The LuLac Edition #5, 480, October 28th, 2015

 

THE LAC:

BACK TO THE

FUTURE!

OR 

RETRIBUTION 

COMES TO 

THE LAC  

I couldn’t help but think about the movie “Back To the Future” when I heard the Lackawanna County Commissioners (all three) were having a organizational meeting yesterday.  The new Commissioner, Brenda Sacco,  a Democrat and the GOP guy, Chris Cermak were in league to out Bill Gaughan as Chairman.  Many were taken aback by this development but in reality this type of thing has been going on for years.

As I was telling Wilkes-Barre city Controller Tony Thomas last week, Luzerne County was famous for this in the commissioner form of government. In 1967 for the first time in 50 years the Dems took control of the board of Commissioners when 

Ed Wideman  then the minority member, and 

Frank Crossin won election. After taking office in January 1968 Wideman paired up with Republican Ethel Price to become the majority. Crossin was beside himself because he was high vote getter and Wideman came in a distant third. Both men ran together for re-election in 1971 and 1975 but relations were strained. In 1979 Crossin ran with football coach Edd Bromiski and aced out Wideman all together. Crossin passee away in 1981 and was succeeded by his son.

In the 1983 election Minority Commissioner Frank Trinisewski ran with Jim Phillips and they formed a new Republican majority. The two proved to be so popular that in 1987 they cruised to victory.  But in the summer of 1988 long time GOP office holder Trinisewski became a Democrat and paired up with Crossin Junior to form a Democratic majority. 

In 1990 Trinisewski  along with a young Attorney Neil O’Donell ran for State Senator against the incumbent Ray Musto. By the end of the 90s both Trinisewski and Crossin were no longer Commissioners.

In the 21st century in The Lac, Corey O’Brian and Jim Wacsacz ran for Commissioners with Patrick O’Malley. Their landside victory happened after the Cordaro /Munchak arrests. In 2009 O’Brien ran for U.S. Congress in an attempt to topple long time Representative Paul Kanjorski. At the same time State Representative Jim Wansacz  tried to defeat long time State Senator Bob Mellow.  Both lost.

In 2011 Wansacz ran with Pat O’Malley and O’Brien ran with Jeanette Accari-Marriani. Wansacz and O’Brien won and there were rumors that there would be a rift between the two. But O’Brien resigned before the next election.

Bu there;'s a major difference between then and now. The previously mentioned Commissioners at nowhere near the blow back  seen at yesterday's meeting.  The new Chair was stuttering  and stammering trying to answer basic questions, Cermak looked like a partisan deal maker and Gaughan looked way better than the two others. But when he fired Sacco, he had to expect this. "A politician scorned" and all that. 

 So with this new outcome though, we wish the “new team” good luck. 

THey'll need it.   

WHAT’S THE DEAL

WITH THE EAST WING?

With Trump’s tearing down of the East Wing in such an arbitrary fashion, many of his MAGA minions or Trrumpanzees have offered lame juvenile excuses like “other Presidents” have done the same thing”. People who have not been to Washington don’t know what was lost in the East Wing.

Firat off, it was the first entrance visitors to the White House see. It was the office of the First Lady. The facility was an emergency preparedness center that decisions on  war and peace were made. Unlike the Situation room, this was a wing that held a huge rooms to accommodate key personal. It was a place where Presients did business, formal and informal. The very fact that the place was gutted and its fate not shared with the general public was part of the Trump modus operandi.  If not for a photo in The Washington Post, it would have been obliterated without notice.

Other Presidents have added or changed things but those areas were recyclable , they could be reinvented and changed back again if need be, But this was TOTAL destruction.

Two points here.

1.  Even sports stadiums that have outlived their useful purposes got a better send off than the storied East Wing.

The Commodore 

2.  When the pig President campaigned last fall he talked about “The enemy from within”. That was Accusation is Confession” or to paraphrase Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry who once said, “We Met the enemy and they are ours” to “We have met the enemy and that is Trump!”

 

MEDIA MATTERS

NETFLIX AND

KENNEDY SERIES

A new drama series titled “Kennedy,” based on Fredrik Logevall’s book titled “JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956,” is coming soon.

The series will star Michael Fassbender as the family patriarch, Joe Kennedy, Sr., and will “explore the triumphs and tragedies of the Kennedy family.”

The triumphs as well as tragedies have been many for the Kennedys, the dynasty that produced the 35th US president as well as a New York senator and presidential hopeful, both assassinated. Talk of a Kennedy curse was reinforced when, among other unfortunate events, the former’s son, JFK Jr., lost his life along with his wife and sister-in-law in a plane crash in 1999.

The series will begin long before Jack kennedyu takes office in 1961. A description of the show revealed that the series will begin long before John F. Kennedy occupied the White House, with the first season beginning in the 1930s and charting “the improbable ascent of Joe and Rose Kennedy and their nine children, including rebellious second son Jack, who struggles to escape the shadow of his golden boy older brother.”