Category: Philadelphia

I’m glad this guy got off, but that he was ever arrested or prosecuted is an example of just how out of control things really are.  You have people murdering each other in the city on a daily basis, but we throw the book at someone exercising their first amendment rights.

Unbelievable.

Philadelphia City Council can apparently scrape together some serious money when it comes to protecting themselves:

Visitors to the upper floors of Philadelphia City Hall will soon be required to sign in and wear an identification tag, and possibly be photographed.The new security system goes into use Wednesday. It ends a century of generally unimpeded public access to the building.

The six-point-five (m) million dollar system has been in the planning stages since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.

Visitors won’t have to show identification. A city official says photos will be taken only “when we feel we need that level of security.”

The first floor of the building can still be accessed without going through security.

Sign in, get a photograph taken, and show identification.   This cost a cool 6.5 million?  That’s one damned expensive camera! Hell, I’ll take the six point five, and do that service for city hall.   How many police officers would that have hired to patrol the streets, so we could have maybe stopped some real criminals, who I’m sure don’t make a regular habit of showing up to City Hall.

Well, it depends on what kind of choice we’re talking about:

In September of 2006, the city of Philadelphia passed a ban on smoking in all work places, galleries, sports facilities, restaurants and most bars and 20 feet from any building entrance. Establishments that receive over ninety percent of their revenue from drinks are exempt as are private clubs and outdoor cafes, although they must acquire a waver.

Last February, Philadelphia joined New York City in banning trans fat. Restaurants will not be allowed to fry food in trans fat or serve trans fat based spreads. The ban should take place in September and next year will be extended to ban all food with any trans fat prepared in a Philadelphia restaurant.

The city of Philadelphia claims to believe a woman should have “ultimate control…over her own body,” but clearly not so much control that it might extend to a woman smoking a cigarette or eating a basket of fries cooked in trans fat in a privately owned establishment with which she engaged in a voluntary contract for the exchange of goods and services.

Clearly Philadelphia is pro-choice as long as your choices conform to the expectations of Philadelphia’s left-wing political establishment.  I should note that I probably would have many disagreements with any organization that has the term “Family” in it, including this one, but I’m glad to see them calling the city politicians out for their hypocrisies when it comes to choices they don’t approve of.  If we’re going to be a pro-choice city, that those choices ought to extend to proprietors allowing patrons to light up in their bar, or cook with trans fats.

I think now I have to call him John “I’m doing my job” Street. After reading this article, it’s pretty clear that despite his assertions, that no, he is not. Can you imagine what would happen to me if I decided to leave the office for a day to stand in line for an iPhone?

UPDATE: Well, at least John Street had the decency to pull up a chair and wait in line with everyone else.  Mayors of some other towns didn’t even have the decency to do that.

Wyatt Earp over at Support Your Local Gunfighter is a Philadelphia police officer, and marks an unfortunate milestone for the city: the 200th murder of the year.   Read the whole thing.   He doesn’t have good things to say about Commissioner Johnson’s last act of “leadership”:

Look, when you take someone who has been behind a desk for half their career and put them in patrol for the summer, who is that helping? No one. They don’t want to be there, so they’re not going to be stopping cars and rushing to priority jobs. But, when the media asks, the brass can say, “We’ve increased the amount of officers on the streets!” It’s a shell game.

Yup.  I talked about that a few months ago here.  Until the city politicians actually face the problem, instead of deflecting blame to Harrisburg or elsewhere, this is going to continue.  The city’s politicians lack the political courage to do anything.  The only thing that will work is taking the criminals off the streets and keeping them off the streets.  It’s my understanding that the courts, jails and prisons in the city have become a revolving door.

I think it’s a tough thing to for the politicians to face, because to go into a bad neighborhood and say “We’re getting the criminals off the streets, and we need your help” means telling folks that you’re going to lock up someone’s brother, child, nephew, husband or other loved one.  It means people will have to take responsibility.  It’s far easier for the politicians to deflect blame, whether it to be to Harrisburg, guns, drugs, what have you, so no one has to take responsibility.   There may be things Harrisburg can do to help, but the problem won’t abate until someone stands up and admits what the problem is.   I may have my disagreements with Michael Nutter, but he’ll be an improvement over the circus clowns that currently run city hall.  Hopefully he’ll impress me.

Over at Classical Values, they are talking about rewriting Philadelphia history for the sake of political correctness.