The Triadvocate

Friday Happy Hour- H.R. PufnStuf Edition

The annual CPAC conference descended on Washington D.C. this week as conservatives from across the land gathered to debate the issues of the day.  As a testament to how much the conservative movement has changed in the past few years, check out the CPAC panel on fair trade where a Breitbart News editor shared the stage with MSNBC’s Ed Schultz and they actually agreed.  

The Tale of Two Pennsylvanias may have played out in the 2016 elections, but it is still on vivid display according to a poll released this week, where we found that President Donald Trump still has the confidence of voters in the southwestern and northeastern part of the state.  Elsewhere?  Yeah, not so much.

Trump also this week named retired General and Philly native H.R. McMaster as the new head of our country’s national security apparatus.  While the move earned plaudits from both sides of the aisle (an increasingly rare occurrence these days) we still can’t help but sing the theme song to H.R. PufnStuf every time we see his name.

Governor Tom Wolf and U.S. Senator Bob Casey, Jr. were also tested in the aforementioned poll, and acquitted themselves fairly well as they

Friday Happy Hour- H.R. PufnStuf Edition

The annual CPAC conference descended on Washington D.C. this week as conservatives from across the land gathered to debate the issues of the day.  As a testament to how much the conservative movement has changed in the past few years, check out the CPAC panel on fair trade where a Breitbart News editor shared the stage with MSNBC’s Ed Schultz and they actually agreed.  

The Tale of Two Pennsylvanias may have played out in the 2016 elections, but it is still on vivid display according to a poll released this week, where we found that President Donald Trump still has the confidence of voters in the southwestern and northeastern part of the state.  Elsewhere?  Yeah, not so much.

Trump also this week named retired General and Philly native H.R. McMaster as the new head of our country’s national security apparatus.  While the move earned plaudits from both sides of the aisle (an increasingly rare occurrence these days) we still can’t help but sing the theme song to H.R. PufnStuf every time we see his name.

Governor Tom Wolf and U.S. Senator Bob Casey, Jr. were also tested in the aforementioned poll, and acquitted themselves fairly well as they

Friday Happy Hour- Feel Like Dancing Edition

He was pilloried again on Saturday Night Live, his national security adviser resigned, his labor secretary nominee withdrew, new allegations arose about his coziness with the Russians, Russia and North Korea launched missiles, the White House leaks like a proverbial sieve, and now Republicans in Congress are beginning to grumble. The week culminated with a news conference at which President Trump asserted that his administration was “running like a fine-tuned machine.” We’ll dance around that and call it “a less-than-stellar week” for the president.

On the brighter side, his administration’s proposed rules regarding the Affordable Care Act drew a positive reaction in some quarters. Independence Blue Cross CEO Daniel Hilferty said the rules designed to stabilize the individual health care market are a good start. IBC was the only company to offer ACA plans in southeastern Pennsylvania this year.

Despite reports that he had been killed in Vietnam by his own troops, Douglas C. Niedermeyer resurfaced under the nom de plume of Stephen Miller, senior

Friday Happy Hour: Less Than Zero Edition

Right after we got back from shopping at Nordstrom’s last night (kidding, we don’t have a Nordstrom’s in Harrisburg), we were informed that a U.S. Appeals Court had upheld a lower court decision to slap a hold on President Trump’s Travel Ban Executive Order.  Trump’s response to the court was “We will see you in court!” Which further confused the court. 

Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats continued their spirited battle to defeat a whole host of Trump’s cabinet nominees.  They failed to stop Jeff Sessions from winning approval as the country’s next Attorney General, bringing their record to zero wins against all losses.  We lost track of the count. 

Western Pennsylvania State Representative Rick Saccone (R-Allegheny) announced this week that he will challenge U.S. Senator Bob Casey, Jr. for his seat in 2018.  We suspect that Saccone will not be alone, and will have to emerge from what could be a very crowded Primary battle. The important thing to note here is that our elections never, ever end. They just bleed into the next.  

Governor Tom Wolf laid out his vision for the 2017-2018 fiscal year state budget this week, calling for increased spending on public education (no surprise here), increased spending on addiction treatment (even less of a surprise), no broad-based tax increases (somewhat of a surprise), and a whole lot of state government downsizing and outsourcing (surprising to the extent that it came from a Democratic governor.) 

Friday Happy Hour: Bobcat Edition

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Thursday, and for the uninformed, that means we face six more weeks of winter.  We can all take solace in the fact that the rodent has historically been correct only thirty-nine per cent of the time with his meteorological predictions.  If we ran our business like that we would be…well…out of business.

If you thought that Washington, D.C. couldn’t get weirder than it’s been for the past few months or so, we’d like to inform you that there was a bobcat named Ollie on the loose somewhere in that vicinity for three days this week.  The good news is that the bobcat was eventually found.  The bad news is that Ollie was then promptly deported.  

President Trump this week nominated Neil Gorsuch to take the empty slot on the United States Supreme Court.  If you wondered why this slot has remained empty for a year now, we will direct you to Twitter, where it has been a nonstop Rage-a-Thon since the announcement. 

As Trump’s cabinet nominees slog through the process on Capitol Hill, opponents of those nominees have flooded the offices of our U.S. Senators with calls, texts, e-mails, Tweets, and even faxes. Our own U.S. Senator Bob Casey has reported that he has received a whopping 80,000 letters on just one nominee, an increase in monthly correspondence of about 900%.  So if you are angered that you can’t get through to voice your opinion, please keep in mind that U.S. Senators do not have unlimited staff.  They don’t work in the Pentagon, after all.