Here they are. Your 2010 Senate Republicans that we need to help retire. Please start looking now for people to replace them:

Senate District	Senator	Counties
6	Tommy Tomlinson	Bucks
10	Charlie McIlhinney	Bucks, Montgomery
12	Stewart Greenleaf	Bucks, Montgomery
16	Pat Browne	Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton
20	Lisa Baker	Luzerne, Monroe, Pike, Susquehanna, Wayne, Wyoming
24	Rob Wonderling	Bucks, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton
26	Ted Erickson	Chester, Delaware
28	Mike Waugh	York
30	John Eichelberger	Bedford, Blair, Fulton, Huntingdon, Mifflin
34	Jake Corman	Centre, Juniata, Mifflin, Perry, Union
36	Mike Brubaker	Chester, Lancaster
40	Jane Orie	Allegheny, Butler
44	John Rafferty, Jr.	Berks, Chester, Montgomery
48	Mike Folmer	Berks, Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon
50	Bob Robbins	Butler, Crawford, Lawrence, Mercer

 

This is typical: pass the costs down the line so you can say you held the line and let the less powerful fend for themselves...

From PennLive

[Emphasis added - Ed.]

Palmyra struggles with negative budget impact from Senate bill

by BARBARA MILLER, Of the Patriot-News

Thursday May 07, 2009, 10:00 PM

PALMYRA-Palmyra Area School Board plans to pass a preliminary budget May 14 with a 6.8 percent increase in taxes next week - rather than the maximum 4.2 percent increase it expected to adopt - due to the state Senate's cut of $1 billion from the governor's budget.

Board members said they want to make further cuts in the $36 million budget, but may need more than a week to decide where the money will come from.

Superintendent Larry Schmidt estimated at least $439,000 has disappeared from Palmyra's budget - the equivalent of nearly two mills of real estate tax - out of the $1.4 million in stimulus funds the district was expecting.

Schmidt said the Senate budget returns basic education funding to 2008-09 levels and uses federal stimulus funds to supplant education funds and help balance the state budget.

"It circumvents the whole intent of the stimulus act," Schmidt said.

"It's ethically wrong, it's probably legally wrong, it's just wrong,"
said board member Brad White.

"It's a stonewalling technique by the Senate to make a statement," said board member Christine Horn. "This'll never pass the House."

Schmidt said a lengthy battle over the budget is expected, but school districts must have their budgets adopted in mid-June to get tax bills in the mail in July.

The preliminary budget will be voted on at the 6:30 p.m. May 14 board meeting.

A 6.8 percent, or six-mill tax increase, would add $141 to the real estate tax bill of the owner of a home assessed at the district average of $23,500. The tax rate would become 94.25 mills.

Expect more of this, especially when the state and contract mandated employee health insurance premiums get jacked up again. State single-payer, anyone?

Actually, it recently crossed my mind that the Commonwealth could at least be self-insured and quit padding the profits of insurance companies.

PA Senate: Playing politics with our children's future.

Had enough yet?

Please, people, when I send a message in the fall asking you to get organized to take back the state Senate next year from the irresponsible cranks that run it now, please, please, please say "Yes!"

This is just some of what the Republican-controlled PA Senate passed as a budget proposal:

Cuts:

- $14.5 million: The entire budget for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, which funds more than 1,000 cultural groups around the state each year
- $344,000: The entire budget of the Office of Safe Schools
- $11 million: The entire budget for the DEP's Safe Water program
-$11.4 million: The entire budget for state-funded Public Television.
Funding for 10,000 low-income children's  state-subsidized health insurance.

Getting more:

- $161 million: Increase to the Department of Corrections, which would receive more than $1.7 billion

- $176 million: Increase to the Department of Aging and Long Term Living, which would receive $1.2 billion (OK, I'm cool with that)

Note, though, that the increase in prison funding is over 4 times the savings from the cutting of those many very worthwhile programs. But with privatized prisons there are a lot more tranfers of tax dollars to corporate bottom-lines to be made and thanks to the continuing "War on The Disenfranchised Drugs" we have a lot more mouths to feed.

So now the House will have to negotiate the cuts back up and the new expenditures down, but once again, we'll have an extended budget battle and threats to shutdown the government and important services and we'll still be fighting for scraps.

Had enough yet?

Will you sign a petition asking the US Department of Justice to investigate the murder of Luis Ramirez?

Please visit http://maldef.org/luis_ramirez_petition/ to add your name.

On July 14, 2008, Ramirez lost his life after he was knocked unconscious and severely beaten by a group of Shenandoah, PA teenagers who yelled racial epithets throughout the fatal beating. Charging documents and eyewitness accounts indicate that Ramirez was punched and kicked in the body and head causing him to foam at the mouth, to sustain two skull fractures, and ultimately, to die.

On Friday, May 1, 2009, a jury in Schuylkill County found two of the defendants accused of beating the 25-year-old, father of two, guilty of simple assault. Despite the mounting evidence of a hate-driven and violent attack, the jury acquitted the defendants of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation. The jury's conclusion is an outrage. Most shocking is the recent news article describing the Jury Foreman’s view that the trial appeared to be biased because of the racism and prejudice he noted among his fellow jurors. Luis Ramirez was brutally murdered and, even in death, Ramirez remains a victim of extreme racism which denies his family the justice they deserve.

Please visit http://maldef.org/luis_ramirez_petition/ to add your name.

The Nation's John Nichols points out that during the debate over President Obama's economic recovery plan, conservatives attacked House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey's (D-WI) inclusion of $900 million for pandemic flu prevention as wasteful spending. Writing in the Wall Street Journal in February, former Bush adviser Karl Rove cited the flu preparation spending as an example of the "disturbing" "new spending programs" included in the legislation. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) fumed about the flu spending, asking, "Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill? No, we should not." Sen. Chuck Schumer (D, after a fashion-NY) told the New York Post that "all those little porky things that the House put in, the money for the [National] Mall or the sexually transmitted diseases or the flu pandemic, they're all out."

Join Governor Dean's campaign for health care reform by signing the petition here: standwithdrdean.com

A possible scenario for how to deal with AIG:

From The Progress Report:

CONGRESS -- MORE LAWMAKERS WHO OPPOSED SALARY CAPS LAST MONTH ARE NOW ATTACKING AIG BONUSES: As The Progress Report noted earlier this week, Republicans who opposed Wall Street salary caps -- such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Banking Committee ranking member Richard Shelby (R-AL) -- are now flipping their positions to condemn the bonuses paid by AIG.

 Via AFP:

President Barack Obama marked St Patrick's Day Tuesday by naming Dan Rooney, chairman of the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers as ambassador to Ireland.

Obama, who was later set to meet Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen and hold separate private talks with leaders from Northern Ireland, said Rooney, a key campaign supporter was a "dedicated" and "accomplished" person.

"Dan Rooney is an unwavering supporter of Irish peace, culture, and education," Obama said in a statement.

"I have every confidence that he and (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) will ensure America?s continued close and unique partnership with Ireland in the years ahead."

The White House said that Rooney co-founded the American Ireland Fund, which has raised 300 million dollars for peace and education programs in Ireland, the land of his ancestors.

Rooney was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2000 for his executive stewardship of the Steelers and work with the NFL.

Obama is a fervent fan of the Chicago Bears, but stepped into the minefield of sports rivalry by backing the Steelers against the Arizona Cardinals before January's big game.

"Other than the Bears, the Steelers are probably the team that's closest to my heart," Obama said at the time, mentioning the Rooney family and coach Mike Tomlin, who joined his successful campaign to win the key swing state of Pennsylvania in last November's general election.

Obama's giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "Black Irish."