When you are royalty, life must be something like this.
Pennsylvania state Rep. Bill DeWeese has been in a wide range of leadership positions in the state House from minority and majority leader to House Speaker.
Undoubtedly, his days were busy with legislative work, but, according to Grand Jury testimony, DeWeese thought he was entitled to use [...]

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Politicians who wonder why the public has such a low regard of them only need to take into consideration Robert Mellow, the top Democrat in the Pennsylvania State Senate.
Mellow rented his office space from himself at over $3,000 a month.
A 1978 state ethics law forbid lawmakers from using their position “for the private pecuniary benefit [...]

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An aide to a Pennsylvania state Senator was arrested for allegedly contacting a 14-year-old boy for sex. Alan Berlin will be charged with six felonies. State Senator Jane Orie, who Berlin worked for, was known for legislation toughening the state’s sexual predator laws.
It is then that the story gets weird.
Berlin met the boy on an online [...]

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The publisher of the Warren Times-Observer, a small newspaper in Pennsylvania, apologized for an ad that ran in his newspaper calling for the assassination of President Barack Obama.
John Elchert, the publisher, said the ad was slated to run for three days, but was stopped after the first day.  
“It is unfortunate that it made it [...]

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Fifty-six miles from Pittsburg, the John Murtha Airport has received $150 million in taxpayer funds over the last 10 years. It now will receive another $800,000 from the federal stimulus package.
All this for three flights and twenty passengers a day.
Most planes that arrive have empty seats, despite being subsidized for $100 a seat.
With three flights, [...]

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Two Pennsylvania judges have pleaded guilty to sentencing youths to detention facilities in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks.
Luzerne County Judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella sentenced as many as 2,500 juveniles between 2003 and 2008. About half of these did not have a lawyer. Some of the trials lasted only a few minutes. Many [...]

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Pennsylvania is becoming the make-or-break state for John McCain. His campaign has apparently written off New Hampshire, Colorado and Wisconsin. McCain trails all four states by 5% to 10%. However, Pennsylvania is the big prize with 21 electoral votes, and McCain’s options for 270 electoral votes are growing fewer by the day.
The McCain campaign does not plan on more [...]

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Local election officials in Pennsylvania are facing individual decisions on how to handle “passive electioneering” at the polls. Currently, there are regulations prohibiting campaigning for a candidate outside the polls.
State Republicans are pushing for a stronger interpretation of the law. They do not want voters to come in with T-shirts, buttons or other political decorations, even [...]

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Sarah Palin’s famous sale of a state airplane really was not such a good deal for Alaska. The state bought the plane for $2.7 million. Palin arranged the sale for $2.1 million. Besides, she likes to tell people that she put it on eBay. That she did, but it did not sell there. In the [...]

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Political reformer Gene Stilp brought his pink pig and 11 contestants to the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The stunt is an attempt to draw attention to the recent corruption scandal and stalled reform bills buried in the legislature.
The contestants wore dresses and sashes that said, “Miss True Redistricting” and “Miss No Lobbyists’ Gifts.” Stilp played [...]

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