The LuLac Edition #2457, June 27th, 2013
IT IS UNANIMOUS
Correale Stevens, the former State Representative from Hazleton and Luzerne County District Attorney was chosen unanimously the Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary to succeed Jane Orie Melvin on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The nomination moves to the full Senate for confirmation. Stevens has been serving as President Judge of the State Superior Court since 2011 He is 66 and lives in Sugarloaf Township.
WYOMING AREA STRIKE?
We are hearing rumblings that there will be a strike this fall in the Wyoming Area School District. And a large part of the reason will be over health care. It appears that the school board wants to bring the rank and file and union in line with the rest of the world. The rest of the world that pays the taxes have $40 to $80.00 co pays for Physical Therapy. Not $15.00. The rest of the taxpaying world has $500.00 to $2500.00 deductibles.When I worked at Blue Cross a few years ago, the teachers were having a stroke when they found out they had to pay $100.00 for a Major Medical deductible. Pittston Politics.com which was voted the number 1 Political blog in the area by PoliticsPa.com (gonna call my buddy Barack up and have the IRS look into that group!) reports that the teachers big concession is that they will reduce their opt out option to Health Care to a mere bag of shells amount of 5 grand. They now get $11,000 . I work with some people that barely get that a year!
The opt out is if you don’t take the sweet health care plan, you get a check. But the union says they’ll cut that in half to just be fair. My friend Valenti and I are most likely going to be accused of teacher bashing. Well, so be it.
First off, the teachers (and I had many educators in my family but they were concerned about the kids and not the check!) in any other private sector job wouldn’t be able to handle the stress.
Second, Valenti says Pennsylvania can’t hire replacement teachers. They did it in 1990 in the Millersburg Area School District. Those “educators”: were back in a week!
Third, Valenti gave out the Superintendent’s e mail address and urged people to send in a resume to be a replacement teacher. I won’t go there yet but I will if this stuff gets out of hand toward the supposed strike date.
All the pork in the Wyoming Area School District ain’t at Fetch’s or Gerritty’s!
SHOCKED SHOCKED!!!!!!
I am shocked, shocked, when I read in the paper Monday that former Educator Ned Evans, a candidate for the Wilkes Barre Area School Board got contributions from Phil Litinski and the departed Bob Corcoran’s dad. Evans is one of the education cronies seeking a seat on the School Board. Currently the School Board is weighted toward people with political contacts in the Wilkes Barre Area. One of the dual nominees, Joe Caffrey received money from Attorney Bill Vinsko’s Congressional campaign and the Friends of Tom Leighton. (Hey the kids are getting bigger and might need a job and Caffrey, quoting here "I know a lot of people through my career in education and in coaching. They are personal friends of mine. I know most families in many cases since I was a boy. Whether I was a candidate or not, those were always people that were always very, very good to my family. I've always considered them to be good friends."Yep, it’s good to have friends but let’s keep Evans out of the loop this general election. We need more than a few minority voices on the WB Area School Board.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
BARLETTA ON AMNESTY
The debate over immigration is heating up. The far right is pillorying John McCain and Marco Rubio and ready to read them out of the party. But Immigration has to go to the House and with statements like this from Congressman Barletta, Immigration Reform isn’t going anywhere. Here's Barletta's statement:
The illegal immigration lobby learned how to pass a bad bill from Obamacare. The 990 page bill flew through the U.S. House and Senate with no debate on crucial issues, and now, they're trying to do it with the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill. Just last night, the U.S. Senate killed any more debate on the legislation's impact on national security and the economy. While I am not surprised, I am disappointed. After only a few days of debate on the 1,200 page bill – that's the size of the monstrosity now – the U.S. Senate thinks it is ready. A real debate – I'm advocating for one in the U.S. House – takes weeks, but the illegal immigration lobby knows that even a week's worth of debate would destroy this bill. So once again, they have tried "passing the bill so we know what’s in it." They'll say this is the same bill from May, but you and I know that it isn't. If it hadn’t changed, what would the 1,200 pages be for? U.S. Senators can't help themselves. They've made hundreds of changes and added dozens of amendments. The amendments supposedly make the bill better, but these are just sophisticated bribes to get more Senators to vote. It was a bad bill in May, but now it's terrible. You have no idea what you're about to get saddled with, and the illegal immigration lobby made sure of that. They coached the bill's authors on how to distract from and deny the truth of the bill, and now they're trying to rush it through Congress. The authors don't stand for a secure border, and they knew that if the debate continued all of America would know. They value amnesty over anything else, which will never solve the illegal immigration problem. Patriot, the stand against this legislation will happen in the U.S. House. I oppose this bill and anything that remotely resembles amnesty for illegal immigrants, and I know my colleagues in the U.S. House will as well if they read the bill and have an honest debate. America can't afford another blind vote. Join my stand against this amnesty bill. America has to protect our borders first. Anything less is negligent.
MEDIA MATTERS
ECTV
ECTV Live during the week of July 1st. Hosts Tom Munley and David DeCosmo will welcome Eileen Woelkers Miller to the program to discuss the very serious subject of distracted driving. Eileen's story is very personal as she lost a son in an accident involving distracted driving and has been involved in an ongoing campaign to save other lives through information and attempts to revise State legislation to deal with the problem. ECTV Live is carried on Comcast Ch19 in northeastern Pennsylvania and can be seen most days at Noon and Midnight. The July 1st program will mark the 167th presentation of ECTV Live on Electric City Television!
SUNDAY MAGAZINE
This Week on Sunday Magazine Magic 93's Frankie in the Morning speaks with attorney Michelle Quinn from HKQ Kids about their annual Fourth of July kids bicycle helmet giveaway at Kirby Park in Wilkes Barre. Brian Hughes speaks with Dr. Barry Hendin about the most common myths about Multiple Sclerosis. Brian speaks with Kelly Flynn, a coach for "Team In Training", celebrating its 25th year of raising funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. And an encore of Brian's interview with travel guru Chris McGuinness about the best travel deals for the Summer. Sunday Magazine, Sunday morning at 5am on Great Country 93.7, 5:30am on 97BHT, 6am on 97.9X, 6:25am on Magic 93, and 7am on True Oldies 590, WARM.
SUE HENRY’S SPECIAL EDITION
Here's the rundown: An interview with members of the Wilkes-Barre Racing Club about the upcoming Wendy's 5K Race for a Home, which will be held as part of the Scrantastic Celebration on July 3; a profile of Jay Sochoka, a Covington Township pharmacist and author of a book about his struggles with obesity and a preview of the 135th annual observance of the Battle of Wyoming with William Lewis of The Wyoming Commemorative Association. That battle was really something!Tune in Saturday t 2PM and Sunday at 7PM on WILK.THE PARTY ZONE
Catch the new extended 70s, 80s, 90s oldies show "The Party Zone" with Shadoe Steele beginning this Saturday from 6 - midnight on 50,000 watt powerhouse WAVT-FM - T-102. ... and on line at www.t102radio.com
TOPIC A
Tune in Friday night at 5PM for Topic A at 5 on WYLN TV, Service Electric Channel 7 in Wilkes Barre and Hazleton. Rebroadcast is 7PM if not pre-empted by Iron Pigs baseball.
1976
On 27 June, an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked. The culprits were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the German Revolutionary Cells. They were flown to Entebbe, near Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The government led by Idi Amin supported the hijackers. Amin even went so far as to welcomed the terrorists. Kenyan sources supported Israel. Amin issued orders to retaliate and slaughter several hundreds of innocent Kenyans present in Uganda. The hijackers separated the Israelis and Jews from the larger group and forced them into another room. That afternoon, 47 non-Israeli hostages were released. The next day, 101 more non-Israeli hostages were allowed to leave on board an Air France aircraft. More than 100 Israeli and Jewish passengers, along with the non-Jewish pilot Captain Bacos, remained as hostages and were threatened with death. The hijackers threatened to kill the hostages if their prisoner release demands were not met. This threat led to the planning of the rescue operation.[ These plans included preparation for armed resistance from Ugandan military troops The operation took place at night. Israeli transport planes carried 100 commandos over 2,500 miles (4,000 km) to Uganda for the rescue operation. The operation, which took a week of planning, lasted 90 minutes. 102 hostages were rescued. Five Israeli commandos were wounded and one, the commander, Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed. All the hijackers, three hostages and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed, and thirty Soviet-built MiG-17s and MiG-21s of Uganda's air force were destroyed.[ Operation Entebbe, which had the military codename Operation Thunderbolt, is sometimes referred to retroactively as Operation Jonathan in memory of the unit's leader, Yonatan Netanyahu. He was the older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister. (Wikipedia.com)As America celebrated the Fourth of July, the news of the rescue spread across the world and the United States. People celebrated the tough stand Israel took against terrorists and the fearless precision of their operation. Later two movies would be made, “Raid On Entebbe” and “Operation Thunderbolt”. The former starred Peter Finch and the latter was an HBO offering that is a pretty rare commodity these days. Here is the film as well as the climactic ending of a major news event that dominated the last week of June and first week in July of 1976…..
In Pennsylvania, Senator Hugh Scott begins to wind down his time in the Senate. Scott is being profiled in Pennsylvania newspapers as a cunning political operative that knew how to read the tea leaves of survival…and in both Luzerne and Lackawanna Counties, preparations are made in earnest for the celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial in less than one week…and the number one song in LuLac land and America was “Moonlight Feels Right” by Starbuck.
posted by David Yonki @ 5:22 PM
18 comments
18 Comments:
Great articles This crap with the opt out is a joke and a disgrace. No one will be able to afford their homes anymore. But the teachers will!
I am going to vote for Kathy Grinaway. Evans will just be one of the gang. Bad stuff! They'll take care of their own.
I'm good with hiring replacements. We throw so much money at education and the kids are getting dumber and dumber. Stop giving increases to Education in Harrisburg because all you get are high salaries.
Dave
You're "bandwagon" groin-kick to the teachers caught me at the wrong time.
Go ahead and b!tc! about those dirty rotten teachers wanting a low co-pay but go back in your archives and read about the teachers at Sandy Hook who gave their life in an effort to protect their kids. Then read about the teachers who covered their students as the tornado tore apart the classroom around them. THAT'S what we expect of them and most would assume the expectation.
You think they can't handle the stress of the private sector? That's such bunk. You're beloved Blue Cross has security doors and swipe cards and cameras and probably security guards. It's more the norm than not nowadays.
How about this: Grow some 'nads and stand up for the natural resources we have underground and around us. Shed the 50's attitude.
Win the war on coal and encourage the development of all natural resource industries - yeah nuclear,too.
Push for an economy of reduced tax and regulation burdens that result in jobs. Extinguish the corruption our area is known for.
As long as I can remember the elders have been sending the kids to other areas to work and thrive. Are you seriously going to deny everyone ignored the warning signs? Especially the electorate?
Now it is becoming more and more evident that the majority would rather criticize those that are earning money that they SPEND at home. Kinda like eating the young.
There is a reason the negotiations have become so toxic and it goes beyond party politics. Find it, fix it. Easier said than done but basic.
I suspect most teachers don't want to strike but have been alienated by leadership and the school board. They know where the waste is and are probably resentful as hell that the Board won't cut it but expect them to take the cut.
The public whining is embarrassing and sophomoric and goes nowhere to finding a solution let alone recognize the underlying reason.
BTW: There is no way I would step into a classroom and subject myself to the things that are happening in today's classroom. I would rather be a cop. The second guessing is less and a gun is required. Don't know if I could control myself sufficiently to avoid an assault charge when told to F@# OFF M@&^%$ F*&^$%!
"I'm not going to scramble jets for some creepy ass cracker."
- Chicago Community Organizer
Corey Stephens/Dick Cavett? Doh!
I am not a union basher but in the case of the PA teachers union they have all the school board directors (who we elect) over a barrel. Until the school board has more teeth in their bite it will stay status quo in regards to contract negotiations.
Also if they would concentrate more on the results of SAT testing rather than the PSSA tests results(which they get monies for) the students would be better off when it comes to those college bound. Ask any college admissions person. They could care less about PSSA scores. It's the SAT scores that have substance.
I feel sorry for those students going to college and being ill prepared for higher education.
Great movie, great song. I miss 1976.
Beloved Blue Cross? Let me tell you a story out of school about Yonki. One day I was running in Wilkes Barre Township. I’m approaching the exit where you can go to Northampton Street making that hill toward the Big Cow. It is 8AM in the morning and Yonk sees me, waves and then proceeds. After waving, I see him give the finger.
Two weeks later, same thing. Except now I’m a bit further up. Yonk sees me, waves and goes up toward the Big Cow. On the way, he flips the bird again.
Now I’m confused. So a few weeks ago, I’m in Target and Yonk is sitting in his car with the top down. I saunter over thinking that this past situation has given him a schizo personality. After sending my step son to the car to load our stuff, I ask Yonk about the bizarre behavior. He profusely apologizes, explains that about once a week he goes to the Dunkin’ on Kidder Street and then takes 309 to Blackman to get to work instead of going through center city. He then tells me there’s a billboard that he regularly flips off in that location. Any advertising is lost on me so I’m thinking I better check out the billboard. The next day, Sunday I take my run and making that hill. Sure enough I see the billboard. It’s one with a lady with a head set on, with glasses and promoting Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania. True story. So BC is not beloved by Yonk who was laid off (and Yonk you've written this so again, I'm not saying anything untrue) the Monday after he finished Chemo, or the rest of us who get regularly shafted with high premiums.
My hearts on fire for Sue Henry!!!!!
You guys were on point tonight on the show. I agree that Supreme Court was calculating in what they decided and what they sent back to the states. Affirmative Action..too hot.
I believe "beloved" would have been better used with quotes. Heyna, yeah?
Two things, Barletta is really starting to look stupid. He thinks the face of his district is that of Nebraska. Walk down any street in Hazleton. It isn't!
And 11:15PM.....tough aidience, hayna?
IN RESPONSE
8:34 PM
DAMN RUNNERS. LOL.
For the first time, I feel very strongly about the teacher's situstion. I see this demand for the $11,000 pmt in lieu of health insurance as nothing less than pure greed. If the teacher's want and demand this benefit and they call a strike then bring in the subs. Let the hogs miss a pay or two and they will see the light. The way it is now, the teachers can strike and not lose a dime. They just tack on the strike days at the end of the school year so the minimum number of teaching days remains intact.
One other thing, Pittston Politics being voted the best is pure BS, n this last election, I understand that Valenti was a paid consultant to Mcadon and he would not allow anything negative in his blog with regard to Gerry M. I think the term is a $2 w....
IN RESPONSE
One other thing, Pittston Politics being voted the best is pure BS, n this last election, I understand that Valenti was a paid consultant to Mcadon and he would not allow anything negative in his blog with regard to Gerry M. I think the term is a $2 w....
NOW, NOW, PLAY NICE. EVEN THOUGH VALENTI WORKED WITH MECADON, HE DID WALK A FINE LINE IN PRESENTING THAT RACE IN TERMS PEOPLE COULD UNDERSTAND FAIRLY. I HEARD MORE THAN ONE LOCAL TV REPORTER REFERRING TO OBSERVATIONS VALENTI MADE THE WEEK BEFORE.
Letting the teachers strike and bringing in subs is getting quite close to free market Reagan republican thinking.
Youse guys gonna let it pass?
If so maybe we should try it for ten years while we hire non-union teachers each year at what we think they deserve and allow parents to enroll their kids anywhere they want.
The parents who care and the kids that learn should lead us to the best schools - if they do indeed develop under this model.
Did my needle just slip out of the groove or am I merely recommending parochial schools?
Yonk?
Yonk - we don't agree on much, but nicely said on the teachers
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