PA Political Digest - Meuser takes a pass while petards get hoisted...and still no state budget

Sharp analysis of PA politics and campaigns writ large

After a July 4th week respite, I am back…welcome to the Friday End of the Week post here at PA Political Digest (PPD) - I’m your guide, Republican political consultant Christopher Nicholas.

For you today, we have:

• The Round Up details a GOP’er who decided to forgo a challenge to the Gov, another outlandish marijuana bill drops, this time via the state senate, there’s some petard hoisting going on + a look at the method by which Americans voted last year

• This Week in Pennsylvania welcomes PEMA Director Randy Padfield

• In Extras, down at the bottom, the ; is apparently endangered and the USPS makes a stop in Bikini Bottom.

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Round Up

• Luzerne County Cong. Dan Meuser (R-9) decided to forego a challenge to Gov. Josh Shapiro next year, apparently after taking a poll to gauge the mood of the state’s electorate. We broke the news here in our Tuesday newsletter that went out to our Paid subscribers late that morning. Meuser will focus on his work in the GOP-controlled House.

Meanwhile, State Treasurer Stacy Garrity, also from NEPA (northeast PA), another rumored Republican candidate for governor, says she will soon have an announcement about her political future. She easily won re-election last year to her 2nd and final term there.

• Measles is back, again, unfortunately. After being declared eradicated in 2000, “The U.S. has reported 1,288 measles cases this year — the highest number in 33 years, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The last time the U.S. saw more measles cases was in 1992, eight years before the disease was declared eliminated in the country.” (no paywall)

• Speaking of bad for your health, other marijuana legalization bill, this one introduced by GOP State Sen. Dan Laughlin and Democratic Sen. Shariff Street, debuted in their chamber this week.

The bill has no limits on the potency of the marijuana that woud be sold…and Big Marijuana is a subsidiary of Big Tobacco…and we all remember their decades of lies about that substance.

As Dan Bartkowiak of the PA Family Council wrote, “Before any vote on marijuana is cast, our General Assembly should understand that today’s marijuana is not the marijuana of decades past. Today’s manufactured version of marijuana causes harm and can lead to addiction or worse.

“Despite the industry’s claims, Pennsylvania’s current marijuana debate is not about economic opportunity. It’s also not about medical compassion. It’s about an industrialized drug that well-funded chemists and growers have bred and processed marijuana strains to contain ultra-potent THC (the psychoactive component that causes the high). These are packaged in candy-flavored products, with vapes disguised as school supplies, and edibles designed to attract children.”

The Laughlin/Street bill does not even have a local ‘opt-out’ provision, whereby municipalities could decide they did not want to host a pot dispensary. Fyi, the bill that created the state’s mini-casinos included such a provision, and all 60 towns in Lancaster County did indeed opt out of hosting such a casino. (no paywall)

And of course, the devil is in the details with any law to allow more marijuana sales here. As the New York Times wrote, “New York State regulators are investigating some of America’s biggest cannabis companies after receiving complaints that they have been selling marijuana to New York dispensaries that comes from unauthorized sources or is grown out of state, an illegal practice that has been called the industry’s open secret.”

Oh, and the smell! in states that have legalized it. (no paywall)

The legalization of recreational marijuana is a bad deal for PA families.

• There’s a seminal scene in the movie The Hunt for Red October, where a former student of the Red October submarine’s skipper is ordered by Soviet higher ups to kill his former mentor. (The mentor is played by Sean Connery, using his best Scottish-to-Russian accent.)

In his rush to do so, he fires a torpedo from his own sub at Connery’s Red October without any safeties on it, and sure enough - after some maneuvers - that torpedo circles back and eventually targets them, not Connery’s sub. As they are about to be obliterated by their own torpedo, that sub’s 1st Officer turns to his Captain and says, “You arrogant ass, you’ve killed us!” Then…boom.

The “arrogant ass,” Capt. Tupolev, portrayed by Stellan Skarsgard. It’s a great flick…

That scene popped into my head as Team Trump this week mishandled the…

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