A Million Pa. Independent Voters To Miss A Primary Choice

Pennsylvania’s primary election is May 18 and, third-party romantics aside,  from it will be chosen the candidates who will be the people who lead this state.

A little over a million of Pennsylvania’s 8.4 million registered voters will not participate in this choice because they have registered as something other than a Republican or Democrat. Pennsylvania is one of 14 closed primary states. The actual breakdown of labels is  36,473 Libertarians; 484,597  “no affiliation”
and 490,526 “other voters.

All but two of those running for governor this year have expressed support for Pennsylvania becoming an open primary state in which one can vote in whatever party’s race regardless of what his registration happens to be.

The dissenters are State Sen. Anthony Williams, a Democrat who represents the 8th District that includes a large part of Delaware County and state Rep. Sam Rohrer, a Republican who represents the 128th District in Berks County.

Williams would like to eliminate primaries altogether and just have a general election.

Rohrer would like to encourage independents to join a major party, which is a reasonable thing. If one is part of a group not choosing its candidate on primary day registering with a major party would give one two shots at how the state would be run. Ironically, Rohrer’s non-establishment campaign would likely be boosted by an open primary.

For the record, there are 4.3 million Democrats and 3.1 million Republicans in the state.

Toomey Retains Lead In Latest Ras Poll

Today’s Rasmussen Reports has Republican Pat Toomey again being the preference of most Pennsylvania voters over Democratic incumbent Arlen Specter, 50 to 40 percent.

This was the first time Toomey has reached 50 percent in the Rasmussen poll.

Toomey leads the other Democrat seeking the nomination — Congressman Joe Sestak (D-Pa7) — 47 to 36 percent.

The nominee will be determined in the May 18 primary election. Specter is endorsed by the party and has held a significant lead in the polls until yesterday when Rasmussen produced one showing the race to be neck and neck with Specter leading 44-42 percent with 10 percent undecided and 4 percent wishing they could vote for someone else.

Toomey is facing activist Peg Luksik in the primary albeit Toomey is a huge favorite.

It’s A Dem Dead Heat In Pa. Senate Fight

The latest Rasmussen Poll has endorsed incumbent Arlen Specter with just a two-point lead over Congressman Joe Sestak (D-Pa7) to be the Democrat nominee for the Pennsylvania senate race.

The primary is May 18.

Specter is ahead 44 to 42 percent with 10 percent undecided and 4 percent wishing they could vote for someone else, a wish, btw, that will not come true now that Sestak has knocked everyman challenger Joe Vod Varka off the ballot.

Last month Rasmussen had Specter preferred to Sestak by Democrat voters 48-37 percent.

The most recent Franklin & Marshall Poll had Specter beating Sestak 32 to 12 percent but with 52 percent undecided.

The winner of the primary faces Republican Pat Toomey in November.

Admiral Joe Knocks Regular Joe Off Dem Ballot

Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court  ruled today that Joe Vod Varka failed to get the 2,000 valid signatures required to be on the May 18 ballot for the Democrat Party senate primary election.

Vod Varka, a small  business owner from Allegheny County, shocked the political establishment by appearing to get the signatures last March.

He describes himself as a
conservative Democrat. He is against ObamaCare and has been an NRA
member for 36 years.

The action came after a challenge by Congressman Joe Sestak (D-Pa7) and the ruling leaves the race between him and party-endorsed incumbent Arlen Specter.

Specter responded with this statement: The people, specifically Democratic Primary voters, should have decided
whether Mr. Vodvarka was worthy of support, not Joe Sestak and the court
system. And Cong. Sestak was happy to pay big bucks to his lawyers to knock a
regular guy like Joe Vodvarka off the ballot, but he’s not willing to
pay the minimum wage to his own campaign employees.

GOP Activist, Boyfriend Brutally Beaten After Rally

GOP Activist, Boyfriend Brutally Beaten After Rally — Allee Bautsch, the petite blonde who is Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s campaign finance director, and her boyfriend were brutally attacked after leaving a Republican Party rally, Friday night.

Miss Bautsch received a broken leg and is facing a recovery time of two to three months. Her boyfriend, Joe Brown, received a concussion and fractured nose and jaw.

The rally was held at Brennan’s, a restaurant in New Orleans, and was the subject of a protest by a crowd of leftists. The beating occurred several blocks from the restaurant.

TheHayride.Com, a website that covers Louisiana politics, has found evidence that indicates the couple were targeted and followed because they were wearing Sarah Palin pins.

Update: The Hayride reported at 2:15 p.m., today, April 13, that Gov. Jindal‘s office says the couple were not wearing Palin pins.

GOP Activist, Boyfriend Brutally Beaten After Rally

GOP Activist, Boyfriend Brutally Beaten After Rally

Dopes And Change — Congress Accidentally Ends Its Health Bennies With OCare Bill

This may not be true since the source is the New York Times but when voting to inflict ObamaCare on the nation, Congress appears to have stripped itself and staffers of health coverage.

The Times says:

The law apparently bars members of Congress from the federal employees health program, on the assumption that lawmakers should join many of their constituents in getting coverage through new state-based markets known as insurance exchanges.


But the research service found that this provision was written in an imprecise, confusing way, so it is not clear when it takes effect.


The new exchanges do not have to be in operation until 2014. But because of a possible “drafting error,” the report says, Congress did not specify an effective date for the section excluding lawmakers from the existing program.


Under well-established canons of statutory interpretation, the report said, “a law takes effect on the date of its enactment” unless Congress clearly specifies otherwise. And Congress did not specify any other effective date for this part of the health care law.


Believe it or not, the Times actually asks: The confusion raises the inevitable question: If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?

Watchdogs are supposed to give the warning before the burglar robs the family jewels.

Things You Didn’t Know But Soon Will — OCare And Uniformed Health Officers

Something that didn’t get much comment in the ObamaCare debate is Section 5210 of the odious, authoritarian bill — a pdf of which can be found here. It starts on page 496 and greatly expands the role of the U.S. Public Health Services Commissioned Corps.

Section 5210 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act establishes a  “ready reserve corps” for the Commissioned Corps with the purpose of the reserve being to “fulfill the need to have additional Commissioned Corps personnel available on short notice (similar to the uniformed service’s reserve program) to assist regular Commissioned Corps personnel to meet both routine public health and emergency response missions.”

The reserve will be subject to involuntary call up and be subject to response to “public health emergencies, both foreign and domestic . . .”

The reserve will also “be available for service assignment in isolated, hardship, and medically underserved communities. . .to improve access to health services.”

Do these health services include providing abortions?

A “medically underserved” community, btw, would be the population of an urban or rural area designated by the Secretary (of Health and Human Services) as an area with a shortage of personal health services or a population group designated by the Secretary as having a shortage of such services.

ObamaCare authorizes $5 million per fiscal year through 2014 for the training of the Commissioned Corps and $12.5 million per fiscal year through 2014 for the training of the Ready Reserve Corps.

The bill doesn’t spell out what kind of training this reserve will receive but it is a radical departure from how  health services had been provided in emergencies.

Dem Fails In Strange Attempt To Stop A Congressional Election

The man expected to be the Democrat nominee to replace Joe Sestak to represent Pennsylvania’s 7th District in Congress tried a bush-league trick to force the Republican nominee from the race which could have been seen as doomed to fail by a first-year law student.

Actually, it could have been seen as doomed to fail by anyone who caught five minutes of a rerun of an old Ally McBeal but that didn’t keep state Rep. Bryan Lentz (D-161) a.k.a. The Man Who Would Be Joe from giving it a whirl.

The Republican — former U.S. Attorney and Delaware County DA Pat Meehan — caught some signatures on his nominating petition that he thought  forged and turned them over to the proper authorities.

Lentz basically said “hey, if those are forged then everything is forged” and filed a challenge to disqualify 2,624 or so of the 3,623 signatures obtained by Meehan knocking  beneath the 1,000 required to be on the ballot.

On Thursday, Commonwealth Court Judge Rochelle S. Friedman ruled as expected that Lentz’s challenge had no merit. Lentz had spent tens of thousands of dollars in his strange attempt to stop an election in the 7th District.

He could have spent that money advertising his positions instead but for some strange reason he chose to fight over trivia and technicalities.

Orie Prosecutions And The Dirty Reputation Of Pa.’s Courts

Joan Orie Melvin Orie Prosecutions And The Dirty Reputation Of Pa.'s Courts
Joan Orie Melvin

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron Castille is expressing concern that the prosecutions of the sisters of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Judge Joan Orie Melvin might further tarnish the reputation of Pennsylvania’s judicial system. It’s sort of  like saying the buzzing of another fly is going to somehow make less pleasant the stink of a rotting skunk.

The irony is that the only hope of bringing some kind of respect to that corrupt institution lies with people like Justice Melvin, who was elected to the bench last November against the wishes to the powers-that-be of places like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Luzerne County,

The Orie sisters–  state Sen. Jane (R-40) and Janine, who was an aide to Justice Melvin until she was suspended when the charges were filed — are accused of doing things like using Sen. Orie’s office copier for Justice Melvin’s election campaign.

The man filing the charges against Jane and Janine is Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala. Zappala is the son of former Supreme Court Chief  Justice Stephen A. Zappala Sr. who became an employee of  the Pennsylvania Casino Association after he left the bench.

Sen. Orie — ironically? — is a big critic of casino gambling.

Justice Castille in his concern about the Pennsylvania judicial system’s reputation cited the Luzerne County youth court scandal in which hundreds of youngsters were sent to Western PA Child Care, which is a juvenile detention facility, for often minor offenses such as fighting on the school bus. In return, county judges allegedly received kickbacks from the center’s operators.

In another bit of irony, Western PA  Child Care is owned by Greg Zappala who is D.A. Zappala’s brother. The business address for Western PA Child Care was the home of former Chief Justice Zappala.

 Orie Prosecutions And The Dirty Reputation Of Pa.’s Courts

Left To Play Pretend To Try To Blemish Tea Party

Left To Play Pretend To Try To Blemish Tea Party — If you should see some misspelled sign praising Hitler at the next Tea Party event or hear some obnoxious racial epitaph it appears the source will far more likely  be a college professor and socialist sympathizer than an actual Tea Party supporter.

Opponents of free speech and honest dissent are claiming on a website called CrashTheTeaParty.Org to have infiltrated Tea Party meetings and plan to “act on behalf of the Tea Party in ways which exaggerate their leastappealing qualities (misspelled protest signs, wild claims in TVinterviews, etc.) to further distance them from mainstream America anddamage the public’s opinion of them.  We will also use the insideinformation that we have gained in order to disrupt and derail theirplans.”

Left To Play Pretend To Try To Blemish Tea Party