Tag Archives: Philadelphia

A Piece Of History Will Become Scrap

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Last week Stars and Stripes reported that the USS Forrestal, the Navy’s first supercarrier, will be towed from the Navy’s inactive ship facility in Philadelphia to All Star Metals’ facility in Texas, where it will be broken down into scrap metal.

The Forrestal  played a major role in the war in Vietnam. In 1967 there was a tragic fire on the ship which killed 134 men and injured more than 300 men.

The article reports:

The Navy’s first “supercarrier,” the Forrestal was in the Gulf of Tonkin the morning of July 29, 1967, for the Vietnam War effort when stray voltage triggered a rocket to launch from an F-4 Phantom on the flight deck.

The rocket struck an armed A-4 Skyhawk — piloted by a young Lt. Cmdr. John S. McCain III — rupturing the fuel tanks and sparking a chain reaction of fires and explosions on the deck, which was parked full of planes.

The crew fought the flight deck fire for an hour, but other fires blazed into the next day.

A piece of history is now become scrap metal.

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Here’s What We Were Promised, Here’s What Is Happening

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In 2009 President Obama said, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” Well, there are some problems with that statement. Kaiser Health News reported on Monday that thousands of consumers have had their health insurance plans cancelled due to ObamaCare.

The article reports:

Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people – about half of its individual business in the state.  Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent.

Some Policies Targeted

Both Independence and Highmark are cancelling so-called “guaranteed issue” policies, which had been sold to customers who had pre-existing medical conditions when they signed up. Policyholders with regular policies because they did not have health problems will be given an option to extend their coverage through next year.

It doesn’t sound like those of us who were happy with our health insurance will be allowed to keep it.

The article further reports:

Blue Shield of California sent roughly 119,000 cancellation notices out in mid-September, about 60 percent of its individual business.  About two-thirds of those policyholders will see rate increases in their new policies, said spokesman Steve Shivinsky.

Like other insurers, the Blue Shield letters let customers know they have to make a decision by Dec. 31 or they will automatically be enrolled in a recommended plan.

Between the website problems and the cancellations, this is not going well for the Obama Administration.

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Some Background Information On The Events In Texas This Week

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Mixed up in the news stories of the week is the story of the filibuster in the Texas Congress to stop a bill that would further regulate the practice of abortion in Texas. Yesterday Breitbart.com posted a story yesterday which provided some background on the proposed law.

The article lists a number of aspects of the proposed law that have not been widely reported:

The Texas Bill will Make Abortion Safer…In truth, clinics would close only if they failed to meet new safety standards that have been drawn in response to the horror stories in Philadelphia and Houston. The new rules, as summarized by the Texas Alliance for Life, would have “increase[d] abortion facility safety standards to the level of ambulatory surgical centers to shut down Gosnell-like abortion providers in Texas,”

Polling shows that by 48 percent of Americans support the proposed ban on abortions after 20 weeks; 44 percent oppose the ban.. 80% want abortion banned after the second trimester. Among women, 50 percent oppose abortion after 20 weeks; 44 percent oppose a ban. In Texas 62 percent of the people support the ban on abortions after 20 weeks.

Some of my liberal friends on Facebook have hailed State Senator Wendy Davis as a hero for her filibuster of this bill. Stop and think a minute about what she was opposing and what she was supporting. Ms. Davis wants women who are five months pregnant to be able to kill their babies. Ms. Davis opposes laws that would make abortion clinics safer. How does that make her a hero? We all watched in horror as the Gosnell trial unfolded. Again I ask, “Is that really what the people proclaiming that a ‘woman’s right to choose’ had in mind?”

 

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Do Americans Really Have A Right To Privacy?

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The argument in Roe v. Wade was about Americans‘ right to privacy. This isn’t an article about abortion, but I think it is interesting to remember that argument in light of everything that is happening in America today–the NSA is spying on Americans, the IRS is targeting Americans, political opposition is being targeted, etc. Don’t Americans have the right to express themselves privately? Are we losing that right if we don’t agree with the people in power?

On Monday, CBS in Philadelphia reported that Sharyl Attkisson’s computer had been hacked. Ms. Attkisson is a CBS reporter who was pursuing stories on both Fast and Furious and the attack at Benghazi. I posted an article about her in May concerning her problems with the Obama Administration because of her reporting.

The article reports Ms. Attkisson’s comments on the hacking::

“Whoever was in my work computer, the only thing I was working on were work-related things with CBS were big stories I guess during the time period in questions were I guess Benghazi and ‘Fast and Furious.’ The intruders did have access to personal information including passwords to my financial accounts and so on, but didn’t tamper with those, so they weren’t interested in stealing my identity or doing things to my finances. So people can decide on their own what they might have been trying to do in there.”

…“We’re continuing to move forward aggressively, CBS News takes this very seriously, as do I. I think whenever an unauthorized party comes into the home of an American, whether it’s any private citizen or journalist and gets in their house, searches their computers — these are computers my family uses — and they’re inserting or removing material for whatever their reasons are, I think that’s a really serious and disturbing matter and we’re gonna follow it up and keep pursuing it.”

It will be interesting to see how far CBS News takes this investigation. I have a feeling that they may not like what they find and may be reluctant to report it.

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Is This Really What We Intended?

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The media silence on the trial of Kermit Gosnell is deafening, but how do the things he did compare with what goes on at other abortion clinics? Yesterday the New York Post posted a story (updated today) about a sting operation in a Bronx abortion clinic.

The women went in claiming to be 23 weeks pregnant (abortion is legal in New York up until 24 weeks) seeking an abortion.

The article reports:

In an exchange laden with euphemisms on both sides to conceal the gruesome nature of the discussion, the pregnant woman wondered aloud what would happen if “it” (her fetus) emerged from her intact and alive.

The employee assigned to take note of medical history reassured the woman, “We never had that for ages” (a seeming admission that a baby did survive abortion at the clinic at least once) but that should “it” “survive this,” “They would still have to put it in like a jar, a container, with solution, and send it to the lab. . . . We don’t just throw it out in the garbage.”

Oh, and this innocuous-sounding “solution” was, of course, a toxic substance suitable for killing an infant.

“Like, what if it was twitching?” asked the pregnant woman.

“The solution will make it stop,” said the clinic employee. “That’s the whole purpose of the solution . . . It will automatically stop. It won’t be able to breathe anymore.”

This is what has happened to ‘a woman’s right to choose.’ Was this what was intended?Enhanced by Zemanta

The Grand Jury Report In The Kermit Gosnell Case

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Kermit Gosnell is the abortionist on trial in Philadelphia for killing babies. I am not going to print the Grand Jury Report because they are so disturbing, but here is the link.

There are many aspects of this case that are very troubling. How did this man find people who were willing to work with him in this abortion center? Why haven’t the pro-abortion groups come out with a statement every day condemning what went on in this abortion center? Why did the neighbors who heard the babies cry keep silent?

I hesitate to compare abortion to the Holocaust, but there are some parallels. There were people willing to participate in murder, neighbors kept silent, and the clinic had been operating for more than ten years. The government also complied by not holding abortion clinics to the same standards as other medical facilities.

This is an excerpt from Grand Jury report:

We discovered that Pennsylvania’s Department of Health has deliberately chosen not to enforce laws that should afford patients at abortion clinics the same safeguards and assurances of quality health care as patients of other medical service providers. Even nail salons in Pennsylvania are monitored more closely for client safety.The State Legislature has charged the Department of Health (DOH) with responsibility for writing and enforcing regulations to protect health and safety in abortion clinics as well as in hospitals and other health care facilities. Yet a significant difference exists between how DOH monitors abortion clinics and how it monitors facilities where other medical procedures are performed. Indeed, the department has shown an utter disregard both for the safety of women who seek treatment at abortion clinics and for the health of fetuses after they have become viable. State health officials have also shown a disregard for the laws the department is supposed to enforce. Most appalling of all, the Department of Health’s neglect of abortion patients’ safety and of Pennsylvania laws is clearly not inadvertent:

It is by design

Many organizations that perform safe abortion procedures do their own monitoring and adhere to strict, self-imposed standards of quality. But the excellent safety records and the quality of care that these independently monitored clinics deliver to patients are no thanks to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. And not all women seeking abortion find their way to these high-quality facilities; some end up in a filthy, dangerous clinic such as Gosnell’s. There the patients have to depend on DOH oversight to protect them – as do babies born alive, and helpless but viable fetuses after 24 weeks of gestation. Yet no protection is forthcoming. State health officials knew that Gosnell and his clinic were offering unacceptable medical care to women and girls, yet DOH failed to take any action to stop the atrocities documented by this Grand Jury. These officials were far more protective of themselves when they testified before the Grand Jury. Even DOH lawyers, including the chief counsel, brought private attorneys with them – presumably at government expense. Gosnell’s clinic – with its untrained staff, its unsanitary conditions and practices, its perilously lax anesthesia protocols, its willingness to perform late-term abortions for exorbitant amounts of cash, and its routine procedure of killing babies after they were delivered by their unconscious mothers – offers a telling example of how horrendous a Pennsylvania facility can be and still operate with DOH “approval.”

It is ironic to me that one of the reasons that the pro-abortion movement gave for legalizing abortion was that it would put an end to expensive, back-alley abortions and thus make women safer. This clinic was worse than any back-alley abortion and had the added ability to prescribe drugs (one patient was killed by an overdose of the drugs prescribed). I doubt that we can put the toothpaste back in the tube and put an end to the abortion business, but those who support unlimited abortion need to know that it has become a very lucrative industry and that genuine compassion for women is not part of the current picture–it’s about the money.

I need to mention at this point that I understand that there are circumstances when abortions are necessary for medical reasons. In those cases, I have no problem with a doctor performing an abortion in a hospital under ideal conditions. I would also like to mention that I am not sure that women who have abortions come through the procedure without emotional scars regardless of how ‘easy’ the procedure may seem. Many years ago I was asked to play the piano at a memorial service for an aborted baby. The mother was in counseling, and her counselor had recommended that the mother have a memorial service for the aborted child as part of her emotional healing from the abortion. I have also known a number of women who were unable to have children because of the scarring after a legal abortion. We need to think about the emotional and physical toll of this procedure.

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I Hesitate To Post This–It Is Horrific–But It Needs To Be Told

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The American Thinker posted an article today about the ongoing trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell. There hasn’t been a lot written about this trial in the major media, but the story of the events that led to the trial  and the testimony that has been given during the trial need to be told.

Dr. Gosnell was running an abortion clinic that did late-term abortions. The charges against him are essentially that he killed babies that survived those late-term abortions.

The article reports some of the testimony at the trial (WARNING: this is not for the faint of heart):

When Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore pressed the 53-year-old West (abortion clinic employee Sherry West) for specifics about the incident, West struggled to answer, clearly uncomfortable with the memory.

“I can’t describe it. It sounded like a little alien,” West testified, telling a judge and Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jury that the body of the child was about 18 to 24 inches long and was one of the largest babies she had seen delivered during abortion procedures at Gosnell’s clinic.

West said she saw the child, whose face and features were not yet completely formed, lying on a glass tray on a shelf and she told a co-worker to call Gosnell about it and fled the room.

During her two years working for Gosnell, West said she also saw patients deliver “specimens” in the toilet, which she made a co-worker remove, adding she called aborted fetuses “specimens” because “it was easier to deal with mentally.”

Our society has become so desensitized to the killing involved in abortion that just by calling a baby a “specimen” we can kill a viable child. Where is the public outcry against the killing of the innocent. The problem of violence in our society is not related to guns–it is that we have forgotten the value of life.

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They’re Baaack!!!

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From Breitbart.com:

This is a picture of one of the New Black Panthers guarding the polls in Philadelphia. We did this four years ago, we are doing it again. Why? Because of the way the Department of Justice under Eric Holder handled the case.

In case you have forgotten, Breitbart.com tells the story:

In 2009, the Department of Justice sought a permanent nationwide injunction against the New Black Panther Party appearing at the polls.  The Eric Holder Justice Department gutted the case in May 2009.

Had the political appointees at Holder’s Justice Department sought the relief requested by Michael Mukasey’s Justice Department, this wouldn’t be happening.  Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s DOJ filed a complaint that sought a permanent injunction against King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson from appearing in front of a poll in New Black Panther attire nationwide. 

To make matters worse, the Washington Examiner reports:

Court-appointed Republican poll inspectors are being forcibly removed from voting stations in some Philadelphia wards and replaced in some cases by Democratic inspectors and even members of the Black Panthers, according to GOP officials.

Secrets just received this memo from GOP officials:

The Philadelphia GOP is reporting that court appointed Minority (read GOP) Inspectors are being thrown out of polling locations in several Wards.

These Inspectors are election officials – again, court appointed — and are reportedly being thrown out by the Head Judges of Elections (these Judges are elected Democrats) and being replaced by Democrats.

Chicago-style politics has come to Philadelphia. If the American people return President Obama to office, they will see more thuggery every time there is a close election involving Democrats.

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Governmental Insanity

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The Daily Beast posted a story today that illustrates what happens when bureaucracy divests itself of all common sense. The story takes place in the City of Philadelphia.

The Daily Beast reports:

Ori Feibush owned a business next to a vacant lot filled with broken glass and weeds.  The lot, unfortunately, was owned by the City of Philadelphia, which refused to do anything about it.  (In the city’s defense, Philadelphia has always been under tremendous budget strain).  So Ori Feibush took matters into his own hands.  He claims he paid more than $20,000 out of his own pocket to haul away more than 40 tons of debris, plant trees, and put in benches.  The neighbors are excited.  The city, naturally, is very angry and has demanded he put the garbage and the broken glass back where it was.

This is definitely a new level of governmental insanity. The article brings up a number of good points. Does the city want the original trash back or will any 40 tons of trash do? Does the broken glass have to go in the exact same place?

America used to be a place where everyone in the neighborhood would have pitched in to help salvage a neighborhood eyesore. The burden would have been shared, everyone would have been better off, and the city would have celebrated. What happened?

 

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This Is Not Right–But It’s Not A Surprise

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Today’s Daily Caller posted a story about Eric Holder‘s Justice Department collaborating with Media Matters to control press coverage on some of the scandals within the department. The information in the story was obtained through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests.

The article states:

Dozens of pages of emails between DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Tracy Schmaler and Media Matters staffers show Schmaler, Holder’s top press defender, working with Media Matters to attack reporters covering DOJ scandals. TheDC obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Two of the main cases discussed in the article are the New Black Panthers voter intimidation case in Philadelphia and Operation Fast and Furious. In both cases Media Matters was asked to attack the people investigating the scandals or the people attempting to inform the American public. The goal was to make sure the American people never learned the truth in either case.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is worth reading. This is the kind of story that explains why the mainstream media is dying and the alternative media is growing. It is obvious that there was very little truth in what was reported by the mainstream media.

 

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Someone Had A Very Bad Night Wednesday Night

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This is not a linked story. It came to me from a very reliable source, and I know that it is true:

On Wednesday, January 11, due to a sudden change in plans, I had a three-hour layover at Philadelphia’s airport. I headed to Gate C31 to wait for my connection. There was a seat right next to the window that looked directly out on to the tarmac, and I sat there and watched the airport conduct their business. I was sitting between two airplane parking places and facing a roadway used to transport food, luggage, and people. As I watched, a luggage transportation cart pulled out with a load of luggage. A huge, red-orange suitcase fell off of the back of the cart. The driver was unaware of the loss and continued on his way. The suitcase sat there on the tarmac. A little while later, an airport employee came up the the suitcase and checked the tag on it. He then walked away. In the next two hours, I watched numerous airport people come up to the suitcase, look at the tags and walk away. At one point I saw a man driving a luggage ramp drive up, circle the suitcase, stop his luggage ramp, and place two orange cones next to the luggage ramp and the suitcase. After two hours, my flight boarded, so I have no idea what eventually happened to the red-orange suitcase. I was, however, a little concerned that no one who looked at the tags on the suitcase seemed very concerned with getting the suitcase anywhere. I finally concluded that someone who had a U.S. Airways connection through Philadelphia on Wednesday might have had a very bad night wondering where their suitcase was. Hopefully, at some time the suitcase found its way to its correct destination. Before then, it provided two hours of entertainment for an otherwise bored traveler.

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We Lost A Great American On Tuesday

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Geno's Steaks at dusk, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Image via Wikipedia

On Tuesday, Joey Vento died at the age of 71. Joey Vento is the founder of Geno’s steaks in Philadelphia. He received national attention when he placed signs at his cheesesteak restaurant requiring customers to order in English. I have been to Geno’s steaks and was touched by the number of posters on the wall expressing support of those who have served or are serving in America’s military.

The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Huffington Post posted stories about Joey Vento’s life.

The Huffington Post reports:

According to Geno’s website, Vento learned the cheesesteak business from his father, who had opened Jim’s Steaks in the early 1940s. The site says Vento opened Geno’s in 1966 “with $6 in his pocket, two boxes of steaks and some hot dogs.”

He came up with the name after seeing a broken door in the back of his store upon which a neighborhood boy named Gino had painted his name, and he changed it to Geno’s to not conflict with a food chain of the era, the site says. The south Philadelphia location, however, was a given, because “he figured that if he was going to sell a steak, he had to be where they were already eating them.”

His story is an inspiration to anyone with a dream.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

Mayor Nutter issued a statement that recalled Vento as “a colorful, larger-than-life Philadelphian who loved his city and excelled as a businessman. Mr. Vento had strongly held views that were matched by a commendable desire to give back to his community.”

When the split three-member human relations commission ruled that Vento’s sign did not convey a message that service would be refused to non-English speakers, Vento was pleased.

“It’s a good victory,” he said, and added: “The bottom line is that I didn’t do anything wrong.” Vento always insisted he served everyone, no matter what their language.

Some commentators and websites portrayed Vento as the heroic victim of political correctness. Vento was grateful for the publicity.

“They made me famous throughout the world,” Vento said at the time. “I’m way ahead of the game. I became a hero. I’ve got to thank them for that.”

Joey was a colorful character who cared about his community and the people around him. He was known for helping the people in his community when they were in need. He will be missed.

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