That space between an election and New Year’s is always a bizarre time in politics. It is that season where stuff actually gets done because someone’s term is always expiring and they are the perfect fall guy. This year my county (Montgomery County, Pa) has relocated to whacko-world. On Monday some newspapers reported that a 24% increase in taxes is likely at the Wednesday County Commissioner’s meeting; one of the last of the year.  Two of the three commissioners are retiring. Tuesday morning the County DA reveals that she had a Grand Jury indictment on the Chairman of the Commissioners and …

If the election were held today, Pennsylvania would use its block of 20 electoral votes at once. We move our stack of chips on the table and we can have some real sway with it. Presidential candidates know it and focus their campaigns here on us. Those 20 votes always make Pennsylvania a gamble worth making.  Pennsylvania is about to give up a good chunk of the gamble with Tom Corbett’s proposal to gerrymander our little corner of the Electoral College. He has set up this scheme that would take the 18 congressional districts and make those individual fights for an electoral vote. Then he …

Tuesday night Mike Vereb (R-150) used the Pope John Paul II High School auditorium to present on the topic of 422 tolling. I am glad that there were no striking teachers outside. I would not have attended the meeting if I had to cross a picket line. With Rep. Vereb were GOP representatives most from districts that border this roadway: Warren Kampf (R-157), Tom Quigley(R-146) and Marcy Toepel (R-147). Also attending were Democratic County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel, the Executive Director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission Barry Seymour (I think he has to be politically neutered…

Montgomery County has experienced explosive growth in the past 10 years.  Cornfields have been turned into McMansion Farms in the western part of the county and I don’t think the Democratic Party in Montgomery County is paying attention to this shift in demographics. The management of the current county-wide commissioner’s race has placed an inordinately large amount of their resources in the eastern end of the county. The resources that have been placed in the western end of the county reside in the urban centers of Pottstown and Norristown. Lansdale’s office is too far to be of service to a…

…A thousand people in the street Singing songs and carrying signs Mostly say, hooray for our side It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound Everybody look what's going down For What It’s Worth - Stephen Stills - Buffalo Springfield I got an invite for a protest from Democratic activist John Fennell, who wanted to get a presence at Congressman Meehan’s office in Springfield. I had a number of conversations that day. Here are my impressions. The Signs John’s invite gave me an address in Media. I was assuming it was the Congressman’s office until I went in and found it was the Delaware County …

Dear Ms. Rowling, Thank you for writing your series. Our daughter, Al, just got in from seeing the last filmed installment of your series. She moves through another rite of passage when she hits 16 in August. Last night, we were home base for the posse she runs with. Both boys and girls showed up at our place to get ready to be the first in line at the local multiplex. It felt like prom night, with parents dropping kids off.  It wasn’t gowns and tuxes, but plaid pleated skirts, wands and cloaks. We took the pictures of the whole crew on the back deck, just like when Al’s two older brothers …

Over Memorial Day weekend, I went to a big family picnic at Ridley Creek State Park on Sunday. On the way over, my part of the family stopped at Birmingham-Lafayette Cemetery, where heroes as far back as the Battle of Brandywine sleep. We stopped to see my cousin, Jay Gillespie, an active Airman who lost his life in peacetime. We realized this year he has been gone longer than he was here. When he passed, he was in the Air Force, so the standard issue marble stone sits stoically. Part of his duties included the bereavement unit—the men and women who fold the flag and carry the casket of the …

I worked the late shift doing security for Methacton’s After-Prom Party this weekend. When I reported in, the buzz was a large number of kids didn’t make it to the prom because a parent rented a bus after allowing kids access to booze. I saw my kid at the party, and he told me about a few kids who were fall-down drunk. The cops clipped them at the prom. OK, alcohol consumption by teens is against the law. Personally, I think it is a stupid law, but kids are going to get swept up in this. Lawyers and the justice system will get a payday. The kids will get racked up with records that will hold …

I had a good time this weekend with all this Rapture stuff. I worked my kid’s post prom on Saturday night. I don’t think the public school would have taken kindly to getting a firehose to wash all the kids down in a last-ditch attempt to get them baptized. Although, I think the kids would have been agreeable to the idea because it was pretty hot in the gym. On Facebook, I ran a couple of joke questions—feel free to participate. Are you going to get Raptured tomorrow night? So, how does it feel to be Raptured? But after the (non)event, I began to think about something. None of us were Raptured…

Over the last month or so, there has been a lot of hand-wringing over a “mistake” somewhere in the Motor Voter Registration System in Montgomery County. The Democratic Party ran around getting headlines that somehow bad things were happening because there was a sharp uptick in non-partisan registrations compared to other counties in the state. Being paranoid, the Democrats thought, "Of course people were doing bad things to the Democrats. Hey, they always do." So there are hearings and investigations. At the end of the day, it turns out a civil servant had made what turns out to be a “bad” …

If there is a reason to challenge or remove the District Attorney in Montgomery County—this is it. Sklyer Kauffman was killed in the most savage brutal way a 9 year old could—by a sexual predator. It turns out that Skyler appears to have eluded death only three weeks ago when the suspect in this case actually had Skylar and another child in his apartment. The kids did what they were supposed to do—they told their parents, who called the cops. It appears the perp was given a pass on this incident. The District Attorney for Montgomery County, Risa Vetri Ferman, has stated: "You have to have a …

I woke up on Tuesday morning to hear the following op-ed piece on local news station KYW by Larry Kane.  To us in Philly, Larry Kane is kinda like Walter Cronkite or Daniel Schorr, only a lot younger and a heck of a lot more alive. PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – In one week, voters in Pennsylvania go to the polls to elect nominees for November. In some cases, candidates have twice the chance, because they’re cross-filing—running on both party’s ballots. Cross-filing really means you have a chance to win it all during a primary. That’s why many candidates for township commissioners, school board …