Blogger Meet-up

via Michelle

....announce the upcoming NEPA Blogger Meet-up. This event will be actually focused around the bloggers…what a novel thought!

We are inviting the usual political suspects, but don't think that many of them will be showing up because of the close proximity to election day. I'm sure that they will be busy vying for last minute votes.

Here are the dirty deets about the event:

The Who/What: NEPABlogs.org will be hosting an informal Blogger Meet-up. Come out and meet the NEPA Blogs (dysfunctional) family. ALL ARE WELCOME. There is no admission or cover charge. It is absolutely 100% free. You have to buy your own drinks though. Unless you serenade me with an off key version of Lady Gaga or something like that.

The When: Sun Nov. 6, 2011 starting at 5pm. Stay until the cows come home….or last call. Whichever comes first.

The Where: The Metro Bar & Grill in Dallas. For directions to the Metro Bar and Grille, please visit: http://www.themetrobarandgrill.com/

***More details here: http://nepablogs.blogspot.com/2011/10/blogger-meet-up.html – We put the "fun" in dysfunctional.

I hope you can stop by and partake in some libations with cool kiddies.

The Saturday OT Commitee and Operatic Society will also be attending to infuse cash into the malt beverage industry to insure it's liquidity. This a gathering of bloggers, readers, political types, friends and anyone else that is interested. All are welcome. A quick check of the agenda reveals that there isn't one. Michael Rennie, the unofficial Social Secretary of the Northeast Blogging Council has announced that his organization has sanctioned the event saying "It's a good excuse to drink beer."

The Metro was recently purchased by my Attorney, Lazlo. He helped me out a few years ago when some scumbag tried to extort money from me for publishing a few pictures of then Congressman Don "the Tunkhannock Strangler" Sherwood's girlfriend Cynthia Ore that he had put out on the web as bait then falsley claimed to have a copyright. Tom shot him down proving he was full of shit doing me a great service and didn't even send me a bill. For that I will be forever grateful. If you need a business attorney consider hiring Smithford.

Did somebody say Lady Gaga


LOS ANGELES — Lady Gaga enjoyed her "first real Marilyn moment" with former President Bill Clinton.

Tom Marino is short on cash

Marino has $11K on hand for campaign

What a big disappointment this has to be for not only the Marino campaign but for the Republicans hopes for retaking the House. He only raised about $80K this reporting period compared with the six digit numbers being reported by other GOP challengers. In contrast, Congressman Chris Carney has brought in $173K during the reporting period and has $792K in the bank.

You can read Marino's 2nd Q report here. Some of his donors are familiar Don Ely, Harold Flack, Davis Haire, Dan Meuser and the Tunkhannock Strangler himself former Congressman Don Sherwood.

What I find interesting is who is missing. None of the GOP House leadership PACS or the NRCC has pitched in to help him.

Marino had a competitive primary that he had to spend money to win but it's been a month and a half since then. From what I know a candidate in either party has to show some fundraising ability before the national committees will commit to helping them. He has failed that test.

There a few bright spots in his CFR. He attracted the support of the lunatic fringe such as the Eagle Forum and Sarah Palin sent $3500.

NCFE reports:

Sarah Palin wants you to contribute to SarahPAC so that she can support conservative candidates. Funny, but her recent campaign disclosure notes that for while $87,500 was distributed to candidates, almost three times as much money, $210,000 was spent on consultants.

Last year Sarah Palin pulled in $2.13 million but spent only about $57,000 on candidates and causes.

I don't think that Sarah Palin is as stupid as many people think. Anyone who could parley a VP gig into $12 million in endorsements, book deals,etc. is on the ball. I do think that she is willfully ignorant about issues.

Sarah Palin campaign was a 'train wreck', insiders say



"Palin couldn't explain why North Korea and South Korea were separate nations. She didn't know what the Fed [the Federal Reserve] did. Asked who attacked America on 9/11, she suggested several times that it was Saddam Hussein. Asked to identify the enemy that her son would be fighting in Iraq, she drew a blank. Later, on the p
lane, Palin said to her team: 'I wish I'd paid more attention to this stuff'."

Kanjo doesn't back Carney?

PoliticsPA: Murphy gets appropriations nod from Pa. Democrats


Murphy won the recommendation over U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, himself a two-term congressman who represents northeast Pennsylvania. The two men and U.S. Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper were vying for the position.

U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorksi appears to have cast the deciding vote in Murphy’s favor, which might surprise some political observers. Kanjorski and Carney represent adjacent congressional districts, meaning Carney’s newfound clout could have benefited the region Kanjorski represents. The two congressman, in fact, represent two of the same counties: Lackawanna and Luzerne.

UPDATE: A spokeswoman for Kanjorski tells PoliticsPA that the vote was taken by a secret ballot, meaning the other congressmen and women in the room did not necessarily know who voted for whom. She declined to deny Kanjorski voted for Murphy, saying she did not know who the congressman supported.


The last 2 Republican Congressmen from the 10th District, Don Sherwood and Joe McDade, had a seat on this committee and the late Jack Murtha wanted Carney on the panel. The late, great Dan Flood was the Chairman of the Defense Appropriations sub-committee for many years.

I have asked both press flacks for the Congressmen for comment and will post their responses when/if I get them.

Carney's big win

The challenger didn't lose the incumbent won. And boy did he ever win. In 2006 Chris Carney topped Don Sherwood by 6 points with approx. 110,000 votes to 98,000.

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The incumbent lost that election after his dirty laundry was aired and many people thought it was a fluke expecting the Republicans to take back the seat in 2008. But Congressman Carney had other ideas. He has been a relentless campaigner holding town hall meetings in every part of the district. His part time job as a Lt. Commander (soon to be full Commander) in the US Navel reserve and focus on veterans issues resonated with people I have talked to in the district. He has been a reliable vote for the Administration (urgh) on the Iraq War making it hard for Chris Hackett to run to his right on national security issues. And he brought home the bacon that Hackett derided. With just about every county and municipal government in the district has tapped out on the property tax that barely pays the bills. The only way to build a new fire house or even pave a street is to get a piece of pork. While I agree with Chris Hackett that there should be earmark reform we like our pork, just ask Joe McDade or Don Sherwood.

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After being number one on the hit list of the NRCC it wasn't even close.

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CARNEY, CHRISTOPHER P. (DEM) 159,072 56.4%
HACKETT, CHRIS (REP) 123,06 43.6%

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The thing that really surprised me is that Carney won 12 of the 13 counties that are part of the district. Local Values has a breakdown with percentages but not raw numbers.

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My friends Zen and Joe will argue that Hackett's scorched earth campaign against Dan Muesser in the primary was responsible for his defeat but I don't think that is the case. It was just too big of a win.

10th CD postmortem

What a wild ride it has been in the Pennsylvania 10th Congressional District over the last few years. Democrat Chris Carney won the seat in 2006 because Don Sherwood kept talking about "family values" and then it was revealed that he had been playing house for over 5 years with a girl half his age who actually called the police because she said he became violent. There were other factors in the race but that helped clinch it.

Ever since then I've been hearing things like "that's one of our seats that we can win back" from my Republican friends. It's not your seat or the Dems seat, it's the peoples seat. The founders designed the House of Representatives as the pulse of the people and expected it to change hands often. But gerrymandering has slowed the turnover rate.

Early in the Republican primary I expected Dan Meuser to win the nod just because he had the most money. He's a Republican, you buy things. But he ran a awful campaign. His selling point was the he was the head of very successful company, Pride Mobility, that grew over the years and created some good jobs with the implication he would be able to replicate that throughout the district. That opened him up to answering for everything that Pride had ever done wrong by design or circumstance whether or not he had anything to do with the situation. Pride Mobility for Congress had it's limits and some his ads came across as a plug for the Scooter Store.

Chris Hackett ran a classic outsider vs. insider campaign. He railed against pork barrel spending and the way business is done in Washington. Just about every elected official in the 10th backed Meuser but it didn't bring him much. Most endorsements are good for a press release and not much more. The one's that matter bring boots on the ground and money, none of his did.


For all the negative stuff that happened at the end I thought (and I'm told) Hackett's ads pointing out that Pride had outsourced jobs to China resonated with people. The illegal immigrant thing showed showed how such a complicated issue is hard to discuss in a political campaign. I think the last minute abortion (he said/she said) accusations probably backfired as many thought it was a dirty trick.


A consolation point for Dan Meuser is that he will have the opportunity to challenge Chris Carney for the seat in 2010.

David Madeira passes on 10th CD run

From GrassrootsPA:


After looking at the field of potential candidates very closely, I have decided not to run, but I am going to be involved and throw my full support behind an as-yet-unannounced candidate who meets all these criteria. He will be announcing in several weeks and I will publicly announce my support at that time. I will be working closely with him and will be asking you to join in our efforts to put our party back on track.
Thanks to all of you who have encouraged me to run and rest assured I will continue to fight for our values, just not as a candidate at this time.
Till next time…

I'm actually disappointed by this news. He impressed me with his performance last year in the 20th Senatorial District race by coming in a surprising 2nd. I disagree with Dr. Madeira on just about everything but admire his willingness to stick to his principles.

It looks like the field is being cleared for Hillary Clinton supporter Dan Meuser, Chairman and CEO of Pride Mobility. Hopefully Pride has fixed the defects in their products.

TPM Cafe: Meuser's company has settled a contentious lawsuit over the death of an elderly man using their wheelchair, in which plaintiffs alleged that a defective battery caused a fire. From the Monterey County Herald, January 9, 2007: "Had the case gone to trial, according to court records and statements in court, jurors may have heard evidence that Pride Mobility was aware of at least 18 other fires in its wheelchairs and scooters with identical battery packs since 2002. Ten of those fires destroyed dwellings and five were fatal." (From Nexis).

Nobody has ever accused Pride of any wrongdoing but the the power wheelchair business is a hotbed of Medicare fraud.

Mueser is probably the best candidate the GOP can find mainly because he can self-finance a campaign. If I remember right Don Sherwood spent over $2 million of his own money in his first run against Pat Casey. The state and national Republicans are going to need to spend money playing defense on seats held by Charlie Dent, Jim Gerlach and Phil English in PA and other vulnerable incumbents across the country. He will need deep pockets as Chris Carney has raised $535,000 so far this year.

Breaking News

Or not. The Citizens Voice has a story today about Sen. John Edwards visit to Bear Creek that was first reported a week ago on NEPA's Real Deal. Then on Monday the Times-Leader told us about a guy that can't sleep at night because of the demolition of the Hotel Sterling tower. The Luzerne County Liberator had that story on January 31st. In September me and Down With Tyranny posted a copy of Don Sherwood's 9/11 invite that made it into the Times-Tribune 3 days later. I also had the scoop on candidates announcing they were running for this or that office and who wouldn't show up for a debate that made it into the papers a few days later. And I don't know how many times Wilkes-Barre Online has done original reporting that made the papers in another form. I'm sure all the reporters involved will say they had other sources but it makes you wonder. Keep up the good work guys. The local media may not always cite their sources but we do.