Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Saturday, November 14, 2009

Corbett to be next Pennsylvania Governor

By Dave Anderson:

Pennsylvania has a tradition of electing governors from the same party for two terms and then giving the other party two terms.  That has gone back since 1968 when the governorship was term limited to two terms.  So just based on a historical pattern, it would not be surprising that a Republican would have a good chance to win the governorship.  The state is also looking at a budget fight next summer that made this year's three month foodfight without a budget look small.  This year's fight was over $3 billion dollars, next year's fight could be over $5 billion dollars without the reserves or the stimulus funds that cushioned the pain this year.  So again, it will suck to be an incumbent as government policy next year will be solely focused on goring oxes. 

However, these are just reasons why people will want to throw the bums out; not why Corbett is the likely next governor of Pennsylvania.  He is the Republican Attorney General who is creating a public persona of an effective and non-partisan good government reformer.  His office indicted and prosecuted a good chunk of the Democratic leadership in Harrisburg during the summer of 2008.  And now his office is indicting and prosecuting a decent chunk of the Republican Harrisburg leadership:


A former [Pennsylvania] House speaker, an ex-lawmaker and eight
aides Thursday became the latest � and the first Republicans � to be
charged in a three-year-old investigation into the diversion of public
resources and employees to legislative campaigns.



Attorney General Tom Corbett said that individuals within the House
GOP caucus spent millions of taxpayer dollars on computer technology to
gain an upper hand in campaigns, and that investigators can prove that
some high-ranking officials and their employees tried to cover up their
part.

The charges are similar for both parties; using state resources for further political/electoral gains.  Most likely Corbett will see the same chain with the Republicans, as the small fries cut deals and testify and pressure is placed on the senior elected leadership.  So Corbett will be able to make the claim in the general election (assuming he is not Teabagged in May's Republican primary) that he can credibly claim to clean up the mess in Harrisburg as the Legislature is slightly less popular than gonorrhoea right now and everyone loves to hate on them. 




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