Bling heist at the Franklin Mills mall, smackdown at the Aramingo Diner. Sure sounds like March Madness.
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: Piggie Of The Week
This week A.P. takes on the Tea Party douchebags protesting the president’s speech on health care reform at Arcadia University on Monday.
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: Piggie Of The Week
This week A.P. shames the predatory Pennsyltucky capitalists that own and operate private prisons and paid judges kickbacks for sentencing children who had committed minor crimes at best to jail time in their facilities.
THE NEWEST DEAL: Nutter Proposes Soda Tax And $300 Garbage Collection Fee To Cover Budget Gap
KYW: Saying “nothing worth having in life is free,” Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter on Thursday morning delivered a nearly $4-billion budget to City Council. And he asked for the lawmakers’ support for two firsts: a tax on soda and a fee for trash collection. Nutter proposed a flat $300 per year, per property trash fee (see previous story) and a two-cents-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks (see related story). He said these will bring in an extra $184 million per year to save city services. MORE RELATED: William Dietz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and CDC chief Thomas Frieden […]
THE EARLY WORD: The Price Of Free Speech
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] Journalist Maziar Bahari and Dr. Hamid Dabashi, Professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University, join the National Constitution Center for a conversation on the future of free press and free speech in Iran on Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 6:30pm at the National Constitution Center. Bahari was held in solitary confinement following Iran’s disputed elections in June 2009 for allegedly playing a role in a Western media effort to instigate unrest. He was released in October 2009, and is currently an international correspondent for Newsweek. The program is taking place in conjunction with the One Book, […]
GAMBLOR: Steve Wynn To Takeover Foxwoods Fail
INQUIRER: Wynn Resorts confirmed Tuesday that it had signed a letter of intent to take control of developing and running the struggling Foxwoods Casino project. But the deal is contingent on approval from Pennsylvania gaming regulators. The Foxwoods project is at risk of losing its license for repeated delays since winning one of the city’s two slots licenses in 2006. He only offered a general idea of what he had in mind, saying it would be a one-story casino with two or three levels of parking on either side. Asked how much Wynn Resorts would spend on the waterfront site, […]
BOOKS: Michele Bachmann Vs. The Gays!
TALKING POINTS MEMO: The new issue of the Michele Bachmann comic, False Witness! The Michele Bachmann Story, is now out on sale. The producers of the comic appear to be taking a thematic approach in the series, dedicating an issue to a particular area of Bachmann’s right-wing obsessions — and they’ve done a great job of it in this issue. This episode: The gays. As for the treatment of the subject matter, the creators set out to make a serious point: That Bachmann has advanced her career on a platform of singling out a group within society for hatred and […]
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: Webcamgate!
AP Ticker takes on Lower Merion school district’s Webcamgate, disgraced bronze medal snowboarder Scotty Lagos, and answers once and for all the age old question: Is curling gay? Also, he dispels the rumor that he is in fact Epic Beard Man.
WORTH REPEATING: Why The Mad Hatter Is So Mad
NEW YORKER: One factor that the Times [Tea Party] article tiptoed around, but which undoubtedly plays some role, is racism. For some white Americans of a certain age and background, the sight of a black man in the Oval Office, even one who went to Harvard Law School and conducts himself in the manner of an aloof WASP aristocrat, is an affront. While President Obama’s approval rating has fallen in almost all groups, the biggest slippage has taken place among whites, especially middle- and working-class whites. A Gallup poll identified this trend last November, and it surely played a role […]
EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES: Michael Smerconish Quits The GOP, Says It’s Become A ‘Party Of Exclusion’
[Photo by CHRIS CHRISMAN] MICHAEL SMERCONISH: The national GOP is a party of exclusion and litmus tests, dominated on social issues by the religious right, with zero discernible outreach by the national party to anyone who doesn’t fit neatly within its parameters.Which is not to say I feel comfortable in the Democratic Party, either. Where political parties once existed to create coalitions and win elections, now they seek to advance strict ideological agendas. Collegiality is nonexistent today, and any outreach across an aisle is castigated as weakness by the talking heads who constantly stir a pot of discontent. So vicious […]
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: Murtha, Murtha, Murtha!
AP Ticker delivers a stinging eulogy for recently departed PA congressman John Murtha, plus he reveals his Olympic man-crush on Bob Costas.
GUILT BY ASSOCIATION: Armed And Dangerous Teabagger Says Sarah Palin ‘On A Mission From God’
TALKING POINTS MEMO: The Massachusetts man charged this week with stockpiling weapons after saying he feared an imminent “Armageddon” appears to have been active in the Tea Party movement, and saw Sarah Palin, who he said is on a “righteous ‘Mission from God,’” as the only figure capable of averting the destruction of society. As we reported yesterday, Gregory Girard, a Manchester technology consultant, was found with a stash of military grade weapons, explosive devices including tear gas and pepper ball canisters, camouflage clothing, knives, handcuffs, bulletproof vests and helmets, and night vision goggles, say police. They believe Girard, who […]
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: Snowpocalypse, Now!
With your host AP Ticker.