William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 11-12-14
Day: November 12, 2014
Reed Beats Saylor
The 119-member Republican majority in the Pennsylvania House, today, Nov. 12, tapped Majority Leader Mike Turzai, (R-28) as Speaker replacing Sam Smith, who is retiring.
And Rep. Dave Reed, (R-62), of Indiana County beat out Majority Whip Stan Saylor (R-94) of York County for the Majority Leader post.
Saylor, who came under scrutiny for some rather strange, large donations from supporters of Democrat Gov.-elect Tom Wolf, also lost his whip post as he didn’t file to seek re-election to it. The new GOP whip is Bryan Cutler (R-100) of Lancaster County.
Bill Adolph (R-165) of Springfield, Delaware County, beat back a challenge and will remain chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
Reed Beats Saylor
Corman Beats Pileggi
The Pennsylvania Senate Republicans, today, Nov. 12, have voted to replace Delaware County’s Dominic Pileggi (R-9) as Majority Leader with Jake Corman (R-34) of Centre County.
The insurgency was inspired by newcomer Scott Wagner (R-28) of York County who objected to Pileggi’s union connections and the lack of pro-taxpayer, pro consumer legislation passed during his reign.
Pat Browne (R-16) will be the new Appropriations Chairman; John Gordner (R-27)will be new Majority Whip; Bob Mensch will be be caucus chairman; and Sen. Rich Alloway will be caucus secretary, reports PoliticsPa.com.
Joe Scarnati, (R-25), who was also opposed to Pileggi, will remain Senate Pro Tempore.
Many of these men, especially Scarnati, have ties to anti-taxpayer groups as bad if not worse than Pileggi.
Corman Beats Pileggi
Sharyl Attkisson Describes Sophisticated News Silencing
Emmy Award-winning, former CBS investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson is pushing her book Stonewalled: One Reporter’s Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington and recently appeared on Mark Reardon’s talk show on KMOX in St. Louis.
She said that the political elite have developed a highly sophisticated system of pushback to discourage investigative journalism. She said that “public relations by special interests, political interests, corporate interests have learned how to scare (journalists) off from meaningful stories.”
She said the Obama administration ” enlisted expert help again from their PR people, their surrogates, their bloggers to print untrue things to controversialize the reporting, to controversialize the reporters who were doing the reporting.”
She said it worked with CBS News.
She also described how her CBS laptop computer and her home Apple computer were compromised during her pursuit of stories detrimental to Obama.
“It’s pretty chilling when you consider the extent of the abilities they had, according to the forensics reports, to monitor my every keystroke, to activate Skype by getting the password to my account, and listen through Skype on to audio if I was talking in the room or talking on the phone,” she said. “Being able to exfiltrate files using Skype, downloading and refreshing these surveillance methods periodically using something called a BGAN satellite terminal, using WiFi when I was at a Ritz Carlton at one point. I mean they left some very distinct trails because I don’t think they ever thought I would have the ability to have highly-skilled specialized forensics people be able to find what was in there. Ordinary computer analysts may be very good, but unless they know exactly where to look and they’re familiar with some of the proprietary government practices, I’m told, they will never be able to find the things that were found in my computer. But I was able to go to some very good sources.”
Sharyl Attkisson Describes Sophisticated News Silencing
Scott Wagner Allies Are Union Backed
The Lehigh County Republican Party has called a meeting to vote on a censure motion for Pennsylvania state senators Pat Browne, whose 16th District consists of parts of Lehigh County, Monroe County and Northampton counties, and Bob Mensch, whose 24th District consists of adjacent Bucks, Berks and Montgomery for their union-backed votes.
Browne and Mensch are among those who have allied themselves with Scott Wagner of the 28th District who is seeking to unseat Dominic Pileggi of the 9th District (Delaware and Chester counties) as Majority Leader of the Republican-controlled Senate.
Wagner, a newcomer, is leading a rebellion against Pileggi.
Pileggi receives much money from the unions in the state, and Wagner blames him for not getting commonsense pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer legislation passed despite the Republicans having complete control over the state government since January 2011.
Perhaps, Pileggi isn’t entirely to blame.
The Lehigh organization notes that Browne and Mensch voted against an amendment proposed by Senator Wagner in support of “paycheck protection” legislation that would prohibit automatic deduction of union dues from state workers.
It should also be pointed out that Browne was among those getting a huge dump of union money just before the last election.
Browne is seeking to chair the Appropriations Committee while Mensch is attempting to become Caucus Chairman, reports PoliticsPa.com.
Jake Corman, who is tapped by the rebels to replace Pileggi, also gets his share of union money. Granted, it’s not as much as Pileggi but will that sill be the case if he should win the Majority Leader seat?
And Joseph B. “Joe” Scarnati, the president pro tempore, of the Senate, who is also part of the rebels, appears to be outright owned by the forces of darkness.
Pileggi, by the way, voted for Paycheck Protection.
The new boss may end up being the same as the old boss or worse. However this battle ends those who care about the poor, elderly and unemployed — this means one is against the unions — keep it about issues and not people.
Update: A comment on the story at PolitcsPa by someone identifying himself as Lehigh County Republican Party Chairmen William Heydt says it is not the party but a faction and that there is “there is no assurance there will be a meeting because until the night of the meeting there is no assurance of a quorum.”
“Neither the party itself or the leadership has suggested a censure,” he said.
“We are supportive of the Senators overall and of their leadership bids as good for our region,” he said.