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As the media hail president-elect Joe Biden’s appointment of the first-ever trans cabinet official, few note how she presided over a massive Covid-19 death toll in care homes in her prior post as Pennsylvania’s health secretary. Biden announced on Tuesday that he will appoint Dr. Rachel Levine as assistant health secretary in his administration, setting her up to become the first openly transgender official confirmed by the Senate. Levine has served in her post as Pennsylvania health secretary since 2018 and, before that, was the state’s assistant health secretary for a year. She had previously spent two years as physician...

Joe Biden just announced that he has chosen Pennsylvania's Dr. Rachel Levine to serve as his assistant Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary. Levine received an undergraduate degree from Harvard and medical degree from the Tulane University School of Medicine blah blah blah. MORE IMPORTANTLY, Levine is a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman and lives and presents as a female, presumably demanding to be addressed and described as a woman and considering it to be violent, oppressive, and UNSCIENTIFIC when anyone neglects to do so. Levine lived as a man until 2011, when HE WAS IN HIS...

President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine as his nominee for assistant secretary of health – and she’d be the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the US Senate. “Dr. Rachel Levine will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic – no matter their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability – and meet the public health needs of our country in this critical moment and beyond,” Biden said in a statement. “She is a historic and deeply qualified choice to help lead...

MOUNT POCONO, Pa. (AP) — At least four people were injured Monday in a string of shootings that prompted a shelter-in-place order for some residents north of Mount Pocono, authorities said. Mount Pocono Borough Mayor Michael Penn posted on Facebook that there were four or five crime scenes Monday night and “multiple police forces at this time in the Coolbaugh/Tobyhanna areas.”

Pennsylvania Sen. Dave Arnold died Sunday at home with his wife and daughter by his side, ending a 15-month battle with brain cancer.

At least 10 state health departments in the United States have detected the highly contagious B.1.1.7 variant of COVD-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, according to a new report. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in an update on Jan. 15, said that a “more highly transmissible variant of SARS-CoV-2, B.1.1.7, has been detected in 10 U.S. states.” SARS-CoV-2 is another name for the coronavirus that is believed to have emerged in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Health officials warned that models have shown the B.1.1.7 strain of the virus has the...

Video: Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman: "This idea that saying that Pennsylvania was 'rigged' or that we were 'trying to steal the election' -- that's a lie. And you do not have the right, that is not protected speech."

Pennsylvania reported 6,047 new COVID-19 infections on Friday, a hopeful sign the state won’t see a repeat of the December surge that brought twice that number of new infections daily. The state reported 215 deaths — a relatively high figure but, since people usually die weeks after being infected, one that’s likely a delayed result of the earlier surge. As of Friday morning, 4,848 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, another downward trend and well below the December peak when more than 6,300 were hospitalized. Still, state health officials this week continued to stress the need to wear face masks, avoid...

Gun sales in Pennsylvania have hit an all-time high. In new numbers released by Pennsylvania State Police on Wednesday, more than 420,000 firearm background checks were processed between October 1 and the end of the year. The highest total previously was 406,151, set in the third quarter of 2020. During the last quarter of 2019, 272,901 firearm background checks were processed.

---snip--- President Trump committed impeachable offenses that disqualify him from serving. “I do think the president committed impeachable offenses but I don’t know what’s going to land on the Senate floor,” Toomey told “The Journal Editorial Report” on Fox News. Toomey, however, waffled on whether Congress should move forward with impeachment given President-elect Joe Biden will take power on Jan. 20. “I have to say I do think the president’s behavior this week does disqualify him from serving but we’ve got 10 days,” Toomey said. The Pennsylvania senator said he’s unsure whether it’s logistically possible, practical or desirable to try...

President Donald Trump was wrong. There is no discrepancy between the number of voters and the number of votes counted. The claim that there were more ballots than voters comes from a flawed analysis done by state Republican lawmakers who relied on incomplete data and a misunderstanding of how those data are collected. [snip] Trump’s false claim: “More than 60,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were reported received back, they got back, before they were ever supposedly mailed out. In other words you got the ballot before you mailed it!”The reality: As with the claim about discrepancies in vote histories, this appears...

Gov. Tom Wolf issued this statement Wednesday afternoon condemning the violence in Washington, D.C.: “Today, President Trump’s supporters attempted a coup. This was the direct result of a deliberate disinformation campaign by Republicans from the President down to legislators in Pennsylvania. They lied about the results of the election. They lied about voter fraud. They lied about my administration and other governors. They lied about the administration of the election here in Pennsylvania and across the country. On November 3, we had a remarkably well-run election despite historic challenges. “Eight of the nine Republican members of Congress from Pennsylvania lied...

The usual solemn and joyous occasion that surrounds the Swearing-in Ceremony in the Pennsylvania Senate was anything but on Tuesday. The raucous session began with a dispute over mask wearing that led to the passage of a temporary rule proposed by Senate Democrats to mandate everyone in the chamber have a face covering, which a couple Republican Sens. John DiSanto of Dauphin County and Doug Mastriano of Franklin County had resisted wearing until that point. But that was only a precursor to the real fireworks that the Senate Democrats set off. Pa. Senate GOP leader to deny seating an incumbent...

HARRISBURG — The new session of the Pennsylvania Senate got off to a chaotic start Tuesday, with Republicans refusing to seat a Democratic senator whose election victory has been certified by state officials. Amid high emotions and partisan fingerpointing, Republicans also took the rare step of removing the Democratic lieutenant governor, John Fetterman, from presiding over the session. They apparently did so because they did not believe Fetterman was following the rules and recognizing their legislative motions.

As we’ve seen, proving election fraud is difficult. Often, the data is in the hands of Democrat politicians and bureaucrats who refuse to make it available. Additionally, computers mean that a lot of suspected changes take place invisibly and, even if the Democrat pols and bureaucrats allowed a deep dive into the computer systems, it can be impossible to track what happened. However, the one thing that cannot be hidden is negative vote counts. In a system that adds votes, irrefutable evidence that Trump kept having thousands of votes subtracted would prove that the system was being manipulated.On January 3,...

The State of Pennsylvania has announced that restaurants will be able to open their doors once again for indoor dining as of today Monday, January 4th. There is one catch, though. The permissible indoor capacity depends on whether or not the establishment has been “self-certified.” Caution business owners– stay where you are – this is a trap. According to Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) Secretary Dennis Davin restaurants may reopen at 50% capacity as of Monday at 8:00 a.m if they have completed the online self-certification process.

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Pennsylvania House Representative Mike Reese (R-Westmoreland/Somerset) has died of an apparent brain aneurysm. Reese had recently been re-elected in the November 3 general election as Representative of Pennsylvania’s 59th district, which serves parts of Westmoreland and Somerset counties. He was first elected to the Pa. House of Representatives in 2008, taking office in the 2009-10 legislative session. Reese served as the Pa. House Republican Caucus as caucus secretary during the 2019-20 session and was elected to serve as chairman of the caucus in the 2020-21 session. He died Saturday afternoon at Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital with his...

These two infographics illustrate what’s gone wrong with Pennsylvania’s ability to oversee an election to the tune of nearly 250k votes. This includes the 205,000, or so, that you’ve written about previously (newer updates drop this to 185k) plus the mail/absentee ballots that are in-question. Rep. Mo Brooks is driving home the point that some states lack the ability to run an election well enough to reliably determine a winner. This is the story of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania’s SURE system must be used, by law, to ensure the integrity of the election. Some soft PA legislators are saying that the SURE...

What do they know that we dont

Come 8 a.m. Monday, restaurants and bars can reopen for indoor dining at a quarter or half of their occupancy. Bowling alleys, hair salons, museums and casinos can open their doors up to 50% capacity. And other in-person businesses can operate up to 75% capacity. Hearing that Gov. Tom Wolf announced on Wednesday he is lifting these stricter time-limited COVID-19 mitigation orders he first imposed on Dec. 12 is a relief to hard-hit businesses across the commonwealth. Wolf said his decision to not extend those orders and returning to the ones in place as of Dec. 11 is based on...