After 72 uninterrupted years in power, Democrats have kept Philly our nation’s poorest big city

The city of Philadelphia has been governed by Democrats for decades: the last Republican mayor left office while Harry Truman was President of the United States. The Democrats of today, in complete charge of the City of Brotherly Love, have talked a great, great game of taking care of the poor and downtrodden, yet it has to be asked: having talked the talk, have they walked the walk?

Some Philadelphia homeless shelters have gone months or years without being paid by the city

The Office of Homeless Services spent $15 million more than it was budgeted over the last four years, but some nonprofit leaders say during that time, they experienced severe delays in payment.

by Anna Orso | Wednesday, January 17, 2024 | 5:00 AM EST

It was the Monday after Thanksgiving when officials at Gloria’s Place, a West Philadelphia homeless shelter that’s operated for five decades, learned their contract with the city wouldn’t be renewed due to a lack of funding, and the seven families in its care would need to find shelter somewhere else.

That came after Gloria’s Place had for ten months housed dozens of children and adults referred to them by the city — but were not paid the more than $400,000 the city owed them.

Yup, it’s another one of those Philadelphia Inquirer articles limited to subscribers only. I subscribe so that you don’t have to. Continue reading

Did you know that wanting to protect your country’s borders makes you ‘far right’? Some people think that it makes you sensible!

If there’s one thing the left and the credentialed media just love to do is to try to minimize conservatives by labeling them as ‘far right’. Apparently just another tweak, and we’d all be neo-Nazis!

As Robert Stacy McCain reported, a knife attack, allegedly by an Arab immigrant, outraged the people of Dublin:

Ireland’s police chief (Drew Harris) has warned that far-right radicalisation will continue to disrupt the country after a night of arson, rioting and looting left parts of Dublin resembling a war zone.

The capital was tense on Friday as significant numbers of police remained on the streets and Dublin counted the cost of an anti-immigrant protest that turned into anarchy, leaving the political establishment shocked.

Gardai said they made a number of arrests on O’Connell Street in Dublin city centre on Friday night.

The cleanup began as fresh details emerged of the stabbing attack outside a school that left three children and a carer injured, two of them critically, and the suspect, reportedly a naturalised Irish citizen in his 50s, in custody and requiring medical treatment.

Claims that the suspect was a foreigner spread online soon after the attack, which happened at about 1.30pm on Thursday, and drew a crowd to the scene at Parnell Square in the north inner city, leading to a riot in which 13 shops were looted, a tram and two buses torched, 11 police vehicles damaged, several officers injured – one seriously – and 34 people arrested.

Drew Harris, the Irish police commissioner, said people radicalised by far-right ideology and social media exploited a “terrible crime” to unleash mayhem.

Good heavens, “13 shops were looted, a tram and two buses torched, 11 police vehicles damaged, (and) several officers injured”? These “far-right” ideologues are amateurs, and need to go to Philadelphia to learn how to riot properly!

The Republic of Ireland is 94.1% white; it’s not as though someone who doesn’t look almost pasty-white Irish isn’t going to be easily noticed.

The European Union have decreed that EU member nations have to take the ‘migrants.’ Time for an Éirexit?

That, of course, is the result of a single incident. This, on the other hand, was a free election!

In a shock for Europe, anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders records a massive win in Dutch elections

By Mike Corder and Raf Casert | Friday, November 23, 2023 | 3:25 AM EST

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders won a huge victory in Dutch elections, according to a near complete count of the vote early Thursday, in a stunning lurch to the far right for a nation once famed as a beacon of tolerance.

The result will send shockwaves through Europe, where far-right ideology is on the rise, and puts Wilders in line to lead talks to form the next governing coalition and possibly become the first far-right prime minister of the Netherlands.

Laughing out loud! The Associated Press writers managed to include “far right” thrice in two one-sentence long paragraphs.  🙂 Mike Corder’s latest article on the subject is entitled “The Netherlands’ longtime ruling party says it won’t join a new government following far-right’s win“.

With nearly all votes counted, Wilders’ Party for Freedom was forecast to win 37 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament, two more than predicted by an exit poll when voting finished Wednesday night and more than double the 17 he won at the last election.

Political parties were set to hold separate meetings Thursday to discuss the outcome before what is likely to be an arduous process of forming a new governing coalition begins Friday.

Despite his harsh rhetoric, Wilders has already begun courting other right and center parties by saying in a victory speech that whatever policies he pushes will be “within the law and constitution.”

Wilders’ election program included calls for a referendum on the Netherlands leaving the European Union, a total halt to accepting asylum-seekers and migrant pushbacks at Dutch borders.

It also advocates the “de-Islamization” of the Netherlands. He says he wants no mosques or Islamic schools in the country, although he has been milder about Islam during this election campaign than in the past.

There follow several paragraphs noting how Mr Wilders could have a tough time forming a governing coalition, and then this:

The historic victory came one year after the win of Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy’s roots were steeped in nostalgia for fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Meloni has since mellowed her stance on several issues and has become the acceptable face of the hard right in the EU.

“(H)ard right”? “(S)teeped in nostalgia for fascist dictator Benito Mussolini”? Dear Messrs Corder and Casert: tell us that you are leftists without saying that you are leftists! 🙂

London’s The Guardian, a far-left newspaper, published an article entitled, “Offensive, hostile and unrepentant: Geert Wilders in his own words“, just so you would know why the hard left in Europe hate Mr Wilders, and how appalled they are that the Dutch voters are less than appalled.

The normally more-liberal-than-Americans Europeans are finding learning, firsthand, what decades of liberal-to-leftist policies have brought to their homelands. Like the liberals in American ‘sanctuary cities,’ they’re finding out that unrestricted immigration of people who do not share their, or even Western civilization, culture isn’t quite as nice when it happens in their own back yards, rather than in some high-minded philosophy when the effects are visited on Other People.

The migrant crisis in Europe is different from that in the United States in a way few consider. Our illegal immigrants are primarily Hispanic, and if their background isn’t white, middle-American, it is still primarily Christian, mostly Catholic, with a Catholic sense of what is right and wrong. They are not, for the most part, demanding and getting mosques built, but helping to fill too empty Catholic churches in the US.

In Europe, the ‘migrants’ are coming not from Catholic countries, but primarily Islamic ones. Rather than filling emptying Catholic churches, they are demanding, and getting, Islamic mosques, and that’s one thing Mr Wilders has promised to stop. Their culture is not only not Western, but they come from lands in which Western culture is seriously despised.

Except for Western prosperity, that is. The ‘migrants’ do love Western euros!

The Netherlands is not Hungary or Poland, not a nation in which liberal democratic traditions are a new overlay over a recent authoritarian past. The Dutch resisted the Nazis as best they could, and, neutral during World War I, they allowed Kaiser Wilhelm II to live out the remained of his life in exile in Doorn. When the Dutch move in a conservative direction, it means something.

The left have had control of the democratic European governments for a long time, as the stigma of Naziism retains revulsion among European voters. But that wariness of conservative principles, along with economies subsidized by American defense spending might just be coming to an end, as the results of decades of liberal politics keep pouring into their countries, and their neighborhoods.
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The Usual Suspects are very, very upset that Andy Beshear hasn’t supported Hamas

On Tuesday, November 7th, Kentuckians will go to the polls to elect our governor for the next four years, and while a very recent poll puts Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) and state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, the Republican nominee, at a 47-47% tie, Mr Beshear has been the strong leader in previous polls, I would be surprised if Mr Cameron comes out ahead.

With the month-long war between Israel and Hamas, a lot of people have taken sides, but, other than his initial statements condemning Hamas attacks, Mr Beshear has pretty much kept his mouth shut on the issue.

That, of course, annoys the Usual Suspects, “a coalition of Kentucky organizations” published an ‘open letter’ to the Governor in today’s Lexington Herald-Leader:

An open letter to Andy Beshear: Your silence on Gaza endorses persecution of innocents

by A Coalition of KY Organizations | Friday, November 3, 2023 | 9:26 AM EDT

Dear Governor Andy Beshear,

This letter is on behalf of your Kentuckian constituents regarding the ongoing crisis in Gaza, and your response regarding the violence in the region. As Kentuckians, we are proud to call this state our home. That said, we deeply mourn the innocent Palestinian and Israeli lives lost and urgently call for an immediate ceasefire within Gaza. Continue reading

Poll: Most Trust Trump To Fix Inflation Over Biden

Considering the bang-up job Biden has done on inflation, they probably trust the intern who sends all Biden’s tweets over Biden

Inflation is weighing down Americans. Many trust Trump, more than Biden, to fix it

Linda Muñoz is scared about the economy. She dipped into her emergency savings this year. And she doesn’t believe President Joe Biden feels her pain.

The retired teacher from Channelview, Texas, worries about paying $4 for cereal and $3.38 for gasoline in her state.

“According to him, everything’s perfect,” said Muñoz, a Republican. “He just doesn’t live in reality.”

That is a constant refrain, like voters having doubt on Bidenomics.

As Biden tries to sell Americans on an economic rebound, most Americans aren’t buying it, according to an exclusive poll from the Suffolk University Sawyer Business School and USA TODAY that reveals major concerns about the state of the economy and little hope of people’s outlook improving. What’s worse for the incumbent president, Americans say they trust Donald Trump − not Biden − to fix it.

Groceries. Housing. Gas. All of these are pushing people further and further into debt, they say.

Nearly 70% of Americans said the economy is getting worse, according to the poll, while only 22% said the economy is improving. Eighty-four percent of Americans said their cost of living is rising, and nearly half of Americans, 49%, blamed food and grocery prices as the main driver. (snip)

Yet only 34% of Americans said they approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, compared with 59% who disapprove, according to the poll. (snip)

More Americans said they trust Trump, the 2024 Republican primary front-runner, than Biden to improve the economy by a 47%-36% margin. The spread is 46%-26% in Trump’s favor among independent voters.

Here’s the big question: will it make a difference in voting if the economy is still in the doldrums next year at this time? If prices, particularly food and gas, are high? I had an article sitting in my Pocket account till the other day about the 2024 election being about the economy and personal finances, but, will it? Or will it come down to something like “sure, Joe is old, incompetent, a buffoon, and his policies are hurting me, but, I despise Donald Trump, so, I’ll vote Biden or sit the election out” when it comes to Independents, moderate Dems, and the squishy Republicans? Because, if that’s the case, then Biden wins the White House, because Dems will come out in droves no matter what, no matter how bad Brandon is for their pocketbooks, and the GOP will have no shot in retaking the Senate, will lose the House, and may well lose lots of state elections.

But 74% of Americans described the economy negatively in one word − either “horrible/terrible,” “bad/poor,” “struggling” or “chaotic” − compared with 18% who said the economy is “excellent/good” or “growing/improving.” Another 4% said the economy is “fair/average.”

Can people set aside their Trump Derangement Syndrome for better policies? Do they enjoy driving by a gas station and seeing high gas prices? Do they like paying all that extra for food? Though, is it even possible to bring those food prices back down? How about housing costs? For all the caterwauling about Trump, the economy was doing well till the Chinese coronavirus hit. Unfortunately, he liked to battle with, well, everyone, instead of telling people that his policies were working.

Will Bunch really, really, really hates Joe manchin!

Will Bunch is a hard-left columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, a newspaper which is located in, to no one’s surprise, Pennsylvania. Joe Manchin is the senior United States Senator representing West Virginia. Though the two states do share part of their borders, West Virginia is not Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania is not West Virginia. The distinguished Mr Bunch, however, does not seem to understand that.

In the long hot summer of climate change, how can Joe Manchin justify his love for fossil fuels?

by Will Bunch | Tuesday, August 22, 2023

In 2012, the government website for the NASA space agency — on its climate change page — published an article with this simple, search-engine friendly headline: “Could a hurricane ever strike Southern California?” The answer was a barely qualified “no.”

“The interesting thing is that it really can’t happen, statistically speaking,” Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, said at the time. “The odds are infinitesimal — so small that everyone should just relax. Like 1 in 1,000. Of course, there’s always a chance.” Unlike the Atlantic and its warming Gulf Stream waters, California’s cold coastal currents are tropical-storm killers. At least they used to be.

There’s a long section here that follows — Mr Bunch angrily wrote — or at least I so judge him to have been angry, given all the internet screaming he did using boldfaced words, boldfaced words that I left in place — in which he attempts to persuade his readers that global warming climate change means that we’re doomed, we’re all doomed!

At any rate, I’ve deleted some of that, but you can read Mr Bunch’s writing in full if you follow the embedded link.

Then there is West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin — nominally a Democrat, arguably the most powerful player on Capitol Hill in the 2020s, and a profile in cowardice.

I’ve written a lot about Manchin in this space because he’s such a frustrating figure. A relic of the bygone era when West Virginia’s coal miners and rural poor were solidly Democratic, his party colleagues in Washington — especially the Biden administration — must bend over backwards to appease Manchin, since his seat would certainly go GOP if he weren’t around. But Manchin’s shtick — centered on his personal clout, as well as growing the coal-millionaire bank account that funds his Maserati and his yacht — is morally unjustifiable in a time of climate crisis.

LOL! I’m pretty sure that Mr Bunch would hate libertarian Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY4) even more, but Mr Massie’s home is off-the grid, using solar cells, and he drives a plug-in electric Tesla. 🙂 But Mr Bunch is just spittle-flecking mad that Senator Manchin drives a Maserati and has a yacht, though I haven’t heard much from him about former Senator and Secretary of State, and now President Biden’s ‘climate tsar’ John Kerry, who has private jets and owned a yacht which he berthed in Rhode Island rather than his home state of Massachusetts to avoid paying “roughly $500,000 in taxes,” though he later tried to sell it.

Manchin’s act is also a complicated one. This time last year, after rebuffing Biden on climate legislation for nearly two years, he surprised political observers by relenting and voting to pass the Inflation Reduction Act. The law includes $369 billion for efforts to curb greenhouse-gas pollution, promoting clean power plants and electric cars. Maybe Manchin understood that Biden and the Democrats needed a pre-election achievement in 2022 to keep a narrow hold on the Senate, which is the basis of the West Virginian’s clout. That mission accomplished, this dying-coal-state senator is doing everything within his power to undermine the bill he voted for, and climate action generally.

LOL! One would think that a writer with as long experience as Mr Bunch would realize that writing “this dying-coal-state senator” could, and should, be read as stating that the Senator was dying, not what he meant, that the “coal state” was dying. “This senator from a dying coal state” would have been much clearer.

Manchin has gone so far as to accuse the Biden administration of a “radical climate agenda” and suggested he could join with Republicans to undo the Inflation Reduction Act, or at least some of its key provisions. The devil is in the details, and according to an in-depth report last weekend from the Washington Post, Manchin is opposing a critical reappointment to the agency that regulates pipelines and threatening to block Biden appointees to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department.

For a whole lot of people, including a lot of West Virginians, President Biden’s climate agenda is radical. Senator Manchin is the only Democrat who has won a statewide race recently, and with his seat due up for election again in 2024, he has found himself well behind in the polls against the probable Republican nominee, current Governor Jim Justice, another ‘coal baron’. Now is definitely not the time for Mr Manchin to go against the beliefs of the majority in his home state.

Mr Bunch is right that the coal industry is dying, but it isn’t dead, and it is still important in the Mountain State. In 2018, Senator Manchin won re-election over Patrick Morrisey by 290,510 (49.57%) to 271,113 (46.26%), in a race in which Libertarian nominee Rusty Hollen took 24,411 votes, 4.17%, numbers greater than Mr Manchin’s margin of victory over Mr Morrisey.

In 2020, President Trump beat Joe Biden 545,382 (68.62%) to 235,984 (29.69%) in West Virginia, Mr Trump’s second strongest state in that election. Mr Manchin, I would remind Mr Bunch, represents West Virginia, not Pennsylvania.

More, if Mr Bunch’s position represents anyone other than himself, it represents the city of Philadelphia, not the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In 2020, Joe Biden carried the Keystone State by 80,555 votes, 3,458,229 (50.01%) to 3,377674 (48.84%), but only because he carried Philadelphia 603,790 (81.44%) to 132,740 (17.90%), a margin of 471,050 votes. Without Philly, President Trump would have carried the Keystone State 3,244,935 (52.56%) to 2,854,439 (46.23%).

Manchin has spoken of passing his love of the outdoors to his 10 grandchildren, so why is he fighting to make it too hot to even go outside? Does a man whose ego seems to relish his frequent TV appearances care that he’ll be remembered for making the Earth uninhabitable for his grandkids, and ours? Because 100 years from now, the textbooks will portray Manchin and other men who enabled the fossil fuel industry as this millennium’s monsters of history.

This, in the end, is where Mr Bunch in particular, and the climate activists in general just don’t get it. West Virginia is, as Mr Bunch stated, a poor state, and the people of the Mountain State tend to be a bit more worried about putting food on the table tonight, and keeping a roof over their heads this month, than they are over what the climate will be 100 years from now.

Mr Bunch has a guesstimated net worth of a million bucks, nowhere close to the league of the billionaires against whom he rails, but certainly comfortable enough. If the Biden Administration mandates plug-in electric cars, Mr Bunch can afford one. If the government has to raise taxes to pay for some cockamamie scheme to build more solar and wind plants, Mr Bunch can afford it.

Living here in eastern Kentucky, I can see the things that Mr Bunch cannot. I can see the houses with no dedicated parking spot in which they could safely put an electric car charging station, and I can see the older homes which have older electric service, a 100-amphere breaker panel, which isn’t going to support both the home as it is and a 50-amp, 220-volt electric car charger.

And even that’s generous: our church recently, recently as in this spring, had to replace the electric service for the convent, which was powered by two 40-amp fuse boxes, because we had to replace the heating system, and the older service just wouldn’t support it.

Still, the Inquirer columnist ought to be able to see something of poverty. His newspaper bio states that he has “some strong opinions about what’s happening in America around social injustice, income inequality and the government.” Surely someone so interested in “social injustice (and) income inequality” ought to understand that his hometown is “the ‘poorest’ of the largest U.S. cities, with 23.3% of residents living in poverty, surpassing the next largest poor U.S. city, Houston, by 2.9%.” As the left, including his favored Mayoral candidate, Helen Gym Flaherty, wanted to get everyone changed over to electric heat pumps rather than the gas furnaces so prevalent in Philly’s poorer row home areas, he ought to understand that a whole bunch of city homeowners can’t afford the costs of such a changeover. Surely someone so concerned about “income inequality” ought to realize that in the city’s crowded rowhome neighborhoods, where tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of homes have nothing but on-street parking, that charging their cars is just not something easy and secure.

On May 11th of this year, Mr Bunch published a column entitled On CNN, lying Trump was a late-night comedian for an America I didn’t recognize, and while I care nothing about his column, the title was revelatory, because Mr Bunch told a truth he might not realize, that there is a lot of American that he just doesn’t recognize. Heck, outside of Philly, even including the collar counties, the majority of Pennsylvanians, 52.56%, voted for Donald Trump.

Black Democrats in Alabama dump ‘LGBTQ+’ caucus

Thanks to a tweet from Kirby McCain, I found this story:

‘You be quiet, girl:’ Alabama Democrats’ board meeting made private after members protest

By Alander Rocha Alabama Reflector | Saturday, July 29, 2023 | 7:22 PM EDT

The leadership of the Alabama Democratic Party (ADP) Saturday kicked members of the public out of a meeting without starting it.

ADP Chair Randy Kelley said in an interview Saturday afternoon that they had to conduct the meeting in an executive session because members of the public were being disruptive.

“They weren’t on the committee,” he said. “They were a guest. And we didn’t know who those people were.”

The motion at the first meeting since the party leaders passed new bylaws and eliminated diversity caucuses in May, came amid a protest from about 15 members of the eliminated groups and supporters.

As a result of eliminating diversity caucuses, 53 members lost a seat on the party’s State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC). The state Democratic Party faces an investigation by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) over the bylaw changes and elimination of caucuses.

There’s more at the original.

Being a numbers kind of guy, I asked myself, “Self, what percentage of the Alabama Democratic Party are black?” While it’s well-known that roughly 90% of black voters cast their ballots for Democrats, I found this from Pew Research:

In an August 2022 Pew Research Center survey, 70% of Black registered voters said they would vote for or were leaning to the Democratic U.S. House candidate in their district in the coming election. Another 24% were either unsure or said they would back another candidate. Just 6% of Black registered voters said they would back the Republican candidate in the race to represent their district in the House of Representatives.

According to the Census Bureau’s guesstimates, 68.9% are white, 64.7% and non-Hispanic white, and 26.8% of Alabama’s population are black. And in the 2022 United States Senate race, one in which there was no incumbent running, Republican Katie Britt received 942,154 votes (66.62%) to Will Boyd’s 436,746 (30.88%).The Democratic nominee was so insignificant that there is no Wikipedia page for him.

Mrs Britt carried six of Alabama’s seven congressional districts, the six represented by Republicans, while Mr Boyd won the 7th Congressional District, 61% to 37%. The 7th District, represented by Democrat Terri Sewell, is described in Miss Sewell’s Wikipedia page as:

includ(ing) most of the Black Belt, as well as most of the predominantly black portions of BirminghamTuscaloosa, and Montgomery.

I think it fair to say, at this point, that the Alabama Democratic Party is an overwhelmingly black party. Is anyone surprised that black Alabamians would dump “LGBTQ+” caucuses?

I am amused.

 

Will Governor Andy Beshear break the law to try to steal a Senate seat?

Following Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) freeze-up, there has been speculation that the 81-year-old lawmaker would be unable to serve out his full term, which expires on January 3, 2027. That begs the question: if Mr McConnell resigns or dies before his term is up, who would get the Senate seat?

In 2021, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky passed KRS §63.200, specifying the procedures under which the seat would be filled:

  • (1) (a) The Governor shall fill vacancies in the office of United States Senator by appointment and the appointee shall serve until a successor has been elected and qualified under subsection (2), (3), (4), or (5) of this section.
  • (b) The appointee shall be selected from a list of three (3) names submitted by the state executive committee of the same political party as the Senator who held the vacant seat to be filled, shall have been continuously registered as a member of that political party since December 31 of the preceding year, and shall be named within twenty-one (21) days from the date of the list submission
  • (c) In the event the vacant seat was held by a person who was not a member of any political party as defined under KRS 118.015, the Governor shall appoint any qualified voter who is not a member of any political party as defined under KRS 118.015.
  • (d) Upon appointment, the Governor shall, under the seal of the Commonwealth, certify the appointment to the President of the Senate of the United States. The certificate of appointment shall be countersigned by the Secretary of State.

But now state Democrats are musing that Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) might not follow the law! From what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal:

Ky. Dems predict challenge to Senate replacement law amid focus on McConnell’s health

by Austin Horn | Thursday, July 27, 2023 | 3:18 PM EDT | Updated: 10:35 PM EDT

Questions about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s health were renewed following a widely publicized freeze up on camera Wednesday. The event also re-ignited discussion about the 2021 Kentucky state law he pushed for ensuring that, should he vacate his seat, it would remain in Republican hands.

But Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear may not follow that law.

Governor Beshear vetoed that bill after it passed, but the state legislature overrode the veto, 29-8 in the state Senate, and 70-24 in the state House of Representatives.

“I would imagine you would absolutely see a lawsuit on this,” Michael Abate, a Louisville attorney who’s worked for the Kentucky Democratic Party (KDP) in the past, said.

That law, passed by the GOP-led legislature in 2021’s Senate Bill 228, dictates that the governor select a replacement for any U.S. Senator vacating the office from a list of three provided by the state executive committee of the vacating senator’s party. Both of Kentucky’s U.S. senators are Republicans, including Rand Paul whose term is set to expire in 2028 and McConnell who’s term runs out in 2026.

Actually those are the election years for those seats; the terms actually expire on January 3rd of the following year. The reporter’s phraseology was sloppy.

Mitch McConnell’s election history, from Wikipedia. Click to enlarge.

While a bit slower than other Southern states, Kentucky has moved to become solidly Republican. Despite being outspent by Amy McGrath Henderson $90.1 million to just a hair under $60 million, Mr McConnell defeated Mrs Henderson by a landslide margin.

Kentucky’s other Senator, Rand Paul, has been elected by landslide margins in all three of his Senate campaigns, including in 2010, which was supposed to be a tight contest. It’s very clear: Kentucky’s voters have chosen Republicans, not Democrats, to represent them in the United States Congress. The Democrats simply want to undermine the will of the voters.

Abate said Beshear would likely push back against the law in one of two ways: ignore the law and appoint the replacement himself or sue against the law.

Either way would deny the Bluegrass State half of its representation in the United States Senate for some time. If Mr Beshear appointed someone not on that list, doubtlessly a Democrat, the Republican Party would immediately file a lawsuit; since the Secretary of State is required to countersign the certification, under KRS §63.200(1)(d), and Republican Michael Adams currently holds that office, Mr Adams could delay his signature long enough for the lawsuit to be filed. If Mr Beshear filed suit himself to challenge the law, he would not be able to appoint anyone to the seat while the lawsuit was in court, and if he tried, the appointment would be held up.

If he took the second option, he would doubtlessly file it in Franklin Circuit Court, for his toady judge, Phil Shepherd, a highly partisan Democrat. We have previously reported on Judge Shepherd’s partisanship.

KRS §63.200(2) specifies that, “If a vacancy occurs more than three (3) months before the election in any year in which any regular election is held in this state,” the seat will come up for a special election to fill it for the remainder of the term. Section 3 specifies that if such vacancy occurs less than three months before a regularly scheduled election, the Governor may appoint a Senator who would serve until the next regularly scheduled election.

President Trump carried every county except two, out of 120, in 2020, and Mr McConnell every county except three. Senator Paul carried every county except three, the same three — Jefferson, Fayette, and Franklin — in 2022. With the Democrats only real strength being in Louisville, five of the Commonwealth’s six congressmen are Republicans, and with the GOP having an 80-19, with one previously Democratic vacancy, margin in the state House, and 31-7 in the state Senate, there’s no question for whom Kentucky voters have chose. But Governor Beshear has never actually cared about the will of the people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crime, like any other cancer, left untreated, metastasizes Philadelphians have no one else to blame; they've done this to themselves

I have previously said that the greatest loss I have suffered in moving away from the Keystone State was the loss of freshly baked, hot Philadelphia pretzels. Coming in as a close second is the loss of Wawa coffee. Yes, you can buy Wawa coffee in K-cups, but even though we use filtered water in our Keurig, it just isn’t the same.

Wawa in Philly’s Headhouse Square to close

Neighborhood groups had complained to Wawa about aggressive panhandling, crime, and drug use at the store.

by Mike Newall | Friday, June 16, 2023 | 11:15 AM EDT

The Headhouse Square Wawa will close July 16, a company official told The Inquirer. The move comes after neighborhood associations had complained to Wawa about aggressive panhandling, crime, and drug use at the store and outside on the sidewalk.

The site will become the sixth Center City Wawa to shutter since 2020.

“While closing a store is always a difficult decision to make, Wawa constantly conducts careful and extensive evaluations of business performance and operational challenges of all stores on an ongoing basis,” said Wawa spokesperson Lori Bruce in a statement Friday, confirming the pending closure of the Wawa at Second and Lombard. “We continue to invest in our home market of Philadelphia.”

This isn’t exactly a poor neighborhood! A 585 ft² rear apartment is listed for $305,000, while a 4 bedroom, 5 bathroom, 2,516 ft² upscale row house, with basement parking, is listed for $1,270,000. Yet the area is suffering from street crime and junkies. Who wants to fork out well over a million bucks to be tripping over junkies laying out in the street?

Joe Dain, cofounder of the Delancey Square Town Watch, which was formed earlier this year, said his group and other neighborhood organizations had met with Wawa officials in April to discuss ongoing concerns at the Headhouse Square Wawa. By that time, the company, he said, had already taken measures to curb panhandlers and other public nuisance issues, including curtailing its hours, hiring private security and working with city police to provide patrols.

“There were certainly efforts being made,” Dain said. “What we were addressing was the fact that more needed to be done.”

Wawa notified the group that it would be instead closing the location, he said. The closure will be only the latest vacancy to hit the historic cobblestone district. A CVS across the street from the Wawa also closed its doors in recent years. The drugstore had been battling many of the same concerns, Dain said. In 2019, Giant Heirloom said it planned to open a supermarket at Abbotts Square at Second and South, around the corner, but that project has since fallen through. The property sits vacant.

Crime affects everybody, not just the immediate victims. Owners see the value of their properties decline, shoppers have fewer options, including the loss of Wawa coffee, and things just generally deteriorate. Trouble is, among the good Democrats of the 5th Ward, which includes Headhouse Square, sort-of progressive but not wild-eyed crazy Rebecca Rhynhart McDuff received 4,777, 47.1%, of the votes in the May primary, while police-hating, hard, hard left progressive Helen Gym Flaherty came in second at 2,908, 28.7%. Primary winner Cherelle Parker Mullin, who campaigned on fighting crime among other things, came in fourth, with 931 votes, 9.2%.

The adjacent 2nd, 8th, and 30th showed similar results.

Simply put, the liberal Democratic voters of the area voted for their own problems!

Wawa has been shrinking its Center City presence.

In October, when Wawa announced it was closing stores at 12th and Market Streets and 19th and Market Streets, the company cited “continued safety and security closures.

Then, even further down, we get to the part where the Inquirer amused me:

Dain, of the Delancey Square Town Watch, said the Headhouse Square store had become more of a problem for residents in recent years.

“We would have groups of kids coming in and ransacking the place at night,” he said. Some of the panhandlers that often congregated outside the store had become aggressive, he said. The store had also become a gathering spot for people in addiction, he said, who would then camp in the historic Shambles structure or by the Headhouse Square Fountain.

“(P)eople in addiction”? That isn’t listed as a direct quote, and I had to chuckle; is that the newspaper’s stylebook phrase for junkies?

This is what you get when you tolerate crime, even the ‘little’ crimes, in what have been mostly minority neighborhoods. Sure, junkies camping out on the streets at Kensington and Allegheny Avenues aren’t bothering anyone in Center City . . . until now, they do. Someone knocking over a bodega in North Philly doesn’t really concern the people in Headhouse Square, and doesn’t even make the news unless a Temple University student gets hurt, so they can safely vote for soft-on-crime, police hating politicians like Mrs Flaherty, or District Attorney Larry Krasner, but crime, like any other cancer left untreated, metastasizes.