Tag: pennsylvania

RedState Gathering – Pat Toomey (R, SEN-PA).

This one is of his speech that Toomey did for the Gathering, not the interview afterward: I’m not sure if there is going to be a better video copy of it, so enjoy. Pat Toomey is, of course, the guy who scared Arlen Specter into getting primary challenged by the Democrats instead of the Republicans, which is probably not what Specter had in mind. Such a pity, really.

As the video notes, Toomey also has a book (The Road to Prosperity) out.

Moe Lane Continue reading RedState Gathering – Pat Toomey (R, SEN-PA).

‘A primary challenge from the left would be a sad joke.’

I quibble at Megan McArdle’s adjective: ‘funny’ works ever so much better.  After all, the GOP is the one laughing at the way that Specter’s race is shaping up: we have gone from a situation where Specter, Toomey, and a liberal Democrat would conspire together to create a vicious primary fight and a weakened Specter to a situation where… Specter, Toomey, and a liberal Democrat would conspire together to create a vicious primary fight and a weakened Specter.  Only now the vicious primary fight is happening all the way over there, from our point of view; and I suspect that Megan may not be entirely checked out on Pennsylvania politics.  Pat Toomey may not have been a shoo-in; but a Republican who can hold a D+2 district that went for Kerry & Gore should be taken seriously in a general election, especially since Toomey’s going to have a more or less easy primary of it.

And the best part?  The Democrats were so looking forward to having somebody who was one of them in this race.  Alas, the comfort of the Democratic party’s leadership overrides the needs of their base.  Again.

You can donate to Pat Toomey here, by the way.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Governor X revealed?

If so, the New York Daily News is being rather artful about it:

Meanwhile, people have been speculating with vengeance since we told you about the former Davis escort who contends Spitzer wasn’t the only governor she romped with. On Friday, when Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell‘s spokesman Chuck Ardo resigned, Ardo insisted his retirement had nothing to do with Gawker and other sites putting Rendell on their short list of pols who may be Governor X. Ardo told The D.C. Write Up that Rendell is not the new luv guv – “no way, no how, no place, no time.”

Many seem to be aching for X to be Arnold Schwarzenneger. While we’re continuing to investigate the escort’s highly detailed story of her three “dates” with him, we won’t identify the chief exec with the prominent wife. But we will say this: it ain’t California‘s Governator.

So Gov. Rendell’s former PR flack’s denial that his former boss patronizes prostitutes gets reported without comment – while unnamed rumors that it was actually Gov. Schwarzenegger get firmly and unequivocally debunked.  Either way, absolutely deniable on the Daily News’ part. Continue reading Governor X revealed?

ACLU: Election fraud is a civil right.

Admittedly, attempting to do so has been done so many times in this country…

…that someone surveying the situation might be forgiven in thinking that it’s implicitly permitted: but no, we don’t actually want election fraud to happen. When it does – like it did in Pennsylvania – and we can catch them at it, we put the people who did it on trial.

And then, apparently, we have the ACLU wander in and pick the wrong side to defend (via No Sheeples Here).  They’ve decided that paying people to commit election fraud is constitutional:

PITTSBURGH — The community organizing and voter registration group Acorn filed a federal lawsuit here Wednesday claiming that a state statute that is being used to prosecute some of its former employees is unconstitutional.

[snip]

Acorn hopes the lawsuit will prevent criminal prosecution of its local leaders and office, which have been under investigation by Mr. Zappala’s office for eight months, said Witold Walczak, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which is representing Acorn.

See also the American Spectator, which in another article notes the real estate links between the NYT and ACORN.  Just in case anyone was wondering why the sympathetic tone.

Continue reading ACLU: Election fraud is a civil right.

Quinnipiac: Specter/Toomey 45/44. [UPDATED]

[UPDATE]: And if you think those numbers are bad, wait until Specter caves on card check to appease his new owners.  His constituents are purely going to hate that.

Via Hot Air Headlines, Nobody loves a traitor.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s 2010 reelection lead over Republican challenger Pat Toomey has shrunk to a tie with 45 percent for Specter and 44 percent for Toomey, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. And voters say 49 – 40 percent that Sen. Specter does not deserve reelection.

[snip]

Specter, first elected to the Senate as a Republican in 1980 but who switched to the Democratic Party earlier this year, holds a commanding 55 – 23 percent lead over U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak in the race for the Democratic nomination. On the Republican side Toomey buries Peg Luksik 47 – 6 percent.

[snip]

In other trial matchups Specter would defeat Luksik 47 – 40 percent, while Toomey would edge Sestak 39 – 35 percent.

That last bit may be what dooms Sestak’s candidacy… except, of course, that the Democrats are already trying their best to sabotage his (and Maloney’s, over in NY) primary challenge anyway. Meanwhile, the NRSC is backing Toomey, thus avoiding the bloody primary that we were all expecting and dreading before Specter changed sides.

So: thanks for not retiring, Arlen! Make sure that you vote for health care rationing!

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Jack Murtha(D, PA)-linked companies in Florida corruption probe.

It’s a lovely morning today.  The sun is shining down from a brilliantly-azure sky.  The birds are singing counterpoint to the steady rumble of people getting up, going to work and living their lives.  Somewhere, a child laughs with innocent delight as a sudden breeze stirs the grass, and sends dandelion seeds dancing through the air.  And Air Force investigators are charging that various-and-sundry companies linked to Rep. Jack Murtha (and his lobbyist brother Kit Murtha) improperly received and used earmarks funneled to them by him.

When an Air Force command in north Florida sought new battlefield technologies, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) steered millions in federal dollars its way to hire defense contractors.

The research effort at the Pensacola Air Force base fell apart, however, when investigators found evidence that it was used to improperly pay a series of companies linked to Murtha. A handful of defense firms were paid for work that was never done or not called for in the contracts. Some of the companies involved, based in Wyoming, Florida and Murtha’s district in Pennsylvania, had hidden owners, prosecutors allege; one was secretly owned by the Air Force official who helped approve the payments.

As prosecutors reveal new details of their criminal probe into the $8 million earmark that Murtha arranged for the Air Force project, one familiar player is never mentioned by authorities. Several of the companies had hired the lobbying firm of the lawmaker’s brother, Robert C. “Kit” Murtha.

They’ve already flipped one of the defendants: Richard Ianieri (formerly of Coherent Systems International, one of the companies involved) will be cooperating with the authorities on this and a probably-related kickback case. In other words, this is the point in the ongoing investigation timeline where the investigators have finally taken hold of the loose thread and are prepared to give it a good, hard yank – just to see what happens. This is also the point where people start mumbling things like ‘no wrongdoing has been proven on the part of my client’ rather than confidently shouting it: it’s not yet the point where sitting politicians start discovering a burning need to spend more time with their families, but there’s time for that. Continue reading Jack Murtha(D, PA)-linked companies in Florida corruption probe.

Today is the last day of Scott Ott’s pledge drive.

He is running for Lehigh County Executive against entrenched Democratic incumbent Don Cunningham, and on a ticket of fiscal responsibility:

…he is of course well known to us as a long-time political wit and satirist (this is one of his latest works); but he’s extremely serious about this race, and he needs our help. So, if you have anything to donate, you can do it here. Remember: the cavalry isn’t coming to save us. We’re the cavalry.

And we are perfectly capable of saving ourselves.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D, PA-11) babbles about maglev trains.

Well, first he was babbling about how nobody expected unemployment to get this high, and how he didn’t vote for the stimulus because it wasn’t big enough, and then he got into the entire maglev thing… anyway, I’ve cut up and laid out the relevant bits. It needs a soundtrack, but I couldn’t think of anything that would mix nonsensical and doom-laden well enough.

You know what would make me happy? The NRCC coming up with a good challenger to this guy (who, might I add, took money from notorious, now-raided-and-defunct lobbyists PMA Group). That would make me happy.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Good news, and good news on PA-SEN race.

‘A bad harvest, and a bloody primary!’

The good news: Pat Toomey’s (R Cand, PA) campaign (donate here) is reporting that he raised 1.6 million dollars in the second quarter of 2009.

Mr. Toomey’s strong first campaign quarter fundraising compares favorably with those of successful U.S. Senate challengers in the last election. In fact, he has raised more than every successful 2008 challenger. In his first quarter as a Senate candidate, Mr. Toomey has raised more than candidates Al Franken (D-MN), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Kay Hagen (D-NC), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Mark Begich (D-AK), all of whom went on to defeat incumbent U.S. senators

The other good news: Joe Sestak’s (D Cand, PA) primary campaign against Arlen Specter (Arlen Specter, PA) is being reasonably well funded. Continue reading Good news, and good news on PA-SEN race.

Murtha (D, PA-12) client indicted for taking kickbacks.

Plus: a look at one of his possible general election opponents.

(Via The American Thinker, via Instapundit) The bolded part is the part that you want your eyes to linger over.

Ex-contractor with Murtha ties charged over kickbacks

Federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh have charged a former executive for a defense contractor with ties to Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) with taking nearly $200,000 in kickbacks from a subcontractor.

Richard Ianieri, former president and CEO of Coherent Systems International Corp., is accused of accepting the kickbacks from a subcontractor identified only as “K” in court documents filed Monday. The charges came in the form of a criminal information, an indication that Ianieri is working with prosecutors and plans to plead guilty.

As you might remember from the Rezko trial – and that saga isn’t over yet; it’s just still in its Blagojevich phase – these kind of cases take time to build up and play out; so now is the time that you’d be wanting to see the first corruption cases go down.  Is Murtha involved?  That’s an interesting question… and, given that this is the first election cycle since 2002 where the man has had a primary challenger, the answer to that is probably of interest to more people than myself, or even the rest of the Republican party.

As to opponents in the general: it’s been reported (and assumed) that Bill Russell’s planning on another shot at this seat; and there’s also Tim Burns.  Local businessman, looks decent on the issues, not notably involved in blatant acts of federal money patronage and unashamed pork-barrel appropriations; all in all it would make for a refreshing change.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.