Free Republic

According to a report in the Epoch Times, the state of Pennsylvania is paying churches to convince their members to get vaccinated. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s administration wants pastors, rabbis and other faith leaders to turn their houses of worship into centers for “vaccination events,” using federal grant money as an incentive to lure churches into a partnership with the government. But this is not just going on in Pennsylvania as reported by the Epoch Times. It’s going on across the United States. The Epoch Times article reports that Pennsylvania’s public health leaders want to “harness the power of community...

When you sell liquor in Pennsylvania, you have only one true customer: the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Even if you buy a cocktail at a bar, the establishment had to buy that booze from the state-run liquor store, just like you. So when Governor Tom Wolf urged the PLCB to stop buying and selling Russian-sourced products to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it put Margaret Bayuk in a tight spot. Bayuk is a 74-year-old Slovakian immigrant and longtime resident of Beaver Falls, Pa. She’s also the sole proprietor of Ustianochka Vodka, distilled and bottled in Russia and exclusively sold in...

Gov. Tom Wolf and the Republican-controlled state legislature have found something to agree on: Pennsylvania’s corporate net income tax, the second-highest in the nation, costs the state more in lost business than it collects in revenue. The legislature should immediately pass the outgoing governor’s proposal to cut the corporate tax from 9.99% to 7.99% starting in 2023. That would move the state outside the top 10 highest CNI states, although it would still leave Pennsylvania at a disadvantage compared to nearby competitors like New York (6.5%) and Virginia (6%). After that, there are two ideas on the table for lowering...

In at least a dozen states, Republican lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to make instruction in public schools more transparent. Pennsylvania’s bill, for example, would require public schools to post their curricula online. Democrats have largely opposed these bills, viewing them as the latest conservative salvo against critical race theory–inspired pedagogy. In vetoing the Pennsylvania legislation, Democratic governor Tom Wolf warned that the “legislation is a thinly veiled attempt to restrict truthful instruction and censor content reflecting various cultures, identities, and experiences.” Taken literally, Wolf’s statement is false. Requiring schools to be transparent about what they’re teaching does not inherently...

Gov. Tom Wolf has often said he’s “not a politician.” But before a vote on a key climate policy last month, his administration reached for a classic piece of Harrisburg leverage — state funding for local projects — to get Democratic lawmakers in line. On the record, no Democratic lawmakers would acknowledge the tactic. But privately, lawmakers and lobbyists noted that the Democratic Wolf administration implied that gubernatorial sign-off for millions in state aid to lawmakers’ districts was contingent on backing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. The threat of withholding state funding is a bit of political hardball...

Chartered jets carrying mostly minor-age, illegal immigrants into Scranton, Pennsylvania have attracted the attention of leading conservative lawmakers in the state, The National Pulse can reveal. Congressman Dan Meuser as well as gubernatorial candidate Lou Barletta have urged immigration authorities as well as Governor Tom Wolf to explain what one source told The National Pulse were “ghost flights” into Scranton International Airport over the course of December. The term “ghost flight” was used to describe the secretive nature of the flights, some of which arrived at night, without passenger manifests being made available. Beginning on December 11th and set to...

The head of a national non-partisan organization focused on research and education about voting by mail will become the next person to run Pennsylvania’s Department of State. Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday announced Leigh M. Chapman, who currently serves as executive director of Deliver My Vote, will move into the spot on Jan. 8 that is now held by Acting Secretary Veronica Degraffenreid. Degraffenreid will become a special advisor to the governor. Chapman has some familiarity with the department, having worked as its policy director from 2015 to 2017 overseeing the implementation of electronic voter registration. She will serve the...

Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday vetoed legislation that would have required public schools to post online educational materials used in their classrooms. The legislation was billed as a way to give parents easier access to the curriculum being taught to their children but the governor and Democrats saw it as an unfunded mandate meant to intimidate educators and hurt students’ learning opportunities. “Under the guise of transparency, this legislation politicizes what is being taught in our public schools,” Wolf said in his veto message. The bill would have required school administrators to post and periodically update course syllabuses, course summaries,...

Despite the uptick in COVID-19 cases particularly in Central Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf has no intention of imposing a statewide mask or vaccine mandate but will continue to urge Pennsylvanians to get vaccinated. “The vaccine is our strategy,” Wolf said on a KDKA morning radio show. Wolf was asked whether he was considering going down the path that Philadelphia city officials announced on Monday that starting next month, a COVID-19 vaccine will be required to eat inside a restaurant or food establishment in that city. “Local municipalities, as you know, I think ought to be free to do with what...

Central Pennsylvania school districts wasted no time determining whether to require students to wear masks or not following the state Supreme Court ruling Friday that voided the Wolf administration’s mask mandate. A number of area districts including Central Dauphin, Cumberland Valley, Steelton-Highspire, Susquehanna Township School District and West Shore announced they would maintain masking policies. While others, including East Pennsboro Area School District, Upper Dauphin Area School District, West Perry School District and Northern York County School District are making masks optional. The high court overturned a controversial order issued in August by Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam to keep...

Gov. Tom Wolf announced Monday that the Pa. Department of Health’s acting secretary is leaving the administration. Keara Klinepeter, executive deputy secretary with the department, will step into the acting health secretary role when Alison Beam resigns at the end of the year. The announcement of Beam’s departure comes days after the state Supreme Court struck down the school mask mandate she issued in August. “I am proud to have worked with Acting Secretary Beam over the past several years, and the commonwealth has been fortunate to have had the benefit of her leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic – especially...

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has affirmed the Commonwealth Court's decision and vacated the mask mandate issued by the acting state health secretary. This means that the mask mandate has been dropped, effective immediately. The opinion is expected to be released at a later date. Judge Saylor did not participate in the vote. The legality of the order requiring masks in K-12 schools and child care facilities went before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court earlier this week, as the two sides argued their respective positions before the justices Wednesday in Philadelphia.

In a one-page decision issued Friday afternoon, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that an order that has kept the state’s schoolchildren masked for months must be voided. The decision upholds an earlier ruling by Commonwealth Court, which found the masking order issued in August by Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam is unenforceable. Beam lacked authority to require that students wear face masks while in school in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19, the two state courts concluded. The mask mandate was challenged in court by a bloc that included Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, a Republican who...

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday on one of the most divisive issues facing the state at the moment – the state-imposed mandate that children must wear face masks while in school to protect against COVID-19. Yet the nearly hour-long session in Philadelphia wasn’t really about the virus or controlling its spread or whether wearing those masks is an effective response to the pandemic. Instead, the arguments centered on whether the state’s Acting Secretary of Health, Alison Beam, had the legal authority to issue the mask mandate. As Justice Debra Todd observed, the high court was being tasked with conducting...

Pennsylvania’s pro-abortion Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, issued a statement on Thursday slamming the Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Court heard oral arguments for the case on Wednesday, which surrounds a Mississippi law that bans abortions at 15 weeks. Dobbs is the first case in decades with the potential to overturn Roe v. Wade. In his statement, Wolf called the pro-life movement “anti-choice” and said that the Supreme Court could negatively affecting women and “birthing people” with their decision. “Today’s arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court demonstrate another attempt to dismantle individual freedoms across the...

Gov. Tom Wolf (D) vetoed legislation Thursday that would have removed the state’s requirement that law-abiding Pennsylvanians get a permit before carrying a gun for self-defense. On November 17, 2021, Breitbart News reported that legislation to make Pennsylvania the 22nd constitutional carry state was headed to Wolf’s desk. Wolf’s opposition to the legislation was well known, and NBC Philadelphia noted that he vetoed constitutional carry on Thursday. He called the bill “dangerous,” adding, “This legislation, which eliminates the requirement for individuals to obtain a license before carrying a concealed firearm, will only exacerbate gun violence and jeopardize the safety of...

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on Tuesday reinstated the Gov. Tom Wolf administration mandate requiring students, teachers and staff to wear face masks. The action is temporary, with the court scheduled to hear arguments on the matter on Dec. 8 and decides its fate. The court noted it has taken no position; one justice disagreed with reinstating the mandate. Acting state Secretary of Health Alison Beam, at the direction of the governor, had imposed the state-wide mandate at the start of the school year after most school districts failed to adopt policies mandating masks at the start of the school...

Gov. Tom Wolf highlights maternal health while UPMC Magee-Women's Hospital's long history of horrific experimentation on sometimes live aborted babies goes uninvestigated.Last Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services announced it is joining with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Magee-Women’s Hospital (Magee) to showcase efforts by Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration to improve maternal health services. In doing so, the governor is ignoring serious ethical and legal questions regarding the state’s largest hospital abortion provider’s role in fetal experimentation.I left UPMC in April after reading about a taxpayer-funded study published last year in which the scalps of second-trimester babies obtained...

There is a new date for the end of Pennsylvania’s school mask mandate, and it is Dec. 4. In a follow-up opinion issued Tuesday, Commonwealth Court Judge Christine Fizzano Cannon ordered the end of the mandate effective Dec. 4. Cannon’s order reversed an earlier stay that would have kept the school masking mandate in place as long as Gov. Tom Wolf’s appeal of the court’s initial Nov. 10 order lifting its mask rule was on appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The appeal is still pending before the high court, but plaintiffs in the case had asked for the automatic...

Gov. Tom Wolf apologized on Tuesday for his “honest mistake” in asking his wife to deliver his mail-in ballot for the Nov. 2 election. In a morning interview on the same KDKA radio show where he admitted to a violation of an election law two weeks ago, Wolf apologized. “I’m sorry. I did it. It was an honest mistake,” Wolf said. “But yeah, it was. I guess they say ignorance of the law is no defense, but I’m sorry, I apologize” Wolf admitted he asked his wife Frances to drop off his ballot. “It was my idea. She said I’m...