Free Republic

Democratic state legislators urged Pittsburghers on Thursday to support a bill that would ban the use of some military-style rifles by everyone except service members and law enforcement personnel. The lawmakers also said hunters in Pennsylvania don’t need the added firepower of semiautomatic rifles, including AR-15-type weapons, even though the Legislature passed a law in 2017 allowing that. The weapons increasingly are being used in mass killings that are “traumatizing today’s children,” said state Rep. Ed Gainey, D-Lincoln-Lemington, at a gathering sponsored by House Democrats at the Carnegie Library in Homewood. He and others called for support of a bill...

Allegheny County officials are pledging to improve security with its real estate website after a Penn Hills family said a man sharing the same name was able to change the owner's address. Real estate records show Sylvester Ward bought his house on Vantine Street in 2008. Another man, also named Sylvester Ward, in North Carolina was able to change the owner's address on the property through the county's real estate office. That change allowed the house to be listed for sale on Zillow and other real estate websites, even though the Ward family wasn't interested in selling. "Everything you have...

A county Democratic official in Pennsylvania says he was forced to step down over a Facebook post saying he "[stands] for the flag." Mark Salvas, the former executive director of the Allegheny County Democratic Party, told Pittsburgh's KDKA News that the county party chair asked him to resign after just weeks on the job. Salvas, a former Marine and Gulf War veteran, told KDKA that his forced departure was prompted by two social media posts, including one photo of him and his wife with the words: "I stand for the flag, I kneel at the cross."

Mark Salvas says he was forced to resign over two social media posts, one that he posted a year ago and one that his wife posted in July. “I was asked by the chair of the Allegheny County Democratic Party to resign my position due to the controversy that was taking place on social media, and I did,” Salvas told KDKA political editor Jon Delano on Wednesday. “It’s never easy when people you have never met accuse you of things and call you names, and you’ve never met them.” A former Marine and Gulf War veteran, Salvas was just hired...

Protests erupted outside of the East Pittsburgh Police station over a 17-year-old boy shot and killed by a police officer late Tuesday as he ran from a traffic stop related to a separate shooting. The gathering for Antwon Rose, which spread across social media with photos and video, saw demonstrators praying, chanting, marching and calling for an end to violence and police brutality, KDKA reported. One video, as The Tribune-Review reported, showed a cop car trying to push through the crowd; others showed protesters linking arms as well as shouting for justice.The protests continued even after heavy rain swept through...

PITTSBURGH - Election officials in Allegheny County finished recanvassing dozens of voting districts Monday, with no changes in the election results. A recanvass is not the same as a recount. Elections Division staff compared the final results from the voting machines in 52 districts to the results on the flash memory cards.

PITTSBURGH - The Allegheny County Board of Elections announced it will recanvass 52 voting districts before certifying the results of the November election. Elections Division staff will check election-night voting machine results tapes against flash memory cards. The recanvass will take place on Monday, Dec. 5 at 10 a.m. in the County Office Building. Any candidate who ran in the presidential or Senate elections may be present or send an attorney on his or her behalf.

Radiocarbon dating of charcoal found elsewhere on this site has suggested people might have camped here and built fires by the north branch of the Potomac River, anywhere from 9,000 years ago to as much as 16,000 years ago... Some tools and bones have been found in Pennsylvania and Virginia that date well before the Clovis era, although scientists debate whether the dating is accurate.

ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PA - Channel 11's Joe Holden confirmed Monday that a regional maintenance supervisor for Allegheny County Region 1 has been charged with theft and receiving stolen property. According to the criminal complaint, James Schrott is accused of stealing more than 11,000 pounds of aluminum signs. County police said the signage is valued at more than $21,000. Schrott has been suspended without pay, a county spokeswoman said. The criminal complaint named Steven Beswick as Schrott's accomplice. According to arrest papers, county workers set up a sting and were able to track the aluminum to a local scrap yard. Investigators...

Democrats accused of snubbing black woman judge in Supreme Court bid Allen not invited to meeting with senior Democrats, including Rendell Wednesday, February 26, 2003By James O'Toole, Post-Gazette Politics Editor Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Cheryl Allen, a state Supreme Court candidate, is irate that she was not invited to a closed meeting Saturday where senior Democrats, including Gov. Ed Rendell, interviewed candidates for the high court. Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Cheryl Allen "I'm very disappointed," Allen said last night. "I don't know why I wasn't invited. ... I would think that a truly Democratic process would demand an...

The idiot voters from Allegheny County (Pittsburgh,PA.) voted in Barbara Daly Danko who died May 6 from cancer. She won the primary for her district. The local news stations,covering for the Democrats called it a tribute to her. Now city council will pick who they want to run in the election.

Swissvale police are increasing patrols near a school bus stop where two major brawls happened the past few days. Cell phone videos captured by students show a crowd of as many as 60 students and parents fighting in the streets of Swissvale, on both Monday and Tuesday. “They were riots”, says Swissvale Police Chief Greg Geppert. Even worse, the fights were made up of both kids, and adults. Police say they have already arrested five adults and minors, and are looking for close to a dozen more. The students, and parents were reportedly from the Woodland Hills School district. “It...

After a more than a year of nonstop campaigning, fundraising and crisscrossing state travel, Dan Onorato can console himself that he was just one of many Democrats swept under in a national Republican wave year. It is what happened at home that must concern him. The Allegheny County executive lost his home county in the governor's race to Republican Tom Corbett, an indignity in a county where his party has 2.3 times as many votes. That has to be on his mind -- and those of possible GOP or Democratic rivals -- as he considers running for an unprecedented third...

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. has agreed not to charge ACORN with violating a state law regarding quotas for registering voters, under an agreement reached in a federal lawsuit today. The agreement between attorneys for ACORN and Zappala's office drops the district attorney from the lawsuit that challenges a state law barring use of quotas to pay voter registration canvassers. Under the three-page agreement filed today, Zappala agreed not to charge ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, with violations of the state law it is challenging. The agreement does not immediately affect pending...

The inmates on 6D crowded around plastic tables, chatting, smiling and milling about, while one volunteer at each table handed out forms and answered a flurry of questions. From the giddy buzz on the cellblock, you might have guessed they were giving away iPods or fresh turkey dinners with all the fixings. In reality, a correctional officer had just announced over loudspeakers throughout the Allegheny County Jail that anyone who was eligible to vote yesterday could sign up with the visitors coming onto 33 pods, armed with registration materials. Joni Rabinowitz, a volunteer with Just Harvest, began fielding questions from...

The Pittsburgh Channel did a news feature on voter irregularities in Allegheny County which is controlled by (surprise!) the same Democrat Party hacks which control Pittsburgh. This investigation has been going on quite awaile.Tonight was just the first episode. The WTAE staff cross-matched registered voter lists with actual voters over 90 years old, many of whom were deceased and interned in local cemetaries,The son of one such couple was livid when he found out their names had been used and voted in Pittsburgh's Bloomfield area, one of the many nests of DemocRAT corruption in this area.The election official who appeared...

<p>Lawyer Mark Patrick Flaherty easily defeated County Council President James Simms and four other candidates for Allegheny County controller yesterday as the Democratic Party organization voted on its choices for support in the looming primary campaign.</p> <p>While the victory margin for Flaherty, the son of a former county commissioner and appellate court judge, was decisive, that contest produced the sharpest note of controversy in daylong balloting that determined the party's slate for countywide offices, judgeships and seats on Pittsburgh City Council and Allegheny County Council.</p>