Wows & Scowls
Wow: PACleanSweep, the grassroots organization bent on ousting all incumbents from the state legislature, isn’t waiting around until next year’s chance to start that process. The organization chaired by Russ Diamond is setting its sights on a ballot-box hunting season that opens Nov. 8, when state Supreme Court Justices Russell Nigro and Sandra Shultz Newman are up for a 10-year retention vote. Those are usually “gimmes” for sitting judges, but public outrage over the state-level pay raises approved by the legislature in July – which sweetened Nigro’s and Newman’s salary from $150,369 to $171,800 – could make them sweat this one out. It’s also a good test of whether voters are paying attention and are willing to act on their ire. Scowl: What, pray tell, does state Sen. Richard A. Kasunic (D-Dunbar) think he’s going to accomplish by putting out a press release urging the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to be “mindful” of the effects of any natural gas rate hikes on consumers? Like that’s not a built-in consideration for those policymakers anyway? It seems a waste of paper for Kasunic to send such a letter, even if it’s true, as he states, that current rates vary by more than $1 per metric cubic foot of natural gas.
In the same press release, the veteran state senator also offered praise for Gov. Ed Rendell’s new $18 million “Stay Warm PA” program, designed in part to provide additional “state dollars for heating aid to the poor” – which upon further review means “helping poor families pay their heating bills and mortgages.” Hey, why not throw in some state cash to help with the car payment, too? That might help everyone get re-elected next year.
Scowl: Amid growing disatisfaction over prosecution of the war in Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to rule out that U.S. troops will be out of that country within 10 – count ’em, that’s 1-0 – years. That’s a far cry from the rose-colored scenario portrayed to the American people when the Bush Administration launched the conflict, isn’t it? The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to which Rice spoke, should quiver at the thought of a decade-long U.S. presence in such a volatile nation.