Kim Ward Becomes Temporary Lieutenant Governor

Kim Ward Becomes Temporary Lieutenant Governor

By Bob Small

For about two weeks, Pennsylvania will have a Democratic governor and a Republican lieutenant governor.  Since John Fetterman resigned as lieutenant governor on Jan.4 Kim Ward, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, was sworn in to the position.  Her term will last until Jan. 17 when Austin Davis will be sworn in.

Ms. Ward is the first female to serve as President Pro Tempore.  She was chosen by her fellow GOP members who hold a 28-22 majority in the State Senate.

Undser the Pennsylvania Constitution,” the president pro tempore handles all the duties of the office of lieutenant governor, which include presiding over the state Senate sessions, chairing the state pardons board and chairing the state emergency management committee.”

Kim Ward Becomes Temporary Lieutenant Governor
Kim Ward, first female majority lead in Pennsylvania

Kim Ward has been the State Senator for District 39 since 2009.  District 39 includes Latrobe, Pa. (home of Rolling Rock Brewery and Fred Rogers) along with 37 other towns in Westmoreland County. 

Kim Ward is the first woman to be elected majority leader in either the Pennsylvania House or Senate.

Prior to her election to the state House, she was a Westmoreland County Commissioner and on the Hempfield County Board of Commissioners.

She lists her accomplishments as helping to pass laws on “reducing spending on state-subsidized methadone treatment transportation,”  and “implementing the federal E-Verify program to ensure workers on publicly funded construction projects are legally permitted to work.”

She also helped to “extend benefits to the families of campus police officers who die in the line of duty”.

Prior to elective office, she worked as a board-certified Respiratory Therapist at Allegheny General Hospital, Vanderbilt University Hospital, and Hershey Medical Center.

She and her husband Dr. Thomas Ward have three sons.

She is a breast cancer survivor and stresses how important screenings are.

Kim Ward Becomes Temporary Lieutenant Governor

A Food Stamps Told You So Or How Corporate America Owns Progressives

A Food Stamps Told You So Or How Corporate America Owns Progressives — Calley Means, a founder of TrueMedicineCare and former corporate consultant, revealed the twisted ways corporate American kept its junk foods eligible for food stamps and free from taxes in a series of tweets, Jan. 2.

Coca-Cola gave millions to the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation – both directly and through front groups like the American Beverage Association to label any change of privilege “racist”.

They used talking points such as”there are no bad food, only bad diets.” They said that removing soda (and potato chips and cookies) from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was “paternalistic” and an “assault on personal choice”.

Yes progressives, corporate America uses you, laughs at you and does not care a whit about poor, minorities, the marginalized or anything else other than its fat wallets.

The most nauseating thing is how happily you dance when they pull your strings.

We told you so nine years ago.

And racism is a word that has lost all meaning which is sad as it is a rather vile thing as how it was originally defined.

For what it’s worth progs are as greedy and corrupt as the corporatists.

A Food Stamps Told You So Or How Corporate America Owns Progressives

A Food Stamps Told You So Or How Corporate America Owns Progressives

Mid-Term Voters Preferred Status Quo; Bad News for Change Advocates

Mid-Term Voters Preferred Status Quo; Bad News for Change Advocates

By Joe Guzzardi

Voters are, to understate their mood, disenchanted with Congress. Yet paradoxically, voters re-elect, over and over, the same representatives they hold in dismally low esteem, consider ineffectual and out-of-touch.

On average for 2022, about 80 percent of polling respondents disapproved of how congressional representatives handled their jobs. Many critics had previously claimed that underrepresentation of women and diverse legislators was a key reason that Congress was so incompetent. But the 117th Congress was the most racially and gender diverse in history. In 2022, 142 women were in the U.S. House of Representatives, a record high. Despite these House gains, voters maintained their same opinion of Congress – a bungling, self-important body that does little right.

In November, when the moment-of-truth mid-term election was held, 73 percent of voters disapproved of incumbents’ job performance. But the vote count told a different tale. Despite their 73 percent disapproval rate, congressional incumbents had a 98 percent win rate. Forty-one states had a 100 percent win rate in congressional races. The takeaway: talk is cheap, but the votes tell the true story. Overwhelmingly, the majority wants to maintain the status quo.

The status quo translates into continuing high inflation which in 2022 averaged 8.4 percent per month. Status quo also means national debt mounting from its current $31 trillion and funding the Ukraine war which, with Biden’s signature on a $1.9 trillion omnibus spending bill, will put the U.S. investment in the faraway conflict at $100 billion.

As entrenched as those costs are, Biden’s open border is another unsustainable drain on taxpayers’ pocketbooks. To provide public education, Medicaid and other affirmative benefits to the 1.35 million illegal immigrants that have become part of the general population since Biden took office will cost taxpayers $100 billion over the aliens’ lifetimes. Many recent arrivals have limited education and English language skills, so jobs they may end up accepting likely will pay little.

Regardless of which candidate voters supported in the 2020 presidential election, only a tiny percentage would have cast their ballots in favor of adopting the current border policy. For the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, Customs and Border Protection reported that it had released 430,677 aliens into the interior, witnessed 240,340 migrants the agency calls “gotaways” and expelled 186,340 illegal immigrants. Agents caution that their official numbers may be low because many more aliens may have escaped without CBP’s knowledge. Nine out of 10 agents, a whistleblower reported, are away from the line.

The southwest border chaos also represents a dangerous criminal threat to innocent citizens. Too many migrants have either criminal or terrorist histories. Retiring Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott told his agents that known or suspected terrorists, as identified in the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database, are entering in huge numbers, representing “a real threat.”

CBP, which operates at ports of entry and along the border between entry ports, reportedthat during fiscal year 2022, they encountered more than 25,000 convicted criminals. When the numbers that pour across the border total millions, ill-intended people will be among them.

The argument against the border “management” of Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas shouldn’t be construed as anti-immigrant. Rather, the disagreement reflects reasonable questioning about the wisdom of open borders and a sincere concern that citizens are funding the administration’s immigration follies that only it approves of.

The border crisis is a direct result of the Biden’s administration’s willingness to allow anyone from anywhere to enter the U.S., even though the electorate is strongly opposed to such recklessness. The nation wants a responsible, sensible immigration policy, a prudent but, to date, elusive goal.

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Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Mid-Term Voters Preferred Status Quo
Mid-Term Voters Preferred Status Quo

Only aim to do your duty William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 1-6-23

Only aim to do your duty William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 1-6-23

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Only aim to do your duty William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 1-6-23Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
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Only aim to do your duty William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 1-6-23