Free Republic

--snip-- This week, he and two other Philadelphia homeowners whose houses have become targets of civil forfeiture actions sued the District Attorney's Office, the city and the Police Department, seeking to close down what their lawyers call one of the most aggressive forfeiture units in the nation. "The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office has turned this tool into a veritable machine, devouring real and personal property from thousands of residents, many of whom are innocent, and converting that property into a $5.8 million average annual stream of revenue," said Darpana Sheth, a lawyer with the Virginia-based Institute for Justice, a nonprofit...

Between 1989 and 2010, Congress rejected nearly 700 cap-tax-and-trade and similar bills that their proponents claimed would control Earth’s perpetually fickle climate and weather. So even as real world crises erupt, President Obama is using executive fiats and regulations to impose his anti-hydrocarbon agenda, slash America’s fossil fuel use, bankrupt coal and utility companies, make electricity prices skyrocket, and “fundamentally transform” our economic, social, legal and constitutional system. Citing climate concerns, he has refused to permit construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and blocked or delayed Alaskan, western state and offshore oil and gas leasing and drilling. He’s proud that...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/08/10/ray-rice-shaneen-allen-gun-column/13862831/

Mayor Lou Mavrakis drove slowly through Monessen, block by block, pointing out one vacant, blighted building after another in the city of 7,700 along the Monongahela River. “That belongs to me,” he said, pointing to a house with a collapsing roof that has become the responsibility of the city and the mayor. Tax records show the building is one of 264 structures and lots in the city that have been abandoned by their owners. More than 26 percent of the city's 734 blighted properties are owned by people from 24 states and five foreign countries, beyond the legal reach of...

Pennsylvania has turned its back on small business owners, according to a recent survey. […] “After a two-month survey of thousands of small business owners nationwide, we’ve heard directly from Pennsylvania’s small businesses that the state could do more to support them,” said Jon Lieber, chief economist of Thumbtack.com. “Creating a business climate that is welcoming to small, dynamic businesses is more important than ever, and Pennsylvania’s small businesses think the state could do a better job.” […] Marie Page, owner of Marie Page Cleaning Service in Reeders, said […] “We are taxed like crazy. It is hard to get...

A lot of focus this election season is trained on the battle for Capitol Hill. And rightly so, with the majority in the Senate up for grabs and Democrats hoping to avoid another harmful midterm election in the House. But there are also a host of gubernatorial battles being waged this year. In fact, the midterm elections every four years mark a bonanza of statehouse contests. Thirty-six of the nation’s fifty states will be choosing their chief executive this November.In 2010, the last midterm election, thirty-seven gubernatorial elections produced a staggering 17 partisan takeovers – 11 by Republicans, 5...

The U.S. Navy’s shipbuilding crisis is demonstrating far-reaching effects on the nation’s economy and foreign policy goals. Take, for example, Ingalls’ recently closed composite-construction yard in Gulfport. First, the Coast Guard passed on composite deckhouses for its new class of fast-response cutters, going to a different design. When the Navy decided to transition from a composite deckhouse like on the first two Zumwalt-class destroyers to a steel one constructed at Bath Iron Works, that proved the knockout blow. The yard closed in July, putting 400 shipbuilders out of work, according to local TV station WLOX. The decision was announced last...

Hayatullah Dawari is a former doctor in Philadelphia who treated American troops in his native Afghanistan while working with the American Red Cross, according to his lawyer. But in the eyes of the United States government, Dawari has been working with an anti-Western insurgent group in Afghanistan with ties to al Qaeda. According to court documents, Dawari has been in touch with HIG associates in Pakistan and in January was the intended recipient of a book sent from Pakistan containing a secret message glued between two pages.

TIOGA (WPVI) -- Action News has confirmed that the mother of three children struck and killed by a carjacked vehicle in the Tioga section of Philadelphia has died, and that the two men police say were responsible now each face an additional murder charge. Keisha Williams was critically injured in the crash two weeks ago at Germantown and West Allegheny Avenues. It happened as Williams and three of her children, 15-year-old Keiearra Williams, 10-year-old Thomas Reed, and 7-year-old Terrence Moore, were helping sell fruit to raise money for their parish. Funeral services for the three children were held Monday in...

A mother, alerted by a foul odor, found out her son died four days earlier in their Pennsylvania home, and on Monday an autopsy was under way and the boy's father remained jailed in the case. The 8-year-old boy, Jarrod Tutko, Jr., was among five children in the family who suffer from medical or developmental problems, according to the Harrisburg Patriot-News website. He was being cared for by his father in an upper bedroom of the Harrisburg home while his mother, Kimberly Tutko, tended to his 10-year-old sister, who is comatose, on another floor, according to the Patriot-News website. The...

---snip--- Her story has garnered national attention, and Nappen says it's proof that New Jersey's gun laws are "out of control." Gun-control advocates say there's a positive side to all the attention Allen's case has received. "Fortunately, the notoriety of this case will make it less likely Pennsylvanians will carry concealed and loaded handguns in New Jersey, thereby making them and the Garden State safer from gun violence," said Bryan Miller, executive director of Heeding God's Call, a faith-based movement to prevent gun violence.

HOUSTON — Natural gas production in the Marcellus Region exceeded 15 billion cubic feet per day in July, the most productive period ever recorded there, according to a government analysis. The Marcellus Region, located largely in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, now accounts for almost 40 percent of U.S. shale gas production. The field’s rapid growth has had a major effect on the surrounding markets for gas and isn’t expected to ebb soon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The Marcellus Region’s natural gas productivity has surged since 2010, when production totaled 2 billion cubic feet per day. New wells...

Chaka Fattah Jr., the son of U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), turned himself in to federal authorities Tuesday as prosecutors unsealed a 23-count indictment charging him with bank and tax fraud. Prosecutors said the 31-year-old consultant swindled at least seven banks by constructing a fraudulent picture of his own financial status and that of several companies he created in order to secure hundreds of thousands of dollars in business loans. He used much of the money, they said, to pay personal expenses including gambling debts, car payments, and tabs at restaurants and night clubs and then attempted to take...

Natural gas production in the Marcellus Region exceeded 15 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) through July, the first time ever recorded, according to EIA's latest Drilling Productivity Report. The Marcellus Region, mostly located in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, is the largest producing shale gas basin in the United States, accounting for almost 40% of U.S. shale gas production. Marcellus Region production has increased dramatically over the past four years, increasing from 2 Bcf/d in 2010 to its current level. The rig count in the Marcellus Region has remained steady at around 100 rigs over the past 10 months. Given...

--snip-- Allen obtained a license-to-carry permit and legally purchased a .380 Bersa Thunder, a gun with two safeties and a trigger lock. She even signed up for lessons at a local gun range. But she made one mistake: She brought the gun to New Jersey. And now she has a new fear - three to five years in prison.

Saying that the physical fitness tests that the Pennsylvania state police uses to identify entry-level candidates are not job-related, the Department of Justice is suing the agency for sex discrimination since more men pass the tests than women. “Through the use of these physical fitness tests, Defendants have engaged in a pattern or practice of employment discrimination against women in [Pennsylvania State Police's] selection process for entry-level trooper positions in violation of Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964],” reads the DOJ’s lawsuit. At issue are the state agency’s 2003 and 2009 physical fitness tests that are one of...

Couples marry, hundreds gather at Equality Fest in York The inaugural event, held at the city's Cherry lane, was a celebration of equality for all, its organizers said By Ted Czech tczech@ydr.com @TedCzechYDR on Twitter Updated: 08/03/2014 05:50:22 PM EDT Carey and Michele Jenkins clasped hands, gazed in each other's teary eyes, and whispered things to each other, as they became legally married at York's first-ever Equality Fest on Sunday. The Jenkinses, along with five more lesbian couples, were married by York Mayor Kim Bracey before several hundred who attended the event. After Bracey married the couples, the crowd erupted...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The mother of an 8-year-old Pennsylvania boy whose decomposing body was found on the third floor of their home said Saturday she didn't know he had died until noticing the smell. Kimberly Tutko said her husband was the primary caretaker of their mentally disabled son, and he waited several days to tell her the boy had died, Pennlive.com (http://bit.ly/1rXiJbV ) reported. Police were called to the home Friday and found the boy's body.

Normally, the Congressional votes are about as exciting as watching paint dry on growing grass, but when House Representative Tom Marino accused the Democrats of not being brave enough to pass immigration reform when they controlled the Congress, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi jumped up and came at the guy! Marino struck a nerve by pointing out that the Democrats owned the entire Congress and White House for two years and did nothing about illegal immigration. Nancy Pelosi then crept up on Marino and began taunting him. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said it best: “What is she doing?”...

In an unusual breach of decorum, even for the divided Congress, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi chased Rep. Tom Marino across the House floor, taking offense at comments by the Pennsylvania Republican during debate on the border funding bill Friday night.