News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Lamar Smith Swirls To Retirement — Sometimes it seems as though the swamp isn’t draining but it is. Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Tx21), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, has announced that he won’t be seeking re-election after 16 terms in office.
For some of Smith’s (not-so) great accomplishments that we have recorded on these pages click here and here.
Goodby and good riddance, Lamar.
MAGA
Deedra Abboud Defended By Sen. Flake — Bob Small of Swarthmore has let us know that Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake has come to bat for possible Democrat opponent Deedra Abboud, who is Muslim.
Good for Flake. Societies must maintain, even impose, their values and two of the values intrinsic to America is that hating your opponents is bad and that one must never fight — as in kill/harm/maim/threaten — about theology.
It’s why Sharia law is incompatible with America. Hopefully, Ms. Abboud understands that.
State GOP Chairman Fight National News? — We are hearing national media have become interested in the looming fight to chair the Pennsylvania State Republican Party.
The leading candidates are Chesco GOP Chairman Val DiGiorgio — who is the pick of the business-as-usual types — and respected attorney Lawrence Tabas who is the general counsel of the state Republican Party.
The decision will be be made by members of the Republican State Committee on Feb. 4. Every county chairman is automatically a member of the committee with the rest being elected to four year terms during a municipal — i.e. low turnout — party primary.
DiGiorgio is a registered lobbyist with close connections to Democrat power brokers and the special interests who have been sucking the blood from our state. His wife was given a $105,000 a year job with Democrat-controlled Montgomery County.
He dragged his feet in supporting President-elect Donald Trump and Chesco is the only county in the state where Republicans did worse last November than they did in 2012.
Perhaps most upsetting is his claim regarding his support for the grass roots. Actually, DiGiorgio purged citizen activists from Chesco.
House GOP Guts Oversight — Chalk this up under why it is OK to hate Republicans too.
In a bizarre tone-deaf move, the GOP controlled Congress will vote today Jan. 3, on whether to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics. It will be one of the first acts in the new reign of Republican power in D.C.
Way to prioritize.
An amendment by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va6) passed the GOP caucus, yesterday that will change the body’s name to Office of Congressional Complaint Review, strip it of its independence, block it from investigating any wrongdoing that occurred prior to 2011, and prevent it from releasing its findings to the public, without the authorization of the House Committee on Ethics. It would also prevent the panel from alerting law enforcement to criminal activity without the approval of the House committee.
What are these people thinking? In the eight years, it has been in existence it has unveiled shady doings by pols including powerful Dems Charles Rangle and Maxine Waters.
Congratulations Goodlatte, you are making Nancy Pelosi look good, a frankly amazing feat.
UPDATE: After a tweet from President-elect Trump condemning the idea, the House Republicans have scrapped the stupid plan. Thank you, President-elect Trump.
Val DiGiorgio Chairman Quest Takes Flak — Chester County GOP boss Val DiGiorgio’s is getting flak over his plan to take over the chairmanship of the state party. A PoliticsPa.com story by managing editor Nick Field on Val’s quest notes that ChesCo is one of the few areas in Pennsylvania where Republicans are losing ground.
Comments note that his wife works for Montgomery County Democrat boss and (our next attorney general) Josh Shapiro and question his rather strange candidate choices.
Gleason Replacement Battle — That Chairman Val DiGiorgio from Chester County is on the short list to replace Rob Gleason as Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman is now in the open.
This is something about which our readers have known for months.
And they know that this would be a disaster for the taxpayers of Pennsylvania not to mention the Republican Party.
DiGiorgio has a personally beneficial relationship with extremist Democrats and, in fairness, he has treated them pretty well as well.
Further, he is a lobbyist and place whatever spin you want, a hired gun can’t serve two masters. Either it is the client who pays him that gets the shaft or it is those who trust him to protect them from the types who hire lobbyists.
Obviously, a lobbyist will soon be out of work if he fails his clients and, well, Val still has his lobbyist job.
And let us not forget the 2015 purge of Chester County’s conservative committeepeople who had not been marching in lockstep with DiGiorgio. The dirty deeds that were required were traced to Ray and Jennifer Zabroney’s State Street Strategies, which is starting to get a light shed on it.
Fortunately there is a good alternative for the Republicans in widely respected attorney Lawrence Tabas.
How respected is Tabas? One of his cases was mounting the ultimately successful legal challenge to Bob Guzzardi’s primary gubernatorial candidacy in 2014.
What does Guzzardi say about him?
“Lawrence Tabas Esq. is an outstanding choice for Pennsylvania State Republican chair; I have the highest regard for both is professionalism and competence,” Bob says. “Several years ago, Lawrence Tabas on behalf of the State Republican Party challenged my nominating petitions for Governor of Pennsylvania. At all times, he was professional and skilled, respectful of the Court and all witnesses. There was no snark, no sneaky tactics, no insults but straightforward, well-prepared legal representation on behalf of his client. The most excellent Commonwealth Court judge hearing the case ran a disciplined courtroom and not once did she have to admonish Mr. Tabas. His representation was first class. Even though he lost in the lower court, he, eventually, prevailed in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Lawrence Tabas is first class.”
Val DiGiorgio Replacing Gleason? — A little birdie told us that Chester County Republican Chairman Val DiGiorgio has the inside track to replace Rob Gleason as chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party.
Former Congresswoman Melissa Hart, who has quite a bit of influence in state-wide GOP circles, was reportedly boosting him big at the Feb. 15 Spirit of Lincoln Dinner hosted by the Allegheny County Republican Party out there in Pittsburgh.
If our birdie is accurate, we betcha Montco Dem boss Josh Shapiro is quietly cheering.
Gov. Tom Wolf this Halloween afternoon came to Media, Pa. to try to get a Philly union boss’ brother elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court but was instead met with a crowd demanding he “sign the budget” and “give us books.”
The Democrat rally held on Veterans Square was probably more than half Wolf opponents. At least 100 persons attended.
One protester from Saint Dorthy’s School in Drexel Hill noted that the children have no textbooks and teachers are mimeographing lessons.
Penn Delco School Director Lisa Esler expressed anger and disgust with the governor’s political actions.
“I don’t think it’s fair or even ethical for state law to require a school district to pass a budget on time, collect our money and then hold the money hostage,” she said.
That’s what your ego has wrought Governor.
The state legislature passed $30.179 billion budget on June 30 that was a 3.6 percent increase over the previous year and would have increased education spending by $100 million.
Wolf vetoed it.
He also rejected a recent proposal to increase education spending by $400 million if he agrees to liquor privatization and pension reform.
He also has refused to use line-item veto power to make changes that he doesn’t want and, most tellingly, arrogantly refused to sign temporary spending measures.
Wherever one stands on the political spectrum one must be ashamed of this governor and his ego-driven agenda.
Attending the rally with Wolf and those seeking local office were the Dem Supreme Court ticket and U.S. Senator Bob Casey Jr. significantly adding to the embarrassment.
It should be noted that Wolf was the only speaker that got significant grief from the crowd.
Pete Peterson has informed us that the GOP Delaware County Council ticket has been endorsed by The Delaware County Committee of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council.
That’s probably not going to increase its standing among my readers.
The ticket is all incumbent: Colleen Morrone of Concord, John McBlain of Aldan, and Mike Culp of Springfield, who is serving out the remainder of new state Sen. Tom McGarrigle’s term.
Union endorsement aside, I’m going to have no problem hitting the button for them this November. Complain all you can about the state and federal Republicans but Delco is one of the better run Pennsylvania counties.
Pete points out that Delaware County has an unemployment rate lower than the national average and is experiencing job growth. The county Republicans deserve undeniable credit for this as it was the policies of the other party that almost sent it into the tank.
I’ve actually worked with McBlain on an issue and found him to be serious, decent and dedicated.
The ticket is unopposed in the May 19 primary and may very well be unopposed in the General Election on Nov. 3. For the record, the Dems should be allowed on the ballot.
Forty-nine Democrats in the U.S. Senate led by former Saturday Night Live comedy writer Al Franken of Minnesota have proposed a Constitutional amendment that would declare that First Amendment speech protection does not apply to corporations.
These brilliant (that’s sarcasm) thinkers in seeking to restrict speech just for those of whom they disapprove failed to account for the reality that just about all our news and entertainment outlets are corporations.
Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz spanks Franken et al as he points out that those who write and produce Saturday Night Live — which is the property of NBC which is owned by Philadelphia-based Comcast CORPORATION — could conceivably face jail time for their satirical sketches if this Democrat amendment should pass.
He does it in a rather presidential fashion too.
Here is the C-Span clip