Politics

Courage vs. Polarization

2 Comments / News, Politics, Women

We’ve seen two demonstrations of extraordinary courage by two ordinary women in the past month.

In December, Ginger LIttleton, who had escaped, put herself back in to harm’s way to try to save her colleagues. With a purse as her only weapon, she attempted to knock the gun out of the hand of a man who was threatening the Panama City School Board of which Littleton is a member. That scenario ended without the loss of any innocent life.

This past Saturday in Tucson, the outcome was not so positive, although the bravery demonstrated by Patricia Maisch was no less admirable, in fact perhaps more so because people around her had already been shot and killed when she took a fresh ammunition clip from the hands of shooter, Jared Loughner.

Unfortunately, Patricia Maisch used the ensuing publicity and media attention to go on a rant about how she believes the rhetoric of the Republican Party was responsible for Loughner’s murderous spree. How disappointing that someone who showed such courage would use that moment to do exactly what she’s accusing the “other side” of doing…ratcheting up the dialog by making accusations at each other.

I wish Ms. Maisch well and hope that she recovers quickly from what will undoubtedly be reactions of post traumatic stress. I also hope that when she comes out on the other side of this experience, she will not find it necessary to polarize or politicize the event, which was clearly the act of a mentally unbalanced person and not of a rhetoric-driven ideologue.

My expanded thoughts about this issue are on The Daily Caller

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The “Downtown Browne” Show…

4 Comments / News, Politics

browne-portrait Technology has benefitted many industries, created many others, and turned the world in to a global marketplace. But no one group or segment of society has reaped more reward from the ability to sit in front of a keyboard to reach out and touch thousands of people, than the political establishment.

The old expression “stump speech” comes from the fact that for a candidate or politician to be heard while addressing their constituents, they’d have to stand on a tree stump to get up above the crowd. Despite all the emphasis on “going green”, there’s not a stump in sight across today’s political landscape. There is however, Facebook, Twitter, and Flipcams.

State Senator Pat Browne, whose 16th District includes parts of Lehigh, Northampton and Monroe Counties, is taking full advantage of these innovations by creating a series of video programs called “The Browne Report”. The latest edition focuses on downtown Allentown and the good things happening there. Included in the 27 minute video are…

** Lee Butz & the Butz Building

** Rev. Bob Stevens & Zion’s Church

** Cosmopolitan Restaurant

** Tamara Weller, Ex. Dir. of Allentown Parking Authority

** APD Chief Roger MacLean & Hamilton Street’s own guardian, Officer Rick Mongolitz

** Ann Vaughn of East Penn Properties

In case you don’t have time to watch the entire program, I’ll share my favorite quote, which I’m somewhat paraphrasing,  from Ann Vaughn who credits Mayor Pawlowski for all his energy and all the money he’s put in to downtown. Or to put it another way… all the money the taxpayers have put in to downtown.

To close on a positive note: I’m not sure if a video about downtown Allentown will bring in any new investors or customers, but I give Pat Browne credit for trying.

Blogger’s Note: This URL does work and will open when you click on it, but it was not suitable for embed.

http://nova.pasenategop.com/browne/2011/0111.wmv

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New Beginnings

2 Comments / Politics

It’s a testament to the human spirit that at the beginning of each New Year, we go through the same exercise, optimistically looking forward to what we believe will be better times ahead while setting countless resolutions that seldom are in effect when the daffodils bloom. But despite years that are not always better and promises to ourselves that we don’t keep, we repeat the cycle each January.

Nowhere will optimism and resolutions be more important than in our state and federal governments where deficits and entitlement programs threaten to sink a very weak recovery.

Republicans, who won what could be considered a mandate in the House must deliver on their promises or risk losing the ground they gained from frustrated members of their own party as well as Independents.

Appearing Sunday, January 2, on Meet the Press, Pennsylvania Senator-elect, Pat Toomey, highlighted his own agenda…reducing corporate and capital gains tax rates, reigning in regulatory over-reach, and “reforming” the health care bill. All good places to start when it comes to keeping those resolutions made to voters.

Let’s just hope when spring rolls around, congress is not sitting on the proverbial political couch, eating bon-bons, having forgotten all about its promises.

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To The Victor Go The Responsibilities…

1 Comment / News, Politics

The political world could look like a very different place tomorrow morning, if all the predictions come to pass.

Or it could look like the same old power-mongering, I-want-mine, gridlocked morass that has brought us to this place.

Whether this is heaven or this is hell is going to depend largely on how the Republicans handle their reacquired power.

One can only hope…and pray…they’ve learned from their past mistakes.

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More thoughts in today’s opinion piece on the Daily Caller

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The Campaign Trail Is No Place for Sissies or Non-believers

2 Comments / News, Politics

Blue shirt voter - Toomey To run for political office you need to believe in "something"…yourself, your principles, perhaps even your party. In this current environment, you also need the skin of an alligator, the endurance of an athlete, and a will of iron.

All those things were on display during the time I spent with Pat Toomey and his staff. The story of my time on the road with the campaign, from a foot-stomping welcome at State Committee in Harrisburg, through the God’s country of Pennsylvania’s northern tier on the way to the Bloomsburg Fair, and on to the Lackawanna Victory Center, is posted on The Daily Caller. http://dailycaller.com/

It was a fascinating look inside one of the county’s most closely watched races. It’s hard to think of two candidates who more directly appeal to their base and who offer the voters in the general election such a clear-cut choice for the future direction of the country. 

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Power Is Palpable…

3 Comments / News, Politics

There are lots of benefits to being a writer; one of them is that in the pursuit of one story, you often encounter others. And so it was in Harrisburg at the meeting of the Republican State Committee.

Mingling with the crowd at the reception before dinner, discreetly writing on the notebook stashed in my purse, I was privy to conversations that ranged from a Party power broker talking about what little enthusiasm there is for Corbett and how much there is for Toomey. I heard a group of women decry the ongoing, never-ending “old boys club” that is the Republican power structure, and I got an earful from a committee person from the coal country who said the “outsiders” are ruining his town.

I like writing about politics because it’s the closest thing we have in a civilized society to gladiators going at each other in the Colosseum; a bloodless fight to the death. Yet for all its ferocity, there’s an ethereal quality that can be sensed and felt, but that can’t be seen or named. The Big Mo…that palpable energy caused by momentum, excitement, and the whiff of victory. In a ballroom filled with Pennsylvania Republicans, you could have cut it with a knife.

The State’s Party Leadership took turns introducing the room’s many VIP’s and revving up the crowd. There was particularly loud applause when Lt. Governor candidate, Jim Cawley, who was very smooth from the podium, introduced Tim Burns, who received national attention when he lost the spring special election for Tom Murtha’s PA-12 seat. Burns is again facing the same opponent, now incumbant, Mark Critz.

But the loudest, hand clapping, foot stomping, cheer of the night went to House Minority Leader, John Boehner. Once on the stage, he turned around and pulled down what had looked like part of the backdrop, to reveal a huge red “Fire Pelosi” sign. The Harrisburg Colosseum crowd was calling for blood. Fire Pelosi signs appeared everywhere.

No doubt this was a speech he had given before, but he never used a note and he never missed a beat. Defending the Tea Party, he said they were average Americans who had been driven in to the streets out of fear for their grandchildren’s future. He brought a gasp from the crowd when he said a total of 100 seats in Congress “were in play”, and there are more Republicans on ballots around the country than ever before.

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Upon Reflection…Pretending to shoot the President is not a game

14 Comments / Absurdity, News, Politics

I’ve spent the past couple of days thinking about the incident in Roseto where the local church carnival made the national news for a game where people shot foam darts at a likeness of President Obama holding a “healthcare bill”.

It’s important in these times of real problems and real dangers to not overreact to things so I thought I’d “sleep on it” for a couple of nights before writing about it.

Seventy-two hours later, I feel exactly the same way as I did the first time I heard about it: What the hell were they thinking? The game company manufactures the thing in the first place, then the parish church in little Roseto no less actually allows the game to be displayed, and then hundreds of people use it shooting at the heart and head of the President before some woman from NJ blows the whistle. That’s a new low, no not the game; well yes, the game, but that we here in Pennsylvania had to have the error of our ways pointed out by someone from New Jersey.

And don’t give me that guff about First Amendment rights. This has nothing to do with what is legally allowed and a lot to do with what’s right in a civilized society. What kind of example are we setting for our children? No wonder bullying and violence are up in school .

More thoughts on this subject in my latest column for The Daily Caller….

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Justice Denied for Pan Am 103 Victims & Families

6 Comments / News, Politics

The world is full of injustice: Like the “Serenity Prayer”, most of us live each day trying to change what we can while not driving ourselves crazy over the things we can’t. It’s that “wisdom to know the difference” part that’s tricky.

But some things are so outrageous, so full of avarice and evil that you wonder how people who are subjected to them, survive.

That’s how I feel about what appears to be the blatant murderer-for-oil swap that has taken place between Great Britain, British Petroleum, and Libya. My thoughts in their entirety are available in my latest column on The Daily Caller.

It’s bad enough that mass murderer al Megrahi, the only person convicted for the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie Scotland, was released at all, but to now hear that the doctor whose report set al Megrahi free, was bought off, and to  know that Gadafi’s son admits Libya told the British the oil deal would be stalled without al Megrahi’s release, is beyond infuriating.

And as if the feeling of helplessness could be any worse, four senators are calling for a State Dept investigation. Yes, that will do a lot of good: Our leaders in Washington are so effective, I’m sure that BP will shake in terror at the thought of a U.S. investigation. That’s why our Gulf Coast is drowning in BP oil.

Al Megrahi is living in luxury in Libya and BP is about to start a billion dollar drilling operation off the North Africa coast, while the families of the Pan Am 103 victims have seen their loved ones memories trampled.

The amount of wisdom needed to handle that much injustice is more than I can imagine.

An excerpt from “The human pawns of Pan Am 103”:

In August of 2009, when al Megrahi was released by Scotland on humanitarian grounds, the story that it was a business arrangement to allow British Petroleum access to Libya’s oil fields, started to circulate among the Pan Am 103 inner circle on the secure website provided to them by the Scottish government. With the perception of a grieving mother, Jane Schultz wrote a personal letter to Scottish Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, stating:

Make no mistake that in the coming days and years, Qaddafi will make a mockery of the Scottish compassion shown today. Libya’s oil and gas fields are the only winners in your decision.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/14/the-human-pawns-of-pan-am-103/#ixzz0tiKBrMwp

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Pennsylvania and the Second Amendment

1 Comment / News, Politics

The DC logo My second column for the news and information site, The Daily Caller, has been posted. “Greetings from the land of guns and religion” is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at the recent SCOTUS McDonald v. City of Chicago ruling of last week.

The court’s sweeping decision to uphold the right to keep and bear arms really took me by surprise. As we’ve been watching government slowly erode our freedoms and our privacy, my expectations have sunk so low that such a strong defense of the Bill of Rights came as a shock.

The lower courts will now have the very important job of protecting us from municipal and state laws that do not conform to the Supreme’s interpretation of the Second Amendment.

From the top to the bottom, this is the quintessential example of why making appointments to our courts is one of the most important and impactful of Presidential prerogatives.

Like many rulings lately, McDonald was a slim 5 – 4 victory. It will only take one more retirement before 2012 to tip the scales the other way.

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The Woman Effect…from Kagan to Palin on The Daily Caller

3 Comments / Politics, Women

The DC logo For a writer it’s all about having a voice; most of us write because we want to engage in the collective dialog, especially those of us who write columns and commentary. Today, the people with whom I can have a conversation just increased exponentially: My first opinion piece has been published on The Daily Caller.

“The DC” as it’s known, was founded by Tucker Carlson, a 20-year veteran of print and broadcast media, and a partner who worked in the Bush White House. Its website states that “The Daily Caller is a 24-hour news site providing original reporting from an experienced team of professional reporters, thought-provoking commentary and breaking news”…along with a blog and various regular features.

My slightly tongue-in-cheek look at the current class of 2010 women in politics, “The woman effect…from Kagan to Palin”, is also meant to make a point: We’ve waited a long time and paid a lot of dues to get to where we are today.

There are good examples of how far we’ve come baby on both ends of the spectrum. Politics aside, it looks like we’re going to get a historic third woman on the Supreme Court. Personally, I wish Elena Kagan had more of a track record. The release of the papers and emails from her years with Clinton have shown her to be a very savvy “operative”. But let’s face it, we know she’s a liberal replacing another liberal, so hopefully, no harm, no foul.

Nikki Haley’s win last night in the face of one of the worse smear campaigns I’ve ever seen, was worth the wait. She has conducted herself with class and dignity. Maybe she’s a great actress, but in the face of no hard evidence of the infidelity charges against her, I choose to believe she’s who she says she is. I heard Haley speak this morning on Morning Joe…one of my favorite shows, and she was impressive. Very intelligent, thoughtful, and smooth. Let’s hope there’s a lot of substance behind that attractive exterior package.

As I said in The DC op-ed…

Here we are, almost four decades after the start of the modern women’s movement, finally having a political impact from coast to coast and across the political spectrum. What we’ve always wanted is coming to pass: Women of all political persuasions are duking it out in the public arena, taking on each other…and the boys. They’re paying their dues, spending their own fortunes, and setting their own agendas.

I love the smell of estrogen in the morning.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/23/the-woman-effect-from-kagan-to-palin/#ixzz0rhKGFkhN

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