Free Republic

WEIRTON, West Virginia -- Most people in this town will tell you they'd rather have taken a physical punch to the gut than get the news they received yesterday when Cleveland-Cliffs Steel announced it was idling its tinplate production plant, a move that directly cost 900 people their jobs. .. It isn't just those workers who face catastrophic uncertainty; this closure also jeopardizes the jobs of thousands more people whose businesses supported the plant: the barber shops, gas stations, mom-and-pop grocery stores, the machine shops that make the widgets for the steel industry. And there's also the demise of the...

Congressional candidate Bhavini Patel’s campaign said a planned Feb. 7 appearance at the University of Pittsburgh was called off the night before because of concerns about “disruption." Patel, who is a Pitt alumna, had been slated to speak Wednesday evening as part of an alumni speaker series hosted by Pitt's Frederick Honors College. But she said in social media postings that Pitt had “canceled my speaking engagement citing concerns of disruption and my safety." The university has asked Patel to reschedule the event for later in the year. But she said Wednesday night that, "It saddens me that I couldn’t...

PITTSBURGH — Starting Monday, the city of Pittsburgh says it will no longer respond to 911 calls that are not related to "in progress emergencies."According to a press release titled "Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Makes Operational Changes to Better Serve Pittsburgh," the city will create a "Telephone Reporting Unit" (TRU) to dispatch calls that do not require an in-person response by officers."TRU will NOT be assigned to any 'In Progress' call where a suspect may be on scene, any crime where a person may need medical aid, any domestic dispute, calls with evidence, or where the Mobile Crime Unit will...

Beginning Monday, Pittsburgh police won’t respond to any calls that aren’t in progress emergencies. Chief Larry Scirotto wants to cut their call volume from approximately 200,000 calls per year down to about 50,000. That essentially means that calls for criminal mischief, theft, harassment and burglary alarms, just to name a few, will all be handled by the telephone reporting unit or online reporting.

A township ordinance that limits firing guns to indoor and outdoor shooting ranges and zoning that significantly restricts where the ranges can be located does not violate the Second Amendment, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The man who challenged Stroud Township's gun laws, Jonathan Barris, began to draw complaints about a year after he moved to the home in the Poconos in 2009 and installed a shooting range on his 5-acre property. An officer responding to a complaint said the range had a safe backstop but the targets were in line with a large box store in a nearby shopping...

The Animation Guild (IATSE Local 839) on Wednesday became the first Hollywood union to formally call for a Gaza ceasefire as it signed a labor movement petition addressing the conflict. The guild announced the move in a statement posted to the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, the Wrap was the first to report. The union’s post included a link to a labor movement petition calling for the return of hostages taken by Hamas, for President Joe Biden to immediately call for a ceasefire, and for “the basic rights of people” in Gaza to be restored.

It has been clear for quite some time that the Biden regime, despite its show of support for Israel, is really on the side of Hamas. Now the regime is in serious talks to respond to Hamas’ brutal and inhuman murder of 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023 by giving it the biggest reward of all: a Palestinian state.If you are skeptical that Old Joe and his henchmen are really on Hamas’ side, consider the fact that, in November, they enabled the release of ten billion dollars in frozen funds to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas’ primary financier. That...

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) panned Democrats who are upping their criticisms of President Biden ahead of the November election, saying they might as well don a “MAGA hat.” Fetterman noted during an interview an uptick in Democrats who have become more critical of Biden lately, and said it’s only helping former President Trump. “I don’t understand why,” Fetterman said, speaking on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC. “I don’t know what’s in it for you to do that whether you’re just chasing clout or you want to make it in the news or anything like that. But if you’re not willing to...

Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) has been criticized by conservatives for opposing measures that would crack down on illegal immigration as the Keystone State experiences a “surge” of illegal immigrant crime. Sean Parnell, a conservative who previously ran for Senate, shared a news report about how illegal alien gangs are stealing “large quantities of merchandise” from across the state. Parnell noted that Casey in 2021 opposed a measure ensuring that illegal alien criminals would not be granted amnesty.

First daughter Ashley Biden has paid off a tax lien for more than $5,000 in Pennsylvania after missing payments during her father’s vice presidency and presidency. The Keystone State’s Department of Revenue recorded that the $5,079 lien had been satisfied as of Jan. 3 and “should be removed” from records in Philadelphia County’s Court of Common Pleas, Fox News reported Tuesday. Ashley Biden, 42, had the legal claim placed on her property in a Dec. 1 notice previously obtained by The Post for failing to pay $1,691 in income taxes in 2015 — when Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s No....

A new Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey in Pennsylvania finds 45% of voters support former President Trump in a 2024 potential presidential election, while 43% support President Biden.

Dauphin County Magisterial District Judge Sonya M. McKnight, 57, is facing a case of modus operandi this week. However, the suspect showing the alleged pattern of criminal conduct is herself. McKnight is accused of shooting her ex-boyfriend in the head while he slept. The shooting took place five years after McKnight was cleared in the shooting of her former husband in the groin. Michael McCoy, 54, was left blind in one eye and, according to the New York Post, McKnight tried to convince him that he had shot himself while he was sleeping. The two were living together and McCoy...

A green nonprofit that is indirectly funded by a foreign billionaire is pressuring broadcasters to drop advertisements that criticize the Biden administration’s massive electric vehicle (EV) agenda. Climate Power wrote to numerous broadcasters this week demanding that they stop airing American Fuel and Petrochemicals Manufacturers (AFPM)-funded advertisements in swing state markets that rail against President Joe Biden’s plans to impose widespread EV adoption in the coming years. The charitable organization affiliated with Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss health care mogul and billionaire philanthropist, donates millions of dollars to the Fund for a Better Future, which was the fiscal sponsor for Climate...

Republican David McCormick is on the verge of clinching the GOP nomination for one of the most competitive Senate races in the 2024 cycle, with a Tuesday filing deadline in Pennsylvania and no challengers in sight. Why it matters: McCormick's challenge to Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) is expected to be one of the most expensive and competitive races this year — in a swing state that could determine control of the Senate and the presidency. • McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO, was the runner-up in 2022's Senate GOP primary in Pennsylvania, losing to Trump-backed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz. •...

Almost $60 million in debt backed by 1515 Market St. was transferred to special servicing in December, adding the 20-story building to the growing list of distressed office properties surrounding City Hall. The building's owner, Florida-based Accesso Partners, has a $59.4 million balance on the loan it took out to acquire 1515 Market for $85 million in 2014. The loan, which was originated by JPMorgan Chase & Co. before being converted into a commercial mortgage-backed security (CMBS) and sold to investors, is set to mature in January 2025. Contacted by the Business Journal for comment, Accesso issued a statement saying...

Secretary of State John Kerry said this morning that the Obama administration is "open" to considering the extradition of a Poconos scholar accused by the Turkish regime of being behind Friday's coup attempt.Kerry said on NBC's Meet the Press that the U.S. has asked President Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to become more authoritarian in response to the coup.Hurriyet Daily News reported that Erdogan has detained some 6,000 soldiers, judges and prosecutors in less than 48 hours. They're being charged with “membership of an armed terrorist organization” and “attempting to overthrow the government of the Turkish Republic using force and violence...

Anne-Marie Slaughter, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s director of policy planning, now denies she endorsed Today’s Zaman, the flagship newspaper of Fethullah Gülen’s Islamist cult. Here is a google cache record with Prof. Slaughter’s endorsement, and here is the page now, with Professor Slaughter’s endorsement excised. Professor Slaughter denies she made the endorsementThere are two possible explanations: (1) Professor Slaughter is being truthful, and Today’s Zaman simply made it all up. If so, this suggests that the ethics of Zaman and the organization which sponsors it are non-existent. (2) Professor Slaughter asked for the retraction only after learning about Today’s...

The University of Pennsylvania is embroiled in yet another scandal in the wake of October 7: communications school lecturer Dwayne Booth is under fire for political cartoons that critics say are antisemitic. One of Booth’s illustrations, entitled “Slaughterhouse,” shows Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with red glowing eyes, covered in blood and holding a knife. The controversial images were published on Booth’s personal website, crowncrack.com, where he uses the pseudonym Mr. Fish.

You just can’t make this stuff up, folks! This video shows an allegedly drunken PA Democrat Rep. Kevin Boyle. He’s yelling at the female staffers, cussing at them, threatening to shut down the bar, and accusing them of being military agents. I don’t know what he had to drink, but I think he’s gotta cross that one of his list of allowed beverages. This jabroni just can’t handle his beverages like a real man. And come on, look at that creepy mustache the dude has. He’s putting too much of that small peen energy out there and no one is...

A state lawmaker is 'seeking help' after screeching 'Do you know who I am?' and threatening to close down a bar whose staff asked him to leave. Kevin Boyle, a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, then abused patrons and uttered bizarre conspiracies - all caught on camera. No one was spared in his three-minute tirade in which he called them everything from 'idiots' and 'morons' to 'traitors' and 'actors' - with his rant liberally-peppered with f-words too. He threatened to 'end this bar' and to block the promotions of who he wrongly thought were military drinking at...