It’s 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, and I am warm under my blanket, and blissfully unaware that the world around me exists, until the phone rings, setting off a round of dog barking that is unpleasant to say the least.

It’s Michelle Brooks, driving to one of seven local meetings she will attend today, after working the phones from home until well after 9:00 p.m. last night according to her. Shes trying to make her point she works hard for the residents of Mercer and Crawford county. (we get that) her voice is raw, and we’re guessing since January 2006 shes had less sleep than a mother with six new Born’s.

She’s unhappy that those who conspire against her election campaign have worked to make her look bad, and is not happy with News Now Network for taking the word of her opponents and the League of Woman Voters who told Allen Media, “She’s not willing to debate.”

This statement raising her ire, as she informs me that what she told them is “I’ll debate anytime, anyplace, anywhere!” Yet, their is no debate. Not her fault she contends, they gave her few options. None of which involved her ability to work around her schedule.

“I offered to do a mixed debate perhaps with Phil English”, she said. “We did it in the past, and I offered to go down to Sharon to do it.”

The league of Woman voters point out that Sharon is not even in her district, nor have they done this before.” A point that Brooks corrects, by saying in the last election she did have a blended debate. Brooks maintains she tried to work with them, but nothing more came out of it, and she angry we painted her as hiding from the voters.

Brooks says “It makes me mad that Presidential Candidates, Barack Obama, is not in Washington D.C. doing THE PEOPLES BUSINESS, yet taking my tax dollars to run the country.” (leaving out the fact that John McCain, a republican is also guilty of the same thing) She then asks the baited obvious question, “Don’t YOU want someone doing the same?” She followed up by adding “I have been in Harrisburg doing the peoples business, I have been on the house floor voting, I have been trying to push for legislation that helps local people, and I don’t like being painted as a person who has accomplished nothing.” She then-listed a number of items she has worked on, and asked if we thought the list below was nothing?

In Question form she asked? :

• Don’t you think that saving the tourism dollars at the Spillway, about $300,000 a year in Lionsville is Important?
• Don’t you think pushing for new ways to save people money on utility bills is important?
• Don’t you think voting for a budget that was not bloated was a good thing?
• Don’t you think passing legislation for MIA Veterans is important so their parents can sleep again is important?
• Don’t you think working to lower business tax on business in the state is important?
• Don’t you think passing legislation is important to stop the Tolling of I-80 is important so Hodge Foundry will expand is critical?

And the answer to these questions in order is as follows:

1. The Wildlife department only deferred it’s decision, Legislators worried more about what to feed the fish than what to feed hungry children in our district (although Brooks says some wheeling and dealing is in the works to offer both types of food, and deal with the bread mess, it is being negotiated in some back room, cash adding deals that will give more money to the park’s to deal with the problem. And yes, $300,000 in tourism dollars is important, but people would visit the fish anyway. More important, when are fish more important than people, why are we not having meetings on how to feed the hungry people, Excuse my french, but FUCK THE HUNGRY FISH, lets eat them?
2. The Republican lead contingent in Harrisburg were the ones who pushed for less regulation that stuffed it to the residents of Pennsylvania in the first place on the issue of deregulation, barring the fact Brooks was not in Harrisburg then and had nothing to do with that mistake. The Republicans are still reluctant to re-regulate here as in Washington, and my energy bills have gone through the roof, while LIHEAP funding has gone up, perhaps Brooks should consider the legislation being repealed that also gave Utilities the ability to shut off Utilities from peoples homes in the dead , freezing middle of winter, with some 20% of homes effected with a shut off in recent years according to spokes persons from both gas and electric companies this seems very important to me.
3. She pointed to a budget that the Republicans voted against, forcing Ed Rendell not to make loans for the state that they said would be costly, and in retrospect would of keep us moving smoothly. The republican lead group in Harrisburg also let a lease deal of the turn pike that would of funded a number of state projects go down-the tubes and expire also. The Republican forced budget has become a nightmare as revenue projected has fallen short causing a number of funding shortages, But hey, borrowing to keep us moving was stupid right? And with the credit crisis, at this point, who knows if we can get the money if we did need it? But hey, everything is easier if you only knew the future.
4. Do I think Veterans are important, the answer are YES, the living ones who are hurt, need help, need retraining, need benefits, and while we respect dead veterans here at News Now Network, I would rather spend my time on the living , hungry, near homeless people in Mercer County that are laid off, living pay check to pay check, can’t afford to heat their homes, can’t eat with out free handouts, or food stamps. Those people to me are far more important than pandering to a large voting block, the Veteran’s when it comes to a totally useless and meaningful piece of paper that in short says “HEY WASHINGTON, GO DO SOMTHING, CAUSE WE THINK YOU SHOULD, and by the way this RESOLUTION will make us look good in spite of noting much happening of value here right before an election” 
5. Do I think working to make Pennsylvania a better climate to do business in is a good plan, well the answer is YES  I do, but her legislation, her ONLY piece of legislation she talks about so often is in fact now blended in to another piece of legislation, and stuck on the senate side of the Harrisburg great divide. My Question is , who doesn’t want to help the businessman and why? And why is she not standing in front of the Trinity plant, with 10 people who are poster children for job loss making a spectacle to shame those others in the Gang of Many in Harrisburg to get a move on.
6. And last, don’t I think Tolling I-80 is a bad idea. First, to her remark on the Hodge Foundry, at the time it was up for sale, tolling I-80 would of forced the Cleveland Group who purchased its about that time to not look seriously at the purchase, it had nothing to do with road tax, it had to do with the Hodge family selling out while the getting was good in the economy. TOLLING I-80  would of provided poor people with bus transportation to get to work more easily, would of funded fixing the bridges, fixing I-80 is only important you ever drove on it, the road bed feels like the surface of the moon, only with more gravity. Tolling I-80 was a good idea, to spite the people who complain, why should 80% of the East Coast truck traffic get a free ride in our state when we, the residents of Pennsylvania have to have special inspection stickers since our air is bad because of it, and our pockets have nothing but lint in them due to the high cost of fixing highways and bridges that other people destroy. Tolling I-80 was then and is now a good idea, and Big Business was against it, lets recap, who do Republicans love, BIG BUSINESS!!!!  For the rest of us, we would of gotten a free pass to move about free of tolls in the states design for short trips that would of covered most business owners who yelled the loudest. And as to tourism, more hotels in Mercer County are located on I-79 than I-80.

Those are my answers to her systematic unhappiness with her record, and my-retort to her complaints we don’t treat her fairly. We did for-the record point out about 5 attempts to do interviews in the past, she shows one attempt and request.

While this paper, publication, rag, blog, electronic shit flinging whatever you want to call it classifies as, we feel now, as we did then the following:

• Michelle Brooks has no idea that Wheatland Tube Lost 200 Jobs yesterday, Greenvile Metals laid people off, Local restaurants are downsized to their owners in the kitchen, The UPMC Hospital has done a clean sweep of workers in the last few days, which we are working to confirm, that the Career Link is recording record numbers of people to their door steps, and that people here in Greenville need her attention today, right now, to work to create jobs today, right now, not next year, or three years down the road. People are hungry today, people are cold today, people are losing homes today, and where is Michelle Brooks, Shes happy she sent a letter to Washington D.C. to impress a large voting block of veterans who I am sure would agree that while searching for The MIA, that taking care of the Here and Now is as important.

Brooks points to the statistics of First Term legislators and that most of them never passed legislation either. But as a person who operates a business, I am not buying that, failure for the people of Mercer and Crawford county is not an option. While I know that sounds like game day rhetoric, we need the following legislation NOW.

1. Free hunting permits for the unemployed.
2. Money for local Libraries to buy computers to allow the unemployed with out them to file for electronic benefits online.
3. legislation that repeals the utility companies ability to turn off non-paying customers utilities in the dead of the freezing winter.
4. More assistance for the about to be homeless, with a freeze on foreclosures for a six month period until the government can sort this mess out.
5. A written offer to companies like Trinity who plan to build Two wind power plants to locate here in exchange for tax benefits for doing so.
6. Actually funding measures to retrain people, while the programs exist, in recent years people have stalled due to no money to pay the tuition with.
7. A bill to forgive loan student debt to those over 35, who need to be retrained, and can’t get new loans or grants because of it, people who failed to pay loans when they were 20 are not the same people now, and need a new start.
8. Legislation to force Insurance companies to stop paying a bonus to workers who’s sole job it is to find ways to knock people off the policies they sell.
9. More protection against predators who have no banking experience, and are not fully regulated in the Loan industry.
10. Actual tax relief from school districts who with out voter approval can raise budgets and tax rates at will.
11. Laws that eliminate the ability of Act 47 to charge locations like Greenville more tax then it does other areas of the state, and time limits on the act. (For Example the Million Dollar Surplus- Looks like Greenville residents are being screwed) The State needs to regulate the local governments to avoid abuse of power by the local government.
12. Eliminating the free Leese program of autos for state workers . I pay for my car to get to work, so should you.
13. Work to pass legislation that will reduce the strangle hold school teachers have on school districts, if teachers are paid for a year, they need to work a full year, not 185 days. In the summer force them to tutor the people who need job retraining, work at libraries, volunteer at hospitals or areas where their specialty is useful. They are paid with tax payer dollars, its time we change the outlook of how we deal with that profession since in most cases the kids are no smarter I see no-reason to make them work like the rest of us when earning tax payer dollars.

Those of us who work and live here see it each day, I feel it in lower advertising dollars, I see it in the declining circulation rates of my fellow news groups, I write the stories about those people who are now not working, and if Michelle Brooks is so Oblivious to the fact that people in her own home town don’t see it and feel it, all she needs to do is think about NOVEMBER 5, 2008, because if is she loses the  re-election fight to return to Harrisburg for another two year period, the stark reality is shes out a job that pays her 80K, pays for her gas or car lease, pays her to live in Harrisburg, pays for her staff, pays for  a discretionary charge account for expenses, and more perks I am sure we don’t know about.

Shes going to be one of us again, to spite being more well connected perhaps.

The trouble with politicians is they look at what they do as being a career, it’s not, They look at what they do as being state wide, often forgetting that we sent them there to help us, not others in the state, The reality is YOU ARE A TEMPORARY WORKER, you’re on a two year probation, if you do well, we renew your contract, if not, it’s like the Donald says, YOU’RE FIRED.

As to my opinion, I stand on the comment that “with out a Debate, which politicians owe those of us who vote, we’re not always sure what to think.”

In my opinion, she has fear in her tone, the political climate for republicans this year is a bad one, even in a republican heavy district, at last worried about losing her job like the rest of her tax paying supporters. A little fear is a good thing in the political world. It keeps you honest, hard working and never satisfied you have done enough to keep you’re job. But only in the political word can you be a success by pleasing only 50.1% of the people.