School Vouchers. This might just be the year for the controversial scholarship program, a long-time priority of the GOP. This week, state Sens. Williams and Piccola introduced their bill for a 3-year voucher phase-in, symbolically numbered SB1.
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Ed Rendell. The now-infamous 60 Minutes video went viral, and not because the Gov made a cogent point. Yelling makes good TV and it brings the viewers, but between these antics and last week’s wussie comments, Rendell is sounding a bad note just as people are starting to reflect on his legacy.
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Dan Onorato. He said he won’t seek a third term for Allegheny County executive, but plans to run for Auditor General in 2012. Announcing plans to seek higher office, but steeping down fro his current position to do it – a rare move for politicians.
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Tom Corbett. Corbett nominated Dan Meuser for Secretary of Revenue. Campaign finance reports show that Meuser and two of his family members made 34 contributions to Corbett’s gubernatorial campaign in 2009 and 2010, totaling $132,644. It’s hard to tell who’s doing more to push the narrative that these nominations are for sale: Democrats, or Corbett himself.
Pat Toomey. Toomey undertook the time-honored tradition of going to the farm show and getting dirty. The priceless pictures will not be a memory soon forgotten.
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Paul Kanjorski. The former Congressman made headlines this week. Bad ones. He became conservatives’ counterpoint to Sarah Palin in the debate over debate in the wake of the Tucson tragedy, for comments he made in October that Florida’s Rick Scott should be shot. Ouch.
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2 Responses
As to your first comment on labor’s pilaticol power you have been around long politics enough to know more than most anyone that if you’re not an active player you ain’t in the game.A rather disheartening truth in this is found with most of the working poor who are not organized, do not vote, lobby or run campaigns and are thus ignored by the politicians in fact, they might as well be termed invisible. In line with this same working poor’s powerless situation, allow me this gentle reminder that without organized labor (including the building trade unions) the federal minimum wage might be one-half of the present (albeit inadequate) $7.15 per hour.Further increases in the minimum wage remain a top priority and selfless activity within the entire labor movement in spite of the fact that our own members have absolutely no need for it in fact, one could argue that a higher minimum might even make it more difficult to organize these working poor.On your further comments in terms of infill permits and more common building construction, you need to look to the developers and real estate people, as well as to architectural firms and prime contractors, for all of these guys are best fetched by the most profitable way to go and it ain’t found in ticky-tacky all-come-out-the-same design and construction.As an example that has little to do with Philadelphia, across Pennsylvania we still see start-from-scratch architectural designing in new school and sports complex construction (including those done non-union) when there are many hundreds of well designed plans warehoused in Harrisburg. In any event, you are giving the unions credit for having a great deal of influence on these other parties and this may not be the case at all.Lastly, I wasn’t aware of this contractor’s imbroglio with the unions but not wishing to dodge the issue, googled the Philly mag article and viewed the images (as both videos are restricted as private material). One should not jump to conclusions for these construction guys are all well aware that these yards are always monitored as there is usually valuable equipment and tools stored on site so one does not really know who is in those images.
Onorato is making chicken salad out of the other stuff. The funny money shenanigans have drained the various pots of money in the county agencies, leveraged debt beyond reason, and made promises on pensions and salaries that cannot be kept. You can keep a Ponzi scheme going so long and no longer. Two terms is about it. Ask Ed. That has been his pattern as Mayor and as Governor and DanO is his pupil. Apparently, the only people you can fool all the time are the political insiders in Harrisburg.