Free Republic

Pennsylvania Governor-Elect Josh Shapiro has filled six positions in the governor’s office; “deputy chiefs of staff” who will focus their expertise in various sectors. They will be staffers on the leadership team in the governor’s office who will act as liaisons to related departments, a spokesperson for Shapiro’s administration confirmed to The Epoch Times. “With these dynamic, smart, and capable public servants joining our team as deputy chiefs of staff, our administration will hit the ground running to streamline communication, operate nimbly, and get things done for Pennsylvanians,” Shapiro’s incoming Chief of Staff Dana Fritz said in a statement. “Governor-Elect...

Pennsylvania lawmakers have been busy preparing memos pitching new legislation for the 2023–2024 session. Before laws are made and before a bill is written, legislative ideas start as a memo offering a rationale for the proposed legislation. A bill based on the memo is presented at the committee level and rewritten if committee discussion calls for edits. This is a good time for the public to weigh in on new laws, but the public often does not know about proposed legislation until it is presented on the full chamber floor, if it gets that far. Sometimes the same bills are...

A catastrophic leak from a natural gas storage field in Cambria County likely released over one billion cubic feet of the potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. The incident demonstrates the importance of tracking — and punishing — methane emissions, a priority recently moved forward by both Congress and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. It also shows the urgency of implementing state-level regulations to control methane emissions from Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry. Methane is the primary component of natural gas, and is fifty times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. While CO2 grabs the headlines, CH4...

Pennsylvania governor-elect Josh Shapiro, who rose to prominence by downplaying Republican claims of voter fraud, charged one of his former campaign consultants on Wednesday with "wide scale" forgery of voter ballots. Shapiro, in his capacity as Pennsylvania attorney general, alleges that Philadelphia political consultant Rasheen Crews duplicated more than 1,000 signatures on petitions to add his clients to Democratic primary ballots for Philadelphia city elections in 2019. "By soliciting and organizing the wide scale forgery of signatures, the defendant undermined the democratic process and Philadelphians’ right to a free and fair election," Shapiro said in a statement announcing the charges....

The Democrat strategy of using mail-in ballots to vote played a pivotal role in last week’s election results. Pennsylvania Republicans are talking amongst themselves about how to react in the next election. Republicans have two views: get rid of mail-in voting—which seems unlikely with more elected Democrats in power—or learn how Democrats got an avalanche of mail-in votes and employ the same strategy. The Epoch Times asked the Pennsylvania GOP to discuss the 2022 results and its strategy regarding mail-in ballots in future elections, but it chose not to participate in this story. Pennsylvania Democrats were also asked to comment...

Owens said there was a shift towards the end of Trump's presidency, and she blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for handcuffing Trump. She warned that Trump shutting down the government could have long-term ramifications. During her interview with Trump in December 2021, Candace confronted the former president about the COVID-19 vaccine. Owens asked Trump where he stands on the vaccine mandates. He replied, "People have to have their freedom," and then touted the COVID-19 vaccine as "one of the greatest achievements of mankind." Addressing why Trump hasn't acknowledged reports of possible efficacy issues with the COVID-19 vaccine, Owens theorized, "I believe...

Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R) conceded to Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro (D) on Sunday in the state’s gubernatorial race, five days after news outlets called the race against him. “Difficult to accept as the results are, there is no right course but to concede, which I do, and I look to the challenges ahead. Josh Shapiro will be our next Governor, and I ask everyone to give him the opportunity to lead and pray that he leads well,” Mastriano said in a statement.

Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro said he has “a mandate and a responsibility” to bring people together as he previewed how his administration will take shape during a radio tour Friday. “I’ll be a governor for all 13 million Pennsylvanians, whether you voted for me or not,” Shapiro said on WILK-AM in Wilkes-Barre. Shapiro, whose lead over GOP state Sen. Doug Mastriano was 14 points as of Friday, received the most votes of any governor candidate in history with more than 2.9 million, reported ABC27. During his radio appearances, Shapiro, the current state attorney general, said his three top priorities will be...

I've been watching the witty humor of these guys clowning around tonight and I had to snip a little bit of the fun. I'm naming this segment "Clowning with Crowder". Good times!

The GayBINGO! event featured "campy entertainment" that was guided by the "antics of the drag-queens-on-skates Bingo-Verifying Divas." ... Josh Shapiro, the Democrat candidate running for governor of Pennsylvania, attended an event called GayBINGO! In November 2009, which featured drag queens skating around and entertaining the crowd, including "children." A photo posted to social media shows then-State Representative Shapiro guffawing on stage next to one of the drag queens as bingo numbers are read. The caption to the photo reads, "Rep. Shapiro sponsored a game of BINGO for the AIDS Fund Philly's monthly GayBINGO! Event." ... According to Philadelphia Gay News,...

With 562 murders, 2021 was a record year for Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. So far in 2022, the city has seen 441 murders. As of Oct. 30, the Philadelphia Police Department reported 12,923 violent crimes in 2022, including 154 violent assaults in the previous seven days. Philadelphia crime has climbed each year since 2013, when the city had 246 murders. Crimes spills out of the city into surrounding counties. Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano focused on crime during a recent campaign stop in Lancaster County. While traveling the state, Mastriano says he has been hearing a lot of...

Ben Shapiro has long been a strong advocate for the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, believing that taking them was a socially responsible measure that might save someone's grandma and even slow or prevent the spread of the virus. On Tuesday, Shapiro stated that, like many others, he had been deceived about the efficacy of the vaccines, particularly with regard to their ability to prevent viral transmission. Shapiro's admission about transmission On Tuesday's episode of "The Ben Shapiro Show," Shapiro stated, "It is now perfectly clear that we were lied to. And we were lied to at a very high level and...

LUZERNE, Pa.—Less than three weeks before Election Day, Republican candidate for Governor Doug Mastriano campaigned in Luzerne, Pennsylvania Saturday afternoon, Oct. 22, where he laid out the plan details should he win the gubernatorial race. “We’re going to take our state back, and with you, we’re going to go in and win on Nov. 8. And when I’m sworn in on Jan. 17, there will be a new birth of freedom of Pennsylvania,” Mastriano said to a packed house of supporters at the Four Blooms restaurant. From energy and education to crime and election integrity, Mastriano vowed numerous changes on...

It’s no secret that Karl Rove and the Bush and Cheney families are anti-Trump. These establishment RINOs are outraged that conservative and populist voters no longer support their open border, pro-amnesty, globalist, endless war agenda. Today’s GOP voters support Trump and his populist agenda. This brings us to the latest ad released by American Crossroads PAC, an organization linked to Karl Rove and the Bushes.

On Thursday, Republican Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano slammed Democratic rival Josh Shapiro over his refusal to stand up against the "grooming" of children. Speaking with Real America's Voice host David Brody, he specifically called Shapiro out for failing to speak out against the experimentation on foster children being conducted by doctors associated with Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. ... "Is Shapiro complicit in this grooming we hear about?" Brody asked. "He sure is," Mastriano answered bluntly. "On top of all this," the Republican added, "he's standing aside while the CHOP is grabbing homeless kids and kids in foster care, apparently,...

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro.’s overflowing campaign coffers underscore the importance of Pennsylvania to national politics—and the influence of government unions in elections. With four weeks remaining until the mid-term elections, Shapiro reported raising a whopping $25.4 million in his latest campaign-finance report, bringing his total to a record $50.9 million since the beginning of 2021. This represents 47 percent more than Governor Tom Wolf raised in four years as an incumbent running for reelection. By contrast, Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano has raised just over $5 million since the beginning of 2021. Slightly more than half of Shapiro’s total...

It’s going to be a red-letter week for Sen. Doug Mastriano’s gubernatorial campaign: the Republican underdog is finally launching a television advertising campaign. Mastriano’s campaign announced Monday that its first ads of the race will go up later this week in a fundraising pitch to supporters. The campaign did not respond to questions about the ads’ content but stated in the email that “our team is putting the final touches on them as we speak.” A PennLive check with advertising trackers Kantar/CMAG confirmed that the Mastriano campaign has reserved $234,000 from Oct. 4 through Oct. 10, concentrated in the Pittsburgh...

Framing the Nov. 8 election for Pennsylvania governor as a fight against “dangerous extremism,” Democratic candidate Josh Shapiro spoke to 200 supporters Thursday afternoon in Bethlehem. Shapiro, who is Pennsylvania’s attorney general, is running against Republican Sen. Doug Mastriano, whom Shapiro called out for his views on banning abortion & doubts about the 2020 presidential election. This guy is the most dangerous, extreme candidate ever to run for governor of PA-and by the way the most dangerous & extreme running in the nation right now,” Shapiro said of his opponent, who campaigned in the Lehigh Valley with a Nazareth stop...

Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman isn’t really running for U.S. Senate. He’s on the ballot. He’s doing some campaign stops. He’s dodging a debate against Dr. Mehmet Oz. But he’s just a placeholder. The real candidate that nobody outside of the powerbrokers in the Democrat Party know about is his radical leftist wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman. The official candidate has been making the news lately with his odd behavior. Just before the primary election, he suffered a stroke and was away from the public eye for over a month. But now that he’s back on the campaign trail, a whole...

The CD Media Big Data Poll finds Democrat Josh Shapiro and Republican Doug Mastriano locked in a tight race for governor in Pennsylvania. Shapiro holds a statistically insignificant lead at 43.9% with Mastriano taking 43.2%. The Keystone State is one of the most crucial battleground states and which party controls the governor’s mansion is critical to the 2024 presidential election. Men back Mastriano 58.1% to 29.4%, while women back Shapiro by a 57.8 to 29.0 margin. By party, Shapiro takes 86% of Democrats against Mastriano, who takes 77.5% of Republicans and is leading significantly among independents, 47.4% to 30.2%. By...