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The Democratic National Committee had a clever response to Donald Trump's announcement that he is running for president, treating a candidacy observers often view with suspicion as the most serious yet. "Today, Donald Trump became the second major Republican candidate to announce for president in two days," DNC national press secretary Holly Shulman said in a statement. "He adds some much-needed seriousness that has previously been lacking from the GOP field, and we look forward hearing more about his ideas for the nation." Compare that to the DNC's statements on other candidates. Shulman called fellow GOP candidate Rick Santorum's ideas...

The Republican field is crowded, which implies that primary voters have little information about where some of the candidates stand. That is particularly the case this season, with a few relatively unknown contenders who lack legislative experience or a long history of campaign contributions that would allow researchers to precisely identify where they stand on the liberal-to-conservative political dimension.However, one characteristic all candidates share is that they have active and popular Twitter accounts. And as I showed in an article published earlier this year in the journal Political Analysis — now freely available online as an Editors’ Choice article —...

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio appears to be giving Hillary Clinton the best competition among Republican presidential contenders in his home state and in Pennsylvania, in the latest Quinnipiac University poll of swing states released Wednesday. In a set of hypothetical 2016 matchups, Rubio draws closest to overtaking Clinton in two of the three states, including Florida and Pennsylvania. In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich prevails in a head-to-head matchup. By a count of 47 percent to 44 percent, Sunshine State voters said that they would support Clinton over Rubio in a hypothetical presidential matchup. Just 42 percent backed Jeb Bush, compared...

Thousands attended the 45th Boston Pride Parade on Saturday afternoon and Chipotle was not to be left out from the celebration. The burrito mega-chain asked customers for their preference for... Mexican food. Parade-goers had their choice of buttons displaying whether they “swayed” towards tacos or burritos.

A threat prompted the U.S. Navy to evacuate workers from two Philadelphia facilities Tuesday morning and raise the threat level to imminent. In turn, officials raised the threat level for those facilities from Bravo to Charlie — the second highest level — while evacuating workers around 10:20 a.m. Some workers said they were suddenly told they had to leave without being given an explanation. By noon, SkyForce10 captured crews blocking the entrance to the Northeast Philly facility with concrete barriers.

Agencia Espacial Mexicana (AEM) and Astrobotic Technology Inc. are pleased to announce a joint effort to facilitate the development and delivery of the first payload from Latin America to the Moon. Astrobotic and AEM have entered into an agreement outlining a commitment by both organizations to enable a Mexican payload to the Moon. Through this partnership, AEM will take its first step to another planetary body. "Opening access to the Moon is precisely at the core of Astrobotic's mission," said John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic. "AEM's rising space science and exploration community is yet one more example of the immense...

Comcast executive vice president David L. Cohen will host a fundraising event at his home with Hillary Clinton on June 26. The Philadelphia Inquirer obtained a copy of the invitation, which prices tickets at $2,700 per person. The event will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The mid-day fundraiser is not the first time Cohen has made efforts to help candidates raise money as they run for office.

Photo: Teachers took time off school to attend a Muslim prayer session, courtesy of the taxpayer. /Photo: Lebanon Daily News Key questions: –Where is the separation of mosque and state? –If special accommodation is going to be made for Islam, where are the days devoted to Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, Mormonism, Bahai’ism, et al? –Is this not a violation of the establishment clause? Taxpayer dollars are being used to fund dawah (proselytizing for Islam). Why aren’t these teachers being given a seminar by Robert Spencer and Ibn Warraq about the jihadic doctrine and Islam’s 1,400 year history of jihadi wars,...

Fifty or so teachers and administrators with the Lebanon School District in Pennsylvania, including the superintendent, were just given a day of specialized training on Islam – at taxpayers’ expense – that wrapped with them hitting the floors of a local mosque, in the required shoeless fashion, and partaking of the faith’s call to prayer. Can you say what the –? Or better yet, how about imaging this “what if” scenario: Fifty or so teachers and administrators with one Pennsylvania school district were just given a day of specialized training on the Baptist faith – at taxpayers’ expense – that...

A Pennsylvania woman who was kidnapped as a child has renewed her effort to find her abductor over 30 years later. Kelly Heller was only nine years old in May of 1981 when a man kidnapped and beat her in a remote area of Upper Saucon Township. Heller, whose brothers delivered newspapers, told NBC Philadelphia she was inside her Bethlehem home getting the newspapers ready for delivery. Suddenly, one of her brothers came inside and told her about a man who claimed he was running a newspaper contest with money and prizes. The man, who was outside their home, wanted...

Two Democratic senators are urging a Senate panel to help cover security costs at the 2016 presidential nominating conventions, saying extra money is needed to ensure law enforcement have sufficient manpower and equipment. In a letter this week, Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Sherrod Brown of Ohio asked the Appropriations Committee for an additional $100 million, to be divided equally between the two conventions. …

During a Wednesday morning live broadcast from outside the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., CNN reported that escapees David Sweat and Richard Matt could be anywhere between New York's North Country and Canada, or even south to Mexico. As a reporter spoke, a map on the screen showed the words "New York" over Pennsylvania, and then tracked a potential path north to Canada or south to Mexico.

Just one voter showed up to Rick Santorum's campaign stop at a restaurant in Hamlin, Iowa, on Monday, according to Politico. With a population of 300, Hamlin eventually saw four Iowans assembled around the 2016 Republican hopeful's table where they munched on breaded tenderloin and a side of onion rings, Politico reported. Santorum told The Des Moines Register he wasn't surprised by the low turnout — it was all part of the plan.

LEBANON, Pa. – Dozens of teachers and administrators in Pennsylvania’s Lebanon School District recently attended a taxpayer-funded in-service workshop at a local mosque to learn about Islam and Arabic culture. About 50 staffers from the district attended an in-service workshop Monday led by former district Arabic translator Mohamed Omar, who “took time off from his new job as a case worker for the Department of Human Services in Philadelphia to share his knowledge of Islam with the staff, which included Superintendent Marianne Bartley and several other administrators,” the Lebanon Daily News reports. The workshop started off at the high school...

WASHINGTON -- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said Sunday that he supports a constitutional amendment that would bar the Supreme Court from granting marriage equality rights nationwide. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision this month that could grant, for once and for all, same-sex couples the right to wed across the country. But Walker said on ABC's "This Week" that he would support amending the constitution to protect states that still want to ban same-sex marriage. "I personally believe that marriage is between one man and one woman," Walker, a prospective GOP presidential candidate, said. "If the...

Here’s how the scam works: Near the end of each academic year, APSCUF informs their members that it miraculously found an extra $25 per person in dues that it doesn’t need. The union then portrays itself as an honest broker and offers the money back as a “rebate.” The rebate form gives members three options for their $25: 1. Let the union keep it; 2. Donate it to APSCUF’s political action committee; or 3. Have it sent back to them. Presenting this “found” money with these options and urging members to donate to APSCUF’s PAC has proven extraordinarily effective —...

WYANDOT COUNTY (13abc Action News) – Two runaway teens from Wyandot County wanted on a multi-state crime spree are being compared to Bonnie and Clyde. The pair accused of armed robbery are believed to be hiding in a wooded area in rural Pennsylvania.

House Republicans called up Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's tax-shifting plan on Monday, and the House shot it down by a unanimous vote. Minority Leader Frank Dermody, D-Oakmont, called the vote on an amendment that contained Wolf's tax plan “a political stunt.” “It does nothing to move this process forward,” Dermody said. “I would never ask (Democrats) to vote for a stunt.” Wolf denounced the vote as “gamesmanship” and said it was an effort to “‘see if we can embarrass the administration.'”

Mika Brzezinski just can't contain her liberal bias. On today's Morning Joe, Mika admitted that the the MSM has a double standard when it comes to reporting controversial things that Democrats and Republicans have done or said. Yet she promptly turned around and applied that same double standard to Bernie Sanders and Rick Santorum. Discussing Bernie Sanders having written in 1972 that women fantasize about being raped, Mika agreed that if Rick Santorum had written the same thing, the press would go crazy. However, Mika claimed that wouldn't be because Santorum's a Republican, but rather would be due to "his...

The Daily Signal recently paid a visit to my neck of the woods and conducted some interviews on both sides of the New York – Pennsylvania border in the rural, upstate region. It’s an area which sits atop the Marcellus shale formation and is the source of one of the richest deposits of natural gas on the continent, if not in the world. But that invisible border between the states has revealed a stark contrast between the lives of residents on each side. As their report found, one state is thriving while the other is dying a slow death,...