Welcome to the Coatesville Dems Blog

Public Corruption in Chester County, PA

I believe an unlikely mix of alleged drug trafficking related politicos and alleged white nationalist related politicos united to elect the infamous “Bloc of Four” in the abysmal voter turnout election of 2005. During their four year term the drug business was good again and white nationalists used Coatesville as an example on white supremacist websites like “Stormfront”. Strong community organization and support from law enforcement, in particular Chester County District Attorney Joseph W. Carroll has begun to turn our community around. The Chester County drug trafficking that I believe centers on Coatesville continues and I believe we still have public officials in place that profit from the drug sales. But the people here are amazing and continue to work against the odds to make Coatesville a good place to live.

Monday, May 20, 2019

In February of 2016 I wrote that Trump would win Pennsylvania. If Biden is the Democratic nominee in 2020 Trump would again win Pennsylvania.

Talk to former Lukens Steel union steelworkers in Coatesville or wherever they live now. They usually will tell you that China is taking steelworkers jobs. They all began life as Democrats. Some remain as Democrats but now almost all of them support the GOP and President Trump.

When they worked at Lukens Japanese companies did take Lukens steelworkers jobs. But Lukens modernized. Scrapped the coke burning furnaces and built an electric furnace. 

Lukens did not follow most of the U.S. steel industry executives that stuck with1930 steel production techniques, bled their companies dry while lining their pockets and waited for bankruptcy. 

In the 1950s heyday of the City of Coatesville Lukens employed about 6,000 people. Now ArcelorMittal employees about 600 people. 

When I worked at Lukens in 1965 the sign that said “days since last disabling injury” stayed in the 20s. The steel plant in Coatesville is safer because those 5400 jobs have been replaced by robots.


The former union Lukens steelworkers black or white know all this but they will insist that China stole U.S. steel jobs. And they will insist that Mexican workers steal American jobs. 


***
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — In May 2016, David Betras, a Democratic Party leader in the heart of industrial northeast Ohio, sent a memo warning Hillary Clinton’s campaign that it was on the verge of losing Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan because she was not connecting with blue-collar voters. These states “should be easy wins for us,’’ he wrote.
He said he got no answer. 
As he sees it now, Democrats are still just as out of touch.

MORE AT:
NEW YORK TIMES

May 20, 2019



I wrote this in February of 2016:


In a Trump vs. Clinton general election, I think Trump would win Pennsylvania.  

When Obama ran in 2008 Gov. Rendell supported Clinton.  Mostly, I think, because he thought Obama would win in Philly but not much of the rest of Pennsylvania. 

Governor Rendell’s line of thought dates back to President Andrew Jackson: 
“SINCE Donald J. Trump shot to the top of Republican polls last fall, pundits have tried to make sense of his popularity. He has been described as a modern-day product of reality-TV narcissism, or the second coming of European fascism. But as he cruises into the South Carolina primary after beating his rivals by double digits in New Hampshire, it’s clear that neither idea quite explains his strength.  
Mr. Trump’s rhetoric resonates with a particular American political tradition. Voters may not know the details of that tradition, but they feel it viscerally when a politician taps into it. Mr. Trump has done just that by emulating a classic model of American democratic leadership. 
A clue as to just which leadership model can be found on a map. While Trump fans are spread across the country, they are heavily concentrated in and near the Appalachian states — from Mississippi and Alabama all the way to western Pennsylvania and New York. The northwest corner of South Carolina is one of the most pro-Trump parts of the country…
Consciously or not, Mr. Trump’s campaign echoes the style of Andrew Jackson, and the states where Mr. Trump is strongest are the ones that most consistently favored Jackson during his three runs for the White House.”
***

That thing about Governor Rendell thinking Obama would not win Pennsylvania has been turned around in this election. 

Donald Trump may have his strongest support nationally and in Pennsylvania from the very same kind of Democrats that, back in 2008, Governor Rendell envisioned voting for Hillary Clinton and not Barack Obama. 
Donald Trump holds a dominant position in national polls in the Republican race in no small part because he is extremely strong among people on the periphery of the G.O.P. coalition.  
He is strongest among Republicans who are less affluent, less educated and less likely to turn out to vote. His very best voters are self-identified Republicans who nonetheless are registered as Democrats. It’s a coalition that’s concentrated in the South, Appalachia and the industrial North, according to data provided to The Upshot by Civis Analytics, a Democratic data firm.”
MORE AT:
Coatesville Dems Blog
Wednesday, February 17, 2016


***

“The Democratic Party has lost its voice to speak to people that shower after work and not before work,” he said. “All we’re saying is he won’t turn over his tax returns. He’s saying, ‘I’m fighting China to get you better jobs.’”
He added: “They don’t care about his taxes — they just don’t.’’… 

The president is “punching China in the face” with tariffs, while the “leading candidate on our side is saying China is not even an issue,” said Representative Tim Ryan, a Democrat whose district includes Youngstown and who is himself a presidential candidate. “If we go into the election with that as our message, we’ll get beat again.”…
Mr. Ryan, who is not well known beyond Ohio, criticized Mr. Trump for lacking a plan to rebuild American industry. But he agreed with the president that China is the No. 1 threat and that a new type of Cold War over trade may be looming…

Matt Borges, a former chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, said a fundamental demographic realignment has taken place under Mr. Trump. “We’ve traded off suburban Republicans who may never find their way back to the party for that white working-class traditional Democratic voter, who has been more and more alienated from their party’s rhetoric,” he said. “Is this a long-term gain for Republicans here? Yes.”… 

In a region like northeast Ohio, it is difficult to untangle the president’s appeal on economics from his tapping of resentment toward demographic and cultural change
 
Even though the Mahoning Valley was settled by immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe drawn to the steel mills in the 1920s — there are a dozen Eastern Orthodox churches in Youngstown — a palpable hostility toward newer waves of immigrants is routine….
 “He’s allowing these workers to say, ‘I don’t have a good job because of these immigrants,’” Mr. Betras, the former Democratic chairman, said. “That’s not true. But he’s got a voice.”
“There’s an underbelly of America that America doesn’t want to accept about itself, and he speaks to it,” he said…


ALSO SEE:

To understand contemporary politics you must understand right wing extremism.

"Meanwhile, mainstream Democrats shake their heads in confusion and fundamentally misunderstand the meaning of grassroots organizing, which is where all of this happens."


During the Great Depression American Fascism was explicitly Christian. In the 1950s it morphed into the John Birch Society. 


The Christofascist base is now the supercharged engine of the GOP. They turn out to vote faithfully with religious fervor. 

MORE AT:

Monday, May 13, 2019

Bill and Hillary Clinton sat behind former Coatesville City Councilperson Ingrid Jones at Percy Sutton's funeral service at Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, Manhattan.



Percy Sutton carried little Ingrid Woods on his shoulders at the Sutton home in Texas. At the time Ingrid was the only girl in the Sutton family.

“U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder described Sutton as “a man who combined equal measure of intelligence, passion, commitment, courage and style.”  

“The opportunities that my generation has been given were paid for by his hard work and sacrifice," he said. "Without him, there would be no me.”Holder read a statement from President Obama and his wife, Michelle, in which they called Sutton “a master of the law, a savvy businessman, and tireless champion of the city.” 

Melba Moore sang "Amazing Grace." Stevie Wonder, who flew overnight to make the service, sang “I’ll Be Loving You Always” while changing one line for Sutton: “Percy will be loving us always.”

All of this was in tribute to a man born in the Jim Crow south who came of age in 1950s Harlem, and was elected Manhattan borough president. He served as a Tuskegee Airman during World War II and was a civil rights freedom rider who challenged racial segregation laws that denied blacks the right to use public facilities, like restaurants and hotels. He became Malcolm X’s lawyer and assumed the role of friend and guardian of Betty Shabazz and her family after her husband was assassinated. 

He became a media mogul with his acquisition of New York radio stations WLIB and WBLS. In the 1980s, his broadcasting company bought the bankrupt Apollo Theater and oversaw its renovation and reopening.
In the eulogy, the Rev. Al Sharpton talked about Sutton not as a media mogul or millionaire, but as a man who put his life in danger for causes he believed in, and whose dreams inspired Harlem. 

"We are here because he invested in a community that didn't believe in itself," Sharpton said. 

MORE AT 
Percy Sutton Honored at Funeral as Harlem Weeps







The Sutton family might be the most powerful & influential black family in the Americas. 




Percy Sutton was a Tuskegee Airman intelligence officer in World War II in Europe.

Those Tuskegee Airmen:



Debbie Bookman is running for Chester County PA Prothonotary. I’m not writing this because I don’t want her to win. It’s irresponsible for me to hide this from Democratic voters. I actually want Bookman to win and stop harming Coatesville, PA.

DEBBIE BOOKMAN WAS NOT "ENDORSED BY SENATOR DINNIMAN"


“During the interview, Peoples also indicated, as he had during his testimony at his trial, that he had been angry with Suber for associating with drug dealers in the city whom he had told Peoples had “burned him” before he went to prison in the late 1990s. It was a subject he discussed in an infamous “Stop Snitching” DVD, which was filmed by a Coatesville friend, Harvey Legree, at King’s Chinese Buffet in Caln in 2004.” 
FROM: 
Coatesville murderer Duron Peoples speaks from prison of past, coming life
By Michael P. Rellaha 
mrellahan@21st-centurymedia.com 
Oct 24, 2014



Harvey Legree did Duron Peoples don’t snitch DVD. He also did Deborah Bookman’s Coatesville City Council campaign video:































Ever watch “The Wire”? 


Harvey (Bitsy) Legree did what Omar did.







"HARVEY AND SYLVIA MEET AT JAMES ADAMS HIGH SCHOOL IN COATESVILLE,PA. 
JAMES ADAMS WAS A SEGREGATED SCHOOL. 
SYLVIA HAD ALREADY HAD A CHILD (THOMAS LEGREE) FROM A PAST RELATIONSHIP. 
SYLVIA STRUGGLED IN THE TENTH GRADE TAKING CARE OF HER CHILD AND TAKING CARE OF HER SIBLINGS WHICH FORCED HER TO QUIT SCHOOL IN THE TENTH GRADE. 
DURING THE DAY HARVEY WOULD TERRORISE THE STREETS OF COATESVILLE, WEST CHESTER, PARKSBURG, DOWNINGTOWN, AND SOME PARTS OF PHILADELPHIA AND FOUND TIME TO SPEND WITH SYLVIA IN-BETWEEN HIS REIGN OF TERROR.
IN-BETWEEN ROBBING DRUG DEALERS AND RUNNING HIS GANG (THE CAPONES) HARVEY STILL WENT TO SCHOOL EVERYDAY AND PLAYED VARSITY BASKETBALL WHICH EARNED HIM A SCHOLARSHIP TO NEBRASKA."
FROM:  

https://harveylegreeproductions.com/life-on-lifes-terms



Stop Snitcing" Producer Claims New Path  

The Coatesville Side Bar  

A CLOSER LOOK INTO CHESTER COUNTY'S ONLY CITY.  
TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2007   
POSTED BY J.MILLER AT 11:22 AM 

So how’s the “new path’ thingie going?  

To my knowledge "Brotherly Love" from "Dramah Entertainment" was never completed because a star actor was murdered on the streets of Philadelphia. 


Harvey "Bitsy" Legree did make this video:







***

Deborah Bookman worked for a Roger Green a former New York City State Assemblyman.

“On the streets of central Brooklyn, word seeped out this week that the local assemblyman, Roger L. Green, had decided to resign after he pleaded guilty to billing the state for false travel expenses. 

The news of his resignation was greeted with a sense of bewilderment: first, that he would quit after more than two decades in the Assembly, and then, that he would run again for the same seat later this year.

Mr. Green resigned from his Assembly seat on Tuesday, after the Assembly's ethics committee issued a secret report recommending sanctions against him and after the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, asked him to step down.”
MORE AT:
Assemblyman's Resignation Puzzles Many in Brooklyn 
By JONATHAN P. HICKSJUNE 4, 2004



***



“Debbie successfully won her seat on Coatesville City Council in the 2017 election where she was forced to run as a write in candidate beating everyone on the ballot which included an 8 year incumbent.”   
FROM: 
Deborah Bookman candidate for Prothonotary Chester County PA 


That 8 year incumbent was Ingrid Jones. Ingrid went to court & got Deborah off the ballot.

Saturday, March 25, 2017  
BOOKMAN BOOTED OFF BALLOT Democrat Deborah Bookman was coached by Republican Linda Lavender Norris. Coatesville, PA

Deborah Bookman responded like a gangster. She parked next to Ingrid’s  car rolled a darkened window in her car & stared up at Ingrid. 

Most of the time Coatesville’s Black people can be intimidated that way. Coatesville families go back a century or more. When all of a person's extended family is known it's easy to threaten them.  


But Ingrid isn’t from Coatesville. Ingrid is part of the Sutton Family that might be the most powerful black family in the Americas. 





***




Deborah Bookman appears to be from Grenada:


"David Marchant, editor of Offshore Alert, which follows international banking and corruption, expresses skepticism about the Grenadian government’s financial ethics. 'The most corrupt, anything-goes destination is Grenada,' he says in a 2007 Forbes article. 'You can do anything you want, and if the regulators come to call, it’s to seek a bribe.” 

https://www.offshorealert.com





It's up to Democratic voters to decide if they want Debbie as Chester County Prothonotary on November's ballot. 

Don’t say you weren’t warned. 

Saturday, May 11, 2019

Whiteland Towne Center The City of Coatesville’s Competition

1300 new apartments under construction, 210,000 daytime employees, 2.9 million square feet of retail, $124,618 average household income.  
Whiteland Towne Center is situated at the commercial bullseye of this robust submarket--the crossroads of Rt. 100 and Rt. 30 in Exton, PA

MORE AT:
https://www.whitelandtownecenter.com
New Residential Map https://www.whitelandtownecenter.com/exton-1





Main Street at Exton - Commerce Dr- Indian Run Rd




























The Exton Rt. 30 / Rt. 100 area has most of the same things Coatesville has, including a train station. What it’s lacking is residents near shopping & work. West Whiteland Township is working on the residential part. 

I called the Exton developments competition but I think there is ample demand for apartments & condominiums in Chester County.


"Apartments continued to be the most popular proposed housing type in Chester County in 2018 – a trend that started a few years ago – but there also was an increase in proposals for single-family detached homes.

While residential lots/units increased significantly overall, from 2,800 in 2017 to approximately 3,700 in 2018, apartments remained the largest proposed housing type (1,482 in 2018 versus 1,208 in 2017), according to the Chester County Planning Commission. Apartment proposals were followed by single-family detached homes (1,061 in 2018 versus 610 in 2017) and townhouses (959 in 2018 versus 800 in 2017)."
MORE AT:

Planning Commission Sheds Light on 2018 Housing Trends 

Thursday, May 2, 2019

Hitler's Berlin in 1934/Trump's Washington in 2019 "Trump is a uniquely diseased man, it’s true. But what kind of political party nominates, celebrates, venerates, and takes political bullets for a uniquely diseased man?"




"Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition."

Saturday, June 30, 1934 
“He caught a glimpse of Goring striding around the room dressed in a white shirt blue and blue gray trousers tucked into the black jack boots that rose above his knees. “Puss-in-boots” Gisevius thought suddenly.  
Goring shouted instructions.  
‘Shoot them...Take a whole company...Shoot them...Shoot them at once!’
Gisevius found it appalling beyond description. ‘The written word cannot reproduce the undisguised blood lust, vicious vengefulness and at the same time the fear the pure funk that’s the scene revealed.” 

From:

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin 




 “It’s 18 months until Election Day. They may well be the most consequential and stretch in the history of the country, or at least since Reconstruction.”




"Why did Lindsey Graham think it was cute or cheeky to utter the word “fucking” at the beginning of this hearing? Fine, he had the excuse that he was quoting something. But that isn’t why he did it. He did it to de-dignify these proceedings. To signal to viewers that they didn’t need to take this hearing seriously. And, he did it for an audience of one. You think Orange Julius didn’t chuckle when he heard Graham go down in the gutter?"





"Trump is a uniquely diseased man, it’s true. But what kind of political party nominates, celebrates, venerates, and takes political bullets for a uniquely diseased man?"


“The Republican Party started life as a grand and admirable thing. Our anti-slavery party; our conscience. Its leader was assassinated, and in short order it became the party of Wall Street, and it remained that for a century, though it always contained within it conservatives, moderates, and even some liberals. 

Then, starting in the 1980s, it lost the liberals. Then, in the 1990s, it started to lose most of the moderates, as right-wing issue and interest groups and Koch money began to define what constituted “conservatism,” pushing it ever-further rightward so that today it really isn’t even conservatism, but just a collection of grievances that they can use to piss off enough white people to stay in power.
 

Bill Barr came of political age in this period. He was a young, right-wing legal hotshot at the time of originalism, the Federalist Society, the rise of the right-wing arguments about a strong executive.
Lindsey Graham came of political age in this period. He was first elected to the South Carolina state legislature in the 1990s defeating a Democrat, and then just two years later made it to Congress, beating one of those post-civil rights-era Dixie Democrats who, throughout the 80s and 90s, were turned out of office by Republicans who were pushing their party, and their region, much farther to the right than it had been.
 

Their apologetics today are the natural consequences of their having marinated in these juices of resentment and rage for all the years they have. It’s what the party has become. And of course it’s the party that produced and elevated a gangster like Trump. It’s all of a piece.
 

And all of it along the way—every racist dog whistle, every Rush Limbaugh rant, every false, out-of-thin-air accusation against Bill and Hillary Clinton, every lie about easily liberating the people of Iraq, every accusation that the rest of us hated freedom, every “joke” about Obama serving fried chicken, every disgusting attack on immigrants and gay people and you name it—has brought us to this point. Brought us to today, when a sitting attorney general said in effect to the American people whose interests he is supposed to be defending, “No, I truly do not give a fuck. I’m up here for the president, and that’s that.” And naturally, we learned three hours after he left the Senate chamber that he will not deign to appear at the House, where the questioning would likely be tougher.
 

Trump is a uniquely diseased man, it’s true. But what kind of political party nominates, celebrates, venerates, and takes political bullets for a uniquely diseased man?
 

So after today, if we didn’t before, we see now with a new and oddly liberating clarity where this is headed. It’s 18 months until Election Day. They may well be the most consequential and frightening stretch in the history of the country, or at least since Reconstruction.
 

This racket known as a political party will try to pervert the law in ways we’ve never seen. Reverse the meaning of every word we know. Trump is screaming that he’s the victim of a “coup.” What he is doing, of course, is perpetrating a coup, against the Constitution, with the eager help of Barr and Graham and all the rest of them. Trump is an idiot, but on some intuitive level, he’s a smart man, smart enough to know that to get away with staging a coup, the very first thing you have to do is to accuse your opponents of trying to stage one.
 

Barr and Graham and Mitch McConnell and everyone else around knows that they’ve thrown in, and having thrown in, they can’t throw out. Survival will require every kind of lie you can imagine, especially and exactly the lie of accusing their foes of that which they are doing themselves. And before this is over, they’re all going to be in on it.


MORE AT:
The Daily Beast

Michael Tomasky

05.01.19 5:43 PM ET