News & Brews October 23, 2024
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CNN/Harris to hold town hall in Pa. today
VP Kamala Harris will join campaign supporter CNN for a live town hall event in Delaware County tonight. The Inquirer reports that she will “face questions from undecided voters.” Of course, at a recent Harris town hall, moderator Maria Shriver admitted that the questions were “predetermined” and said they wouldn’t actually be taking questions from the audience. So we can’t help but wonder if tonight’s event will be equally staged. Either way, the 9:00 p.m. ET event will be held at an undisclosed location (no, seriously, the campaign won’t say where it is). The event will air live on CNN. And the Inquirer reports, “You can stream the town hall on CNN.com and on CNN’s mobile app, but you’ll need to be a cable subscriber. You can also stream it on Max, the subscription streaming service of CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.”
> 1 million mail-in votes have been cast in Pa.
The Center Square reports that as of yesterday morning, Pa. voters had returned 1,051,655 mail-in ballots out of 1.8 million requested thus far. (The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is 5:00 p.m. on October 29). “Democratic ballots returned a total of 649,060, with 40% more outstanding, compared to Republicans’ 300,862, with just under 57% unreturned. Unaffiliated voters account for an additional 101,733, with about 66% yet to be cast.”
WSJ: ‘Bob Casey’s real political allies’
Following Democrat U.S. Sen Bob Casey’s recently released ad portraying him as a Trump ally on certain issues, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board sets the record straight. “The truth is that Mr. Casey was a reliable vote against Mr. Trump nearly all of the time, and he’s been a reliable vote for President Biden and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.” And given Casey’s vote to spend “more than a trillion dollars in subsidies for energy to replace fossil fuels and gas-powered vehicles,” the Journal calls it “amusing” that he recently signed onto a letter criticizing McDonald’s for raising prices.
‘Some Pa. Jewish voters reconsider longtime devotion to Dems’
The AP reports that even as Democrats continue to enjoy the support of most Jewish voters, some are shifting toward Trump amid growing antisemitism in the U.S. as well as the Biden/Harris administration’s attempt to make all sides happy following Hamas’ terror attack on Israel. As one Philadelphia voter—who backed Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020 and will vote for Trump this year— put it, “The question is, ‘Who is better off today than four years ago?’ And the answer is Iran and the mullahs and their proxies, and it’s because Biden and Kamala Harris have capitulated to Iran.”
Pa. Revenue Secretary appears before Senate
Under threat of jail, Pa. Revenue Secretary Pat Browne testified yesterday before the state Senate on his refusal to provide tax documents related to Allentown’s Neighborhood Improvement Zone. The Department of Revenue holds that the documents are confidential. Of concern, a full and complete audit of the program has never been performed. PennLive reports that “Majority Leader Joe Pittman … said he found it ‘encouraging’ that Browne in his testimony appeared to provide a path forward on a legislative fix to the issue.”
Taxpayers now on the hook for Capitol portraits
Former Democrat Pa. House Speaker Mark Rozzi—who served in the role for just two months—is getting his portrait in the Pa. Capitol. And taxpayers will foot at least part of the bill. This after “[t]he private organization that paid for portraits of two former speakers of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives was quietly disbanded over the summer,” LNP reports. Per the group’s former treasurer, “We had various reasons for disbanding. We just decided it was time to put an end to this.” The LNP notes, “The closure came after an LNP | LancasterOnline story questioned whether donors’ identities left the public in the dark about what interests they could have in influencing legislation.”