In what will be the seventh special legislative election in Pennsylvania this year, the new state representative in the historically Democratic 21st District will be decided on Sept. 19.
Sara Innamorato resigned her House seat to prepare for her run against the GOP candidate, Joe Rockey, for the newly-created position of Allegheny County executive.
Lindsay Powell is the chosen candidate of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee to replace her. She is the director of workforce strategy at InnovatePGH and is a member of the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh.
She would be the first African-American female to represent the 21st.
Erin Connolly Autenreith is the GOP nominee. She is a realtor who chairs the Shaler Township Republican Committee.
Her father, Thomas Connolly, was the Mayor of McKees Rocks (1982-86), and her mother, Olga, was on the Mckees Rocks Council for 30 years.
Ms. Autenreith’s social media accounts indicate her participation in the January 6th demonstration, according to this claim, and other “extreme positions”.
Ms. Autenreith says that certain issues, such as abortion, be decided through a referendum. She spoke against political polarization.
The 21st District includes parts of Pittsburgh as well as the adjacent suburbs of Etna, Millvale, Reserve and Shaler.
There has never been a GOP representative for the 21st District. Frank J. Pistella, a Democrat, served the longest, for 27 years from 1979 through 2006, and Dom Costa served for a decade, from 2009 to 2019.
An argument could be made for term limits, given all of this.
Charles Durning’s D-Day memories were so painful that for decades he suppressed them. Drafted at age 20, Durning eventually earned a Silver Star for valor, a Bronze Star for meritorious service in a combat zone, and three Purple Hearts, given in the president’s name to those wounded or killed in military service. Just out of high school, which he didn’t complete until the war ended, Durning was the only survivor in a unit that landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.
Durning’s World War II experiences are unfathomable, and his actions in defense of his fellow soldiers, selfless and heroic. During the Normandy battle, Durning killed seven German gunners, but suffered serious machine gun wounds to his right leg and shrapnel wounds throughout his body.
After a six-month recovery in England, Durning was rushed back to the front lines to fight against the German Ardennes offensive. During the Battle of the Bulge, Durning suffered more wounds, this time in hand-to-hand bayonet combat when he was stabbed eight times. Despite the vicious assault, Durning summoned up the strength to kill his attacker with a rock which earned him a second Purple Heart. Soon after, his company was captured and forced to march through the Malmedy Forest; in the ensuing “Malmedy massacre,” German troops opened fire on the prisoners, and Durning was among the few who escaped.
Durning would earn his third Purple Heart when, in March 1945, he moved into Germany with the 398th Infantry Regiment, where he was severely wounded when a bullet struck him in the chest. Private First Class Durning was evacuated to the U.S. to spend the remainder of his active Army career recovering until he was discharged in January 1946.
Born in 1923, Durning grew up in Highland Falls, N.Y., near the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. His father, James, an Irish immigrant who had joined the Army to gain U.S. citizenship, lost a leg during World War I and died when Charles was 12. James’ widow Louise supported her five children by working as a laundress at West Point. Four other children died from scarlet fever.
After the war, Durning used dance as physical therapy to strengthen his badly injured leg and speech therapy to smooth out a stutter that had developed. He began training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, but was told he lacked talent. Undeterred, he took small roles with Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Company and taught ballroom dancing at the Fred Astaire studio.
Eventually, Durning achieved his lifelong goal when he landed parts in television and the movies. His most memorable silver screen appearances among his 200 films include The Sting, 1973; Dog Day Afternoon, 1975, and Tootsie, 1982. His significant honors include numerous Academy, Emmy and Tony Award nominations.
Charles Durning with Dustin Hoffman in ‘Tootsie.’
Reluctant to visit the site where so many of his comrades lay, Durning returned to Normandy only once after the war ended. Looking back during a 1994 Memorial Day service to recognize the invasion’s 50th anniversary, Durning noted remorsefully that the U.S. had engaged in at least five wars since World War II — Korea, Desert Storm, Panama, Grenada and Vietnam. He said that each war is pertinent to only the individual who was there.
“I don’t know what they went through; they don’t know what I went through,” said Durning. “Each person fights his own war. Each person is on a one-to-one basis with whoever’s opposite him.” Durning added: “That war changed history as we knew it. It was the greatest armada that ever hit any country, anywhere, anytime in the history of mankind. No one will ever see anything that enormous again.” World War II was, Durning said, the last war that had a well-defined purpose.
In January 2008, Durning was honored with the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, and his star was placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame adjacent to the actor he most admired, Jimmy Cagney. Durning died of natural causes at his Manhattan home on Christmas Eve December 24, 2012, aged 89. Two days later, Broadway theaters dimmed their lights in his honor. Durning is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the ultimate tribute to an American hero.
Trafficked Minors Reach Queens And Sex Crimes Escalate
By Joe Guzzardi
As the sex trafficking crisis via the Southwest border worsens, and the related crimes overwhelm even the largest communities, women’s rights groups like the National Organization for Women remain inexplicably silent.
NOW’s website describes the organization as a grassroots activist group focused on promoting feminist ideals. Vocal on a woman’s right to choose and affirmative action, NOW stands passively by and mum as females of all ages and ethnicities are trafficked across the Southwest border and put to work as prostitutes.
The normally outspoken Nancy Grace apparently has no opinion either on the connection between the open border and the abuse of young women who are illegal aliens without valid work authorization. For many, other than minimum wage jobs that are barely life sustaining, prostitution may be the only option. The link between the Biden administration’s refusal to enforce immigration laws at the border and in the interior to soaring crime rates is inarguable.
In Queens, New York, the combination of open borders and the hands-off policy that’s been imposed on New York’s police officers has turned the borough into what New York Post reporters labeled as “the city’s boldest open-air market for sex.”
Dressed in provocative clothing, prostitutes are seen in front of pool halls, dentist offices and massage parlors day and night. They recruit neighborhood children to distribute their X-rated business cards. The prostitutes’ brazen behavior is evident in broad daylight, in front of innocent minors, aghast residents and legitimate commercial enterprises. Dozens of houses of ill repute have set up shop along Roosevelt Avenue, a major Queens throughway. One observer noted that vans reportedly driven by cartel human traffickers have been seen unloading underage girls on Roosevelt Avenue.
The sex workers that troll the area’s red-light district are so confident they won’t be prosecuted that they advertise their services on a YouTube channel for Spanish speakers. Ten-minute long footage displays women working in the “Market of Sweethearts” as two men instruct viewers how to negotiate the best deal with the prostitutes. The channel has 19,000 subscribers.
In April, a whistleblower told Congress’ House Judiciary Committee that the “United States’ federal government has become the ‘middleman’ in a multibillion-dollar human trafficking operation targeting unaccompanied minors at the southern border.” Tara Lee Rodas told the committee that the Office of Refugee Resettlement frequently delivers children to criminal-infested homes who then treat them like commodities to be abused in underage sex or labor exploitations.
In May, U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered an average of 435 unaccompanied minors per day. A Heritage Foundation study found that drug cartels and traffickers will exploit 60 percent of these children in prostitution, forced labor and child pornography.
In June alone, the Biden administration released 344 kids to nonrelated adults, some of whom are illegal aliens. Most of the families that assumed responsibility for the minors already had multiple children in their care. Such children are prime targets for abuse. About half of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “most wanted” child trafficking criminals are from Mexico, the nation that cartels control.
NOW, Nancy Grace and other women’s advocates aren’t the only missing voices that would have the influence to bring the brazen lawlessness at the border and subsequently in Queens to light, and help to bring it under control. While no longer House Speaker, U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has often spoken about the importance of protecting and nurturing immigrant children. Angelina Jolie, Hollywood superstar, is another child advocate whose input on the abuse that the open border fosters is, like NOW, Grace and Pelosi, missing from the dialogue.
At this stage of his administration, Biden won’t impose border and interior enforcement. But, without a policy change, sex and other crimes involving children will mushroom. ICE and the New York Police Department have been neutered. Tragically, no one else is around to prevent the crimes from continuing.
The movie Oppenheimer has renewed debate over the United States dropping two atomic bombs on Japan on Aug. 5 and 9, 1945. In discussion of this “weapon to end all wars”, a recent Yahoo News 360 article lists seven other articles that examine the U.S. decision from various viewpoints. All articles are recommended.
“Like many Americans, I was taught growing up that my grandfather was spared the burden of invading Japan and very likely dying because Harry Truman dropped a pair of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and ended the war. The main function of such stories is to justify a terrible war crime,” states David Klion of The New Republic.
The Washington Examinermakes a strong case that a Japanese surrender was not imminent.
“For starters, the Japanese were not remotely ready to surrender to the Allies, and the alternative to dropping the bombs was a full-scale land invasion of the islands. Conventional attacks, including regular bombing, would have resulted in widespread civilian casualties as well as the long-term destruction of Japanese infrastructure.”
It should be noted that the Japanese deaths and injuries due to radiation should be included in the final calculation of the bombs’ toll.
This LA Times article reflects on other Hollywood films about the bombing.
For some different perspectives, see these websites.
For some reason, Godzilla is not included in movies.
One of the incidents mentioned in this article is “the coup attempt”. “There’s a coup attempt—soldiers running to the palace, trying to break the record of the Emperor’s surrender speech so that he can’t surrender in the morning. It’s that close.”
The Brandywine remembrance, which we have attended, will be held on Aug. 9.
Border Surge Creates Tuberculosis Threat– 44 States Directly Impacted
By Joe Guzzardi
The open Southwest border has enabled millions of illegal immigrants to cross into the United States and settle with little fear of removal. But aliens’ illegal entry is far from the only crime Biden’s open border has encouraged. Drug trafficking has soared, abetting a fentanyl crisis that is the No. 1 killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, with more than 100,000 deaths in 2021. Human trafficking has enabled child abusers and unscrupulous employers to prey on innocent minors.
Another bourgeoning crisis is the health status among incoming aliens, especially unaccompanied minors (UACs), as well as the children of illegal immigrants. Stephen Dinan’s recent Washington Times story revealed that the federal government has released thousands of illegal immigrants with latent tuberculosis infections into American communities with no assurances that they’ll be given appropriate treatment.
Federal law requires that the Department of Homeland Security quickly place most UACs with HHS which, in turn, provides shelter while searching for sponsor families in the U.S. The government claims it can’t treat the infected children because they are in its custody for only a brief time, and treatment requires three to nine months. On the occasions that HHS releases infected children to sponsors, the agency alerts local health authorities, notifying them to arrange for treatment before the latent infection becomes active. But local health officials claim such notifications are infrequent.
Moreover, the government often loses track of the UACs, which makes potential tuberculosis treatment more difficult, if not impossible. “We do not know how often the sponsors follow through on treatment,” the Virginia Department of Health told TheWashington Times in a statement. “By the time outreach takes place, the child has sometimes moved to another area or state.”
Aurora Miranda-Maese, author of the court-ordered report, wrote, “Minors are not routinely treated for [latent tuberculosis infection] while in [resettlement] care because the average length of stay is typically shorter than the time required to complete treatment, and because there could be negative effects from discontinuing … treatment before completion, such as developing drug-resistant tuberculosis.”
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center, citedrespiratory infections, diarrheal infections and bacterial infections as some of the health concerns medical staff working on the border would have to constantly be vigilant for. “Whenever you get individuals congregated in an enclosed space, no matter what their age, there is an increased risk of outbreaks of certain kinds of infections,” said Schaffner. The doctor also warned of possible outbreaks of preventable conditions like mumps, scabies and measles because the migrants, many from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, are unvaccinated.
The Mayo Clinic describes tuberculosis as a “serious illness” that “spreads easily.” Endemic tuberculosis would be another cruel irony that President Biden’s open border agenda created. Taxpayers who are funding every step of migrants’ journeys from the border to their sponsors’ homes, and beyond, may now have the added financial burden of paying for their own medical care if they become infected with tuberculosis.
The Biden administration remains indifferent to the harmful effect its immigration agenda has on U.S. citizens. Admitting migrants with an infectious, transmittable disease like tuberculosis is the latest proof of White House callousness and disregard for Americans.
Full disclosure: I’m a registered Green Party member having participated in Green Party presidential campaigns, those of Ralph Nader and Jill Stein. I haven’t been active for a while, but Cornell West might just re-activate me.
He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and taught at Harvard and Princeton. He has authored 20 books, the latest being PropheticFire, about 20th-century African-American leaders. He’s included in music albums and movies. He is well known for his participation in various protest movements. He is married to a psychologist, Iranian immigrant named Dr. Annahita Mahdavi West, a professor at Long Beach City College.
In June, West announced he was running to be 2024 candidate for the MPP (Movement for a People’s Party), which he founded with other disgruntled Sanders supporters.
However, after some issues arose about MPP, Chris Hedges introduced West to the Green Party and he changed his plan.
“America must be a nation among nations that is committed to justice,” and West. “I’ve said over and over again: if and when I win I’m not going to the White House until everyone has a house.”
Jill Stein, a former Green Party presidential candidate, is managing West’s campaign.
The decision does not sit well with all on the Left. Joan Walsh, writing inThe Nation, doesn’t believe West should be running.
I don’t believe anyone has the right to tell anyone not to run for president.
With regard to West possibly taking votes from Trump, Caitlin Johnstone says this on the site formerly known as Twitter: One of the stupidest things all American liberals believe is that if the Green Party candidate drops out of a presidential election the antiwar socialists who would’ve voted for them will go ‘Oh darn, I guess I may as well vote for that warmongering capitalist Democrat then. . . .I guess it has something to do with Democrats believing they’re on the ‘left’. So they see a candidate running on a left-wing platform, and they think ‘Hey, they’re stealing our votes!’ When really they’re just a bunch of closet rightists who real leftists hate.”
Thanks to radical brother John Murphy for sending me this quote.
Last question — why do only Democrats use the term “spoiler” ?
In “Filthy Rich Politicians” Matt Lewis spotlights the hypocrisy of climate movement leaders who “admonish us to drive less, recycle more, reduce waste, and eat less meat to whittle down our carbon footprints” all the while flying around in private jets and attending extravagant international conferences on climate change amongst other things.
But what really pales in comparison to the jets, the mansions and the lavish lifestyles is the blind eye these leaders and their followers turn on the largest and most addressable carbon emitting practice – our maintaining open borders!
In a recent roundtable insight on energy policy featuring Doomberg, Dr. Anas Alhajji, Adam Rozencwajg and Yra Harris, Dr. Anas stated, “it turns out that bringing a family to the U.S. increases its energy demand on the spot by 70 times.”
During the first two years of the Biden administration there were 4.5 million migrant encounters along America’s Southwest border and that’s in addition to the over 1.2 million “got aways” that evaded border patrol. In 2023, there have been 1.7 million encounters and reports of encounters going down has a lot to do with the administration playing fast and loose with the numbers.
And the above are just encounters with people illegally entering the country. Add to those numbers roughly 1.2 million who legally immigrate as well as the hundreds of thousands who arrive each year on temporary nonimmigrant work visas.
Bottom line, the number of people entering the U.S. legally and illegally is both extraordinary and unprecedented. And for those who understand the environmental impact of moving a person from a country with a low carbon footprint to the U.S. which has one of the highest – it’s apocalyptic.
In 2016, we published the immigration problematic environmental impact study (PEIS), which was the first of its kind, and which assessed the potential long-term environmental impact associated with these immigration scenarios: 1) No Action Alternative, in which current immigration rates of approximately 1.25 million per year would be maintained to the year 2100; 2) Expansion Alternative, or 2.25 million annual immigration; and 3) Reduction Alternative, or 0.25 million (250,000) annual immigration to the U.S.
The Expansion Alternative scenario of 2.25 million annual immigration to the U.S was really added to the study as a lark. At that time, we never imagined there’d be an administration so delusional and with immigration policies so divorced from the science of environmentalism and demographics. Yet here we are!
The carbon footprint of a person living in the U.S. is 15 metric tonnes (mt) per annum, and one metric tonne is equal to 1.10231 tons. For comparison and to better understand the impact of open borders on our environment, I share the per capita carbon footprints of a handful of the countries whose citizens have been flocking to the U.S. over the past 30 months.
Mexico 3.5mt
Haiti 0.23mt
El Salvador 1.05mt
Guatemala 1.1mt
China 8.2mt
Honduras 1.09mt
Matt Lewis is correct in stating that many of the actions the climate community is calling for are pretty much feckless attempts to “whittle down” humans’ environmental impact.
According to authors Paul Murtaugh and Michale Schlax in their often-cited paper Reproduction and The Carbon Legacies of Individuals, the following measures are relatively low yield when you consider that adding one migrant child yields as much as 9,441mt of carbon over the course of their lifetime. For further context and shock value, consider this, 80% of the population growth in the U.S. can be attributed to immigrants and their children.
Action
CO2 saved metric tonnes Over a Lifetime
Increase car’s fuel economy from 20 to 30 mpg
148
Reduce miles driven from 231 to 155 per week
147
Replace single-glazed windows with energy-efficient windows
121
Replace ten 75-w incandescent bulbs with 25-w energy-efficient lights
36
Replace old refrigerator with energy-efficient model
19
Given the extraordinary on the spot carbon emissions created by migrants, I’m gobsmacked by the environmental community’s silence. Either climate activists are woefully ignorant or happily delusional of immigration’s implications.
The great tragedy in all of this is that it is preventable. People are illegally entering the U.S. because the Biden administration is allowing it to happen, and even enabling it. Moreover, if Congress had the will to do so, it could curtail legal immigration.
Reducing our carbon footprint and becoming better stewards of the environment does not require apocryphal degrowth strategies that will not only lower the standard of living for most Americans but could also lead to a rise morbidity and jeopardize our national security.
In closing, it’s not just the environment that suffers from open borders. The influx of people negatively impacts labor markets for both wage earners and salaried professionals. In turn, it affects housing, as costs rise in direct proportion to increased demand. And it impacts us on a humanitarian level, as the resources our society has allocated for helping our own vulnerable populations become more scarce.
Kevin Lynn is the Executive Director of the Institute for Sound Public Policy and Founder of U.S. Tech Workers. Since 2007, he has been an activist in the movement to restrict and better regulate immigration. Over a multi-faceted career, Kevin worked for start-up technology companies, served as an Army officer in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and worked in business development for some of the world’s largest tax and accounting firms. Raised on a small farm in Pennsylvania, Kevin is committed to the preservation of farmlands and historic buildings.
So when I do yard work, I tend to change the radio stations on my headphone from classical music to sports to KYW to country music, depending on what’s on. I get bored easily.
WXTU 92.5 is in the mix, but my liberal friends don’t know. So on a recent afternoon, the lyrics of Try That In A Small Town grabbed me and made me listen:
“Got a gun that my grandad gave me,
They say one day they’re gonna round up”
This was written by four people other than the singer Jason Aldean.
Then I had to watch the music video, a mash-up of Antifa, BLM, Jan 6th and whatever, along with some actual crimes featuring both Black and Caucasian perpetrators.
So the commentariat has been all over this, few quotes worth repeating:
Lebron Hill from the Nashville Tennessean said: “For a second, if you could, take away the left or right, liberal or conservative and ponder this question: Is the only way to push our values to fearmonger about the other side? (my italics)
At this point, let Jason Aldean speak for himself. (Warning: he’s more eloquent than the song he sings but didn’t write.)
He says, “I was present at Route 91 where so many lost their lives, and our community recently suffered another heartbreaking tragedy. NO ONE, including me, wants to continue to see senseless headlines or families ripped apart”
Route 91 was the site of a mass shooting in 2017, at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, where 60 people were killed. Aldean was performing on stage when the shooting started.
Of course there is a response song, “Sundown Town”, a parody by Adeem the Artist, who actually wrote his song!
“I just read the words and say ‘That was good’
As long as it implies a gown and hood”
There’s a lot more on the internet about these two songs, but the unanswered question is how do we get people from all political sides to discuss the problem that everyone agrees is real, of daily violence in our society, without resorting to useless solutions?
The district’s central budget will be $12.9 billion, but separate funds will contribute to the $18.8 billion total that will also be designated for adult education, the student body fund and construction projects. Funding will include the last federal government COVID-19 cash infusion which, in the aggregate, will reach more than $5 billion. State and federal taxpayers have paid into the LAUSD, regardless of where Sacramento officials claim the monies come from – the “separate funds” cited above. In education, the taxpayer is the first, last and only funding source.
For the astronomical, staggering almost $19 billion, parents and the taxpaying community, deserve educated graduates who are ready to meaningfully contribute to society. The goal, taken for granted during California’s golden 1960s era when the states’ public schools were the nation’s envy, will be elusive, and perhaps beyond reach. In truth, there may not be enough billions to reverse LAUSD’s downward spiral and insurmountable problems.
Unfortunately, and only partly of its own doing, LAUSD is barreling in the wrong direction academically. The COVID-19 school shutdown devastated LAUSD’s most vulnerable students. The latest state test scores revealed disappointing decreases in student performance. For poor, vulnerable students, the decline was more dramatic.
The 2022 assessment tests showed just 28 percent of LAUSD students met state standards in math, and only 42 percent met English standards in the 2021-22 school year, declines of two and five percentage points, respectively, from the 2018-19 school year. LAUSD superintendent Alberto Carvalho acknowledged that kids most at risk – blacks, Hispanics and females – lost the most ground. “Five years of gradual academic progress…. have been reversed,” said Carvalho.
Test scores won’t improve unless chronic absenteeism is reversed. Nearly half of all LAUSD students missed classroom time post-pandemic, a two-fold increase from prior years. Carvalho found many students did not have either what he called “adequate care” from an adult at home, “were caring for young siblings” or working multiple low-paying jobs to support their families. LAUSD implemented strategies, such as targeting early absenteeism and going to students’ homes for follow up, but the programs’ specifics are vague, and the end results far from certain.
Carvalho has other plans with noble goals. Highest among them is his commitment to expanding a literacy intervention program called Primary Promise, originally limited to K-3 students, to students at higher grade levels. While parents applaud the more inclusive outreach, veteran educators know that if the basics aren’t mastered during a student’s earliest years, the climb to literacy will be long, hard and too often unsuccessful.
As challenging as the 2023-2024 academic year is, the worst is yet to come. COVID-19 funding goes away next year. Many of the 75,000 full- and part-time workers, including about 25,000 teachers, will have to change jobs or job locations, and unfilled classroom and staff positions will remain vacant, a true crisis for students already behind. If bus drivers are laid off – a strong possibility – then poor children without other transportation options will be unable to get to school.
The important question, however, is what long-term outcome awaits students whose fundamental reading and math skills are substandard? In an era that increasingly relies on automation and artificial intelligence, the undereducated young adults, whether their futures lay in California or elsewhere, will have a rocky road forward. The $18 billion is a high cost to taxpayers for failing Los Angeles’ children.
One of the more well-known second-tier candidates for the upcoming presidential race is African-American Larry Elder, aka Lawrence Allen Elder, the 72-year-old California radio talk-show host of The Larry Elder Show. In the “crime” section of his campaign web site, he says that one reason he’s running is to support “the Enforce-the-Law Act” to rein in the George Soros-backed prosecutors and hold them “accountable”.
He’s known for his candidacy in the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election, in which he garnered an astounding 48 percent of the vote!
Elder grew up in South Los Angeles and is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Michigan Law School. This article lists 14 links at the end, including one to an article stating that Elder’s ex-fiancée has become his biggest critic, and another one entitled “Elder and Newsom: A Special Relationship”.
He opposes college-admission racial preferences as “hurting more qualified students” and says that “the people that supposedly benefit end up dropping out. You put somebody on a campus where the pace is too fast, and they’re not going to be able to keep up.”
When he was first offered a job as a talk show host, he discussed it with his then-wife, Cynthia, a physician. According to him, the conversation went like this:
Larry: “I think of talk radio as stupid, shallow, and glib”.
Cynthia: “It is, you’d be good at it”.
Elder later stated that this “gives you an idea of that marriage”.
His private life has taken several twists and turns since then.
“Restricting speech is the way of the regressive left, obsessed with censorship on college campuses and in corporate boardrooms. Republicans have long championed free speech.”
Hopefully, some of the second-tier GOP candidates will be included in the upcoming debate(s).
