News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Joseph Ball of Advertising/Communications Times says his organization is sponsoring an Executive Networking Card Exchange, tomorrow, June 23 at the Hard Rock Cafe, 12th & Market streets in Philadelphia. 
It runs from 4:45 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. and a business card admits for free.
Feel free to bring a guest of your choice to accompany you.
Please RSVP to adcomtimes@aol.com.
Noted Commentator John Fund will be the keynote speaker at the Independence Hall Foundation’s July 3 event at the Independence Visors Center Ballroom, 6th and Market streets, Philadelphia. It runs 4 to 5:30 p.m. and celebrates the 800th Anniversary of the Magna Carta and the 239th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Fund’s topics will be those documents along with Pope Francis’ recent encyclical Laudato Si.
Also speaking will be Charlie Gerow, who is founder of Quantum Communications and was an advisor to President Ronald Reagan.
The event will also feature the presentations of this year’s Thomas Jefferson Defender of Liberty Award; the Franklin Award for Excellence in Journalism and the Betsy Ross Activist of the Year Award.
Tickets are $15 in advance; $20 at the door; with a student rate of $7.50 in advance and $10 at the door.
There will be an after party at the Independence Beer Garden, 100 S. Independence Mall West.
To RSVP, mail checks to: Independence Hall Foundation, The Continental, 615 Chestnut St., Box 39725 Philadelphia, PA 19106.
The group is also sponsoring a lunch with Fund at 2 p.m. at City Tavern, 2nd and Walnut streets. Seating is limited. For cost and details, call 215-620-3055.
Summer 2015 starts at 12:38 p.m., EDT, June 21, which is right now if our internet service provider’s clock is accurate. 
This means that tilt of Earth’s semi-axis is most inclined to the sun in the Northern Hemisphere which is a solstice.
The axis will in a few moments slowly start reversing itself until it is the Southern Hemisphere that is most inclined to the sun.
This would be the start of our winter (and Argentina’s summer).
Today is the longest day of the year.
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 6-20-15
Jaws is the most common name for pet goldfish in the United Kingdom.
Delaware County Republican Chairman Andy Reilly appeared on the Dom Giordano show, Monday, (June 15) to defend the man the GOP picked to fill the vacant 161st District Seat in the Pennsylvania House.
Why the candidate himself couldn’t appear is certainly a point of wonder especially as Andy couldn’t answer questions about where the candidate stood.
The candidate is Paul Mullen, who is business manager of IBEW Local 654 and until very recently was president of the county AFL-CIO. Mullen was a personal supporter of Joe Sestak, Toomey’s opponent, five years ago.
This is what Mullen said in 2010 about Sestak: A lot of politicians say they’ll support you when they run, then they turn their backs on you. Joe’s the opposite. He stands tall with the IBEW. Members here—they know Joe. He’s been to the hall several times and he’s toured our training facility. He’s definitely one of us.
Will Mullen support Toomey this time? Andy replied “I’ll bet you a steak dinner at a restaurant of your choosing that he will”.
Um, that’s not a yes.
Will Mullen support liquor privatization?
Andy: “I believe he does . . . it depends on how you define (privatization). What does that mean?”
One glaring issue that reveals why many of the loyal party workers are getting disgusted with the bosses is the claim that Mullen was picked by the grassroots.
“There is some kind of suggestion that the process of the endorsement of Paul Mullen was undemocratic,” Andy, who counts IBEW. Local 654 as among his law clients, told Dom. “The decision was made by the elected Republican committeepeople, one man and one woman from the neighborhoods in the district. Both candidates were provided with a list of committeepeople and addresses. They each sent a letter to the committeepeople along with their resume. We held a forum whereby both candidates were able to give their speeches, and then we handed a secret ballot, and both candidates were there to witness the tabulation. This wasn’t a decision made by the party bosses. This was a rank and file election by committeepeople.”
The forum and election tabulation was held 7 p.m., May 28 at Barnaby’s Heritage Ballroom in Ridley.
The results had been announced an hour earlier on Facebook.
The interview is 12:27 long and can be found here in Dom’s archives from June 15.
The 161st District seat was vacated by newly re-elected Rep. Joe Hackett, a Republican, on April 30. The election is Aug. 4.
Lisa Esler, the Pat Tooomey-supporting Republican, who went door-to-door for our Senator and made phone calls for him in 2010 and stayed up nervously watching returns and is going to happily support his re-election, is also seeking election to the seat.
She is more than willing to personally take questions from Dom on the air.
Mrs. Esler won election to the Penn Delco School in 2011 and developed a reputation for tackling the corruption and cronyism prevalent in state politics.
In this year’s May 19 primary election, Mrs. Esler was the top vote-getter on both Republican and Democrat ballots to retain her seat.
She is running as a write-in candidate, something the new machines make easy to do.
The non-GOP supported Democrat in the race is Leanne Krueger-Braneky of Swarthmore who lost to Hackett last fall.
While all eyes are riveted on the looming state budget deadline in Harrisburg, the political story of the summer is now playing out in Delaware County where a special election for a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives has become the latest flashpoint in the ongoing internal GOP battle between union-leaning southeastern Republicans and the party’s pro-worker freedom grassroots.
The drama began to unfold when state Rep. Joe Hackett, R-161 of Ridley Township, resigned at the end of April. Despite having been re-elected just months earlier, Hackett decided he wanted to return to his old career in law enforcement. That set the stage for a special election which will be held on Aug. 4. Nominees in legislative special elections are chosen by the respective political parties rather than by voters in a primary. Thus, a candidate not selected by committee members has no recourse other than to run a write-in campaign. Such write-in campaigns had previously proven to be fruitless, until state Sen. Scott Wagner scored a historic write-in victory in a special election in York County last year.
The Delaware County Republican committee members participating in the selection of a nominee for Hackett’s 161st district seat chose a candidate who has riled grassroots conservatives across the commonwealth. They picked as their candidate Paul Mullen, who is president of the Delaware County AFL-CIO and business manager of IBEW Local 654. In doing so, the committee passed over Lisa Esler, a local school board member and co-founder of the Delaware County Tea Party Patriots.
As a labor union boss, Mullen can be expected to oppose most of the pro-worker freedom agenda being advanced by the Republican-controlled Legislature in Harrisburg. Pension reform, liquor privatization and paycheck protection are but three important issues that enjoy widespread support among the GOP grassroots and in the Republican caucuses in the Legislature. Progress on all three of these reforms has been blocked by the labor unions. Worse, Mullen supported Democrats Barack Obama, Joe Sestak against U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, and Tom Wolf over Gov. Tom Corbett, making his selection by the GOP even more curious.
The Mullen pick lit a power keg of fury among conservatives. Esler has stepped forward and will challenge the union boss in the upcoming special election by running a write-in campaign. Her efforts should be taken seriously for two reasons: The Wagner win proves it can be done; and the district is almost evenly divided by party registration meaning this is more than just a GOP intramural competition.
Sen. Wagner’s election has changed the political landscape in a number of ways. Most notably party domination of special elections is now a thing of the past. With active and highly effective conservative groups now operating in the state, a write-in candidate such as Esler now has access to funding, consultants and grassroots workers previously unavailable to such challengers.
The Wagner write-in victory in York County, the first time in state history a write-in candidate won a special Senate election, proved the playing field has been leveled. Wagner was well funded, had substantial grassroots support from the local tea party and benefitted from a voter backlash over the high-handed campaign run by those supporting the party’s nominee.
All of those factors are at play in the Delaware County race. In what will be a low turn-out election in a small geographic district, Esler will be a force with which to be reckoned. The outcome will have no impact on party control of the Legislature. The GOP has a historically large majority, but it will impact the GOP caucus. A small group of southeastern Pennsylvania Republican representatives, out of step with a majority of their caucus, have sided with Democrats on labor power issues. Those looking to enhance worker freedom in the state will be anxious to prevent another member from being added to their number.
And that is how what should have been a routine, sleepy special election in the dead of summer could turn out to be the political battle of the year.
Lowman S. Henry is Chairman & CEO of the Lincoln Institute and host of the weekly Lincoln Radio Journal.
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 6-19-15
You body weight changes from minute to minute.
Everyone is under the assumption that the state budget MUST be completed by June 30 or the State of Pennsylvania shuts down.
This is an outright lie that has been used in the past and will be used again to intimidate the citizens of Pennsylvania.
Putting on my private sector business owner hat – every Wednesday our payroll departments electronically transfer the deducted employee state taxes to the PA Department of Revenue.
In addition, every day transactions occur throughout Pennsylvania that generate sales tax and other taxes – so the cash flow to Harrisburg does not stop.
Governor Wolf’s budget does not address any cost cutting, expense controls or efficiency projects – Governor Wolf’s budget is very simple – RAISE REVENUE THROUGH MORE TAX REVENUE.
It is the goal of the PA State Senate to have a balanced budget without tax increases completed by June 30th to be sent to the Governor.
Let me be clear – Harrisburg does not have a revenue problem – it has a spending problem.
Prevailing wage mandates on public school districts, out of control benefit costs, and zero accountability for money being spent are a few examples.
I will be a NO vote on any tax increases – we MUST address the expense side of Pennsylvania Government first.
Governor Wolf continues to beat his drum that he wants to DUMP (and I use the word DUMP) $1 billion in the public school system.
I am in total agreement that education for our children is the number one priority – the public school system has many components that need to be fixed, changed or eliminated before a billion dollars is thrown at the problem.
In the private sector, throwing money at a problem without stopping the leak that is causing the problem is called throwing money down a black hole.
Until the structural problems in the public school system are fixed – the $1 billion that Governor Wolf wants to throw at the problem – the money will disappear – next year and every year to follow there will be some group who will be asking for more money to be DUMPED into the public school system.
Enough is enough !
Sen. Wagner represents Pennsylvania’s 28th District.
Pope Francis, yesterday, June 18, released Laudato Si the first encyclical addressing the environment in Catholic Church history. 
Most of it is hard to argue with. Greed is bad. Waste is bad. Pollution is bad.
Oh yeah, and abortion and euthanasia are bad.
However, Francis also felt obliged to chime in that global warming is primarily man-made and is an oppressive burden on the poor.
Taking that to its logical conclusion means those living in poor nations should no longer aspire to have global-warming producing things like refrigerators and air conditioners and computer networks, much less cars.
Saying people with brown skin should end their dreams of having these blessings strikes us as kind of mean.
Anyway, we remain global warming skeptics for the same reasons we stated in January:
1. The leading supporters hid data that contradicted their public conclusions and treated dissenters politically with attempts to punish and silence them rather than in accordance with the canons of science which would be giving them full and fair hearing then refuting them openly.
2. Falsities have been found in the arguments of those claiming anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
3. Hypocrisy has been found in the lifestyles of those claiming AGW. Really, if you believe that a particular behavior is going to destroy the lives of your children you don’t charter jets to catch New Year’s shows on different continents. Nor do you live in energy-wasting villas. Either the activists don’t believe in what they say or they don’t care. We find this strange if one is talking about the end of the world.
4. The commonsense and practical actions that would drastically alleviate the claimed causes of AGW have been ignored, and even opposed by the supporters of AGW. When was the last time you heard an AGW claimer exhorting for more telecommuting? How about nuclear power? If the effort was made circa Y2K to replace every coal plant in this nation with a nuke, alleged AGW gases would be half diminished by now. Even more bizarrely why do AGW claimers support the removal of hydro-electric dams to be replaced by AGW producing plants?
We can go on noting opposition to streamlining the removal of traffic bottlenecks by ending Davis-Bacon requirements, and toll roads.
Frankly, any of these by themselves is damning to the argument. As there are four of them color us extremely skeptical.
Also, while arguments from authority are anything but definitive, we will note that highly accredited and accomplished persons in the field of climate study doubt it is occurring. These include Joe Bastardi, longtime of Accuweather, and John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel; and Dr. Roy Spencer, who pioneered temperature-based satellite monitoring.
For those who accept Francis’ declaration, we can find common ground regarding point 4. Are you green activists ready to fight to save hydro-electric dams and replace our coal plants with nukes? How about ending Davis-Bacon and other prevailing wage laws so we can free up some cash to remove traffic bottlenecks?
Another point: If you are willing to accept his declaration on global warming are you willing to accept his declarations on abortion and gay marriage?
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 6-18-15
The first pie ever to be thrown into someone’s face in a movie happened 102 years ago. It was flung by Mabel Normand in 1913’s A Noise from the Deep.
