Free Republic

Booed on the ice It's hard to blame Sarah Palin for her booing on the ice in Philadelphia this evening. It's almost a truism of politics that if you send a pol to a sporting event, he's going to get booed. Politicians, as a class, aren't all that popular, and it's what sports fans do. According to legend, Eagles fans once booed Santa Claus. Still, not a great moment. The Times hockey blog says the boos were "resounding." The Wilmington paper says it was an "avalanche."

Palin To Drop Puck At Flyers Home Opener PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ― Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, the nation's most popular hockey mom, will take center ice opening night as the Flyers host the New York Rangers to kick off their 2008/2009 season. On Saturday, October 11, Palin will drop the puck along with the winner of the Philadelphia Flyers regional search for the "Ultimate Hockey Mom" yet to be announced. "Because of the tremendous amount of publicity she has brought to our sport, we invited the most popular hockey mom in North America to our home...

Here is a novel idea coming to Southwestern Pennsylvania for Election Day: Sign up to become a “pollworker,” paid by a “non-partisan effort,” and then ensure that people who shouldn’t be allowed to vote actually will get to vote. This from “Pollworkers for Democracy,” which uses fear tactics based on the recent mortgage crisis as a hook to snag people living on the edge of financial problems: “Imagine being told you've lost the right to vote because the bank foreclosed on your home,” begins the e-mail. It goes on to say that if you lose your home and have to...

Sen. Barack Obama jumped to a 7-point lead in a Pennsylvania statewide poll of registered voters conducted between Sept. 23-Sept. 28 by Franklin & Marshall College. Franklin & Marshall poll director G. Terry Madonna told Tribune-Review reporter David M. Brown that the fundamentals are shifting in Obama’s favor with some support gains coming from female and independent voters. Late last evening, I stopped into a Southwestern Pennsylvania auto service garage and asked the three gentlemen working on various vehicles what their thoughts were on the election.

Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen to rally for Sen. Barack Obama in Philly on Saturday -- for a last minute push to register rockers, young and old to vote. The concert takes place this Saturday and voter registration deadline is the following Monday.

The chief legislative aide to Philadelphia City Councilman W. Wilson Goode Jr. issued a "letter of apology" yesterday for flashing handwritten signs in City Council chambers comparing a Fox29 news reporter to the Ku Klux Klan. In the letter addressed to Goode, Latrice Bryant said: "I apologize for my public, albeit silent, display of the handwritten signs. What I did was inappropriate and inexcusable." On Sept. 18, during a Council meeting, Bryant held up notebook paper with the messages "Fox29 are racist" and "Jeff Cole KKK." Bryant and Goode are black and reporter Jeff Cole is white. On Tuesday Fox...

PHILADELPHIA—Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin takes her cheesesteak with Cheese Whiz and onions. The Republican vice presidential candidate made a brief campaign stop at Tony Luke's steak shop in South Philadelphia on Saturday evening. Wearing jeans and a beige raincoat, Palin greeted curious onlookers, signed autographs and posed for pictures before ordering two steaks to go. "Sarah, your steak is ready," a cashier said over the loudspeaker a few minutes after she ordered. As dozens of onlookers crowded around her, Palin headed back to the window to pick up the order. The cashier told her the order was on the house,...

PHILADELPHIA — A state court ruled Friday that Philadelphia was not entitled to set its own gun laws, invalidating five measures passed by the City Council last year and striking a blow against the city’s efforts to strengthen gun control. The Commonwealth Court dismissed a petition by two City Council members, Darrell L. Clarke and Donna Reed Miller, who filed suit last year arguing that the state’s Uniform Firearms Act did not pre-empt Philadelphia’s gun laws. The two council members had also argued that the state legislature had created a “state of danger” for Philadelphia residents by their continued refusal...

Philadelphia police are searching for three gunmen who robbed an East Oak Lane Dunkin' Donuts Thursday. Police also believe one of the men may have filled out a job application at the shop and have a name and address on file that they are hoping will aid in their search ...

Guess what the Philadelphia cop killers all have in common? http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=20136673&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

Everyone in the press -- myself included -- is whining about the inability to interview Gov. Sarah Palin. Or, at least shout-out a question or two to Sen. John McCain's choice for vice president. Although considering the speed of light in which a gaffe can travel in this campaign season, her decision to steer clear of reporters may be a very wise one. Reason enough to contact my fellow journalists to help me compile a Top Ten List of "I can't believe he/she just said that" reasons why Sarah Palin doesn't want to take questions from us:

A 30-year-old Philadelphia policeman was shot and killed yesterday by a wanted felon who fired several times into the fallen officer as he lay wounded on a North Philadelphia street. "He stood over the top of him and killed him," said Homicide Capt. James Clark, who called the killing of Officer Patrick McDonald an "execution." --snip-- The gunman was identified as Daniel Giddings, 27, who was recently released from state prison after serving time for a 1998 robbery and aggravated assault

How tough is it for Democrats to sell Barack Obama in Northeast Philadelphia? Here's one measure: One of their own ward leaders isn't convinced yet. Lorraine Bednarek, Democratic leader of the 64th Ward, in Northeast Philadelphia, may not vote for her party's candidate. "To be honest, I'm not sure," Bednarek said in a phone interview when asked if she would vote for Obama. "I've always voted Democrat. That's why this election is very difficult for me."

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- You just knew that when Joe O'Connell, former head of the local AFL-CIO, got on stage here with John McCain and Sarah Palin things were not going smoothly for the Obama campaign among union voters. "I am a lifelong Democrat, an intelligent Democrat, who is supporting John McCain," O'Connell said last week as a crowd of 7,000 waved "Another Democrat for John McCain" signs and roared its approval.

   Philly Race-Baiting: Under Investigation for Timecard Fraud, Councilman's Aid Accuses FOX-29 of Racism    September 19, 2008 Its one of the oldest tricks in the book for politicians and staffers caught with their hands in the cookie jar, accuse your accuser of being racist.  In this case, top legislative aid to Philadelphia City Councilman, Wilson Goode, Jr., has been under investigation by local Philadelphia FOX station, Channel 29, and their report, Jeff Cole, for defrauding the city by putting in on her time card for many hours which she simply did not work.  While hardly a national story —...

It will be the Pittsburgh Steelers (2-0) against the Philadelphia Eagles (1-1) that suck up all of the oxygen in this state this weekend, not Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain. The famed east vs. west rivalry was once a singular team, which happened back in 1943 during World War II, when both teams lost many players to military service. The popular, though not official, nickname of the team was "The Steagles". But the Obama and McCain campaigns will certainly make every effort to remind game goers at tail gate celebrations that there is a race going on here...

http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=20126503&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

VIENNA, OHIO -- You have to wonder with just 49 days left until election day, what is Sen. John McCain doing in Ohio's Mahoning Valley again? It's not like there is a history of Republicans winning here. George W. Bush was only able to muster a little more than 36 percent of the vote in 2004, up 1 percent from 2000, when Bush went against Al Gore. This rust-belt, blue-collar community with a heavy Democratic voter registration advantage has seen better times -- the steel industry is gone, replaced by a lower income service industry. The medium income hovers at...

The Sen. Barack Obama campaign is under performing with women, especially older white ones. So, it released a list of female surrogates that will be his force on issues that are important to those women voters -- like equal pay. There also will soon be an ad released that will hit Sen. John McCain on the touchy issue of equal pay. According to McCain-Palin spokesman Brian Rogers, that is a problem for Barack Obama, since he is the one that pays his females staffers less than the men. Rogers points to Senate Records showing that women working in Sen. Obama's...

The intelligent question thrown out among strategists for both campaigns is, can John McCain really win Pennsylvania? Really win it, not pretend to go for it, as Republicans did in 2004, all the while closing the deal in Ohio when no one was looking. The last Republican presidential candidate to win Pennsylvania was George H.W. Bush, in 1988 -- a win preceded by two Reagans but followed by two Clintons, a Gore and a Kerry. The Kerry win was narrower than the others, however.

On Sept 10th, 2008 I watched in dumbfounded amazement a Today Show news report covering the vicious beating of an unarmed man on the Philadelphia subway. The victim was attacked by a man wielding a hammer and took place over a 5 minute period all the while approximately ten onlookers watched but did not intervene. The surveillance video shows the attacker placing a young boy in a seat, then reaching into his backpack to retrieve a hammer. He then proceeds to, without warning or provocation to attack a nearby sleeping man by repeatedly beating him with blow after blow from...

Perhaps finding out what really is going on in Pennsylvania is for me to look no further than my own backyard, literally.

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

Is this guy a Muslim? A jihadist? I have no idea, and I am not saying he is. But the possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand when he chants “Allah” and mutters in Arabic while attacking a man he does not know with a hammer. In a sane society, government, media, and law enforcement would be calling upon American Muslim groups to do something about this – to face up to the capacity of Islamic texts and teachings to incite violence, and to institute comprehensive, honest, inspectable programs teaching against jihad violence and Islamic supremacism. But this is hardly...

prosecutors say freewheeling Philadelphia Democrat Vincent Fumo used little of his own money as he took yachting vacations with friends, spent lavishly on a 33-room city brownstone and hired operatives to spy on ex-wives and political foes. Fumo faces trial Monday in federal court on charges alleging he used $3.5 million in what he called "OPM" — other people's money — to keep his political machine well oiled and fund a lifestyle that included three vacation homes and heated sidewalks outside his mansion. The trial is expected to last a full three months, after a week of jury selection.

Two former Philadelphia funeral directors on Tuesday admitted to selling cadavers to a ring that cut them up and sold the body parts to hospitals for implants. Gerald Garzone and his brother Louis Garzone pleaded guilty to charges that they conspired with others to take bones, skin and organs from 244 bodies in their funeral homes between February 2004 and September 2005. They were part of a scheme that plundered 1,077 bodies in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania without the permission of relatives in an operation that netted the conspirators $3.8 million. One of the bodies belonged to Alistair...

Fatimah Ali: We need Obama, not 4 more years of George Bush By Fatimah Ali Philadelphia Daily News AMERICA is on the brink of a long, harsh and bitterly cold winter, with a looming recession that the GOP won't even admit to. The policies of the current White House have brutalized our economy, yet the wealthiest think that everything is fine. Rich Republicans just don't understand that millions are suffering. But many of their working class do, and they're beginning to abandon their own party. When lifelong Republican Barney Smith told the Democratic convention that he'd vote for Barack Obama...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

*BREAKING* Lawsuit Being Filed Today in Philadelphia *MEDIA ALERT* [Update] August 21, 2008 I have just received word that a lawsuit will be filed today in Federal Court challenging Barack Obama’s qualifications to be President. I am told that ALL MEDIA should report to the U.S. District Courthouse in Philadelphia in approximately one hour. US District Court, Eastern District of PA 601 Market Street Philadelphia, PA 19106-1797 Ph: 215-597-7704 It is currently 3:30 PM EST. UPDATE: The motion will be for an emergency temporary restraining order prohibiting Obama from running for president, and enjoining the DNC from nominating Obama as...

Parents Of Starved Teen Suing City OfficialsPHILADELPHIA (CBS3/AP) ― The parents charged along with city workers in the starvation death of a bedridden teenager have sued Philadelphia officials in her death. A prosecutor blasts Andrea and Daniel Kelly for trying to profit from their daughter's August 2006 death. Andrea Kelly is charged with murder in the death of her 14-year-old daughter, Danieal, who suffered from malnutrition and severe bedsores. The father, Daniel Kelly, is charged with endangerment. Kelly, who suffered from cerebral palsy, was found starved to death in a sweltering, filthy West Philadelphia home in August 2006. "It's absurd,...

A kick butt response to Philadelphia's Northeast Time's love note to IVAW:The July 24 cover story A battle cry to end the war by staff writer Jon Campisi is a flattering account of the anti-war group Iraq Veterans Against the War, which lacked a great deal of critical information needed for the Northeast Times readers to reach an informed opinion of the group, its origin, efforts and goals. Though Campisi noted that the Iraq Veterans Against the War were formed under the patronage of the Veterans For Peace, unexamined is who are the Veterans For Peace (VFP). The leadership of...

Starved, disabled girl was failed at every turn By KATHY MATHESON, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 2 minutes ago PHILADELPHIA - For days before Danieal Kelly died in a fetid, airless room — made stifling hot by a midsummer heat wave — the bedridden teenager begged for something to drink until she could muster only one word: water. ADVERTISEMENT Unable to help herself because of her cerebral palsy, she wasted away from malnutrition and maggot-infested bedsores that ate her flesh. She died alone on a putrid mattress in her mother's home, the floor covered in feces. She was 14 but...

It's 6 a.m. in Rittenhouse Square, one of Philadelphia's most elegant parks. As the sun rises, its overnight summer residents - more than two dozen homeless men and women - are asleep on benches. --snip-- And while homeless people say they like the comforts of the high-end neighborhood, the Rittenhouse Square residents, managers of nearby businesses, and Fairmount Park Commission employees who maintain the grounds complain that the resulting problems have gotten worse this summer, making their jobs and neighborhood life more difficult

If there's one thing you have to give Philadelphia's leaders credit for achieving, it's consistency. Under the "leadership" of every mayor and city council going back decades, the city has seen its population plummet, and with it, our prospects for growth and world-class status. Consider these gems: Between 2000 and 2007, Philadelphia lost 4.5 percent of its residents, the largest percentage drop of any Top 25 city. As far as actual numbers, the only city which lost more people in that span was New Orleans, and I think the Big Easy had a weather-related incident which prompted that city's mass...

By now, many conservatives have heard of the Canadian Human Rights Commissions thanks to the decision by three CHRCs to investigate hate crimes complaints against Maclean’s magazine for printing -- among other things -- excerpts from conservative writer Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone. While two of the complaints against Maclean’s have been dismissed, the CHRCs continue their jihad against their fellow citizens who dare to offend certain protected minorities. One of their ongoing cases is the investigation of a newspaper for publishing a cartoon of a Muslim woman dressed in a burqa even though the woman does, in fact, wear...

One signed all three bulwarks of the Republic. The other was second only to James Madison as the architect of the Constitution. Robert Morris and James Wilson were two of the most important, yet least publicized, of the Founding Fathers. Why has Philadelphia not commemorated some of its most important citizens? Wilson was according to American Heritage magazine, one of the most underrated Americans in history. Historian Gary Wills wrote, "A signer of the Declaration, a principal drafter of the Federal Constitution, the principal ratifier, and the profoundest theorist of it, Wilson is the least known of the Founding Fathers."...

Arlington, Va—May the city of Philadelphia subject tour guides to hundreds of dollars in fines for engaging in unauthorized talking? This is the question the Institute for Justice (IJ) seeks to answer in a federal lawsuit filed today, two days before Philadelphia celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence, in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The suit is brought on behalf of three Philadelphia tour guides—Mike Tait, Josh Silver and Ann Boulais—seeking to overturn a law enacted in April that will make it illegal for anyone like them to give a tour of much of the city’s downtown area...

The Americans Who Risked Everything My father, Rush H. Limbaugh, Jr., delivered this oft-requested address locally a number of times, but it had never before appeared in print until it appeared in The Limbaugh Letter. My dad was renowned for his oratory skills and for his original mind; this speech is, I think, a superb demonstration of both. I will always be grateful to him for instilling in me a passion for the ideas and lives of America's Founders, as well as a deep appreciation for the inspirational power of words which you will see evidenced here: "Our Lives, Our...

Philadelphia has one of the most backward and incompetent city governments in America. It suffers from a combination of failed civic institutions, a deeply embedded racial paranoia that undermines law enforcement, and a local culture that has come to shrug at the urban chaos this produces. In 2006, the one-or-two-a-day-and a-dozen-on-weekends murder spree that earned "Killadelphia" its rap as an urban abattoir resulted in 406 people dead. It's clearly not all about poverty. Miami, America's poorest major city, saw 79 homicides in all of 2006. In March 2006, more Americans died violently on the streests of Philadelphia than in Iraq...

Does anybody think that the new mayor will keep his campaign promise about initiating action to stop the horrendous murder rate in Philly? Follow this link: http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?newsid=19779492&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=580169&rfi=6

PHILADELPHIA — Five teenagers fatally beat a man on a subway platform after a friend dared them to hit someone, saying "next person we see we're going to hit," one of the defendants allegedly told police. "We all didn't want to seem like no punk," Ameer Best, 17, told police in a written statement read at a preliminary hearing Wednesday for Best and four co-defendants. Best and the other teens, Kinta Stanton, Arthur Alston, Rasheem Bell and Nashir Fisher, all 16, will be tried as adults on charges of third-degree murder and conspiracy for the March 26 beating, Municipal Court...

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain is scheduled to give what his campaign is calling a major policy address Wednesday in Philadelphia. Details of the visit are sketchy. The campaign would not confirm a time or talk about the subject matter of the speech, which is set to take place at the National Constitution Center. It's also unclear if the event will be open to the public. The visit is fresh evidence of the emphasis McCain's campaign is putting on Pennsylvania, traditionally a general election battleground. McCain is slated to return to the state June 30 for a fundraiser and...

CBS3 anchor Larry Mendte opened former colleague Alycia Lane's private e-mail account hundreds of times over many months, sources told The Inquirer yesterday, and the FBI is investigating whether he passed on gossip about Lane to the media. In part, federal officials are trying to determine whether Mendte intercepted communication between Lane and her lawyers about her lawsuit against CBS3, which fired her in January. Investigators have confirmed that Mendte viewed Lane's Yahoo account, sources said. Now, the sources said, investigators are combing through the e-mails he allegedly opened to see if the content can be correlated with embarrassing leaks...

Letters: Why protests over beating, but not shooting? Four police officers are out of their jobs - and rightly so ("Four Officers Fired In Police Beating," May 20). I wonder, though, if the three accused shooting suspects will ever face any penalty for their actions. Lots of people turned out to protest the beating of these three "gentlemen," but somehow the shooting that prompted the whole thing didn't merit even the attendance in court of the witnesses to the shooting of the suspects' three alleged victims. Perhaps the police should be kept out of some of these neighborhoods, so that...

Inquirer Photo Mayor Nutter this morning said the National Rifle Association owed an apology to the family of slain police officer Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski. Nutter recently signed five local gun bills into law, including one that would outlaw the possession and sale of certain assault weapons. The NRA immediately sued the city on the grounds that the city does not have the authority to enact local gun control. They obtained a temporary restraining order to keep the city from enforcing the new laws. Liczbinski was killed with a Chinese-made assault weapon. "I think it's insane," Nutter said. "The fact that...

PHILADELPHIA -- Philadelphia's police commissioner said Monday that four officers will be fired and four others disciplined for their roles in the beatings of three shooting suspects, an encounter that was captured on videotape and drew widespread outrage. Another eight officers who had physical contact with the suspects will undergo additional training on the department's policies concerning the use of force, Commissioner Charles Ramsey said. He said the police department made the disciplinary decisions after reviewing frames from enhanced tape of a video shot by a television news helicopter on May 5. The video, shot by WTXF-TV, shows the suspects...

Saturday, May 3: A Philadelphia police officer, Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, is shot and killed with a semiautomatic weapon while responding to reports of a bank robbery in the city’s Port Richmond section. Liczbinski is the second officer shot in the city this year, and the third in the last two years. Monday, May 5: About a dozen Philadelphia police officers, less than 24 hours into the manhunt for the third and final suspect in the Liczbinski shooting, beat three suspects who had been fleeing the scene of an unrelated murder. The entire incident happens to be caught on tape by...

Days after a Philadelphia police sergeant was killed with a semi-automatic rifle, Mayor Nutter and Gov. Rendell called upon Congress to enact a new federal assault-weapons ban that would remove such weapons from the streets."The time has come for politicians to decide," said Rendell at the City Hall news conference attended by top police brass and state elected officials. "You have to decide whether you're on their side - the men and women who wear blue - or whether you're on the side of the gun lobby."The federal assault-weapons ban, which lasted from 1994 through 2004, outlawed an array of...

http://www.philly.com/philly/polls/18765614.html One week ago Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski was shot at least 5 times with an AK-47 by a trio of bank robbers fleeing the scene of their crime. One of the three was later killed by Police gunfire; the other two have been apprehended. Sgt. Liczbinski was laid to rest yesterday. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20080509_Sgt__Liczbinski_mourned_at_Cathedral.html

Police: Gun At Officer Shooting Scene Traced To Duncannon Man HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A gun sold in Harrisburg for drugs wound up in Philadelphia, where it was found at the scene of a fatal shooting of a police officer, officials said. Police said Levi Swigart, 19, of Duncannon, Perry County, told them he sold the .22-caliber revolver to buy crack from a man at a convenience store along Cameron Street in Harrisburg. Swigart's mother reported the gun stolen in February. The same gun was found at the scene where Philadelphia police officer Steven Liczbinski was shot and killed over the...