Friday, February 12, 2021
The second impeachment of former President Donald John Trump continues today, as Trump’s attorneys take a crack at responding to the House impeachment managers’ case. Early reports indicate there will be heavy use of the video from Shaggy’s smash hit, “It Wasn’t Me.”
Speaking of videos, the House must have hired Martin Scorsese as a part of its impeachment production team. The presentation was a made-for-television event. We were waiting for an appearance by DeNiro and Pesci trying to track down Mike Pence (played by Christopher Walken).
If you were interested in who amongst the GOP is picking up the mantle of returning the party to its pre-Trump days, we give you Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-AINTTAKINGANYSHIT), who this week refused to equivocate, back down, apologize or even flinch over her vote to impeach the president. Love Liz or hate her, she’s got quite the spine on her, huh? Facing censure by her own Wyoming GOP, her response was, “Yeah, go ahead. You and what army?”
Meanwhile, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is in a bit of hot water over the stunning admission that his staff purposely did not accurately report nursing home deaths during the early months of the pandemic. Cuomo, who made a cottage industry out of going on cable news and kicking former President Trump’s teeth in over the federal government’s pandemic response, is now getting a crash course in what is known as schadenfreude. Watch those stones around that glass house, governor.
President Biden announced this week that the United States has now purchased enough COVID vaccines to vaccinate the entire country by July, which probably means May, since a third of the country has no interest whatsoever in being vaccinated. Those folks know that the vaccines contain tiny microchips that George Soros is gonna use to track your whereabouts, and that ain’t happenin’, captain.
If you are a faithful follower of our Friday follies (we love us some alliteration), you will notice that we RARELY refer to Pennsylvania lawmakers by name, since we try our best to be non-partisan in our nonsense. However, there are times we just have to do so, and today is one of those days. So here is to newly minted state Rep. Tracy Pennycuick, who in addition to learning how to make laws and stuff also doubles as a lifesaving superhero. Her situational awareness and quick action likely saved the life of a state capitol police officer this week, thereby setting a pretty high bar for her fellow freshmen. “Oh, your bill got passed? That’s cute, I saved a dude’s life.”
Governor Wolf renewed his call for a raise in the state’s minimum wage, which is now among the lowest in the nation. Business owners were quick to note that “during a pandemic” is the worst time to raise the wage, thus becoming the 50th policy proposal that can’t be achieved because “during a pandemic” is the worst time to do so. Once this pandemic is over, look out Loretta. There is gonna be a whole lotta lawmakin’ going on!
Oh hey, COVID hospitalizations in Pennsylvania are down by 46% over the last month, meaning we might be inching closer to no longer being in a pandemic. So, get those lawmaking shoes on, honey, we are going to Harrisburg!
Governor Wolf announced the formation of a joint legislative/executive task force on vaccinations. This was either a long-awaited nod to bipartisanship when it comes to COVD policy, or the governor’s way of saying to the legislature, “You think this sh*t is easy? You try making vaccines out of thin air.”
On the topic of vaccines, teachers in Philadelphia (and a lot of other cities) are balking at the idea of returning to in-person learning until they get jabbed. Can you believe the nerve of these teachers, not wanting to go back into crumbling, lead-ridden schools unprotected against a raging pandemic? Bunch of ingrates! Get back in there and ROW, ye scurvy dogs!
If you used a mail-in ballot in the November election thinking the switch from in-person was permanent, think again. You will still need to apply for a mail-in should you again want to avail yourself of that option (and thereby steal the election from Donald Trump again). The whole process seems to be far more confusing than it needs to be.
Totally unrelated news break alert: Did you hear about the kid who decided that NPR’s venerable “All Things Considered” should feature more dinosaurs/less news, and wrote to express the sentiment directly to the producers? Yeah, the kid is not wrong. We all need more dinosaurs in our lives.
Back to the memo. College students are now temporarily able to draw down SNAP benefits, which will make it a whole helluva lot easier to buy ramen noodles and Doritos, but not weed, since weed is not yet legal, nor is it SNAP-eligible despite the best efforts of Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.
The head of the state system of higher education has laid out a plan that can cut the cost of that system by up to 25%. Lawmakers from both parties are skeptical (for different reasons), but all agree that the current model isn’t working. Stay tuned to this one, for sure. It’s not like the legislature is gonna turn around tomorrow and dump $200 million more into that system, of that we can assure you. No one needs a college education to read those tea leaves.
This week, we note the passing of former state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, a true lion of the legislature and godfather of Pennsylvania’s criminal justice reform movement. Our prayers go out to his family.
Over on the Triad socials this week, our VP Todd Brysiak gives you his three cents on tax policy and the governor’s plans on that front. Read all about it here, since you can’t get it anywhere else.
Then stick around for our Senior VP Mike Manzo’s ode to the Triad economic development team, which is better than your economic development team. Manzo will fight you in the schoolyard if you disagree.
Then, meet Triad’s latest fabulous intern, Sean Coogan, who unfortunately has to deal with both Todd and Mike’s nonsense on a daily basis. Thank goodness Olivia Edwards Rindfuss is there to keep the guy sane. 
In our We Can’t Make This Up segment this week, we take you to Boston where a man fell asleep listening to music only to wake up with his wireless earbud lodged in his esophagus. The truly weird part is that the guy went out and shoveled snow for an hour before realizing it he had swallowed the thing. Technology will one day kill us all, and it might not even be AI that does it.
That’s what passes for news from Triad HQ this week. Come back again next week when it will still be snowing, and we will still be sick of shoveling snow. But we are hopeful we will be doing it without an air pod jammed in our throat. Oh, and next week, Rep. Pennycuick will still be a bad*ss. From all your friends at team Triad, have a great weekend!