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Politics – Page 8 – Tom Borthwick
SCPAC: Buying Elections Does Work
May 27, 2015

After publishing a blog post about a secretive band of wealthy people bent on buying the Scranton School Board election,  many open questions remained that bothered me.  Who is the Scranton City Political Action Committee?  What are their intentions?  Nobody crawled out of the woodwork to explain.  Some people, behind the scenes, said they were uncomfortable […]

Election Reflection: Primary 2015
May 24, 2015

Upsets!  Surprises!  Where did the readers of the tea leaves go wrong? In most elections, those readers of the tea leaves are, like most prophets, colored by their own desires.  It’s like looking at shapes in the clouds or staring at Rorschach blots: we see what we want, a reflection of our subconscious minds. Does […]

Political Action Committees (PACs) and their larger cousins, SuperPACs, infuse money into politics on behalf of candidates and ideologies. Simple enough concept, right?  If Mr. Billionaire wants candidate X to win, Mr. Billionaire donates a fortune to a PAC and influences an election.  Except that Mr. Billionaire doesn’t necessarily have to put his name anywhere, […]

Bernie Sanders for President!
May 9, 2015

Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, is running for President and I am happy to offer my relatively meaningless and definitely early endorsement of his candidacy. Of course, Hillary Clinton is going to win.  I’ll cheer alongside her ardent supporters.  With an air of inevitability, why would Bernie run?  Why support a guaranteed loser? Aside […]

I May Very Well Be Back
April 29, 2015

The polite, rote explanations for my blogging absence are good at deflecting any line of inquiry about why: I’m married now.  I’m more involved in my union. I’m on the Scranton Parking Authority.  I’m on the Executive Board of the Scranton City Democratic Committee. Sounds pretty busy, right? It is.  But the truth is that I was possessed, sadly, […]

On Scranton’s Commuter Tax
August 3, 2014

Oh, Lordy-loo.  From the abyssal void in which I lost my blogging self, I emerge to tackle the greatest issue facing our great County: Scranton’s (gulp) Commuter Tax! Nobody likes taxes, period.  And nobody likes taxation without representation.  But wait, don’t we elect the people who write up these laws that allow for commuter taxes? […]

On the Lackawanna Study Commission Proposal
April 16, 2014

Chuck Volpe: Crusader for the Public Good or Megalomaniac Millionaire (or Milgalomaniare)?  It’s the question on barely anybody’s mind (minus three or four hundred political insiders, out of the tens of thousands of voters in the county). Mr. Volpe’s brainchild: The Lackawanna County Study Commission.  Its history is long and storied.  Or maybe brief and […]

For the average registered homo sapien, the upcoming gubernatorial primary isn’t number one on the priority list.  Maybe it’s putting food on the table.  Or what case of beer to grab after work.  I’m not disputing the importance of such necessities.  Instead, I’m saying the race for governor affects those things, man.  I mean. Minimum […]