May 13, 2022
Scientists have discovered a black hole sitting in the dead center of the Milky Way galaxy and have named it Sagittarius A. We’ve been exploring the galaxy for a hundred years and this thing has been sitting there the whole time and no one saw it? Seems awfully fishy to us.
This week is National Nurses Week and you’d be pretty hard-pressed to find a profession that needs honoring like nursing does. These people have been put through actual hell for two years, so go out and do something nice for a nurse you know. Or a complete stranger nurse. Any nurse will do. Chop chop.
The United States Senate this week attempted to codify the right to an abortion, knowing full damned well that the votes were not there to do so. The Upper Chamber seems to enjoy mindlessly going through exercises that are doomed to failure from the start. Odd way to spend your day.
With the primary elections coming up on Tuesday, a group of folks converged on Harrisburg this week to ask, no wait, DEMAND an end to no excuse mail-in voting because, you know, fraud and stuff. Never mind the fact that hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania voters (D and R) have already applied for and/or received their ballot in the mail.
Gubernatorial candidates made it rain in April, raising a collective $13 million in that month alone. The amount that will be spent to win statewide office in Pennsylvania is going to be truly astounding when it is all said and done. Like, “enough money to buy Twitter” astounding.
Gas prices gave us all quite the head fake in the past few weeks, temporarily sliding until BAM! Back up to $4.49 a gallon on average. Persistently high inflation and skyrocketing gas prices are not a particularly good recipe for the Democrats to keep either the House or Senate.
PennDOT next week will hold a public hearing on a plan to toll bridges. We can cut to the end here and tell you that of all the people who attended the hearing, 100% were opposed to tolling bridges. Or paying gas taxes. Or car registration fees. Or eating their broccoli.
An entire new generation of Americans is learning about Three Mile Island this week as Netflix launched a new docuseries about the nation’s worst nuclear accident. To reach the next generation, there will have to be a series of TikTok videos explaining what a nuclear power plant does.
If it seems like the Pennsylvania state capital restoration has been going on for most of your adult life, you are probably right. The rebuild came to an end this week as the finishing touches were put on the final piece, the restoration of the governor’s office. The new occupant of that space will move in to find it to be an exact replica of the office Governor Samuel Pennypacker used, except there won’t be a spittoon or oil lamps, we assume.
The Department of Health this week announced it will end the daily Covid updates, signaling the end of a very painful era where we would glue ourselves to the television every day and wait for the dreaded “case count” like some morbid lottery drawing.
The opening of the Mariner East Pipeline has sparked a boom in natural gas exports, we learned this week. For those who keep discussing energy independence, this should be good news, although we suspect that somehow it will turn into bad news for President Joe Biden. Seems like everything does, according to the media. “U.S. job creation sets a new record: why that’s bad news for Joe Biden.”
If you are chafing under the weight of 8% annual inflation, do we have a story for you! Can you imagine if you made $7.25 an hour? Hell, you’d have to work an hour to afford a gallon and a half of gasoline! Good thing that no one out there makes…wait, what?
Back to the upcoming elections, here is a handy primary guide for the 23% of you who plan on voting next Tuesday. You’re welcome.
In the race for governor on the GOP side, two candidates have now dropped out and endorsed former Congressman Lou Barletta for the job. Does Sweet Lou have enough in the tank to catch State Senator Doug Mastriano? We will soon know that answer!
Meanwhile, in the GOP race for U.S. Senate, Kathy Barnette has quietly snuck up on the two out-of-state dudes who collectively have spent seventy gazillion dollars on television ads beating the crap out of each other. Can Oz withstand the late push to hold on? Will Dave McCormick win in a squeaker? Will Sean Gale…never mind, he’s not winning anything.
Over on the markedly quieter Democratic side of the ballot, Lt. Governor John Fetterman seems to be coasting to the nomination despite not asking for nor receiving the endorsements of any prominent elected Democrats. Big John seems to have mastered the art of talking directly to voters and running unconventional campaigns. A Fetterman win will be a boon to Sheetz, we know that much.
In our, We Can’t Make This Up segment this week, we take you to Sweden, where authorities found $50 million worth of cocaine stashed in Nespresso coffee bean bags. Usually, a few Nespressos are more than enough to wake us up, but OK, we will give it a run.
That’s what passes for news around here as we careen towards Tuesday’s elections. Be sure to check back with us next week when we will properly fete the winners and maybe mock the losers. Until then, from everyone at Team Triad, have a great weekend!