Judge Mike Toole Still Judge Mike Toole

In May, 1897, it was reported that legendary writer Mark Twain had died. Twain responded in a letter in which he wrote "the report of my death was an exaggeration." Well apparently the report of the resignation of Judge Michael Toole from the Luzerne County bench was also "an exaggeration."

OVC has it from a source close to the Judge that he has not resigned.

Toole, the son of senior Judge Patrick Toole, was elected to the bench to succeed his father in 2003. It was reported in late March by The Legal Intelligencer that federal investigators were looking into Judge Michael Toole with regard to uninsured/underinsured motorist arbitrations.

OVC will keep you up to date.

Corbett Leads for GOP Guv Nomination in Early Poll

Attorney General Tom Corbett has a substantial lead in a GOP voter preference poll over Congressmn Jim Gerlach and former U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan. The poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies in the middle of January. The sample was small (400 likely primary voters.)

Corbett leads Gerlach and Meehan by a 40%-10%-6% margin. The margin of error was 4.9 percent.

OVC does not give much weight to polls at this early stage. If polls at this early state were an accurate indication of how voters actually vote, last year's Presidential election would have been between Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Guiliani.

Corbett does have very good name recognition throughout the state in large part due to his high profile mass arrests, mainly in drug cases. Last year, during his bid for re-election, Corbett didn't miss an opportunity to conduct a press conference to announce a series of mass arrests. In Operation Re-Election 1, 2, 3, and 4, Corbett criss-crossed the state, patting himself on the back for his crime fighting efforts. Expect much more of the same over the next 18 months.

Senator Al Franken?

If you thought 36 days were an election recount eternity in 2000, the 2008/2009 Minnesota Senate race will have you re-evaluating that definition. YES, believe it or not, Minnesota still only has one United States Senator. Despite then incumbent Senator Norm Coleman leading by a slim margin in the initial count, a recount, completed in January, 2009, showed Al Franken ahead by 225 votes. Coleman took his challenge to the Minnesota courts. The Senate election that just doesn't want to end will soon enter its sixth month, but the end may be near despite what Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) hopes and believes.

Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is threatening “World War III” if Democrats try to seat Al Franken in the Senate before Norm Coleman can pursue his case through the federal courts. He acknowledges that a federal challenge to November’s elections could take “years” to resolve. But he’s adamant that Coleman deserves that chance — even if it means Minnesota is short a senator for the duration.

On Tuesday. March 31, 2009, the three judge panel assigned to hear the election challenge issued an order to count only about 400 absentee ballots, thus almost securing another "victory" for Franken. The choice on the absentee ballots are unknown. The 400 challenged ballots come from both counties won by Franken and Coleman, and OVC finds it hard to believe that 80 percent (the approximate number needed by Coleman to overcome the Franken lead) of those ballots would fall into the Coleman column.

Coleman's lead attorney, Ben Ginsburg, has said that if Coleman is unsuccessful when the panel issues its final order next week after the last 400 votes are counted, that he will file an immediate appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The law allows 10 days from the time of the panel's decision.

OVC believes that two factors will push Coleman into doing the honorable thing --- concede. Those factors are Coleman's possible political future and Coleman's lack of cash to keep paying Ginsburg, et. al.

The legal bills for Coleman's challenge are in the millions of dollars, and a lot of that money is coming from outside Minnesota. That money could be spent much more wisely on future Senate elections as the GOP tries to keep the Democrats below the a 60 seat majority in the United States Senate. The Democrats (counting two independents) would reach 59 when Franken is seated. Many players in the GOP, with the exception of Cornyn, are ready to move on to 2010.

Coleman may or may not have a political future in Minnesota or Washington, D.C. There is something to be said of fighting the good fight and then doing the honorable thing. It worked for Al Gore in 2000. Gore emerged as the gracious and honorable loser and moved on to bigger and better things. (We'll leave the fact that Gore actually won Florida in 2000 to another day.)

Coleman is not independently wealthy, so he needs a new gig. He'll have a much better shot of getting that gig if he walks away after fighting the good fight. That time to walk away should come sooner than Cornyn's "hundred years' war."

A Warm Bucket of Piss

John Nance Garner of Texas was Vice President of the United States for the first two terms of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency. After policy disagreements with his boss, Garner ran against FDR in the 1940 Democratic primaries and was soundly defeated. Garner once described the office of the vice presidency as being "not worth a bucket of warm piss." After attending the GOP endorsement get together last night, we wonder if Garner's quote might be applicable to the Luzerne County Republican endorsement.

The major question being asked by those who received the endorsements is "what is it worth?" To our knowledge, the Luzerne County GOP is not sitting on a pile of money that it will shovel into the campaign coffers of the endorsed ones. We also don't believe that the county GOP will do much more on their own than print up a few thousand slate cards to pass out on election day.

The Luzerne County GOP broke tradition this year and let the rank and file GOP committee people vote on the endorsements. In the past, the county committee usually did not endorse, and if they did, the executive committee would make the decision. They had two important stipulations in the endorsement process.

First, in order to receive the GOP endorsement, a candidate had to have been a registered Republican since at least February 16, 2008. This eliminated 15 of the 17 judicial candidates and Eddddddd Brominski, former Democratic county commissioner and candidate for controller who recently switched teams. Second, committee people had the option of marking "Do Not Endorse" in any or all of the races.

In the judicial race, there are two open seats. There used to be three, until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court pulled the seat formerly held by Ann Lokuta from the May primary ballot. The GOP committee endorsed Attorney Richard Hughes and Michael Pendolphi. OVC believes that the endorsement means the most to Pendolphi. It was well known, as the numbers attest, that Hughes was a Republican. Pendolphi, although a lifelong Republican, did not have the name recognition of Hughes in GOP circles. For Pendolphi to be able to say he is an endorsed Republican candidate for judge will help set him apart from the other 15 Democrats who have crossed filed.

In the five way controller race, Attorney Nanda Palissery also should benefit from the endorsement. Many people do look to their party for endorsements when deciding which lever to pull on election day.

In the race for prothonotary, we don't believe it will make much of a difference. Carolee Medico Olenginski is a known commodity. The former prothonotary is a polarizing figure. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground with Carolee. You either love her or hate her. Walter Mitchell is a financial advisor and longtime mayor of Bear Creek Village, who lacks the name recognition of Carolee.

With regards to the other two races, Register of Wills and Jury Commissioner, neither have opponents. We also believe that incumbent Dottie Stankovic will cruise to re-election in November. Although she is a Democrat, Dottie has always been an outsider when in comes to the Luzerne County Democratic Party and owes her fame to her polka show on WVIA.

Luzerne County GOP Endorses

Buzz and I took the Microbus downtown tonight. We were looking for a nice place to eat, and we stumbled upon the Luzerne County Republican headquarters. We saw some action going on inside the HQ and decided to stop in.

Around a large table, the county GOP leaders were counting the ballots on the primary endorsements. Renita Fennick, the GOP executive director was pulling ballots out of a box and calling out candidate's names. About fifteen other people sat around the table tallying the results.

Several candidates anxiously listened and tallied their own numbers. Attorney Mike Pendolphi, candidate for Judge; Attorney Nanda Palissery, candidate for controller; and Robert Sipnewski, candidate for controller were the only candidates we saw in the room.

Here are the results: (Candidates in bold received the party's endorsement for the May 19th primary election.)

Judge: Attorney Richard Hughes 114 votes, Attorney Michael Pendolphi 54 votes, Magisterial District Judge William H. Amesbury 18 votes, and No endorsement 14 votes.

Controller: Attorney Nanda Palissery 51 votes, Walter L. Griffith, Jr. 39 votes, Robert Sypniewski 19 votes, No endorsement 17 votes, Edward A. Brominski 3 votes, and Alice B. Coffman 3 votes.

Prothonotary: Carolee Medico Olenginski 75 votes, Walter Mitchell 55 votes, and No endorsement 4 votes.

Register of Wills: Gina Nevenglosky 74 votes and No endorsement 54 votes.

Jury Commissioner: Frank Semanski 107 votes and No endorsement 21 votes.

Pendolphi said he was "proud to receive the Republican endorsement," and he believed "the court house needs more Republicans."

Palissery was equally pleased with the endorsement. He said "he believed it was a fair process." He thanked all of those who voted for him and said he was "proud to have the Republican endorsement."

ShamWow Pow

Where's Billy Mays when you need him? Billy Mays wannabe Vince Shlomi, the ShamWow guy, was arrested after a violent confrontation with a South Beach (Miami, Florida) prostitute on February 27, 2009. Shlomi paid the prostitute $1000 for "straight sex" at the ritzy Setai Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. Shlomi told police that he met Sasha Harris, 26, in a Miami Beach nightclub. The 44 year old Shlomi told police that he punched Harris a number of times in the face when she bit his tongue and would not let go. Prosecutors this month declined to pursue formal charges against either Harris or Shlomi.

OVC's attempts to reach our favorite pitchman, Billy Mays, for a comment were unsuccessful.

Walter Cronkite Where Are You?

Buzz and I don't watch much on network television, especially the so called news magazine shows. We do watch network sporting events. (Buzz, although, is still reeling from his pick of a Stephen F. Austin/Robert Morris NCAA men's basketball final. Damn that new Atari computer. Buzz is going back to the UNIVAC 3000.) We find that the major networks' shows are a little too simplistic for our tastes and cater to sensationalism and the lowest common denominator. Last night our beliefs were confirmed.

Like many people in NEPA, we watched the 20/20 report on former Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan. What we saw was sensationalism at its best.

From the title of the report "Kids for Cash" to the eerie music to the "ambushing of the bad guy" to the self serving statements of the parents and the kids to shock jock wannabe Steve Corbett to the breaking down of the judge who was investigating, the report seemed to be "National Enquirer TV."

Whatever happened to fair and objective reporting without the gratuitous exaggerations and and self righteous editorial comments? We are by no means justifying or codoning the actions of Ciavarella or Conahan. What they did was ethically wrong and criminal, but the quid pro quo of "kids for cash" simply did not exist.

20/20 reporter Jim Avila was the biggest violator of objective journalism. Here are some of his quotes: Judges got "rich on the backs of children," "secretly on the take," "absurdly swift justice," "a diabolical plan," "a diabolical pattern," "devised a scheme to pad their pockets on the backs of children," juvenile center "built by the judge's cronies," "judge's spent their dirty money," "sold kids down the river," and "kids were languishing in juvenile jails." Hardly the language used by objective investigative journalists in the mold of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.

In addition to Avila's lack of objectivity, we had two particular inflammatory quotes which tickled our fancy. Shock jock wannabe Steve Corbett of WILK radio referred to Conahan and Civarella as "gangster judges were selling children into a prison camp." Corbett's quote is just emblematic of his radio schtick, where he plays of role of the "holier than thou" outraged "mad as hell" citizen.

Marsha Levick, of the Juvenile Law Center referred to the case as "probably the most egregious abuse of power in the history of the American legal system." Apparently, Levick is not a student of history, having forgotten the judicially approved enslavement of millions of African Americans and the internment of thousands Japanese Americans during World War II.

One factor that seems to be forgotten during this whole affair is the fact that in every single juvenile case, there was a police officer who charged the juvenile and an assitant district attorney who prosecuted the case present in the court room. If the juvenile shouldn't have been charged, why did the police officer charge the juvenile? If the case shouldn't have been prosecuted, why did the district attorney's office bring the prosecution? Police officers and prosecutors' duty is to prosecute crimes, not to put people in jail. Where was the outrage from them when "innocent" children were locked up?

OVC knows that if a certain judge, who will remain nameless, were assigned to juvenile court instead of Ciavarella, his incarceration rate would have made Ciavarella look like a bleeding heart liberal.

Ciavarella and Conahan deserve to be criminally prosecuted, but not for "kids for cash." They deserve to be prosecuted for taking money for the building of a juvenile center. There's the actus rea for which they are culpable.

What troubles us the most is that in the vast net that has been cast in this matter, juveniles who deserved to be incarcerated will benefit from a few eggregious examples of wrongly incarcerrated juveniles. Don't be fooled by the self serving statements of juveniles and their parents who have minimized some of the juvenile's culpability. Ciavarella's criminal actions do not vindicate every juvenile who appeared before him.