News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
The oldest phone number in the world in continual use reportedly belongs to the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. It is 212-736-5000. When the numbers were seven-digit-long and alphanumeric it was PE6-5000. Before that? Pennsylvania 6-5000.
Sick And Evil In The English World — Readers Vinegar Joe and Bob the Poet sent links about how twisted things have gotten.
Joe let us know about this July 19 story from Breitbart about how two men dressed as women read a story to children in Dallas called “What color is your underwear.”
The real scary things are that those running the library let this happen and the parents let their children attend.
Bob sent this July 16 story from The Guardian how a “man” gave birth in the U.K.
No, a “man” did not give birth. A woman who hated herself and her sex so much she went to extremes to mimic a man gave birth.
The problem isn’t individual with problems but with those who control social mores who egged her on. The idea should be that struggling people should not be encouraged to do things that cause permanent damage even if one will make a profit.
Things might be looking sick but remember this: Fate whispered to the warrior, you can not withstand the storm. The warrior whispered to Fate, I am the storm.
On the bright side, reader Tom C sent this link about how Catholics in Africa are boldly fighting this garbage equating the underpinnings of the New World Order with “sorcery”.
Pennsylvania Incumbent Protection Plan
By Leo Knepper
A recent report from LancasterOnline outlines the cost of one component of the “Incumbent Protection Program” operated by the General Assembly:
“Welcome to the state Capitol, where elected officials and their staffs operate a massive, sophisticated and partisan media machine that costs taxpayers nearly $10 million a year at a time when the number of journalists serving as watchdogs on government is shrinking…In a building home to one of the largest, most expensive legislatures in the country, there are at least three of these television studios built to produce state-run, news-like programs for state lawmakers.” (Emphasis added)
That’s right, $10 million per year to operate three television studios and an impressive public relations (PR) operation. Each of the four caucuses operates their own private, tax-payer funded, PR firms. These slick PR operations produce everything from news-letters to tele-town halls to professionally made videos of lawmakers touring businesses in their districts.
Lawmakers would argue that all of these expenses help them to connect to their constituents. One has to wonder how many of these “essential” communication attempts would be made if lawmakers were term-limited. Or, if they weren’t trying to hold onto an $85,000 per year salary and a golden parachute.
The PR expenses are only one component of a system that the General Assembly has built up over time to protect themselves from the electoral competition. This year, the legislature has a budget of over $350 million. They abuse this system to build their own name ID and ensure they enter every electoral cycle with an advantage that is costly to overcome. Communicating with constituents is one thing, but most of these expenses don’t even pass the laugh test as being necessary to accomplish that goal.
Mr. Knepper is executive director of Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania.
Dwight Eisenhower’s football career basically ended when he injured his while trying to tackle Jim Thorpe when Army played the Carlisle Indian School in 1912.
Albeit both Bushes flew in the military, Ike was the only president to have a pilot’s license.
Montco Wrongly Credits Ex And Now Wants Her Home Says Woman — There are two sides to domestic disputes but this is Elaine Mickman’s. And if her ex-husband is earning millions and has cut his child off, shame on him. The government should not even need to be involved for him to help his son. Of course, the truly troubling thing is Ms. Mickman’s claim that Montco officials are seeking her assets because of what she says is a phony overpayment recorded for her ex-husband by a county employee. We will be keeping an eye on it and we doubt the matter is over.
To the Editor
My youngest child’s support was prematurely and illegally terminated December 2018 by Domestic Relations without due process and a required hearing that I “timely” and properly requested in writing.
Montgomery County has been silencing and suppressing my reports of employee corruption when the fraud is anti-family, harms me, endangered my child(ren), and caused the County and state to lose millions of dollars of Federal Title IV-D Matching Funding for many years, begging to wonder what or why would employees do this, and why would public officials ignore complaints and remain complicit other than “currying favors” to receive “personal benefits”.
My 2003 child support case evolved into Domestic Relations employee(s) substituting Montgomery County as a party to my case after the Support Obligor (father/my Ex residing in UK since December 2002) withdrew his Jan. 28, 2019 Petition seeking for me (100 percent physical time custodial/residential caretaker) or our minor autistic son, the child support recipient, to pay father/Ex child support because a county employee entered a $550,000 credit for Ex.
This action violated Federal Regulations/Codes which requires support payments to be sent in to the state automated system and disbursed to the custodial/residential caretaker. The credit created a “phony” overpayment so that my child or myself owes Ex child support!
I received zero divorce settlement and I have a zero-earning capacity by court order. I also was medically approved by Social Security as Permanently Disabled because I have four crushed cervical discs in my neck from domestic abuse, therefore I am dependent upon SSI (Social Security Disability).
I have been a full-time homemaker mom for 37 years without employment history since I was 19 years old.
After I raised Federal Regulation and Code violations in my Answer/Response objecting and refuting Ex’s Jan. 28, 2019 Petition, he withdrew his Petition on Feb. 11, 2019, most likely because he doesn’t want to bring attention since he earns millions of dollars per year and was defeating the entry of large child support orders.
Regardless that Ex withdrew his Petition Feb. 11, 2019, Montgomery County substituted itself as a party to my case by continuing to charge the child support so that I, or my child owe the County child support since Montgomery County has been operating an “asset-forfeiture” scheme to “collect” as much money as possible to “line their own pockets/pensions” while funding a new half- billion dollar judicial “campus”, BUT financially burdening the residents, especially targeting those in family court, with supporting a “sanctuary city”.
FYI, Pennsylvania law 23 Title 4604 prohibits liens on the primary residence public assistance recipients, therefore the County would have to illegally Sheriff my house to seek the “phony” overpayment created by corrupt Montgomery County employees, but the County can also incarcerate a person for non-payment of child support or suspend their Driver’s License.
The County Officials have violated their Oath by “assaulting” and/or abandoning the PA Constitution.
This is not complex or complicated. Corrupt County employees are abusing their positions, power, and authority, for no explainable reason other than receiving “personal benefits”, BUT at the loss of Federal funding for the County and state, and at the suffering and hardship of my child and myself.
I have records as proof, and have a sworn statement documenting what occurred, as well as that of a witness to the proceedings.
(You can’t make this stuff up)
Regards, Elaine Mickman
Bernardo O’Higgins was the man who freed Chile from Spain.
He was the illegitimate son of the Irish-born Viceroy of Peru. His mother was the a daughter of an influential member of the Chillan city council.
Wagner Blasted Asher In Chairman Battle
By David Wilmot
Deplorables protect the President against bad advice from people who don’t have his back. Bob Asher suffers another defeat.
In Pennsylvania, a new State party chair was elected Saturday, but it was not who the establishment wanted or who the President was told to endorse. It was the candidate that the MAGA volunteers, “Deplorables” and Trump Supporters believed would be able to deliver the state for the President in 2020.
The second week of July showed how effective the Trump MAGA grassroots can be when it throws its weight around. The selection of a new state party leader for the PA Republican party should be a simple procedure. Rarely does anyone outside of the ruling elite get involved. The fight is limited to state party delegates with the winner taking the spoils of victory with the ability to determining which candidates gets money and help.
A little background. Over a month ago the Chair of the PA Republican party, Val DiGiorgio, resigned after it was revealed that he had a habit of exposing himself via text messages. The MAGA people did not trust Val and never believed he supported the President.
A special convention was called to replace the Chair. A half dozen candidates threw their hat in the ring for the open position. The establishment quickly coalesced around the current vice chair and acting chair, Bernie Comfort. David Urban, a member of the 2016 Presidential campaign and advisor to the successful effort to win Pennsylvania, was quick to have Donald Trump Jr. send out a tweet supporting Comfort. Other candidates were strong-armed to back out of the race. All did, except Lawrence Tabas.
Lawrence Tabas, had risen to fame among the MAGA people and Trump base as an early supporter of Trump in the 2016 primary and, more notably, his successful defense of the Trump victory when Jill Stein sued in an attempt to delay the certification of the Pennsylvania Trump Victory. In 2017 Lawrence Tabas ran against DiGiorgio and lost by 2 votes.
Then on July 2 an article hit the website PoliticsPa that would rattle the MAGA groups across the state. It was the last few paragraphs that would be copied and emailed:
Meanwhile Scott Wagner, 2018 PA GOP Gubernatorial candidate, bashed Bob Asher, an early supporter of Comfort, in an email on Friday to state committee members.
“I am very concerned, as I am sure you are also,” Wagner writes in the email. “The State Chairman election two years ago was bloody and had many casualties, and as a result many good people resigned from state committee.”
Wagner accused Asher of undermining his campaign against Gov. Tom Wolf and believes he should stay out of the race for the good of the party.
“Mr. Asher’s politics have left our party bitterly fractured and highly dysfunctional,” Wagner writes in the email. “His politics have sidelined good people, and left many others disillusioned and disenchanted. Because of his politics we have a political machine that lines the pockets of Harrisburg political consultants, but delivers loss after loss to the Republican Party.”
“The last thing we need right now are more of Bob Asher’s politics. Bob Asher needs to keep his nose out of the election of a new party chairman,” Wagner writes.
To many in the PA Trump-cohorts, Asher is hated as much as Hillary. He is seen as a never-Trumper and is said to have been the force behind the 2016 convention’s last-ditch effort to stop Trump by changing the rules and unbinding all the delegates. Asher controls the once influential Pa Future Fund.
From the Wikipedia page on Asher, “Asher was convicted of perjury, racketeering, conspiracy and bribery in connection with a state contract award. He resigned after the conviction and served one year in federal prison. The case gained national attention in 1987 when his co-defendant in that case and political ally, Pennsylvania State Treasurer Budd Dwyer, committed suicide on television just before sentencing.”
Among the dissident republicans in Pa there is a consensus: any candidate backed by Asher is controlled by Asher and no friend of the people.
“We quickly figured out what was going on,” said one active Trump supporter, “The next chair would control the money coming into the state for the re-election of the President, and if Asher has anything to do with it, that money will go to the usual suspects who will pocket as much as they can.” Pennsylvania is too important to the re-election for the decisions to be left up to grifters.
Asher’s and David Urban’s people put the hard press on state delegates to support their candidate. Delegates were strong armed and outright threatened with losing access to the Trump Whitehouse.
The lines were drawn. On one side was Lawrence Tabas and the Trump base, and on the other side was Bernie Comfort, Bob Asher, and David Urban.
Outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania, five days before the party would vote on the new chair, there was a meeting of trump supports from around the state. One person at the meeting described it, “We are just sharpening the pitchforks and lighting the torches. We are going to come at them from every angle. Asher, Urban, and the rest of the swamp will not know what hit them.”
They needed to get the truth out of what was going on. They needed to let the delegates know they were being watched and if Asher was given effective control of the State party, the delegates would be held responsible.
Within hours a social media blitz started. A website went up with information as well as phone numbers and emails of every state delegate.
The following appeared on the political blog, “Bill Lawrence Online” and was quickly disseminated on social media and emailed around the state.
Bernie Comfort Never-Trumper Asher Tool? — The below message was sent from us from well-connected Republican and we are going to share it.
(The next State Republican Chair) cannot be Bernadette Comfort.
How she got the nod: Bernie was a Never-Trumper. She is supported, and a tool, of Bob Asher.
Bob Asher is the ultimate Republican Never-Trumper. At the 2016 GOP Convention he was the force behind the last minute push for a rule change to un-bind the delegates so they could be corrupted to change their vote to an unnamed candidate other than Trump (most likely Kasich.) Asher has never publicly uttered the words “President Trump” in public. Asher only backs candidates he can control – this is important and the reason he wants Bernie.
• David Urban is a 30+ year friend of Bob Asher.
• Rob Gleason, the party chair before Val, supported Lawrance Tabas. Gleason was early for Trump in the Primary. His reason for backing Tabas is he knows Tabas can raise money and re-establish the party.
• David Urban hates Rob Gleason. It is said he hates him with every fiber of his body.
• Urban backs Bernie to stick it to Gleason. It also gets him points with his buddy Asher. Putting him and Asher in affective control of the state party. Urban gives Trump bad intel for Don jr. to tweet his support for Bernie. Urban tells the Trump campaign that it’s a done deal and the come July 4th Bernie will be the only nominee for State Chair.
• Lawrence Tabas sees what is going on and understand how it will end. Tabas knows that Asher is behind Bernie and with Bernie as the head of the party they will do the least possible in 2020 while pocketing as much money as possible.
• Ted Christian takes his orders from David Urban.
We need to support Lawrence Tabas.
• Email the state committee people.
• Show up at the state convention with your Trump Flags and homemade Lawrence Tabas posters.
In the following days, Trump supporters continued to build pressure on state delegates with emails, social media, and phone calls.
By Thursday, enough delegates had committed to Tabas to secure a victory and lock out Asher. The final knife was an article that appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Friday suggesting that Bernie Comfort, as Vice Chair of the party, hand been approached by a staffer who alleged sexual harassment by the former chair, but Comfort took no action.
A person close to Bernie Comfort said Bob Asher cut off all communication with her starting Thursday, two days before the vote, when the pressure was mounting.
Under the massive pressure, Bernie Comfort conceded she could not win.
To save face for the President, a deal was struck. Bernie Comfort would be named the chair of Trump’s campaign in Pennsylvania, and a joint press release of support would be issued by Comfort and Tabas.
The vote Saturday was by acclimation and Lawrence Tabas was made Chair.
Everyone seemed to stay a few steps away from Bob Asher. He was noticeably alone as he walked around the Hershey Hotel before the vote. During the meeting, Asher, as national delegate, was seated next to Bernie on the stage. Bernie never sat next to Asher, keeping one chair between him and herself, and her back to him most of the meeting.
The Trump supporters were not happy with Bernie being placed as Chair of Trump’s state campaign, but they seemed to understand it was important for the President to safe face after the bad information he was given.
Princesses get air conditioners regardless how much the globe warms as do princes and kings and dukes and everyone else who is part of the feudal party.
You will never be part of the feudal party no matter how much you kiss their tails.
With the brutal heat wave winding down, it’s just something to think about.
The footprints on the moon will last practically forever but how many are there? It’s hard to say. We know that 12 men walked on it and spent more than 70 hours outside the module on the lunar surface ranging from the 2 hours, 31 minutes and 40 seconds enjoyed by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in Apollo 11 to 22 hours by Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on Apollo 17. And of course some of that time included driving the Lunar Rover were they would be leaving tire tracks and not footprints.
We know, though, that all the footprints are American.
Summer Boating At Bartram’s Garden
By John W. Gilmore
From Lindbergh Boulevard it is difficult to tell where Bartram’s Village ends and Bartram’s Garden begins. Bartram’s Village, built in 1942, began as a housing project built adjacent to Bartram’s Garden, and was one of the oldest in Philadelphia. In 2018 the Bartram’s Garden Project received a 1.3 Million Kickstarting Grant to revitalize it into mixed income apartment buildings. Bartram’s Garden’s Boathouse, which we were seeking, is located along the river behind what is now Bartram’s Garden Village. It offers several opportunities for boating several times a week with kayaks, tandem kayaks, row boats, and paddle boats. Its position along the Schuylkill river makes it a prime location. The water is very smooth and the river wide at the Boathouse launch. But on weekdays the offices and welcome center close at 4 making the evening boating launch difficult to find for those unfamiliar with the area.
The GPS leads one down highway 76 and off the Passyunk Avenue exit. After many twists and turns we come to an empty lot with locked gates. The scene is surreal. We enter a small parking lot along a fence with small patches of grass beginning to break through the parking spaces as nature begins to reclaim the asphalt and concrete. We see a very large towering sign saying Bartram’s Garden, but no people. We don’t find any signs or instructions, only a walking path leading in two directions that seems to go nowhere. A road only open to authorized vehicles leads deeper in. We are lost. We look around for signs. They don’t exist.
We find one man fishing near the deserted parking lot who directs us to go farther down the road to the next turn. He motions to the bridge farther down the river where we see several row boats and kayaks along the river bank. We drive back out onto the busy, cracked, concrete road and turn right heading pass many large, brick buildings. They look old, but renovated. The small, brown sign we pass with yellow writing on the right side of the road says Boathouse, but points into several buildings. We continue until we come to the next twisting street and turn right.
The name of the housing complex is also called Bartram’s Garden for short, which is a bit confusing, but we continue to drive until we come to a sign that says parking. We drive down a narrow road pass several close to buildings, park off to the side of a circle, and make our way onto a wide, asphalt walking path, not sure which direction to take. We only see long grass and weeds. Some of it near the road has been trimmed with much left wild and many paths leading into nowhere like the Vincent Van Gogh painting of The Wheat Field. The next sign that says Boathouse points into a clump of weeds. We keep walking. Our persistence pays off. After almost 15 minutes of following the path it loops around the field of weeds and we come to a picnic table near the Boathouse where we have lunch. In the meantime people are arriving to open the Boathouse for their Summer Tuesday Free Boating Event. Guests are beginning to show up.
Soon everything is ready. Life jackets are provided for everyone. We sign a waiver, learn the necessary rules, are reminded of a 30 minute limit, and are ready to go. The volunteers and employees are very helpful when it comes to choosing the right life jackets, choosing the right boats, and helping us step down into boats constantly shifting back and forth under our weight as we climb in. In a tandem kayak with life jackets on, whistles attached just in case of an emergency, and black shiny paddles, we push off heading up the river toward the designated limits — a tree in one direction and down river a large, metal bridge.
We row out into the river on the smooth current moving ever closer to the tree and examine it and a few gardens growing on what used to be docks. We move along the shore, and even move back and forth across the large river a few times noticing several nooks and crannies we could probably explore along the way, but not on our first trip. We want to see as much as we can. We head down toward the bridge. Before we reach it, our time has ended. We return to the smiling faces at the dock, disembark and attain our goods that were left safe at the docks. It was a good afternoon and an interesting place that we may never have noticed except for the internet and our persistence.
Bartram’s Garden offers many opportunities for those who are interested: Summer Tuesday Free Boating; Saturday Free Boating which includes free bike rentals to ride The Bartram’s Mile Trail the third Saturday of each month; and Every Last Wednesday Free Fishing with rods, bait and instruction provided. Bartram Gardens also offers memberships on many levels, that allow one to partake of classes and community events as well as get organic foods from their Sankofa Community Farm. This hidden enclave on the backside of Bartram’s Village and along the river, offers many opportunities for those who live in the congested neighborhoods nearby. It is just down the road from many small homes and apartments offering summer fun and also education opportunities on gardening, nutrition, and health and wellness in a safe, family setting.
Bartram’s Garden wants to revitalize downtrodden communities through education and community, and through helping to revitalize unused plots of land in the city for the good of the whole community. You can find out more about Bartram’s Garden and their many volunteer opportunities at www.bartramsgarden.org or call 215-729-5281.
According to Wikipedia, “Bartram’s Garden is the oldest surviving botanical garden in the United States. John Bartram (1699–1777), the well-known early American botanist, explorer, and plant collector, founded the garden in September 1728 when he purchased a 102-acre (0.41 km2) farm in Kingsessing Township, Philadelphia County.” It was run for several years focusing on research and the transatlantic sale of native, North American plants. It came upon hard times in 1850 and was sold to Andrew M. Eastwick.
Eastwick continued running the business and continuing the botanical research until his death in 1879. There was a movement to preserve the garden and its resources. Eventually after raising funds and with help from an organization in Boston, the garden was turned over to the city of Philadelphia. Bartram’s Garden Village (previously Batram’s Garden Housing Project) which is very close to the Garden, is close enough to almost be considered the same land.
— John W. Gilmore