Good morning and welcome to Broad + Liberty's Weekly Reads.

Stay up to date on all of this and more when yousubscribe to our daily email list ([link removed]) and get the best of Broad + Liberty delivered straight to your inbox.
[link removed]


** 1. ‘We may help more Rs than Ds’: Texts show Delco Dems’ strategic concerns during 2024 voting ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------


By Todd Shepherd

On October 19, 2024, in Delaware County, where deep Democratic turnout had helped boost Biden in 2020, the elections board was preparing to open up three “voter service centers” in addition to one at the county seat in Media, where a voter could request and receive a mail-in ballot, or get help with a ballot that needed to be replaced. Drop boxes were conveniently located less than 100 feet away from two of the four locations.

Late that afternoon, Colleen Guiney, chair of the county Democratic party texted County Councilwoman Christine Reuther, also a Democrat, and said, “Do you think there’s any point in trying to have volunteers outside the media voter service center to help when the lines get long? I don’t know if it’s a bad idea interfere [sic] with voting or if it might be helpful.”

“We may wind up helping more Rs than Ds,” Reuther texted back, exposing a sharp partisan lens. “I am not sure there is much to help with.”

Why It Matters. The text is one of a handful of messages from county officials obtained by Broad + Liberty showing select members of an all-Democratic council feeling at ease mingling their official jobs with their more partisan selves, blurring the ethical lines of a duty to administer the election in a nonpartisan way.

The complaints naturally suggest the question of how long councilwoman Reuther has felt these concerns, given that she has been one of the biggest advocates for expanding various methods of voting. She was one of the leaders, if not the top leader, in 2020 for the county’s acceptance and use of the controversial grants doled out by the Chicago nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, or CTCL.

Quotable. “One party controlling all facets of government is not what was ever intended by our forefathers. This is precisely what we have in Delaware County, and my sense is very few people, regardless of party, see this as in the best interest of our citizenry,” Delco GOP Chairman Frank Agovino told Broad + Liberty after reviewing the texts and documents.

Continue Reading ([link removed])


** 2. Why Philly has clean water to drink ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------

By Richard Koenig

Suppose you have just availed yourself of a restroom at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Flush! All is quickly gone, and not for an instant do you give thought to where your discrete deposit is headed. You’re hurrying off to see the Renoirs.

Yet you have initiated a long passage that is the more remarkable for being blessedly out of sight and out of mind: from the museum’s plumbing to a sewer heading south to where the current, now grown with contributions from Center City and South Philly, is siphoned under the Schuylkill River to the west bank; and then south again, taking feeds from West Philly and University City, and on to its destination: the Southwest Water Pollution Control Plant.

Why It Matters. It’s a modern marvel that we all mostly take for granted.

Today the sewers and water mains that run under Philadelphia streets would, if lined up end to end, stretch for something like 6,000 miles — from Philly to Los Angeles and back. The volume coursing through these ramifying networks exceeds half a billion gallons a day. Sustaining this underground transit within sewers as well as water mains is a city Water Department that employs some 2,500 people, among them chemists and biologists, engineers and plumbers.

A fair fraction of the world’s population would see what Philadelphians have as an astonishing gift. It is estimated that well more than a billion people still rely on drinking water ([link removed]) fouled by feces, and half a billion defecate in the open ([link removed]) .

Continue Reading ([link removed])


** 3. Lightning Round
------------------------------------------------------------
* Vince Fenerty: Larry Krasner sides with criminals — now he’s calling for violence against Republicans ([link removed])
* Josue Sierra: When progressives turn their backs on women ([link removed])
* Beth Ann Rosica: Scouting provides strong, positive, male role models for boys ([link removed])
* Seth Higgins: Larry Krasner breaks Godwin’s Law ([link removed])
* Thom Nickels: Andy Warhol — the contrarian artist who redefined fame ([link removed])
* HUD Secretary Turner visits opportunity zones enabled by tax reform ([link removed])
* Harvie to run for Fitzpatrick’s U.S. House seat ([link removed])
* Upper Darby set to make third try on earned income tax ([link removed])
* Guy Ciarrocchi: Making smiles, making a difference ([link removed])
* Beth Ann Rosica: National policy debates create issues for local school districts ([link removed])


** 4. What we're reading
------------------------------------------------------------

Crashing markets and uncertainty about tariffs are a drag on Republicans and could offer Democrats a way back to the majority — if only they could get out of their own way. But instead of focusing on the economy and the border — issues that voters say, time and again, are most important to them — Democrats seem eternally fixated on transgenderism and defending the worst of the student-activist rioters. “It’s a time for a massive, wholescale reevaluation” of how Democrats got here, Philadelphia’s Rep. Brendan Boyle told Holly Otterbein ([link removed]) at POLITICO. Until they do, and unless Republicans make themselves more popular, the 2026 election will be, like 2024’s, a contest between two parties doing their best to alienate the average voter.

Broad + Liberty is funded by readers like you.

Your generous support ensures that Broad + Liberty can bring you stories and opinions that Pennsylvania’s mainstream media would rather leave unheard. Please consider making a contribution today. If you would like your gift to be used to help us cover a specific story or subject, please let us know in the contribution form or at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .

As always, gifts made to Broad + Liberty are 100% tax deductible!

Thank you, dear reader, for your steadfast support of our independent, broad-minded brand of local journalism. We could not do this without you.

With gratitude,

— The Editors at Broad + Liberty
Support Broad + Liberty ([link removed])
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]

============================================================
Copyright © 2025 Broad + Liberty, All rights reserved.
You're getting Broad + Liberty updates due to your interest in our site – and local stories for free thinkers in the Philly region and beyond.

Our mailing address is:
Broad + Liberty
323 West Front Street
Suite 200
Media, PA 19063
USA
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
.

Broad and Liberty, Inc. is a Pennsylvania Domestic Nonprofit Corporation classifed as a public charity under Internal Revenue Code Section 501 (c) (3).
Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp
[link removed]