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Earlier today I called to make an appointment (routine check-up), at one of the Family Medicine offices of Reading Hospital/Tower Health, in Reading, PA. I was a patient a few years ago, but because it's been that long, I'm considered a new patient. I was just about floored when they said that ALL of their family medicine offices/doctors in all locations are booked out until JANUARY 2018, for new patients! This happens often with specialists, where you have to wait weeks or even months for an appointment. In fact I'm in a 2-month wait to see a specialist in mid-December....

POCONO TWP., Pa. - Two Hispanic women dressed up as nuns are accused of attempting to rob a bank in Pocono Township Monday. Police say the women walked into the Citizens Bank on Route 611 around 12:20 p.m. with a gun and demanded money. Both were dressed as nuns and one was armed with a handgun, according to police.

GUILFORD >> A 38-year-old New Haven woman died early Tuesday morning in a crash on Interstate 95, police said. The accident happened in the southbound lanes near exit 57 around 12:23 a.m. Kelly Reynolds, of Greenwich Avenue, drifted off the roadway in her Hyundai Sonata onto the right shoulder, striking a wire rope guardrail and a state Department of Transportation sign, according to police.

I like and respect George Will, and over the years I've been one of his fans. With the rise of Donald Trump, Will has decided to resign from the GOP, along with Mitt Romney and the other folks we might call "decorative conservatives" -- the people who look good on the outside, but who have none of the fire in the belly that marked Teddy Roosevelt or Lincoln -- not to mention the Founders, who were pretty robust and argumentative. I believe Mr. Will has a genuine distaste for what may become Trump Conservatism. Trump represents a kind of happy...

In a meeting full of motions and emotions, Boyertown Superintendent Richard H. Faidley received a new contract, extending his employment with the district through 2020. Board President Jill Dennin explained in her report that Faidley's current contract was good through July 31, 2017. However, it was revealed that Faidley made his wishes known that he wants to be with the district beyond that date, and a new contract was developed. Public School Code states that a new superintendent - or contract - can only be installed under certain preconditions, one of which is a vacancy. The president's report revealed that...

“Scratch him off my presidential list," wrote RoadTest on the conservative site FreeRepublic.com. "We have already seen what a Muslim enabler in the White House can do."

Like a young couple forced into an arranged marriage (something you would be far more familiar with than I) I don't like you, and you don't like me. Still, I have much for which to thank you. I understand how contradictory being thankful may sound to you, but I assure you this is not a joke, unlike the literacy rate among your children in Afghanistan. For that I will refrain from making any other jokes for the rest of this letter because, as you will see, I have much to genuinely thank you for. With so much to be grateful...

Some of the best, though not last, words about Sarah Palin come from Joshua Green of the Atlantic Monthly, trying to square the circle between Palin I, the prenomination wildly popular centrist reformer, and the polarizing, divisive, culture-war icon that is Palin II. As governor she was the very antithesis of the boneheaded ditz of our snottier pundits: a shrewd, canny, focused and very effective state governor. "The Alaskan Palin fought corruption within her own party, attacked the nexus of government and big business, avoided polarizing feuds and cut successful bipartisan deals," Ross Douthat tells us, someone who settled "insoluble"...

Is there a double standard for conservatives when it comes to criticism of their public speaking missteps compared to liberals? Take for example Politico and its 800-plus word treatise on Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann’s gaffe, written by Jonathan Martin and Kendra Marr on Saturday. They had every possible angle covered. However, flash back to May 2008 when Martin filed a post about President Barack Obama’s 57-state gaffe — it wasn’t quite as in depth (video + 17 words). That’s the sort of double standard Bachmann questioned on Laura Ingraham’s radio show on Tuesday when she explained her gaffe, in...

A college student who was arrested for stripping down at airport security to reveal the Fourth Amendment written across his chest is now suing the U.S. government for violating his rights as ordained in -- you guessed it -- the Fourth Amendment. Aaron Tobey's dramatic strip-protest is one of the latest in a series of stunts by American travelers fed up with airport security procedures some consider too invasive. A YouTube video of a California man's airport security pat-down, in which he warns the agent not to "touch my junk," went viral last year. John Tyner's infamous quote has been...

More than three centuries ago, the residents of America staged a rebellion against an oppressive ruler who taxed them unjustly, ignored their discontents and treated their longing for freedom with contempt. They are about to revisit that tradition this week, when their anger and exasperation sweep through Congress like avenging angels. This time the hated oppressor isn't a foreign colonial government, but their own professional political class. In New York last week I was struck by the startling shift of mood since my last visit, during Barack Obama's first year in office. This phenomenon took varying forms, of course, depending...

BEAVER (KDKA) ― Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh confirmed to KDKA-TV that his detectives are investigating after a peephole was found in a unisex bathroom wall in the lower level of the Beaver County Courthouse. Tony Amadio, the chairman of the Beaver County Board of Commissioners, said he learned of the peephole on Tuesday. "Yesterday morning when I came in about 8:30, District Attorney Anthony Berosh came to see me. He sat down in this very office and said, 'Tony, let's go take a walk.' "He says, 'I have some things I want to tell you and it's not...

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on Thursday waived off complaints by business leaders that President Obama’s health care and financial regulation laws are creating uncertainty and freezing job creation, arguing that the administration has actually provided “a lot of clarity” for the private sector. “Businesses always want their taxes lower and always want to live with low regulation,” Geithner said. “There is nothing remarkable, or particularly interesting frankly, that we’re in the midst of another debate, which you hear in almost any administration, with people looking for ways to help affect the outcome on the basic path of regulation and taxes.”...

(CNSNews.com) – Cass Sunstein, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), has advocated a policy under which the government would “presume” someone has consented to having his or her organs removed for transplantation into someone else when they die unless that person has explicitly indicated that his or her organs should not be taken. Under such a policy, hospitals would harvest organs from people who never gave permission for this to be done.

Report: ObamaCare Is Bad Medicine for PA National health care would harm state’s economy and add $4,400 in costs for every man, woman, and child in Pennsylvania—without significantly reducing the number of uninsured! HARRISBURG, PA — The Commonwealth Foundation released a report today showing that President Obama’s proposed takeover of health care by the federal government would have dramatically negative effects on Pennsylvanians. The report, written by a research team headed by noted economist and former presidential advisor Dr. Arthur Laffer, entitled, The Prognosis for National Health Insurance: A Pennsylvania Perspective, finds that President Obama’s health care proposal would have...

When it comes to having past views that should frighten every American citizen, Ezekiel Emanuel (see above editorial) has nothing on the president's "chief science adviser," John P. Holdren. The combination of Mr. Holdren with Dr. Emanuel should make the public seriously concerned with this administration's moral compass concerning care for the old and weak. Earlier this month, Mr. Holdren served as co-chairman when the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology met for the first time. It's a disgrace that Mr. Holdren is even on the council. In "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," a book he co-authored in 1977...

Both President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner say they take full responsibility for the AIG debacle although neither says what he has done wrong or what he would do to correct it. This may be a good sound bite but is meaningless. Actions speak louder than words. Observant people become aware when they interact with children that they rarely respond to merely a lecture. An appropriate consequence consistently enforced works wonders in changing behavior. Witnessing others or experiencing punishment helps us to resist temptation to engage in immoral or criminal behavior. When crime seems to pay, more people join the...

Ever since President Barack Obama released the budget last month, we have been hearing a fusillade of criticism claiming that the president, contrary to previous advertising, is not a centrist, but a "leftie" intent on leading the country down the path of socialism. Let's see. Socialism means public ownership and control of businesses, right? So which industries does the president propose to nationalize? Banking? Well, no. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner has made it clear that he opposes nationalizing banks, despite much outcry from the political left -- and even some from the right -- to do just that....

As Jack Buck once said, "I don't believe what I just saw!" Americans on Nov. 4 turned over control of the United States of America to a management team possessing no executive experience, having never run, as I liked to put it, nothing. Well, Americans usually get the government they deserve, and I urge you all to get ready for this 21st century version of amateur hour. It's going to be an embarrassing and dangerous time for America and American ideals. There won't be much, I'm afraid, to be thankful for. Bill Kristol, writing in The Weekly Standard, reminded me...