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.
It’s clear to me that this re-segregation of higher learning is part of the Republican Party’s quest to undo all civil rights legislation.
As Governor George Wallace said:
"In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."
"CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina, April 25 (Reuters) - In a bustling sunken courtyard at the center of the University of North Carolina's Chapel Hill campus, a group of students handed out slips of papers with a warning for their peers.
"Is diversity at UNC important to you? It’s under threat," the handouts read.
The message came ahead of U.S. Supreme Court rulings in a pair of affirmative action cases this spring, which could drastically alter how race is considered in admissions at North Carolina's flagship university and other colleges.
The debate over race-conscious admissions policies comes as many schools are grappling with their racist pasts and striving for greater inclusion of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.
But like much of America, students at UNC are divided on the issue of affirmative action - the practice of factoring race in admissions to boost minority enrollment - and the role it should play in creating a diverse student body.
Interviews with more than a dozen students revealed that most valued the benefits of diversity and thought the university should do more to correct its blemished record on race.
Many students felt affirmative action was needed to achieve those goals. Others were uncomfortable that race gave certain applicants an edge in UNC's competitive admissions process. Some said they avoided the topic because of the tension around it.
"People don’t really want to think about something like their race being accounted for getting into a university," said Sarahann Bu, a Burmese Chin American sophomore, who supports the practice.
Jacob James, chair of the College Republicans, said schools with tarnished racial histories are overcorrecting and discriminating against white and Asian students, when they should focus on promoting intellectual diversity.
"That’s not to say that including people that are Black and brown isn’t important," said James, who is white. "But I think that it’s pretty cynical to say that if we don’t give them outsized advantages then they won’t be able to make it here."
Governor Shapiro did nearly the entire interview with a bright satisfied grin on his face. - James Pitcherella
GOVERNOR SHAPIRO:
"They’re completely full of shit. These are the people that love to frame the woke left, love to have these battles yet they’re the ones in their states who are leading the charge to restrict people’s rights and freedom.
If you’re a corporation in Florida and you don’t agree with the governor’s freedom limiting policies. He’s going to take away your tax breaks. He’s going to take away your ability to manufacture your products. He’s going to take away your competitive advantage. That’s anti-capitalism. Anti-freedom. It’s anti-democracy."
When reading my transcription excerpts understand that mistakes are inevitable. Refer to the video for clarification. - James Pitcherella
GOVERNOR SHAPIRO,
"I say all the time women should have the freedom over their own bodies. A big part of that freedom is having access to information. And so what we do is we developed a website:
If you’re from Pennsylvania go on there and you can find and access to reproductive health care clinics in your region. And if you can’t afford that health care we can also help with resources where you can get the dollars to be able to pay for it.
If you’re not from Pennsylvania check out that website and ask your governor, your state lawmaker, ask your cabinet secretaries to put something like that in place.
Knowledge is power. I want women here in Pennsylvania to have that knowledge and exercise their power. "
GOVERNOR SHAPIRO,
“He’s clearly not taking care of business in Florida. People are really struggling.
I was back and forth with a dear friend this morning in Fort Lauderdale, Fred Guttenberg who’s been one of the great leaders on combatting gun violence in our communities. He's sending me photos of his son kayaking down the streets around the Fort Lauderdale area. People are really struggling and suffering right now. And he clearly doesn’t have any plans to fix Florida or help Florida.
He’s running around with his message of stripping freedom across this country and I think he’ll be rejected. This is a guy without a particularly good political acumen. He went all in for my opponent in the last election who suffered greatly.
I think he’s a profoundly weak governor and he’s glass jawed I think he is not going to survive this process well."
GOVERNOR SHAPIRO,
"It goes back to what I said before. He is not someone and those like him are not people who believes in freedom. They don’t really believe in capitalism. The fact that you have a business as large and successful as Disney and you get tickled off by something they said because they’re not willing to go along with his agenda to ostracize the LGBTQ community is what he wanted them to do. That’s something that I think shows a profound weakness on his part.
But it’s anti-competitive. Something that is going to hurt business. I think if you’re any CEO out there any business leader. You need to be very fearful of what some of these governors on the far right are trying to do.
They’re creating an environment that is less competitive. They’re driving out innovation from their states. They’re making it less welcoming to innovative young employees who are going to help develop the next great technologies. Who are going to do the jobs that need to be done today and tomorrow. They are driving them out.
The good news is they have are other states that they can come to wether it’s Pennsylvania or Michigan. Other states where we value freedom and we value individuals no matter what they look like. Where they come from. Who they love. Or who they pray to. We want you here and you are part of helping us be competitive. You are part of helping us gain an advantage.
And I think that that philosophy that the governor of Florida and others continue to embrace is only going to drive out competition. It’s only going to make it harder for economies to grow. And it’s really, really against freedom, patriotism and democracy. Things that are critical to the future success of this nation."
GOVERNOR SHAPIRO,
“I’ve been in office three months and nearly every day we repeat the same refrain that here inPennsylvania you should have the freedom to chart your own course and the opportunity to succeed.
We’re trying to live up to that a number of different ways. As an example on day one of my administration I signed an executive order making clear that 92% of our state government jobs.
And let me put that in context. That’s over 65,000 state jobs wouldn’t require a college degree. Meaning we were going to going to value people’s skills and background and work experience over wether or not they had a college degree. Giving people more freedom to chart their own course and more opportunity to succeed. That’s one example of what we’ve done.
We’re trying to tackle two of the big issues that are holding us back, from mental health by putting a mental health counselor in every single school across this Commonwealth, to growing our economy and giving more people jobs particularly from forgotten communities and communities of color.
Making sure that we invest in public safety. Yes I do believe we need to hire more police in our communities but they need to be properly trained. They need to be people from the community that they’re sworn to serve and protect.
We need to make sure that we are addressing gun violence in our communities and we’ve put plans to do just that.
So we’re trying to tackle common sense solutions that actually make people’s lives better. Things that by the way draw bipartisan support day in and day out.
This is what I think the public wants to focus on. Not some of this nonsense that some of these other governors across the country spend their time bloviating about."
Tags: Broward County, Fort Lauderdale, Parkland School Shooting
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Fred Guttenberg told the Parkland school shooter’s defense that since his 14-year-old daughter Jaime Taylor Guttenberg died during the 2018 Valentine’s Day massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School he has been traveling around the country lobbying to reduce gun violence.
Guttenberg said he had no intention of speaking during the sentencing hearing. But he said he watched from home on Tuesday when Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer and Broward Public Defender Gordon Weekes clashed and he was incensed when Weekes said the victims’ families wanted to incite violence.
Guttenberg criticized Weekes for ignoring that many of them have dedicated their lives to preventing violence. He also praised Scherer for having been “nothing but decent, fair, and firm” and he demanded Weekes’ resignation.
“To suggest for one second that we would be the kind of people or anyone back there would be the kinds of people who would incite violence, you all should be ashamed of yourselves,” Guttenberg said on sentencing day.
“We’re still very much interested in the topic and we’re going to keep reporting. I should say that if anyone on this call happens to have any information we should know about any justice, we would be eager to hear from you.”- Josh Kaplan
Do you have any tips on the courts? Josh Kaplan can be reached by email at joshua.kaplan@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 734-834-9383. Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.
“Moscow wants any Ukraine peace talks to focus on creating a “new world order”, the French press agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) quotes Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.
Any negotiation needs to be based on taking into account Russian interests, Russian concerns. It should be about the principles on which the new world order will be based.
According to the agency, he added that Russia rejects a “unipolar world order led by ‘one hegemon’.”
Russia has long said it was leading a struggle against US dominance over the international stage, and argues the Ukraine offensive is part of that fight. The Kremlin said this week it had no choice but to continue its offensive, seeing no diplomatic solution.
Lavrov has accused the United States of blocking meetings of the Quartet on the Middle East – comprised of Russia, the US, EU and UN.
Speaking at the news conference in Turkey, Lavrov also said he did not rule out a possible face-to-face meeting with US secretary of state Antony Blinken at UN headquarters if there was a “serious proposal” for dialogue.”
The conflict highlights the party's craven hypocrisy around its inability to take on Trump and their favorite right-wing media personalities for their troublesome ongoing affinity for Putin.
A few years ago I was at a church service in northern Chester County, PA. Someone plopped into the not masked congregation not knowing it was a Christian church might think they were worshiping Donald Trump.
“All of this suggests that DeSantis is taking the wrong approach when he tries to appeal to MAGA voters by dismissing the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” and declaring that he cares “more about securing our own border in the United States than I do about the Russia-Ukraine border.” While Trump’s MAGA base is slightly more likely than most Republicans to oppose helping Ukraine, these voters are a minority of GOP primary voters — and they will never abandon the former president. DeSantis gains nothing by trying to appeal to them. He only looks weak, and he alienates pro-Ukraine voters who are open to supporting his candidacy.”
"Zignal’s analysis found tens of thousands of mentions calling Trump a martyr. The number more than doubled immediately after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., linked the prosecution of Trump to the persecution of Christ during an interview.”
“As Trump prepares to appear in court in New York, and as his legal woes elsewhere grow, one thing can make him rest easy. Whatever he says, and apparently whatever he does, white evangelicals will always have his back.”
As a toddler at Christmastime in my grandmom Pitcherella’s house, my favorite thing next to la frit (frittelle) was Uncle Tony’s Jewish business partner Julius Gordon making me laugh.
Raised Catholic, my Grandmom Cavallucci was the organist and choir directer at the Holy Rosary a block from our home. She made sure I was at church on Sundays.
My parents called on Dr. Stokes when I had medical emergencies at night. I went to his office on Chestnut Street in Coatesville. I don't know what he put in those big syringes. I got better quickly when I saw him.
Cutting through my Black neighbors yards on my way to school where I had Black and White friends it was hard to be racist.
When we lived in Philadelphia in the 60s & 70s, we were affiliated with the Catholic Vietnam peace movement (Father John McNamee, Friends Meetinghouse).
War and anti-war.
My wife Betsy worked at the Red Cross linking people on the homefront with officers in the field in Vietnam by ham radio. We talked with then Minister Bob Edgar about the war.
Betsy's Red Cross friend the wife of David Douglas, recently home from serving in the Marines at Khe Sanh. He knew about David Douglas Duncan who arrived just as he was leaving Khe Sanh.
Betsy volunteered as a tour guide at the 1976 July 4th celebration in Philadelphia.
Getting Frank Rizzo's autograph. She actually knew him.
***
“The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, was “handpicked and funded by George Soros,” the former president declared on Thursday as news of his indictment was breaking.
The right’s fixation with Mr. Soros has waxed and waned for years, but the tumult surrounding Mr. Trump’s indictment has given new life to what critics have long contended is a fixation tinged with antisemitic bigotry. Mr. Soros, a Hungarian Jew, survived the Holocaust, fled communism and became one of the single largest funders of democracy promotion, anti-Communism and liberal education around the globe.
“We understand that when someone makes comments about ‘Soros-backed prosecutors,’ that on its own is not necessarily antisemitic,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group.
“But when a person or a political party repeatedly and relentlessly makes wild claims such as that there is a ‘cabal of globalists backed by Soros destroying our country,’” Mr. Greenblatt said, “that is invoking a classic anti-Jewish conspiracy theory, and it should be condemned.” Mr. Trump and his allies have singled out Mr. Soros for years, Mr. Greenblatt added.”
Conspiracy theorists have long attributed wildly varied events to George Soros, in attacks often viewed as antisemitic. His indirect donations to a prosecutor’s campaign are animating Trump allies.
“Feel the love” is said in church and at concerts. I could feel the love at my grandmom’s home. Love is a thing that floats in the air.
Hate can also be felt, maybe transmitted through the eyes.
Invited to a small gun club on top of a hill near Coatesville PA to shoot clay pigeons I felt the hate in the air. A couple of years later I learned the men were remnants of the 1930s & 40s KKK.
It seems that hate and love can be felt in our bodies, terror and comfort somehow transmitted in the air. In my near to 80 years I’ve developed a keen sense of hate and love, terror and comfort.
I’ve known people who generate love like Othmar Carli and Father John McNamee
I learned furniture restoration from Othmar Carli while working in a cabinetmaker shop in Hanover PA. I had to stop. Couldn't handle the dust.
Father Michael Doyle, John McNamee’s friend at Sacred Heart in Camden was at an event Betsy & me were invited to at my teacher Othmar Carli’s studio. My connection with John McNamee & Othmar came full circle.
The SS scarred his back. He wouldn’t submit to the Hitler Youth. Othmar's kindergarten teacher took his class to see a burned out synagogue. At 6 years of age he made a pledge to himself to devote his life to rebuilding places of worship.
Othmar is the kindest man I ever knew. I found this video about Mr. Carli's work at Sacred Heart in Camden:
