Pennsylvania Politics News

We've referred many times on this blog to the Stupak Amendment, but actually it's the Stupak-Pitts Amendment and the "Pitts" is one Joe Pitts: a Republican in PA's 16th Congressional District.

Pitts has a challenger:

Lois Herr is no Blue Dog and she can use your help -- especially tomorrow -- at this rally:
A rally against the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to the U.S. House Healthcare reform bill is being held on Saturday, Nov. 21 at 10:30 AM in West Chester.

The rally, to be held this Saturday, is co-sponsored by the National Organization for Women (NOW) and Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates. Lois will be a featured speaker at the rally.

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You can find the transcript here.

Here's how things began:
MADDOW: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office,” “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” This is such strong language in secular terms about President Obama. Can you tell me if this means something less threatening to people hearing this in a biblical context?

SCHAEFFER: No, actually, it means something more threatening. I think the situation that I find genuinely frightening right now is that you have a ramping up of biblical language—language from the antiabortion movement, for instance, death panels and this sort of thing.

From The Christian Science Monitor:

There’s a new slogan making its way onto car bumpers and across the Internet. It reads simply: “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8”

A nice sentiment?

Maybe not.

The psalm reads, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”

Presidential criticism through witty slogans is nothing new. Bumper stickers, t-shirts, and hats with “1/20/09” commemorated President Bush’s last day in office.

But the verse immediately following the psalm referenced is a bit more ominous: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”

This part I don't understand at all:

Still, that doesn’t push the Psalms citation into the realm of hate speech, says Chris Hansen, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Pittsburgh's predominately African American Hill District neighborhood has been without a grocery store for 30 plus years. A year ago, it looked like they'd finally found an operator in Kuhn's Market but the deal has fallen through.

Kuhn's Market says that it's due to one of the owners of the chain of nine stores having cancer.

KDKA radio personality Fred Honsberger (via a FaceBook message) -- surprise, surprise -- is trying to blame it on recent talk of a prevailing wage law in City Council even though the Post-Gazette reports that "the plan began to stall over the summer."

Having lived in neighborhoods in NYC which were predominately minority and low income (Alphabet City, Harlem, etc.