Herb Riede's Blog

Pennsylvania House furniture plant closes, with 425 laid off A title for a better story should read, "Pennsylvania House closes, with 203 members laid off" I think we should take the pay raises these miscreants in Harrisburg are demanding and put it into the unemployment system. We need to start flexing our state soveriegnty trade muscles and show people what a Keystone is for.

I don't wear it on my sleeve, I don't push it on my website, I haven't even used it in my campaigns. I most admire Al Gore (Pro-Choice), Bob Casey Sr./Jr. (Pro-Life) and Ed Rendell (Pro-Choice). I am enthusiastic about Harry Reid from Nevada (Pro-Life) being our Senate Leader. I am an officer in the Pennsylvania Young Democrats, and I support Howard Dean (Pro-Choice) for Chair of the DNC. I voted for John Kerry (Pro-Choice) for President. I believe that a woman has the right to choose whether or not she is pregnant (Pro-Choice). I don't believe that a woman has the right to abortion on demand (Pro-Life). Got that straight? OK, now that I've dazzled you with the John Kerry treatment, let me get to the point: Despite assertions by both the "Pro-Life" and "Pro-Choice" groups that a majority believe what they believe by slanting poll results in their favor, poll results clearly indicate both camps are out of the "ma...

Herb Riede - LEADing THE WAY - What can LEAD do for you? A little bit of self-promotion for the day. Also, a promise to post a few times over the Christmas and New Years weekends!

In the May 2003 Primary in the Gettysburg School District, there was a contested primary for School Board. In the Democratic primary, ballots were mis-coded and subsequently miscounted, leading to the Hanover Evening Sun proclaiming 18-year old Don Palesky the winner of the Democratic Primary the next day. However, this problem, caused by votes for another candidate ALSO counting for Mr. Palesky, was discovered and corrected after multiple recounts. The point? Election Systems and Software, (ES&S) counts well over a million ballots in Pennsylvania. This one error did affect the outcome of an election last year, however it did not make state-wide or national media. ES&S is under national scrutiny in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere, especially on MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. ES&S insist's their programs are rock solid, primarily their e-vote machines. That may be true and in fact, the local example may very well have been a printer's error. That being said,...

Governor Rendell signed the Emergency & Municipal Services Tax into law Tuesday. Running through some counties, I found some municipalities that, if they left their tax structure unchanged for their 2005 budget, now have an UNAUTHORIZED tax on the books for 2005. Skimming through counties beginning with A-C on the DCED's website: http://ctcoas01.state.pa.us/dced/MSS.DYN_OPT_COLLECTOR_2002.show (The data is 2004 in spite of the URL) Wyomissing Hills Borough, Berks County (municipality code 062253) charges $5, but Wyomissing Area SD charges $0. Doylestown Borough, Bucks County (municipality code 090243) charges $5, but Central Bucks SD charges $0 Banks Township, Carbon County (municipality code 130035) charges $5, but Hazelton Area SD charges $0 Because the TEXT of House Bill 197 changes the law as follows: 2 PAYMENT OF ANY [OCCUPATIONAL PRIVILEGE TAX] EMERGENCY AND 3 MUNICIPAL SERVICES TAX TO ANY POLITICAL SUBDIVISION BY ANY 4 ...