Pennsylvania – Page 29 – Shall Not Be Questioned

PA Reconsidering Electoral Vote

Capitol Ideas speaks about a proposal by Republicans in the Senate to allot Pennsylvania’s electoral votes proportionally. The idea is that this would give the GOP an advantage by handing a few more electoral votes to GOP candidates that will generally all go to Democrats during an election.

My view is that this move is blatantly partisan, and I don’t like it at all. I’m a supporter of the electoral college system, and I believe states that allocate their electoral vote proportionally are going to be less relevant in the national election. We elect the President only partly through popular vote. We also elect the President as individual states. I don’t really believe we ought to change that.

Buy One Get One Free

Thanks to the generosity of some fellow bloggers and NRA friends in Arizona, we have three tickets for our Friends of the NRA dinner this Thursday to give away to the first three people who buy a ticket. So for the first three folks, if you can make it, and buy a ticket, you can bring a spouse, child, or friend with the freebie. If you bought a ticket in response to my previous post, feel free to chime in to the comments if you want one of those tickets. I’ll announce if/when the three tickets are spoken for.

Reprise

Before Pennsylvania even had time to dry out from Irene, it looks like we just got creamed again with the remnants of Lee. This time, however, Central Pennsylvania got the worst of it, rather than us. But folks along the Delaware River are still in trouble, since the rains were quite fierce upstream. This picture was taken a few hours ago, and the river will not crest until tomorrow morning. The problem is, it’s rained so much here that the ground won’t take any more water, so it’s all going to end up in the rivers and streams.

We did OK here. The heavy thunderstorms moving through around 4AM woke me up, and we had rain heavy enough for a while to keep my sump pump pretty much constantly on, but no power loss, and the rains didn’t keep up long enough to pose a serious threat. It wasn’t like Irene, which was several hours of continuous torrential downpour.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the folks in Central Pennsylvania. You can see footage of some of the flooding here. Checked in with my dad, who’s out near Lebanon, and they came through OK, but since he’s active with the local fire department, spent all night pumping out basements and helping rescue stranded drivers.Â Capitol Ideas has video of the current state of the Susquehanna River, as well as continuing Twitter coverage of the situation in Central Pennsylvania.

States of Emergency & Carry in PA

With several Pennsylvania Counties under State of Emergency declaration, it’s worth noting an aspect of Pennsylvania law:

Â§ 6107. Prohibited conduct during emergency.

No person shall carry a firearm, rifle or shotgun upon the public streets or upon any public property during an emergency proclaimed by a State or municipal governmental executive unless that person is:

Actively engaged in a defense of that person’s life or property from peril or threat.

Licensed to carry firearms under section 6109 (relating to licenses) or is exempt from licensing under section 6106(b) (relating to firearms not to be carried without a license).

(June 13, 1995, 1st Sp.Sess., P.L.1024, No.17, eff. 120 days)

Ordinarly you can carry a handgun, SBR or SBS without a License to Carry Firearms (LTCF) in Pennsylvania, provided that you do not conceal it, or have it in your vehicle. Long guns follow the same rules, except you can conceal it (if you can) but it must be unloaded in a vehicle.

The exception to this is Philadelphia, where you need an LTCF to carry any firearm on the public streets, open or concealed. During a declared State of Emergency, those areas affected by the declaration become just like Philadelphia, you need an LTCF even to carry openly.

For a lot of reasons, even if you carry openly, it’s a good idea to have an LTCF. Lots of towns declare States of Emergency for silly reasons, like Chester and a few other cities recently declaring them for high crime. In addition, while the Federal Gun Free School Zones Act has never been constitutionally re-tested, it only exempts you if you have a license from the state in which you reside. That law applies to within 1000 feet of a school.

Illegal & Unethical Mayors United with Bloomberg

An ally of Michael Bloomberg is raising eyebrows about just how political favors are used and abused in his town. Even better, it’s at the expense of public safety.

The police chief and borough manager in Dormont are accusing the mayor of ticket fixing.

It turns out the mayor has dismissed thousands of tickets over the years and now the Allegheny County District Attorney is getting involved.

He’s fixed more than $30,000 worth of tickets – enough to buy a police car. When the police chief was raising this issue, the mayor canned him to shut him up. Other city officials gave him his job back and are asking questions since some supporters of the mayor had as many as 35 tickets fixed in one year. That’s nearly a ticket a week for just one person!

This Mayor Against Guns is Thomas Lloyd of Dormont, Pennsylvania whose smiling mug graces the MAIG website.

Is it any wonder that the allies Bloomberg finds to join his anti-gun crusade are criminals and the corrupt who abuse the legal system to get their supporters out of trouble?

We’re Winning

Colleges in Pennsylvania are offering shooting lessons as part of the curriculum. Right now it’s only curriculum for wildlife biology students, but it’s a start:

“With this class, if one of these students becomes a pheasant biologist, for example, they know what the hunting end is all about. If someone asks them, ‘Have you even fired a shotgun before?’ they can actually say yes.”

I just like seeing colleges presenting the topic in a manner that doesn’t involve fanning the flames of hysteria.

Why Bother Being a Republican?

It seems to me that Senate President Joe Scarnati really shouldn’t bother putting an R after his name. I’m no self-proclaimed party purist, but generally members of the GOP fall into at least one of a couple of groups – those who support free markets or those who are socially conservative. Sometimes it’s a mix of both, but usually you find the overwhelming majority of Republicans fall into at least one of those categories.

So I’m really confused by Scarnati’s opposition to privatizing the PLCB, our wine monopoly overlords who like to overcharge and give us shitty selection. His concerns, as far as I’ve seen, really seem to be rooted in the fact that his district is rural and would have even less of a selection than they do now – so the rest of Pennsylvania’s 12.7 million citizens must suffer to make his district happy.

But what really gets me is that his district houses at least one of 45 stores that actually loses money selling booze. During each of the last two years, they’ve lost more than $10,000.

So really, he wants to keep the system so that taxpayers can subsidize his the alcohol consumption of his family & neighbors. That seems to go against both the free market & social conservative ideas that are common in the GOP.

So, Joe, why are you a Republican again?

2012: This Could Be Fun

If you’ve never volunteered for a campaign before, I strongly suggest 2012 as the year to start. Why?

Because when Rick Santorum is polling within 2 points of Barack in a state like Pennsylvania, you know that knocking on doors and making calls is going to result in awesome rants against the administration. If anything, you’ll be assured good laughs.

Liquor Control Woes

Capitol Ideas continues to document the back and forth in regards to privatizing the state liquor system:

Speaking to reporters in his Capitol offices last week,Â Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said legislators need to “take the handcuffs off” theÂ Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board by allowing the agency to vary its prices by region and to try different mark-ups for different products. Allowing the agency to act more like a private business will drive up the state’s potential asking price for the current system, he said.

The problem here is that when you have monopoly pricing power, you have to put handcuffs on the body that wields that power. The PLCB does not and can not act like a private business because it is not a private business. The Capitol Ideas article speaks of Scarnati’s concern that we do not know the true value of the system. They could give it away for all I care. My goal is a decent selection of bourbon and scotch without having to smuggle it across the neutral zone.

PA Senate Republicans Screwing Us Again

Capitol Ideas is reporting that Senator Joe Scarnati, the top Republican in the PA Senate, has put the brakes on privatizing the state liquor system. He believes the PLCB needs to be given a chance to act more like a private business. You know what makes private businesses act like private businesses, Senator? Competition.

I’m getting to the point I’d rather vote out these soft Republicans in the Senate and replace them with Democrats. What good are they?