Tag: pennsylvania

Michigan and Penn. Capitol Sent Bomb Threats, Staffers Blame the FBI

The Michigan and Pennsylvania state capitols were both evacuated on Sunday after receiving bomb threats, “in the name of Palestine,” but some doubt the threats were genuine, blaming the FBI instead.

The Gateway Pundit spoke to Michigan State Rep. Steve Carra, who said that the threat, if genuine, demonstrates the left’s commitment to political violence. The Michigan capitol has been the scene of angry pro-Palestine demonstrations in recent months.

“The radical left threatens death and destruction in an attempt to get their way and plants operatives at conservative rallies to incite violence, making it look like conservatives are extremists. Then government and the mainstream media pushes their narrative over the truth,” he said.

Rep. Carra continued that the threat could just as easily have been another operation led by the FBI, like the Gretchen Whitmer “kidnapping” plot, to sow confusion and political division.

He described such behaviour as “treasonous activity” and added, “quite frankly it’s repulsive that mainstream media aids and abets this dangerous behavior by peddling disinformation narratives instead of reporting on facts.”

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Nonpartisan Election Validity Group Files Landmark Lawsuit in Pennsylvania

United Sovereign Americans, Inc., a nonpartisan, all-volunteer election validity advocate group, and two Pennsylvania residents, have filed a Writ of Mandamus, directed to the following Pennsylvania officials and organizations – Secretary of the Commonwealth, the Bureau of Elections, the Bureau of Election Security and Technology, the Department of State, and the state Attorney General.

They have also named Attorney General Merrick Garland and the United States Department of Justice as additional “Respondents.”

They are claiming that the officials named above are not performing their duty to follow existing laws that safeguard our elections.

“A writ of mandamus is a judicial remedy in the English and American common law system consisting of a court order that commands a government official or entity to perform an act it is legally required to perform as part of its official duties, or to refrain from performing an act the law forbids it from doing. Writs of mandamus are usually used in situations where a government official has failed to act as legally required or has taken a legally prohibited action.”

The Petitioners assert, “The Congress of the United States has outlined the minimum standards which must be maintained by every state in order for a federal election to be considered reliable. As outlined below, in Pennsylvania’s 2022 federal election those minimum standards were not met by commonwealth election officials rendering the certified election results that year unreliable. Respondents in their official capacities engaged in insufficient efforts to ensure that the 2022 performance is not repeated in subsequent federal elections beginning in 2024.”

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PLANNING THE STEAL: ACLU Sues Pennyslvania to Force Counties to Count Fraudulent Mail-In Ballots

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sued the state of Pennsylvania in an effort to try and force counties to count votes with errors that would otherwise be invalidated.

PHL17 reports that the lawsuit is seeking to challenge a provision in the law that states that voters must write the correct date on the envelope of their mail-in ballot.

According to ACLU attorney Steve Loney, ensuring the correct date is written on the ballot “means nothing” and should be discounted.

“When something buts up against the Constitution, the Constitution wins,” said ACLU attorney Steve Loney. “So here we have a requirement that people have to sign and date. And include a handwritten date that means nothing.”

“Right, everybody agrees that we’re talking about tens of thousands of ballots that were received on time. They complied with every other step in the process. And this one step means nothing.”

Around 8,000 mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania from the 2022 midterm elections were rejected for errors with dates and signatures.

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Deranged Leftists Attack Team Trump Volunteers, Flip Over Tables Outside Kamala Harris’ Event in Pennsylvania 

A deranged leftist violently lunged at Team Trump volunteers on Tuesday outside of Kamala Harris’ event in Philadelphia.

Kamala Harris traveled to Philadelphia to deliver a keynote speech to workers at the SEIU Quadrennial Convention in Center City.

Team Trump set up shop outside of the event and the leftists were not happy.

One leftist lunged at Team Trump volunteers.

Leftists got violent and flipped over Team Trump’s tables outside of the venue hosting Kamala Harris.

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50,000 Votes Turned at the Flip of a Switch: Forensic Expert Claims Massive Fraud in Pennsylvania in 2020 Election

A warehouse supervisor is alleged to have entered a Pennsylvania voting precinct shortly after the 2020 election and used a portable vDrive to flip more than 50,000 votes.

Patrick Webb discussed the allegations in detail on Twitter today. The allegations come from a computer forensic expert called Greg Stenstrom, who testified under oath about what he saw.

At least two other people provided corroborating testimony about the man in question, Jim Savage.

One person claims that during a training session, Savage “held up a vDrive and stated that it controls all of the votes, and that you could change an election with this.”

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Outrage Erupts When Pennsylvania Authorities Toss 2 Farmers in Prison on 30-day Sentences

Authorities claim there’s no need for sentencing hearing, bail option

A state legal action in Pennsylvania is sparking outrage, online and elsewhere, for the result it demanded: Two farmers arrested and jailed on 30-day sentences with no sentencing hearing and no option for bail.

Authorities say that’s the process they use for contempt charges, for which Ethan Wentworth of Airville, York County, and Rusty Herr of Christiana, Lancaster County, have been serving time since last month.

Broadcast outlet WPMT in Harrisburg reported the government’s complaint concerns their company, NoBull Solutions, which offers to help dairy farmers with their reproductive management of cattle.

Their lawyer, Robert Barnes, charges, “This is the craziest thing I’ve every seen.”

The fight apparently stems from allegations the two were practicing veterinary medicine without a license for running ultrasound test on cattle, a procedure that is common for farmers to use for various reasons.

The result was an investigation by the state of Pennsylvania, where officials demanded that the two turn over their records.

They failed to do what state officials demanded, and the report notes that resulted in contempt orders against the men.

The state’s court officials told the broadcast outlet that there is no option for bail, and no “sentencing hearing” required for contempt charges. Authorities simply arrest the suspects and jail them, the report said.

Eventually, a judge signed arrest warrants for the two, as well as orders to jail them in their respective counties, warrants that just recently were executed.

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This Elderly Man Was Arrested After Shooting a Burglar in Self-Defense—Because His Gun Was Unlicensed

Dennis Powanda and Vincent Yakaitis are bound together by a common experience: They were both criminally charged in connection with an attempted burglary. Powanda was the burglar, and Yakaitis was the property owner.

Ah, justice.

Indeed, that’s not a misprint, parody, or a bad joke (although I wish it were the latter). Powanda was arrested and charged with criminal trespass and burglary, along with other related offenses, for executing the botched raid a little before 2:00 a.m. in February 2023 at Yakaitis’ property in Port Carbon, Pennsylvania. The government charged Yakaitis, who is in his mid-70s, with using a firearm without a license after he shot Powanda, despite that it appears prosecutors agree Yakaitis justifiably used that same firearm in self-defense.

Whatever your vantage point—whether you care about criminal justice reform and a fair legal system, or gun rights, or all of the above—it is difficult to make sense of arresting and potentially imprisoning someone over what essentially amounts to a paperwork violation. That injustice is even more glaring when considering that Powanda, 40, allegedly charged at Yakaitis, who happens to be about three and a half decades older than Powanda.

Pennsylvania’s permitting regime does carve out a couple of exceptions, one of which would seem to highly favor Yakaitis. Someone does not need a license to carry, according to the law, “in his place of abode or fixed place of business.” Yakaitis owned the home Powanda attempted to burglarize. The catch: He didn’t live there—it reportedly had no tenants at the time of the crime—opening a window for law enforcement to charge him essentially on a technicality.

If convicted, Yakaitis faces up to five years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Quite the price to pay for protecting your life on your own property. The misdemeanor charge also implies that Yakaitis has no history of using his weapon inappropriately, or any criminal record at all, as Pennsylvania law classifies his particular crime—carrying a firearm without a license—as a felony if the defendant has prior criminal convictions and would be disqualified from obtaining such a license. In other words, we can deduce that Yakaitis was a law-abiding citizen and eligible for a permit, which means he is staring down five years in a cell for not turning in a form and paying a fee to local law enforcement. OK.

Yakaitis is not the first such case. In June, law enforcement in New York charged Charles Foehner with so many gun possession crimes that if convicted on all of them he would face life in prison. Police came to be aware of his unlicensed firearms when Foehner defended himself against an attempted mugger—the surveillance footage is here—after which they searched Foehner’s home and found that only some of his weapons were licensed with the state.

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Pennsylvania National Guard Members Deploy to Africa

U.S. Soldiers from the Pennsylvania National Guard’s 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team recently deployed to Africa to support Special Operations Command Africa.

Task Force Iroquois teams include nine Soldiers going to Somalia in the Horn of Africa and five going to Benin in West Africa.

“Over our time together, we’ve formed a cohesive team that works hard to complete the mission and looks out for one another,” said Lt. Col. Mark Kurzawa, Horn of Africa Forward Logistical Element officer-in-charge.

Since January, task force members have participated in 14 drill days, 14 days of annual training, and an eight-day pre-deployment site survey in Germany and Africa. They have also completed maintenance, culinary, finance, unit movement, hazardous materials, and vehicle recovery courses based on their roles.

“The important thing to know about this mission is it’s being executed for the first time,” said Kurzawa. “We’ve had no previous unit to give us guidance.”

Usually in a deployment, there is a larger unit and a culminating training exercise to validate the unit’s training. However, in this case, the Soldiers are validated on individual tasks because they will be going out in small teams in outstation locations and doing skills specific to their military occupational specialty.

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Pennsylvania GOP Senator’s Bill Would Let Medical Marijuana Patients Get Gun Carry Permits

A Republican senator in Pennsylvania has formally introduced a bill meant to remove state barriers to medical marijuana patients carrying firearms after previewing the legislation and soliciting co-sponsors earlier this year.

Sen. Dan Laughlin (R) introduced SB 1146 on Wednesday, which state Senate Republicans noted in a press release was also 2A Day, celebrating the Constitution’s Second Amendment.

The GOP statement called the proposal “a bold step toward ensuring the rights of all citizens,” saying it “acknowledges the importance of the right to bear arms, a fundamental aspect of American freedom.”

“My legislation will make sure a valid medical marijuana cardholder is no longer considered an unlawful marijuana user,” Laughlin said in the release. “Although marijuana remains illegal under federal law, we should be updating Pennsylvania’s laws to ensure valid medical marijuana cardholders are not denied their rights.”

The two-page bill would amend the Pennsylvania’s Uniform Firearms Act, which currently says a concealed carry license “shall not be issued” to someone who “is addicted to or is an unlawful user of marijuana.” SB 1146 would add that “the term ‘unlawful user of marijuana’ does not include an individual who holds a valid identification card” under the state’s medical marijuana act.

It would also add a qualifier to a provision barring carry permits for an “individual who is prohibited from possessing or acquiring a firearm under the statutes of the United States,” asserting that the restriction “shall not apply” to someone prohibited from gun ownership “based solely on the individual’s status as a holder of a valid identification card” for medical marijuana.

The changes would take effect 60 days after becoming law.

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Teacher sues after he’s convicted of putting ‘For Sale’ sign in truck window

A retired Pennsylvania teacher is suing his local government after he was convicted of a criminal charge for putting a “For Sale” sign in his truck window.

Will Cramer teamed up with the Institute for Justice last week to take legal action against the borough of Nazareth over its ordinance, claiming that it’s a violation of his First Amendment rights, according to the nonprofit law firm.

Cramer had put the sign in his 1987 Chevy Deluxe last October and received a ticket stating that parking a vehicle in public “for the purposes” of selling it was illegal.

“It made no sense to me that I could park my truck on the street legally, but as soon as I put a ‘For Sale’ sign in the window, it became illegal,” said Cramer, who was found guilty by a judge after trying to fight his ticket.

“This lawsuit is bigger than me, it’s about standing up for the free speech rights of everybody in Nazareth.” 

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