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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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This is what happens when you are soft on crime!

Italian soldiers on guard near the Arch of Constantine, Roma, June 19, 2016. Photo by D R Pico; may be freely used, with attribution.

In response to the huge surge in crime, and the extremely lax prosecution of it by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed, and Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, signed into law, Act 40, which created a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute crimes “occurring within a public transportation authority that serves as the primary provider of public passenger transportation in the county of the first class.” Philadelphia is the only First-Class City/County in the Keystone State.

This was a clear and obvious attempt to bypass Let ’em Loose Larry, whose lenient prosecution has led to outrage, and we continually hear of violent crimes committed in the city by people who could and should have already been in prison, were it not for the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating and softer-than-Charmin-on-crime Mr Krasner.

Act 40 required, in §1786(a), the state Attorney General to appoint said special prosecutor, “Within 30 days of the effective date of this section,” but that appointment has not yet been made, with the 30 day period long having elapsed. And SEPTA, “the primary provider of public passenger transportation” in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia, has seen an unfortunate surge in violent crime in recent weeks, including two mass shootings as public school students were at SEPTA bus stops for their rides home.

Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) was seeing a similar issue in the New York City subway system, and she took the radical action of deploying 750 National Guard troops to the subways to deter crime. From The Wall Street Journal:

Armed Troops on the New York City Subways

Gov. Hochul would do better by firing New York’s progressive DAs and restoring the successful anticrime policies of the 1990s and 2000s.

by The Editorial Board | Saturday, March 9, 2024 | 5:50 PM EST

Here’s a poser to consider for 2025: What if Donald Trump is elected again and decides to send the military to prevent crime or control riots in America’s streets? Wouldn’t half of America lose its collective mind about the supposed threat to democracy?

That’s a rhetorical question, of course, because President Trump did offer to send federal marshals to help cities provide order during the 2020 summer of hate following the unfortunate death-while-resisting-arrest of the methamphetamine-and-fentanyl-addled career criminal George Floyd, and the Democratic mayors of our major cities didn’t want anything to do with that.

Yet that’s essentially what New York Gov. Kathy Hochul did this week in dispatching the state National Guard to patrol New York City’s subways to reduce crime. The Democratic Governor is sending 750 troops and 250 state police officers to guard subway trains and platforms amid a spike in violence and robbery against passengers.

No doubt many New Yorkers will be relieved at the sight, even if it will be somewhat disconcerting to see men in military fatigues on the trains. We know from experience it’s reassuring to see NYPD blue in a subway car when a homeless man is harassing passengers for money or because he’s drugged up.

Ms. Hochul is also calling for judges to have more authority to ban people from the subways if they’ve assaulted commuters or subway workers. She wants to add security cameras, and Mayor Eric Adams said this week he’s asked New York police to expand bag searches on the subways.

Israeli police, near the fourth Station of the Cross, Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem, November 2022, photo by D R Pico, may be freely used, with attribution.

The editorial included a photo of two National Guardsmen, one of whom was holding a semi-automatic rifle, complete with the magazine in place. Rather than use that, I included a photo I took — no copyright problems there! — of armed Italian Carabinieri, outside of the Arch of Constantine, near the Coliseum. We were not somehow unnerved by the sight, but it was an uncomfortable reminder that Italy has seen more than its share of terrorism.

Less pleasant was the vista of three armed Israeli policemen by the fourth Station of the Cross, but Israel has far worse terrorism problems than anyplace else. As a civilized people, we don’t like the thought that there are uncivilized barbarians out there, barbarians who think nothing of theft, violence, and murder. The George Soros-sponsored far-left prosecutors, like Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg and Mr Krasner, are simply too stupid to recognize that there really are barbarians out there, and there are hard-left liberals like the late Jen Angel of Oakland who think that all the barbarians need is some love and hugs.

Back to the Journal:

This is progress after the denial that has prevailed for years among the city’s ruling Democrats. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio and progressives started the downhill slide when they waged political war on cops, on stop and frisk policing, and on the enforcement of offenses against civilized norms.

Yet sending in the military to protect mass transit is also in some sense a sign of societal and political surrender. It means that New York has concluded that it can’t protect its citizens with a normal police presence, or with the laws against vagrancy that once prevailed, or with prosecutors who used to put people in jail for crimes against public order. So send in the guys with assault rifles.

Governor Shapiro has stated that he has no intention of sending the National Guard to help defend SEPTA, so that’s not an issue in Philly yet. But New York City did show the way, in the 1990s, with Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a no-nonsense, “broken windows” policing program. The NYPD arrested, and the prosecutors charged, the wannabe goons who were just starting out in their lives of crime, meting out strict punishment for the little stuff with the idea that strict punishment for the ‘little’ stuff would educate the prospective criminals that crime does not pay.

And, even those wannabes who were too stupid to learn were off the streets, and no danger to the public. Then, when they went back on the streets, if they resumed breaking the laws, they already had criminal records, which meant longer sentences for subsequent crimes.

Governor Hochul took an action which, let’s be plain about this, reeks of desperation. She simply had to Do Something, because the criminal class and their families, along with the untouched liberals in Central Park West, are so f(ornicating) stupid to understand that treating criminals leniently simply leads to more criminals.

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“Queer Advocates” are alarmed that Uncle Sam isn’t going to pay for their kink parties

It was, I suppose, inevitable. As I reported here, a tweet from Chaya Raichik on Libs of TikTok exposed a proposed $1,000,000 federal grant to the William Way LGBT Community Center in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia, in which Mrs Raichik stated that “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!”

Upon hearing about that, Pennsylvania’s two Democratic Senators, John Fetterman and Bob Casey, removed the requests for the funding.

Well, of course the kinksters wanted to salvage what they could, and also of course, The Philadelphia Inquirer was perfectly willing to help them do it!

Philly’s kink scene speaks out about safe, ‘very chill’ parties, after Pa. senators pull funding from community center that hosts them

Queer advocates reacted to the withdrawal of funding with alarm.

by Zoe Greenberg | Friday, March 8, 2024 | 10:46 AM EST

The William Way Community Center, a central hub of Philly LGBTQ life since the 1970s, found itself in a media firestorm this week when U.S. Sens. John Fetterman and Bob Casey requested to pull $1 million in federal funding after learning the nonprofit rents space to a group that hosts kink parties.

Kink parties can range from educational workshops to casual networking meetups to play parties, where attendees consent to certain protocols beforehand, said Jamie Joy, a sex educator and kink organizer in Philly. Protocols often include respecting people’s identities and confidentiality, not taking photos or using phones, and negotiating risks and boundaries in a consensual way with other attendees. Many of the parties are explicitly sober.

“These community spaces are where we can actually learn how to be safe and keep each other safe,” Joy said.

Earlier this week, the far-right social media account LibsofTikTok called out Fetterman and Casey for supporting a federal spending bill that included money for “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.” Soon after, the Democratic senators pulled funding they had previously requested. While both senators signed letters to withdraw the funding, Fetterman has said he’ll work to restore it next year.

So, at the very least, Mrs Raichik has saved the taxpayers a cool million bucks. As the Inquirer previously reported:

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.

I can’t see why the federal government is subsidizing any private groups at all!

Some queer and kink advocates reacted with alarm, saying that kink is a normal part of human sexuality and that hosting safe parties that adults consent to attend is not something Congress should try to police. The monthly kink parties at William Way are run by a separate group called the Aviary, and have been held there for more than a decade.

Nope, sorry, wrong answer. Congress isn’t trying to “police” that kind of stuff, but Congress also shouldn’t be paying to support it. What consenting adult queers — hey, if they call themselves that, then so can I! — do amongst themselves, as long as they aren’t messing with minors, is really none of my business, at least as long as they keep it reasonably private. But when they expect me to have to pay for their ‘activities,’ expect the taxpayers to pony up, then we have the right to say no, it’s your business, not mine, and you can pay for it yourselves.

There’s more at the original, as reporter Zoe Greenberg tells us how good and wholesome the BDSM/kink parties are, with one-sided reporting which parrots the kinksters’ propaganda, and they’re just appalled that the Senators, people who have to do something really radical like face the voters — Senator Casey is up for re-election this year — might do things like be concerned about the actual voters in the Commonwealth.

Well, they can do whatever stupid things they want, as far as I am concerned, but they can pay for it themselves.

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In the wake of two shootings when students were boarding SEPTA buses, Jenice Armstrong wants fewer criminals put in prison

My good friend Daniel Pearson — OK, OK, we’ve never actually met, but we’ve interacted on Twitter, so that should count! — tweeted yesterday that he believed “the single most effective way to keep Philadelphia’s children safe would be passing common sense gun control measures.” An editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mr Pearson is a liberal Democrat, but he’s not the far-left whacko type, and you can peacefully and politely interact with him.

Mr Pearson’s tweet follows the news in the City of Brotherly Love as twice this week, as twice bullets rang out at SEPTA stops where students were catching bus rides home from school: the shooting at the “Five Points” intersection of Rising Sun and Cottman Avenues in the Burholme section of Northeast Philly left eight students from Northeast High School wounded, while Dayemen Taylor was killed, and four others injured at another bus stop shooting, this time on Ogontz, also in North Philly.

Naturally, all of the Powers That Be in Philly are upset, appalled, aghast, and spewing a lot of words. Philly’s softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney, Larry Krasner, said that the Ogontz shooting brought him to tears, and promised “swift justice,” saying, “This is an absolute outrage. It will be solved, and those responsible will be vigorously prosecuted.” Yeah, uh huh, right. Odds are that, when the suspects are identified, it will be determined that they had previous ‘contact’ with the criminal justice system, and they suffered almost no consequences.

For now, police are focused on recovering more evidence and chasing down tips, (Deputy Police Commissioner Frank) Vanore said. Investigators believe the three shooters were likely juveniles, he said, which makes it all the more concerning that they each had a handgun.

In other words, those “common sense gun control laws” that Mr Pearson advocated were already being broken, in that it is already illegal for juveniles to possess and carry handguns in Philly. Given that they used a stolen, blue Hyundai Sonata, which was later abandoned in Olney, as their getaway car, and that they sprayed more than 30 shots into the crowd, it would seem that the malefactors really don’t give a damn about laws.

But today, Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong decided to tell us that the city shouldn’t be locking up people for gun crimes!

Philly program keeps gun offenders out of prison. I’m all for it.

Over the years, I’ve become more skeptical that incarceration is the answer to all our crime problems.

by Jenice Armstrong | Thursday, March 7, 2024 | 6:00 AM EST

I love a graduation ceremony, and the one I attended last month was no exception.

But this one was a little different. For starters, it took place inside a courtroom at the Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice in Center City. Also, there was no playing of the quintessential graduation song, “Pomp and Circumstance,” no wearing of caps and gowns. The graduates were dressed in hoodies, jeans, work boots, and other casual attire. There were few family members present, although one graduate carried a small daughter on his hip.

Each had successfully met the requirements for a new diversionary program called the Alternative Felony Disposition program. Created in 2021 by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, with input from the Center for Carceral Communities at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Work, the program allows people with no prior criminal record who have been arrested on illegal gun charges to avoid jail time. The current crop of graduates, who began the program in July, had been assigned social workers they met with regularly. They also had been expected to attend group sessions with other defendants.

There’s more at the original.

Miss Armstrong has forgotten one obvious thing: those who are locked up, for gun crimes as well as other offenses, are not out on the streets, stealing Kias and Hyundais to use as getaway vehicles from planned shootings.

I also better understand that crime is a complex problem — one that Philly can’t expect to arrest its way out of. I agree with officials who say the city’s focus should be on the long-standing structural and systemic issues that drive people to arm themselves illegally, such as underfunded schools, government neglect of impoverished and broken neighborhoods, and a bloated justice system that targets poor and Black and brown city residents.

Miss Armstrong just can’t seem to understand, or at least admit it if she does understand, that the criminal justice system “targets poor and black and brown city residents” because the majority of crime in Philly is committed by those ‘people of color.’ Perhaps ‘incarceration isn’t the answer to all our crime problems’, but it’s the answer to the vast majority of them.

It’s an interesting set of messages: Mr Pearson wants more “common sense gun control measures” to fight crime, while Miss Armstrong doesn’t want those who violate existing laws to be punished. How does that work?

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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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Hold them accountable! Larry Krasner is at least indirectly responsible for Dayemen Taylor's murder. The only question is: is he directly responsible?

Shootings and homicides have decreased in the City of Brotherly Love over the past two years, with 55 murders as of the end of March 5, as compared to 79 on the same date last year. But, as the aggregate numbers decrease, more attention gets paid to some of the individual cases. No one really cares all that much when one gang-banger kills another gang-banger, but when a seemingly innocent kid gets targeted and murdered, even The Philadelphia Inquirer takes notice.

The newspaper had a fairly long story, by reporters Ellie Rushing and Kristen A. Graham, on the apparently deliberately targeted Dayemen Taylor, a 17-year-old student at Imhotep Charter, an African-centered school with a science, technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) focus.

About 3:45 p.m. Monday, as a group of students boarded SEPTA’s No. 6 bus to head home, police say, two young men in hoodies and masks ran up from behind, guns in hand.

They fired indiscriminately at close range at least 40 times, police said, spraying bullets among the crowd of kids and through the bus windows. In total, five people were shot, including a 14-year-old boy and a 71-year-old woman.

As the shooters closed in on the group in Ogontz, in North Philadelphia, police said, they strode toward Dayemen Taylor, a 17-year-old Imhotep student, and shot him multiple times. He died minutes later — targeted, police said, for reasons detectives don’t yet understand. Taylor, they said, was a respected student with no prior contact with law enforcement. And while investigators are looking into whether a fight at Imhotep earlier in the day may have led to the shooting, the motive remained unclear and no arrests had been made, said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.

There’s plenty more in the story, much of it telling readers what a good kid young Mr Taylor was, which sadly reminded me of past Inquirer stories in which the innocent victims was, in the end, not quite as innocent as depicted. But I’ve grown cynical in my elder years, and I’ve heard no evidence that Mr Taylor was anything other than the innocent victim portrayed.

But what struck me the most were these two paragraphs:

The case brought District Attorney Larry Krasner to tears on Tuesday, and he vowed swift justice.

“This is an absolute outrage. It will be solved, and those responsible will be vigorously prosecuted,” he said.

Oh, Mr Krasner was crying, was he? He was outraged, and he vowed swift justice, did he? That stupid piece of [insert vulgar term for feces here] is responsible for much of the killing on Philadelphia’s mean streets, because he has refused to take ‘lesser’ crimes seriously. He doesn’t like to prosecute crimes involving firearm possession, his minions and he allow very lenient plea deals, especially to juveniles, and he’s proud that the incarcerated population has dramatically declined on his watch. He delights on getting previously convicted criminals released, and on charging Philadelphia Police Officers whenever he can. He is at least indirectly responsible for this homicide, because he has done more than anyone else in Philadelphia to enable a culture and climate in which crime has been enabled.

Is he directly responsible? We don’t know yet, because the killers have not yet been identified. But it would surprise no one if, when the murderers are identified, they are individuals ‘known to the police,’ guys who have been arrested before and given lenient treatment by the city’s softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney. It would surprise no one if it turned out that the two gunmen both could and should have been behind bars on Monday afternoon.

And if it turns out that they could and should have been locked up on Monday, then Mr Krasner is directly responsible for young Mr Taylor’s murder. When will he be held accountable?

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The credentialed media: Be just as aware of what you are not being told as what is presented That's how you can spot the biases!

We have reported, several times recently, on how the credentialed media write their stories to obscure the incidences in which teachers accused of sexual abuse are actually being accused of homosexual sexual abuse. I stated explicitly, when I see a story in the credentialed media about the sexual abuse of a minor, if it is written in a manner to obscure the sex of the victim, I suspect that the abuse was homosexual in nature.

So, when I saw this story, in the Lexington Herald-Leader, I had to read it to see if it went along with my suspicions.

Kentucky assistant principal with past discipline issues resigns amid investigation

by Beth Musgrave | Monday, March 4, 2024 | 1:14 PM EST | Updated 5:12 PM EST

An assistant principal at McCreary Central High School has resigned amid a police and state investigation, school officials confirmed Monday.Aaron Anderson resigned Feb. 27 rather than face termination, said Superintendent Brian Crawford.

No, of course the Herald Leader did not include a photo of Mr Anderson, but at The First Street Journal we always include mugshots or other photos of the accused. However, the only image I was able to find was a TikTok video, from which I took a screenshot.

Kentucky State Police is investigating Anderson’s conduct along with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services Department of Community Based Services, which investigates child and adult abuse complaints, said Crawford.

Crawford said he could not comment on the nature of the investigation.

Officials with Kentucky State Police did not immediately respond to questions about the investigation.

Crawford said Anderson has been disciplined in the past. He was suspended with pay in January but Crawford said due to privacy and personnel laws he could not say why Anderson had been disciplined.

In 2017, Anderson was reprimanded by the Educational Professional Standards Board, which oversees educator’s teaching licenses, for having a sexual encounter with an adult on a school bus during an elementary school basketball tournament, according to a September 2017 article in The Voice, the McCreary County newspaper.

So, reporter Beth Musgrave had the 2017 article she referenced, an article which explicitly stated that the “sexual encounter” for which Mr Anderson was “reprimanded” involved an adult woman, and was thus heterosexual in nature. Miss Musgrave was the same Herald-Leader reporter who wrote the initial article about the accusations against April Bradford, and structured it in a manner which concealed the fact that Miss Bradford’s actions were homosexual in nature. Did she also conceal the nature of Mr Anderson’s actions?

Nope!

The allegations came out after the woman later applied for a position with the school system and did not get it. Anderson told investigators the relationship was consensual and he did not have any say in the woman being hired.

So, Miss Musgrave was perfectly willing to tell us when normal sex was involved, but kept it unspoken when the allegations were homosexual in nature. McClatchy reporter Mike Stunson did the same.

However, journalistic honesty requires that I also report different results. As we reported previously, Herald-Leader reporter Valarie Honeycutt Spears did not include whether the sexual offenses alleged against Henry Clay High School teacher Kevin Lentz were heterosexual or homosexual in nature in her original story on August 8, 2023. However, in her follow-up story on August 9th, she did report that the accusations against Mr Lentz involved attempting to lure a 9-year-old boy into the production of child pornography.

I have stated before that I much prefer newspapers to television or radio news, due to my seriously compromised hearing, and because the print media have the ability to treat stories in significantly greater depth. But in reading newspapers, or getting your news from any of the credentialed media sources, you have to be aware of what you are not being told, as much as what is presented.
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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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The CDC ends a recommendation no one was following anyway

In Friday’s mostly ignored news, the Centers for Disease Control, which told us that we were all doomed, doomed!, if we didn’t get fully vaccinated, and keep up with booster shots against COVID-19, are lowering recommendations again. Taylor Lorenz will be appalled!

CDC ending five-day COVID isolation guidance

By Nathaniel Weixel | Friday, March 1, 2024 | 1:11 PM EST | Updated: 2:22 PM EST

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is no longer recommending Americans stay home from work or school for five days after testing positive for COVID-19, a major shift in policy that comes as much of the country has moved on from the height of the pandemic.

The new guidance aligns COVID recommendations with other respiratory viral illnesses such as flu and RSV.

The simplified guidance recommends that even if they don’t know what virus is causing the illness, people should stay home when they are sick and symptomatic and resume normal activities if their symptoms have been improving and they are fever-free for at least 24 hours without any medication.

People who are at higher risk for severe illness who start to feel sick should seek health care right away, the agency said.

CDC officials said the change recognizes that the COVID-19 landscape has changed dramatically since the start of the viral outbreak in 2020 when businesses and schools ground to a halt and people stayed home.

There’s more at the original.

Can we tell the truth here? People long ago gave up on the scare tactics of the panicdemic, and with few people taking COVID tests when they feel sick, even those who did have a mild case of the Wuhan flu were integrating right back in with the population once they felt better. Very few self-isolated for five days.

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My White Privilege is nothing compared to Accredited Victim Group™ Privilege

If you check one Accredited Victim Group™ box, prosecution for crimes in the City of Brotherly Love seems to be reduced. If you check two Accredited Victim Group™ boxes, your chances of being prosecuted are further reduced. So, just imagine if you check three Accredited Victim Group™ boxes!

City LGBT official and husband arrested by state trooper will not face charges at this time, DA’s Office said

Celena Morrison and her husband were arrested by a state trooper after a traffic stop Saturday morning.

by Ellie Rushing | Sunday, March 3, 2024 | 10:55 AM EST | Updated: 1:54 PM EST

A top Philadelphia official and her husband who were arrested by a Pennsylvania State trooper this weekend have been released from custody and were not charged with any crimes, a spokesperson for the state police said Sunday.

“Celena” Morrison, from his city biography page, which is a public record.

Celena Morrison, the city’s executive director of the Office of LGBT Affairs, and her husband, Darius McLean, were taken into custody Saturday morning following a confrontation with a state trooper on the Vine Street Expressway. A video of their arrests, captured by Morrison, quickly circulated on social media and appeared to show McLean lying on the shoulder of the highway, begging the trooper to let him go.

“I work for the mayor! I work for the mayor!” Morrison yelled, before the trooper can be heard telling her to “shut the f— up.”

The trooper then turns to arrest Morrison and, as the video pans toward the sky, she can be heard saying, “He just punched me.”

There’s more at the original.

So, what boxes are checked? Miss Morrison is black, so that’s box number one. Miss Morrison is homosexual, so that’s box number two. And Miss Morison is actually Mr Morrison, a male who believes he is female, and thus checks the transgender box. Mr McLean is black, so that’s box number one for him, and he is homosexual, given that he is married to another male, so that’s box number two.

According to the newspaper, Mr Morrison was pulled over on the Vine Street Expressway, because:

  • the vehicle’s registration was expired and suspended;
  • the windows were illegally tinted;
  • the vehicle’s headlights were not illuminated in the rain; and
  • Mr Morrison was following too closely behind another driver.

Those are all important issues. If the vehicle’s registration was expired and suspended, that means that in any accident in which Mr Morrison might have been involved, even if the vehicle had insurance, the insurance company could refuse to pay any liabilities required. If the vehicle’s headlights were not on while driving in the rain, that created a safety violation, as other drivers would be less able to see the vehicle. And if Mr Morrison was following another car too closely, and had to stop quickly, he might not have been able to do so, especially on wet roads.

What was a city official doing driving a vehicle in that condition?

Mr McLean saw his “wife’s” vehicle having been pulled over by a state policeman, and decided to stop and interfere.

State police initially filed several misdemeanor and summary charges against the couple, but the charges were declined by the District Attorney’s Office “pending additional review,” said agency spokesperson Lt. Adam Reed. They were released from custody Saturday evening.

Jane Roh, spokesperson for the DA’s Office, said that no charging decisions have been made but that officials are investigating all aspects of the incident.

Translation: they’re going after the state trooper for doing his job.

At one point, McLean said: “Please just stop. It’s because I’m Black.”

The state trooper did not stop Mr McLean; he stopped himself. Given that the vehicle Mr Morrison was driving was cited for having windows which were illegally tinted, among other things, the trooper couldn’t really see that the driver was black.

The Keystone State ceased issuing annual stickers for license plates in 2018, and went to automated license plate scanners mounted in police cars. The state policeman did not need to run the plates on Mrs Morrison’s car; that was done automatically by computer, and the trooper was alerted to this in his vehicle. Pennsylvania only issues rear license plates, so the trooper was behind the grey Infiniti sedan when the plate was scanned.

There’s some real privilege being shown here, and it isn’t that dreaded “White Privilege” about which the left so frequently whine. If my wife, who is white, had been pulled over for the same infractions, and I proceeded to stop behind the police car, and pulled the same bovine feces Mr McLean did, I’d be in jail, awaiting a Monday morning arraignment to get bail set. Of course, my wife would simply have accepted the tickets, even if she was unhappy about it, and I wouldn’t be stupid enough to try to interfere with a law enforcement officer. But, then again, we don’t have Accredited Victim Group™ Privilege.