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Thanks be to God. May Phelps and his evil family be bankrupted and never bother anyone ever again.

I personally attended the funeral of Army Spc. Mark Melcher along with the Patriot Guard Riders last year in order to help shield the family from possible attack by the Westboro nightmares. Fortunately they didn’t show up that day, so we were able to salute a fallen hero in peace. Nobody should be subjected to that kind of abuse, and the fact that they’re doing this at military funerals makes it thousands of times worse.

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Remember Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church? These are the people who go around the country picketing the funerals of Iraqi War soldiers with signs that say “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” They’ve finally gotten the smackdown they deserve.

Jury awards father $11M in funeral case

A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

 

Albert Snyder of York, Pa., sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.

 

The federal jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.

I promise that I will feel bad about reveling in others’ misery. Later.

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Handy chart from the American Family Association of Pa.

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“without precident”

Risa Vetri Ferman, Republican candidate for Montgomery County district attorney, has raised an amount of campaign funds without precedent in county history for this office.

 

Having raised $511,000 over the course of the year, according to the most recent fundraising records, Mrs. Ferman’s campaign finances dwarf those of Democrat opponent Peter Amuso, who has raised a total of $109,796.

 

Mrs. Ferman has gained significant public recognition for her prosecutorial work in Montgomery County since 1993. She has been first assistant district attorney since 2002 and has enjoyed the emphatic support of current District Attorney Bruce Castor, now seeking a seat on the county Board of Commissioners.

 

Republicans still head the prosecutorial office, the commissioners and most of the other county row offices, but Democrats have inched closer to capturing some of them in each election. Mrs. Ferman said partisan politics has likely not entered into the minds of most voters when considering her candidacy.

That’s a serious amount of cash compared to Amuso.

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Lowman Henry explains why.

Russell will also be able to count on help from the media in getting the word out. Popular radio talk show hosts Quinn & Rose jumped on the Irey bandwagon last year and still have no love for Murtha. And, former Johnstown Tribune-Democrat editor Chris Voccio has launched a new conservative publication and his first shot was aimed squarely at Murtha.

 

Add in the probability that Hillary Rodham Clinton will be leading the Democratic ticket in 2008 – she is far from popular in Murtha’s largely-rural district – and you have a very different climate from 2006. It is a climate that should put Murtha on the defensive, if not on the unemployment line.

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What’s with these kids?

Garrett Reid arrived at a Montgomery County adult probation office Tuesday afternoon and was then taken away in handcuffs by Montgomery County sheriff’s deputies.

 

Sources told NBC 10 News that the 24-year-old’s urine was tested Friday and was positive for an opiate.

 

NBC 10 News cameras caught the eldest son of Eagles head coach Andy Reid leaving the family’s Villanova home and arriving at the probation office in Bridgeport.

 

Asked if he had anything to say as he got out of a blue Ford Explorer and walked into the probation office, Garrett Reid shook his head, put his palms up to either side and walked inside.

I’m losing track of which one is which.

No wonder the Coach had trouble with T.O. He can hardly keep his boys in line.

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Friend of the watercooler & suburban Philly type, Trek Medic, is going to be on Blog Talk Radio at 10pm eastern to discuss stopping Hillary and the Red November Initiative.

BlogTalkRadio.com

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Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard reminds us about Congressman Murtha’s career.

We’ve covered the fact that Murtha has received donations from every interest to which he granted an earmark–many in the last few days before he introduced the earmarks in legislation. He’s funneled money to a group headed by a former staffer which supposedly helps wounded veterans find jobs–but there’s no evidence that they’ve helped anyone. He falsely claimed that the Department of Energy supported one of his earmarks. He falsely claimed Department of Justice support for another. He’s threatened his colleagues. He’s broken House rules to get earmarks.

 

And all that is merely this year! We have not yet touched upon Haditha, or ’slow-bleed,’ or the draft, or AbScam.

Read it all.

… and Chris Voccio adds a personal note.

Up until a couple of week’s ago, I was publisher of Johnstown’s daily newspaper, The Tribune-Democrat, and sat on various boards and committees. I considered, and still consider, the people mentioned in the WSJ article as friends.

 

But I was, and continue to be, amazed at how these folks, people who you would think should be stalwart Republicans because of their positions, are thoroughly brainwashed into thinking that the world will come to an end were it not for Mr. Murtha.

 

Just a week after taking the helm at The Tribune-Democrat, and before I was plugged into the scene in Johnstown, I wrote a column called Murthaville where I pointed out the folly of his pork initiatives. You would have thought I criticized the Almighty.

 

Not only were the traditional Democrats in an uproar over the column, but the chamber of commerce types were equally enraged. (As publisher of the newspaper, I was also on the board of the local chamber, a great organization despite complete dependence on Mr. Murtha’s handouts.)

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The Philadelphia Inquirer endorsed commissioner candidates in the counties surrounding Philadelphia.

Here’s what they said.

Bucks: Martin (R) / Cawley (R)

Martin and Cawley helped oversee the acquisition of parks and farmland under a $59-million, 1997 open-space referendum, and they support a ballot authorizing $87 million more. They’ve planned the county courthouse expansion, worked to stop flooding along the Neshaminy Creek, promoted underused sites for redevelopment and industry and explored green-energy savings.

 

Democrats Diane Marseglia, a Middletown supervisor, and Steve Santasiero, a Lower Makefield supervisor, have been thoughtful in offering fresh ideas and alternatives for Bucks County. This has allowed voters to focus on the issues, rather than be distracted by partisan stridency.

Chester: Aichele (R) / Cozzone (D)

Aichele, a former county controller, oversees a land preservation and urban revitalization program that is a model for other counties. She has worked to maintain Chester County’s excellent bond rating, low county tax rate and fiscal conservatism. Running with her is Terence Farrell, a two-term county recorder of deeds.

 

Cozzone, an unsuccessful candidate for county controller in 2005, has 20 years of private-sector financial experience. Those skills can easily translate to administering budgets, carrying out big-ticket projects or approving contracts. She is running with Bill Scott of West Chester.

Delaware: Lewis (R) / Cannon (R) / McGarrigle (R)

Lewis, 51, is a Haverford commissioner; Fizzano Cannon, 38, a member of the Middletown Township Council; and McGarrigle, 48, is a Springfield Township commissioner. They plan to take on some of the county’s most pressing issues, including airplane traffic and noise, open space and aging inner-ring communities.

Montgomery: Matthews (R) / Damsker (D)

They went with the incumbents, knowing that the race is really between the two of them… yet admitting that based on registration, it might just be be Ruth vs Joe.

Matthews, 58, of Ambler, has worked to maintain the county’s financial stability, attract industry, reinvigorate its boroughs and expand social programs. His running mate is District Attorney Bruce Castor.

 

Damsker, 62, of Cheltenham, admittedly has risked her reelection bid by running with Joe Hoeffel, a former congressman, county commissioner and Rendell appointee. Hoeffel’s strong name recognition could force some voters to choose between the two Democrats.

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Philly’s top-cop says that Michael Nutter’s plan to stop and frisk “suspects” would be a disaster.

Departing Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson said the presumptive mayor’s promise to invoke the more aggressive law enforcement strategy would undermine the community rapport that Johnson feels he has developed in six years on the job. He said the next commissioner “is going to have a problem” with discontent – or worse, civil unrest – if that goodwill is undermined.

 

“I mean, and he gives the opinion that he’s going to run the Police Department, not the police commissioner. He will run the Police Department – ‘I will do deployment.’ Well, how are you going to deploy? He’s never been a police officer in his life, yet he knows more about deployment than we do.”

I believe this is the first deployment of the chickenhawk argument in Philadelphia.

Nutter also has embraced a controversial strategy in which officers can stop, question and frisk people they suspect of carrying illegal weapons. Criminologists say such strategies have reduced violent crime in other cities – but almost always at the cost of increased hostility from civilians.

 

“I start with the premise that well-trained, well-supervised Philadelphia police officers can implement this plan legally and successfully and ultimately the citizens of this city will appreciate it because fewer of them will be shot or killed,” Nutter said.

 

“I think we have to move beyond this automatic knee-jerk assumption that somehow aggressively going after illegal weapons with people who are shooting and killing innocent bystanders is somehow going to create problems in the community. What is creating problems in the community is that on average . . . one person a day is killed and five people are shot.”

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It’s been a few days since we’ve blogged about Jack Murtha, actually not really.

But any much any mention of the Congressman must be accompanied by his litany of waste and corruption.

In the massive 2008 military-spending bill now before Congress — which could go to a House-Senate conference as soon as Thursday — Mr. Murtha has steered more taxpayer funds to his congressional district than any other member. The Democratic lawmaker is chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which will oversee more than $459 billion in military spending this year.

 

Johnstown’s good fortune has come at the expense of taxpayers everywhere else. Defense contractors have found that if they open an office here and hire the right lobbyist, they can get lucrative, no-bid contracts. Over the past decade, Concurrent Technologies Corp., a defense-research firm that employs 800 here, got hundreds of millions of dollars thanks to Rep. Murtha despite poor reviews by Pentagon auditors. The National Drug Intelligence Center, with 300 workers, got $509 million, though the White House has tried for years to shut it down as wasteful and unnecessary. Another beneficiary: MTS Technologies, run by a man who got his start some 40 years ago shining shoes at Mr. Murtha’s Johnstown Minute Car Wash.

… and Citizens Against Government Waste does a “Trick or Treat” ranking of Washington-types.

Trick: To the vampiric Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) for purposefully putting up roadblocks and barriers to hinder earmark accountability and reform. Jack-the-Ripper-Offer’s response to a reporter’s inquiry regarding the difficulty of matching up earmark information in appropriations bills was: “So, you have to work. Tough (expletive).” Rep. Murtha was named CAGW’s May Porker of the Month for howling like a werewolf, throwing a temper tantrum, and threatening his colleagues over a challenge to a $23 million earmark for his pet project, the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown, Pa.

Also piling on.

Instapundit:

I’d say that further — and broader — investigation is warranted

Ed Morrissey

One of his biggest beneficiaries has been Concurrent Technologies, which has received hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts every year from the federal government, thanks to the intercession of Murtha. How has CT won its contracts? Almost entirely through non-competitive means. In 2006, only 19% of their contracts had another bidder, but that beats 2005 and 2007, which has 5% and 4%, respectively. In contrast, Halliburton’s parent KBR won 95% of its contracts in multibid competition in 2005, 93% in 2006, and 99.4% in 2007.

 

Johnstown and Murtha’s cronies have made out like bandits, a particularly apt term. The rest of us have seen our money disappear into ratholes, helped along by a corrupt politician who has eliminated the competition for himself and for his allies through the earmark process.

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For some reason, the Governor has decided he’s a fiscal conservative.

Governor Rendell has already publicly told the [Philadelphia] Parking Authority to trim its fat, but now he wants more (see related story). He’s asking for what’s called a desk audit of the Authority:

 

“And by desk audit, I mean auditors come in and say, ‘Alright Mr. Jones, you get paid $120,000, show us what you do.’ There obviously hasn’t been a down-and-dirty audit, figuring out who works where and what. And that’s what I’d like to see.”

Why stop with the parking authority? What about the rest of state government?

Perhaps because the Republican controlled Parking authority has become a den of patronage that the governor would like his Democrat friends to be a bigger part of?

Nah, couldn’t be.

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Holy crap. Pigs are flying Pa.

The CleanSweepers are flying it in Monroeville, today.

Speaking of pigs flying, when is the last time former Governor Tom Ridge, would-be Governor Bill Scranton and current Governor Ed Rendell agreed on anything?

I just heard an ad on KYW1060 with Governor Rendell speaking on Supreme Court Justice’s Tom Saylor’s retention.

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Am I the only one who misses the fact that the new PoliticsPa no longer offers an RSS feed of its press releases?

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Still living in your parents basement?

Here’s your chance to get out.

It could be the deal of a lifetime. A Pittsburgh-area couple, Bob and Ricki Husick, are offering anyone who buys their home full cash-back upon their death and even their full inheritance, currently worth at least $500,000.

 

The Husicks have been trying to sell their home for almost a year, but have failed to do so in the current shaky market.

 

Bob Husick said he’s asking $399,900 for the four-bedroom, three and a half bath home about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh.

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Cool.

President Bush shook hands Monday with a 14-year-old boy credited with alerting authorities to a planned school attack in suburban Philadelphia .

 

Lew Bennett, a student at Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School , greeted Bush at Philadelphia International Airport , where the president was headed to a private fundraising event in Bryn Mawr.

 

Bennett tipped off authorities to another student’s plan for a possible attack on the high school earlier this month.

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Pennlive/AP

Gov. Ed Rendell on Friday rescinded a state policy that had kept Pennsylvania’s list of polling places hidden from the public because of fears that terrorists could disrupt elections in the state.

 

Rendell’s abrupt decision came amid criticism from Republican legislative leaders one day after The Associated Press reported on the policy, which was implemented in 2004 as a result of terrorist bombings that occurred just days before Spain’s national elections.

If you didn’t already know your polling place (shame, shame!), you will eventually be able to find it at the Department of State’s site.

“The governor believes that revoking the policy will not have a material effect on Election Day safety,” Ardo said.

 

Department of State spokeswoman Leslie Amoros said Thursday that the agency made its earlier policy decision in consultation with state police, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and the state Office of Homeland Security. At the time, the agencies agreed that not releasing the list would help ensure voter safety at the polls, Amoros said.

 

But critics said the policy runs afoul of the state’s open records law and makes coordinating statewide voter-mobilization strategies more difficult for candidates and political action committees.

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William T Russell

My name is William T Russell. Among family and friends, I go by my middle name, Trower. I am running for Congress against John Murtha as a Republican in the 12th Congressional District of Pennsylvania in the November 2008 election.

 

Until August 31st of this year, I was a fulltime Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army Reserve, stationed at the Pentagon and a little over 2 years short of full, active duty retirement. I am also a small business owner and entrepreneur, as well as a husband and father.

 

In my military career I have served six tours in hostile fire zones including Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the Balkans. These tours include almost three years in the Middle East (Iraq and Saudi Arabia) and a year and a half in the Balkans (Hungary, Bosnia, Kosovo, Croatia). My wife, Kasia, who was pregnant with our son at the time, and I were also in the Pentagon on 9/11.

Some have already called him a carpetbagger. I say he’s been “busy.” (no mention of Congressman Sestak there by the way)

Check out the “What I believe” page. It’s a refreshing change from the Murtha litany of slander with a side of pork.

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Well, they’ve resorted to asking Democrats to run for Mayor as Republicans.

… and Senator Specter was at the helm of that move.

“It’s sad,” said State Rep. Michael McGeehan, a 12-year Democratic ward leader and committeeman for three decades. “In 30 years, they’ve gone from a very real threat to us in Northeast Philadelphia to an annoyance, and I don’t think that serves the city well.”

 

Republican leaders are aware of the state of the city party.

 

And while the standing of party leaders is not in jeopardy, a mix of young Turks and elder statesmen is determined to try to revive the party’s fortunes.

 

A leader of the movement for change is Kevin Kelly, a developer and Republican chairman of the 5th ward in Center City.

 

“I want everyone in the party to recognize where we are,” Kelly said. “We are at rock bottom.”

 

For months, Kelly has circulated a 33-page manifesto called “Rebuilding a Majority,” which calls for a new party headquarters and training facility, recruiting and training better candidates, and a focus on developing an effective Republican message to voters.

 

Reaction from party veterans has been mixed, but most agree Kelly’s ideas have merit, and he seems to have stirred movement.

 

“I think in the long term, he’ll be a leader of this party,” said Katz, who was the Republican mayoral nominee in 1999 and 2003.

“Kevin Kelly 2011,” maybe?

Read it here

I’ve been meaning to post the Kevin Kelly “Rebuilding a Majority” for a while now.

Here it is:

rebuilding-a-majority-protected-rev-final.doc

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Whitemarsh Township (Montgomery County) Democrats find themselves in an interesting situation.

They have a Norristown Police Officer on the ballot.

Why is that interesting?

Norristown Borough’s Civil Service Code says he can’t be on the ballot, and even calls it grounds for disciplinary action.

6.1 Grounds for Disciplinary Action.
A. (1) No person who has been given a permanent appointment to a position in the Police Department pursuant to these Rules and Regulations may be suspended without pay or removed and no person promoted in rank pursuant to these Rules and Regulations may be reduced in rank except for the following reasons:

 

[...]

 

(f) engaging or participating in conducting of any political or election campaign other than the officer’s exercise of his own right of suffrage.

Not just Norristown Borough, though. It’s also part of Pa Code… in very similar text.

§ 46190. Removals

No person employed in any police or fire force of any borough shall be suspended, removed or reduced in rank except for the following reasons:

 

[...]

 

(6) Engaging or participating in conducting of any political or election campaign otherwise than to exercise his own right of suffrage.

Is it a big deal? Maybe, maybe not.

But I would expect an officer of the law to at least abide by it.

As I have been told a number of times, ignorance of the law is no excuse.

(more…)

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