Showing posts with label philadelphia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philadelphia. Show all posts

Monday, May 7, 2018

70-Year-Old Grandmother Shoots Intruder: ‘Kill Him Before He Kills Me!’


A 70-year-old grandmother took her safety upon herself and shot an intruder when he broke into her Philadelphia home. Maxine Thompson said the only thing going through her mind was self-preservation: “Kill him before he kills me.”


The entire incident began as Thompson slept in her home. She was awoken at 4:30 am to the sound of someone breaking into her house. “First I thought I was dreaming, and then I looked out the window, outside. I was still hearing the banging, banging, banging, so I yelled to whoever, ‘Who’s that on my door? Get off my door, get off my door,’” Thompson recalled.


Police confirmed Thompson’s recollection, as Fox News reported that a 43-year-old man did try to force his way into her house at that time.


Despite her verbal warnings, the alleged burglar didn’t stop and continued to smash her dining room window and enter her house. Thompson, going into survival mode, grabbed her late mother’s handgun and shot at the suspect. She told Fox 29 it was her first time using the gun. “I shot at him. He turned around and he ran and when he ran, I ran down the steps behind him and shot at him some more,” Thompson recalled. “Kill him before he kills me. That’s what was going through my mind.”


The alleged burglar was struck while Thompson fired at him several times. He ran to a nearby car wash and called the police to report he’d been shot, Fox 29 reported. He was arrested, taken to the hospital and treated for a gunshot wound to his upper arm.


Thompson, whose son is a Philadelphia police officer, said the incident played out within 10 minutes. She recalled how the suspect could have killed her if she didn’t fire the gun.


“After everything was over, then I did get a little shaky. He could’ve killed me,” the grandmother said. Thompson just hopes the intruder will think twice before attempting to violate other’s rights saying she hopes she taught him and other people a lesson. “Stay the hell out of people’s houses,” Thompson said.


As for her broken window, she replied: “I have people that will come and fix this. It’ll be fixed in no time.”

Friday, October 20, 2017

Philly Admits Soda Tax Is Crushing Local Small Businesses, Expanding "Food Deserts"

 Just one week after Chicago shockingly repealed their soda ban following a revolt from local business owners (see: Soda Tax Fizzles In Chicago As Cook County Officials Cast Decisive 15-1 Repeal Vote), it seems that Philadelphia"s flirtations with forming a more perfect "nanny state" via the elimination of sugary drinks could be on a collision course with a similar fate.


As WHYY points out today, a survey conducted by Philadelphia"s Controller Alan Butkovitz — a longtime opponent of the soda tax — found that nine out of 10 businesses reported revenue loss since the city’s sweetened beverage tax took effect earlier this year. Of those reporting revenue loss, 60% of them blamed the soda tax for their woes.








City Controller Alan Butkovitz today released the results of the Philadelphia Beverage Tax survey that found more than 60 percent of businesses indicated a revenue loss as a direct result of the new tax.


 


Of the 650 businesses that reported a decline in year-to-year revenue, more than 400 attributed “most” or “all” of the decline to the implementation of the Beverage Tax.  The majority of these businesses reported revenue losses of more than 10 percent.


 


“The overwhelming majority of businesses that carry products subject to the Philadelphia Beverage Tax feel a significant impact as a result of the tax,” said Controller Butkovitz.  “The tax has had detrimental effects.”


 


Butkovitz’s team, with help from various business groups, reached out to “more than 1,600” businesses that sell or sold taxed beverages. Response was purely voluntary, and 741 businesses filled out questionnaires.


 


“This is not going to be the comprehensive answer to everything, but I think it does create a serious warning and an attestation of what has been stated by a number of the businesses,” he said during a Monday news conference. “Because I think the administration has minimized and ridiculed the idea that businesses are fighting for survival.”



To our great "shock", many Philadelphia grocers reported that customers were simply driving to the suburbs to do their weekly shopping which means that local retailers lost not only their soda sales but everything else as well.


Coments


And, as usual, the Office of the Controller noted that this latest misinformed regulatory overstep by Philly"s liberal elites is most detrimental to the very same people it was intended to help, namely low-income, inner-city families who can"t afford to travel to the suburbs for groceries and who are about to get crushed with higher prices following a wave of business failures.








According to Controller Butkovitz, the areas with the most businesses reporting revenue losses included West Philadelphia along the Market Street and 52nd Street corridors (19139), Hunting Park in North Philadelphia (19140), and areas around Juniata and Frankford (19124).  Many businesses in these neighborhoods reported losses of more than 10 percent.


 


“Consequently, these zipcodes have neighborhoods with some of the highest poverty rates in the city,” said Controller Butkovitz.  “These businesses cannot afford a one percent loss in business – let alone more than 10 percent.


 


“These are also neighborhoods subject to food deserts in Philadelphia. If these stores cannot continue to operate, it will be even more difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.”


 


Grocery stores reported the most revenue losses followed by convenience stores and restaurants.  Forty percent of businesses indicated they would have to make significant changes to keep their doors open.


 


"The tax seems to be impacting behavior and orientation toward the future,” said Controller Butkovitz.  “Many business owners seem apprehensive about the viability of their enterprises in the near and medium term."



Of course, facts have never really had much impact on political discourse in the past so absent an uprising from local business owners, similar to what we saw recently in Chicago, we wouldn"t suggest holding your breadth while waiting for a repeal.


 










Monday, March 20, 2017

Philly Cinco De Mayo Celebrations Canceled Over Trump Immigration Crackdown

Following the Trump administration"s recent federal illegal immigration crackdowns, organizers have canceled El Carnaval de Puebla, a major Cinco De Mayo celebration in Philadelphia.



This week, ICE announced that 248 people in Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia are now in federal custody awaiting deportation after a two-week sweep.



And now, NBC reports that the annual parade through South Philadelphia has taken place in late April or early May for the last decade and is the city’s largest Cinco de Mayo celebration. Organizer Edgar Ramirez said as many as 15,000 gather from as far as New England and Chicago.





“The group of six organizers decided to cancel unanimously,” Ramirez said. “Everyone is offended by the actions of ICE. They did not feel comfortable holding the event.”



The decision to cancel El Carnaval, Ramirez said in an interview Friday, was “sad but responsible” in light of the immigration crackdown by federal authorities.





“We have people who travel all the way from Chicago, Connecticut and New York. We don’t want anything to happen to them,” he said.



ICE Officer Khaalid Walls of the agency"s Philadelphia office said in an email that "ICE’s enforcement actions are targeted and lead driven. ICE does not conduct sweeps or raids that target aliens indiscriminately."


As for a return of Carnaval, organizers will decide sometime in the future if the parade once again dances its way through the heavily Latino Pennsport neighborhood, Ramirez said. “Let"s see how things are next year," he said.

Friday, March 17, 2017

Real-Life American #Pizzagate Exposed, But It’s Not in DC — It’s in Philly

Philadelphia, PA — In 2016, during the presidential election, a theory surfaced online of an alleged child trafficking ring operated out of a Washington D.C. restaurant, Comet Ping Pong. The theory, which went viral, claimed that John Podesta’s emails, which were leaked by WikiLeaks, contained coded messages referring to human trafficking. The restaurant theory was debunked and those who supported labeled as kooks by the mainstream media — especially after a man walked into the Comet Pizzaria and fired a weapon. However, although the DC pizza restaurant was never implicated, a very real and very dangerous location, where children were held captive and forced to perform sex with pedophiles, has just been exposed by a recent lawsuit.


In was has been named the “epicenter of human trafficking” by Philadelphia prosecutors, a motel in Northeast Philly was sued this month for horrifying instances of child trafficking.


In 2014, Philadelphia passed a law allowing victims of sex traffickers to sue hotels and motels where the abuse occurred. And, while it is typically difficult to prove a hotel’s complicity if someone merely rents a room to engage in these horrific acts, this one motel was most assuredly aware.


“This is a message to the entire motel and hotel industry that if you allow and enable trafficking of youngsters, young women, or any person on your facilities, you will be held responsible and sued for damages under the law,” said Center City lawyer Thomas R. Kline.



As Philly.com reported, Kline and two lawyers from the Kline & Specter law firm, Nadeem A. Bezar and Emily B. Marks, announced the filing of the lawsuit on behalf of a 17-year-old girl, identified as “M.B.,” who in 2013, at age 14, was “sold into sexual slavery at the Roosevelt Motel.”


The lawsuit names Roosevelt Inn LLC, the motel’s owner, UFVS Management Co., and the motel’s manager, Yagna Patel.



READ MORE:  Mainstream Media Compares Pedophilia to Being Gay -- Implies that Society Should Accept It



“Once in the hotel, she was forced to stay there for days, sometimes longer than that. Not permitted to go far beyond the room that she was in, and was not allowed to leave the motel,” explained Bezar.


M.B. was unfortunately not alone in her abuse. According to authorities, the hotel has been a hotbed for child sex trafficking, yet, somehow, it is still allowed to operate.


“Almost every trafficking investigation we have, we see the victim is at Roosevelt Inn,” Assistant District Attorney Erin O’Brien said. “I know our vice officers are out there on a regular basis.”



In some instances, hotel workers were even taking tips from the traffickers, according to the lawsuit. However, the manager, Patel, 72, claims he was not aware of any such ring.


According to Philly.com



Kline and Bezar said they found it hard to believe that Patel could not know what was going on in his 107-room, two-story motel. “Johns” were directed to the teenager’s room after inquiring in the lobby and security cameras inside and out would have shown a steady queue of men going in and out of her room.



The teen, sometimes scantily dressed, wandered the halls while the room was being cleaned and befriended some of the motel staff. Some staff even accepted gratuities from the girl’s pimp, Klein said.



“This was open, obvious and notorious,” Klein said. “It is a flagrant and blatant example of a motel looking the other way — profiting from it and allowing it to occur.”


The child, who is now 17-years-old is suing for $50,000.


As the Free Thought Project has previously pointed out, pedophilia among the elite is rampant. The problem has gotten so bad in England that officials issued an order last month to stop naming streets and landmarks after local heroes and politicians because they could later be exposed as pedophiles.



READ MORE:  UK Bans Naming Streets After Politicians, Heroes In Case They Get Exposed as Pedophiles



In February, the Free Thought Project reported on the fact that the police chief recently came forward and confirmed that the former Prime Minister of England, Sir Edward Heath, had raped dozens of children. The department also noted how those within the government helped cover up these crimes.



In December, we reported on the massive child sex ring that was blown apart in Norway. That investigation quickly led to arrests of “51 people, all men, (who) are so far involved in the case. 24 of them come from Hordaland and Sogn og Fjordane. 26 come from other areas of Norway, from Southeast to Finnmark in the north. Among the accused offenders, there is also one Swedish national. Two politicians, one Labor politician from Oslo and a former national Progress Party (FrP) politician from Eastern Norway are involved in the case.” One is also a kindergarten teacher, and four of the 51 arrested were perpetrators in the video evidence collected.


Domestically, these higher level arrests are few and far between as anytime ‘the elite’ are mentioned alongside the term ‘pedophile,’ the Praetorian guard, aka the corporate media, shout down all those who dare pose any questions.


However, even though the media won’t report on it, these disgusting child predators are so vile they are hard to ignore.


In January, admitted child rapist and former speaker of the house who is currently in jail, Dennis Hastert came across our radar after he demanded one of the children he raped pay back the hush money given to him by Hastert — because he broke his silence about the rape.



READ MORE:  VIDEO: 50-Year-old Man Flexes His Rights as He"s Swarmed by Cops For Legally Open Carrying



When the victim, known only as ‘Individial A,’ broke his silence, Hastert’s child rapes were exposed — resulting in the subsequent prosecution.


“To the extent any contract existed between plaintiff [Individual A] and defendant [Hastert], plaintiff breached that contract,” Hastert’s lawyers wrote.


“Plaintiff’s breach of conduct resulted in damages to defendant and plaintiff is accordingly required to return $1.7 million to defendant.”


Individual A did not go public with this information — he merely spoke to the FBI after the transactions were uncovered by investigators. However, this sicko couldn’t care less about airing this repugnant grievance in the public forum as it was almost entirely ignored by the media.


There was also another massive pedophilia scandal in the United States in what became known as the Franklin child sex ring coverup. Once the FBI took over the investigation from state authorities, however, it turned into a witch hunt to persecute the child victims – going so far as to charge them with perjury in a successful attempt to scare the other 70+ victims to recant their testimony regarding the child sex ring.



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However, if you read the Washington Post or watch CNN, pedophilia is not a problem and those who talk about it are perpetuating ‘fake news.’



Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project. , Steemit, and now on Facebook.

Monday, January 2, 2017

The 2016 Democratic National Convention: Voices from the Streets of Philadelphia

The Democratic Party: An Insidious Threat to the Occupy Wall Street Movement

Voting for the lesser evil kind of slows you down as you’re circling the drain but it doesn’t give you any shot to get out!


Bernie Sanders supporter Clea Cooper (from this week’s report.)


This Global Research News Hour special is a rebroadcast from August 2016.


It helps provide some under-reported perspectives from grassroots activists,  most notably Bernie Sanders supporters, offended by the choice of Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the methods employed by the Democratic Party to thwart the democratic will of the general membership.


As an added year end feature, we include footage from Philadelphia, unaired until now. 


Please support independent journalism. Support the Global Research News Hour during host station CKUW’s February Fundrive.


https://ckuw.ca/donate


The Democratic Party may have presented themselves as a unified force to go after Republican Donald Trump in November, but such unity was not evident in the streets of Philadelphia.


Legions of people collected in the streets of Philadelphia to express their concerns as the Democratic National Convention got underway the week of July 25th.


Above and beyond the sentiments expressed by climate and social justice activists, many supporters of Bernie Sanders had arrived in the city. Not only did many of them criticize Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton for policies revolving around the 2009 coup in Honduras, support for fracking, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), they blasted the former first lady and the Democratic Party over the revelation that the Democrats had rigged the race on the Democratic side in favour of Ms. Clinton.


As someone who was in the streets that week, I discovered that Bernie Sanders had broad support on the ground, while Hillary Clinton had virtually none. Sanders supporters were by and large hostile to Hillary, even declaring they would vote for (Green presidential candidate) Jill Stein.


LISTEN TO THE SHOW



Length (59:00)


Click to download the audio (MP3 format)


On this special summertime edition of the Global Research News Hour, we bring you audio from some of those Sanders supporters as well as environmental and other activists.


The audio recorded in this report contains interviews with and sound from a clean energy march, an outdoor of a Black Resistance march,  and an act of civil disobedience.  Listeners exposed to propaganda of a party united behind Clinton may wish to consult this report to get a more balanced sense of what happened that week.




LISTEN TO THE SHOW



Length (59:00)


Click to download the audio (MP3 format)


The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . The show can be heard on the Progressive Radio Network at prn.fm. Listen in every Monday at 3pm ET.


Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:


CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT


Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.


Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1  Thursdays at 1pm ET


Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.


It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in every Saturday at 6am.


Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.


CORTES COMMUNITY RADIO CKTZ  89.5 out of Manson’s Landing, B.C airs the show Tuesday mornings at 10am Pacific time.


Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 6am pacific time.


Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.


Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca