of dissent.

I saw, on my Twitter feed, this from Lexington Herald-Leader reporter John Cheves:

Before you do something like assault an effigy of a public official or attack a public building, stop and ask yourself, “Would I be proud if my children saw a video of me doing this?” And make sure the answer is “No.” ^JC

The Editorial Board of what my best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal were naturally aghast when conservatives protested at the state Capitol:

Then to top off this tragicomedy of errors, House officials announced a panel to take up articles of impeachment against Beshear as a bunch of armed thugs circled the state Capitol. This is the same kind of militia movement that earlier this year hung an effigy of Beshear outside the governor’s mansion.

This must stop.

Armed thugs, huh? According to the dictionary, a thug is defined as “a violent person, especially a criminal.” Yet the article the Editorial Board linked bears no mention of any shots being fired. An accompanying photograph shows three state senators, one of whom was a Democrat, walking past the “armed thugs” without an apparent care in the world.

“The same kind of militia movement that earlier this year hung an effigy of Beshear outside the governor’s mansion”? Hanging the hated in effigy has a long history in America, as noted in The Hill:

Americans have a long history of citizens committing violence against president effigies to voice political dissent.

James Madison, John Tyler, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter were all burned in effigy during their presidencies. And each time this happened, the offending party leaders repudiated the distasteful and disrespectful actions of their constituents.

President Obama was hanged in effigy, and Kathy Griffin posted a picture of her holding President Trump’s severed head.

The Editorial Board again:

But Republicans in Frankfort and Washington, D.C., who have played pattycake with these kinds of extremists for years, have got to stop this wing of the party from hijacking them literally, it seems, and on policy. They have got to become grown-ups and stop with these silly games that end in not so silly ways.

Did the hanging of Governor Beshear in effigy last spring end in violence? It seems that no one was harmed, other, perhaps, than the feelings of his supporters. Did the armed demonstration on January 9th result in injuries, damage or death? If it did, the Herald-Leader had nothing about that.

The Editorial Board appear to be like Twitter and The New York Times and others: they don’t like freedom of speech when it isn’t speech with which they agree.

There was, of course, plenty of freedom of speech exercised by the left when Mr Trump was in office. He was regularly hanged in effigy, the Usual Suspects rioted with frequency, including during his inauguration, but somehow, some way, the left had no problem with that. Heck, they didn’t say much during the “fiery but mostly peaceful protests” during 2020’s summer of hate following the left wing riots in protest of the unfortunate death-while-resisting-arrest of the methamphetamine-and-fentanyl-addled previously convicted felon George Floyd. It’s only when conservatives protest that the left yell for people to shut up, and want to punish them when they don’t.

So, what’s going to happen to the FDNY members who do not turn themselves in “to be educated why their behavior is unacceptable,” and have to be ‘hunted down’ by BITS? Are they, too, just going to get the stern talking to, or are they going to be further punished for exercising their freedom of speech? It would be amusing to see none of the firemen turn themselves in, and then have their union defending them in arbitration. The FDNY employs over 11,000 uniformed firefighting and 4,274 uniformed EMS employees, and the consequences of a union action would be drastic.

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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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Government-enforced shutuppery

The Biden Administration keeps going after the Capitol kerfufflers, and is now charging Stephen M Baker, a sometime-journalist, with the same four offenses used against the vast majority of the protesters.

Musician and libertarian writer who works for ‘The Blaze’ arrested on Jan. 6 charges

Steve Baker, who led a David Bowie tribute band and started working for Glenn Beck’s website in 2023, said he “100%” approved of the Capitol attack, the FBI said.

By Ryan J. Reilly | Friday, March 1, 2024 | 2:45 PM EST |4:19 PM EST

WASHINGTON — The former lead singer of a David Bowie tribute band who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, licensed his footage to media outlets, and now works as a writer for Glenn Beck’s “The Blaze” website has been arrested on misdemeanor Capitol attack charges after turning himself into federal authorities in Texas.

Steve Baker, a musician and libertarian writer who was a frequent presence at the federal courthouse in Washington during the Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy trial and other Jan. 6 cases, faces the same four standard misdemeanors as many lower-level Capitol riot defendants.

A copy of a FBI affidavit, provided to NBC News by defense attorney William Shipley, indicates that federal prosecutors will focus on comments from Baker that show he was sympathetic to the mob, including when he referred to Nancy Pelosi as a “b—-” after talking about the mob raiding the former House speaker’s office, and a comment in which he said he regretted that he didn’t steal government property during the attack.

There’s more at the original.

The FBI Affidavit in Support of Criminal Complaint and Arrest Warrant tells us just how politically motivated the prosecution is:

24 – Witness 2 was subsequently interviewed by FBI, during which time Witness 2 stated he/she had known BAKER for approximately 10 years. Witness 2 had previously observed BAKER live-streaming video to multiple platforms under the name, “Stephen Ignoramus.” These platforms included YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Bitchute, Brightyon, Dlive.tv, Twitch, and Periscope. Witness 2 had previously observed videos by BAKER and had been alarmed by the content which Witness 2 described as including advancement of conspiracy theories and mockery of minority groups. Witness 2 further advised that one of BAKER’s YouTube channels had been banned by YouTube in or about December 2020.

Mr Baker was clearly documenting the Capitol kerfuffle as it was ongoing, and his stream was picked up by the credentialed media. While working as an occasional freelancer at the time, Mr Baker has been an accredited journalist subsequently. Of course, the government doesn’t like the freedom of speech that Mr Baker has exercised, using as part of the FBI agent’s affidavit that he, horrors!, “advance(d) conspiracy theories” and “engaged in “mockery of minority groups.”

Had Mr Baker expressed other views, saying something like, “Oh, this is terrible,” he’d never have been charged with anything. The government like when journalists express liberal views!

Mr Baker now faces the same charges as the majority of the Capitol kerfufflers:

  • 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(1) – Knowingly Entering or Remaining in any Restricted Building or Grounds Without Lawful Authority. Since Mr Baker not accused of harming anyone or carrying a deadly weapon, the maximum punishment under (b)(2) is a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case.
  • 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(2) – Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds. Since Mr Baker is not accused of harming anyone or carrying a deadly weapon, the maximum punishment under (b)(2) is a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case.
  • 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(D) – Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building: utter loud, threatening, or abusive language, or engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place in the Grounds or in any of the Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress or either House of Congress, or the orderly conduct in that building of a hearing before, or any deliberations of, a committee of Congress or either House of Congress; The penalty for violating 40 U.S.C. §5104(e)(2) is a misdemeanor conviction punishable by a maximum fine of $5,000 fine or up to six months in prison, or both.
  • 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(G) – Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building; The penalty for violating 40 U.S.C. §5104(e)(2) is a misdemeanor conviction punishable by a maximum fine of $5,000 or up to six months in prison, or both.

The majority of the earlier convicted kerfufflers pleaded guilty to a single count of Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing, receiving sentences ranging between probation and a six months. Several of them already had time served, since many had been arrested and, at least initially, denied bail. It was simple: hammer down on charges, to ‘encourage’ the kerfufflers to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor. After all, if convicted on all four charges, and with judges who had already expressed displeasure that those who have pleaded guilty have done so to such a minor charge, those convicted could be sentenced to three years and possibly crippling fines. That Attorney General Merrick Garland, who hates Republicans because the GOP denied him a seat on the Supreme Court, has allowed his minions to offer pleas on only one misdemeanor charge, is indicative of the fact that this ‘insurrection’ wasn’t much of a much.

Also on this topic: William Teach, “Brandon Admin Arrests Journalist For Reporting On J6

“The government was trying to get the kerfufflers to issue apologies for their behavior, which Anna Morgan-Lloyd, the first convicted, did, but, the day after her sentencing, Mrs Morgan-Lloyd pretty much walked back everything she said in her ‘tearful’ apology.

The real issue is probation: if the government attaches probation to any of the convictions, then the (not very) guilty will be under government supervision of some sort for the length of his probation. Mr Baker is no fan of the government in general, or the Biden Administration in particular, and probation could be used to shut him up.

And that’s really what the dummkopf from Delaware and his fascist-inspired minions want. With an arrest on February 29th, they can keep him quiet, by revoking bail, until after the election.
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He can’t handle the truth!

If you’ve ever watched A Few Good men, and paid attention to Jack Nicholson’s “You can’t handle the truth!”, you’d understand that he was speaking the truth, that we want men with guns defending us, we need men with guns defending us. The truth can be uncomfortable, but the truth needs to be spoken.

As General ‘Buck’ Turgidson said, in Dr Strangelove, “The truth is not always a pleasant thing.”

Alas! A Virginia state Senator just can’t handle the truth.

Transgender Senator Storms Out of Chamber After Being Called ‘Sir’

Tuesday, February 27, 2024 | 4:31 AM EST | Updated: 6:43 AM EST

A transgender state senator stormed out of the chamber after she was incorrectly referred to as “sir” by the lieutenant governor.

The Virginia Senator Danica Roem was seen walking out of the chamber following the comment by Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, a Republican.

Dan Roem, on the left, from his Twitter feed. How many real women have you seen pose like that for a photo?

Sadly, Newsweek has adopted the same silliness as much of the credentialed media, going along with the claim of the transgendered that they are the sex they claim to be, not the sex they actually are. Senator Roem was not “incorrectly referred to as ‘sir’ by the lieutenant governor,” but correctly referred to as “sir” by Lt Governor Earle-Sears! More, his name is Dan (Daniel?) Roem, not ‘Danica.’

During her (sic) 2017 (House of Delegates) campaign, Roem hit back at comments from (Republican Bob) Marshall after he repeatedly referred to his Democratic opponent as “he” and refused to debate her (sic).

“This is just who I am,” Roem said in an advert, according to the Washington Post. “There are millions of transgender people in the country, and we all deserve representation in government.”

Really? Just who is he representing, all of the people of the 30th senatorial district in Virginia, or the ‘transgendered’? Having lived for 15½ years in Hampton, 1985 – 2000, I am disappointed in what has happened to the Old Dominion, but I guess that’s what happens when we have so many federal employees having metastasized into the northern part of the Commonwealth. The best way to turn Virginia back into a ‘red’ state? Cut back the size of the federal government!

According to Wikipedia, Mr Roem began hormone replacement therapy on December 3, 2013, when he would have been 29-years-old, but the article never mentions whether he has yet been castrated had ‘gender reassignment surgery.’ He also claims to have a boyfriend and step-daughter.

Senator Roem is a legal adult, and if he wants to take hormones, have some type of quack surgery, and call himself ‘Danica,’ that is his right. But it is also the right of sensible people to refuse to accept his cockamamie claims, refuse to accept him as being a woman, and refuse to use his preferred name, pronouns, and honorifics.

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Journolism: The credentialed media don’t exactly lie, but they conceal politically incorrect facts Is justice in Philadelphia a matter of the color of your skin?

We have used the headline, “Journolism: The credentialed media don’t exactly lie, but they conceal politically incorrect facts”, thrice before, and yup, here they go again.

The First Street Journal reported on this story at 12:07 PM EST today, which was 28 minutes after Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Ellie Rushing‘s story, but our sources were older. Fox 29 News reporter Steve Keeley published the accused’s mugshot at 10:02 AM, but he also published the (alleged) offender’s previous record, and the fact that he’d been released with a completely unsecured bond, at 7:42 PM yesterday.

The image to the left is a screen capture from the Inquirer’s website taken at 2:18 PM today; I thought it important to document it, with the newspaper’s timestamp visible.

You know what isn’t in Miss Rushing’s story, at least as published at 11:39 AM? There is absolutely no mention that Kenneth Rogers, the accused, was previously accused of attempted murder and first-degree aggravated assault last June, or that he was released with no bond in December, and, of course, the Inky used a stock photo rather than Mr Rogers’ mugshot. The newspaper seems to only publish photos of people accused of crimes if they are policemen.

Mr Rogers initial bond was set at $750,000, on June 3, 2023, requiring a cash bond of 10%, or $75,000. The accused was unable to post that bond, and languished in jail until December 15, 2023, without being convicted of anything, when he was finally released with his bond being unsecured, which means no money was posted.

Which brings us to the case of Cody Monroe Heron. As we reported on October 5, 2023, Mr Heron was charged with aggravated assault, the same charge that Mr Rogers faced last June, but he was not charged with attempted murder, as Mr Rogers was in June of 2023, and again today. District Attorney Larry Krasner and the DA’s Office requested that Mr Heron’s bail be set at $5,000,000, though it wound up being initially set at $2,500,000. We then reported, on October 16, 2023, that when Mr Heron’s attorney requested a reduction in bail, because there was no way Mr Heron could meet that $2,500,000 bail amount, it was instead increased to $4,000,000.

After four months and two days in jail, Mr Heron pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated assault and one count of possession of an instrument of crime. He will be sentenced in June, and prosecutors stated that they intended to seek a sentence of three to six years in prison.

The obvious question becomes: why was Mr Heron effectively denied bail, by having it initially set more than thrice what Mr Rogers’ bail originally was, and why was it then increased by $1,500,000 while Mr Rogers was just set free? Mr Heron’s offense, while certainly serious, despite the fact that no one was actually injured, was one not likely to be repeated, while Mr Rogers’ offense was not only more likely to be repeated, and (allegedly) has now been repeated.

Miss Rushing’s story did conclude with the note that it was a developing story, and would be updated, but at least as of this publication, at 3:22 PM EST, it has not been.
__________________________________
Update! There was an update to the story time stamped at 4:44 PM EST:

On Monday, Rogers was charged with aggravated assault, robbery, making terroristic threats, and related crimes. He is being held on $750,000 bail.

This is only the latest time Rogers has been accused of violence. In just the last three years, he has twice been charged with attempted murder for allegedly stabbing two people in separate incidents. And over the last decade, he’s been in and out of jail on robbery, theft, and drug possession charges, records show.

In June 2020, Rogers was arrested after police said he stabbed his cousin in the torso. According to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest, Rogers owed his cousin about $7,000, and the two got into a fight over it near Tioga and Jasper Streets. Rogers then stabbed his cousin in the chest, puncturing his lung, and vowed to kill him before a bystander intervened, the victim told police, according to the records.

Rogers was arrested and charged with attempted murder, but after the victim failed to appear at multiple court hearings, a judge dismissed the charges, records show. The district attorney’s office refiled the charges, records show, but a judge again tossed the case after the victim failed to appear four more times at scheduled preliminary hearings.

Then, in June 2023, Rogers was again charged with attempted murder after police said he stabbed a man multiple times at the Allegheny station on SEPTA’s Market-Frankford Line in Kensington, according to the arrest affidavit.

He was originally held on $750,000 bail. But the victim in that case, who was also unhoused, did not maintain contact with victim’s services and similarly failed to appear at court hearings, said Jane Roh, a spokesperson for the DA’s office.

Following those failures to appear, Common Pleas Court Judge Nicholas Kamau in December reduced Rogers’ bail to unsecured — meaning Rogers could be released without posting bail so long as he did not violate the conditions of his release. Rogers was ordered to house arrest with an electronic monitor following an agreement that he could stay at his mother’s home, Roh said.

So, will we find that the latest victim will choose not to appear?

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When The Philadelphia Inquirer tells us more than was perhaps intended Why does DA Larry Krasner oppose a special prosecutor for crimes on SEPTA when his office can't handle the cases it has?

As is the case with many newspapers, The Philadelphia Inquirer likes to use on-hand, stock photos to illustrate some of their online stories. This one greatly amused me.

Man died after falling on SEPTA tracks, getting electrocuted at City Hall

The man — who has yet to be identified — fell on the tracks before train service began at 4:40 a.m.

by Beatrice Forman | Monday, February 26, 2024 | 7:52 AM EST | Updated: 8:16 AM EST

A man died at SEPTA’s City Hall station after falling onto the tracks early Monday morning, the transportation authority confirmed.

The incident occurred before Broad Street Line service starts at 4:40 a.m. when a man “made contact with the energized third rail” and was electrocuted, said SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch.

The man has not been identified, and it is unclear what caused him to fall.

“All we know is that he was by himself,” said Busch. “No one else was there.”

So, no foul play is suspected. Considering how much crime has been reported on SEPTA and at SEPTA train stations, that’s actually a relief, not that a story about anyone being killed is somehow good news.

But, as the newspaper continually touts public transportation, I looked closely at the photo used, and there it was, shown through the open subway car door, a man (?) keeled over in his seat, doing what? Sleeping it off, drunk, keeping warm on a winter night, or just another junkie riding the rails while riding high. The Grateful Dead’s Casey Jones, “Driving that train, high on cocaine,” comes to mind.

A hatchet attack and a shooting at SEPTA stations this weekend continued a spate of high-profile violence

Two suspects are in custody after the separate incidents occurred within hours of each other.

Latest @PhillyPolice booking photo of Kenneth Rogers,28,arrested after police say he attacked man in @SEPTA concourse with hatchet while he had active arrest warrant for attempted murder. Detectives tell me “Hopefully a Philly judge won’t release him on unsecured bail again.”

by Jeremy Roebuck and Ariana Perez-Castells | Saturday, February 24, 2024 | 10:49 PM EST |Updated: Sunday, February 25, 2024 | 10:21 PM EST

Two attacks over the weekend at SEPTA stations in Philadelphia continued a recent spate of high-profile violent crimes that have plagued the transit system.

A 20-year-old was shot on a Broad Street Line northbound subway train that had just left the Hunting Park Station just before 9 p.m. Saturday.

Then, less than five hours later, a hatchet-wielding assailant attacked another rider on the subway concourse near the SEPTA station at 8th and Market Streets, police said.

That incident occurred just before 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning. The victim told officers his attacker had struck him six times with the hatchet and kicked him four times in the face. He suffered cuts to the back of his head and bruising to his face, according to police reports on the attack.

No, of course the Inquirer didn’t publish the (alleged) “hatchet-wielding assailant’s” mugshot; it was up to Fox 29 News’ Steve Keeley to do that!

The distinguished Mr Rogers was arrested and jailed on June 3, 2023, for several charges relating to an assault, including attempted murder and aggravated assault PA 18 §2702(a)(1) with an attempt to cause serious bodily injury with extreme indifference to the value of human life. That is a first-degree felony, which under PA 18 §106 has a maximum sentence of twenty years in the penitentiary. His bail amount was set at $750,000, with a 10% minimum cash bond.

On July 5, 2023, Mr Rogers was ordered held for court. However, on December 15, 2023, he was released on an unsecured $750,000 bond, which means, for all practical purposes, no bail at all.

The Eighth Amendment guarantees a right to reasonable bail for criminal suspects; Mr Rogers had, upon his arrest, been imprisoned for a crime of which he had not been convicted, and spent six months and 12 days behind bars, without being convicted. To release a criminal suspect, without bail, who has a bail which has been set at an amount which he cannot raise, can be argued to be reasonable.

The real problem is that, in the six months and 12 days Mr Rogers was locked up, District Attorney Larry Krasner and the District Attorney’s Office had not brought Mr Rogers to trial. This isn’t even an issue of Mr Krasner and his office having ridiculously lenient policies toward crime, but simply not doing their jobs at all, not bringing a criminal accused of a violent, first-degree felony, to trial quickly enough for him not to be released.

So now, just 72 days after he was released without any bail, Mr Rogers, who is apparently homeless, is once again accused of trying to kill someone.

The Powers That Be in the City of Brotherly Love have been going full speed ahead on promoting public transportation and SEPTA, but the first step is to clean out the junkies and criminals from the buses, trains and train/subway stations, and that can’t be done until Mr Krasner and his minions start doing their jobs!

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This is how newspapers can once again grow and thrive Newspapers have a value that television news does not, but editors and publishers are not trying to sell it

My good friend Robert Stacy McCain, formerly a professional newspaper reporter, wrote:

Sitting here with my office TV tuned to CNN — I watch CNN, so you don’t have to — I’m struck by the arrogance of their assumption that they get to decide what is and is not newsworthy, as if their audience had no other source of information about what’s going on in the world, and no desire to know anything else except what CNN is “reporting.”

The only difference between CNN and Fox News — other than the leggy reporterettes on Fox — is that CNN runs the same eight stories a day, where Fox only has five. If their audience truly does have no other source of information, they’re going to be fairly uninformed.

My Washington Post subscription, which is the least expensive one I have.

Some have mocked the fact that I subscribe to five newspapers, an expensive hobby, to be sure, because, with my nearly dead ears I prefer to read the news than watch or listen to it, but another aspect of newspapers is that they have more than a few stories a day. The homepage of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website currently shows 72 separate stories, and if more than a few of them are a couple of days old, that’s still a lot. Even a smaller McClatchy newspaper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, currently has 54 stories showing on its website main page at the moment.

How much do people lose by not reading newspapers anymore? Even the stories that CNN and Fox do cover are rarely covered in a lot of detail; only the things which show well on television get covered, because that is the limitation of the visual and entertainment medium.

My far more expensive Philadelphia Inquirer subscription. I could use a senior citizen’s discount right about now.

That is not to say that newspapers do not have their own biases, in their news coverage as well as editorial sections. The Inquirer most certainly does, and what my, sadly late, best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal does as well, though sometimes not as blatantly. But it’s easier to sift through the bias, and see where the bias is, to get around that, when the medium is the written word, when the reader can go back and reread a particular sentence or paragraph. As I have written previously, the credentialed media don’t exactly lie, but they conceal politically incorrect facts.

This is what newspapers need to sell! CNN’s eight stories and Fox’s five, hammered relentlessly toward audiences which come-and-go through the day, shouldn’t be able to compete with the dozens newspapers offer. Yeah, it takes the fact that I already know a lot, to find the parts that are omitted, and a jaundiced eye to see them, but for an at least reasonably-well educated reader — like Jethro Bodine, I is a sixth-grade graduate! — newspapers can and should be the medium of choice. And this is where Gabriel Escobar and Daniel Pearson of the Inky, and Richard Green of the Herald-Leader, need to concentrate their efforts.