After grand jury report, a flurry of new tips emerge on clergy sex abuse

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Aug. 19, 2018

Link: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/faith-religion/2018/08/19/Pennsylvania-catholic-church-diocese-clergy-priests-child-sex-abuse-grand-jury/stories/201808170163

HARRISBURG — Almost as soon as the phone number flashed onscreen at a press conference about the blistering grand jury report examining Roman Catholic dioceses, calls began pouring into the clergy abuse hotline.

The staff of state Attorney General Josh Shapiro shuffled workers around, pulling in specially trained agents from its Child Predator unit to help sift through tips about misdeeds by religious officials.

By week’s end, 17 people were staffing the hotline and they had received more than 300 calls and emails — and the number was still growing. It was the single largest surge in calls since the line was created two years ago, following a similarly scathing report.

“Our agents will call and speak to every person who has called the hotline, hear the facts and investigate where appropriate,” Joe Grace, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, which staffs the line, said Friday.

Current Pennsylvania law allows criminal charges in some cases, depending on how long ago the incident happened, to be filed up until the victim’s 50th birthday.

There is one bill in the state legislature that would eliminate the criminal statute of limitations in most future cases — in effect, adopting one of the grand jury’s key recommendations. Such efforts have stalled in past, as they often get tied to controversial measures that would also offer windows for older survivors to sue — a measure championed by victims’ advocates by staunchly opposed by the church and insurance industry, who have argued it could deliver a crushing financial blow.

House Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana, has promised to bring the bill up for a vote when the House returns this fall, noting that it will likely be revised based on the grand jury’s recommendations. It’s too early to know exactly what the revised bill will look like.

In the meantime, the attorney general’s office will continue to field calls and emails relating to clergy abuse. In addition to their normal hours, agents are scheduled to work in the evenings and through this weekend.

“It is our plan to be responsive to every single call,” Grace said.

Anyone with information can contact the Clergy Abuse Hotline by calling 888-538-8541 (a toll-free number) or sending an email to info@attorneygeneral.gov.

Lifelong Republican tells CNN that Trump has driven him to vote for Democrats for the first time

Source: RawStory (as told to CNN)

Paul Rosenzweig, an attorney who formerly served as senior counsel to Kenneth Starr during the Whitewater investigation into former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, told CNN on Monday that he’ll be voting for Democrats at the national level for the first time ever this fall.

During an interview with CNN’s John Berman, Rosenzweig explained that he was appalled by the recently released recordings of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) saying that his top job is to protect President Donald Trump from oversight.

“It’s the abdication of responsibility,” Rosenzweig explained about his decision to ditch the GOP this year. “The Republican Party seems to me to no longer deserve my support, or frankly the support of anybody who thinks that the legislative branch should act as a check and a balance against executive authoritarianism. Essentially Rep. Nunes has said aloud what everybody is assuming, which is that his only goal — and apparently the only goal of the party — is to defend the president no matter what.”

In particular, he said that Nunes’ obedience to Trump was completely at odds with the Constitution’s framework of Congress serving as a co-equal branch of government alongside the presidency.

- more at link -

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/2018/08/lifelong-republican-tells-cnn-trump-driven-vote-democrats-first-time/

FRIDAY jokes for old ladies

Hi friends! From time to time my dear friend (an older woman) sends me her forwarded emails just like you get from your mom or your grandma. Once in awhile her jokes are good enough to share with you.

I haven't posted anything for a couple of months, but today I got some pretty good ones:




















































Happy Friday everyone! Have a great weekend!

Trump snubs Sen. Casey over bill signing ceremony

Link: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-nation/2018/08/02/Trump-snubs-senator-Bob-Casey-jobs-bill-signing-pennsylvania/stories/201808020117

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 8/2/2018

President Donald Trump invited Democratic and Republican Congress members to watch him sign a jobs-training bill Tuesday but snubbed the U.S. senator from Scranton who worked hard on the legislation.

Sen. Bob Casey, whose election opponent the president will stump for Thursday in Wilkes-Barre, wasn’t invited to the Oval Office to see Trump sign the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act into law, said Jacklin Rhoads, Casey’s deputy communications director.

“While it is disappointing the White House chose to play politics with this bill signing, Sen. Casey is pleased he was able to work in a bipartisan fashion to reauthorize this important legislation for the first time in 12 years, ensuring students and workers have the skills they need to get family-sustaining jobs,” Rhoads said in an emailed statement.

Casey was the bill’s Democratic co-author. The bipartisan bill aims to overhaul education and training for the first time since 2006 for students interested in technical careers.

By all accounts, Casey, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which oversaw the bill, worked long and hard on the bill. U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, and the committee chairman, credited Casey for working with Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, to come up with a bipartisan compromise.

“They have worked hard to reach a bipartisan result and should receive the recognition they deserve for it,” Alexander said, according to an online transcript of his Senate comments in the Congressional Record. “I would also like to thank Ivanka Trump for her leadership in helping create an environment where we could get a result.”

Rhoads said the White House invited U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington, the top-ranked Democrat on the HELP committee, but not Casey. Murray did not attend the ceremony, but let Casey know she was invited, Rhoads said.

Bookmark this: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

Link: https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-delete-your-facebook-instagram-twitter-snapchat/

Wired / March 12, 2018 / Gordon Gottsegen and Josie Colt
"How to Make a Clean Break with the Clingiest Social Networks"

Facebook
Now, to permanently delete your account, you'll need to learn where the delete option resides. The easiest way to find it is by clicking the "Quick Help" icon in the top-right corner, then the "Search" icon. When you see the search field, type “delete account.” You'll see a list of search results. Click on "How do I permanently delete my account?" and Facebook will give you the obscure instructions to “log into your account and let us know.” In this case, “let us know” is code for “delete my account,” so click on that link. From here, the final steps are clear: Enter your password and solve the security captcha, and your request to permanently delete your account is underway.

Yes, you read that right—it's just a request. Facebook delays the deletion process for a few days after you submit your request, and will cancel your request if you log into your account during that time period. You know, just in case you change your mind. It's crucial that you don't visit Facebook during this waiting period. Delete the app from your phone.

If you want to delete your account but don't want to lose all your account information, download all your crucial data first. The information you can download includes everything from the photos and statuses you post, to the ads you’ve clicked and the IP addresses you’ve used. The list of what’s included is extensive, but you can view it in its entirety here. Also, due to the nature of this data, you’ll want to keep it in a safe place.

To download your account, go into Settings> General Account Settings > Download a copy of your Facebook data and then click “Start My Archive.” When your download is ready, Facebook will send you an email with a link to download. For added security, this link will expire after a few days, so download it quickly.

Am I the only one who can't find Montenegro on the map?

(Poll) If Cheeto should be convicted of a capital crime, how should his sentence be carried out?

Study Says Coffee Increases Longevity, Just Don't Caffeine Yourself to Death Like Balzac

(link) http://www.grubstreet.com/2018/07/study-says-coffee-may-increase-longevity.html

/file

Coffee is many things. A finalist in the World Cup of Best Ice Cream Flavors. The only thing keeping you awake right now. A stimulant to which we’re all terribly, terribly addicted. It’s also, according to the latest food study, the fountain of youth humanity has sought for centuries and even crossed oceans for. To think: It was roasted bean water all along!

The study by the United Kingdom’s National Cancer Institute purports that drinking coffee can help you live longer. The study surveyed 500,000 adults in Britain, and found that after a ten-year period the coffee drinkers had a, uh, lower risk of death than non-coffee drinkers. Of course, everyone has the same risk of death, which is 100 percent.

Those surveyed answered questions about their coffee, smoking, and drinking habits and medical history, among other things. The coffee drinkers of all levels were 10 to 15 percent less likely to die than those who didn’t drink coffee. But! The great news is that, according to the study, in the meantime you can continue to be a caffeine addict and drink up to eight cups of coffee a day in your efforts to live longer.

Look, it seems like there’s a food or drink study for anything you want to believe is good for you. Food companies fund studies to prove that their goods are healthy; one major producer of studies, Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab, was found to be publishing shoddy research. So, broadly speaking, take these studies with lots of grains of salt, which is good for your blood pressure! Coffee alone has been the subject of other studies claiming that it’s good for your heart, prevents liver disease, and more.

Appreciation thread for Pittsburgh editorial cartoonist Rob Rogers

Hi Penn friends!

I just posted this article in General Discussion with an update for Rob Rogers:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210834254

Appreciation thread for Pittsburgh editorial cartoonist Rob Rogers

Rob Rogers had been the popular editorial cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette for 25 years, but he was recently fired for political reasons. The new editorial director of the Post Gazette refused to publish about 3 weeks of Rob's cartoons because they were considered "anti-Trump", and then he was let go in mid-June.

Read more here: (link) https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rob-rogers-pittsburgh-post-gazette-cartoonist-fired/

Rogers is still drawing his popular cartoons and sharing them on his website here: (link) http://robrogers.com/

Many Rogers toons have a liberal/Democratic/anti-Trump feel to them, while others deal with local Pittsburgh issues of one stripe or another. His popular cartoon series called "Brewed on Grant" satirize Pittsburgh city and county politics, and occasionally he'll do a toon for one of our beloved sports teams. Meanwhile Rogers is lining up paying work by getting published in a new liberal start-up publication called Pittsburgh Current which should be hitting the streets this week. Rogers also has a crowdfunding effort with support from many of his fans on Pantreon.

Here are just a few of Rob's recent toons that can be seen on his website, but didn't make it into the newspaper.









If you'd like to contribute to the Rob Rogers crowdfunding effort, please go here: (link) https://www.patreon.com/robrogers

Thanks friends!