News & Notes July 7, 2012

Barack Obama visited the same Bethel Bakery where Mitt Romney dissed the cookies and bought some for the press corps.  Sorry about Pennsylvania Mitt but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Auditor General candidate Eugene DePasquale introduced a bill which would strip Jerry Sandusky of his state pension.  As much as we all hate the guy I don't agree with passing laws which are retroactive.  

Advice:  when you get caught astroturfing, and astroturfing badly, don't try and blame it on your foes.  This reminds me of classic Soviet style propaganda.

Chris Collins a GOP Congressional candidate in New York, said people no longer die from breast cancer or prostate cancer.  Last year 80,000 Americans did just that.  Don't these morons believe in fact checkers?  A quick Google search can save enormous embarrassment and save a few votes.  Who would elect such a moron to Congress?

Privatization of government services not only costs taxpayers more it is threatening our very democracy.  For profit prisons leads to stricter laws and tougher sentencing to fill the prisons for example.  In the south they're now contracting out collections for traffic fines and sending people to jail.

Here in Pennsylvania you can be arrested and hauled off to court for unpaid parking tickets.

Unemployment remained at 8.2% as conservatives continue blocking any legislation designed to improve the economy.  Lagging public sector jobs continue putting Americans out of work from good, middle class jobs like teaching, fire protection and law enforcement.  Republicans have filibustered the American Jobs Act, blocked monetary stimulus, threatened a financial default of the debt which seriously erodes consumer confidence and jolts markets and cutting government spending which translates into lost jobs.  We won't begin really expanding (not "growing") the economy until we restore confidence, pay our debts and pass a new stimulus program.

Raul Hector Castro, 96 year old former Governor and Ambassador, keeps getting stopped by the Border Patrol in Arizona.  If this is how they treat a former Governor imagine what it's like for other Hispanics in that repressive state.

For a fat man Chris Christie sure has thin skin.  Everyone now knows how easy it is to make this guy lose his cool in public.  Twice recently he has been unable to keep his loud mouth closed.  How embarrassing for the Garden State.  They did elect him however...

Don't ever eat at Chick-Fil-A.  The notoriously conservative restaurant chain gave $1.9 million to anti-gay groups just last year.  Your chicken money goes straight to bigotry.  I remember how everyone with a social conscience began boycotting Dominoes Pizza because of similar  actions.

The minimum wage has been steadily losing its purchasing power since 1968.  It would need to be $9.92/hour now to keep pace with inflation instead of the current $7.25.  Conservatives keep lying that raising the wage would cost jobs but statistics show that never has happened.  They just want to screw you out of a living wage for your labor.  Congressman Bill Young (R-FL) told a man when asked about it to "go get a job."  That won't get the man (who already has a job) any more money.  Perhaps Congressman Young meant he should get yet another job?  That seems to be their idea of how to make ends meet:  work 18 hours a day.  CEO's earn 357 times more than their workers.  I think we need a maximum wage too.  They never seem to be concerned about those making too much money.  What Young doesn't understand is that the huge income inequality is leading to revolution.  When his head is in the guillotine someone tell him to go get a job, or, better yet, just let them eat cake.

This story ran under my radar.  Remember the Mexican who was beaten and killed by three high school football players in Shenandoah?  It wasn't an isolated incident.

Democrats have challenged the latest reapportionment plan.