News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
A pending civil rights lawsuit against state Attorney General Tom Corbett who is the GOP’s nominee for governor is the simmering subject of discussions in the blogosphere with rumors about a pending autumn surprise that would derail his candidacy.
A bill being considered by the state House to ease the pain of Pennsylvania taxpayers about to take an unforeseen hit to fund the pension plans of public employees is just going to postpone the pain until those who vote for it are themselves collecting pensions and probably residing in another state.
HB 2497 would limit taxpayer contributions in the near term only to jack them up in later years , according to the always excellent Commonwealth Foundation. This plan would ultimately put Pennsylvanians on the hook for another $52 billion over 30 years according to CF.
If you don’t believe that HB 2497 is real bad news note the Pennsylvania State Education Association is not opposing it.
Anybody else think it is a real bad idea to let people write their own own pension plans and oblige others to fund it?
Ironically, Karl Marx has the perfect solution to resolving the pension crisis.
Progressive Daylin Leach Praises Hackery — State Sen. Daylin Leach whose 17th District includes Haverford and Radnor appears to be just peachy with the practices that caused Bonusgate.
In a column on his website Daylinsignts.com he takes issue with the report of the Grand Jury that investigated the crimes implying the Grand Jury could be just as easily called “The Doofus Patrol” and dismissing the anger expressed by those who after sitting through months of testimony indicted several lawmakers and staff members for taking taxpayer money to finance political campaigns. The indictments, btw, have already led to several convictions.
Among the objections in the report that trouble Sen. Leach are to the number of staffers employed by our legislators — there are 2,805 of them for 253 elected officials — and the pay of our legislators especially in relation to the number of days they actually work. The report notes that the base salaries for our solons is $78,314.66 excluding benefits. This package is among the highest in the nation. The report notes that the House was in session for 72 days in 2006, 115 in 2007, 72 in 20087 and 147 in 2009.
I will not insult Leach by calling him and his fellows in Harrisburg “doofuses” but I will point out that the simple change of a single letter in his name would give him the perfect moniker for the job and lifestyle for which he so strongly fights.
Leach, a Democrat, touts the “power of progressive thinking” on his website. Progressives are the most materialistic, money-worshiping people on the planet. It is their tenet that all can be solved by the dollar. They really think that we can’t get competent, honest people to serve as our lawmakers for what New Hampshire pays , and just as delusionally think Pennsylvania is better run.
Rahm Emanuel, who is President Obama’s chief of staff, has been living rent-free in an apartment owned by a BP consultant it has been revealed.
Emanuel moved five years ago into the Washington D.C. apartment of Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and her husband, Stanley Greenberg. Greenberg’s consulting firm was the brains behind the marketing of BP as a “green” oil company and gave it the slogan “Beyond Petroleum”
BP was the largest contributor to Obama’s presidential campaign, and was exempted from an environmental impact study by the administration for the Deepwater Horizon disaster site.
Note that even sans the BP connection, the rent-free living would led to questions about conflict of interest and tax liability. Of course, Democrats have this unusual trait of thinking that laws don’t apply to them.
The dying dinosaur media chronicles yet another Pennsylvania budget crisis in dry wire service reports on inside pages focusing like a laser beam on the $29.03 billion in general fund spending sought by Gov. Rendell — which, btw, would still be $1.04 billion higher than last year — with nary a mention that Harrisburg expects to spend more than twice that — $37 billion to be specific — regardless of what is passed.
This usually unremarked-upon spending is via special funds estimated for next year at $14.4 billion and federal money estimated for next year at $23 billion and which does not include stimulus money which was folded right into the general fund.
The state has 139 special funds to which money is directed from sources specified by law and their disbursements this year range from zero for the Energy Conservation and Assistance Fund to $2.58 billion for the State Employees Retirement Fund and $5.36 billion for the School Employees Retirement Fund.
Now, one would think that expenditures for things like pensions are set in stone and must not be considered in resolving the looming shortfalls, but then you would have to say that it is moral and just take from newlyweds, widows and struggling businesses to pay legislators like state Sen. Robert Mellow (D-22) pensions of $313,000, and bureaucrats like John Winchester salaries of $236,265 to administer the money,
And, of course, it is not.
And I would hope that all would understand it not just kinder but wiser to see government workers take a hit in the pensions bringing them down to $50,000 for the year, than see someone forced from their home or to shut their business, the latter of which would obviously cut the tax base even further would lead one to wonder how the state would end up funding these Cadillac pensions anyway.
Local government, btw, is expected to spend $67.8 billion on top of that next year in Pennsylvania.
A big hat tip to Nate Benefield and the always excellent Commonwealth Foundation along with PaIndependent.Com
Star-Spangled Banner’s Final Verse — The complete lyrics to the Star-Spangled Banner. The last verse can be heard movingly sung by a former Marine at a Tea Party rally by clicking here .
O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave![12]
Former congressman Pat Toomey, the Republican, leads liberal darling Democrat Congressman Joe Sestak by seven points in the race to represent Pennsylvania in the Senate according to the Rasmussen poll released June 4. Two weeks ago, Rasmussen had Sestak up by four following his widely publicized primary win over party-endorsed incumbent Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary race, making it the first time Sestak led at the start of a race in which he was not running as the incumbent.
Sestak represents the 7th District of Pennsylvania.
Toomey represented the 15th District from 1999 to 2005.
Cascade Road Swatting Was 911 Hack — The owner of a home in Springfield, Pa. was tackled and handcuffed when he approached the police swarming his backyard last night, June 2. The 60 police officers including a hostage negotiator and members of a SWAT unit had been dispatched to the address in the 100 block of Cascade Road when the dispatchers at the Delaware County 911 center in Middletown reported that three people had been killed in the house and others taken hostage.
The system indicated the call was coming from inside the house. After the owner was tackled, a woman emerged holding a child. Police entered the home and found nothing amiss. The 911 system, however, continued receiving descriptions of violence inside the home.
Police say the residents, a family with three children, appear to be nothing but victims.
The incident cause the evacuation of the neighboring homes along with two homes across the street.
Police Chief Joseph Daly expects to find the culprit within “a day or two.”
Hat tip to Mari A. Schaefer at the Philadelphia Inquirer.