Free Republic

Democrat Bill Clinton held up to the Republican tide and beat Tracy Barusevicius 328 to 228 to hold his 1st District seat on Upper Providence Council, Delaware County, Pa.

Joan Orie Melvin, a Republican judge from Western Pennsylvania, prevailed in the Philadelphia suburbs yesterday to claim a decisive win in the hard-fought battle for a vacancy on the state Supreme Court. Melvin's victory shifts the political balance on the state's most powerful bench to Republican, and could portend a re-energized conservative base in the 2010 gubernatorial and congressional elections.

A farm in every Pittsburgh neighborhood would be one of the goals of a Franco Dok Harris administration, the independent mayoral candidate said today, as his campaign sounded its final notes before Tuesday's election. The novel proposal -- which would have the city assemble vacant lots and help gather the expertise needed to transform them into farms Read more: http://www.postgazette.com/pg/09303/1009555-100.stm#ixzz0VRy1TKRj

A Pennsylvania pastor rejected by the state's House of Representatives will pray in the Senate instead. The pastor is Gerry Stoltzfoos of Freedom Valley Worship Center in Gettysburg. He was asked to pray before the House by his own representative and sent officials a written prayer on their request. "I wrote the prayer and sent it to them and they sent back a very short rejection notice," he recalls. "So I wrote back, 'I'm curious as to why.' And they said it had an offensive word. Can you tell me what the word was?' And they came back and said...

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell announced at a press conference that an increase in the state personal income tax was the only way to deal with a $3.2 billion state budget deficit. At the Westinghouse complex in Cranberry, Rendell said he is going to have to increase state personal income tax to 3.57 percent. After three years, he said the tax rate will return to its current 3.07 percent. Channel 11 News looked up the latest census data on Pennsylvania and found that the median household income was $49,145. A household with this income would pay an additional $245.73 a year...

"The Republican nominee for Pittsburgh's top office is its Democratic mayor.Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's campaign confirmed today that he will accept the GOP nod for mayor, after the Allegheny County Elections Division released its official count of Republican write-in votes in last month's primary. Mr. Ravenstahl, a lifelong Democrat, got 607, versus 189 for Squirrel Hill Republican John Wander, who ran a last-minute write-in nomination bid."