Five and a half. That’s the percentage of full- and part-time jobs in the U.S. economy attributable directly and indirectly to fossil fuels—a massive number, just under eleven million in total. Those figures are from a timely report demonstrating just how much the U.S. benefits from fossil fuel-related employment—and how much it stands to potentially lose a green-new-deal policies loom on the horizon. The analysis by consulting firm PwC carried out for the American Petroleum Institute found that the oil and natural gas industry’s “direct, indirect, and induced impacts” on the U.S. economy ..read more

Lower Providence Township Board of Supervisors Chair Cara Coless is under fire for Facebook posts demeaning the pro-parents’ group Moms for Liberty and urging boycotts on behalf of her politics. According to its website, the Montgomery County Moms for Liberty “is dedicated to the survival of America by unifying, educating, and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.” They have been involved in the ongoing public policy debate over the balance between parents’ rights and the authority of school boards and education bureaucrats over children in public scho ..read more

From a press release The  Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership gathered on Wednesday, May 31 to commemorate and unveil the installation of R-Tank Stormwater Models at Alverthorpe Park. The tanks, which are used to filter water during a storm and subsequently reduce contaminants in drinking water, are the result of $175,000 in state funding devoted towards benefiting Alverthorpe Park’s stream restoration project. The R-Tank Stormwater Module, also known as the subsurface infiltration basin, will manage and clean stormwater runoff in an underground storage system before slowly rel ..read more

“On Sunday evening a  group of teens gathered in the City of Chester to celebrate the holiday weekend and the end of the school year,” said Delaware County DA Jack Stollsteimer. “Unfortunately, the presence of guns in the crowd turned this gathering into a chaotic and dangerous event. At this point, one juvenile is in critical condition, and five more have non-life threatening injuries. We know at least three guns were fired and over 50 shell casings have been recovered.” The Race for Peace Committee works to stop events like this before they begin by bringing police officers and the comm ..read more

A policeman ran over to the body. There was no response. The grizzled old man who had collapsed on a New York City sidewalk was gone. A scrapbook with “The Luckiest Fool In The World” printed on the cover was clutched under one arm. The man who died that October afternoon in 1952 was unlike other street people. This one had once been a national celebrity. This one had launched a fad that defined a decade. And this one truly was, in his own words, “the luckiest fool in the world.” Listen to his story, and you’ll understand why. Life started on a hard note for Aloysius A ..read more

How does an agency named the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fail to “control or prevent” a pandemic like COVID-19? Because it was off-mission, said Dr. Brian Miller with the American Enterprise Institute. Instead of intensely focusing on tracking communicable diseases and fighting infections, the agency wandered into “woke” issues like fighting racism and advocating gun control. When a novel coronavirus hit, the CDC wasn’t ready. Miller, who is also a practicing hospitalist at Johns Hopkins University, laid out his case at the Common Sense Public Health Roundtable hosted by InsideS ..read more

The results of the May 16 primary are slated to be certified Thursday, June 1. Not so fast, says Joy Schwartz, a Republican candidate for Delaware County Council. She requested permission to count the envelopes that the mail-in ballots were sent in. The county denied that request, despite what she claims is clear language under Act 77, the 2019 law that permits mail-in voting. “They’ve basically denied people those records for five or six different election cycles,” said Schwartz. “In 2020 twice, twice in 2021, twice in 2022, and now again in 2023. So, I am a candidate, running unopposed (in t ..read more

Potentially explosive racial allegations against police in Montgomery Township have died barely a month after a school board member suggested officers targeted her because of her race. Elisha Gee, a North Penn School Board member, said at a Montgomery Township Board of Supervisors meeting in April that officers with the township’s police department had stopped her one evening earlier in the month while driving in her neighborhood. In her statement before the supervisors, she suggested she was unduly targeted for police attention and was at risk of being abused by the police. She claimed at one ..read more

For an alternative viewpoint see, “Point: Republicans Falling into the Same 2016 Trump Trap.” Those afraid that the 2024 GOP presidential contest will become a repeat of 2016 need not worry. The race is radically different this year; it will not play out the same. First, former president Donald Trump is greatly diminished compared to 2015, when he first glided down his escalator in front of all those paid “volunteers.” Second, the rest of next year’s budding GOP candidates are well-acquainted with the former president’s playbook and will know how to fight him. Third, the “unstoppable” sheen th ..read more

Do you know how many times a candidate from either party has won a statewide election in Pennsylvania for governor or U.S. senator without first winning the support of most of their party’s voters in the primary election? Almost never. Since 1976, it’s only happened three times. And each time, the opponent from the other party also failed to earn at least 50 percent of the vote in the primary. In other words, you are very unlikely to win an election for major statewide office in Pennsylvania unless you are able to get at least 50 percent of the vote from your party in the primary. That is true ..read more