Friday, February 26, 2021
Nine years ago today, the Bad Boy of Bowling Pete Weber clinched another championship and forever changed sports with his celebratory exclamation, “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? I AM!” The next time we achieve success for one of our clients, Triad VP Todd Brysiak has volunteered to shout that from our rooftop.
The U.S. House this week passed the historic Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. If you are wondering why, in this day and age of enlightenment, we would need a law like this one, we would refer you to the House Floor Journal of remarks from Thursday.
For the past month, we have heard from the left edge of politics how refreshing it was to have a calm, cool and collected commander-in-chief who doesn’t cause drama every day and WHOA WE JUST BOMBED SYRIA. Life comes at you fast, huh?
The annual CPAC conference began today and will culminate this weekend with a speech by former President Trump. For the uninitiated, the Conservative Political Action Conference was originally formed to further conservative ideals and principles in government, but now exists purely to piss off Bernie Sanders’ Twitter followers.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear three more Pennsylvania-based challenges to the November election results, which means we can confidently predict that Joseph Robinette Biden will be the next president of the United States.
The PA Republican Party e-convened this week to consider whether to censure U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey for his vote to impeach former President Trump (who is, by the way, the all-time undefeated impeachment champion at 2-0.) Reached for comment in his living room next to a roaring fire, smoking a fine cigar and drinking a cold beer, Toomey responded, “Who did what now?” and resumed watching the Sixers game.
Before we go any further, we feel compelled to alert Pittsburgh residents to what looks like a coming war. Earlier this week, a bald eagle (not a Giant Eagle) attacked a raccoon who was getting a bit too close to the nest. Now if you are a western PA native you KNOW that raccoon retreated up the Ohio River to Raccoon State Park in the middle of Raccoon Township and is rallying his raccoon brothers as we speak. It’s on, people.
Gov. Tom Wolf this week announced that anyone living or working in a nursing home in the state has been vaccinated, if in fact they chose to be. Given what the coronavirus did to nursing homes over the past year, you may wanna strongly consider saying yes to that needle.
It has been two weeks since Wolf authorized the formation of a joint legislative/administration task force on vaccines, and in that time the state went from 49th in vaccine distribution to 41st. Hey look, they can play together nicely!
Of course, some GOP leaders were rather incensed when they read the proposed ballot question that Team Wolf drafted on whether voters should give the General Assembly a role in how long gubernatorial emergency disaster declarations can run (coming to a ballot near you.) The question as drafted is, as we understand it, “Do you favor giving the General Assembly the chance to murder you and everyone you love?” So yeah, we can see how there could be a slant there.
After plopping that ballot question into the legislature’s punchbowl, Wolf turned around, whipped out his favorite signin’ pen and extended the COVID-19 disaster declaration by another 90 days. Wolf then peered into the cameras and muttered “I can do this aaaaaaaalllll day.”
Speaking of elections, if there was one lesson we learned from last November (we mean, of course, lessons based in evidence and reality), it was that counties really, really want the chance to pre-canvass mail-in ballots so as to not have a backlog on election day. That would lead you to believe that lawmakers would be eager to accommodate that request. You also apparently believe in unicorns, you silly geese.
Next primary election might be delayed, we learned this week, because of late census numbers from the feds. If you recall, Washington officials fought like cats in a burlap sack last year over who should be counted in the census (and more importantly who should not), which caused massive counting delays. And now the chickens are home, roosting away.
The first Pennsylvania GOP senator has come out in favor of weed legalization in Pennsylvania, putting him squarely in line with the other 70% of the population who are in favor of weed legalization. Despite this development, the ganja train has a long way to go.
Pennsylvania lawmakers were rudely reminded this week that it was Pennsylvania lawmakers themselves who gave the executive branch the authority to levy tolls on bridges way back in 2012, an authority that current Governor Wolf has chosen to exercise. It’s gonna be tough putting that toothpaste back in the tube since Wolf would have veto power over any legislative move to strip that authority away. Blame the governor and move on, folks. That is a tactic that’s worked since Ben Franklin had the gavel.
As politicians announce runs for higher office in 2022, the state Senate is moving legislation that would take away voters’ say in who becomes lieutenant governor, allowing gubernatorial nominees to choose their running mates instead. The move comes after several high-profile marriages of inconvenience, mostly on the Democratic side where there have been more than a few Felix and Oscar moments. *cough cough STACK cough KNOLL cough cough* 
A big shout out goes to our friends at Penn State University this week, as the annual Thon (held virtually this year) banked a cool $10.6 million to fight pediatric cancer. #FTK
If you haven’t check out our own Doug Rohanna’s take on the 2022 U.S. Senate race to replace the soon-to-be-censured Pat Toomey, do so here.
Finally, in our We Can’t Make This Up segment, we give you Malakai, a very good boy who has no problem letting you know that he does not intend to follow your directions. Check him out as he shakes his husky head and says “Noooooo!” Wish everything in life was that easy.
That’s what passes for news around here as we finally get the tiniest taste of spring. After a year of COVID, who isn’t looking forward to breathing some warm outside air again? From all your friends at Team Triad, have a great weekend!