A Wendy Bell Invite! (Dayvoe RESPONDS!!)

This morning, I linked to today's blogpost and a few hours later this happened on Twitter:

Hey David! We’d love to have you on the show! Let me know your schedule tomorrow and we’ll look forward to the conversation. Any time between 10 and 11:30 am.

— Wendy Bell (@WendyBellPgh) April 28, 2021

Yes, that's Wendy Bell inviting me to be on her radio show.

And here's my answer:

I'm going to have to turn down your kind offer, Wendy. Fact of the matter is, I work during the day and I simply can't take the time off for a phone-in interview, sorry.

But even if that weren't the case, I'd still not be on your show. Here's the reason: Your radio program is far from being a level playing field. You (and/or your producer) will control the volume and the duration I'd be on. Not only that but after I finish you'll have the rest of your program to deliver your final word on whatever I said.

And as anyone who's ever argued with any other human being ever will undoubtedly know, whoever (whomever?) gets the final word wins the argument.

If you don't believe me, let me make illustrate with a counter offer: If I've written anything on this blog that you found factually incorrect, write it up and email it to me.  My address is easily found - just look for the word "Dayvoe" in the upper right hand corner of this blog.

I promise to post verbatim whatever you've emailed in to me.

However, I also reserve the right to analyze and comment on whatever you've written as harshly as I want for as long as I want.

And if that makes you distrust my counter offer because you feel it gives me too much power in the discussion, congratulations now you understand my reasoning for turning you down.

You're still wrong about the virus, wrong about the vaccine and now wrong about climate science. Feel free to email me with a response. That offer still stands.

I'll keep y'inz apprised on how the Angel of Death responds.

Wendy Bell - Now A Proven Climate Science Denier

Yesterday, the Covid-denying anti-vaxxer Wendy Bell offered up some more or less clear evidence that she's sailed farther out onto Crazie-lake than was previously known.

With this:

And she described it thusly:

The next time you’re told to be afraid of an impending climate catastrophe… Just remind yourself of these delicious headlines. Yes, these headlines actually ran in newspapers

As has been shown time and time again at this blog, Wendy Bell's research skills are, let's just say, close to non-existent. So it's hardly a surprise to learn that she did not compile this list herself.

The list can be found at the AEI in September of 2019 in a piece that references even earlier "research" from climate deniers Myron Ebell and Stephen Milloy.

Let's take a look at that first heading - described by crack researcher Wendy Bell as one of the "headlines actually ran in newspapers."

Click on the link to that "headline" in the AEI piece and it eventually leads you to this AP piece in 1966. Note, please, the headline as it's not what Wendy said it was:

U.S. Dry of Oil Soon?

The piece describes an address given to a group of businessmen by a man who was the head of a "consulting drilling geologic drilling company" and head of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. He's also talking about US oil reserves, not the worldwide oil supply.

As it says nothing about the climate, why is it evidence for how scientists have gotten climate predictions wrong?

And that's just the first on this messy messy poorly researched list.

Meanwhile, the scientists over at NASA are on record as saying:

Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals¹ show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree*: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. The following is a partial list of these organizations, along with links to their published statements and a selection of related resources.

And more than a decade ago the scientists over at NOAA said:

A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record. More than 300 scientists from 48 countries analyzed data on 37 climate indicators, including sea ice, glaciers and air temperatures. A more detailed review of 10 of these indicators, selected because they are clearly and directly related to surface temperatures, all tell the same story: global warming is undeniable. [Emphasis added.]

The science is solid. Wendy Bell's research is shoddy.

When will Congressman Guy Reschenthaler Correct The Record? Will he?

Yesterday the representative from Pennsylvania's 14th Congressional District tweeted a bit of misinformation:

Democrats’ latest power grab:

Biden and @AOC want to control what you eat. pic.twitter.com/CJxfGkaOwn

— Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (@GReschenthaler) April 26, 2021

Note the time stamp: April 26 at 12:26pm

By that point the story had already been debunked by:

•  The Washington Post:
  
  But Biden’s plan doesn’t include any call to limit meat-eating. Instead, conservative ire was sparked by a Daily Mail article that baselessly speculated about measures that could accomplish Biden’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.
  
  
• Snopes:
  
  Biden announced that his administration would seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. The Daily Mail ran a story that asserted, in entirely theoretical terms, that the policy "could" require Americans to reduce their meat consumption by 90%. Politicians like Rep. Lauren Boebert retweeted the Daily Mail's speculation as fact.
  
  
• Newsweek:
  

  Biden has not publicly announced plans to limit the consumption of meat in the U.S., at last week's summit or otherwise. Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment.

  The claims made on Twitter appear to have originated from an article published by right-leaning British newspaper The Daily Mail that presented hypothetical ways that the U.S. could meet Biden's target of cutting emissions by 2030 when compared with 2005 levels.

  Among the hypothetical changes was cutting 90 percent of red meat of our the diet to 4 pounds a year.

All these posted online and still Rep Reschenthaler misinformed his constituency with beef BS.

And now it turns out that Fox News has even corrected the record:

“The data was accurate but a graphic and a script incorrectly implied that it was part of Biden's plan for dealing with climate change,” anchor John Roberts said Monday afternoon of the show's coverage of the fake Biden meat ban. “That is not the case." pic.twitter.com/vCUgW2Obbx

— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) April 26, 2021

So here's my question: When will Guy Reschenthaler?

They CHEERED The Virus That Killed Half A Million US Citizens

Wait. THEY DID WHAT??

WHO DID?

Here's the story: A few days ago at a local restaurant called "The Taste of Sicily" of Palmyra, PA (717 641-3363) if you want to call them) there was a fundraiser of some sort.

As seen by this video from their FB page.

At about 1:51 into that video, this happens:

Pittsburgh’s Crack’d Egg restaurant travels to A Taste of Sicily for a benefit. Cheers of WE LOVE COVID erupt. Proving once again, it’s all about the grift. Proceeds from benefits are more lucrative than your crappy restaurants. Never mind 500,000 dead Americans. pic.twitter.com/s2E8Kfy2zL

— JON (@JonInPGH) April 25, 2021

The woman wearing the anti-mask t-shirt and the classy "It came from Chy-Na" hat. She's from The Cracked Egg in Pittsburgh, PA (412 881-3000 if you want to call them) as see by her FB video of the event. At that point in the video, she says, "Covid has been a blessing for me.

In response a chant of  "Covid! Covid! Covid!" erupts to hearty laughter all around. 

At this point about 26,000 Pennsylvanians have died from the virus the good citizens at A Taste of Sicily (again, PH: 717 641-3363) were cheering so happily.

A Taste of Sicily in Palmyra, Pennsylvania has had a history of Covid-denial for some time:

More than a dozen Pennsylvania restaurants received closure notices in the past week for not following the state’s COVID-19 mitigation orders.

And:

Among those ordered to close are Taste of Sicily in Palmyra, Kuppy’s Diner in Middletown and Denny’s Lennies in Halifax.

The department noted that three restaurants later requested new inspections and were permitted to reopen after being found to be in compliance.

Wait. They complied? But I thought the nice crying lady with the racist hat from The Cracked Egg (again, PH: 412 881-3000) said she would not comply.

Huh. Cheering worldwide pandemics made strange bedfellows, huh?

The Cracked Egg has had its own history of Covid-denial as well.

Wonderful human beings at A Taste of Sicily and The Cracked Egg.

Cheering the virus that caused the deaths of 26,000 Pennsylvanians and 570,000 Americans and 3,000,000 people world wide.

THEY CHEERED THE VIRUS.

Shame on them. Shame on all of them.

Wendy Bell Is Spreading COVID-19 Misinformation. Again.

If you, O Gentle Reader, were to happen upon Wendy Bell's FB page yesterday, you'd see this:

That's right. St. Barnabas Health System's own Angel of Death is spreading vaccine misinformation.

And this time, the fact-checkers at Facebook caught her.

How much of her anti-vaccine list is simply wrong?

Let's see:

1. It's experimental.

I'm not really sure what Wendy means by "experimental" here. In this context, however, it's obvious that she's looking to undermine the public's trust in the vaccines' safety. Good thing Reuters has already taken a look at this:

CLAIM 1 - “All the vaccines are considered experimental”  

According to the post, all approved vaccines are considered experimental. This is not true – they have all been put through standard safety testing before being rolled out to the public.  

Fullfact.org has more.

2. It's not FDA approved.

Good thing AdventHealth has an explanation of the "FDA Approval vs EUA" argument:

Although creating a new vaccine can sometimes take years, many pharmaceutical companies were able to quickly advance their development and distribution processes. Part of the speed is due to the use of the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) process. EUA means the vaccine can be approved by the FDA quickly compared to a traditional FDA-approval process, but that doesn’t mean it cuts corners when it comes to evaluating vaccine data, risks and benefits.[Emphasis added.]

And:

In order to issue an EUA, it needs to be proven that the vaccine may be effective in preventing a serious or life-threatening condition, and that the vaccine’s known and potential benefits can outweigh its known and potential risks. The FDA has said that in order for a COVID-19 vaccine to be administered to the public, including healthy people, they will only issue an EUA if a vaccine has demonstrated clear and compelling effectiveness in a large Phase 3 clinical trial.

And that's what happened, Wendy. Did you miss it?

3. My chance of survival is 99.97%

Good thing USAToday has already looked at this: 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified to Congress in March that the mortality rate may be as low as 1% when accounting for people who are infected but don’t develop symptoms severe enough to be tested. To Fauci, given how infectious the new coronavirus has proven to be, that is a very dire figure.

A 1% mortality rate “means it is 10-times more lethal than the seasonal flu,” Fauci said. “I think that’s something people can get their arms around and understand.”

A 99% survival rate might sound promising. But when it’s scaled out to the rest of the country – all 329 million residents – a 1% survival rate takes on a different meaning.

The attending physician for Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court predicted early in the pandemic that 70 million to 150 million U.S. residents would contract COVID-19. A 1% mortality rate at that scale of infection is between 700,000 and 1.5 million dead – roughly the population of Washington, D.C., on the low end or the entire population of Hawaii on the high end.

4. Side effects are numerous.

Good thing the folks at Sloan Kettering have already looked at this: 

The vaccine does not contain any live or inactive portion of the COVID-19 virus. It will not cause you to test positive on a test that looks for active COVID-19 infection. Some people receiving the vaccines have reported mild to moderate side effects, including pain at the injection site, fatigue (feeling tired), headache, and muscle pain. Not everyone gets side effects. But if you do, they are normal and a sign your body is building up its defenses against the virus.

7. I worry about the fertility of my sons.

This has to be the silliest point on Wendy's silly list. Good thing the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has already looked into this:

Joint Statement Regarding COVID-19 Vaccine in Men Desiring Fertility from the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology (SMRU) and the Society for the Study of Male Reproduction (SSMR)

As of January 9, 2021, there are no data about the impact of the COVID-19 vaccine on male or female fertility.

No data, Wendy. The usual anti-vaxx argument here is about womens' fertility (also false, of course) but you went that extra crazie-mile by including your sons.

Hey, isn't your husband an MD? Shouldn't you run this BS that you wrote on your BS board by him before embarrassing yourself in public?

Also, the more folks who follow your lead, the more they too will refuse the vaccine. Some of those folks will get sick. Some will pass it along to other people who'll get sick. Some of those sick people will die.

How'ya feeling about refusing the vaccine now, Wendy?

Meanwhile, Outside

 From the scientists over at NOAA:

Following a strongly negative Arctic Oscillation (AO) in February 2021, a strongly positive AO was present in March 2021. In a positive phase, the jet stream strengthens and circulates the North Pole, confining the cold Arctic Air across the Polar Regions. The AO value for March 2021 was 2.11—the fifth highest March value since 1950. The peak value on March 11 was the ninth highest daily value and the third highest for a day in March. In addition, during March 2021, La Niña continued to be present across the tropical Pacific Ocean; however, it weakened in strength.

The global surface temperature departure of +0.85°C (+1.53°F) in March 2021 was the smallest March temperature departure since 2014 and was the eighth highest for March in the 142-year record. March 2021 also marked the 45th consecutive March and the 435th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average.

That was for March.

For the Year-to-date, they have this: 

The global surface temperature for January–March 2021 tied with 2007 as the ninth highest for this year-to-date period at 0.76°C (1.37°F) above the 20th century average. The global land-only temperature was also the ninth highest on record, while the global ocean-only temperature tied with January–March of 1998 as the eighth highest in the 142-year record. According to a statistical analysis done by NCEI scientists, the year 2021 is very likely to rank among the ten warmest years on record and only has a 6% chance to rank among the five warmest years on record.

And then the NYTimes has a piece on climate change's impact on bizz-nezz: 

Rising temperatures are likely to reduce global wealth significantly by 2050, as crop yields fall, disease spreads and rising seas consume coastal cities, a major insurance company warned Thursday, highlighting the consequences if the world fails to quickly slow the use of fossil fuels.

The effects of climate change can be expected to shave 11 percent to 14 percent off global economic output by 2050 compared with growth levels without climate change, according to a report from Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest providers of insurance to other insurance companies. That amounts to as much as $23 trillion in reduced annual global economic output worldwide as a result of climate change.

It's still getting warmer out there and it'll cost you.

Stephen Colbert Says It Far Better Than I Could

When Do We Start Worrying About Wendy Bell's Mental Health?

Wendy Bell had some sort of meltdown last night while taking her dog, Murphy (who I am sure is a good boy, such a good boy! Yes he is! Yes he is!) out for a walk.

And she decided to broadcast it on Facebook.

When do we start to worry about her mental health? The rant made it onto twitter:

Seriously a must see! A late entry to the Oscar nominees for best performance by a crisis actor...@WendyBellPgh as Radio Karen in her back yard! Karen is done!! She will sit in her car instead of sitting outside with the parents wearing masks at her sons soccer game! pic.twitter.com/ZOXQWoTA7B

— JON (@JonInPGH) April 19, 2021

Wendy frames the first part of her discourse with this:

And you know what? I've had enough. I was at uh in Sewickely at one of my twins' soccer games again and everyone outside, all the frickin sheep, wearing masks. I'm done. I sat in my car. I don't want to be around you.

So her solution to her distaste of pandemic social distancing is to...socially distance?

Does she not see the irony of that?

Then there's this that follows immediately:

You want to be a sheep. You want to be guided by loser principles that don't matter, that don't make sense that aren't backed in science, that are meant to corrupt you that are meant to steal your freedoms and you're OK with that? That's on you.

I'm not OK with that and I don't care what you think.

But then she spends some considerable time complaining about the people she just said she doesn't care about what they think:

Uh but by golly sometimes y'all have to wake up. You have to realize what's going on is beyond anything we've ever gone through as a population. That you have given away your freedoms and your ability to chose for yourself to decide what is best for you because you're afraid of a frickin virus that has killed less people than the damn flu?

That last part is factually incorrect:

Researchers analyzed U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs data on more than 3,600 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 between Feb. 1 and June 17 of this year, and more than 12,600 hospitalized with the flu between Jan. 1, 2017 and Dec. 31, 2019. The average age of patients in both groups was 69.

The death rate among COVID-19 patients was 18.5%, while it was 5.3% for those with the flu. Those with COVID were nearly five times more likely to die than flu patients, according to the study published online Dec. 15 in the BMJ.

But facts don't enter into Wendy's reality these days. And that's worrying. She pivots from the virus to politics: 

And don't tell me it hasn't because the CDC has been lying to you since the beginning.

Who do you trust? You believe Dr Doom? You believe the CDC? No you don't. You know that they're shams. You don't believe this is the real president. He's a frickin sham. This is all a complete -

This is crap and you know it.

Sure, Wendy. It's all a conspiracy against you. All of it. The CDC, Dr Fauci, the election of Jo Biden. All of it is a conspiracy to siphon away our freedoms and you're the only one who can save us. But you're frustrated that we're not agreeing with you.

Got it. Makes perfect sense, right?

Do you see why I'm worried about Wendy Bell's state of mental health?

She continues with her political paranoia:

I'm done. I want my president back. (My sons are pulling in right now). I want my president back. Not the BS president that you mullege that everyone voted for. Because by the way we all know that no body voted for him and that you had to frickin cheat and steal and lie because you don't have an original thought.

And any of my snowflake liberal neighbors who wants to have a conversation about it – Murphy will talk to you about it too – come on over, knock on my door. Let's roll.

At this, I tweeted and you can see how Wendy responded):

Knock. Can’t wait. Unless you’re one of the run away snowflakes who can’t handle strong women. Or the truth.

— Wendy Bell (@WendyBellPgh) April 19, 2021

Um, I was raised by Italian American parents, Wendy. All my aunts are Italian American women. About half of my cousins are Italian American women. Strong women have always played a big part in my life. This personal attack of yours is as insulting as it is meaningless.

No Wendy, I will NOT be knocking at your door. You're armed and you're in the middle of a yearlong meltdown. You'll probably shoot me and then claim to be the victim of a politically motivated home invasion.

By the way, Wendy ends her rant with:

Oh, don't get mommy mad!

There's never a good Freudian around when you need one, is there? 

When do we start worrying about Wendy Bell's mental health? I'm serious.

More On Wendy Bell And Her Bad Research.

Just a few minutes of digging showed exactly how bad Wendy Bell is at research. She's putting the health of the general population at risk.

Take a look at yesterday's BS board:

Lotsa numbers and so on. But we want to begin the dig in the upper right hand corner:

Sounds kinda official, right? Some NGO that produces non-partisan economic data, right?

Wrong on both parts.

According to the Media Bias/Fact Check:

Overall, we rate The American Institute for Economic Research Right-Center biased based on Libertarian-leaning economic policy and Mixed for factual reporting due to the publication of misinformation related to Coronavirus. 

Misinformation related to Coronavirus, you say. Interesting.

Misinformation like this from the London School of Economics:

The AIER has spread unreliable information about COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. In September, it published a bizarre rant by its ‘Senior Resident Fellow’, George Gilder, who declared that the “Covid-19 crisis was already essentially over” by late April, based on a clearly inaccurate article that suggested “the spread of the coronavirus declines to almost zero after 70 days—no matter where it strikes, and no matter what measures governments impose to try to thwart it”.

This might be where Wendy Bell got her "information" declaring Covid over last year. 

The AIER also got into trouble with something called the Great Barrington Declaration. The Declaration proposed a plan towards Covid herd-immunity basically by protecting those most-vulnerable and removing any governmental lockdowns thus allowing it to spread through the rest of the population.

Hmm. Wendy's advocated for this, too. I am guessing she's a BIG fan of the AIER.

Anyway, here's a response from an actual scientist:

A high-profile proposal to avoid lockdown by letting the coronavirus run wild in the young and healthy while shielding the most vulnerable is dangerously flawed and operationally impractical, according to England’s chief medical officer.

Prof Chris Whitty told MPs on the science and technology committee that the Great Barrington declaration, put forward by three scientists at Oxford, Harvard and Stanford universities, would lead to a very large number of deaths and was unlikely to achieve such widespread immunity that the epidemic would fizzle out naturally.

But that's not Wendy Bell's only research sin.

Take a look at the very specific numbers she uses. It makes it so so easy for someone to find what she referenced at AIER.

It's this page. Take a look at what's pasted across the top of the page:

Editor’s note: the article and video discussed below have been pulled by Johns Hopkins Newsletter. You can read the announcement here. An additional explanation is here. The claims made by the economics professor will clearly require more investigation, as the announcement says. That said, AIER is publishing this in the interest of objective science and open discussion.

So the research from AIER was actually from Johns Hopkins Newsletter. The Newsletter says of the research:

Editor’s Note: After The News-Letter published this article on Nov. 22, it was brought to our attention that our coverage of Genevieve Briand’s presentation “COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data” has been used to support dangerous inaccuracies that minimize the impact of the pandemic.

We decided on Nov. 26 to retract this article to stop the spread of misinformation, as we noted on social media. 

This is the "research" that Wendy Bell used on her BS board yesterday.

In fact this is Wendy Bell's second bite at the Briand bad apple. The first was last December.

Shame on Wendy Bell for spreading COVID misinformation. More people will get sick and some may even die because of her bad research.

And shame on the St. Barnabas Health System for giving her a platform to spread that misinformation.

Ok, One Last Post About Chuck McCullough

Unless something else bubbles up in the newz, this will probably be my last McCullough posting.

I'd like to take you back 13 years, 11 months and 30 days to where it all began.

The date was April 13, 2007 (hey, that's exactly 14 years tomorrow!) and the main story at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was Bob Hoover piece on the death of Kurt Vonnegut.

That day, The Dow ended the day up at 12,609.85 and a copy of The P-G would have cost you $.50. 

So it goes.

Anyway, just below the Vonnegut obituary and right next to a Washington Post piece about a suicide bomber breaching the Green Zone in Iraq and killing 8, there was this piece by Dennis Roddy.

It began thusly:

The single largest donor to Allegheny County candidates this year is a 90-year-old Upper St. Clair widow who hasn't voted for seven years and says she never agreed to give $10,000 each to four Republican candidates, including one for Superior Court and three for Allegheny County Council.

Her name was Shirley Jordan and during a discussion with her about the donations she said: 

My God, that's terrible. I would never give $10,000 to politics. I can tell you that.

This follows directly:

She blamed the donation on her attorney, Charles McCullough, himself a candidate for County Council. Mr. McCullough took control of Mrs. Jordan's affairs following a court dispute that began after she was taken in 2005 to St. Clair Hospital, where a doctor diagnosed her with moderate dementia. A Common Pleas Court judge later declared her incapacitated.

"I have an attorney who is ambitious to be active in politics," she said. "It was not my decision. I knew nothing about it. Then I find he has control of everything and he's spending it right and left. He's a cheap politician."

Thus began the long long unraveling of Charles P. (Chuck) McCullough.

Another McCullough In The News!

We all saw what happened yesterday:

Former Allegheny County Councilman Charles McCullough is in the custody of the sheriff’s office this morning — more than five years after he was sentenced to prison for stealing from an elderly widow.

The 66-year-old from Upper St. Clair reported to the courtroom of Common Pleas Judge David R. Cashman Tuesday morning to begin serving his 2½- to 5-year prison term imposed for five counts each of theft and misapplication of funds. McCullough’s adult son and daughter and a priest were present.

And astute reader emailed me a link with this added message:

And AP is now curious about Patricia.

"Patricia" would be Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough, Chuck's wife.

The Trib even said so in yesterday's coverage. Here is the next paragraph from Paula Reed Ward's piece:

His wife, Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough, was not there. She is running for state Supreme Court in this year’s Republican primary. She has served on Commonwealth Court since 2010.

So Chuck's kids (and, of course, a priest) were with him in his last minutes of freedom, but his wife, who's running for a seat on the State Supreme Court) wasn't.

Hmmm.

Anyway, here's some of the ways that Judge McCullough shows up in the AP reporting on Felon McCullough reporting for prison:

The husband of a Pennsylvania appellate judge who is running for the state’s highest court began serving a prison sentence Tuesday in a long-running case involving taking money from an elderly woman’s trust fund to benefit several political campaigns and a charity connected to his wife.

That's the first paragraph. 

A few paragraph's down there's this:

[McCullough] had argued at his trial that he had the widow’s approval to use the money and had remained free on appeal since his sentencing. Asked if Patricia McCullough had ever intervened on her husband’s behalf, [Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen] Zappala’s office said it knew of no evidence presented in court to indicate that.

Well that's good. The next paragraphs? Not so good:

Charles McCullough spent the money in 2006 and 2007, using $40,000 for campaign contributions and sending the other $10,000 to a charity, according to court records.

That charity was Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, where Patricia McCullough was the executive director and the organization was lagging behind a fundraising goal, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in 2007.

“She said to keep quiet about it,” Mary Ann Krupa, who had worked in the charity’s development office, told the newspaper. “I said ‘I don’t understand.’ She said ‘You don’t have to understand. It’s a total secret.’”

Catholic Charities gave back the donation and Patricia McCullough’s alleged attempts to keep the donation a secret later came up in trial testimony.

The P-G link has this:

Mary Ann Krupa, who worked in the charity's development office from 2002 until June, said employees were preparing for their annual fund-raising banquet and were short of a $600,000 fund-raising goal when she was called by Mrs. McCullough. She said Mrs. McCullough told her of a last-minute $10,000 donation by an elderly client of her husband.

And the trial testimony link has this:

Prosecutors also called a former fundraiser from Catholic Charities to testify about a $10,000 donation from the Jordan trust. McCullough's wife, Patricia McCullough, a Commonwealth Court candidate, was then the executive director of the charity and demanded the donor be kept secret, said Mary Ann McGlashon, a former associate director.

The pledge came just before the black-tie Bishop's Annual Dinner where McCullough had to announce whether she met the year's fundraising goal.

So let's see if I am reading this right. The charity was short of it's $600K fundraising goal and it's executive director, Patricia McCullough, was going to have to announce that fact at the charity's annual banquet. This is when a surprise donation of $10K arrives by way of the executive director's husband, Charles McCullough.

And what happened to Mary Ann Krupa? The woman who questioned the secret donation? The P-G has an answer for that, too:

One month after the banquet, Ms. Krupa said she was called into Mrs. McCullough's office and told her job was being "bifurcated," in essence, divided into two posts. She was offered neither of the jobs and now works at another area charity.

Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough, more recently:

Patricia McCollugh , running for the state Supreme Court. “All law is based on natural law. And all law is based on divine law.” pic.twitter.com/0vkTIC97d3

— Katie Blackley (@kate_blackley) March 20, 2021

All law is based on divine law.

A Chapter Closes - Chuck McCullough

Chuck McCullough has been incarcerated.

It even says so in the paper:

Former Allegheny County Councilman Charles McCullough is in the custody of the sheriff’s office this morning — more than five years after he was sentenced to prison for stealing from an elderly widow.

"More than five years" doesn't begin to tell the half of it. Let's go over some of the dates:

• McCullough arrested on February 9, 2009.
• The trial begins on April 13, 2015. 
• McCullough found guilty on July 31, 2015.
• McCullough sentenced on December 17, 2015.
• McCullough begins serving his sentence on April 6, 2021.

Look at the chronological gaps, my friends. 

• 6 years, 2 months, 4 days between Chuck's arrest and the beginning of his trial.
• 5 years, 11 months, 25 days between Chuck's sentencing and the beginning of his incarceration. 
• 12 years, 1 month, 28 days between Chuck's arrest and the beginning of his incarceration.

All for sentence of 2-1/2 to 5 (with the minimum dropped to 22-1/2 months).

And the gaps get even bigger when you consider when Chuck committed the crimes. From the original complaint we learn that one of the misappropriated checks was actually cut on February 22, 2007. That's 14 years, 1 month, 15 days between the crime and his incarceration. 

For some context about that date, the iPhone (the FIRST iPhone) had been introduced to the world only 44 days before.

This part of the original complaint will probably bubble up in the news:

We'll see. One chapter closes and another one opens.

More On Charles P. (Chuck) Mccullough (UPDATED)

An astute reader emailed me this link this morning:

Former Allegheny County Councilman Charles McCullough has lost his last chance to avoid complying with a prison sentence for theft and is set to appear Tuesday before a county judge.

The state Supreme Court on Monday denied his application for extraordinary relief and motion to stay the sentence.

McCullough is scheduled to appear at 9 a.m. Tuesday before Judge David Cashman for a hearing to comply with a 2½- to five-year sentence.

This is set to happen today. 

Ever a McCullough-skeptic, I will believe it when I see it. He's weaseled out of this before. Perhaps Former Allegheny County Council member Charles P. (Chuck) McCullough has one more trick up his sleeve.

In any event, The Trib has more info on our good friend Chuck:

McCullough, now representing himself, was found guilty in a bench trial of five counts of theft and five counts of misapplication of funds, stemming from work he did as a power of attorney for an elderly Upper St. Clair woman.

He initially was charged in 2009. It took six years before the case went to trial, and it has been more than five years that he has tried to get out of the prison sentence imposed on him in December 2015.

In February, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined to accept his appeal, clearing the way for him to begin serving his sentence. [Emphasis added.]

I guess the "Now representing himself" part means he's run out of attorneys. I think he's now on the other side of a half-dozen. Rudy Giuliani was busy? 

The Trib also has something else that can't be found at the P-G (and kudos for The Trib for the deeper coverage) - more on Chuck's application for extraordinary relief:

However, in his emergency motions, McCullough, 66, outlined a number of reasons why he should not be required to go to state prison.

Among them, he listed medical conditions — including a shoulder with torn tendons that requires surgery — and a fear of contracting covid-19 in the prison system.

Including, what amounts to a note from his doctor outlining why he shouldn't go to prison.

Then there's this:

“Defendant would be defenseless in prison which is for the most part populated by much younger men, some being no more than one-third of defendant’s age and who will outweigh defendant by more than 100 pounds,” he wrote. “He would be at great risk of being seriously injured or killed by other inmates if incarcerated.”

Instead, McCullough suggests that he could have surgery as his doctor recommends and avoid covid by being allowed to serve his sentence on house arrest.

“The commonwealth is not prejudiced at all by the presentation of this motion as it will be spared the expense of having to house, feed, treat and care for defendant,” McCullough wrote. “The current sentence of 2½ to 5 years of incarceration may well be tantamount to a death sentence for defendant due to his age, health issues, susceptibility to covid-19 and his vulnerability to deadly assault by other inmates.”

See? Everyone would have won had Chuck just gotten house arrest!

What did Sammy sing in 1976?

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. (Don't do it.)

Let's see how this turns out today.

I wonder how this will effect Patricia McCullough, a judge on the Commonwealth Court and Chuck's wife, and her campaign for Supreme Court.

Did you know she was at Wendy Bell's rally recently? And this happened:

Patricia McCollugh , running for the state Supreme Court. “All law is based on natural law. And all law is based on divine law.” pic.twitter.com/0vkTIC97d3

— Katie Blackley (@kate_blackley) March 20, 2021

Which divine law did Chuck break when he misappropriated that $40,000, your honor?

UPDATE: This morning the Allegheny County DA tweeted:

Charles McCullough reported as ordered to the courtroom of Judge Cashman this morning and was immediately remanded to the custody of the Allegheny County Sheriff to begin serving a sentence of 30 to 60 months in state prison for his theft conviction.

— AlleghenyCountyDA (@AlleghenyCoDA) April 6, 2021

Note to St Barnabas: I'm Not Sure This Is A Good Topic For Wendy Bell.

Let's start here:

Oh look! @StBarnabasHS WJAS in-house racist claims there is no systemic racism! pic.twitter.com/FJnQmVrnlo

— JON (@JonInPGH) April 4, 2021

I may be out of my lane but I'm thinking that it might not be a good idea for America's Worst White Woman to be defining our nation's status on race.

And why shouldn't Wendy Bell ever ever comment on race? Damon Young explains:

Well, years ago, when Wendy Bell was still an anchorwoman at WTAE-TV (Pittsburgh’s ABC affiliate), six people were killed in a horrific mass shooting in a predominately black Pittsburgh suburb. A week after the shooting, Bell went to her Facebook fan page and published what historians now refer to as the “Moby Dick of White Privilege.” (By “historians” I mean “I.”)

She began with some “thoughts” on how she hadn’t been able to walk or talk since the shooting, continued by effectively calling the mothers of the suspected shooters “broke black hoes,” described the shooting with Pulitzer-level black poverty porn imagery, and then ended with a pitch-perfect screed on how a recent family night at the Cheesecake Factory with a smiling and skipping black server gave her hope for us. (If you think I’m making this up, please—I beg of you—read what she wrote. And even if you don’t think I’m making this up, read it for your own entertainment.)

Bell was eventually fired from WTAE. She subsequently sued them for racial discrimination, and the case was settled. [Italics in original.]

Yea, she should probably just stay away from the topic as it got her fired from TAE.

On the other hand, at about 8:40 into Wendy's lecture on race, she states:

But I don't believe that the issue that is really most troubling most in defining at this point in American is systemic racism.

We have systemic irresponsibility. We have a problem with people not being accountable for their own decisions.

And a minute or so later she says:

But then there are elements in here where we're covering up for the systemic failures of generations of Americans – who've been allowed to become victims and blame other people for their lack of achievement, who use outrage as their cover for lack of progress.

You know when you're very young, your parents, if you're fortunate enough and they're part of your life and you have two of them, you have mom and you have dad, they teach you from the very early age about being accountable for the decisions that you make and trying to make the best decisions you can.

Gee, I wonder who she means. I wonder exactly who she's describing?

I wonder. Hmm.

Anyway, did you catch the homophobia sprinkled in there? Did you catch how Wendy Bell thinks that you're fortunate to be raised in a two parent household just as long as it's a mom and a dad.

And that's just the first 12 minutes or so. I didn't have the stomach to go any further.

Feel free to do so - I'm off to look at things in bloom (for fifty springs are little room).

Meanwhile, Outside...

Yes, there's still a pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens have passed away (many, perhaps, needlessly) and the damage done to the republic by the former president and his enablers in the GOP is still all around.

But the planet is still getting warmer - the scientists over at NOAA have the data:

Averaged as a whole, the February 2021 global land and ocean surface temperature was 0.65°C (1.17°F) above the 20th century average—the smallest February temperature departure since 2014. However, compared to all Februaries in the 142-year record, this was the 16th warmest February on record. February 2021 also marked the 45th consecutive February and the 434th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th century average.

Seasonally, the story is the same:

The seasonal global land and ocean surface temperature for December 2020–February 2021 was the eighth highest in the 142-year record, with a temperature departure from average of 0.74°C (1.33°F) above the 20th century average. This was also the smallest temperature departure since 2014. This was also the 45th consecutive December–February period with temperatures, at least nominally, above average.

And so on.

Get vaccinated. Wear your mask. Socially distant. Stay safe.