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1/15 Ups & Downs

Campaigns, hearings and a vote of no confidence. See who made this week’s list!

Up ArrowJosh Shapiro. After months (really years) of speculation, the Montgomery County Commissioner finally made the jump into the race for Attorney General. Shapiro is making integrity the central slogan of his campaign, an effort to distance himself from the incumbent. He also scored the endorsement of Philly Council President Darrell Clarke, a valuable counterweight to Zappala’s support from Johnny Doc. Overall, it was a good first week for Shapiro and it will be interesting to see if he continues to gather momentum.

Down ArrowEd Pawlowski. The ground is shrinking beneath the Allentown Mayor’s feet. This week the FBI charged their first elected official in their sting operation. Then, it was reported that the City Council were preparing to hold a vote of no confidence in Pawlowski in the hopes that he would resign. Whether Pawlowski steps aside or is taken down, it feels like the raid of Allentown City Hall last July was just the beginning of a long scandalous episode.  

 

Up Arrow1Luis Felipe Restrepo. The Philadelphia-based judge waited fourteen months to get confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Last Monday, the Senate finally voted 82-6 to confirm Judge Restrepo. Despite the long wait, Restrepo is one of the lucky ones as Politico notes that Senate Republicans are insistent that no more judges be appointed until after President Obama leaves office.

 

Up Arrow1Down ArrowKathleen Kane. It was yet another crazy week for the Attorney General, which kicked off with her new assertion that she’ll run for re-election this year after all. Kane went even further by contesting the State Supreme Court’s suspension of her law license and demanding that it be reinstated. Meanwhile, Ed Rendell showed up to testify for her before the State Senate. The former Governor urged that body not to remove her but rather to take up impeachment proceedings instead. All the while, our reader poll of the AG Democratic primary shows Kane still has plenty of supporters. For this moment at least, it feels like anything can happen in the Kathleen Kane saga.

Up ArrowMarco Rubio. This week the Florida Senator secured not one, but two, endorsements from PA State Representatives. Ryan Aument and Jim Christiana both threw their support behind Rubio. These are the first noteworthy supporters of the Floridian in the Keystone State. In fact, according to FiveThirtyEight, only two of Pennsylvania’s major elected officials have chosen a candidate in the 2016 GOP primary so far (Rep. Meehan is supporting Christie while Rep. Barletta chose Santorum). With Iowa less than three weeks away, even the smallest endorsements are good news for a campaign.

The tweet of the week goes to WITF’s Mary Wilson for this candid shot of former Gov. Ed Rendell.

22 Responses

  1. Marie,
    Yes, the oath document was likely fabricated along with the accompanying notary log. The charging documents have a rathered tortured explanation about why the notary kept two logs…and that only part of a log was put into evidence.

    I wouldn’t put anything past this lot of corrupt judges and prosecutors — and former AG officials. Interesting rumors floating right now about a former AG official who became Governor and how his hands are still in everything.

  2. Mr. Truth – how so? Are you suggesting they manipulated and/or planted evidence against Kane? That woulld not surprise me.

  3. And still no word on how little Steve Santarsero has raised this quarter. Apparently he raised far less than Shaughnessy Naughton….. AGAIN.

  4. Budget will happen. In a few days it will be time to circulate nominating petitions. No incumbent will want to circulate without a budget in place.

  5. To: Kathy is getting her drink on.

    The 2009 Oath is of very dubious origin. What are you drinking, btw? Maybe you should consider stopping — alcohol kills brain cells and from your post I can tell you are running on empty.

  6. Dear Marie… I tried to get your statue back up but I couldn’t because JoePa hid what he knew about Sandusky…and they took it down. Please vote for me in 2016-Administrative General, Kathleen G. Kane

  7. Agree with Kraig and Pat. The trolls I ignore like everyone else does. These racist, sexist prosecutors are bad news. I hear from people that Seth Williams is losing support and has become a laughingstock amongst the Bar and the Judiciary. It may be too late for him to save his reputation. The “playbook” involving leaks — see beliw — is true. There are ALWAYS leaks from cases involving Frank Fina. If Kane is a criminal, then Fina is too –20 times over.

  8. The dubious evidence in Kane’s case? Is that a joke? She signed a secrecy oath and then lied-under oath-that she had not! Perhaps the author (Blehar) needs to look up what the word dubious means. Kane is now using Gansler, the “independent prosecutor” as her personal attorney, which is ILLEGAL.

  9. It does seem that the leak and cheat strategy has been par for the course in Pennsy. The only difference is that it hasn’t worked on Kane. She stood up to them. And they made a critical mistake when they failed to properly destroy all those e-mails. The porn and racism has been much-discussed. But I am wondering if there’s not evidence in those e-mails of the type of corruption layed put below.

    I also wonder who will be the 1st to turn state’s evidence. The heat has been turned up.

  10. “In the following weeks, the dubious evidence used in Kane’s case will be exposed, as will the details showing how the network of attorney, judges, and media worked together in an attempt to prevent AG Kathleen Kane from breaking PA’s chain of corruption.”

    Let’s hope the author is correct about that.

  11. This bears repeating, as it is dead on true:

    PA Corruption Network’s Playbook
    The similarities between the prosecution of Kathleen Kane and of the PSU 3 reveal the “playbook” of Pennsylvania’s corruption network
    The cases of current Pennsylvania Attorney General (AG) Kathleen Kane and that of former Penn State University (PSU) officials (i.e., the PSU 3) are connected by a common thread.
    A group of the Commonwealth’s attorneys, judges, political operatives, and their media accomplices — hereafter referred to as the “network” — used trumped up charges, purposely misinterpreted laws, and oversold highly dubious evidence to convict these individuals in the court of public opinion.
    After examining the timelines and evidence of these cases, it appears that the network has a well defined playbook for taking out its targets and it works like this:
    1. Individuals within the network fear their own heinous acts may be exposed and publicly accuse their opponents of crimes as a means of deflecting attention away from themselves.
    2. The network next co-opts individuals close to the target(s) –insiders — to assist in setting up the target(s) to be charged with perjury and other crimes.
    3. After the insiders have sufficiently undermined the targets (using various means of deception), the network’s attorneys and/or judges leak damaging information about the targets to the media.
    4. The media arm of the network uses the information in an attempt to compromise the targets or to promote guilt by association in the press.
    5. At the conclusion of this “framing,” that was mislabeled as a criminal investigation, attorneys go public with charging documents that allege crimes based on misinterpretations of the laws and that are chocked full of questionable testimony from unreliable witnesses, completely illogical scenarios, and dubious evidence. Perjury charges are standard in order to publicly smear the defendants as being dishonest individuals while attempting to pump up the veracity of the Commonwealth’s lousy witnesses (who would be eviscerated at an actual trial).
    6. The media accomplices ignore the illegal application of relevant laws, that the charging documents are illogical, the lousy witnesses, and the highly questionable evidence in order to continue treating the allegations as facts and even go as far as to allege the target committed crimes for which he or she has not been charged.
    7. The public falls for the deception and believes the targets are guilty of everything and are corrupt individuals — whether they have been charged with a crime or not. Citizen activists, public officials, and other groups and individuals — who are beneficiaries of the corrupt network — jump on the media bandwagon to publicly condemn the targets.
    8. Witting and/or unwitting employers recommend the targets be relieved of their duties or actually do so through employment actions — before anything is proven and without conducting a legitimate legal review.
    9. When legal proceedings in the cases reveal the false and questionable testimony put forth in the charging documents and the dubious evidence used in the case, the network’s media arm ignores the information and continues to slant the reports so the public continues to assume the targets are guilty.
    10. The legal issues from the misapplications of the laws result in appeals to the network’s judges, who refused to rule on simple matters and keep the trials on permanent hold. If the cases make it to trial, the targets will be convicted of lesser crimes — that the media will treat like crimes of the century.
    The network’s playbook achieves the goal of protecting its corrupt dealings and/or heinous crimes by never legally proving, but publicly scapegoating the targets in a media firestorm that is high in supposition and light on facts.
    To wit: the grand jury and Montgomery County DA Risa Ferman did not find the evidence to charge AG Kane with directly leaking grand grand jury information in the Mondesire case, but you wouldn’t know that if you just read the news headlines.
    Instead, they charged her with perjury (part of the playbook), lesser crimes, and for orchestrating the leaks, the latter of which Ferman and others know can’t be proven.
    Then again, the network’s playbook doesn’t include actually prosecuting the case.
    In the following weeks, the dubious evidence used in Kane’s case will be exposed, as will the details showing how the network of attorney, judges, and media worked together in an attempt to prevent AG Kathleen Kane from breaking PA’s chain of corruption.

  12. Kathy & Ellen chatting…”we love the network..those boys. We love “our boys”, esp the ones we can steal 200$ from or the one’s that email us. We promote those boys, yes we do. We love us our naked boy emails, esp the naked boys with flowers in “interesting places”. So H3 don’t be dissing our network. They keep us Happy! We love us our kooky journalists too. That Ray, he spins a conspiracy almost as good as that shaky Bill guy. So don’t be plagiarizing that Ray…H3. You need to give those conspiracy boys proper credit when you post their ideas. We love our network.” Ellen to Kathy…”let’s watch that Boondog millionaire or slumdock saints and then maybe we can meet up with that nice Dougie Gansler at a bar in Maryland!”

  13. The PA Corruption Network’s Playbook

    The similarities between the prosecution of Kathleen Kane and of the PSU 3 reveal the “playbook” of Pennsylvania’s corruption network

    The cases of current Pennsylvania Attorney General (AG) Kathleen Kane and that of former Penn State University (PSU) officials (i.e., the PSU 3) are connected by a common thread.

    A group of the Commonwealth’s attorneys, judges, political operatives, and their media accomplices — hereafter referred to as the “network” — used trumped up charges, purposely misinterpreted laws, and oversold highly dubious evidence to convict these individuals in the court of public opinion.

    After examining the timelines and evidence of these cases, it appears that the network has a well defined playbook for taking out its targets and it works like this:

    1. Individuals within the network fear their own heinous acts may be exposed and publicly accuse their opponents of crimes as a means of deflecting attention away from themselves.

    2. The network next co-opts individuals close to the target(s) –insiders — to assist in setting up the target(s) to be charged with perjury and other crimes.

    3. After the insiders have sufficiently undermined the targets (using various means of deception), the network’s attorneys and/or judges leak damaging information about the targets to the media.

    4. The media arm of the network uses the information in an attempt to compromise the targets or to promote guilt by association in the press.

    5. At the conclusion of this “framing,” that was mislabeled as a criminal investigation, attorneys go public with charging documents that allege crimes based on misinterpretations of the laws and that are chocked full of questionable testimony from unreliable witnesses, completely illogical scenarios, and dubious evidence. Perjury charges are standard in order to publicly smear the defendants as being dishonest individuals while attempting to pump up the veracity of the Commonwealth’s lousy witnesses (who would be eviscerated at an actual trial).

    6. The media accomplices ignore the illegal application of relevant laws, that the charging documents are illogical, the lousy witnesses, and the highly questionable evidence in order to continue treating the allegations as facts and even go as far as to allege the target committed crimes for which he or she has not been charged.

    7. The public falls for the deception and believes the targets are guilty of everything and are corrupt individuals — whether they have been charged with a crime or not. Citizen activists, public officials, and other groups and individuals — who are beneficiaries of the corrupt network — jump on the media bandwagon to publicly condemn the targets.

    8. Witting and/or unwitting employers recommend the targets be relieved of their duties or actually do so through employment actions — before anything is proven and without conducting a legitimate legal review.

    9. When legal proceedings in the cases reveal the false and questionable testimony put forth in the charging documents and the dubious evidence used in the case, the network’s media arm ignores the information and continues to slant the reports so the public continues to assume the targets are guilty.

    10. The legal issues from the misapplications of the laws result in appeals to the network’s judges, who refused to rule on simple matters and keep the trials on permanent hold. If the cases make it to trial, the targets will be convicted of lesser crimes — that the media will treat like crimes of the century.

    The network’s playbook achieves the goal of protecting its corrupt dealings and/or heinous crimes by never legally proving, but publicly scapegoating the targets in a media firestorm that is high in supposition and light on facts.

    To wit: the grand jury and Montgomery County DA Risa Ferman did not find the evidence to charge AG Kane with directly leaking grand grand jury information in the Mondesire case, but you wouldn’t know that if you just read the news headlines.

    Instead, they charged her with perjury (part of the playbook), lesser crimes, and for orchestrating the leaks, the latter of which Ferman and others know can’t be proven.

    Then again, the network’s playbook doesn’t include actually prosecuting the case.

    In the following weeks, the dubious evidence used in Kane’s case will be exposed, as will the details showing how the network of attorney, judges, and media worked together in an attempt to prevent AG Kathleen Kane from breaking PA’s chain of corruption.

  14. The Bazzano-Zappala-Porter mafia bosses have told little Zap to shut up and hide because he is too dumb to answer questions and only runs away when approached for a comment on indelicate issues (“Sissy”). The bosses will let their wallets and threats do the talking during the campaign.

  15. And Zappala doesn’t even appear on here… haven’t heard anything from him since his announcement ?!!?!

  16. No down arrow for new Montco DA Kevin Steele and the legal community begins to openly speculate that his prosecution of Bill Cosby is about to be tossed out due to Steele’s ethical violations? Can bar discipline be far behind for the man who now openly admits he lied about one of his predecessors in order to inflame the public and get elected?

  17. No story -we have a deal this week???? Only to be laughed off the stage again and again.
    Budget address coming your way. Don’t get excited, it wont get passed…. Failure Wolf and his Pack.

  18. HaHaHa, I’m a little disappointed. Normally you post under three different screen names and mention Fina at least twice in the first 20 minutes after a new post.

  19. I wish Ed Rendell would go away, but picking on his footwear is unjust. The man has huge problems with his feet and seems to be in a lot of pain.

  20. Restrepo deserved better. The Repervlicans will stop at nothing. Changing the rules as they go along – as usual.

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