The Philadelphia Inquirer, today, finally got around to publishing a in-depth report regarding the Luzerne County youth court scandal.
“How? Why?” they ask in the headline.
The scandal concerns the sending of hundreds of youngsters to private detention centers for often minor offenses such as fighting on the school bus. The centers were paid per prisoner and it is alleged the operators kicked back money to county judges to fill the facilities.
Judges Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella face federal racketeering, bribery and extortion charges. A federal judge, last month, rejected a plea bargain that would have sentenced them to 87 months saying it was too lenient.
In asking the how and the why, the Inquirer never felt it necessary to allot one of the article’s 2,000 or so words to identify the party of the men, which is the one that controls Luzerne County.
It starts with a D.
Their policy really does seem to be that party affiliation is redundant when dealing with Democrats. They certainly don’t feel it necessary to note the party when dealing with Republican scandals.
And, so when is Curt Weldon going to jail?
My guess is that William Ecenbarger the talented journalist who penned the story voted a straight Democratic ticket for the past several decades. The Inquirer never was an honest paper.