So RGA Chairman Chris Christie (R. NJ) made a campaign stop in Pittsburgh yesterday for his buddy, vulnerable Tea Party Governor Tom Corbett (R. PA), and they were greeted by angry protestors. Well Christie made another campaign stop in Philadelphia and guess what happened:
http://www.philly.com/...
As many as 1,000 protesters, many angry about school funding, blocked traffic and waved signs in Center City on Monday afternoon, hoping to disrupt or at least deflect attention from a fund-raising stop by Govs. Corbett and Christie.
"Our members are here because they're being mistreated," said Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.
Six people were arrested for obstructing the highway - a summary offense - after sitting down on 17th Street. Police did not use handcuffs as they led them away.
The names of those arrested were not available Monday night, but a statement from the coalition group Fight for Philly identified them as "parents, activists, and retired teachers."
The two Republican governors were scheduled to appear Monday evening at a private fund-raiser hosted by the Republican Governors Association. The association did not release details of the event, including its location. - Philadelphia Inquirer, 6/9/14
At this point, Corbett is the Rodney Dangerfield of Governors where he gets no respect. Nor should he. But he at least had this bit of good news:
http://articles.philly.com/...
A review has found no evidence that then-Attorney General Tom Corbett delayed the investigation into serial sex abuser Jerry Sandusky for political gain, but it raises questions about the pace of the case, according to three people who have read the report.
The report also does not fault prosecutors for taking the case to a grand jury, a step that lengthened the investigation and that critics contended kept Sandusky on the streets, the sources said. But the review does flag the timing of certain decisions prosecutors made, such as searching Sandusky's house two years after the investigation began.
Commissioned in January 2013 by Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane and completed by a former federal prosecutor, the full report is expected to be made public soon.
For Corbett, it has the potential to boost or hurt his chances for reelection this year. For Kane, whose name often is mentioned for higher office, it could prove a test of whether the review was worth the time, money, and effort. It's also likely to prove more grist for legions of Pennsylvania State University supporters and fans who have challenged every aspect of the case and its aftermath.
During her 2012 campaign, Kane, a Democrat, repeatedly questioned why the investigation into Sandusky took nearly three years to complete. She also questioned whether Corbett, a Republican who was running for governor during that time, purposely slowed it so as not to alienate donors and potential voters who had a stake in Penn State and Sandusky's high-profile charity, the Second Mile.
Shortly after taking office, Kane hired law professor and former federal prosecutor H. Geoffrey Moulton to lead the probe.
Copies of his findings have been distributed to prosecutors, investigators, and other law enforcement officials who worked on the investigation into Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach convicted in 2012 of molesting 10 boys, the sources said. - Philly.com, 6/8/14
But here's the thing:
http://www.pennlive.com/...
By that time, Corbett was governor, and he had been succeeded as Attorney General by his appointed replacement, Linda Kelly.
Sandusky wasn't arrested until November 2011.
Corbett and his case investigators have consistently said it was important to try to find multiple victims in order to build the strongest case possible against a suspect like Sandusky, a revered Penn State football icon celebrated for his devotion to less-privileged kids.
Sources familiar with the probe have said that delay in performing a search was tied to a legal need to have solid allegations that acts of sexual abuse occurred in Sandusky's home before seeking the right to search it.
But one man who's read a draft of Moulton's report said it is surprising to him that a step that actually contributed to the identification of additional victims was postponed to that late date.
(The search yielded, among other items, lists of Second Mile program participants with annotations by Sandusky about kids he appeared to have a personal interest in.)
There is also a focus, some noted, on a five-month period in 2010, the year of the gubernatorial campaign, in which the case did not significantly move forward.
At the beginning of that period, in April 2010, at least one of the state prosecutors working the case, Jonelle Eshbach, raised the possibility of pressing charges based on Fisher's statements alone, the sources said.
That suggestion was ultimately dismissed by Eshbach's superiors, but only after lingering for several months.
Supporters of the case say their decision is validated because in the months that followed they got the tip leading to star witness Mike McQueary, which not only bolstered the Sandusky case but also revealed key evidence that launched the related investigation into Penn State administrators.
Efforts to reach Eshbach, who now works for the federal government, for this story were not successful.
Those who have reviewed that portion of the report note that while she states she personally believes Sandusky could have been arrested sooner, she also acknowledges she didn't push the issue, and that the case was not harmed by the decision to try to identify more victims.
But critics may find, at best, a vacuum of power at the top that resulted in months of delay before the Fisher issue was decided. - The Patriot-News, 6/9/14
So this case is still going to haunt Corbett. As an effort to save his ass, Corbett and Senate Republicans are pushing to loosen PA's liquor sale laws but even that might face problems:
http://www.pennlive.com/...
Sen. Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon, and a major proponent this year for the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes, continued to say it's hard for him to support expanding liquor sales if marijuana laws don't change.
If the state store system isn't sold, Folmer complained, "this is purely about easier access to alcohol in Pennsylvania, which is our number one drug addiction problem, plain and simple ... .
"We're doing something for the sake of doing something, because we don't want to look bad."
Sen. Pat Vance, R-Cumberland County, said she continues to be sympathetic to independent beer distributors who have invested in Pennsylvania's system for years, and are fearful of suddenly being thrust into direct competition with some of the biggest retailers in the state.
But Vance also said she liked the fact that Gordner's plan keeps in place a ban on selling alcohol where gasoline sales also take place, and will continue to study the issue.
That latter provision could be troublesome to senators with big convenience store chains headquartered in their districts.
The state House passed a historic liquor privatization plan last year, which is why the ball is in the Senate's court on this issue.
With Democrats reluctant to support a bill that could be harmful to any portion of their public-sector union allies, the conventional wisdom is that the 27-member Republican majority must produce nearly all of the 26 votes needed for passage. - The Patriot-News, 6/9/14
And it looks like Corbett might be breaking his tax pledge:
http://citizensvoice.com/...
It became clear late last year that Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration would need to be creative if it were to produce an election-year budget plan that scrounged up more money for key constituencies, including public schools, and afforded a new round of business tax cuts.
It did. The plan released in February assumed a rosy economic outlook and called for moves like delaying $570 million in payments for pension obligations and health care services.
Since then, Pennsylvania has experienced the worst collapse of tax collections since the Great Recession. Now, Corbett, a Republican running for a second term, is under pressure to sign off on another tax increase, something he pledged not to do when he ran for office.
For now, Corbett has not publicly agreed to any plan to fill the budget gap with a tax increase. But his aides also have not ruled it out.
“I don’t know if we’re going to get there, and it’s not really something we’ve discussed,” said Charles Zogby, Corbett’s budget secretary.
Zogby, however, is blunt that if more money isn’t found somehow, then there will be no new money for the agenda Corbett spent much of the spring touting: new public school grants and college scholarships, shorter waiting lists for human services.
“The current revenue picture would suggest that none of those would be done, and indeed we’re going to need to go back into the budget and make real cuts if there is no desire to look at alternatives to fill in the shortfall,” he said.
As if to underscore how discombobulating the situation is, lawmakers are getting the latest start on budget legislation in at least a decade. Nothing has come up for a vote yet, even in committee, and an initial House Appropriations Committee vote is not expected for at least another two weeks.
The new fiscal year begins July 1.
The problem is this: Tax collections are about $600 million behind expectations. That’s a shortfall tantamount to $1.2 billion in Corbett’s original $29.4 billion budget proposal because it reduces next year’s revenue projection by a dollar-for-dollar amount.
Other problems include several teetering assumptions in Corbett’s budget, such as his plan to delay legally required payments in public employee pension funds. - Citizens Voice, 6/9/14
Knowing that Corbett is in serious danger to losing to Tom Wolf (D. PA), the gas industry is coming to his rescue:
http://articles.philly.com/...
In what seems to be a reprise of four years ago, hundreds of thousands of dollars are pouring into the race for Pennsylvania governor from company executives with ties to the state's burgeoning natural gas industry.
But the donations, almost entirely to Gov. Corbett, are flowing with one key difference: The stakes are even higher for both the companies' fracking profits and the Republican Corbett, one of the country's most vulnerable governors.
Corbett is being challenged by Democrat Tom Wolf, a York County businessman who has pledged to add a 5 percent tax on fracking.
Nearly $1 million that will ultimately benefit Corbett's reelection bid arrived in January from executives of the Ariel Corp., an Ohio firm that builds compressors used to extract natural gas from Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale formation.
In February, according to state campaign-finance records, about $240,000 arrived from the president of Chief Oil & Gas, a Texas company that leases 200,000-plus acres in Northeastern Pennsylvania for natural gas drilling and exploration.
The money is being channeled through the Republican Governors Association to a separate political action committee it established in Pennsylvania. The satellite organization is Corbett's largest single donor so far in his bid for reelection.
He will need the money.
For the first time in Harrisburg, legislators are seriously discussing the possibility of a drilling tax because of a looming budget deficit that could reach $1.2 billion. And recent polls show that Corbett's stance on fracking, which includes his opposition to a new tax, has increasingly become a liability.
The donations from the shale gas industry have become "a lifeline" for Corbett, but increasingly an albatross as well, said Chris Borick, a political-science professor at Muhlenberg College.
"He needs every resource he can get given his poor standing in the polls and a very uphill battle for reelection," Borick said.
And yet the support is placing Corbett in a tough situation as the state faces a large budget shortfall.
"He's pushing it," Borick added. "Corbett is inching toward an untenable position where his stance on this issue goes more and more against what the public would like. At the same time, the high support from the shale gas industry leaves him in a difficult position for finding compromise." - Philadelphia Inquirer, 6/9/14
And Wolf has been hitting Corbett on the gas tax issue:
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/...
Tom Wolf may not hold an elected office yet, but as Democratic gubernatorial nominee, he is pressing Republican Gov. Tom Corbett and legislators in both parties to approve a tax on natural gas extraction that would generate hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Wolf's campaign said Tuesday that he was sending letters to Corbett and members of the state House and Senate, urging them to "put politics aside" and pass a 5 percent severance tax.
"Pennsylvania should not be the only major gas-producing state without a severance tax," the York businessman said in his letter to lawmakers.
Many legislators in both parties and both chambers have expressed support for the idea of a severance tax to ensure that the state shares the industry's wealth and to bolster revenue for schools and environmental protection.
A 5 percent tax would generate an estimated $700 million in the first year, according to Senate Democrats. - York Dispatch, 6/3/14
And Wolf has been reaching out to a key constituency that I'm sure would love to see Corbett get the boot this year:
http://www.philly.com/...
FOR MARK BARBEE, a freshman borough councilman in Bridgeport, Montgomery County, seeing gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf and state Rep. Brian Sims at yesterday's Philadelphia PrideDay meant more than just meeting two fellow politicians.
"To be an openly gay official and see them [attend the event] means a lot," Barbee, 24, said after taking photos with fellow Democrats Wolf and Sims.
Sims, the first openly gay elected state representative, who represents parts of Center City and South Philly, had invited Wolf to yesterday's event. Sims said on his website that he wanted Wolf, whose campaign promises have been based on "fairness and equality," to meet LGBT voters.
Rainbow boas, tutus and drag queens dressed to the nines packed Penn's Landing for the annual parade and festival.
Chris Edwards, 42, of Philadelphia, was among several attendees who approached Wolf to pledge support.
"I liked his campaign he had for the primary," Edwards said, after telling Wolf that he recently registered to vote so he could vote for him.
During the hourlong visit to the PrideDay festival - Wolf's first time at the event - he stopped to chat with members of organizations including the Anti-Defamation League, ActionAIDS and Equality Pennsylvania. - Philly.com, 6/9/14
Lets not forget that Corbett was the one who compared same sex marriage to incest. Christie, the RGA and Marcellus Shale will spend big to try and save Corbett so we need to be ready. Click here to get involved and donate to Wolf's gubernatorial campaign and State Senator Mike Stack's (D. PA) Lt. Governor campaign:
http://www.wolfforpa.com/
http://www.stackforpa.com/