PA Dems gunning for Toohil

This spot brings up the bong/kissing video that has been taken down from YouTube then makes a policy point about cutting education funding. I had the video a few days before the TL decided to publish it and the pictures were sent to me months ago. The video was shopped around by the same person that left comments on a post I did in May accusing Toohil of having an inappropriate relationship with another House member that I deleted because I didn't think what she did in her personal life was anybody's business.

Most people will give her a break over those pictures as we  all did  things when we were young and irresponsible that we are not proud of. Her response has been somewhat erratic filming a response  paid for by taxpayer money  that tells kids not to do drugs.

Forget the sexy bong video there are plenty of other questions about Toohil.

 Up until 2010 she was a Democrat who wanted to run against Todd Eachus. She got nowhere with that idea and turned to the Republicans and now spouts claptrap about conservative values. 2010 was good Republican year and Eachus was sunk when it came out that he was flying around on Juvie Brother's figure Robert Powell's jet who backed the Hazleton fantasy airport. I was glad to see the back of him.

A look at her campaign finance reports raise some questions.

Looking at the expenditures.

The usual expenses are listed for office supplies, postage, internet and phone service, etc. .There are some things that are different.. 20 charges to the campaign totaling over $700 for gasoline, small checks for lunch and a few meals in DC at The MATCH BOX and BELGA CAFE. What PA interest is she pushing in Washington?

4 bills for dry cleaning totaling. $68.10. Tarah always looks sharp.

Update: Those numbers were from the 2012 report. The 2011 filing lists more lunch tabs, $440 for gas, $57 for dry cleaning and $721 for formal wear from Wedding Bells on 11/21/11. I guess she wanted to look good for Pennsylvania Society get together in New York that her campaign picked up the tab for her hotel room. She looks fabulous in the last picture on the slideshow of this article.  

Puttin' on the ritz at the Academy Ball

Also there are  many unitemized ATM  or smack the MAC withdrawals 

2011 annual report - $782 in petty cash and ATM withdrawals

2012 1^st report - $348.90 in petty cash and ATM withdrawals

2011 annual report

Page 30: $360 ATM Withdrawal, no description

Page 31: $40.00 ATM Withdrawal, “petty cash food snacks”

Page 38: $40.00 Cash Withdrawal ATM, “petty cash”

Page 39: $202.00 Cash Withdrawal “petty cash plus fee”

Page 44: $100.00 Cash Withdrawal “petty cash office expense”

Page 44: $721.28 Wedding Bells “formal wear”

Page 45: $40.00 Cash Withdrawal “petty cash”

2012

Page 16: $200.00 Petty Cash “set up office”

Page 22: $100.00 Cash “petty cash cancer dinner”

Page 23: $8.90 Check No Detail #1193

Page 26: $40.00 Cash Withdrawal “petty cash”

Page 26: $100.00 ATM Withdrawal “petty cash”

Then there is the trip to Israel. I've been to Israel and would like to return. The trick is to get some outfit to pay for it.

 The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia ponied up most of the money and Toohil has said the rest came from her own pocket or campaign funds. Betty says The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia personally hand-picked Toohil to go on the Israeli trip, according to The Times Leader.  The organizaton’s director of government affairs, Robin Schatz, told the newspaper that she wanted to get to know Toohil better.  That’s probably because Toohil is just the person to lead the charge in Butler Twp. to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.

Back to the video

 Informed comment on my FB page: Her disgruntled ex-boyfriend promised to blackmail her as part of his continued mistreatment of her and women in general. Those pictures mean absolutely nothing in this election. The person attacking her is a House member. And women should rise up against the way he wants to treat women.

Tarah Toohil has broken the heart of  someone and he has been blasting her on various websites including this one. I deleted the comments. Pa Politics should do the same.

Toohil/Young debate

Toohil, Young spar on jobs, education

Tarah Toohil Pizza Party Video

This video dropped into my inbox a few days ago but I decide not to post it and be accused of being an irresponsible blogger. Now it shows up on the Times Leader , WILK and other media outlets so I missed a scoop. I actually saw the pictures a few months ago but didn't think much of them. The video is being shopped around by the same person that left comments on a post I did in May accusing Toohil of having an inappropriate relationship with another House member that I deleted because I didn't think what she did in her personal life was anybody's business. Of course I saved those comments.

Some speculation on my FB page: Her disgruntled ex-boyfriend promised to blackmail her as part of his continued mistreatment of her and women in general. Those pictures mean absolutely nothing in this election. The person attacking her is a House member. And women should rise up against the way he wants to treat women.

More in the comments on YouTube.  It's just a matter of time before we figure out who posted this video and I have a good idea who it is.


Here is the video with the bong, bag of weed and the close proximity of lips:



Her response:



 Good for her .

The Luzerne County Democratic Party and her opponent deny having anything to do with this


Herself had this reaction on PoliticsPA:

 
“Dear Young People of Pennsylvania:

I’ll admit that some years ago I smoked marijuana. I did not get caught. But I’ve since decided that it’s not cool, and I think that if YOU get caught, you should still face criminal charges. Sorry, as we say in NEPA, dem’s da breaks suckers.

Also, if a marriage equality bill ever comes up for a vote before the legislature, of which I am now an esteemed member, I will of course follow the orders of my socially conservative male Republican leaders and vote against it, because I think it is right for society to deny full civil rights to same sex couples in committed relationships; also, the idea of two women enjoying each other’s company in a committed monogamous relationship is offensive to me as a traditional, family values oriented practicing Catholic and frankly grosses me out, but hey, if you want to tie one on and sloppily make out with another chick in a drunken stupor, that’s just fine. Nothing wrong with that at all, it happens, ya know?”

What a hypocritical disgrace of a woman

17th CD debate tonight

The Times-Leader is sponsoring a forum with 17 CD candidates Lauren Cummings (R) and Matt Cartwright  (D) tonight at Wilkes University in Room 101 of the Stark Learning Center, 150-180 S. River St., Wilkes-Barre. Starting at 7PM.


The  meeting will be televised live on WYLN. If you don't get WYLN on your cable you can watch it online.

After the debate 116th HD candidate Ransom Young will be Tiffany Cloud's  guest on Storm Politics also airing on WYLN.

Ransom Young on the air

116th House Democratic candidate has bio spot up showing him working on his farm. You can check out his website and Facebook page. His opponent has a bare bones campaign site and just an official FB page.




With Jerry Sandusky in the news and many questions about then Attorney General Tom Corbett's investigation his camp sent this PR:

BUTLER TOWNSHIP, Pa. – Yesterday, Representative Tarah Toohil and House Republican leadership fled the chamber in the middle of session and cancelled today’s votes in order to block passage of HR 520, a resolution urging an investigation into Governor Corbett’s handling of the Jerry Sandusky investigation.  Other members remained on the floor in hopes of getting bipartisan support for an independent investigation into Corbett’s misconduct.

This isn’t the first time Tarah Toohil abandoned the children in her district.  After slashing nearly $1 billion from Pennsylvania schools and cutting hundreds of thousands of people from basic health services for children and middle-class families, Toohil demonstrated once again that her priorities are not the children of Pennsylvania.  Over the past two years, Toohil joined with Governor Corbett to close hospitals and schools across the state just to keep big corporations from paying their fair share.

“When Tarah Toohil walked out in the middle of session to protect Governor Corbett, she turned her back on our kids and put partisan politics ahead of Pennsylvania families.  We shouldn’t expect anything more from someone who voted to slash almost $19 million from our schools and cut Medicaid for more than 100,000 kids and families in order to give huge tax breaks to drilling companies,” said Ransom Young, candidate for state representative in the 116 ^th district.  “Tarah Toohil would rather protect a failed governor than protect our children.”

BACKGROUND

House Resolution 520 is a Concurrent Resolution calling on the Attorney General of the United States to appoint a special counsel to investigate the handling by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General of an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of minors and to investigate whether that alleged sexual abuse may have violated Federal law < http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billinfo/billinfo.cfm?syear=2011&sind=0&body=H&type=R&BN=0520 >

Ransom got to meet Jill Biden

Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, stumps in Scranton

 

 

Luzerne County Democratic Picnic

This little girl pictured above doesn't want Mitt Romney to take her Big Bird away.

Congrats to recently installed Luzerne County County Democratic Chair Bob Boyer for putting together a great event that was attended by about 400 people according to my head counter Bob Caruso. Let's do it in the summer next time Bob.

The Luzerne  County GOP picnic had about 50 attend but they have gone back to the old ways of fighting each other. Urbanski won the Chair so the Casey supporters will boycott everything. More on that later in the week.

State Rep Eddie Day Pashinski was the Master of Ceremonies and I highly recommend him to MC your wedding the next time you get married.

 Senator Bob Casey spoke about the 100% of the American people and I blamed him for creating a monster that is Rick Santorum. He beat Ricky by 18 points in the last Senate race only to see Santorum come in 2nd in the Republican Presidential primaries. I predict that Santorum will be the GOP nominee in 2016 because he came in 2nd and the GOP is an orderly party. He will start his run  after he eats Big Bird.

Blast from the recent past Chris Carney who teased us about another run said Romney is not fit to be Commander in Chief. He noted that he is a Catholic war veteran speaking at the Catholic War Vets grove.

One of my favorite state reps Phyllis Mundy said the state GOP is as evil as the Tea Party yahoos on the national stage. She pointed out that 2/3 rd of Medicaid spending goes to people in nursing homes. We can't tax Shale but we can give corporations tax breaks.

State Rep Mike Carroll said the cartographers got it wrong Moosic is part of Luzerne County. Matt Cartwright corrected him  saying Luzerne County is part of Moosic.

Matt Cartwright reminded the crowd that "We are the Democrats" and did a shout out with the crowd  challenging them to stand up for Democratic values.

The thing that really struck me was the diversity of the crowd. This is not the Luzerne County Democratic Party of your father or even 4 years ago when the crooks that have gone to jail ran the show. I wasn't welcome then by Skrep, Lupas, Makowski and Vondy and the rest.

People from Hazleton turned out to support Ransom Young and Gene Stilp. Many of them Hispanic.

When a picture was being taken the shout wasn't cheese

It was HOLA!

Young appologizes to the Toohil's

Sort of.

TL:

“It is no secret that I am upset over the cuts in educational funding that have been a part of the budgets for which Representative Toohil has voted,” Young wrote. “…When I read the notice about unpaid school taxes, with the knowledge that Ms. Toohil not only lives with her parents, but also uses their property to manage her campaign, I became even more upset. I could not understand how an adult child would allow her parents to become delinquent over such an important issue.

“In my response to what I perceived as yet another slap in the face to the education of our children, I inadvertently, and with sincere regret, allowed Mr. & Mrs. Toohil to be caught in the middle. I will continue to fight for our children’s education, and no doubt will cause Ms. Toohil some discomfort with the facts; however, I regret that anything I may have said was perceived as a personal attack on Peter and Barbara.

He should have just said he was sorry for such a boneheaded move and left it at that. Instead he issues another attack.

Leave the family out of it

Political campaigns can get down and dirty between the the candidates but I have always taken the position that spouses, children and other family members are off limits as long as they don't inject themselves into the campaign.

On Sunday I received a press release from 116th State Rep candidate Ransom Young (D) implying that Tarah Toohil's parents were behind on the property taxes on their home that she lives in. Yes I'm a partisan Democrat but I declined to post it because I thought it was an unfair attack. Toohil's parents are not running for office and I didn't know why they were behind in their tax payments. After the crash of the economy in 2008 many people are having trouble paying property taxes.  You can read the release on Ransom's Facebook page dated 8/20/12.

Times Leader reporter Matt Hughes explains that the  problem is with a couple of vacant lots and they have paid the taxes owed.

Tarah is rightfully pissed off: “I demand that Mr. Young cease and desist from telling lies about my parents,” Toohil said in a statement. “A public apology to my mother and father is in order. My mother and father are good people and they are not part of the public eye.”

Young doubles down:

“When you’re an adult living with your parents you step up and help out your parents in a time of need,” he said. “… I have nothing to gain by them not paying their taxes. The only thing I have to gain as a township supervisor is having more money for the township and the school district having more money to pay their expenses.”

Looking to the fall: State Rep 116th District

In 2010 Tarah Toohil scored one of the biggest upsets of the year by defeating state house Democratic Majority Leader Todd Eachus. Although I'm a Democrat I was glad to see the back of Eachus.

 He lost me when I got a piece of official mail touting the proposed Hazleton Cargo Airport and I didn't even live in his district. He teamed up with convicted criminals Greg Skrepnak and Robert Powell and others wanting to divert the slots money to a fantasy airport. He later backed off his support for the project.Then it came out that he was flying around on Powell's private jet and that was the end of him.

Tarah Toohil was a Democrat that wanted to run against Eachus in the primary but hit a brick wall so she filed as a Republican and won. Another example that challengers don't win races but incumbents lose them.


Her opponent is Ransom Young, a farmer who has been a member of the Butler Township Board of Supervisors for 28 years.

Reading their latest campaign finance reports we learn that Ransom hasn't raised any money so far but that will change. Toohil has about $6400 cash on hand. There are few things on Toohil's report that I found curious. Most of the contributors don't live in the district and she got some help from her friends.

BLUE CROSS VOICE PAC

FRIENDS OF KAREN BOBARK (typo on website)

BAKER FOR SENATE

COMM TO ELECT SANDRA J. MAJOR

Looking at the expenditures.

The usual expenses are listed for office supplies, postage, internet and phone service, etc. .There are some things that are different.. 20 charges to the campaign totaling over $700 for gasoline, small checks for lunch and a few meals in DC at The MATCH BOX and BELGA CAFE. What PA interest is she pushing in Washington?

4 bills for dry cleaning totaling. $68.10. Tarah always looks sharp.

Update: Those numbers were from the 2012 report. The 2011 filing lists more lunch tabs, $440 for gas, $57 for dry cleaning and $721 for formal wear from Wedding Bells on 11/21/11. I guess she wanted to look good for Pennsylvania Society get together in New York that her campaign picked up the tab for her hotel room. She looks fabulous in the last picture on the slideshow of this article.

 

Puttin' on the ritz at the Academy Ball

 

PA State Represenative candidates in Luzerne County

The candidate roster can found at the PA Department of State.

Mike Carroll (D-118) and Karen Boback (R-117) will not have an opponent in the upcoming primary and general elections. Like most political junkies I hate uncontested elections because the people should always have a choice plus you never know if the incumbent might have something blow up on them. It looks looks like Duke started too late to get the 300 signatures needed in the 117th.

The big news is assistant Luzerne County Assistant District Attorney Frank McCabe is running in the Democratic primary trying to unseat my 3rd favorite State Rep Phyllis Mundy in the 120th HD.
A resident of the district said "Nice, a stealth undercover petition signing. He must know people to get all of those signatures with no one spilling the beans. Now its getting fun." I don't think that Mundy hasn't has had a primary challenger since she won the election in 1990 taking the seat from Republican incumbent Scott Dietterick who was found guilty of insurance fraud just before the election. The Yonk will correct me if I'm wrong. What Democrat could have a beef with Phyllis? Young Republican Aaron Kaufer is the GOP candidate.



The other matchups include Ransom Young (D) taking on freshman Tarah Toohil (R) in the Hazleton area 116th HD. Rick Arnold (R) has a rematch with Gerald Mullery (D) in the 119th. Pete Mailloux (R) is taking on incumbent Eddie Day Pashinski (D) in the 121st HD for now but all this could change depending on the mapmakers response to the Supreme Court.

Ransom Young for State Representative

From the inbox:

Ransom Young announces today that he is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for State Representative in the 116th district.

Young, 57, a life-long resident of Butler Township with deep roots in Southern Luzerne County, owns and operates the family farm of four generations that has been enrolled under the Luzerne County Agricultural Preservation Program since 2001.

He is married to Deborah Jones, formerly of West Hazleton.

Young, no stranger to civic involvement has been a member of Butler Township Board of Supervisors for 28 years and was former chairman. Young has been chairman, vice chairman and is currently treasurer of the Luzerne County Association of Elected Officials. He feels his involvement will benefit both his candidacy and the people o the 116th district. "I'm proud of the fact that Butler Township boasts one of the lowest property taxes in Luzerne County. I've worked hard over the years to make sure we've kept taxes low while still providing the services the citizens of the township deserve. Despite our low taxes we've managed to build and maintain a full time police force, provided recreational facilities and maintained good roads and invested 17.7 million dollars to update our sewage treatment plant."

In describing his desire to run, Young states; "This district needs a representative that symbolizes the face of the community, and I am willing to fight for those people. I'm a blue-collar person who will use common sense when facing a problem. I think what is missing in Harrisburg is the common sense approach. As a candidate and State Representative, I promise you, no one will work harder for you than I will. I will surround myself with quality and caring people."

"The Marcellus Shale issue is something that concerns everyone. Once we lose our fresh water source, we lose it forever. We have to make sure that regulations are in place to keep our people and our water safe. We have an amazing opportunity to eliminate our dependency on foreign energy sources, if we manage it correctly. With nearly 8% unemployment in the state we must ensure that the jobs created in the gas industry are for Pennsylvania residents; we have the best skilled and most dedicated workers in America. If the gas industry paid their fair share in a severance tax, the money could go into the general fund so that the gambling revenues would go towards property tax relief as it was originally intended."

"I believe I am the best choice for this office, because I understand the issues and will represent the diverse people of the 116th district, from Huntington Mills to Hazleton. I am a farmer, worked blue-collar jobs and I have balanced budgets in local government. I'm ready to take on this responsibility and I'm asking for your support in April and November.