Pay raise revolt heats up: Letters pour in

This article was published Sunday, August 14, 2005, in The Mercury, Pottstown, PA

POTTSTOWN — One week after The Mercury began a campaign urging Pennsylvania lawmakers to return the large pay raise they gave themselves, nearly 3,000 readers have responded.

Enraged by the 2 a.m. July 7 vote by House and Senate members to increase lawmakers' salaries between 16 and 34 percent, readers have been mailing signed letters in droves to The Mercury office.

Titled Operation Giveback, the crusade aims to have state lawmakers repeal the pay increase and consider the needs of its citizens, many of whom are "struggling to pay property taxes and health care costs."

During the past week, The Mercury has been joined by four other Philadelphia area newspapers: The (Delaware County) Daily Times in Primos, the Daily Local News in West Chester, the Times Herald in Norristown and The Phoenix in Phoenixville.

Letters gathered by the five newspapers will be collectively hand-delivered to the state Capitol building in Harrisburg when the House and the Senate return from a 10-week summer recess on Sept 26.

Mercury editor Nancy March said the letter-writing campaign was inspired by a message left by a reader.

"A woman called and asked if we could print a petition so people could pass it around and let legislators know just how angry they are," she said. "So we thought, ‘Why not invite readers to send letters?’ Taking a huge stack of mail from angry constituents to Harrisburg is one way to let lawmakers see firsthand the furor they’ve created."

The reaction of readers has been gratifying, March added.

"People are calling us and coming into the office to thank us for the opportunity," she said. "In just one week, the campaign has generated a tremendous response, and it has all been positive. The people of the Pottstown area are telling us they welcome this opportunity to send a message to their elected representatives."

Bill Sharon, an employee of the Pottstown Codes Department, made 500 copies of the Operation Giveback letter and has spread them among six friends who are finding people to sign them. Although his letter is similar to The Mercury's, Sharon's goes a step further by demanding tax reform.

"I tell people they have to stop talking, and now is the time to take action," Sharon said. "We have to get out there and really make a statement."

Sharon has also set up a stand in front of his home at 131 King St. in Pottstown where passersby can stop and sign a letter. If people continue to respond, Sharon said he will copy another 500 letters and get more signatures.

"Maybe this pay raise issue is the kick in the backside that we need." Sharon said. "Everybody in the Pottstown area should sign a letter. There's not a reason why we shouldn't have 20,000, and it'd be great if people outside the area sent in letters, too."

Marie Piroschak, a senior citizen living in Pottstown, said she took 50 copies from Sharon and distributed all of them at the Pottstown Area Seniors Center. She said the response was so tremendous that she intends to hand them out again on Monday.

"Everybody wanted to sign, no problem at all, and they all seemed to know what this was all about. I was surprised," Piroschak said.

Although last month's pay increase is still fresh in the minds of constituents, many citizens are hoping that the taxpayers remember this vote during next year's elections when all 203 members of the state House and 25 of the 50 members of the state Senate face reelection.

Henry Flack of Schwenksville said signing an Operation Giveback letter was a no-brainer. The lawmakers' salary raise as well as the failure of the Legislature to enact property tax reform made his decision in next year's election an easy one.

"There isn't an incumbent that I would vote for again. I'm fed up with all of them," Flack said. "If a dog catcher ran against them, I still wouldn't vote for them."

By Don Brensinger
Copyright 2005 The Mercury

Legislative pay raise: Throw the bums out only goes so far

It’s been 30 days since the Pennsylvania Legislature pulled off the Great Pay Grab of 2005. The fact we’re still talking about the crime a month later is a victory in itself. But a lot more needs to be done between now and the primary election in 2006, which will be the first opportunity voters have to throw the bums out.

The news media has a short attention span. Stories are followed for a day or two and then forgotten. Television is the worst. Unless you’re a runaway bride or an attractive blonde high school senior who disappeared in Aruba, you’re lucky if the story stays on the air more than a day.

Since the initial vote on July 7 when legislators gave themselves pay raises of 16 percent to 34 percent, there’s been hardly a mention of the Great Pay Grab on any television newscasts, which, sadly, is the main source of news for many people. It’s been up to newspapers and a few radio stations to keep the issue alive.

I’ve browsed Web sites of many Pennsylvania newspapers over the past 30 days to see how this story is being covered across the state. To my surprise, every newspaper — large and small, liberal and conservative — has been outraged by the flagrant abuse of power displayed by the Pennsylvania Legislature. I’ve read more than two dozen editorials, at least 100 letters to the editor and dozens of columnists. Everyone is on the same page.

I can’t recall any issue in my 23 years in the newspaper industry where there has been universal agreement. What the legislators did on July 7 is reprehensible. A betrayal of public trust. Utter contempt for the people these legislators claim to represent.

The pay heist wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment crime. It was premeditated. Down to the last detail. The party bosses knew which legislators came from safe districts. They voted yes. The party bosses knew which freshmen legislators were vulnerable. They were allowed to vote no. But don’t be fooled. Nineteen House and Senate members who voted against the pay raise took the money anyway.

The smug political bosses who run this state miscalculated on the pay grab. They figured the whole thing would blow over in a week or two. But five weeks after Pennsylvania residents were fleeced by their own state representatives, the anger continues to grow. Spurred by newspapers, talk radio and the Internet, residents are organizing and planning their response to July 7, 2005 — a date that will live in infamy in the annals of Pennsylvania history.

After voting themselves pay raises of 16 percent to 34 percent at 2 a.m. on July 7, the 253 members of the legislative body in the country went on a 10-week summer vacation. Legislators are spending the month of August at their shore homes or in their cabins in the Poconos. Some of them are at their homes in Florida. Others are on European vacations. Who can blame them? If you just "found" an extra $11,000 in your pocket, wouldn’t you go on a spending spree?

If they’re not relaxing on the beach, our legislators are spending the summer in underground bunkers. Politicians love to see their name in print and their smiling face on the front pages of newspapers. But for the past five weeks, they’ve been in hiding, refusing requests for interviews about the pay grab. Readers have contacted me to say they believe the legislators disabled their e-mail systems so constituents could not contact them.

Gov. Ed Rendell, who signed the pay grab into law, and Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy are the only politicians who’ve publicly defended the heist. (Rendell gets a $21,228 annual pay raise under the same legislation, while Cappy gets an $18,144 per year pay boost.)

Their arguments are weak: "Legislators work hard. They put in long hours. They’re away from their families." Nobody is putting a gun to anyone’s head forcing them to run for public office. Legislators are free to leave Harrisburg for private sector jobs any time they want. But name one private sector job where you can set your own salary and boost your pay any time you want (as long as you do it in the middle of the night when your boss is asleep).

Rendell, whose own re-election in 2006 is jeopardized by the pay heist, dropped by the Reading Fair Monday to grab something to eat. He was booed by the fairgoers. Nothing planned. No organized protest. Just hard-working residents of Pennsylvania trying to provide a day out for their families. They saw a well-dressed politician making four times the pay they bring home and spontaneously started booing Rendell.

Rendell is lucky fairgoers didn’t toss tomatoes or eggs or cow chips in his direction.

There’s no doubt politicians are feeling the heat. But the key is to channel the anger into action. It’s time for wholesale changes in Harrisburg. Unless most the incumbents on the ballot in 2006 are voted out of office, the politicians will continue to rape taxpayers.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

Give it back: Newspaper launches campaign to rescind Legislative pay grab

The Mercury, the largest circulation newspaper based in Montgomery County, ran a front-page editorial in its Sunday, Aug. 7, 2005, edition, along with a letter that readers can clip and send to the newspaper, which plans to deliver the letters to Harrisburg. The editorial is reprinted below:

Legislators are urged to give it back

Anger is brewing in the state of Pennsylvania.

The spark for this anger is House Bill 1521 approved by Pennsylvania lawmakers early in the morning of July 7. The legislation drove the annual base salaries of Pennsylvania lawmakers from $69,647 to $81,050, making them the second highest paid legislators in the nation.

The increases ranged from 16 to 34 percent with legislative leaders and committee chairmen getting the largest pay hikes.

As if that wasn’t enough to raise the hackles of folks struggling with high taxes and health care costs, the legislators then skirted the law so they could collect their money now instead of waiting until Jan. 1, 2007, when the raises take effect.

Using the tactic of "unvouchered expenses," 131 of the 201 sitting House members and 27 of the 50 senators got their money in checks on Aug. 1. That group included several who had voted against the bill but chose to accept the money anyway.

The legislators who said no to the raise — including both Rep. Tom Quigley and state Sen. John Rafferty of Montgomery County and state Rep. Carole Rubley of Chester County — are getting kudos from their constituents. Legislative leaders, however, punished those who voted against the bill by taking away committee posts.

The stream of letters, phone calls and e-mail to legislators has not slowed since the July 7 vote became public.

Instead, furor has grown as more details have been revealed about the package deal legislators are getting. Lawmakers get fully paid health insurance, up to $7,800 a year for vehicles, and those who live more than 50 miles from Harrisburg get expenses of $129 per day during legislative sessions. They also get fully paid pension benefits, which went up proportionately with the new salaries.

The pay raise bill was negotiated in secret, and the vote to approve it was taken in the middle of the night, just hours after a state budget was approved — six days behind schedule — that cut benefits for human services. As one Pottstown School Board member commented: "They can’t afford to feed the hungry school children, but they can find money for their own wallets."

Among the last-minute actions that the legislators left unfinished before starting their 10-week summer vacation was a proposal to raise the minimum wage. As was pointed out in an editorial in the Delaware County Daily Times: "The average $11,000 pay hike legislators are pocketing is more than a person working at minimum wage in the Keystone State makes in a year."

Those are just a few of the reasons for taxpayers to feel betrayed.
Another reason is the poor track record demonstrated by lawmakers.

They have failed to improve the economy. Pennsylvania ranks 47th in the nation in percentage employment growth and loses more young employment prospects to other areas than any other state. Population growth is nearly stagnant with a national ranking of 48th among the 50 states.

Pennsylvania ranks 40th in percentage income growth. The average Pennsylvania earned just $38,532 last year. The state is 44th in new business starts and growth.
In public education, Pennsylvania consistently gets low marks for how public schools are funded. It is 48th in the nation for state funding of public education and at the top of the list for the reliance on local property taxes to fund schools. Reliance on local property taxes creates lopsided funding that differs from school district to school district and makes Pennsylvania among the worst states for addressing equity in school funding.

The arguments that legislators work long hours and need high salaries to keep them equal with the private sector do not hold water. Their abysmal track record in fixing the commonwealth’s problems would get them fired in the private sector. They surely wouldn’t get such hefty raises.

Pennsylvania is rich in many ways. The stirrings that led to the birth of the nation started here. The state’s natural resources fueled industry and commerce for centuries. It has a wealth of culture and natural beauty.

But the citizens are getting tired of riches wasted on potential, on decades of lobbying for tax reform, on schools struggling with an antiquated funding system and on an economy stalled by a lack of initiative and incentive.

The only category in which this legislature has managed to rise to the top is in how much lawmakers get paid.

Pennsylvania is spending more than any other state in the nation on paying its legislators. And to borrow a phrase from an old movie: We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take this anymore.

Readers are encouraged to cut out and mail to The Mercury the letter to legislators on the front page of this newspaper. The letters will be collected and hand-delivered to the state Capitol. Readers may also wish to contact their representatives by letter, phone or e-mail.

Politicians miscalculated; Voters will not forget

This is the editorial from the Sunday, July 31, 2005, edition of The Mercury, Pottstown, Pa.

Lawmakers count on voters forgetting the raise debacle

"Nothing more than a tempest in a teapot."

Those were the words of one legislative aide regarding the allegations that Democratic legislators were punished with committee demotions for voting against the recent pay raise for themselves.

The tempest that’s brewing regarding the pay raises is gaining some steam, but not enough to knock some sense into lawmakers. Pennsylvania’s tax-paying residents are angry and upset that their elected officials voted themselves a 16 percent pay raise at a time when most workers are seeing far smaller increases in their paychecks.

But the legislators, and particularly legislative leaders — who got even larger pay raises — are neither hearing nor heeding the outrage. Instead, they will be collecting their first super-sized paychecks on Monday.

In the latest revelation on the raises, it was reported that state House Democratic Leader H. William DeWeese demoted 15 Democrats from their committee posts as punishment for voting against the raises. The demotions affected 12 subcommittee chairmen and three committee vice chairmen.

Michael Manzo, chief of staff to DeWeese, said, "It's nothing more than a tempest in a teapot," referring to the reports about the demotions.

Rep. Thomas F. Yewcic of Cambria County, who lost his post as chairman of the economic development subcommittee, told The Associated Press: "We were told before the pay-raise vote that if people voted against it, we would be removed. It was punishment. People who had less seniority were promoted because they voted for the pay raise."

The pay-raise bill passed July 7 by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Ed Rendell increases legislators' base pay from $69,647 to $81,050. Subcommittee chairs and committee vice chairs, who previously were paid the same rank-and-file salary, receive an additional $4,050.

DeWeese, whose salary will increase from $100,911 to $134,771 annually, did not respond on Thursday to requests from The Associated Press for comment.

Speaking for DeWeese, Manzo said Democratic leaders determined that about a dozen of the 61 Democrats who voted for the raises would receive only the base pay because they did not currently hold positions as subcommittee chairmen or committee vice chairmen. "It is unfair that those who put up that vote should be paid less than those who did not," Manzo said.

The demotion news was the latest in a long list of reports out of Harrisburg that shock and disgust tax-paying citizens of the Commonwealth.

The Associated Press also reported last week that the raise will give members of the Pennsylvania Legislature a similar boost to pensions that are already considered generous when compared with many public employee retirement systems around the country.

A rank-and-file state representative who retires this month after 20 years in the Pennsylvania Legislature would get an annual pension of up to $40,000. But thanks to the pay raise, a 20-year rank-and-file House representative who gets the 16 percent raise and retires in three years could get an annual pension of roughly $50,000, factoring in cost-of-living salary increases.

Lawmakers who chair a committee will see a 28 percent salary boost — from $69,647 to $89,155. At that salary, a 20-year veteran who retires in 2008 could get an annual pension of roughly $55,000. (Unless, of course, the committee chair voted against the pay raise, and then he or she will be demoted.)

Lawmakers and judges defend the pay raises as a way to make their salaries commensurate with those of other public officials, such as school superintendents, or private sector employees. But in the private sector, raises are often withheld if employees do a lousy job and fail to produce results.

Pennsylvania ranks in the lowest tier of states in economic growth and jobs creation and for how schools are funded and how residents are taxed. The raises give the state the dubious distinction of being number one in legislative pay and benefits.

The salary vote and the controversies surrounding it speak volumes about the quality of our legislators — or lack of it. Several movements are afoot to oust current lawmakers the next time they come up for election. But will voters remember?

Apparently the legislators don’t think so, as they will interrupt their summer vacations on Monday long enough to collect their raise.

We, however, will not forget. This newspaper will continue to publish the names and addresses of those who voted for this raise and those who voted against it from now until the next time they face election. Make sure they know where you stand.

Copyright 2005 The Mercury

Pennsylvania is No. 1 in trash, overpaid politicians

This editorial was published Sunday, July 24, in The Mercury, Pottstown, Pa.

Item: "Pa. trash imports drop, but state still No. 1"
Item: "Report: Pa. lawmakers’ payroll tops nation"

Those headlines from this past week should make every politician in Pennsylvania — from the governor to the newly-rich state Legislature — hang his or her head in shame.

Those are two areas Pennsylvania should not be ranked No. 1, especially when the state usually drops to the mid- to low-40s (out of 50 states) when it comes to education, health care, transportation, the environment and economic growth.
We can thank Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, and the Republican-controlled state Legislature for both dubious distinctions.

The amount of trash imported into Pennsylvania in 2004 dropped for the third straight year because of high fuel prices, state officials said, but the Keystone state easily remained the nation’s top destination for interstate waste shipments, according to The Associated Press.

And it’s not like our state officials are doing anything to discourage New York and New Jersey from using Pennsylvania as a garbage can. The reason trash shipments are down is because companies increasingly are switching trash shipments from trucks to rail because of the high cost of fuel. And you thought there wasn’t a positive side to rising gas prices.

Turns out Pennsylvania doesn’t have direct rail service to its landfills, so we’ve been spared some of the refuse from our neighboring states.

Trash imports to Pennsylvania dropped by 446,000 tons, or about 4 percent, in 2004, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. At 10.1 million tons last year, Pennsylvania took 2.3 million more tons of out-of-state trash than the second-place state, Virginia, where trash imports increased by 1.2 million tons, or 18 percent, in 2004.

Gov. Rendell sponsored a contest last year to pick a new state motto. It appears to have been a waste of time. Pennsylvania already has a state motto: "America’s dumping ground."

While on the subject of waste, Pennsylvania’s legislative payroll is now the most expensive in the nation because of a pay raise that state lawmakers gave themselves earlier this month, according to a Harrisburg-based policy analysis group.

The state’s 253 lawmakers could earn nearly $20.5 million in base salary alone this fiscal year. According to the Pennsylvania Economy League, the base salary is enough to give the Pennsylvania Legislature the highest payroll — more than the $17 million base payroll in New York and $12 million in California.

Pennsylvania already had the largest state legislature in the nation but now the state’s beleaguered taxpayers will have to find another $20 million a year to keep their elected representatives in the luxury they’ve become accustomed to living.
The Pennsylvania Economy League report doesn’t make any conclusions on whether taxpayers are getting their money’s worth from their legislators.

"It’s a decision that each voter is going to have to make for him or herself," said Karen Miller, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Economy League.

Voters will be able to make that decision in 2006 when Gov. Rendell, the entire 203-member state House and half of the 50-member state Senate will face reelection.

Copyright 2005 The Mercury

Taxpayers should sue legislators who gave themselves pay raises

This editorial was published Thursday, July 21, in The Mercury, Pottstown, Pa.

When somebody confronts you on the street and steals your money or breaks into your house and runs off with your valuables, you call the police. The judicial system is designed to protect law-abiding citizens from those who are not willing to live by society’s rules.

When elected officials commit crimes, residents have two options: vote them out of office or turn to the courts for relief.

The first option is on the minds of almost every Pennsylvania taxpayer who was recently mugged by their own elected representatives. Judging from the articles, editorials and letters to the editor appearing in newspapers across the state, the great money-grab of 2005 has galvanized citizens as nothing has in recent memory.
Unfortunately, the perpetrators knew what they were doing. This was a well-planned crime.

The members of the state legislature who voted themselves pay raises of 16 percent to 34 percent a year did so in a year when none of them face reelection. The entire House membership and half of the state Senate won’t be on the ballot until 2006, but that’s 10 months away for the primary election and 16 months until the general election. The politicians are counting on the public forgetting the holdup by the time they face the voters.

Which brings us to the courts. While the way the pay raise was approved is reprehensible (a vote in the middle of the night without any public discussion of the numbers agreed to in secret by party bosses), there’s no debate that the legislators had the authority to give themselves pay raises. They can grant themselves titles of nobility and prance around in crowns and robes if they want.

But what is questionable is the scheme the politicians concocted to collect their pay raises today even though the Constitution prohibits such action.

From the Pennsylvania Constitution: Article II, Compensation, Section 8 ... No members of either House shall during the term for which he may have been elected, receive any increase of salary, or mileage, under any law passed during such term.

Can the language be any clearer? The Constitution forbids members of the legislature who vote themselves a pay raise from collecting that money until their current term expires. The Constitution was written that way so politicians would have to win reelection before enjoying the spoils of a pay raise. But our esteemed legislators have decided to start collecting their ill-gotten gain right away as "unvouchered expenses."

They have made a mockery of the very Constitution they swore to uphold. A salary is not an "unvouchered expense." Maybe somebody should tip off the IRS that Pennsylvania legislators are collecting part of their salary under the table.

There have been rumblings by a few citizen activists of filing a lawsuit to stop the pay hikes. Something similar was tried in 1995, the last time the Harrisburg politicians robbed the taxpayers. Unbelievably, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court didn’t have a problem with this flagrant breach of the Constitution.

This is an issue the court needs to revisit. And we hope the current crop of justices are able to read. The problem is that the very justices who would be asked to rule on the constitutionality of the pay-raise issue are themselves getting a pay raise. If they toss out the Legislature’s vote, the judges would be rejecting their own pay raise.

The way the legislature went about handing itself more money "demeans the entire legislative and democratic process ... it’s just a cynical way to do business," said Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, a non-partisan citizens lobby group.

A lawsuit by the citizens of Pennsylvania is the first step. Voting out every member who approved the pay raise is the next step. And if necessary, impeaching the judges who refuse to uphold the Constitution should be the third step.

Something’s rotten in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It’s becoming clear that a thorough cleansing of the ruling class in Harrisburg is the only way to eliminate the stench.

Copyright 2005 The Mercury

Voters must not forget legislative money-grab

The editorial below was published Sunday, July 17, 2005, in The Mercury, Pottstown, Pa. It lists all the legislators in The Mercury's coverage area and how they voted on the pay raise issue. The editorial ran with a cartoon of a couple in bed who wake up to find a burglar going through their belongings in the middle of the night. The burglar smiles and tells the couple not to worry. He's not a thief, he's their local state legislator.


Thieves in the night.

That description embodies a growing consensus among Pennsylvania taxpayers that the action by state legislators to raise their own salaries between 16 and 34 percent last week was outright thievery.

For those who may have missed the details, state lawmakers passed House Bill 1521 in the early hours of the morning on Thursday, July 7. The legislation drove the annual base salaries of Pennsylvania lawmakers from $69,647 to $81,050, making them the second-highest paid legislators in the nation. The House voted 119-79 and the Senate voted 27-23.

Committee chairmen’s pay will increase by 28 percent to $89,155; committee vice chairmen to $85,103. Majority and minority leaders’ pay increased by 24 percent to $124,788, and pay for the Speaker of the House and Senate Pro Tem jumped 34 percent to $145,553.

Gov. Ed Rendell, who signed and defended the bill, said he would forgo his $21,000 raise if reelected next year.

The bill will go into effect Dec. 1, 2006. However, lawmakers have figured out a way to collect their raises right away by authorizing the payment of "unvouchered expenses" equal to the amount of the raises until the new salary levels take effect.

In addition, Pennsylvania lawmakers receive fully paid health insurance, a fully paid pension and as much as $7,800 a year for vehicle expenses. Those who live more than 50 miles from the Capitol get $129 a day in travel expenses.

Among area legislators, state Sens. Michael O’Pake (D-11th) and Robert Thompson (R-19th) voted yes; state Sens. John Rafferty (R-44th) and Robert Wonderling (R-24th) voted no.

State Reps. Tim Hennessey (R-26th), Dennis Leh (R-130th), Raymond Bunt (R-147th), Jacqueline Crahalla (R-150th), and Curt Schroder (R-155th) voted yes.

State Reps. Douglass Reichley (R-134th), Tom Quigley (R-146th), and Carole Rubley (R-157th) voted no.

When asked about their votes, some said they thought it was justified. Other claimed the raise was long overdue.

Think again.

In private industry, pay raises are tied to performance. When did failing to solve the problems of a state ranked near the bottom in every economic development and educational spending criteria match up with stellar performance?

And overdue? How many workers in the private sector have enjoyed automatic cost-of-living raises every year?

Crahalla said the raise was justified for some legislators who, like herself, pour many hours into their job. She also said she voted yes because her husband, who is a local district judge, deserves a raise, and that was part of the package.

Although O’Pake, voted in favor of the bill, Bill Evans, his executive assistant, said he planned to give the money to charity. (Taxpayers may have preferred it stay in their pockets, and they give it to the charity of their choice.)

Although voting against the bill, Reichley said his decision was a "personal opinion" and stood up for the legislators who favored the pay raise.

"I have no contrary opinion to those who voted for it. The criticism is not justified," Reichley said. "If people had a better sense of what goes into the job requirements, then they might have a different opinion on this issue."

The opinions on the issue arise from the fact that few taxpayers have the luxury of deciding how much they get paid.

Those same taxpayers are struggling to pay taxes in a system that desperately needs an overhaul. While they struggle with a lack of growth in the state’s economy and a graying population with a growing number on fixed incomes, they question the performance of the legislators in correcting these ills.

As an answer, lawmakers give themselves a raise.

Newspapers throughout the state are reminding voters that if they don’t have a say in how much legislators are paid, they do have a say in who gets the money.

Remember the names of those who voted for this pay raise and then decide at election time if they’re worth the money.

Copyright 2005 The Mercury

Stop the presses! The New York Times admits bias

Dan Rather tried to swing the 2004 presidential election to John Kerry using faked memos about President Bush's National Guard service. Rather paid the price for his failed scheme when he was forced out as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" and the show where he broke the memo story — "60 Minutes II" — was canceled.

The New York Times tried something similar. Remember the front-page stories on the Iraqi weapons depot that was looted supposedly while U.S. forces were guarding it? That "scoop" on the eve of the election was part of a campaign of biased reporting at the Times to tip the election to Kerry. It failed, but nobody lost their job at the New York Times as a result of the "missing weapons" hoax. For the longest time, it looked like the newspaper would get away with spewing its leftist propaganda.

Should it matter to you what happens at the New York Times? Yes. The New York Times and the radical left have formed an unholy alliance. The newspaper legitimizes the left's extremist agenda and gives the Democratic Party a platform to contaminate the nation's political system.

The Times is an anti-Republican propaganda machine in the guise of an objective news source. The influence doesn't stop with the New York Times' declining readership base. The Times' parent company owns many other newspapers across the country and those papers use the same stories written by New York Times' reporters, exposing millions of Americans to its biased reporting.

Eight months after the phony weapons story was published (and obediently repeated by other newspapers and the evening news broadcasts on all three major networks), a remarkable report was released detailing a pattern of biased reporting at the New York Times. The report never made the front-page of the Times. But if you do a little bit of detective work, you can track it down on the Internet.

On the surface, the internal memo on the "newsroom culture" at the New York Times appears innocuous. But read the report carefully, get past the buzzwords and you come away with a startling conclusion. The New York Times' own reporters and editors acknowledge the newspaper has shown favoritism toward radical liberal causes and the Democratic politicians behind them.

The newspaper's Credibility Committee (is that a joke?) consisted of 19 veteran news people at the paper who spent eight months investigating a variety of concerns about the newspaper. The committee wants the newspaper's top brass to implement changes to address "an impression of one-sidedness" in the newspaper's pages. "The goal is not only to avoid appearing one-sided but also to find ways to present more contrarian and unexpected viewpoints in our news pages."

In other words, forget the Times' motto of "All the News That's Fit to Print." It's more like "What Our Radical Liberal Readers Want to Hear Today." A bad habit at the New York Times (and many other big city liberal newspapers) is inserting opinion into news stories and running opinion pieces on the front page and trying to pass them off as objective news stories.

Another suggestion the committee made is to hold regular seminars so reporters can learn how to cover "emotionally charged" topics in a "neutral way." If a reporter has gotten to the New York Times and doesn't know how to remain objective, there's a serious problem with the newspaper's hiring practices. The Credibility Committee wants the top editors to routinely look for "lapses that look like favoritism" in the pages of the New York Times and share those blunders with the rest of the staff.

The best line from the committee's report is: "Our news coverage needs to embrace unorthodox views and contrarian opinions." By "unorthodox" and "contrarian," the Times staffers are referring to such unusual persons as Republicans, conservatives, moderate Democrats, people who believe in God and attend a church or synagogue, heterosexuals and people who support U.S. troops in a time of war.

The smoking gun comes on page 14 of the 16-page report when the committee says, "In part because the Time's editorial page is clearly liberal, the news pages do need to make more effort not to seem monolithic."

The fact that the New York Times hasn't endorsed a Republican president since Abraham Lincoln should be a tip-off that the editorial pages lean radical left, but the key term in that sentence is "monolithic." What the Credibility Committee is saying is that the newspaper lacks credibility because its news coverage is just as biased as its editorial page.

The committee wants management to bring some "diversity" to the newsroom, but the committee isn't talking about hiring more minority reporters and editors. For the insular New York Times, "diversity" can be achieved by recruiting what the committee puts it as "talented journalists who happen to have military experience, who know rural America first hand, who are at home in different faiths."

In other words, everybody working at the New York Times hates the military, doesn't believe in God, came from a snobby Ivy League school and is a card-carrying member of the ACLU.

Do you suppose that fact alone may have something to do with how biased the news is inside the pages of the New York Times?

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

Repeal the Legislative Pay Increase

I became aware Thursday of a campaign by Gene Stilp to organize a grass-roots effort by Pennsylvania taxpayers to repeal the money grab by our conniving state legislators and the governor, who signed the pay raise bill.

Gene Stilp is a Harrisburg-area resident who sued the state, governor and treasurer in 1995, the last time the politicos gave themselves a big fat pay raise. (That's not counting the automatic annual cost-of-living increases they voted themselves).

Mr. Stilp told The Associated Press he intends to sue again to overturn the latest travesty. The legislators are using the same sneaky tactic they invented in 1995 to bypass the state Constitution, which prohibits them from collecting the self-approved raise right away.

The Constitution says the scoundrels who gave themselves pay raises of 16 to 34 percent will have to wait until December 2006 to start collecting. But these unscrupulous "public servants" have decided to circumvent the Constitution by pretending that their pay hikes are "unvouchered expenses" so they can sneak the money into their pockets a year earlier.

Mr. Stilp's lawsuit was thrown out by a three-judge Commonwealth Court panel in 1997, but the court never ruled on the merits of the case. The fact that judges are also getting pay raises don't bode well, but maybe there are a few honest elected officials left in Pennsylvania and we can put a stop to this unconstitutional theft of taxpayer money and flagrant betrayal of the public trust by our so-called lawmakers.

Mr. Stilp has set up a Web site to help organize opposition to the highway robbery perpetrated on unsuspecting Pennsylvania taxpayers.

Visit the Web site at http://www.genestilp.blogspot.com to learn more about the campaign to expose these charlatans. And by all means, spread to the word to every victim of this crime: your relatives, friends, neighbors and co-workers in Pennsylvania.

And write to your state senator and representative and tell them there are too many witnesses to their crime to get away with it. Tell them to enjoy their pay raise for the next year because you will vote them out of office in 2006.

Why is Fast Eddie in such a hurry to pardon so many criminals?

If Dale Carnegie hadn’t come up with it first, an appropriate title for a book about Gov. Ed Rendell might be "How to Win Friends and Influence People." That pretty much sums up Rendell’s life. Rendell is the consummate politician. He tries to make people happy and he enjoys influence.

But the governor appears to be trying too hard to make friends from one particular group of Pennsylvanians — convicted criminals.

According to a recent review of clemency records by The Associated Press, Rendell is on a pace to set a new record for the number of criminals pardoned by a Pennsylvania governor.

Rendell, a Democrat, has granted 231 pardons and denied 31 requests during 2½ years in office, the vast majority for minor offenses, the AP reports.

Republican Tom Ridge, who campaigned aggressively to limit the clemency process, granted 270 applications and rejected 140 during nearly seven years in office, according to the AP.

If re-elected in 2006 and he maintains his current pace, Rendell would issue more pardons than any other modern governor, Democrat or Republican, who has served two terms.

Milton J. Shapp, a Democrat who served from 1971 to 1979 issued 475 pardons, and commuted 251 life sentences.

Dick Thornburgh, a Republican who served from 1979 to 1987 issued 61 pardons, and commuted 7 life sentences.

Robert P. Casey, a Democrat who served from 1987 to 1995 issued 302 pardons and commuted 27 life sentences.

In addition to the 231 pardons he’s issued so far, Rendell has another 133 appeals pending, according to the Pennsylvania Pardons Board.

The problem with being so quick to issue pardons is that pardons restore legal rights and privileges lost upon conviction, such as the right to vote, to purchase and carry a gun and employment rights.

The Associated Press discovered that half of Rendell's pardons involved theft-related offenses and one-fifth were granted to those convicted of drug offenses or drunken-driving. The most serious crimes among the governor’s pardons include aggravated assault, statutory rape, prison escape and arson.

Is the governor thinking of the safety and welfare of the majority of law-abiding citizens when he makes it easier for convicted criminals to acquire guns?

Rendell needs to make a better case to the people of Pennsylvania why he’s on a record pace to absolve criminals.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

Rendell, cronies do not deserve another pay hike

Seven months after abandoning a plan to raise their own salaries by nearly 20 percent, Gov. Ed Rendell and the Republican-controlled state Legislature are making noises about — you guessed it — hiking their pay.

Rendell and the Legislature left so much undone in the waning days of 2004, but one thing they desperately tried to pass was a pay raise for themselves. This would have been a pay hike on top of the automatic 5.2 percent cost-of-living increase the Legislature previously approved for itself, ensuring that the most bloated legislature in the country also remains one of the highest paid.

Since 1995, the last time Harrisburg politicians had the courage to debate their salaries publicly, the lawmakers passed legislation that gives them automatic pay raises each year based on the cost-of-living index in the Philadelphia region (which is a lot higher than the rest of the state).

So while most workers received 1.5 percent to 3 percent cost-of-living adjustments, our voracious public servants saw their pay rise much higher than the rate of inflation.

Another trick the politicians like to play is to tie their salaries to those of state judges or cabinet officers so they can piggyback their salaries and watch them go higher each time another state officials gets a raise.

Fresh off the fiasco of Act 72, unable to solve the state's growing health-care crisis and unwilling to deal with the issue of chronic underfunding of public schools, our esteemed lawmakers have the nerve to bring up the topic of lining their own pockets again.

Rendell's latest proposal — to tie an increase in the state's minimum wage to pay raises for politicians — is the height of hypocrisy. It's bad enough that so many of the state's working poor struggle for a meager existence. Don't use them as a stepping stone to boost your own pay, governor.

At $155,572 a year, Rendell already makes more than 3.5 times the average salary of a Pennsylvania worker ($42,000) and Rendell gets to live rent-free in a mansion paid for by the taxpayers. He also gets to drive around in a state car (which has been clocked at 100 mph on state highways) and judging from the governor's growing waistline, is treated to free food everywhere he goes.

Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll, who doesn't appear to have much to do, makes $130,679 and gets to live in a state-owned home. State Treasurer Bob Casey, who abandoned his job three months into it so he could run for U.S. Senator, makes $129,436.

The 203 state House members and 50 Senators make $69,647 for a part-time job and enjoy numerous perks, including a top-of-the-line health insurance package paid by taxpayers, a $127 daily meal allowance and a state car or $650 per month for a privately leased vehicle, plus a pension. The Republican leaders of the House and Senate each earn $108,722 a year.

Rendell and the rest of the career politicians in Harrisburg should be grateful they're able to cash their current hefty paychecks. If they want to make more money, they're welcome to return to the private sector.

Based on their dismal job performance over the past two years, Rendell and the Legislature should be ashamed to even mention pay hikes. They should consider pay cuts instead.

Liberal media excuses Dick Durbin's Nazi rhetoric

Are there any consequences to a Democrat spewing out the most ridiculous, hate-filled rhetoric imaginable? The double standard is evident in the case of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, who compared U.S. solders guarding terrorists in Guantanamo to Nazis.

Daffy Durbin also accused the United States government of operating a Soviet-style "Gulag" in the military detention center on Cuba. He also compared treatment of terrorists at the hands of U.S. soldiers to the slaughter of 2 million Cambodians by Pol Pot's Communist regime.

With Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean ranting about "white Christians" and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid calling President Bush "dumb" it should come as no surprise that demoralized Democrats would escalate the name-calling to new levels.

Durbin’s Nazi and Gulag and Killing Fields references are so over the top, so far from any semblance of political criticism, that you have to wonder if we shouldn’t require mental health screening as a prerequisite to running for public office.

Is there anything a Democrat can say publicly that crosses the boundary of decency, taste and decorum? How far will the liberal media go to excuse the behavior of such irresponsible people?

While the liberal media is busy these days with its witch-hunt against John Bolton ("he was mean to coworkers") Tom Delay (questionable financial dealings) and the impeach George Bush movement by the lunatic left, it can’t seem to find much air time to cover the Durbin travesty.

Perhaps Sen. Durbin should personally inspect the Guantanamo facility, with its air conditioned cells, recreation yards, prayer areas, library. Perhaps he would like to sample some of the catered meals provided three times a day to the terrorists who would like nothing more than to kill every member of Durbin’s family if turned loose.

Is Durbin playing with a full deck? Is his rhetoric part of a planned campaign at the highest echelons of the Democratic Party to undermine the U.S. war effort? Those are the questions the media should be asking and pursuing.

For the record, the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews during World War II and were responsible for another 3 million deaths. For the record, the Communists in Cambodia murdered 2 million people, mostly women and children. For the record, the Soviet Union imprisoned, starved and murdered millions of its own citizens in the Gulags.

This kind of mass murder has nothing remotely to do with the capture and imprisonment of 600 enemy combatants taken off the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq while attempting to kill American solders.

Durbin may be stupid or insane or a little bit of both. But where is the condemnation from his fellow Democrats? Does he speak for the Democratic Party? Why hasn’t the Senate censured Durbin for such inappropriate remarks?

Where are the liberal talking heads on CNN and ABC and MSNBC or the left-wing scribes at the New York Times? Why aren’t they forcing Durbin to explain exactly what he meant by his incendiary comments?

Durbin stood by his remarks for days despite an outcry from constituents, military families and other senators. Then Durbin issued a message of "regret" on his Web site, still refusing to apologize for the comments, but regretting that so many people were upset by them.

Finally, Durbin started issuing half-hearted apologies, but they’ve all included the word "if" as in "if you took what I sad the wrong way, so sorry." That’s not good enough. Durbin has insulted every American in uniform.

He was given our enemies propaganda to use to recruit more terrorists in the global campaign to destroy the U.S. Durbin is the new poster boy for Al-Jazeera, the same Islamic propaganda machine that gleefully televised images of American hostages being beheaded by terrorists.

It’s one thing to oppose the war in Iraq or criticize the Bush administration’s handling of the war. Making comparisons of the United States to three of the most brutal regimes in the history of the world goes beyond the boundaries of fair criticism.

The Senate should impeach Durbin for his treacherous comments and his treasonous efforts to undermine the U.S. war effort.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

Saving the Supreme Court from itself

"The Court, in addition to the proper use of its judicial functions, has improperly set itself up as a third house of Congress — a super-legislature, as one of the justices has called it — reading into the Constitution words and implications which are not there, and which were never intended to be there. We have therefore reached a point as a nation when we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself. We must find a way to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to the Constitution itself. We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution and not over it. In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men."

Care to venture a guess who made the above remarks? You’re probably thinking it was a conservative commentator rallying troops for the pending battle to control the Supreme Court. Sorry. Not even close.

Those words were spoken by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a March 9, 1937, "fireside chat" on the radio as he attempted to rally Americans to support his plan to expand the membership of the Supreme Court beyond the nine justices who were declaring major portions of Roosevelt’s New Deal as unconstitutional.

The Constitution doesn’t specify the number of justices who sit on the court. Congress originally decided the court should consist of six justices. It wasn’t until 1869 that the court reached nine members. What is the ideal number of judges on the court? It’s an interesting debate. How is it that five people can say they see a "right" to abortion in the Constitution but four others can’t find that same language, but it becomes the law of the land?

Why trust the judgment of five people? Why not have 17 Supreme Court members with a majority of nine needed to rule on Constitutional questions? If nine people came to the same conclusion, wouldn’t that be more reassuring than just five?

Roosevelt’s proposal was to have Congress pass legislation allowing the president to appoint new justices for every justice who stayed on the court past the age of 70, up to a total of six new justices. Had he gotten his way, Roosevelt would have had 14 justices on the court. And by appointing six liberals, Roosevelt would have gotten his way on the New Deal.

Roosevelt’s attempt at "court packing" didn’t work. Americans don’t like change. The sitting Supreme Court justices at the time fought against it. After all, who wants to share power?

Something has to be done to bring some balance back to Supreme Court, which has run amuck in the past 50 years, finding bogus justification for social reform that is not included in the Constitution. Just as Roosevelt complained in 1937, today’s court — at least the four liberal judges who serve on it — considers itself a super-legislature, able to rule on matters such as abortion, immigration, same-sex marriage and campaign financing reform.

In his best-selling book "Men In Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America," constitutional lawyer Mark R. Levin argues for term limits as a way to rein the runaway judiciary. Levin makes a convincing case, noting in his book that associate justices of the Supreme Court serve an average of 17 years while 11 justices served 30 years or more. Can you imagine a president serving that long? Of course, there are no term limits for Congress, so you have many members serving for decades or in the case of Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, about a century.

"Perhaps Supreme Court justices should be appointed to fixed, staggered terms of 12 years, with three years intervening between terms," Levin argues. I would go one step further. Lower-court judges face mandatory retirement (usually at age 70). So why allow Supreme Court justices to serve into their 80s or 90s? I’d like to see a mandatory retirement age of 75 for all Supreme Court justices.

Levin also makes one of the most daring proposals to curb judicial activism. He would like to see a Constitutional amendment establishing a congressional veto over Supreme Court decisions, an extension of the power Congress now has to override presidential veto of legislation.

"The framers worried that a president might amass too much authority. Today, the problem is an oligarchical Court, not a presidential monarchy, supplanting the constitutional authority of the other branches," Levin writes in his book.

Under Levin’s plan, a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate could override a Supreme Court decision. Imagine that. Elected representatives of the people actually getting to decide important issues. Of course, it will never happen. The people getting a say in what government does? The Supreme Court will undoubtedly rule it unconstitutional.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

Can Democrats do more to help the terrorists?

Congressional Democrats are up in arms over the treatment of terrorists being held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay on the island of Cuba.

If only the Democrats could show as much concern for working Americans who don’t have health insurance and face the prospect of Social Security going bankrupt. If only they could bring as much attention to the growing dominance of China as an economic power at the expense of American jobs. If only congressional Democrats would stop bottling up President Bush’s energy bill and do something about rising gas prices that are choking the U.S. economy. If only Democrats would do something … anything … except complain.

But it’s easier to grab headlines in the liberal press (New York Times, Newsweek, Time, CNN) by blasting the Bush administration and making wild accusations for the way terrorists are treated in Guantanamo.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, an ultra-liberal who has maple syrup for brains, took the lead this week in giving aid-and-comfort to our enemies by calling the prison "an international embarrassment to our nation, to our ideals and remains a festering threat to our security."

Had Leahy been in charge during World War II, the East Coast would speaking German and the West Coast would be speaking Japanese.

The truth is that the 600 terrorists held at Guantanamo are treated better than many American citizens held behind bars. The captured terrorists get three catered meals a day, unlimited access to health care and recreation and unhindered ability to worship their God.

These are enemy combatants. They are not entitled to the same constitutional rights as American citizens. You don’t stop in the middle of a battlefield and read the enemy his Miranda rights. You kill him before he kills you. If you capture him, you put him in a place where he can no longer harm you. If the Democrats are so upset about these terrorists, they can take up a collection and hire Michael Jackson’s lawyer now that he’s done with Jackson’s trial.

I have my own suggestion on what to do with the Guantanamo detainees. Congressional Democrats should take them in over the summer as foreign exchange students.

I'm sure Sen. Ted Kennedy would be the first to sign up for the program because he is so concerned about the welfare of his Muslim brethren.

Kennedy was quoted by the Associated Press the other day as saying that the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo stained the nation’s reputation on human rights, inflamed the Muslim world and had become "a powerful recruiting tool for terrorists."

"Closing Guantanamo makes sense," Kennedy added. I’m sure Kennedy can house at least a half-dozen detainees at the family compound in Hyannisport, Mass., this summer.

The captain of the Chappaquiddick Swim Team could instruct the terrorists on water safety and Kennedy wouldn’t have to worry about his guests getting into his liquor cabinet because Muslims don’t drink alcohol.

And let’s not forget Howard Dean. Although he’s no longer holding elected office, I’m certain the chairman of the Democratic National Committee is willing to help out. His disdain for "white Christians" will surely lead him to take in a few of the Muslim terrorists. Dean could pull a few strings and get them jobs at the Ben & Jerry ice cream plant in his home state of Vermont.

Hillary Clinton could add some of the detainees to her presidential campaign staff as she prepares for a 2008 run for the White House. The detainees could make buttons or campaign signs for Hillary. And they could give her campaign an edge with Muslim voters. Since Hillary won’t win a single state below the Mason-Dixon line, her detainees/political operatives could help win support with Muslim voters in the Northeast and West Coast.

Americans don’t want to turn 600 terrorists loose so they can have another try to kill us. For most Americans, Cuba is too close for comfort to house these terrorists.

According to the Associated Press, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Hemingway told a Senate panel Wednesday, "America is at war. It is not a metaphorical war. It is as tangible as the blood, the rubble that littered the streets of Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001." Of the detainees, "We are holding them humanely," Hemingway said. Asked how long they could be held, Hemingway said: "I think we can hold them as long as the conflict endures."

That was not what Sen. Leahy wanted to hear. "All of us know this war will not end in our lifetime," Leahy said. All the more reason to keep Guantanamo in operation for as long as necessary as a matter of national security.

Shutting down the prison at Guantanamo Bay would be a significant victory for terrorists. Why would any sane American want that? And what does that say about the Democrats in Congress?

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

Silence is costing your family $900 a year

We all nod in agreement when we hear the story of the Good Samaritan, but how many of us go out of our way to help a stranger? How about a co-worker? Or even someone who lives in the same town?

I’ve written extensively in the past six months about the growing crisis in health care in Pennsylvania, especially skyrocketing insurance premiums for workers at small firms. It’s an issue that hasn’t exactly galvanized the public what with Michael Jackson on trial, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston getting a divorce and Paris Hilton stripping down to her itsy-bitsy bikini to wash a car while eating a hamburger. So I’m going to appeal to your selfish interests today.

Before you say that it’s not your problem if your neighbor doesn’t have health insurance, here’s something that will hit you right where it matters — in the pocketbook.

A new study says that providing health care for the uninsured increases the annual cost of insurance premiums for the average worker by $341 and for the average family by $922.

The report, by the advocacy group Families USA, concludes that the lack of health insurance affects everyone because those with health insurance subsidize the cost of care to the uninsured. The study, prepared by Emory University Professor Ken Thorpe, states that $1 out of every $12 spent on health insurance premiums indirectly pays for health care provided the uninsured, according to an article by The Associated Press.

Someone is trying to address the problem in Pennsylvania. State Sen. Rob Wonderling recently introduced Senate Bill 671 to level the playing field when it comes to insuring workers at small companies. State Rep. Curt Schroder introduced a companion bill, House Bill 1240.

The legislation would prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against small companies. The bills would require insurers to spread the cost of health care over a larger population so smaller companies are better able to afford coverage for their employees. The bills also expand benefit options for workers.

Unfortunately, both bills are languishing in committee. Many bills never make it out of committee, where powerful chairmen (aka, career politicians) decide what measures are voted on by the full House and Senate.

The chairman of the House insurance committee is Nick Micozzie, who has spent the past 25 years collecting a paycheck from Pennsylvania taxpayers. The chairman of the Senate Banking & Insurance Committee is Gib Armstrong, who has served in the state Senate for the past 20 years. Before that, he served in the state House for eight years. That’s a total of 28 years on the public payroll.

Pennsylvania is one of only two states that do not regulate “for-profit” insurance companies. That means these companies can legally discriminate on the basis of age, gender and health history. The only opposition to the proposed reform has come from the insurance lobby, which has deep pockets, thanks primarily to the exorbitant premiums they charge Pennsylvania workers and their families.

Wonderling and Schroder have done their part in sponsoring their respective bills. It’s time for voters to hold politicians accountable.

Sen. Gibson E. Armstrong, a Republican who represents portions of Lancaster and York counties, can be reached at his district office, 120 S. Queen St., Lancaster, PA 17603. His telephone is 717-397-1309. You can also write to him at Senate Box 203013, Harrisburg, PA 17120-3013, or call his office at 717-787-6535. You can also send him an e-mail at garmstrong@pasen.gov

Rep. Nicholas A. Micozzie, a Republican from Delaware County, can be reached at 6 S. Springfield Road, Clifton Heights, PA 19018 or House of Representatives, Room 45, East Wing, Harrisburg, PA 17120-2020. His Delaware County office number is 610-259-2820. His Harrisburg phone number is 717-783-8808. You can also e-mail Micozzie through his Web site at www.RepMicozzie.com

This comes down to a choice of helping working Pennsylvanians or continuing to line the pockets of big insurance companies.

Please take a few minutes to contact your state representative and senator and ask them to put pressure on Armstrong and Micozzie to bring the bills to the floor for a vote. I also urge you to contact Armstrong and Micozzie directly to demand that these public servants put the interests of Pennsylvania residents ahead of the insurance lobby.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

Howard Dean's winning strategy: Open mouth, insert foot

Howard Dean, who ran up an impressive losing streak in his bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 but did manage to get himself elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is living proof that Democrats still don’t get it.

The party has lost seven of the last 10 presidential elections, but its leaders still think it’s a bad luck streak that will end soon. President Bush won 96 percent of the counties in the United States in 2004, but the Democrats still think they’re the party of the people.

The reality is that the Democratic Party is becoming snootier by the day — the party of eastern liberal elites, the media giants and Hollywood radicals. Take away the West Coast and the New England states and Democrats couldn’t find the real America if they had Lewis and Clark as guides. And the closest party bosses like Howard Dean come to the Average Joe is the waiter who fills their water glass at party gatherings.

After a 70-year run as the dominant political party in Washington, D.C., the Democrats should be starring in the ABC show "Lost." They lost control of Congress in 1994 and have lost ground to the GOP in every subsequent election. But they still think they’re an election away from regaining the majority. And I’m just a Powerball ticket away from retirement.

I watched Howard Dean’s speech last week to a gathering called "Campaign for America’s Future." It was billed as a political conference to get the Democrats energized for the 2006 mid-term elections, but the crowd (looking like extras from "The West Wing") wasn’t exactly mesmerized by Dean’s speech. Good thing Dean is a medical doctor. I thought Dr. Dean might have to perform CPR on some of the audience members as they passed out from boredom.

Dean kept throwing out lines like: "We need a president who understands working people in this country." I guess he was referring to someone like John Forbes Kerry, who is still getting an allowance from the Widow Heinz. Or maybe John Edwards, the smooth-talking Southern lawyer who got rich suing doctors and hospitals.

Did you know that more millionaires contributed to the Democratic Party in 2004 than to the Republican Party? This is not your granddad’s Democratic Party. The blue collar Detroit Democrats of the past have been replaced by caviar-eating blue bloods from Boston.

And all this talk about reaching out to moderates is just talk. Dean insulted about 50 million potential voters when he said he’s never met a Republican who has done an honest day’s work in his life. He wasn’t talking about politicians. He was referring to every single registered Republican in the country.

Dean tipped his hat on what the main theme of the Democratic Party will be in 2006. They’re going to blame George W. Bush and the Republicans for corporations reneging on pension plans for retired workers. "Pension plans ought not to be controlled by companies," Dean said. "They ought to be controlled by the people who those pension plans belong to. That’s the working people of America."

Wait a minute. Dean wants you and me to have more control of our retirement savings? Isn’t that what President Bush is trying to do with Social Security? Is Dean endorsing the Bush plan to allow Americans to have a say in their Social Security investments or is he just talking out of both sides of his mouth? Just like pension plans, Social Security withholdings don’t belong to the government. Why can’t I decide what to do with my money?

Another whopper from the mouth of Dr. Dean: "(The Bush) administration is beginning to erode the core of our Democracy." Is that so? Isn’t it the Democrats who threatened to shut down the Senate with filibusters if they didn’t get their way in blocking President Bush’s judicial appointments? A minority party obstructing the will of the voters who elected the majority from another party seems to me to be the real erosion of the core of Democracy.

Dean also said, "We need to be the party of campaign finance and election reform."
That’s an odd thing for Dean to be saying when just a few weeks ago, the Democratic National Committee and the Rev. Jesse Jackson (a mouthpiece for the Democrats) agreed to pay $200,000 in civil fines for campaign finance violations in the 2000 elections. Imagine that. The Democrats tried to cheat their way to victory in the 2000 election, but still couldn’t get Al Gore elected president.

I’d like to wish Howard Dean continued success in his effort to keep winning elections — for the Republican Party.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

Men in Black: Darth Vader isn't the only threat this summer

Judging from the front cover of Mark R. Levin’s latest book, "Men In Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America," Darth Vader isn’t the only villain dressed in a flowing black robes who is bringing terror to a galaxy not so far away.

Levin’s best-seller warns about the danger that liberal judges pose on American society and foreshadows the epic struggle we will witness this summer for control of the Supreme Court.

"It’s difficult to find any aspect of society where the federal government doesn’t have some role or influence," Levin writes. "And the Supreme Court, more than any other branch or entity of government, is the most radical and aggressive practitioner of unrestrained power. The purpose in creating a branch of government not subject to election, and whose members are appointed for life, was to ensure that it would undertake its responsibility to interpret the Constitution and arbitrate disputes in an almost ministerial fashion. There was no expectation the courts would assume the functions of the legislature or executive branches."

At a brisk 212 pages, "Men in Black" should be required reading for every American.

The book examines how activist judges have taken over the role of elected legislators in our system of government. Minority groups (including the Democratic Party) get around the will of the elected majority by going to the courts to rewrite laws or strike down legislation that reflects the wishes of most Americans.

That’s why we have abortion-on-demand for 13-year-old girls, same-sex marriages, a ban on the death penalty for 17-year-old killers and the right to free public education and health care for illegal immigrants. And there’s also a dangerous new precedent of courts granting legal rights to captured enemy combatants during a war.

The Constitution was written to protect the rights of U.S. citizens — not terrorists whose goal is to kill every man, woman and child in the United States.

Regardless of how many laws elected legislators pass, the radical left can count on an army of unelected, unaccountable judges ready to impose their radical views on our society. Levin calls it exactly what it is: "judicial tyranny."

With Chief Justice William Rehnquist fighting cancer and advancing age (he’s 80), there’s a strong chance he won’t return to the Supreme Court this fall. The departure of Rehnquist, who has served as chief justice since 1986 and has been a member of the court since 1972, would open the way for George W. Bush to begin reshaping the Supreme Court.

Reshape may not be the right word. As John Leo wrote in a recent issue of U.S. News & World Report, Republicans have a historic opportunity to "repair a damaged Supreme Court." The damage has been caused by 50 years of judicial activism, primarily at the hands of Democratic appointees to the nation’s highest court.

While the president can nominate a chief justice directly, many believe Bush will promote a conservative justice to the top spot and nominate a replacement for the associate justice’s seat. The only candidates Bush would consider on the current court are Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Two other Republican appointees (Anthony Kennedy and David H. Souter) have been major disappointments to the conservative cause, often joining the liberals on the court to form 5-4 voting majorities on a variety of social issues.

O’Connor would be a bold pick. She would be the first female chief justice in the court’s 216-year history. The first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, O’Connor has served with distinction over the past quarter century. But the drawback is her age. At 75, O’Connor is unlikely to serve more than a few more years on the court. Bush is looking for somebody who could lead the court for the next 10 to 15 years. So the contest for chief justice comes down to Scalia and Thomas, the only black justice on the court.

My choice would be Scalia, who has emerged as the most commonsense jurist the court has seen in decades. Scalia understands the Constitution, something I can’t say about half the members of the Supreme Court. I’ll explain why Antonin Scalia should be the next chief justice in a future column.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

Tax relief scheme blows up in Rendell's face

Tick … tick … tick … tick … tick

Time is running out for Pennsylvania’s 501 school districts to opt into Act 72 — the shabby excuse for tax relief that Gov. Ed Rendell and the highest-paid state legislature in the country palmed off on the residents of Pennsylvania.

Monday is the deadline to opt in to the program. So far, an overwhelming majority of school districts have opted out of Act 72, a bold move considering the biggest complaint most residents have is about high property taxes.

As of Friday afternoon, 318 districts opted out of Act 72, while just 96 opted in. That’s a better than 3-1 margin against Act 72.

And what does our fearless governor have to say about the snub of his tax-relief plan by such a large number of school board members, many of whom are Democrats?

Rendell says it was a mistake to give school boards a choice in the matter. If he had to do it over again, he would drag the rebellious school board members kicking and screaming into Act 72.

"It's enormously frustrating to me that the school boards haven't seen or recognized what we've tried to do here," Rendell told The Associated Press last week.

But school boards have seen all too well and understand exactly what Act 72 means for their districts: a slim chance at token tax relief years from now if gambling revenues reach a certain dollar amount, while handcuffing elected representatives with back-end referendums that forces them to go to voters every time they need to hire teachers, expand buildings or add programs.

Not withstanding the flaws of Act 72, many school boards have a basic moral problem with funding public education through gambling revenues.

"To prey on the weak and elderly to raise funds that may be returned to them at a later date seems fundamentally and morally wrong, Owen J. Roberts School Board President Barbara L. McMeekin told The Mercury. "In order to receive a few hundred dollars in tax relief per household, each person must lose over $900. People who try to pull off that kind of scam in day-to-day living are known as con artists."

"This is a sham to promote gambling. And that’s it plain and simple," Paul Farmer, a school board member in the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District, told The (Delaware County) Daily Times.

It’s not just gambling that upsets school officials. It’s the smorgasbord of deficiencies in the law. Politicians threw everything but the kitchen sink into Act 72.

Wallingford-Swarthmore School District board member Jon Auritt likened Act 72 to a "Frankenstein" monster.

"What (Act 72) turned out to be was a concoction of gobbledygook in need of an extreme makeover," Auritt was quoted as saying in The Daily Times.

Rendell can hold his breath until he’s blue in the face, but he will never persuade local school officials that Act 72 is anything more than political trickery.

"As far as the hollow tax relief promised by opting into Act 72, most of OJR's residents will pay more in taxes, not less, because they will lose in income tax increases what is gained in property tax reductions," Karen L. Zelley, vice president of the Owen J. Roberts School Board, told The Mercury.

It appears school board members have done their homework on Act 72 and the more they know about it, the less there is to like.

Weatherly Area School Board member Gary J. Makuch told The Morning Call in Allentown that he attended four meetings on the 108-page law and spent about 100 hours analyzing it, but still found it confusing.

"Act 72 is the worst piece of legislation I have seen," Makuch was quoted as saying in The Morning Call.

Rendell has spent much political capital pushing this sorry piece of legislation. He’s lost a lot of support from the traditional Democratic base in the education community. Rendell’s potential GOP opponents in 2006 will certainly exploit the governor’s blind obedience to such a bankrupt scheme.

And here’s something Rendell and his cronies in Harrisburg don’t want you to know: Experts say there about 9 million Pennsylvania residents eligible to gamble, and to reach the $1 billion mark in revenue that Rendell says will result in tax relief for school districts, some $3 billion must be lost at the slots, averaging more than $300 per gambler. But less than 10 percent of those eligible gamble on a regular basis. That means each gambler must lose an average of $3,120 at the slots every year to fully fund the property-relief plan. And the payout? Around $250 to $300 per household. Talk about a sucker’s bet.

Perhaps, it’s a pigheaded governor who hasn’t "seen or recognized" the flaws of Act 72. It might take a wake-up call in 2006 — when Rendell is tossed from office by voters — for the message to finally sink in.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

Pushed to the brink, the Democrats blink

As the parade of U.S. senators dubbed “The Gang of 14” stood at the podium late Monday night to announce the great compromise on the filibuster debate, the first thing that came to my mind was British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s remarks as he got off a plane in September 1938 waiving a piece of paper signed by Adolf Hitler.

In what became known as the Munich Agreement, Hitler promised not to invade any more countries in Europe to avoid war with England. Chamberlain, who would become synonymous with the failed policy of appeasement, told the British public: “My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time... Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.” A little thing called World War II got in the way of Chamberlain’s promise.

The Democrats played a game of chicken with Republicans over the filibuster, the favorite delaying tactic of America’s permanent minority party. On the eve of a vote to deny the minority the right to refuse to allow President Bush’s judicial nominees to be approved by the full Senate, the Democrats waived the white flag and agreed to vote on three key nominees right away.

Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, blocked by the Democrats for four years, was approved by the Senate Wednesday for a federal appeals court in a party-line vote. Approval of two other nominations held up by the Democrats for two years — William H. Pryor Jr. for the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Janice Rogers Brown for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — are expected to follow shortly.

The rest of the president’s judicial nominees would not be filibustered unless Democrats believe the judges are out of the mainstream. That’s an odd thing to leave to a party that’s been out of the mainstream in five of the last seven presidential elections.

The so-called compromise worked out in the 11th hour by a group of Senate moderates simply postpones the inevitable showdown over the filibuster.

When President Bush nominates a replacement this summer for Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the Democrats (and their left-wing sugar daddies) will be back on the filibuster watch.

Howard Dean, who self-destructed again over the weekend in an appearance on “Meet the Press,” has been saying that the surrender by Democrats is a victory for his party. I guess that makes sense if you cling to the fact that John Kerry finished second in the presidential election last year. What Dean doesn’t realize is that the 41 votes the Democrats need to filibuster judicial nominees in the Senate are unattainable now that seven Democrats signed a pledge that they would resort to the filibuster only under “extreme circumstances.”

What happens if President Bush nominates Owen to the Supreme Court? If the majority of the Senate approved them for federal judgeships, how can the seven Democrats vote against them without breaking their compromise? If they do, Republicans simply go ahead with their vote to eliminate the filibuster entirely. It’s a lose-lose proposition for the Democrats.

More Americans are beginning to realize what’s at stake if the minority party circumvents the Constitution and the will of the majority of voters by stacking the courts with activist judges. Democrats can’t win the White House and can’t win Congress so they are focusing their attention on federal judges, who increasingly usurp the role of elected legislators.

Important issues such as abortion, the death penalty, government benefits for same-sex couples and right-to-die are being decided by unelected judges instead of legislators. All it takes for left-wing radicals to get their way on issues as parental consent for abortion is to find five liberal judges, and laws drafted by the representatives of the people are ignored.

Liberals are quick to cite Thomas Jefferson when it comes to constitutional issues, but it was Jefferson who warned that the Constitution in the hands of activist judges “is a mere thing of wax … which they may twist and shape into any form they please.” That is what’s happening in the United States today.

A handful of judges — appointed for life — are reshaping American society. That’s why the stakes are so high in the Senate. Stay tuned. This was just a skirmish. The real battle is ahead. And the Senate will never have "peace" until Democrats are put in their place.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

Fast Eddie makes a final stand on Act 72

I’m not sure if Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell should be compared to Gen. George Armstrong Custer at the Little Big Horn or Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo. Either, way, Fast Eddie is making a final stand on his much-maligned Act 72 "property tax relief" measure.

With about two weeks to go until the May 30 deadline for school districts to opt in or out of Act 72, fewer than 50 of the state’s 501 school districts have signed up for the plan. This despite a non-stop propaganda campaign by Rendell and his cronies to persuade school boards that Act 72 is the greatest thing since the Eagles drafted Donovan McNabb.

Not long ago, Rendell used the word "nuts" to describe school board members who didn’t support Act 72. The fact that his own education secretary won’t come within 10 feet of Act 72 hasn’t deterred Rendell as he tries to pull another fast one on Pennsylvania taxpayers.

A couple of weeks ago, Rendell forced school board members to sit through a two-hour teleconference where he and his cronies tried to twist some more arms. That didn’t work, either. Last week, the governor hit the road with a handful of superintendents and other school administrators in a last-ditch effort to drum up support for Act 72.

As of last week, only 48 of the state’s 501 school districts are on board with Act 72. A dozen have already voted to opt out. Most of the rest of the districts have held public hearings to lukewarm response and will formally vote their districts out of Act 72 by May 30. It’s not looking good for Rendell. In fact, some Rendell lackeys in the state Legislature have floated the idea of making Act 72 mandatory. There’s Democracy at work for you. If school boards and the residents they represent are too stupid to see it our way, we’ll force them to join the plan!

The bottom line is this: Act 72, or the Homeowner Tax Relief Act, is a sham. It forces school districts to bet their fiscal future on unknown revenues from the 14 slots parlors planned across the state. Those revenues won’t start trickling in until 2007 at the earliest, but most likely not until 2009 or 2010. Talk about a gamble. If revenues from the slot machines don’t meet projections, school districts will be in danger of financial collapse, unable to raise taxes to pay their bills.

Act 72 is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever enacted. It’s a dead horse that Rendell keeps beating. It’s not getting up.

School officials don’t like Act 72 because it forces them to immediately raise the earned income tax in their district — raising taxes is something Rendell knows about — but it ties school districts’ ability to raise taxes in the future. If a district wants to exceed spending beyond the rate of inflation, it must ask voters for permission to raise taxes. How likely are you to vote "yes" on a tax increase? Especially if you’re a senior citizen whose kids are no longer in school.

Here’s another fundamental problem I have with Rendell’s "gambling-for-property-tax-relief" premise. Seniors on fixed income are hurt the most by property taxes. In order for seniors to see a reduction in taxes, they must spend more of their income at Rendell’s slot parlors. Let’s face facts. Who rides most of the buses to Atlantic City? Seniors. So in order to get back $250 to $300 in 2007, seniors will have to drop hundreds or thousands of dollars into slot machines each year to fund Rendell’s scheme. It’s a sucker’s bet.

That’s why seniors, who attend a lot of school board meetings and tend to vote consistently in elections, have been reluctant to embrace Act 72. School board members have been seeing those seniors in the audience and they don’t want to risk their futures on a governor who may not make it past a first term.

Rendell was sent to Harrisburg with a clear mandate: Reduce property taxes. He hasn’t done it. Rendell thinks he’s going to waltz back for a second term in 2006. But Pennsylvanians won’t forget that Rendell raised the state income tax by $1 billion during his first term, sucking more of the life out of the state’s basket-case economy.

Whether Rendell’s Republican opponent is former Lt. Gov. William Scranton III or state Sen. Jeffrey Piccola or former Pittsburgh Steelers star Lynn Swann, Rendell shouldn’t make plans to stay in Harrisburg beyond 2006.

If the majority of the state’s school districts opt out of Act 72 — and it sure looks like they will — Rendell’s entire gambling initiative will be exposed for what it is — an opportunity for fat cats to get richer on the backs of seniors and working stiffs who don’t see any prospect out of their economic condition other than to feed the one-armed bandit in a slot parlor coming soon near you. That’s a sorry legacy for Rendell.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottmerc.com

Health insurance crisis is getting harder to ignore

On the same day a study was released showing that 900,000 Pennsylvania residents lacked any kind of health insurance coverage, two area legislators held a press conference in Harrisburg to gather support for legislation that would help working Pennsylvanians hold on to their health insurance.

Sen. Rob Wonderling, R-24th Dist., and Rep. Curt Schroder, R-155th Dist., were joined Monday by a coalition of small businesses from across the state to promote legislation aimed at reducing the cost of health care coverage for the workers at small companies, where the bulk of Pennsylvanians work.

One of the business owners in attendance was Ron Black of the Ron Black Insurance Agency in Royersford. Black, who has been working in the insurance industry for more than 45 years, has been one of the staunchest supporters for reforming Pennsylvania’s health insurance regulations.

The release of a 61-page health insurance survey on the same day makes the bills that Wonderling and Schroder have introduced even more imperative.

According to an Associated Press analysis of the report, of Pennsylvania's 900,000 uninsured:
*19 percent (171,000) are black, or 14 percent of all blacks in the state.
* 4 percent (35,000) are Hispanic, or 9 percent of all Hispanics.
* 81 percent (734,000) are white, or 7 percent of all whites.
* 49 percent (450,000) are between the ages of 18 and 34.
* 49 percent (450,000) live in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, or surrounding counties.
* 60 percent (543,000) are employed; 62 percent of the employed uninsured (337,000) work in the service sector.

In other words, this is a problem that cuts across all racial and socio-economic lines. This is a crisis that has been ignored far too long by our state legislators.
Wonderling and Schroder were joined in the Capitol by fellow legislators who support passage of Senate Bill 671 and House Bill 1240, small business owners who have formed a group called Pennsylvanians for Small Group Health Insurance Reform.

Pennsylvania is one of only two states that does not regulate for-profit insurance companies. That means these companies can discriminate on the basis of age, gender and health history. The only opposition to the reform bills has come from the insurance lobby, which says that more regulation would decrease competition.

Here’s a simple question for the lobbyists. If 48 other states regulate for-profit insurance carriers, where exactly are they going to go if Pennsylvania adopts the same rules? So much for the competition argument.

The legislation proposed by Wonderling and Schroder would simply level the playing field for all insurance carriers in Pennsylvania so they can’t "cherry-pick" which companies they want to serve. If you’re an insurance company doing business in Pennsylvania right now, you can choose not to provide affordable health plans for companies because they have too many women or too many employees over 40 or have had sick workers in the past. That’s not right.

Nobody is trying to drive insurance carriers out of Pennsylvania, but the reality is that Pennsylvania has one of the oldest populations in the country. If you want to do business here, you’re going to have to provide affordable insurance rates for companies that employ experienced workers.

Wonderling explained that Senate Bill 671 would ban the practice of medical underwriting for small groups in order to stabilize health insurance rates. The bill would require insurers to spread the cost of health care over a larger population so smaller companies are better able to offer coverage for their employees. Additionally, the legislation will expand benefit options, ensuring that all Pennsylvania small businesses will have insurers competing for their business.

"Our legislation is crucial to make health care coverage more affordable for working people and their families so they can have access to preventive care and medical treatment when they need it," Wonderling said.

Schroder said his bill proposes a uniform modified demographic rating format that would be used by all health insurers writing health insurance for small business employers in the state having between two and 50 employees.

"In serving as a member of the House Insurance Committee, I have heard many small-business owners ask for a change in insurance ratings so they can afford to provide health benefits," Schroder said. "Small-business owners want to be able to offer health insurance for their employees, but the cost has been prohibitive for them."

Pricing policies based upon the health history of each small business has driven the cost of health insurance out of reach for many Pennsylvanians employed by small businesses, Schroder said. All it takes is one sick employee for rates to double or triple, he added.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

David Horowitz is living proof liberals can be rehabilitated

"I make no apologies for my present position. My values have not changed, but my sense of what supports them and makes them possible has. It was what I thought was the humanity of the Marxist idea that made me what I was; it is the inhumanity of what I have seen to be the Marxist reality that has made me what I am."

-- David Horowitz, a former left-wing radical who came to his senses

Not since Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus in 35 A.D. has anyone experienced such a profound transformation as David Horowitz. For those who haven't picked up the Bible lately, Saul of Tarsus was a Jewish official who persecuted Christians until he saw the light … literally … and heard the voice of God. He converted to Christianity, becoming the Apostle Paul. He spent the rest of his life traveling throughout the Roman world, planting the seeds of Christianity in thousands of hearts.

David Horowitz never stood a chance. He was born into a Communist family living in the United States. His parents, Phil and Blanche Horowitz, joined the Communist Party in the 1930s. Their goal was to overthrow the existing Democratic government in the United States in favor of a Marxist state. Both were schoolteachers in the New York area, where they found refuge in a growing Communist enclave.

David Horowitz recounts his days as a Communist in his autobiography, "Radical Son." He became a leading radical intellectual of the 1960s, bent on spreading Marxist doctrine throughout American society. But Horowitz came to his senses when leftist radicals murdered his close friend. It took a shocking act of violence by the people he thought shared his views to get Horowitz to realize he had been living a lie. He recognized how bankrupt the radical left movement was when an innocent person was killed by people who would sacrifice anyone to promote their political movement.

Horowitz dedicated the next 30 years of his life to exposing the radical left. Today, he is considered a leading conservative intellectual. "Radical Son" is a distant memory, actually more of a bad dream. His most recent best seller is "Left Illusions." That title best describes the worldview of liberals who dominate the news media, the courts, academia and the entertainment industry. The only way the left can live with itself is to establish a world of delusion. A permanent state (Massachusetts?) where reality doesn't encroach. How else can you explain a Ted Kennedy, a Barbara Boxer, a Michael Moore or a John Kerry?

Scorned by the very liberals who once sang his praises, Horowitz decided he could no longer live the lie. In a 1979 article in the Nation magazine titled "A Radical's Disenchantment," Horowitz writes: "Can the left take a really hard look at itself — the consequences of its failures, the credibility of its critiques, the viability of its goals? Can it begin to shed the arrogant cloak of self-righteousness that elevates it above its own history and makes it impervious to the lessons of experience?"

Twenty-five years later, the answer to Horowitz's question is still a resounding "no." As Mona Charen points out in her book, "Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help (And The Rest of Us)," look at the mess the left has made of education, race relations, crime, welfare, homelessness and just about every domestic issue over the past four decades.

Despite failed economic, social and foreign policies, the left still operates with impunity. The left has hijacked the once-dominant political party in the U.S. — the Democratic Party. How else can you explain a steady diet of far-left candidates such as Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry as the Democrats' presidential nominees? All are classic liberals — arrogant, insolent, and out-of-touch with mainstream American values. Despite losing five of the last seven presidential elections, despite losing the House and the Senate, Democrats turn to Howard Dean to lead their party and have anointed Hillary Clinton as their 2008 sacrificial lamb.

Today, David Horowitz is on a one-man crusade to expose the radical left's attempts to undermine freedom and Democracy in the United States. Horowitz founded the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, which is dedicated to "defending the cultural foundations of a free society." The center's online journal, FrontPageMagazine.com is visited 1.7 million times a month. He also established the Individual Rights Foundation, the legal arm of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture.

The foundation confronts the radical American Civil Liberties Union as it undermines American society by attacking churches and synagogues, the Boy Scouts, school districts and municipal and county governments. The ACLU clearly wants to establish a secular Soviet Union-style government in the U.S. with ACLU board members sitting as the ruling politburo.

Horowitz continues to write provocative books. "The Politics of Bad Faith" explores the radical left's assault on America's political system. Horowitz's latest book, "Unholy Alliance," examines the link between radical Islam and the American left.

Another recent venture is a Web site called DiscoverTheNetwork.org, a guide to the radical left. It's an offshoot of Horowitz's work with the Center for the Study of Popular Culture. Like wanted posters, the Web site gives you a guide to the radical left and the threat its members pose in American society.

Horowitz also tours the country speaking on college campuses, which is enemy territory for Republicans, conservatives, Christians and Jews. Where else but on a college campus can a fraud like Ward Churchill collect a paycheck from taxpayers to teach while spending all his waking hours advocating the overthrow of the government?

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

45 million Americans and counting

A hospital in my neck of the woods is observing "Cover the Uninsured Week." It’s not exactly a reason to celebrate, but it is important to bring attention to the plight of millions of Americans who do not have health insurance.

"Cover the Uninsured Week" is supposed to be part of a national campaign by hospitals and an organization known as Families USA to put a face on the tens of millions of Americans who do not have basic health coverage.

More than 45 million Americans — equal to the combined population of 24 states — do not have health care coverage, and 8 million are children, according Families USA, which bills itself as "the voice for health care consumers." Eight of 10 of the uninsured are in working families, who either do not make enough money to afford insurance or whose company does not provide it.

"While offering the best medical care in the world, the U.S. healthcare system, specifically the payment system, is broken," said John R. Morahan, president and chief executive officer of St. Joseph Medical Center in Reading, Pa. "Until we as a society and until the state and federal legislative bodies call for and act on change in this system, the crisis in healthcare will continue."

And speaking of ways to fix the health care crisis in Pennsylvania, bills were recently introduced in the state Legislature to help small businesses struggling with the high cost of providing health insurance coverage for their workers.

Senate Bill 671, introduced by state Sen. Rob Wonderling, and House Bill 1240, introduced by state Rep. Curt Schroder, would go a long way to helping some of the more than 375,000 working Pennsylvanians who do not have health insurance.

The bills are before the respective insurance committees in each chamber and have received bipartisan support by many senators and representatives. But similar bills languished in committee during the 2003-04 legislative session and were never released for a vote.

The only opposition to the bills is coming from the insurance lobby, which is looking at its bottom line. The question now is will our elected representatives help hard-working Pennsylvanians obtain health coverage or will they bow to the pressures of the insurance lobby?

These two bills need to be brought out of committee for a vote in each chamber and signed by the governor. Pennsylvania is one of only two states (Hawaii is the other) that do not regulate "for-profit" insurance companies.

The bills would bring "for-profit" insurance companies under the same regulations as "non-profit" agencies such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield and HMOs. It would level the playing field and provide access to health insurance for thousands. Right now, "for-profit" insurance companies and pick and choose which workers to cover. They can deny coverage to workers with pre-existing conditions or drop them for no reason. They can also charge whatever they want for premiums and raise those premiums 10 or 20 times the rate of inflation if they so choose.

That has forced small employers — the backbone of Pennsylvania’s economy — to pass on costs to their workers and their families or drop health coverage entirely for employees.

The health crisis in this country is enormous. It's easy to throw your hands up and give up because it's such a hurdle to climb. Congress has done that repeatedly.

But when there's an opportunity to help people, even a little bit, we have to take it. That's why the Pennsylvania bills need to be approved during the current session. We're talking about commonsense solutions to at least one part of the overall health crisis.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com