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Delco Candidate Town Hall Tomorrow — Republican candidates for Delaware County seats will hold a town hall, 7 p.m., tomorrow, Nov. 1, at America Legiion Post 338, 2200 Grasslyn Ave., Havertown, Pa. 19083.
Scheduled to answer questions are Betrh Stefanide who is running for district attorney; and county council candidates Jeff Jones, Joy Schwartz and Upland Mayor Bill Dennon.
4 Seek 2 Seats For Pennsylvania Superior Court
By Bob Small
Two seats are up on Pennsylvania Superior Court and those seeking them are Maria C. Battisa and Harry F. Smail Jr. on the Republican ticket; and Jill Beck and Timika Lane on the Democrat one.
The court was established in 1895 and is one of two statewide intermediate appellate courts. It hears appeals in criminal and most civil cases from county courts of common pleas; and matters involving children and families.
Terms are 10 years and the court is headquartered in Harrisburg.
Maria C. Battista received her Juris Doctorate from Ohio Northern University. She has worked with the Pennsylvania Coalition of Nurse Practitioners and currently works for the Judge group in Wayne, Pa..
She has been endorsed by the Pennsylvania FOP.
Jill Beck is a graduate of Duquesne Law School. She has worked at Kids Voice a private nonprofit representing Allegheny County abused, at-risk, and neglected children. At Blank Rome, she was co-chair of their working group aimed at protecting the right to protest. She worked for a decade as a clerk with Justice Christine Donahue. She has also focused on representing “low-income criminal defendants.” Shlives in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh with “her husband, two children, and their rescue dog”.
Timika Lane has her law degree from the Rutgers University of Law-Camden. She was elected to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas in 2013 and has also served as a chief legal counsel for the Pennsylvania Senate. Her philosophy is that “litigants are not just names on a pleading”.
She sees the greatest threat to the practice of law as “ keeping up with the changes of technology and its effect on traditional methods of litigation.”
She also worked for Habitat for Humanity during Hurricane Katrina,.
Harry F. Smail, Jr. has been a Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court judge since being appointed by Gov. Tom Corbett in 2014. He attained his Duquesne University of Law Degree while working as a full-time Probation/Parole Officer. He has also worked for the Federal Public Defender’s Office of indigent defendants.
‘I do not legislate from the bench; rather, I apply and enforce the law as intended as the third branch of government providing the checks and balances that make our government functional,” he said.
He is a member of The Federalist Society
He states his opinions “have a 97 percent affirmation rate.”
He said that his decisions about setting aside ballots without the required dates were affirmed by Commonwealth Court and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
He lives in Westmoreland County with his wife and two daughters.
Bounty Put on Customs and Border Patrol Agents
By Joe Guzzardi
Recently, San Diego’s Customs and Border Protection officials issued an intelligence notice alerting its agents that “Hamas and Hezbollah militants may potentially be encountered at the Southwest border.”
The memorandum added, in part: “Individuals inspired by, or reacting to, the current Israel-Hamas conflict may attempt travel to or from the area of hostilities in the Middle East via circuitous transit across the Southwest border.” The intel document showed various insignias associated with Hamas, Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups. The document also informed CBP personnel to be vigilant of young men wearing military gear and traveling alone. CBP’s alert coincides with San Diego’s latest border encounters data that show a dramatic increase; September 2023’s 26,000 encounters reflect a 67 percent increase from last year’s 15,000.
From the view of the cartels and coyotes, nothing has been better for their multibillion-dollar businesses than the Israel-Gaza war. As little attention as Biden has paid to border enforcement during his presidency’s three years, the Middle East warfare has pushed Southwest security completely out of the White House’s line of vision. Potential terrorists are well-aware that the border is open. They know that now is the ideal time to take further advantage and ratchet up crossings.
Through the 12 months ending October 21, 169 people on the FBI terror watch lists were encountered between southern border ports of entry, a number that exceeds not only fiscal year 2022’s record-setting total, 98, but the last six fiscal years combined. With encounters between ports at the northern border included, the total for fiscal year 2023 was 172.
Ample evidence exists that terrorists are already present, and plotting. U.S. Customs and Border Protection warned agents that someone who is planning to torture, if not murder, them is looking for their addresses. One text that CBP intercepted read: “We will pay for any addresses of border patrol agents!!”
The sender offered to pay $200 for an agent’s address and $1,000 for “they mommas [sic] address.” Another message read, “I’ll post us torturing any bp agent u send.” Perhaps the texts, a federal felony, are a hoax; no one knows. The FBI, as is its practice, will neither confirm nor deny that an investigation to locate the sender is in progress. But if and when a probe gets underway, the FBI should have little trouble pinpointing the source. When motivated, the FBI operates with peak efficiency. The Department of Justice has, for example, identified and charged nearly 1,200 people who participated in the January 6 protest, the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history.
With the loss of life mounting in Israel and Gaza, and hostages’ fates unknown, the Biden administration is focused exclusively on the Middle East. And on the domestic front, the administration is focused on appeasing Israeli and Palestinian supporters. But the invasion of the U.S. continues, and more migrants are on the way. In September alone, more than 75,000 migrants crossed the roadless Darién Gap jungle on foot, the second-highest monthly tally recorded by Panamanian officials, only a few thousand less than the 82,000 reported August crossings.
In total, more than 400,000 U.S.-bound migrants, many of them Venezuelans, have crossed the treacherous jungle route this year to enter Central America, a record and once-unimaginable number. Luis Gilberto Murillo, Colombia’s ambassador to the U.S., called illegal immigration through the Darién Gap “an unsustainable crisis” that poses serious safety risks to all who attempt the trip.
Murillo added, disingenuously, that Colombia and the U.S. are working together to dissuade those who contemplate the dangerous journey from taking their first step. Truth be told, Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s left-wing president, has said his government will not physically stop illegal aliens from entering the jungle. He argued instead that migration must be dealt with in a humanitarian way – translation, no impediments to the journey further north. The U.S., for its part, has imposed no deterrents to stop the invasion.
Biden’s criminal disregard for breaking immigration laws ensures either bad or tragic results. The bad – crime, bankrupt communities, a lost America – is terrible. The worst, an attack on the homeland, is unthinkable.
Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analysts who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org.
Bounty Put on Customs and Border Patrol Agents
Together we stick William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 10-31-23
Iufotodmrf ue azq ar ftq yaef nmeqxqee, mnegdp, puesgefuzs mzp euxxk ar mxx ftq tgyngse.
B. F. Nmdzgy
Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: Together we stick; divided we are stuck.
John Quigg
1925 World Series Mystery Went Unsolved For 50 Years
By Joe Guzzardi
It took nearly 50 years to resolve one of the World Series’ most controversial plays. For the decades between 1925 and 1974, fans debated whether Pittsburgh Pirates batter Earl Smith was out when Washington Senators outfielder Sam Rice tumbled into the left field stands to hold on to a long fly ball. Or was Smith, as some cranks in the bleachers insisted, safe when the ball fell out of Sam’s glove? The dispute was the stuff that kept hot stove leaguers buzzing for many a cold winter month.
The National League Pirates were the reigning world champions, and the Senators, the American League challengers. Both squads had several players destined for the Cooperstown Hall of Fame. From the Senators, Rice, Walter Johnson, “Goose” Goslin and boy manager, 27-year-old Bucky Harris; from the Pirates, Pie Traynor, Kiki Cuyler and Max Carey. The teams split their first two games and braced themselves for a pivotal third game that would be played in terrible weather. Griffith Stadium, the Senators’ home park, was, wrote one reporter, “swept by hurricane blasts that chilled to the marrow.” In the bottom of the eighth, with the Senators clinging to a 4–3 lead, Pirates catcher Smith sent a line drive into right field. Fleet-footed Rice snared the bulb, and his momentum carried him into the stands.
As Rice re-created his dramatic catch, he jumped as high as he could, backhanded Smith’s drive, but toppled into the first row. Umpire Cy Rigler raced out from his position at second base, some 250’ away, to signal Smith, rounding third, out. But Pirates fans, first-hand witnesses to the catch, protested that the ball had fallen from Rice’s glove. Rice, the fans griped, replaced the ball in his glove before Rigler arrived on the scene. Some fans were prepared to sign sworn affidavits to back up their claims. Pirates manager Bill McKenzie and team owner Barney Dreyfuss stormed over to the box seats where Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis and President Calvin Coolidge were watching the unfolding action. McKenzie demanded that Landis overturn Rigler’s call. The commissioner, deferring, said that his baseball powers didn’t include reversing umpire’s judgment calls.
The Senators won the game, but lost the series 4–3. For the rest of his years and wherever he went, Rice was asked if he truly caught the ball or if the questioning fans had really seen sleight-of-hand. Rice had a pat response: “The umpire called Smith out.” Finally, tired of being pestered, Rice announced that he would write a letter to Hall of Fame officials describing the events that could be opened upon his death.
After Rice died in 1974 at age 84 from cancer, HOF brass began a two-week search digging through their files — no letter. Finally, Rice’s missive was found in HOF historian Lee Allen’s file. Allen died before Rice, so he couldn’t point administrators to the tell-all’s location. Finally, the moment of truth had arrived. In Rice’s testimonial, written July 26, 1965, he related that Smith’s line drive landed in his glove’s pocket, that he had “a death grip on it,” and “at no time” did he “lose possession of the ball.”
Time has diminished Rice’s skills and contributions. During his 20-year career, most of which he spent in Washington, Rice achieved a .322 lifetime batting average and fell just 13 shy of 3,000 total base hits. He missed .300 only five times, never by more than seven points, and reached 200 or more hits in a season six times, including 207 in 1930, when, at age 40, he hit .349, a single point shy of his career best.
Rice rarely struck out, averaging only once every 33 at bats, and still shares the all-time American League lead with Joe Jackson for most consecutive multi-hit games, 11, set in 1925 season, and his peers considered him to be the league’s most effective baserunner, on par with Ty Cobb.
The Hall of Fame inducted Rice in 1963, a class that included Dizzy Dean, Bill Dickey and Jimmie Foxx.
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Email guzzjoe@yahoo.com or X @JoeGuzzardi19.
1925 World Series Mystery Went Unsolved For 50 Years
All flesh is like grass William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 10-30-23
Ezrpespc hp detnv; otgtopo hp lcp defnv.
Uzsy Bftrr
Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: All flesh is like grass and all its glory is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, and the flower falls but the word of the Lord lasts for ever.
1 Peter 1:24
Sunday Stroll Along Darby Creek — We just finished a nice stroll along Darby Creek in Upper Darby, Pa. from Delaware County’s Kent Park on the left bank to the township’s Gillespie Park on the other side now connected by a nice, new pedestrian bridge.
The round-trip was about three miles.
We also managed to catch the season’s last tour of the Lower Swedish Cabin guided by Ray King –apologies if we misspelled or misheard.
He said another one recrossing the creek is planned another from Gillespie Park allowing the trail to reach Garrett Road.
Private property prevents a straight path from Kent Park to Garrett Road.
The cost of the bridges are reportedly $1 million each.
Here’s some photos of the stroll.
Sunday Stroll Along Darby Creek
Physicians Who Work For Free, Cosmas and Damian — On Nov. 1, we celebrate the feast of two remarkable brothers who lived during the early years of the Christian Church.
Cosmas and Damian were born of wealthy parents in Asia Minor who gave their sons the best education in the Roman Empire. They were interested in medicine and became physicians at an early age. The two brothers also became Christians. Their unique combination of medicine and prayer attracted the attention fo many.
Through their commitment to Christ, they endeavored to become healers not only of the body but the soul. Their fame spread and they soon developed a reputation as being miracle-workers who could heal with an herb or prayer.
About the same time, the brothers made a most unique pledge which was not to take money for their services.
They healed thousands of from diseases of body and soul and never accepted a thing.
Their reputation spread even more rapidly as they became known as “unmercercenaries” or someone who does not expect payment for services.
We can all become unmercenaries in the same spirit as saints Cosmas and Damian. Each of us can give something of ourselves without expecting a favor in return. Perhaps we can give our time to someone. Perhaps we can give advice without being offended if it’s not followed. Or, perhaps, we can give the gift of forgiveness without receiving, or expecting, an apology.
We have what we seek William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 10-29-23
Kvv pvocr sc vsuo qbkcc kxn kvv sdc qvybi sc vsuo dro pvygob yp dro psovn. Dro qbkcc gsdrobc, kxn dro pvygob pkvvc led dro gybn yp dro Vybn vkcdc pyb ofob.
Zodob
Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.
Thomas Merton
2023 Christmas Basket Raffle Has Begun At Holy Myrrh-Bearers — Holy Myrrh-Bearers Parish has begun its annual Christmas Basket Raffle.
It will have more than 40 beautiful which will be displayed in the social hall of the church at 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081.
The raffle will be Dec. 3 during the annual St Nicholas Dinner.
Winners need not be present.
Tickets are $2; three for $5; eight for $10 and 17 for $20.
There will also be a big item raffle with tickets at $5, or five for $20.
Big items include a large flat screen television; over $100 in lottery tickets, and a Fit Bit watch
Tickets are available in the social hall during Wednesdays on pieorgie sale weeks; 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Saturdays; and before and after the services which are tp.m., Saturdays and 10 a.m. Sundays.
For information about the church visit its Facebook page or the Philadelphia Archeparchy’s website.
2023 Christmas Basket Raffle Has Begun At Holy Myrrh-Bearers