September 20, 2024
Every now and again, a national issue crops up that snaps our brain into jukebox mode, and we are stuck listening to the same song in our head, over and over, for days on end. For the life of us, we can’t understand why Steely Dan’s Haitian Divorce is currently stuck on repeat up in the noggin. Oh well, we will figure it out eventually. At least our brain hasn’t yet turned that other Steely Dan classic, Kid Charlemagne into Kid Charleroi… Dammit!!! What’s going on??
The elections are now only 45 days away. Yes, just 45 more days of nonstop ads telling you how horrible the person you are voting for is. On that note, a staggering $130 million in ad time has been booked for the upcoming 45 days for JUST ONE RACE, that being the tilt between U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and challenger Dave McCormick. Someday we collectively will wake up from this fever dream ask, “why in the hell do we do this every campaign cycle?” Eventually a swing state race is gonna blow past the billion-dollar mark.
As one pundit recently said, the Pennsylvania version of the race for the White House remains “stubbornly deadlocked,” while the other Blue Wall states are pretty close to tied as well. This week marked the first time that VP Kamala Harris has put any daylight at all between herself and Donald Trump, but even now the race is well within the magic “margin of error.” Around here, we follow pretty much every pollster, not because we trust them all, but because it is downright hilarious watching pollsters go for each other’s throats online every day. It’s like nonstop WWE for uber nerds.
Republicans in Pennsylvania are relentlessly narrowing the Democrats’ registration gap, which now stands at its smallest point in two generations. But even as the Democrats have somewhat rebounded after President Biden left the race, one fact still stands out, and that is independents and non-affiliated voters are growing in numbers as fast as the two major parties. Someday, not allowing them to vote in primary elections is gonna become an exceptionally large problem.
If you wanna know our own Mike Manzo’s opinions on the state of the campaigns, check it out here from this week’s PCN broadcast.
Today, the U.S, House of Representatives passed a measure to increase funding for the Secret Service by a unanimous vote. Even critics of the Secret Service weren’t about to vote no on this one, no sir! It was rather jarring to learn, however, that the agency’s 3,200 officers have more than 30 people they are currently protecting. Maybe they need to start farming some of this work out, no?
The Pennsylvania House Democrats once again have a functioning 102-101 majority, now that two seats in Philadelphia have been filled. These two special elections were the 9th and 10th of this cycle, and we are sure you will join us in hoping we can get that number way down next session. If you get elected in November, STAY THERE UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD TO LEAVE!
The state Senate reconvened this week after wrapping up its summer break, and immediately voted to repeal the state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. If this sounds familiar, you’ve been paying attention for the last two years. Gold star for you, buckaroo. Since that bill is dead on arrival in the PA House, one might wonder why the Senate again voted on a repeal of RGGI. If you have no idea why they would do that, give us the gold star back, buckaroo.
Meanwhile, as the debate over which presidential wannabe will be frackier should they win the White House, the New York Times laid out in fine detail why the problem here isn’t the lack of fracking, it is getting all of our delicious and nutritious natural gas to market. But by all means, carry on with the fracking wars like it’s 2011.
Governor Shapiro joined lawmakers at a local grocery store to celebrate the arrival of canned cocktails on shelves. This is big news here, trust us. However, the governor forgot his ID, so he was forced to ask lawmakers to buy some stuff for him, which is pretty much how state budgets work anyway, right? “I need a six pack of hard lemonade and a billion for school funding. And some beef jerky.”
Central Pennsylvania denizens have become used to seeing the cooling towers at Three Mile Island sitting there in the summer sun, not doing a damned thing. Well, that’s all about to change pending federal approval, as the owners of the shuttered plant have struck a deal with Microsoft to purchase all the power TMI can generate once it is back up and generating again. Turns out that AI development and data centers need a metric crap ton of power. Also, expect several well-known Pennsylvania activists to head out to TMI tomorrow and chain themselves to the fence until 2028.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker has given the seal of approval for the Market East arena plan that will keep the 76ers from swimming over to Camden and setting up shop. Now the real fun begins, ladies and gentlemen. Tell your children to avert their eyes and cover their ears while this plan matriculates forward.
A bipartisan bill to legalize marijuana in Pennsylvania was introduced as sort of a marker for the next legislative session, which convenes in January. There is now a slim chance that Pennsylvania won’t be the 50th state to legalize after all. Probably just number 47 or 48.
We had so much fun bringing you the cringiest campaign meme last week, we decided to double down with the cringiest moment from Congress. This week’s Cringe Oscar goes to Congresswoman Katy Porter, who took to the chamber floor on International Talk Like a Pirate Day (yesterday), dressed in a black bandana and speaking in the worst pirate accent you have EVER HEARD, while decrying the uptick in so-called “porch pirates” who steal your Amazon packages. You can do many, many things as an elected official. But “can” and “should” are not synonymous.
On the Triad Socials this week, our advocacy team members would like to ask you a simple question: what were YOU doing at 4:30 in the morning Wednesday? Because they were assisting our pals at the Central PA Food Bank with the annual Pack-a-Thon! We are damned proud to be their partner!
In our We Can’t Make This Up segment, we take you to Tokyo, where scientists are working feverishly to outfit robots with human-like skin. According to these maniacs, they believe robots will be “less scary” if they look like humans. NO, THEY ACTUALLY WON’T! Probably the opposite, in fact! We thought this story was part of the Disney Plus Halloween scare package, but nope!
That’s what passes for news around here as we count down the next 45 days and attempt to keep some semblance of our sanity along the way. Until we can once again regale you with our nonsense, from all of us at Team Triad, have a great weekend!