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Republican State Senatorial candidate Scott Wagner, running a write-in campaign, beat candidates backed by both the Democratic and the GOP establishments in a Pennsylvania special election last week. Wagner’s victory over the establishment standard-bearers for the State’s 28th Senate district represents the first time a write-in candidate has ever won a seat in the Pennsylvania Senate. Wagner, a businessman from York County, won an astonishing 48 percent of the vote with his write-in campaign. His GOP-endorsed opponent, State Representative Ron Miller, took 27 percent of the vote and Linda Small, the Democratic establishment pick, received 26 percent. Local news reports...

MARCH 23, 2014 6:45 PM Philly DA Blows the Whistle on Pennsylvania’s State AG Why did the AG drop a case that exposed Democratic corruption? By John Fund Philadelphia DA Seth Williams (left) has slammed Pa. AG Kathleen Kane.Prosecutors almost never go to war against each other. But in Pennsylvania, Democratic attorney general Kathleen Kane is being brutally criticized by Seth Williams, Philadelphia’s district attorney and a fellow Democrat. Williams is upset that last year one of Kane’s first acts in office was to decline to prosecute four Philadelphia state legislators and other government officials. In a sting operation, all...

First, it was a Florida congressional race. Now? A Pennsylvania special election for the state Senate. The Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania scores a major win — and yes, the winner says he heard about Obamacare. Scott Wagner is a Pennsylvania state Senator this morning. It wasn’t supposed to happen. In a stunning upset, the York County businessman, taking a stand against the state’s political establishment of both parties, made state history by winning a special election for the Pennsylvania state Senate — in a write-in landslide, defeating both the Republican and Democrat nominees. Wagner captured 48 percent of the vote....

In a letter released Tuesday, Bishop David Zubik assured parents in the Diocese of Pittsburgh that the Diocese is not “using” the Common Core State Standards in its schools and has not participated in a controversial program to integrate the standards into Catholic schools. “The Diocese of Pittsburgh has not adopted the Common Core, nor have we adopted a curriculum based on it,” Bishop Zubik wrote. “Be assured that our Catholic identity is the core of our curriculum,” he added. “Our Catholic faith guides the selection of all curricula, goals, textbooks and other resources.” Bishop Zubik dismissed concerns that the...

Pennsylvania has a state preemption statute that prevents local governments from creating a crazy patchwork of local firearm laws.  Such a patchwork would effectively chill the exercise of second amendment rights in the State.  From the Pennsylvania statutes: (a)  General rule.--No county, municipality or township may in any manner regulate the lawful ownership, possession, transfer or transportation of firearms, ammunition or ammunition components when carried or transported for purposes not prohibited by the laws of this Commonwealth. The problem is that there are no teeth to the law, because there are no penalties imposed on local governments who violate...

March 19, 2014 Tea Partier wins write-in race for Pennsylvania state Senate seat Mark Tapscott York is a modest little city in Southern Pennsylvania not too far from Baltimore and right in the heart of Dutch country. It's not the sort of place where political revolutions are found. But Republican state Senate nominee Ron Miller may think differently this morning because he just lost a special election to a write-in Tea Party candidate, Scott Wagner. "With 100 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday night, write-in votes totaled 10,595, or 47.7 percent, to Miller's 5,920, or 26.6 percent. Democrat Linda Small of...

Pennsylvania Democrats were caught on surveillance tape reportedly accepting cash bribes in return for opposing Voter ID in the Pennsylvania Legislature. Gifts of Tiffany’s jewelry were also given to Democrat legislators from Philadelphia, reportedly in exchange for “NO” votes on a Pennsylvania Voter ID bill that passed in 2012.Despite this evidence, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane has not charged any officials. Kane is a Democrat.Kane’s excuse for her inaction? Racism: some of the legislators caught on tape accepting bribes were black Democrats from Philadelphia. From the Philadelphia Inquirer: In a statement to The Inquirer on Friday, Kane called the...

Pennsylvania Democrats reportedly were caught on tape accepting cash bribes, including one lawmaker who was paid to vote against a state voter identification law, but Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane shut down the investigation. "Before Kane ended the investigation, sources familiar with the inquiry said, prosecutors amassed 400 hours of audio and videotape that documented at least four city Democrats taking payments in cash or money orders, and in one case a $2,000 Tiffany bracelet," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. "Typically, the payments made at any one time were relatively modest -- ranging from $500 to $2,000 -- but most of...

In what appears to be an unexpected victory for a conservative businessman who had made s point of bucking his own party, Republican Scott Wagner is presumed to have won a write-in campaign to defeat party nominee Ron Miller for an open seat in the state Senate. The closely watched, hotly contested face-off ended in disappointment for the Republican mainstay and a first major victory for the tea party in York County. With 100 percent of the precincts reporting Tuesday night, write-in votes totaled 10,595 or 47.7 percent, to Miller's 5,920 or 26.6 percent. Democrat Linda Small of New Freeedom...

The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office ran an undercover sting operation over three years that captured leading Philadelphia Democrats, including four members of the city's state House delegation, on tape accepting money, The Inquirer has learned. Yet no one was charged with a crime. Prosecutors began the sting in 2010 when Republican Tom Corbett was attorney general. After Democrat Kathleen G. Kane took office in 2013, she shut it down. In a statement to The Inquirer on Friday, Kane called the investigation poorly conceived, badly managed, and tainted by racism, saying it had targeted African Americans.

March 17, 2014 Corrupt Pennsylvania officials caught in sting are all black Democrats Dr. Eowyn This would be funny if it weren’t so disturbing.Angela Couloumbis and Craig R. McCoy report for The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 16, 2014, that a 3-year undercover sting operation by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office captured five state officials on tape accepting money. All five corrupt officials not only are Democrats, they’re also black.Yet no one was charged with a crime.Prosecutors began the sting in 2010 when Republican Tom Corbett was attorney general. After Democrat Kathleen G. Kane took office in 2013, she shut it down,...

It started as a plea arrangement between a lobbyist arrested for fraud and the Republican attorney general of the state of Pennsylvania. And it ended not with a bang but a whimper by the new Democratic attorney general, who shut down the investigation without filing a single charge. Philly.com quotes Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane, who took office in 2013, as telling the Inquirer that the investigation was “poorly conceived, badly managed, and tainted by racism, saying it had targeted African Americans.” The undercover sting, begun three years ago by Kane’s predecessor, Republican Tom Corbett, captured leading Philadelphia Democrats, including...

While he has financially supported mainstream Republicans, Wagner has also been outspoken against incumbent Republicans and supported the campaigns of tea party and other independent challengers. As an apparent response, the Republican Party of Pennsylvania and the Senate Republican Campaign Committee have launched television and mail ads against him. The mailer comes on the heels of a television commercial that featured a picture of Wagner superimposed with dead fish. The ad, according to Wagner, misrepresented a 2006 paperwork error as an environmental disaster.

The York County Sheriff's Office released dash cam video from a traffic stop in which a deputy shot an elderly man reaching for his cane. WARNING: Video includes some graphic material and language.

Pennsylvania House Resolution 665 PA State Legislature page for HR665 Summary: A Resolution urging the Congress of the United States to designate Spanish as the official language of the United States and to mandate its use in all official acts of the Federal Government.

Bill Clinton is wading into a hotly contested U.S. House primary in Philadelphia and its suburbs to raise money for Marjorie Margolies, the mother-in-law of Chelsea Clinton...

State Senate Democrats say borrowing nine billion dollars is the best way to address the state's rising public pension debt. It's a shift from a caucus that has previously supported a wait-and-see approach with the 2010 law that reset scheduled payments into the pension systems. Those payments are set to increase by hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several years, eating up precious funding for other government programs, only to decrease again in 20 to 30 years. Now they Senate Democrats say a $9 billion bond could refinance some of the pension debt. Sen. John Blake (D-Lackawanna) said...

With new accounting rules looming, states and municipalities are beginning to realize that their unfunded pension liabilities are much more severe than they had previously estimated. Defined-benefit pension plans, the standard for government employees, have wreaked havoc on state and local budgets for years. Unrealistic assumptions about the rate of return on pension investments is one cause for the plans’ regular underfunding, assuming an average uninterrupted 8 percent rate of return forever. ALEC’s recent publication, Keeping the Promise: State Solutions for Government Pension Reform, provides an excellent blueprint for policymakers to understand the pension problem and offers concrete solutions on...

PEOPLE FROM all over Philadelphia came together Saturday to tell their stories about gentrification at the Church of the Advocate in North Philadelphia. Organizers had issued fliers calling for an "emergency town hall" to confront a "crisis facing black Philadelphia: the demise of our neighborhoods." In gentrification, some neighborhoods are targeted for revitalization - but the new development leads to huge rent or property-tax increases that often force longtime residents out.

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia judge has ordered philly.com to reveal the name of an anonymous commenter, in a defamation suit brought by electricians’ union leader John Dougherty. An attorney in the case says it could have a broad impact on incendiary online comments and those users, sometimes called “trolls,” who post them anonymously. The anonymous defendant in the suit, disguised by the nonsense name “fbpdplt,” called Dougherty a name in the comments section of an article on the website, one of the properties in the media group that also owns the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News.