October 21, 2022
The federal deficit fell by a whopping 50% during the past year, which is just more evidence that the Biden administration’s out-of-control spending is gonna kill us all.
The president also announced this week that he will bogart an additional 15 million barrels of oil from our strategic reserve because 1) gas prices are high, and 2) the elections are 20 days away. Look, we all know the move was pure politics, which is why Biden’s detractors took to the airwaves to feign outrage. They aren’t mad he did it; they are mad it might work. Let’s have a bit of intellectual honesty about our outrage, shall we?
For his part, Biden may be wishing there was a giant strategic natural gas reserve he could tap this winter, as home heating costs are predicted to be just south of totally bananapants. If one were to have a vast, untapped, and magically enormous supply of natural gas, where would even one put it? Wait, what was that? Pennsylvania has a what now?
The federal student loan forgiveness program website is up and running, so if you are lugging around a bunch of student debt, have at it! Just don’t expect any loot yet because the program won’t start until December, or perhaps at all, since a bunch of folks are suing over whether Old Joe can wave a magic wand and rid you of debt like some bureaucratic Gandalf the White.
Autonomous vehicle legislation is matriculating through the state Senate, moving us closer to the day we start seeing cars driving by sans driver. Now we gotta get that flying car stuff moving along, it’s been way too long since the Jetsons promised us that. Maybe someone can dope-slap Elon Musk out of his current foreign policy stupor so we can get him to work on this.
The Senate also kicked the tires on some legislation called the Parents Bill of Rights, which is a totally fraudulent name because NOWHERE in the bill does it enumerate any right of a parent for some PEACE AND QUIET FOR A CHANGE or the right to not pay for any more of those damned X-Box games until those grades come up, mister, and… oh, never mind. We are sure the bill is just fine. Carry on.
Home prices in PA have fallen for the eighth straight month, a pretty clear sign that market has settled down after the buying spree of 2021 that made it damned near impossible to find anything at all to live in short of a van down by the river. Rising mortgage rates are also throwing some ice into that blender, so our advice is to kick back and stay where you are for the time being. We have a pretty nice state, get out there and enjoy it.
Philadelphia’s homicide rates are the seventh-highest in the nation, we found out this week. Imagine if we treated gun violence like we treated other epidemics. That aside, this is your reminder that early in 2023, there will be a bunch of folks running for mayor of that fine city. If you are one of them and your first, second, and third priorities aren’t addressing violence, maybe don’t run. Wait until 2027.
Fentanyl has now supplanted heroin as the drug of choice in most overdose cases in the state, a sobering fact that furthers the point that be it opioids, heroin, methamphetamines or fentanyl, addicts will find a substance to abuse. Some folks out there seem to believe that if we magically found all the fentanyl on the planet and burned it tomorrow, our addiction problems would disappear. News flash: they will not.
The battle over whether election officials can count undated but timely-received absentee ballots is still not over, because despite what anyone tells you, IT WILL NEVER BE OVER!
Pennsylvania is facing a growing shortage of officials for all manner of scholastic sport across the state, from soccer to basketball and everything in between. We find it incredible that more people won’t volunteer to give up hours of their week for next to no money, while parents sneer, scream and cuss at them, and the players themselves show no respect for their authority. Mystifying. Someday we may unlock the key to this puzzle.
Out in western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh’s venerable Kennywood Park announced a Bark in the Park event, where folks can bring their pups to play and ride the rides. Ahem, Hersheypark? You listening?
President Biden was in the Steel City this week to boost (he hopes) the candidacy of one John Fetterman, who was also given a clean bill of health this week. The two met Governor Wolf at Primanti Brothers, which is getting a bit worn out now. Maybe grab some Mineos Pizza next time, fellas.
Meanwhile, Dr. Oz’s campaign is closing ground on the Fetty-man at lightning speed, with the race looking like a tie right now. So, stop us if you’ve heard this one: candidate A has a big lead on election night. Then, over the next few days, the mail-in ballots get counted and candidate B closes the gap, and closes the gap, until… Yeah. Happy Halloween, babies.
Fetterman ain’t about to let Oz run past him, so he is calling in the big guns for a rally, those guns being the Dave Mathews band. The only downside is that DMB fans have a bit of a proclivity for the weed and may fall asleep and forget it’s election day.
Here is a rather fascinating piece we saw that examines state Sen. Doug Mastriano’s meticulous use of Facebook Live to build a veritable army of followers. Some people use Facebook to find really good gazpacho recipes, some use it to win the GOP nomination for governor of the fifth-largest state in the union. Whether Mastriano is indeed your particular brand of whisky, you gotta give the guy HUGE props for the way he won that nomination.
Meanwhile, Josh Shapiro was out campaigning in Johnstown, promising not to leave any community behind as governor. Shapiro is approaching this election in a much more traditional fashion than Mastriano, which is to say Shapiro raised a gargantuan pile of cash and has used it to bludgeon his opponent.
The Shameless Client Plug for the week goes out to Lehigh Valley International Airport for landing a cool $850,000 to upgrade the passenger experience there, which was already convenient as hell. In fact, if you have the option to fly out of LVIA and choose instead to fly out of Philly, please take a ball-peen hammer out and smack yourself on the head.
In our We Can’t Make This Up segment, we take you to Oregon, where the fight to represent the 5th Congressional District comes with a huge piece of baggage for the winner. Apparently, every single person to ever represent the Fighting 5th has gotten divorced while in office. And never mind how strange that fact is, the Washington Post article included a quote from none other than the Honorable Newt Gingrich, a man who is quite the expert on getting divorced while serving in Congress!
That’s what passes for news around here on a Friday as we wait. Yeah, of course we are waiting for the legislature to make its final, triumphant return of the year, but first we are waiting for Spotify to reload so we can listen to Taylor Swift’s new album all weekend. Priorities, people. From all your pals and #swifties at Team Triad, have a great weekend!