Posts in month: November, 2009

I rarely watch TV.  In fact, I don’t have cable, dish, or even an antenna (did they recently become obsolete with the switch to digital?  I don’t even know).  Every so often, I’ll be somewhere where there is a TV, and most people I know usually like to watch the news.  Or I’ll switch the TV to the news.  And over the past two or three months, I’ve noticed something:  Joe Sestak is always on.

He usually talks about military issues, so with Afghanistan in the news, of course the media will run to him.

But I was thinking, why him and not others?

The answer is obvious.  The more recognition Sestak gets, the bigger the Senate Primary against Specter becomes, the more people pay attention to it, the higher the rating.

Maybe I’m wrong, and I’m being all cynical again.  But that free publicity Sestak keeps getting either means the media loves him or the media loves a battle.  I’m putting my bets on the battle.

Much like there is no Dana, only Zuul, there is no liberal or conservative media, there is only ratings.  And money.

Since today is a particularly anti-Republican day, it needs to be pointed out that, despite blame being laid at Rendell’s feet for the lack of a tax on Marcellus Shale related environmental destruction, Republicans are against it because, and here’s their typical talking point, it’ll stifle growth.

No, it won’t.  If I give you $100 dollars and say I want $10 back as a condition of the receipt of that money, are you really going to tell me to go to hell?   No, you won’t.

I hope the Dems in the General Assembly do the right thing and tax the hell out of natural gas drilling.

Republicans go on and on about momentum and all of that, but the Bush Era only ended in January.  Voters aren’t going to sweep Democrats out.  In fact, this year the Democrats won two out of two special Congressional elections, didn’t they?  One of them was held by a Republican since the Civil War, wasn’t it?

Republicans are manufacturing their own momentum by simply saying they have it and then pointing to this and that.  Two governorships changing hands, according to historical trends, isn’t something to go nuts over.  Sure, that’s not great for Democrats, but NJ had a bad candidate and VA had a worse one.

Sure, many Democrats the past two cycles got in because of anti-Republican sentiment, but the things that make the Republican party a disaster haven’t changed.  Recall their health care plan in the House?  All couple pages?  How about their health care plan in the Senate?  I don’t remember it either.  It doesn’t exist.

The Republican Party has no ideas about how to tackle the social issues Democrats have been tackling because they don’t give a shit about helping poor people.  They simply exploit ignorance (through things like religion and wedge issues) to fire up their base.  Then they give away whatever they can to business and the wealthy.   Regan did it.  Bush the First did it.  Bush the Second did it.  Remember what happened?  Deregulation under Regan helped lay the foundation for the disaster that has befallen us.  Bush II’s tax cuts for the wealthy and lack of business oversight made sure it happened.

And remember, who suffers?  Millionaires and corporations are weathering this storm just find.

It’s the middle class and the poor who suffer from Republican policies, and no dissatisfaction with Democrats will change that.  Republicans shouldn’t get giddy about anything, they can only point to failure after failure and hope Barbie Dolls with guns, a la Sarah Palin, can keep them relevant.  It’s not going to work.

Democrats need to remember this and make sure that people remember it, too.

Much like scenes from a coming Zombie Apocalypse, Chris Carney will inevitably see a ton of Mitt Romney look-alikes running against him in the 10^th Congressional District.  While Republican tainted conventional wisdom is that Democrats are going to face a backlash of some kind, Carney is far better situated than they think.

Chris Carney fits the profile of the district better than any of the candidates in the race.  He actively serves his country in the military.  He actively blows up terrorists using really cool gadgets.  He’s a Blue Dog.  Though NEPArtisan isn’t a fan of his conservatism, there is something to be said for pragmatism, and, hey, his district loves it.  Carney routinely holds town halls and listens to his people.  He was a college professor before running for Congress.  What’s not to like for residents of the 10^th?

Let’s take a look at some of the Republican challengers.

We’ve written about Malcolm Derk, who is Mitt Romney with a different hair color.

Of the Hackett-Meuser duo, both of whom look just like each other, talk like each other, believe the same things, and eviscerated each other in the Republican primary last time so that Carney didn’t have to in the General, Meuser is thinking about it.  That opposition research is still done, and Hackett buried him last time, so chances don’t look much rosier.  However, he does have the most name-recognition of any potential candidate.

The other potentials, Steven Solieri, Leslie Sheridan, Dan Naylor, and Leonard Modzelesky, aren’t really distinguished enough at this point to feel like a threat to Carney.

Naylor has campaign experience and political experience as a School Director at Lackawanna Trail.  That’ll help.

Modzelesky has media experience, which will help if he’s got the money to do big media buys.

Sheridan and Solieri have education backgrounds, which is respectable, but not nearly enough to give them an edge.

The primary will hinge on what the RCCC (Republican Congressional Campaign Committee) decides to do.  Their logical choice is Meuser.  He will have contacts, he’s got name recognition.  He can access his old campaign structure and not have to work from scratch.   And of course Meuser is wealthy.  Republicans love rich guys.  The other candidate that could possibly make sense for the RCCC is Derk, who has executive experience he can tout.  He’s young, he runs a county.  That’ll bring votes.

But all of this likely won’t be enough to unseat Carney, who has a record his constituents respect and can buy into.  And even if typical Republican talking points like, “Obama is a socialist!” get thrown around, and they have already in the 10^th, that doesn’t really mean what it did in the 1950s and, on top of that, Carney’s votes on health care reform and the stimulus are matters of conscience.  Even if people disagree with their representative on some points, that doesn’t mean they won’t vote for him.

Bob Cordaro’s mafia suspect activities are back in the news with the revelation that contractors spend quite a bundle on a gala affair at the airport.  Come on, people, a $30,000 laser light show is a legitimate expense.  Fugghedaboudit.  Or however you spell that.

AJ Munchak, summing up the pinnacle of eloquence, when told of the nearly $200K cost of the party, replied, “Holy shit!”  Nice.  That’s likely what he’ll say when the FBI drags Cordaro down.  And hell, I find it hard to believe that Munchak could really be that ignorant of what his partner did, so maybe he’ll offer up another “holy shit” the next time he has to talk to the Feds.

At the least, this shows Munchak’s obliviousness.  As a Commissioner, he had no idea what the authority or the contractors were doling out for the lavish affair that he was at?  It’s really hard to believe that cost never entered his mind.  The man is an accountant.

Munchak tying this fiasco to campaign contributions from contractors is a pretty honest statement about a problem inherent to politics:  Contractors give money to politicians for contracts.  And what?  They throw lavishly expensive parties paid for out of profits from the contracts they were awarded?  This reeks of scam.

Continuing with our repeated pleas for publicly financed elections, which would eliminate this type of fiasco, allow us to say:  Insert continued plea here.

Commissioner Washo’s idea was solid, hot dogs, hamburgers, and the public.  The public financed the airport, why have an exclusive, gala affair and not invite them?

Yet another episode in the Cordaro-Munchak Follies.

UGI presents yet another example of why utility companies need to be heavily regulated.  As the price of natural gas has fallen, their rates stayed the same.  This is wrong.

When a company provides an essential service, like heating people’s homes in the winter, that company is in a unique position.  They become a staple.  Society needs them to function properly.  As a result, they are able to have a guaranteed income, since people will always purchase their product.  This makes for easy pickings when it comes to pocketbooks.  People need natural gas, so why not charge them like hell?  They’ll still buy it.  Switching over to oil or wood or whatever isn’t cheap, so the customer base will remain relatively similar in size regardless of price.  So, UGI decided to take advantage of this and gouge away.

Why would a company pass savings onto the consumer when they could just pocket it?  Pff.  Anything else would be an insult to capitalism.  Screw the consumer is the name of the game.

The assertion that UGI is not making money is bullshit.  Ever see that Colbert episode where they picked apart an oil industry ad?  In the ad, a dollar was divided up.  A certain percentage went to drilling, another percentage to transport and distribution, and another to wages.  Not one percentage went to profit in this ad.  Colbert pointed out, in his wonderful satirical manner, that oil companies are non-profit businesses.

Right.  Like UGI evidently is.

Give me a break.

The police chief of Dunmore, Patrick Reese, is right in not wanting to become a member of the union.  When administration gets into a union, there can only be problems.  For example, if the police chief were to make some kind of mistake and then the union were to grieve it, the chief would get a cut of any financial settlement, if one were to be involved.  That would mean the Chief would benefit from his own mistakes.  Obviously that’s only a possible scenario, but it illustrates the point.  There is a reason unions exist, and it isn’t to protect the people who run the show, it’s to protect the workers.

There is a petition up here calling for a constitutional convention for PA to address issues of tax unfairness.  Rich people will undoubtedly be flexing all of their money-muscle to stop this from happening, so please sign in the interest of helping the poor and middle class.

In continuing with our investigation into Corey O’Brien’s beliefs, we’ve found two interesting tidbits.  The first is an interview with the famous NEPA blogger, Gort.  The second is from the LA-based blog Down With Tyranny.

We have yet to say it here at NEPArtisan, but given what we’ve seen from other local bloggers, we can openly draw the conclusion:  Corey believes what polls tell him to believe.

In Gort’s interview with Corey, Corey says of his then potential challenge to Kanjorski that, “I think I have some philosophical disagreements.”  Key words: “I think.”  Philosophical differences are pretty important when running.  Otherwise, why run?  Shouldn’t you know what your differences are before you run?  The only information we have to compare Kanjo and Corey with is their belief in the Stupak Amendment.  They think the same thing.

As I said, Corey probably had to check his polls before he decided what, if any, differences he could have.  This is, of course, embittered conjecture.  He did say that he plans on representing the values of his district, which, again, lends itself to the idea that he polled to figure out what those were.  This sounds admirable on its face, but deriving one’s morality from what everybody else thinks is not the mark of a leader.  Having one’s own beliefs, reasoned out and developed over life, is far more respectable, and natural.  Conformity to the masses isn’t a strength.  Not that I necessarily trust that it’s the best form of government (I agree with Churchill, Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others), but we have a representative democracy for a reason.

When asked what his positions on hot button issues were, Corey replied, “Wow, I don’t know them.”  Nice.  More evidence of an immature, undeveloped candidacy.  He said this months ago, but given his generic website and refusal to answer questions about his beliefs, well, not much has changed.

Check this out from Down With Tyranny:  ”But progressive Democrats can cool their heels for now. O’Brien is no champion of progressive values– In fact, he’s a better packaged avatar of social conservatism– anti-Choice and against equality for gays.”

We surmised this was the case from his “Catholicism is how I decide things” answer to our abortion question, but it seems there are others out there who’ve gotten wind of Corey’s beliefs.

It’s very probable that he’s avoiding the blogging community (NEPArtisan isn’t the only one he’s not responding to any longer) because bloggers tend to be liberal and progressive, something Corey is obviously not.

So, based on further evidence out there that gives us more insight into Corey O’Brien the “I don’t know what I believe” candidate, he remains generic and non-committal.  It’s safer if you just spout out typical catch phrases that everybody can get behind.  Remember his Corey for Commissioner “my parents taught us the value of hard work” commercial?  Hey!  Wow!  My parents taught me stuff, too!  I can so relate!

Everybody can relate to that.  But it doesn’t distinguish him.

And is it me, or is he starting to look more and more like Mitt Romney?  Maybe I have an illness.  I see Mitt Romney everywhere these days.  Manufactured, hair-gelled, pandering candidates bring that out in me, I guess.

The drama between the Tax Office and City Business Administrator Stu Renda continues in the paper today, although the article merely rehashes what everybody already knew, plus Marilyn Vitali-Flynn’s response.

I haven’t actually figured out how that was news.  Courtright owned up to his comment, and said he’d apologize.  Isn’t the story done?  I guess not.

But it must be apology day today in the Times, probably because it’s Thanksgiving.  A commenter in the online edition of the Times article makes an excellent point, if this whole lawsuit were really about the poor, poor bereaved folks who publish their obituary notices, then why does the Times charge families to do so?  It’s obviously business.  That’s the only reason the Times sued; it had nothing to do with integrity, or people, or good will, or “existing business relations” (whatever that law could be).  It’s money, just money.

And the Times got their apology.  The article conveniently leaves out whether or not the settlment involved money, readers only get to see the apology.

Well, we know what the Times is giving thanks for today.

The bit of drama that played out at the recent Scranton City Countil Meeting with Bill Courtright’s aggravation at cuts being made to the Single Tax Office, where he will soon assume command, has at least taken somewhat of a positive turn. Two jobs slated to have been cut are not going to be cut after all.

But there is an underlying issue here. While Courtright, gentlemen that he tends to be on Council, regretted his outburst and offered an apology, his demeanor is understandable particularly because when Stu Renda was asked if he got any input from the tax office, he indicated he did not talk to employees about the potential impact, but he did talk to the current Tax Collector, Marilyn Vitali-Flynn. Her input? Cutting employees would make the job harder and she was against it. Did Renda listen? No. The cuts were made anyway.

Why ask for input if the conclusion is predetermined? Aside from the crippling going on at the Tax Office, actual insight from the office either wasn’t sought or was ignored. No wonder Courtright lost his cool.

The news that 1% tables games revenue will go to the Commonwealth Medical College in Scranton goes to show that vice can be taxed to hell for the good of all. Except that the 16% total tax rate on table games is woefully inadequate.

NEPArtisan has complained about this quite a bit, and, why not, we’ll complain some more.

The importance of funding education notwithstanding, cultural fixtures like libraries deserve attention as well. How much money would be generated by, say, taxing table games 17% and giving that 1% to libraries? Or up it to 20% or 48% (the same as slots) and then add to the list of valuable social, cultural, and educational institutions that could be funded.

Rendell has said the tax must be at least 16%. That doesn’t mean it has to be just plain old 16%.

Republican for Governor, Mr. Gerlach, is against the severance tax on gas drilling. Of course he is. Who wants tax business when you can just not tax business and let them poison our environment unfettered?

But obvious things like nonsensical Republican beliefs aside, Gerlach took a swipe at fellow Republican Corbett. Gerlach say that Corbett should step down from the AG post as he runs for Governor. Now, it doesn’t matter whether Corbett will or won’t (he won’t, too much free publicity), it matters that Republican sniping has begun. Corbett’s lead is substantial enough that all Republican primary candidates need to pick away at his lead for votes. This will hopefully weaken him in time to face the winner of the Democratic primary.

So, Republicans, snipe away!

As a disclaimer: This is in no way a defense of Lou Barletta.

The desire of (likely) Republican candidate in PA-11, Lou Barletta, has an added dynamic: his debt. He recently asked that supporters help him retire $250,000 worth of debt, mostly owed to himself. Part of me feels bad, because that’s a $250,000 hole in his pocket. But then, part of me doesn’t feel bad, because somebody with $250K to burn on a race shouldn’t whine when the lose it, nor should they ask other people to pay it for them. He went it, knew the risks, made his choice, and should live with it.

Now, onto the “defense” part. This is another example of why we need publicly financed elections. It removes unfortunate situations such as this, just as it removes PACs, corporations, business, lobbyists, special interests groups, etc. from using monetary power to influence both elections and candidates. It evens the playing field and encourages the non-wealthy from being active participants in democracy. Let’s not kid ourselves, one needs money to run. The easiest way to have money is to be rich. Politics should not be a rich (wo)man’s game.

According to Politico, Roman Catholic Bishops are trying like hell to find a Senator to push their agenda. Firstly, this should be cause for removal of their tax exempt status, because church should not be engaging in any kind of political functions. But secondly, their target, Senator Casey, has thankfully said that abortion shouldn’t be dealt with in the Health Care Reform Bill. Thank you again, Senator Casey, for seeing reason.

What Casey wishes to do, instead, would be to offer support to women who have unintended pregnancies. Ah, something everybody can support. Of course, ultra-conservatives (aka Republicans and Catholic Bishops) will inevitably see this as insufficient. Senator Casey’s father once famously said the difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats don’t forget about the baby after birth. Kudos to the Senator for carrying on his father’s legacy.

Casey aside, the Catholic Church should stop injecting itself into politics. The government doesn’t inject itself into sermons.

I just received from Corey O’Brien this very nice e-mail about how he is interested in my views.

An excerpt:

”With your input, I am creating a long-term Plan for Progress for the next 30 years to address the concerns I have heard on the campaign trail relating to the economy, health care, education, fiscal responsibility, corruption and the environment.  I am running to represent you in Washington, so please e-mail me with your thoughts and views, which will be critical in shaping our Plan for Progress.  I will begin releasing the Plan for Progress in January, and will continue to supplement the Plan as I speak with more and more voters over the coming months.”

So, Corey O’Brien blatantly admits that he ran without an actual plan for anything.  As we’ve mentioned, his site only provides a generic list of his goals that are basically the goals that anybody but an anarchist would have.  Why bother running without having a clearly defined plan for his aforementioned issues?  Not only this, but it’s a 30-year plan.  I guess he plans on being there a while.

With Corey O’Brien not near completing his first term to elected office, many people in Lackawanna County have been turned off by his decision to run for higher office already, especially when he could’ve run in 2012 and fulfilled his first term as Commissioner.  Jumping into the race without an articulated plan bespeaks the driving force in O’Brien’s life: ambition.

As we once wrote, ambition and desire for higher office isn’t a necessarily a bad thing, but there must be substance.  And, according to this e-mail, we’ll be waiting until January to get it.  Maybe that’s why he won’t respond to our questions.  One must have answers.

Oh, and to round the e-mail out, he asked for more money.

Pro.

Years ago, I worked at a brokerage firm wherein I learned a little bit about how rich people think. A flat tax, they say, is the best way to tax income, because everybody pays their fair share. Sounds like a nice argument. My response to said argument is always the same, “But a poor person who makes $20,000 can’t afford to take a 20% hit on their income like somebody making $200,000 can.” Then the wealthy Republican people (who all look just like Mitt Romney, oddly enough) all say the same thing, “Then the poor people need to get an education to get a better job.” Ah, the simple world of the wealthy. If you’re poor, it’s your own damn fault, they say.

Today’s article in the Scranton Times illustrates what non-rich people already know: poor people pay more of their income in taxes than rich people do. I’m not talking actual numbers, I’m talking percentages. The national income tax is graduated, as it should be in Pennsylvania. Governor Ed Rendell’s call for a Constitutional Convention for our state should be heeded. We can address overall reforms to the eleciton process, as we talked about the other day in reference to Rendell’s recent Scranton speech, and the state can address this gross disparity.

The poor and middle class deserve better. Without the poor and middle class available for plundering and exploitation, there could be no wealthy class. Business and industry and the rewards of owning such go to the few, not the many. We all have heard those statistics about the top 1% owning 90% of the wealth.

They should start chipping in their fair share. They’ll still be able to have their nice pretty things. And then poor people can maybe keep PPL from shutting their electricity off next time. Everybody wins.

In continuing with our O’Brien silence-induced aggravation, it’s appropriate to add that his campaign actually sent me a request for campaign donations.

The e-mail doesn’t mention the Democratic Primary, or Paul Kanjorski.  Instead it goes on about Republicans.  This is a clever move, as it appeals to the Democratic sensibilities of the district.  A lot of diehard Dems would be happy to contribute to an anti-Republican effort.  But Corey’s fight isn’t against Republicans.  Not yet.

As you may have guess, I declined to throw him $20. The campaign will not answer simple policy questions, but it will ask for money.  Classy.

Speaking of audacious requests for cash, has anybody heard anything about a Corey O’Brien $1,000 a head fundraiser he held the same day that he laid off 27 people?  If anybody has more info, feel free to send it NEPArtisan’s way.

Despite the best efforts of poor-hating Republicans, Democrats voted for cloture on the Health Care Reform debate and the bill will come for a vote soon.

America will be better off if people do not have to choose between money and health.  Last time I wrote about health care, I talked about somebody I knew having incurred a large debt due to injury.  He still cannot pay this debt.  And he definitely has, if not brain damage, then serious brain issues, because he constantly messes up his speech due to his fall. But he cannot go to a doctor.  He has no health care to pay for brain scans, which would be roughly $3,000 a pop.

And this is the greatest country in the world?

Maybe we can say that when we take care of our people.

Thank you, non-Republican Senators, for voting for cloture.  We can only hope reform will ultimately pass.

Call it a New Media blackout.  NEPArtisan falls under that category, but, sadly, his campaign doesn’t like getting, or answering questions.  We’ve repeatedly contacted the campaign on numerous issues.  We got one response, on abortion, and sent follow-up questions that were totally ignored.  Corey O’Brien actually has a New Media Director.  What’s the point if you’re going to ignore New Media?

This is a big problem, because as time passes, the Internet is becoming more of a force in politics.  Look at Jim Webb in Virginia, Ned Lamont in Connecticut, and the countless dollars that the liberal blogosphere raises and pours into progressive candidates.  There are local political blogs we’ve only discovered recently, like The Scranton Guardian and Pittston Politics.  There are probably more.

Sure, NEPArtisan doesn’t have clout, but as constituents and concerned citizens, we deserve, like anybody, to have our questions answered. I even called the O’Brien office, after e-mail silence, and the campaign does not have a single person answering phones.  There are direct lines to all employees and all I get is a recorded voice saying that the individual isn’t answering.  I can’t even get people on the phone to give me information.

So, we have a new question, and we’re going to try to find out our own answers, since the O’Brien campaign is above responding:  Why not answer our questions?

There are two possibilities.  The first is that they plan to isolate themselves from potential criticism.  Fair enough.  But not responding only invites more criticism (see this post) and will inevitably lead to what his campaign will see as misconstruing of his beliefs.  Intentional on our part?  No.  But now we’ll have to infer what Corey believes since he won’t actually tell us.  For example, we can infer that Corey’s religious beliefs will guide many of his votes, because he cited that in his abortion stance.  So will he be against gay marriage?  Seems like it.  Do we no for sure?  Not 100%, no, we can only infer.

The second possible reason why the O’Brien campaign won’t respond:  They don’t have answers.  Corey’s campaign is in its infancy, and maybe he jumped in without actually thinking through each of his positions.  We know he is ambitious to a fault; he barely completed half a term of his first elected office before jumping into another.  Did Corey read Kanjorksi’s Amendment to the Finance Committee’s bill?  We asked him for his thoughts on it.  He didn’t respond.  Maybe he just has no idea.  Or maybe he does.  We don’t know.  If anybody can get responses from Corey on any of his beliefs, feel free to forward them our way.  We’ll gladly publish them in an effort to understand what this candidate actually believes and plans on doing.

All of this speculation would be irrelevant if Corey O’Brien’s website wasn’t so frightfully generic.  His “plan” consists of “ideas” that literally every politician out there could get behind.

Here’s what he plans on doing:

“Create High Paying, Family-Sustaining Jobs
Ensure Access to Affordable, High-Quality Health Care
Strengthen Education as the Foundation for Economic Prosperity
Renew Confidence in Our Leaders
Restore Fiscal Discipline and Require Pay-As-You-Go
Focus on Energy Conservation & Energy Independence
Rebuild Our Information and Technology Infrastructure
Support Our Troops & Veterans”

That’s the list.  I agree 100% with everything he says.  I’m sure almost everybody in this district does, or comes close.  I’m sure Kanjorski does.  Being as generic as possible to appeal to as many people as possible is amateurish and a mistake.  People will see through this.  Shaking hands and knocking on doors, which has been Corey’s campaign so far, isn’t going to be enough.  Actually having a concrete set of beliefs matters.

Maybe Corey does, but if so, he’s not telling.