Sen. Don White, who is brilliantly illustrating the absurdity of automatic payroll deductions for political causes.
Pennsylvania State Sen. Don White (R-41) is circulating a memo among his Harrisburg peers proposing that money be automatically be deducted from the paychecks of senate staffers and placed directly in the coffers of the campaign committees respective parties.
Some are expressing outrage, OUTRAGE, we say.
Which is kind of White’s point. He does not want this — seriously or not. His goal is to illustrate that the remarkably unfair, authoritarian, banana republic policy he is suggesting is no different than what is in place regarding automatic payroll deductions for members of Pennsylvania public employee unions, whose leaders then use the money to support political candidates who more often than not proponents of policies in direct conflict with the true interest of those in private labor force
Really, is shutting down refineries and mines, and importing cheap Mexican labor in the interest of Pennsylvania workers? Well, that’s what the candidates that get the public union money support.
So how about it Sen. Tom McGarrigle? Are you getting behind Don White’s plan? Doesn’t not having such a law deprive choice from workers who want a (political party) with an effective political voice.
State Rep. Russ Diamond (R-102) was the last person to testify before the State House Appropriations Committee concerning this year’s Pennsylvania budget.
“I just want to remind you as we go forward that every dollar we spend here is a dollar a hard-working Pennsylvanian first had to earn. We are talking about the dollars of truck drivers who spend maybe days, weeks away from their homes providing for their children, a single mom who works two jobs, the garbage man who risks his life and limb every day jumping up and down on the truck.”
Diamond is a truck driver in real life.
Here is his short speech. Springfield’s Bill Adolph makes a quick cameo.
You’re a tad overweight so you go on diet and drop a few inches from your waistline. Eighty-four percent of the fat was exhaled as CO2 and 16 percent was excreted as water.
Bob Guzzardi, whose case was cited by Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge James Proud in removing three Democrats from the Delaware County Council Primary ballot.
Jack Evans of Norwood, Richard Womack of Darby Township, and Christine Reuther of Wallingford were removed from the Delaware County Council (Pa) Democrat primary ballot for failing to file the proper report with the proper bureaucrat.
The three filed statements of financial disclosure with the Board of Elections but failed to provide a copy to the County Clerk.
Common Pleas Court Judge James Proud said because of that “no ballot for you”.
Proud cited the infamous Bob Guzzardi ruling handed down May 20 in which the state Supreme Court ruled that Guzzardi could not appear on last spring’s Republican gubernatorial primary ballot because his paperwork was not perfect.
What the Democrats did was a technical mistake. As they are accused of neither acquiring enough signatures nor presenting false ones, it is obvious that enough people want them on the ballot for there to be an election.
As they filed statements of financial interest publicly, they obviously were not trying to avoid scrutiny.
The proper recourse would have been for Proud to tell Evans et al to file the documents correctly and in the case of Evans to sign it and get it notarized. The only deadline that should be immutable is the presentation of signatures. Technical stuff should always take a backseat to democracy.
Delaware County Daily Times editor Phil Heron, however, notes that only 250 write-in signatures are needed for them to get on the ballot. You don’t think there are 250 Democrats in this county willing to do that? You don’t think this is going to make the Democrats more motivated and not less, and nominal Republicans more suspicious of those now holding power hence sympathetic to the Dems.
Don’t assume party loyalty is the force it once was. See Scott Wagner.
The people really are getting sick of sneakiness.
Bob Guzzardi did not have a prayer of beating Tom Corbett last spring. Because Corbett played dirty, though, he burned all his bridges with the anti-corruption activists supporting Guzzardi and went from having a tiny, smidgen of a chance to win the general to none.
Vote fraud is bad and must be punished severely. Technical errors are not vote fraud. It’s sickly ironic that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court which shot down a sensible photo voter ID law upholds these banana republic games.
For the record, County Democratic Party Chairman David Landau has vowed to appeal to the higher courts.
Retired Admiral James Lyons, who commanded the U.S. Pacific Fleet from 1985-1987 came pretty close to calling President Obama an Islamic mole in a talk before the Center for Security Policy on Feb. 11.
“The Obama Administration has a strategy,” he said. “It’s very simple. Any thinking American should be able to grasp it. It’s anti-American, anti-Western, it’s pro Islamic, it’s pro Iranian, and pro Muslim Brotherhood.”
We kind of agree. Biden 2015.
Obama must be impeached.
FWIW, Hillary isn’t any better. The father of her deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin was the late Dr. Syed Zainul Abedin who worked for terrorism financier Abdullah Omar Naseef. Her mother, Saleha, is a leader in the Muslim Sisterhood, which is the ladies auxiliary for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Here is the video of what Admiral Lyons said on Feb. 11:
Duckman’s Injury by David Lynch is among the works available at Artsy.net
David Lynch Art — Nicholas of Artsy.net has found our story concerning Loren Kantor’s woodcut work which includes noted director David Lynch as a subject. He points out that Artsy has actual paintings by the auteur himself.
Of course, changing things to a 401K plan now is akin to closing the sty’s gate after the pig has left.
State Representative Tom Killion (R-168) will lead a town hall on pension reform, 6:30 p.m., Thursday, March 26 in Room 101 of the Main Building of Penn State Brandywine Campus, 25 Yearsley Mill Road, Media PA 19063.
RSVP is required and can be made by emailing your name, address and phone number to DO168@pahousegop.com or by calling 610-325-1541.
There is a pension crisis. The Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS) and State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS) have huge debts. Their combined unfunded liability is $50 billion.
Given that Pennsylvania’s population — including children — is 12.8 million, this means that every Pennsylvanian is on the hook for $3,900 to cover this.
Obviously, this burden is not shared equally and those who work and own property and refrain from shopping in Delaware will pay significantly more than that.
Local school districts contribute about 8.7 percent to PSER — which has about two-thirds of the liability — so the expectation is that property taxes will rise accordingly on top the raises caused by negotiated teacher salaries, automatic “step” increases and $136 million new edifices.
Attempts to turn the retirement plans for state workers and local teachers into the defined contribution 401K types that most of us have, have been unsuccessful as they have been met with vicious resistance from the lobbyists and contributors with whom are representatives are more likely to associate with than, well, us.
Of course, changing things to a 401K plan now is akin to closing the sty’s gate after the pig has left.
To save our standard of living we need outside-the-box thinking. The first thing is to demand a freeze on all salary increases for all public employees — including legislators. This also means no more automatic step increases for teachers much less negotiated ones.
Then restrict public projects to only what is necessary and require that they be done as cost-effectively as possible. This means repealing the prevailing wage law which is estimated to add 20 percent to the cost of public projects.
The final thing will be placing a 40 percent tax on public pensions to last until the books are balanced. Note, this will not be a surtax as these are not taxed now. Oh, will this cause screams. Oh, will those getting $48,000 pensions accuse those living on a $30,000 retirement or unemployment package, or working two jobs to make ends meet, or trying to figure out how to pay for a decent college for a couple of kids or trying to cover the Obamacare health insurance hikes of “H8ing” and being greedy, mean and unfair.
The appropriate response is but two words, the last being ’em.
We missed Grover Cleveland’s birthday. It was March 18. Our 22nd and 24th president — he served non-consecutive terms — was born in 1837 in Caldwell, N.J., which makes him the only president to be born in the Garden State. His daughter, Ester, was the only child ever born in the White House.
That’s impressive but not as impressive as John Tyler’s legacy. Tyler, our 10th president and the man who gave the address at Thomas Jefferson’s funeral, has two living grandsons — Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Jr. (born 1924) and Harrison Ruffin Tyler (born 1928)
