The Triadvocate

Friday Happy Hour: Mirror Ball Edition

 

Unquestionably the news of the week was that Pittsburgh Steeler Hines Ward emerged as champion on “Dancing with the Stars.”  He accepted the Mirror Ball Trophy, then immediately crushed host Tom Bergeron with a devastating block, breaking Bergeron’s jaw.  All day long, Bergeron!

Meet Team Triad: Randy King

 
 

In today’s installment of Meet Team Triad, we present to you Senior Communications Associate Randy King!

PA Unemployment: By The Numbers

 

With the House and Senate poised to take up dueling Unemployment Compensation refrom bills, we thought it would be useful to provide a county-by-county snapshot of unemployment numbers across the state.

Debt Ceiling: Pennsylvania Edition

 
With very little fanfare, the State Senate is quietly moving a Capital Budget bill into position for a vote.  Senate Bill 1054 was reported from the Appropriations Committee yesterday, and could be headed toward action on the Senate Floor at any moment.

Friday Happy Hour: The Rapture Edition

 

Enjoy the final version of the weekly update since, as we understand it, the world will be ending (or Rapturing, anyway) tomorrow somewhere around 6:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.  For those who are not making the trip to the great beyond, there will be some lovely looting going on the next day, so make your plans now.  We’ll be at H.H. Gregg, Wegmans and the liquor store, not necessarily in that order.

Anonymous Gambler: Preakness Edition

 

He's back to right the ship after his Kentucky Derby debacle.  Our occasional sports and spirits blog is back.  Mr. Fabulous, everyone.

Meet Team Triad: Teresa Copenhaver

 

We’re back with another installment of “Meet Team Triad” and today’s guest is Senior Associate Teresa Copenhaver.

Partisan Majorities Part 2

 

Back in November, we posted a piece entitled “Partisan Majority vs. Governing Majority” in which we made the case that, despite having rock-solid majorities in the House and Senate, the Pennsylvania Republican Party would, from time to time, have an awfully tough time moving key pieces of its agenda.

National Popular Vote Gains Bipartisan Firepower

 

The campaign to change the way we elect the President of the United States got some serious bipartisan firepower late last week, as a trio of nationally-recognized heavy hitters joined the team.

Friday the 13th Happy Hour

 

Its Friday the 13th, and to honor the day, Triad's Ron Boston came to work this morning wearing a hockey mask and wielding a plastic fork.

Anonymous Gambler: NHL Playoff Edition

 

An occasional sports and spirits blog by a man who, after going 1 for 3 in his Kentucky Derby picks, feels it is justified to update his nom de plume to Mr. Fabulous.  Go figure.

Uncle Mo was a medical scratch. Dialed In, the shaky favorite and a stone closer, never got there. And most of the speed horses in last Saturday's 137 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs faded like a librarian at a Friday happy hour on Second Street.

House GOP Budget: Quick Snapshot

 

With the House GOP plan poised for Floor action in two weeks, much of the media has been reporting the plan in broad strokes.  Thus far, the story has been all about cutting the Department of Public Welfare budget and restoring proposed cuts to public and higher education.

Private Parking

 

The upcoming House of Representatives vote on public/private partnerships for transportation projects is not the only game in town when it comes to privatization.  As we know, the Corbett Administration has already embarked on its own path to privatization by naming a commission to study the issue and make recommendations on how to get government out of any business that private industry might be able to do more efficiently.  Today’s Allentown Morning Call delves into that topic rather nicely.

Friday Happy Hour

 

The world looked on breathlessly Sunday night as President Barack Obama took to the podium and announced that an elite Navy Seal team had, in fact, killed the world’s most infamous terrorist, Osama (Usama?) bin Laden, who was at the time putting on his jihad jammies and settling in to watch Celebrity Apprentice, which ironically enough would be pre-empted later that evening in the U.S. by his own death.  Check and mate, sir. 

The Anonymous Gambler: Kentucky Derby

 

A guest blog by an anonymous Pennsylvania sportswriting and beer-drinking legend.  We'll just call him "The Ranger."

Welcome to the newest addition on the Triadvocate site. The good people who produce this blog (they're not really good people, I'm just saying that so they'll let me write about BETTING instead of writing about POLITICS) have decided to turn me loose for the spring and summer and let me write about what really matters to the majority of the population: sports. Or, more to the point -- betting on sports.

About That Surplus...

 

The big news from early this week was the Department of Revenue announcing better-than-expected tax collection numbers, which now has the state on target to end the year with a more than $500 million surplus.   This is roughly six times larger than the surplus that was predicted by the Corbett Administration back in February.  

Meet Team Triad: Rick Kelly

 

In our second installment of Meet Team Triad, we bring you this interview with Rick Kelly, Triad’s Director of Crisis Communications.  If you believe your firm or organization doesn’t have a need for a real crisis communications plan, you should definitely check it out.