The LuLac Edition #5, 524, December 17th, 2025

 

WRITE ON WEDNESDAY

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We missed this last week but here is a comment from Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti who had a comment about Representative Bresnehan appearing with President Trump. Now to be clear, what was the Congressman going to do, snub the President?

But she is using the visit to make a line of demarcation of her candidacy and his in the upcoming 2026 election. Here’s what she had to say.

 

COGNETTI ISSUES STATEMENT ON REP. BRESNAHAN APPEARING WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP

Cognetti 

 

Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, who is a Democratic candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District, issued a statement regarding U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-Dallas Township, who appeared with President Donald Trump at Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono last Tuesday evening.

“I first ran for Mayor of Scranton as an Independent to root out corruption in City Hall,” Cognetti said. “That promise to shake up a broken and corrupt political system is also what attracted many Northeastern Pennsylvanians to support President Trump. Unfortunately, Congressman Rob Bresnahan has come to represent the exact kind of self-serving politician that Northeastern Pennsylvanians — regardless of which party they vote for — all agree we need to get rid of.

“Bresnahan betrayed our community by breaking his promise to ban congressional stock trading and instead becoming one of the most active traders in all of Congress, and by breaking his promise to protect our health care, instead voting for the largest cuts to Medicaid in history.

“The truth is that no matter who comes to our community to campaign for Rob Bresnahan, he won’t be able to outrun his own record of corruption and broken promises. Congressman Bresnahan has put himself first — I’m running to put NEPA first.”

 

Cognetti went on to say that Bresnahan campaigned on a pledge to ban congressional stock trading, but has instead become one of the top stock traders in Congress – and she said he has specifically faced scrutiny for his timely stock trades connected to health care.

 

“Multiple news outlets have reported that Bresnahan dumped stocks in Medicaid providers shortly before voting for the largest cuts to Medicaid in history,” Cognetti said. “And reporting revealed that Bresnahan ‘sold off between $100,001 and $250,000 worth of bonds issued by the Allegheny County Hospital Development Authority,’ which ‘came after a report identified 10 rural hospitals in Pennsylvania that faced immediate risk of closure.’”

Additionally, Cognetti said Bresnahan has faced scrutiny after he promised the hardworking people of NEPA that he would not gut Medicaid, but then voted to cut roughly $1 trillion from the health care program in order to fund more tax cuts for billionaires.

“Bresnahan’s vote could take health care away from more than 30,000 people in PA-08, with ‘more than a quarter’ of the district relying on Medicaid to receive health care,” Cognetti said. “Bresnahan’s vote makes an estimated $137 billion in cuts to rural health systems over 10 years — far exceeding the $50 billion so-called ‘Rural Health Fund’ he is now deceptively touting.”

Cognetti ended her statement with this:

“And Bresnahan has rubber-stamped chaotic tariffs that are spiking the cost of everything from groceries to housing for Northeastern Pennsylvanians. Bresnahan even ‘traded stocks heavily’ and completed the second most trades out of any member in Congress during the week that Trump announced major global tariffs — proving he is more interested in his own bank account than actually doing anything to lower costs.