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You in a heap o’ trouble, girl! Yet another public school teacher accused of trying to become sexually involved with a student

There was no one more disappointed than I was when The Philadelphia Inquirer and then-Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams started going after the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for covering up sexual abuses by Catholic priests, or the horrible statistics when the John Jay Report, The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States 1950-2002 was released. Priests should be above the sexual abuse, and sometimes outright rape, that was documented.

Alas! it seems that (supposedly) celibate priests have not been the only ones engaging in the sexual abuse of minors. The arrest of Jeffrey Epstein in 2019 exposed a whole other world of adult men trying to diddle teenaged girls, and if the left have been trying everything they could to tie it to President Trump — something the Biden Administration could not do when it had possession of the Epstein evidence for four years, despite all of their attempts to disqualify and jail Mr Trump before the 2024 elections — it’s clear that plenty of other miscreants had been enjoying themselves on “Epstein Island.”

Nevertheless, those were the wealthy and powerful, those who thought they could do no wrong. But what we have been seeing more and more these days is not the wealthy and powerful, but ordinary, working-class citizens, heavily tilted towards public school teachers.

KY substitute teacher, assistant coach charged with sexually abusing student

By Valarie Honeycutt Spears | March 30, 2026 | 5:50 PM EDT

Bardstown police arrested a Bardstown High School substitute teacher on Monday and charged her with sexually abusing a student, police and school officials said.

Mary “Hanna” Mattingly, 31, was charged with first-degree sexual abuse and procuring or promoting use of a minor by electronic means, police said.

No, of course the Lexington Herald-Leader did not publish Miss Mattingly’s photograph, despite the fact it was available as a public record and has been available online from several other sources. The First Street Journal does publish those mugshots, and I use them whenever I can find them.

Bardstown City Schools’ Superintendent Ryan Clark confirmed Mattingly was also an assistant high school girls’ soccer coach.

Mattingly was listed in that role on the Kentucky High School Athletic Association website for the last two seasons.

Clark said in a statement that an anonymous letter was received Thursday “alleging inappropriate conduct by a female substitute teacher and a Bardstown High School juvenile.“

“Bardstown City Schools immediately initiated an investigation, removed the individual from her job duties, placed her on administrative leave, and alerted the authorities,” the school district’s statement said.

Several stories noted that Miss Mattingly (allegedly) communicated with the student on more than one occasion, a record of persistence. WBRD reported, “It had been going on for several months,” Bardstown Police Detective Eric Williamson said Wednesday. “Social media was the main avenue for the communication.”

But what none of the stories I could find told us whether the student she contacted was male or female. That is a frequent enough occurrence for me to conclude that the credentialed media do not want anyone to infer that homosexuality is in any way connected to sexual abuse, even though the John Jay Report noted that 81% of the victims of sexual abuse by an all-male clergy were boys. We have previously noted how The Philadelphia Inquirer tried to conceal the fact that a teenaged murderer was transgendered, and you’ll find several more such stories on this site.

I take no inference in the specific case of Miss Mattingly, though I’d note from her photo that she’s pretty enough to have attracted plenty of attention from adult men. Bardstown had a Census Bureau estimated population of 14,104 on July 1, 2024, and isn’t a particularly poor place as small towns in the Bluegrass State go.

Miss Mattingly is listed as being 31 years old, and that means she is certainly old enough to have known better than to mess with a student. There have been enough stories in the media concerning adults in general, and adult teachers specifically, going after minor students, that no one with an IQ above room temperature could have been unaware that attempting a sexual relationship with a minor, with a public school student, was tremendously dangerous. And no teacher of any experience could be unaware that students talk; this stuff can’t be kept secret for long.

Miss Mattingly is, of course, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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Has The Philadelphia Inquirer changed its policies on publishing photos of accused sex offenders?

We noted, on April Fool’s Day, something which wasn’t foolish, that The Philadelphia Inquirer, which has a stated policy of not publishing mug shots chose to publish the photo of a woman charged with, but not yet convicted of, grooming a student for sex, something which allegedly began when the boy was only twelve.

Now we have this story:

Montco teacher who tried to coerce a teenage student to kiss him sent to county jail

John Richards IV told the 13-year-old she was beautiful, and asked if he could kiss her “at least two times” during a field trip last year.

by Vinny Vella | Monday, April 6, 2026 | 4:53 PM EDT

John Richards IV spent a decade working as a teacher, dedicating his life, he told a judge Monday, to a vocation he felt was his calling.

But Richards, 58, ruined his career and his reputation by betraying the authority granted to him, Montgomery County Court Judge Risa Vetri Ferman said as she sentenced Richards to 9 to 23 months in jail for attempting to sexually assault a 13-year-old student.

“The actions that bring us here today are horrific,” Ferman said. “He made a victim out of a girl who wanted nothing more than to be a student. There has to be a severe punishment, otherwise it would diminish the seriousness of this case.”

Richards, of Newtown Square, wrote a message in March 2025 to the girl, a student in his eighth-grade science class at Blockson Middle School in Norristown, telling her that she was beautiful, prosecutors said Monday. He asked permission to kiss her “at least two times” during a field trip to Washington he was chaperoning the next day.

So, Mr Richards was just plain stupid. He made all sorts of excuses for what he did — Mr Richards pleaded guilty to the charges — blaming loneliness among other things, but he wasn’t smart enough to look for women who were actually adults and not under his supervisory authority. Teachers cannot be unaware of what’s been happening to their fellow teachers when they try to form romantic or sexual relationships with minor students. His sentence is for stupidity as much as anything else.

“Looking back at it now, I’m appalled that I could’ve done something so reprehensible,” Richards said. “I think I was in a bad, lonely place, and I was looking to be seen in any way possible.”

Richards blamed what he called a lapse in judgment on what he described as ineffective medication to treat his ADHD diagnosis. He asked the judge for leniency, saying that his three children had already been given life sentences by the “court of public opinion.”

Well, of course he’s going to say anything he could to avoid jail!

But, what interested me more was that the newspaper published his photo[1]I chose to screen capture the newspaper’s Twitter blurb to publicize the story, rather than copy the one directly in the article, to avoid copyright issues. The Twitter feed is open to … Continue reading. The newspaper’s stated policy stated their reasons:

  • Because of longstanding racial disparities in arrest rates, mugshots disproportionately feature Black and Latinx people. Unrelenting, routine publication of such mugshots strengthens stereotypes and contributes to systemic racism.
  • Pre-conviction mugshots are inherently unfair, depicting suspects as criminals before guilt or innocence has been established.
  • Online, mugshots exist indefinitely, easily findable through search engines. Years after the alleged offense, mugshots on Inquirer.com or other news sites can make it harder for individuals to find jobs and move on with their lives.
  • Many published mugshots feature private individuals, charged with routine crimes. They are frequently published out of habit. The news value of these photos is often negligible

Mr Richards pleaded guilty, so the second reason would not apply to his case. However, Ashley Fisler, who was featured in the story we previously noted, has not been convicted, so the second listed reason should have applied.

Both Mr Richards and Miss Fisler are white; some might assume that, given the newspaper’s stated reasoning, the first reason given wouldn’t apply to them. But that third reason, that publishing the photos might make it more difficult for the accused to find new jobs and move on with their lives, certainly does apply. Mr Richards is 58, and the Inquirer’s story did not specify whether he will lose whatever retirement pension he has from the school system, but Miss Fisler is only 36; retirement is a long way away for her. Technically, neither photo is a mugshot, but shouldn’t the same reasons apply to other pictures?

It’s an obvious question: has the Inky changed its policies for accused sex offenders? If so, the newspaper should tell us!

References

References
↑1 I chose to screen capture the newspaper’s Twitter blurb to publicize the story, rather than copy the one directly in the article, to avoid copyright issues. The Twitter feed is open to retweeting, meaning that the newspaper is giving open permission to spread the story and the photo. Our regular readers — both of them — may have noticed that is our normal way of doing things. The photo used by the newspaper in the tweet is the same one published in the story, and which appeared on the newspaper’s website main page, as screen captured here on Tuesday, April 7th, at 10:55 AM EDT.
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The seriousness of the surge in Catholic conversions

As a somewhat frequent participant in Catholic discussions on Twitter — I still refuse to call it 𝕏, the dumbest rebranding of the 21st century — I’ve been seeing a ton of posts about the surge in Catholic converts. Apparently, the algorithms see what we like, and send more of the same our way!  Many tweets about people’s individual conversions cheered me, but the one by Chrissie Mayr, screen captured at the right, seemed far more important to me. Miss Mayr pointed out what not everyone knows: unlike our Protestant brethren, who basically welcome everyone into their churches as members as soon as they walk in the door, conversion to Catholicism is a process, one which involves serious time and education into the beliefs held and requirements of becoming Catholic.

Miss Mayr told us that she initially found the process of OCIA, Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, intimidating, and it certainly can be.  OCIA is not meant to be intimidating, but I suppose I can see where some might see it that way. But it is intended to show aspiring Catholics what being Catholic really means, and to what they planned to commit. We want aspiring Catholics to understand the sacrament of Reconciliation — confession and absolution — and the need for an examination of conscience. We want aspiring Catholics to understand the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and Apostolic Succession. We want aspiring Catholics to understand the real reverence of the Eucharist, the heart of every Mass. We want aspiring Catholics to not only be proud of being Catholic, but to understand why they should be proud of it.

I’m old enough to remember the surge of “Jesus freaks” of the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were, essentially, non-denominational Protestants, and the passion and fad of such soon faded. The recent surge in conversion to Catholicism entails as orderliness that the Jesus freaks never had, and we hope that OCIA brings that orderliness and with it, a more durable commitment.

OCIA is a process which has the catechumens coming to Mass every Sunday, not only for the Mass, but for their instruction. This is a subtle, or perhaps not-so-subtle means of instilling in them the habit of getting out of bed on Sunday morning and coming to church. One thing too infrequently acknowledged is that attendance at church is a habit, and the more often you do get up rather than sleeping in, the easier it is to get up the next Sunday. For me, especially during colder weather, there are some Sundays that it’s really hard to get out of our nice, warm, comfortable bed, but it’s a habit, and I do it anyway. On both Palm Sunday, when the bedroom was cool due to the window being open, and Easter, when it was just plain cold, our bed was just so very nice, but yes, I got up anyway, and went to Mass. There’s a point at which you are more encouraged to get up and go to Mass because you want to keep your attendance record spotless.

Will the recent surge in Catholic conversions hold? Will our Church see more Catholics staying Catholic, more Catholics in the pews every Sunday morning? Only the Lord knows the answer to that, but I believe we have reason to hope.

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Citius, Altius, Fortius Girls can't be boys and boys can't be girls, no matter how much a few of them don't like it

The Nation is one of our oldest political commentary journals, dating from 1865, and these days it is charitably described as “progressive,” though far-left and #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading would be more accurate. They’re just another bunch who’ve fallen for the idiocy that girls can be boys and boys can be girls.

The Olympics Is Repeating One of Its Worst Mistakes

The IOC’s new anti-trans testing regime revives some of the most discredited and discriminatory policies in the history of the games.

Michael Waters | Holy Thursday, April 2, 2026

In 1967, a Polish sprinter named Ewa Kłobukowska sat for a mandatory DNA test. Kłobukowska, a rising track star, had won a gold and a bronze medal at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. Now, a new policy required all women track-and-field athletes to be screened for the presence of X chromosomes. Kłobukowska was probably shocked to learn that the test had placed her on the wrong side of the gender binary. Exactly what happened is hazy—news reports claimed that Kłobukowska was discovered to have “one chromosome too many,” without further explanation—but the consequences were immediate. Kłobukowska was banned from the Olympics. Her sporting career was over.

Now why would the Olympics be running DNA tests back in the mid 1960s, before there was any such thing as “transgenderism”? It’s simple! Female athletes in international competition from the Soviet bloc nations, the USSR and the satellite countries in the old Warsaw Pact, sure looked as though there were some men in drag competing in women’s sports. They were cheating, no surprise during the Cold War and the Soviets’ attempts to persuade the civilized world that Communism was somehow superior.

Track-and-field officials framed this as an unmitigated triumph, proof that DNA testing had weeded out an athlete who was “not truly female.” But even at the time, some onlookers could see that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was going down a dark road of gender policing, weeding out women who had always understood themselves as female based on some arbitrary biological marker. The head of the Polish Olympic Committee, perhaps radicalized by the dismissal of one of his top athletes, called DNA testing a “form of discrimination” as well as something of a gender delusion: How could the IOC hope to split up athletes into biological binaries when “there are no generally accepted criteria of sex for woman athletes”? Sex, after all, is a spectrum.

These critiques did not stop the IOC from expanding its testing requirements. From 1968 on, all women athletes had to sit for chromosome exams ahead of the Olympics. Only at the end of the 1990s, when the chorus of critical voices became unavoidable, did the IOC ditch this sex testing regime.

Translation: when Communism in the USSR fell and their attempts at cheating ended, genetic testing to see if women were actually women was no longer needed. But author Michael Waters revealed his point of argument when he wrote, “Sex, after all, is a spectrum.”

No, it isn’t. Sex falls into two major categories, males and females, and one minor one, those unfortunate individuals who suffer from genetic or developmental defects which make them “intersex.” Our #woke friends on the far-left sometimes claim that gender is a spectrum, but this is the first time I’ve seen someone claim that sex is. Even the World Health Organization, which buys into the gender spectrum idea, differentiates it from sex:

Gender interacts with but is different from sex, which refers to the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex persons, such as chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs. Gender and sex are related to but different from gender identity. Gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth.

It would seem that Mr Waters is attempting to move the goalposts to make his argument!

Sadly, the article falls behind the paywall just a bit after the parts I’ve already quoted, but, not to worry, I had first found it in my morning feeds from another source, which has the entire article here.

After a couple of paragraphs whining about the tests, Mr Waters continued:

Just as it did in 1968, the IOC is insisting that the new regime is about preventing men from breaching the barriers of women’s sports, saying that “it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.” And, just as was true all those decades ago, this excuse doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Instead, the IOC is playing a linguistic jiu-jitsu with us, lumping intersex and trans women into the categories of “biological males,” even though they are not men and do not have the same athletic advantages as men.

We have previously noted how Will Thomas, a very much middle-of-the-pack male swimmer, vaulted to the top of the ranking after he decided he was really a woman and started calling himself “Lia.” We pointed out how, in the Zippy Invitational he was not only utterly destroying the real women in the pool, but his times were in the middle of the pack for the male swimmers. We noted how the last place male swimmer in the 500-yard freestyle had a time 7.21 seconds faster than the first real female finisher in that race.

But, don’t take my word for it: Swimming World magazine ran the numbers in an article entitled “A Look At the Numbers and Times: No Denying the Advantages of Lia Thomas.”

Clearly, this new policy has little to do with science or fairness—and everything to do with the metastasizing right-wing panic against trans women. Instead of dealing with the occasionally messy work of including gender-diverse athletes in a binary sports infrastructure, the IOC seems to have decided that it’s more convenient simply not to try. That the global right has made trans women athletes into a fixation, a proxy for their much wider-ranging campaign to disenfranchise trans people, has proven to be a convenient cover for a return to the 20th century. It’s also only the latest example of the regressive gender politics that have defined the Olympics for their entire history.

Ahhh, it’s not really science but Mr Waters’ view of fairness, fairness for “trans women” rather than fairness to real women, which is his bugaboo, and what he calls “right-wing panic.”

Michael Waters, from his website.

Sports does not really care about sensible conservative or whacko leftist politics; sports simply measures, by various means, strength, speed, quickness, and other physical metrics. The Olympics motto is “Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter”, which is Latin for “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together”, and there is absolutely no denying that, overall, males are faster, can jump higher, and are stronger than females. Through rigorous training, some women will be able to run faster, jump higher, and be stronger than most men, but when it comes to athletic competition the subject is not the males in the middle, but the top women’s performances versus the top men’s performances. As Mr Thomas so well proved, a mid-level male collegiate swimmer is going to outperform a top-level female swimmer. A simple look at the men’s records versus women’s records in track and field demonstrates the physical advantages men have.

The real panic is among our good friends on the left, who are adamant that men and women are equal. That can certainly be true under the law, and in some areas, we are seeing women’s achievements in things such as medical school admissions and collegiate admissions in general outpacing those of men. The top surgeons are heavily men, but as the surge of women in medical schools persists, the time and experience of women in medicine might change just who are at the top surgeons.

But physically? Sorry, Mr Waters, but biology will not be mocked. Not only are males, in general, taller, larger, and stronger than females, the structural differences between the hips of males, optimized for strength and speed in running, versus the hips of women, which have to have larger internal openings to permit babies to pass through, lead to real differences, differences which make a difference when it comes to sports and many other physical activities. The last player on the Washington Wizards team would absolutely dominate in the WNBA. 5’7″ “Spud” Webb once won the NBA dunk contest; very few WNBA players can dunk the ball.

Sexual dimorphism is a real thing, and it’s not subject to politics. Mr Waters actually knows this, but chooses to ignore it over politics. Girls really can’t be boys, and boys really can’t be girls, no matter how much a few mentally ill people think they can.

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues. By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.
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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! I'm sure that he only crossed the border to build a better life for himself!

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Lexington Herald-Leader, now under the leadership of Executive Editor Jeremy Chisenhall, chose not, in two separate stories, to publish the mug shot of Jorge Luis Martinez Ulloa, 31, charged with:

  • one count of kidnapping a minor;
  • two counts of first-degree rape of a victim younger than 12;
  • two counts of first-degree sodomy of a victim younger than 12; and
  • two counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a victim younger than 12.

Fortunately, the Department of Homeland Security has no qualms about publishing photos of illegal immigrants apprehended for serious crimes!

Man accused of kidnapping, sexually abusing minor in Lexington has ICE detainer

By Christopher Leach | Monday, March 30, 2026 | 3:45 PM EDT

Court documents indicate Martinez Ulloa is not a U.S. citizen and was born in Mexico. No other information about his immigration status was available.

Perhaps reporter Christopher Leach didn’t have more information about Mr Martinez Ulloa’s immigration status, but Homeland Security’s tweet stated that he had entered the US at least four times during the Obama and Biden Administrations, and a fifth time at an unknown date.

Lexington police said they were dispatched to the 1300 block of Davenport Drive, in the Cardinal Valley neighborhood, for a juvenile assault victim. Martinez Ulloa was arrested and booked into the Fayette County Detention Center.

Davenport Drive, spelled Devenport on Google Maps, is a neighborhood of mixed single-family homes and smaller apartment buildings. Parts of the Cardinal Valley neighborhood are also known, colloquially, as Little Mexico.

Court documents say Martinez Ulloa grabbed the victim by her arm and neck, trapped her inside his apartment and raped her. The girl was a stranger to Martinez Ulloa and told officials the only way out of his apartment was through a window.

The victim was sent to a local hospital for treatment, police said.

Martinez Ulloa was arraigned in Fayette District Court Monday afternoon. He appeared virtually from the jail. Fayette District Judge Melissa Murphy left Martinez Ulloa’s bond unchanged at $100,000. A preliminary hearing in his case has been scheduled for April 7.

Mr Martinez Ulloa has not been convicted of anything, but it appears than simply being previously deported means nothing to him other than the annoyance of taking another trip north of the border.

Under KRS §510.040, the first degree rape of a child under 12 is a Class A felony, which, under KRS §532.020 carries a sentence of at least twenty and not more than fifty years, or possibly life in prison. Under KRS §510.070, the first degree sodomy of a child under 12 is a Class A felony as well.

If Mr Martinez is guilty of the crimes of which he has been accused, he should spend the rest of his miserable life in the worst prison the Commonwealth has. If the evidence against him is solid, his attorney, the Department of Public Advocacy, will undoubtedly seek some sort of lenient plea bargain; this must be rejected! If he is guilty, he should never see the light of day again as a free man.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, girl!

Color me shocked that The Philadelphia Inquirer published the photo of an accused criminal. Technically, it isn’t a mugshot, so perhaps it’s allowed under a very narror interpretation of the newspaper’s stated mugshot policy. but I couldn’t find the newspaper’s Twitter — I refuse to call it 𝕏 — blurb, so I screen captured the image from the article itself. Since the photo caption states it was from a New Jersey state Supreme Court video, there isn’t a copyright issue.

Former South Jersey teacher charged with sexual assault began grooming student when he was 12, prosecutor alleges

Ashley Fisler was charged last week with sexually assaulting a former student at Orchard Valley Middle School in Washington Township.

by Melanie Burney | April Fool’s Day, 2026 | 3:33 PM EDT

A former Washington Township middle school teacher began grooming a student for a sexual relationship when he was 12 and abused him for years, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

The allegations against Ashley Fisler, who was charged last week with sexually assaulting a former student at Orchard Valley Middle School, were detailed during a detention hearing to determine whether she should be released pending trial. Superior Court Judge William Ziegler said he would issue a decision Thursday.

Note that Miss Fisler has been charged but not yet convicted. The newspaper stated that “Pre-conviction mugshots are inherently unfair, depicting suspects as criminals before guilt or innocence has been established.”

Fisler, who is no longer working as a teacher, is charged with six counts of sexual assault of a minor and one count each of endangering the welfare of a child and official misconduct of a public servant.

“This was more than just six isolated acts of sex abuse against a minor,” said Kylie Finley, an assistant Gloucester County prosecutor. “This was a pattern of six years of grooming, manipulation, and abuse by this defendant as a middle school teacher against one of her active and former students.”

Miss Fisler, now 36, left the school system in 2023.

Teachers are all college educated, with at least a bachelor’s degree, and are normally pressured to be working toward their master’s as well. They really can’t be unaware of the scandal by Mary Kay Letourneau, and the fact that Mrs Letourneau spent years behind bars for it. Public schools have orientation lessons for all teachers, and inappropriate relationships are surely discussed. The news of Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest in 2019 was national news, and Miss Fisler couldn’t have missed it. You just can’t expect this s(tuff) to stay hidden forever.

Well, if the allegations are true, she’s in a heap o’ trouble.

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What The Philadelphia Inquirer told us . . . and what they didn’t.

We have pointed out, several times, that it is illegal to work in the United States unless you are a citizen or have the appropriate legal documents. In the last linked article, referencing a Philadelphia Inquirer sob story about an illegal immigrant identified only by her surname Guzman we pointed out:

Miss Guzman doesn’t have a husband or boyfriend living with her, so there’s (probably) no real, legal financial support there. That leaves four possibilities:

  1. Miss Guzman presented forged documents saying she was eligible to work in the United States, which is a felony;
  2. Miss Guzman’s employer hired her knowing that she did not have the proper documents, which would be a felony by both Miss Guzman and the employer;
  3. Miss Guzman is living off welfare, for which she is ineligible, and would have had to have presented forged documents to the social workers, a felony; or
  4. Miss Guzman has been working for cash, which means she is evading income and Social Security taxes, which is a felony.

Saturday’s Inquirer noted that a lot of the illegals in the City of Brotherly Love are probably engaging in a least some of the time in option number four:

Philly’s gig economy runs on immigrant workers. Now that labor pool is shrinking amid tougher ICE enforcement.

A new analysis by the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia says the city’s gig economy faces a reckoning.

by Jeff Gammage | Saturday, March 28, 2026 | 5:01 AM EDT

Are you waiting longer for the rideshare driver to show up? Or for that burger and fries to be delivered to your door? Does it all cost more?

Here’s part of the reason: stricter immigration enforcement. And not just the arrest and deportation of workers who lack official permission to be in the country, but the fear that those arrests have engendered among others, dissuading them from taking similar gig jobs. That as legal pathways into the country for other immigrant workers have been curtailed.

A new analysis by the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia says the city’s gig economy faces a reckoning. It runs on immigrant workers, but the Trump administration’s effort to carry out the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history is shrinking the labor pool.

“The demand [for gig services] is not going away,” said Jeff Hornstein, executive director of the Economy League. “The fact that we have so many foreign-born workers in this country, and so many of them are under threat, it’s inevitably going to drive costs up or services down.”

There’s more at the original.

So, what is the “gig economy”?

(T)he gig economy is a labor market made up of freelance or part-time workers who work a “gig” to supplement their income or simply work as they wish.

It’s easy to join this labor market because jobs or tasks are usually accepted through an online app or platform.

In the US, the gig economy has provided millions of people with the ability to work independently and is projected to increase in years to come.

Translation: these are people working without regular employment, people paid either in cash (less probably) or by a check, but without deductions withheld for taxes. If paid by check, an employer is supposed to issue them a Form 1099, if the “individual contractor” has been paid more than $600 over the year, showing the amount paid to the individual, but if an individual has six “gigs”, there is no particular reason he could choose to report only three or four. If the individual has not provided a legitimate Social Security or Tax ID number, the government might not be able to track him. Gig jobs like the delivery job Mr Gammage used as an example frequently get tips in cash rather than as part of their bill.

It’s easy to see why an “independent contractor” would under-report. The Social Security/Medicare tax rate in 7.65% for both the employer and employee, but a gig worker who was just paid what he earned is responsible for both, a 15.3% tax on all income received. How many people can pony up 15.3% of their total earnings once a year, in the spring? For every $10.00 they can under-report results in $1.53 in taxes they don’t have to send the Infernal Revenue Service.

For every $1000.00 they can underreport, that’s $153.00 they avoid sending the government. For someone delivering for Door Dash or some other service, $153.00 is probably real money, and that’s an encouragement to cheat.

ICE does not release local figures, but nationally, arrests of immigrants are surging. Those arrests, detentions, and deportations, and the fear among immigrant workers that they could be next, is subtracting people from the labor force. That and the reduction of humanitarian-entry programs and new limits on work sponsorship mean there are simply fewer workers available, as the national, foreign-born labor force has declined by an estimated 750,000 people since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025.

Hmmm. I would have hoped that number would have been higher. As we have previously reported, the Inquirer has reported an illegal immigrant population of between 47,000 and 76,000 people just in Philly.

Mr Gammage’s story was intended to convey to readers that immigration enforcement is pushing up inflation; he might not have intended to point out that the gig workers, which even he pointed out that “Gig platforms are among the last accessible labor markets for undocumented workers, because the E-Verify system generally does not apply there,” might be evading taxes. All it takes is reading his story closely, to see what he told readers, and what he didn’t.

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Why don’t the left at least want to get rid of the really bad guys who are here illegally?

I really can understand how some generous and kind and good-hearted Americans could have sympathy and support for those immigrants, even those here illegally, who have been committing no crimes other than those related to being in our country illegally, those simply trying to live a decent life for their families and themselves, being respectable members of their communities. But I can’t understand how there are Americans who want to protect those illegals who are here breaking non-immigration-related laws.

ICE arrests Latin Kings member after NYC sanctuary release despite assault charge on first responder

DHS says Bryan David Tasiguano Leon, an Ecuadorian national, was arrested by ICE on March 4 after the NYPD freed him over federal objection

By Louis Casiano, Fox News | Friday, March 27, 2026 | 6:34 PM EDT

An illegal immigrant gang member accused of assaulting a first responder was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after he was released by New York City authorities despite him posing a danger to public safety, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday.

Bryan David Tasiguano Leon, an Ecuadorian citizen, was arrested by the New York Police Department on Feb.14 on suspicion of assault on a first responder. He has a prior arrest for assault and family neglect.

Leon, a member of the Latin Kings, was subsequently released from custody despite ICE having lodged a detainer with the NYPD so he could be transferred to federal authorities, DHS said.

Who are the “Latin Kings“? They are an Hispanic street and in-prison gang, of extremely unsavory reputation. When they’re around, decent people are not safe.

“New York sanctuary politicians chose to release this Latin Kings gang member from jail back not New York City communities,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said. “This gang member was previously arrested for assault on a first responder and family neglect.”

ICE agents arrested Leon on March 4 during immigration enforcement operations in New York City. He remains in ICE custody pending deportation proceedings.

And, of course, there’s this:

Leon first illegally entered the United States around Nov. 11, 2022 through the southern border and was released into the country by the Biden administration. He was issued a final order of removal by a judge on Feb. 27, 2025.

Who can be surprised that the Biden Administration turned this guy loose in the US. And, since there is already a final order of removal against him, he doesn’t need to be held in ICE custody; the government can simply ship him straight back to his native Ecuador.

My good friend and occasional blog pinch-hitter William Teach reported earlier today on the efforts of the Pyrite State to “audit the operation of joint intelligence centers where federal, state, and local agencies share information,” saying that “CalMatters investigations last year and last month found instances where local law enforcement agencies shared license plate information with ICE or the Border Patrol, violating state law.” California is trying to protect illegals!

I would hope that if the police/sheriff’s departments/prisons and jails don’t formally notify ICE when a criminal illegal is about to be released, due to the completion of sentences or releases on bail, patriotic officers would do so covertly.

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Pennsylvania just became a little less safe

Well, of course.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat of course, opposes capital punishment, as do I, but the Governor of the Keystone State does not have arbitrary power to issue pardons or sentence commutations on his own. The most Mr Shapiro could do, as his predecessor Tom Wolf did before him, was to decline to sign any death warrants. But now, the Governor is happy that the state Supreme Court held that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole for second-degree murder violate the state constitution.

We have previously noted this case.

Under Title 18§2502(b), murder of the second degree is a criminal homicide which is committed while defendant was engaged as a principal or accomplice in the perpetration of a felony. That’s pretty simple: the murderer is already committing a crime, so even if he wasn’t necessarily planning on killing someone, he was already on the scene, already planning on committing a crime, and prepared to kill if he thought it necessary.

Whether you’re the guy who fires the fatal shot or not, you’re still a really bad guy, and there’s no good reason for you to ever be put back out on the streets with decent people again.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s story on the case can be found here. The opinion of the court can be found here. From the newspaper:

One of the lead lawyers in the case, Bret Grote of the Abolitionist Law Center, said the decision “will have profound ramifications” for the state’s criminal justice system, and that it “represents the culmination of decades of movement-building by incarcerated people and their families and communities.”

Ben Grote, huh? How unserious is Mr Grote? He couldn’t even be bothered to clean up his beta male beard before going before the state Supreme Court. But, alas! he won his case.

Image from main page of Abolitionist Law Center website, screencaptured on October 9, 2024.

Mr Grote works for the Abolitionist Law Center, which we have previously mentioned. What is not mentioned is that the Abolitionist Law Center is opposed to incarceration for anything, opposes all prison sentences, and would, if they could, free every murderer, every rapist, every drug dealer, and every assailant locked up in Pennsylvania’s prisons.

We challenge every point on the criminal punishment conveyor belt including policing, courts, jails and prisons, and various forms of legal supervision, as well as other aspects of the carceral machine.

Boldface in the original.

I might have ignored this story, especially since I was eating the very delicious lamb chops my wife made for supper, were it not for a very lovely lady on Twitter. Miss Long has in her Twitter bio a background illustration saying:

Roses are red,
No lives are blue,
Defund the Police,
Abolish ICE too.

Miss Long posted a series on Twitter, beginning here, praising the Abolitionist Law Center for its work. We already know that the Abolitionist Law Center wants to abolish prisons completely, to give dangerous predators some cockamamie “restorative justice” bovine feces.

Some people are beyond redemption, some people are simply evil and can never be trusted in society. Miss Long and the Abolitionist Law Center would see the gates of prisons thrown open and deranged killers like Wesley Cook let back out on the streets. They don’t even like, as noted above, “legal supervision,” which means probation and probation officers. Miss Long wants to see criminal illegal immigrants, some guilty of murder and rape, left free to terrorize innocent people.

I assume that Miss Long and the others believe that people are just innately good, and if the people we now see as bad guys are just left alone and shown sweetness and light, they’ll all be great people and credits to their communities.

Well, that’s just plain bovine feces. Some people simply need to be removed from society, for society to remain safe and secure for the people who are actually good citizens. I can’t even understand how some people can think differently.