Fair Season Happening In Pa

Although Pennsylvania does not have an official state fair,  the Commonwealth is home to at least 100 local fairs and festivals, notes State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129) and this is the heart of the season.

“These events showcase not only agricultural feats of residents but are also sources of family entertainment with many having amusement park rides, a variety of specialty foods and live musical performances,” he said. “They are a great way to enjoy the warm weather and have fun with the whole family.”

A list of fairs can be found here.

Among the ones happening nearby are in

Berks County
•    Aug. 3-9: Reading Fair
•    Aug. 11-16: Kutztown Fair
•    Sept. 18-20: Oley Valley Community Fair

Bucks County

Aug. 13-17: Middletown Grange

Chester County

  • July 21-26: Kimberton Community Fair
  • July 28-Aug. 2: Goshen Country Fair
  • Oct. 3-5: Unionville Community Fair
Fair Season Happening In Pa
Fair Season Happening In Pa

Border Crisis Rally At I-95

Border Crisis Rally At I-95

About 35 concerned citizens, including several Delaware County Patriots, rallied at the Exit 1 overpass of I-95 in Boothwyn, Saturday, July 19, to call attention to swarming of the our southern border by illegal aliens and the negligence by the Obama administration in dealing with the mater.

The rally lasted from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and was among the hundreds that occurred across the United States to call attention to the problem.

“The constant honking and thumbs up from both the thousands of cars on I-95 and also the hundreds of cars passing by on the heavily traveled overpass road, in addition to positive comments from walkers, was heartening and indicated overwhelming support for our viewpoint,” said rally participant Joanne Yurchak.  “Hopefully, people are starting to wake up and realize that something has to be done before the damage that the current administration is doing to America can no longer be reversed.”

She noted that it is not  only children entering the country but gang members, criminals and terrorists.

BorderRally2

Some of the signs at Sa;turday’s border crisis rally at I-95.

 

Border Crisis Rally At I-95 on the overpass in Boothwyn

In action on the overpass

Detroit Crime Drops As Citizens Take Arms

Detroit Crime Drops As Citizens Take Arms  Police Chief James Craig Detroit Police Chief James Craig has encouraged citizens to take up arms against the thugs.

Crime is dropping in Detroit. The city has 37 percent fewer robberies in 2014 than the year before; 22 percent fewer break-ins and 30 percent fewer carjackings.

Why?

According to Police Chief James Craig it’s because the citizens are now shooting back.

“Criminals are getting the message that good Detroiters are armed and will use that weapon,” Craig said.

Detroit Crime Drops As Citizens Take Arms

IRS Speech Standard Needs Reform

By Father Frank Pavone

Tax law says that Churches may not intervene in political campaigns. But the definition and boundaries of such intervention are vague and confusing. In its attempt at guidance, the IRS says “all the facts and circumstances” have to be examined. From one point of view, this standard itself is not a standard at all, but a mere statement of the obvious. After all, if a person, in making any kind of judgment, does not consider “facts and circumstances,” what, after all, does he or she consider — crystal balls, astrological signs, dreams and hallucinations?

From another point of view, how can one possibly consider all facts and circumstances of any action or decision? In real day to day life, we consider those facts and circumstances of which we are aware in the amount of time we have to make the decision, and which seem important enough to influence the decision. It’s a normal fact of life that, looking back on decisions we have made, we come to see facts and circumstances we did not have the time or ability to weigh at the time of the decision. Obviously, a consideration of “all the surrounding facts and circumstances” — if it can ever happen at all — can only happen after the action has been taken, and perhaps a long time after, or indeed never.

The Congressional Research Service has reported, “In many situations, the activity is permissible unless it is structured or conducted in a way that shows bias towards or against a candidate. Some biases can be subtle and whether an activity is campaign intervention will depend on the facts and circumstances of each case.” (Lunder & Whitkaker at 3.)

A question obviously arises here. Unless we are to say that Churches have no freedom to teach on issues that also happen to correspond to political debates, how are they protected from the accusation of being “partisan” simply because the position of the organization, or the teaching of the Church or the Gospel, corresponds to the position that one particular political party or candidate has, and is diametrically opposed to that of their opposing party or candidate?

The Church opposes abortion and stands up for the rights of the unborn. The Republican Party platform takes a similar position. The Democratic Party platform, on the other hand, supports abortion as a right. So now, is the Church’s pro-life position partisan, and therefore illegal to assert?

That would be both absurd and intolerable.

Erik Stanley states, “The predictable outcome of this state of affairs has been massive self-censorship among churches and pastors.” Even the Supreme Court, on more than one occasion, has noted with concern what happens when people aren’t given a clear, bright line regarding what speech and activity is forbidden and what is not. “Uncertain meanings inevitably lead citizens to ‘steer far wider of the unlawful zone . . . than if the boundaries of the forbidden areas were clearly marked.’”(Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 109 (1972) (quoting Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U.S. 360, 372 (1964)).

We at Priests for Life believe there is a solution to all this. We believe it’s time to stop censoring ourselves by the risk-averse mentality, often fostered by legal advisors, that wants to not only avoid breaking the law, but also avoid both the accusation and the appearance of breaking the law. This lack of willingness to fight leads to sterility and paralysis, keeping the Church’s mission from being fulfilled.

Instead, we should rely on legal counsel who are willing to interpret the IRS guidelines in a way that does not stifle our mission, and have the readiness to defend that interpretation. We need to conduct non-partisan activities in a way that common sense judges as non-partisan: no candidate or party is endorsed, and the activity is open to all. And we should push for legislation that provides a “bright line” test for Churches and tax exempt organizations so that they know ahead of time, by a clear, reasonable, and easily discernible standard, what does and does not constitute prohibited political intervention. A perfect example of this is provided in the Buckley vs. Valeo Supreme Court decision which, in another context, indicated the bright line to be defined by whether or not one uses “explicit words of advocacy of election or defeat of a candidate.” The Court gave examples of such words and phrases: ‘vote for,’ ‘elect,’ ‘support,’ ‘cast your ballot for,’ ‘Smith for congress,’ ‘vote against,’ ‘defeat,’ ‘reject.’

It is time to apply a clear standard like this in order to interpret the political intervention prohibition on Churches.

Father Pavone  is national director of Priests for Life

 

IRS Speech Standard Needs Reform

IRS Speech Standard Needs Reform

Act 88 Gives Whistleblowers Greater Protection

House Bill 185 has been signed into law and is now Act 88 of 2014, according to State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129).

The legislation adds legislative employees to the list of workers protected from retaliation under existing whistleblower protection statutes.

Although the Whistleblower Law (Act 169 of 1986) prohibits a public body from discharging or retaliating against an employee if an employee makes a good faith report about waste or wrongdoing, the law did not explicitly include the staff of the General Assembly. The new extends those protections specifically to this group.

The law also prohibits a public body from retaliating against an employee if such employee is requested by an appropriate authority to participate in an investigation, hearing or inquiry.

The intention of the law is not only uniformity but encouragement of transparency and accountability among elected officials and our legislative body.

Members of the public, as well as government employees, are encouraged to report suspected fraud, waste, misconduct or abuse of government programs, operations or contracts. You can do so by visiting the Office of Inspector General’s website or calling 877-888-7927 for employee misconduct or 800-932-0582 for welfare fraud.
Act 88 Gives Whistleblowers Greater Protection

Act 88 Gives Whistleblowers Greater Protection

Howard Stern Blast Wind MSNBC

Krystal Ball Howard Stern Blast Wind MSNBC

The Democrat Party in 2010 felt that Krystal Ball should be among those who should be writing our laws. She was hired by MSNBC after she lost.

Krystal Ball — yes that is her real name — of MSNBC’s The Cycle thought she had a scoop.

A man claiming to be “Staff Sgt. Michael Boyd of the U.S. embassy in the Ukraine” had contacted her network and said he witnessed the shooting down of  Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

He was put on the air. Miss Ball asked him what he saw “on the ground”.

He said “Well, I was looking out the window and I saw a projectile flying through the sky and it would appear that the plane was shot down by a blast of wind from Howard Stern’s ass.”

Miss Ball responded saying “So it would appear that the plane was shot down. Can you tell us any more from your military  training of what sort of missile system that may have been coming from?”

It was clearly a question the prankster did not expect. He called her a “dumbass” and hung up.

It was then  Miss Ball’s turn for confusion.  She asked for clarification and allowed several seconds of dead air waiting for a response before going to a break.

Miss Ball was the Democrat nominee for the First District Congressional race in Virginia in 2010.

Idiocracy has arrived.

Here is the interview.

Barack Obama spent yesterday snarling in traffic in Delaware to lunch at a mediocre hamburger joint.

Howard Stern Blast Wind MSNBC

Hat tip Bryan Preston at PJMedia.com

 

Free Speech Exercise Prompts Fed Investigation

Obama Outhouse Free Speech Exercise Prompts Fed Investigation

The Obama Justice Department thinks this is racist. It was crated by a veteran about the unnecessary deaths caused by Veterans Administration policies and the ensuing coverup.

 

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Nineteen terrifying words from the Omaha World-Herald: The U.S. Department of Justice has joined the discussions over a controversial float in the Norfolk Independence Day parade.

Thus did the federal government dispatch an emissary to investigate a minor instance of Midwestern dissent.

A quick recap for the happily uninitiated: The “controversial float” in question was one of many included in this year’s Independence Day parade in Norfolk, Neb. The entry, which featured a zombie standing on an outhouse marked “Obama Presidential Library,” was created by a veteran named Dale Remmich, and was designed, Remmich claims, to express the “political disgust” that he feels at the Obama administration’s mismanagement of the Department of Veteran Affairs. As is the habit now, pictures of the float were quickly pushed around the Internet, attracting the attention and disapprobation of such august institutions as the Washington Post, CBS, ABC, and the Huffington Post — and, it seems, the interest of the United States Department of Justice. This week, the World-Herald reports, the DOJ “sent a member of its Community Relations Service team, which gets involved in discrimination disputes, to a Thursday meeting about the issue.” Present at the summit were the NAACP, the mayor of the Nebraska town in which the float was displayed, and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, which sponsored the event.

Now for the obvious question: Why? What, exactly, was the problem here? Nobody was killed. Nobody was maimed. Nobody had their material or spiritual interests injured, nor were they stripped of their livelihoods. No federal or state laws were broken. Indeed, not even private rules were broken. More to the point, there was no “discrimination dispute” of the sort with which the DOJ likes to concern itself. Instead, a few free people were vexed because a politician that they like was depicted in an unflattering light. One might well ask, “So what?” Once, Americans tackled the Oregon Trail. Are they now in need of their political “discussions” being arbitrated by glorified social workers sent by Uncle Sam?

In a typically risible statement, Nebraska’s state Democratic party described the incident as one of the “worst shows of racism and disrespect for the office of the presidency that Nebraska has ever seen.” That this is almost certainly true demonstrates just how much progress the United States has made in the last 50 years — and, in consequence, how extraordinarily difficult the professionally aggrieved are finding it to fill their quotas. If a fairly standard old saw is among the worst things to have happened to the Cornhusker State in recent memory, the country is in rather good shape, n’est-ce pas?

Exactly what it was about the float that rendered it “racist” was, of course, never explained. Instead, the assertion was merely thrown into the ether, ready to be accepted uncritically by the legions of righteously indignant keyboard warriors that lurk around social media as piranhas around a fresh carcass. But, for future reference at least, it would be nice to have the details of the offense unpacked. Are outhouses racist now? Are zombies? Or was it perhaps the overalls in which the zombie was dressed? Moreover, if any of these are now redolent of something sinister, at what point was this association held to be operative? A popular cartoon from 2006 depicted a latrine standing in the middle of the desert, on its outer wall the words “Bush Presidential Library.” Was this “racist,” or is this one of those timeless truths that were only discovered in 2009?

The float’s maker has insisted that the zombie represented himself and not the president. “I’ve got my bibs on, my walker, I’m covering my ears and I’m turning a bit green; I intended it to look like a zombie who has had enough,” he explained. Unsurprisingly, the NAACP didn’t buy it. “Looking at the float, that message absolutely did not come through,” the president of the outfit’s Iowa and Nebraska chapters griped. Fair enough. Arguendo , let’s presume that some of the spectators misunderstood the piece and believed that the president of the United States was being compared to a toilet-dwelling zombie. Again: Who cares? Are we now so hopelessly epicene that we expect federally funded conflict-resolution teams to swoop in on the hinterlands if the locals mutter too loudly about the government? I rather hope that we are not.

Frankly, as superficially appealing as they might sound, appeals to “the dignity of the office” are invariably prissy, serving more often than not as a means by which humorless partisans might grumble about their team’s being dinged without appearing hypersensitive. Indeed, far from damaging the national fabric, astringent mockery of the powerful is a healthy and necessary thing — a source of valuable catharsis that serves also as a canary in the proverbial coal mine. When I see the most powerful man in the country being not only mocked, but hanged and burned in effigy too, my first thought is less “gosh, how awful” than “wow, is this a free country or what?” A historical rule of thumb: If a ragtag group of political dissenters can simulate the violent execution of the head of the executive branch and not be so much as scratched as a result, the country is a free one. Who cares if a few of our more delicate sorts reach for the smelling salts?

It is always tempting to believe one’s own time to be particularly interesting or fractious, but there is little in politics that is genuinely new. Sharp and violent denunciations of the executive branch have been a feature of American life since the republic’s first days. Before the Revolution, the colonists routinely hanged likenesses of unpopular royal representatives, including King George III;Andrew Oliver , the Massachusetts Distributor of Stamps; and the loyalist Supreme Court justice, Thomas Hutchinson . Afterward, having dispensed with the old guard, Americans took to lambasting the new, among them George Washington, who had effected the king’s defeat; Thomas Jefferson, who had authored the charter of separation; and James Madison , who had drafted the lion’s share of the new Constitution. Chief Justice John Jay’s 1795 treaty with the British was so wildly unpopular among the Jeffersonians that Jay reported being able to travel from Boston to Philadelphia by the light of his burning effigies. Later, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was subjected to the treatment. In one form or another, most presidents have been.

The modern era has served as no exception to the rule. During his two terms, George W. Bush was the object of considerable opprobrium, his likeness being frequently hanged, knived in the forehead, and even assassinated on prime-time television. At the height of the Left’s umbrage, progressive heroes Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield went so far as to take a twelve-foot effigy of Bush on a national tour, setting fire to it at each stop to the audience’s hearty cheers. Ben and Jerry make ice cream, not apple pie. But their barnstorming road trip could not have been more American. There are few things more indicative of human liberty than the ability to castigate power with impunity — up to and including the moment of offense. “To learn who rules over you,” Voltaire suggested, “simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” Is Barack Obama to be a ruler?
Charles C. W. Cooke is a staff writer at National Review.

 

Free Speech Exercise Prompts Fed Investigation

Feckless Obama Lunches During Crisis

A Malaysian passenger jet crashed about 7 this morning, July 17, in a section of the Ukraine embroiled in conflict.

It was an American-made Boeing 777 and all 295 on board are dead. There is a very good chance it was shot down and maybe by the Russians.

So where is President Obama?

He is lunching at the Charcoal Pit outside Wilmington, Del. on Route 202 and is even having his people tweet about it.

We’ve eaten at the Charcoal Pit. It wasn’t anything special.

Impeach Obama now.

Feckless Obama Lunches During Crisis

Feckless Obama Lunches During Crisis