Free Republic

The gas company supervisor showed up at Mother of Mercy, a storefront church on Allegheny Avenue, in late June. He’d just been inside the long-shuttered Ascension of Our Lord, a hulking cathedral of a building at F and Westmoreland. After what he’d seen, he needed to speak with a priest. He’d been working in the neighborhood, the PGW man said, and slipped through a broken stained-glass window to take some photos for his wife, who had grown up in the parish. That’s when he saw the mess of needles carpeting the floor and pews — and the figures moving in...

In remarks given at a judicial conference in Pennsylvania this week, Roberts reiterated his long-held view that the Court should speak with one voice wherever possible — that is to say, he supports a consensus-driven approach to opinion writing in which the justices strive for unanimity and avoid writing their own concurrences or dissents. In doing so, he appeared to rebuke Gorsuch, who has flashed a propensity for writing on his own in his first months as a justice.

Nine of eleven people who were arrested in March after protesting at the Allegheny County Jail pleaded guilty Friday to reduced charges. Originally charged with multiple felonies and misdemeanors, including rioting and conspiracy, the nine people who accepted deals all pleaded guilty to summary disorderly conduct and summary criminal mischief. They must pay just over a total of $8,000 in restitution, which will apparently be split 11 ways (about $738 apiece). They were sentenced to time served. The 11 protesters were arrested on March 20 after what police called a riot outside the jail. Armed, masked protesters shot off fireworks,...

On July 1, it became legal for any adult to buy marijuana in Las Vegas. An eighth ounce (3.5 grams) of top-grade buds costs just $25. Philadelphia is getting a few medical cannabis dispensaries some time next year, but there won’t be any cheap weed for sale. --SNIP-- But there’s one thing being taken for granted: Patients to fork over their cash. It will take 10,000 registered patients paying $1,250 per month, every month, out of pocket to add up to $150 million. There’s no health insurance to defray the costs. Every penny in profit and taxes on medical cannabis...

A woman who shared a video of herself urinating on an American flag has asked that people stop targeting her family, saying they do not support her actions. Emily Lance received online threats of murder and rape after posting the video during Independence Day celebrations. Her account is no longer on Facebook but she previously posted that her father and his workplace had also been "targeted", reports say. In the video, Ms Lance is seen standing over a toilet on which a US flag is draped, and urinating on it with the aid of a device that allows women to...

(CNN)A man accused of shooting and killing an 18-year-old woman in a case of road rage is being held without bail on murder charges after turning himself in Sunday morning, authorities said. David Desper, 28, faces multiple charges, including first-degree murder and reckless endangerment, Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said. Police said he shot Bianca Nikol Roberson after he became angry as their vehicles were merging on the same lane of a highway Wednesday evening in West Goshen, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia.

Thanks to Helen Ubinas for alerting Daily News readers to the new Republican lawn signs, titled “Love Lives Here.” The signs talk about Republicans’ love of God, family, friends, country, community and the U.S. Constitution. I’ve been distributing these signs, and I have a good idea of the rationale behind them and why I think they are a good idea. Sure, they might be a pushback against the “No Home for Hate” signs, but they are also a lawn manifesto of conservative values. They are also seen as a positive affirmation against the meme that Republicans and conservatives are mean...

If you can't dazzle people with brilliance, then baffle them with bull…  merde.    Pennsylvania Democrat Senator Bob Casey does just this with his re-introduction of the "Disarm Hate Act".   His bill, should it pass, would strip gun rights from those committed of a misdemeanor hate crime.  In other words:  Refuse to bake a cake, lose your gun rights. Tiara Parker of Philadelphia joined microphone-chasing Casey to promote his latest proposal.   Shamefully, Casey used this woman simply because the Philly resident had visited the Pulse nightclub on the fateful night a radical Islamic terrorist attacked the venue.  As if getting...

The militant left-wing group AntiFa plans to cause mayhem, violence and vandalism at Gettysburg National Park this weekend which has FEDS and the Park Service acting with an "abundance of caution." The Park Service says it is keeping track of numerous possible indicators of trouble at the Battle of Gettysburg anniversary from July 1-3 – including reports that AntiFa may be planning to damage memorials and even desecrate gravestones at the historic battleground where the Union turned the tide of war against the South in 1863, Fox reports. When contacted by Fox News the United States Park Police said that...

A Google search for cyber crime images yields hundreds of takes on roughly the same visual: a person in a black, hooded sweatshirt lurking behind a computer screen. But if you talk to Jason McNew about how best to describe the web users committing such crimes, you'll hear a different answer. "The perpetrators of these crimes know exactly what they're doing," he said. "They are well-educated, well-funded and organized. This problem is organized crime. They're college graduates. They operate out of jurisdictions where they know American law enforcement can't get them."

Seth Williams resigned as Philadelphia’s district attorney and was led out of court in handcuffs Thursday after abruptly ending his trial on federal bribery charges with a guilty plea. Williams, who saw embarrassing details about his messy personal life and financial struggles dragged out into open court during the nearly two-week trial, pleaded guilty to one count related to accepting a bribe from Bucks County businessman Mohammad Ali. As part of the deal, Williams agreed to resign and acknowledged that he faced up to five years in prison when he is sentenced on Oct. 24.

During the first days of July, 154 years ago, a great battle was fought in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during our Civil War.

WASHINGTON – What do the “Antifa” radicals have in store for the Independence Day weekend at Gettysburg? The “anti-fascist” organization plans to burn both American and Confederate flags in town and to “find their local Confederate graves” to desecrate. That last stunt might be more difficult than they think. According to the experts at Gettysburg National Military Park, there are no Confederate soldiers buried there.

Far left Antifa activists are planning to protest at Gettysburg National Battlefield on the anniversary of the historic battle and burn confederate flags on the historic day. The violent far left group has been vandalizing Confederate monuments across the country this year.Harrisburg100 reported: Over the past few weeks, several US cities have been a hotbed of controversy over the removal of several Confederate monuments. After decades standing sentinel over New Orleans, the last of four Confederate monuments have been removed after being labeled as “Monuments of Racism and Hate”. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said of the removal of his...

The No. 2 official at the Homeland Security Department meddled in three high-profile immigration cases, giving special treatment to applications from wealthy and well-connected immigrants after calls from major Democrats despite the objections of career employees, the department’s inspector general concluded in a report Tuesday. Alejandro Mayorkas, who was elevated from head of the department’s legal immigration agency to be deputy secretary while the investigation was ongoing, also angered many of his colleagues by getting involved in the cases, and “created an appearance of favoritism and special access” for the wealthy immigrants, the inspector general concluded. Inspector General John Roth...

In a move that will likely make the Trump administration really happy, a major manufacturer is shifting jobs from China to the U.S. Foxconn, the company known for making iPhones and other big-name gadgets, plans to invest $10 billion in a production plant in the U.S — specifically somewhere in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana or Texas. The plant could create up to 50,000 new jobs. President Trump hinted at this deal in June while visiting Wisconsin for his "workforce development" tour. "Just backstage, we were negotiating with a major, major, incredible manufacturer of phones and computers and televisions,"...

Foxconn (2317.TW), the world's largest contract electronics maker and a major Apple Inc (AAPL.O) supplier, plans to invest more than $10 billion in a display-making factory in the United States and will decide on the location of the plant next month. The Taiwan-based firm has been eyeing U.S. investments for some time and its CEO, Terry Gou, had previously said the company hoped to spend over $7 billion to set up a display-making plant in the country - which has no panel-making industry but is the No.2 market for televisions. Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, is...

The First Amendment right to protest the government ends when you use a bolt cutter to breach a security fence and enter a restricted area, a federal judge told six people he found guilty Wednesday for their actions during a chaotic protest outside last summer’s Democratic National Convention in South Philadelphia. “A fence is a fence is a fence,” Senior U.S. District Judge Michael J. Baylson told the six out-of-towners after finding each guilty of trespassing on restricted federal grounds, a misdemeanor. “As a matter of common sense,” said the judge, “when an adult sees a fence, it is clear...

It’s been six months since the city’s soda tax (or, more accurately, the sugary beverage tax) was implemented — and it’s off to a rocky start. The city is currently $20 million short of its projected $46 million goal to close out the 2017 fiscal year, and based on the most available month’s numbers, it doesn’t appear as though they will reach it. But I’m not surprised by any of this. By the time last June when Mayor Kenney pulled a fast one on City Council to strike the deal, I had already warned about the consequences in lower-income communities.

Several people in Pennsylvania were charged with allegedly stealing a total of $287,000 worth of welfare benefits in April, with some of the benefits being used to buy heroin, according to Pennsylvania’s Office of the Inspector General. The Office of the Inspector General expects to recover a total of $287,659 from the charges filed, mostly from food stamp fraud, Lehigh Valley Live reported. The alleged fraudsters stole $187,241 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program benefits, $46,494 in subsidized day care, $37,052 in government-funded benefits such as Medicaid, $11,348 in monetary assistance, and $5,523 in the Low Income Energy Assistance Program.