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If You Can’t Pronounce Yuengling, Can You Truly Represent Pennsylvania?

Plus: Election shenanigans, James Harden digs a deeper hole, and Furkan Korkmaz comes to life

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Dave McCormick says “Yangling” instead of Yuengling.

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Dave McCormick’s Pronunciation of Yuengling Is a Crudité-Level Offense

David McCormick, the past and present PA candidate, has permanently disqualified himself from ever holding office anywhere in our state with this Pottsville slur:

Of course, Dr. Oz won—barely—his Senate primary last year (against McCormick, no less) after making his infamous Wegner’s/crudité gaffe, so who knows? (McCormick’s primary race is not expected to be competitive, though the general election against incumbent Bob Casey is.) To McCormick, we say, go back to Connecticut, you Nutmegger, you.

Endorsement Watch

Remember, there’s a general election coming up on Tuesday! (Look for our no-B.S. guide on Monday if you need a crash course.) While most people expect Cherelle Parker to win the mayor’s race handily, it’s still notable that she’s received the endorsement of President Biden and VP Harris.

More School Board and Election Nonsense

There’s some very weird hanky-panky going on regarding Christopher Bressi, a candidate for the Downingtown School Board. The scuttlebutt involves a series of academic-sounding web sites from which messages were sent to school officials regarding controversial books on the district’s reading list. It’s a convoluted story, so just go read it here. When the heck did America’s school boards become such hotbeds of political turmoil? (Oh, right.) Their meetings used to be what you tuned into on hyperlocal TV to help you get to sleep.

Meanwhile, in Chester County’s West Goshen, another ugly election contretemps is going down, this time over a township supervisor seat.

Speech! Speech!

In happier news, former Temple Owls football coach Matt Rhule, now head coach at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is lighting up social media with this stirring locker-room address:

Odds and Ends

U.S. Senator John Fetterman has introduced a bill that aims to address the fate of fellow Senate member Bob Menendez, of New Jersey. The proposed legislation would create internal sanctions for any Senator who comes under indictment for certain crimes, which, well, seems fair.

Hey, look who made the cover of Vogue! Okay, okay — who made the inside of Vogue, anyway. It’s New Hope, PA, being lauded as a “perfect fall getaway.” Pretty! Let’s hope the article is more accurate than the tony fashion mag’s July travel guide to Philly proved to be.

And in today’s weird, meaningless data drop: Montco is purportedly the best place in Pennsylvania in which to raise your kids, per this Stacker survey.

One more gentle reminder: Today’s the day you can pre-order your Eagles Christmas album! Our Laura Swartz tells all about it here.

By the Numbers:

$14 million: Amount of a new grant announced by the Pennsylvania Department of Education to Temple University’s College of Education and Human Development, to be used to help PA schools recruit and retain teachers of color.

40%: Kids in the Commonwealth who are of color.

6%: Current percentage of PA teachers who are people of color.

11: Sets of twins currently enrolled at West Philadelphia High School. Oh, and principal Marla Travis is herself a twin, and two staffers at the school are also twins.

$35,000: Fine levied by the NBA on Sixers center Joel Embiid for his, um, celebration following a shot in Monday’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers.

And from the Un-Korked-maz Sports Desk …

The Sixers kept it close through the first quarter of their early-season rematch with the Raptors last night. New starting five in the non-Harden era: Embiid, Harris, Maxey, Melton and Oubre, who hit the first Sixers shot of the night, a three. Harden, BTW, was explaining why he never fit into The Process:

Wah, wah, wah. Meanwhile, it turned out that the Raptors played Wednesday night and didn’t get into Philly until 3 a.m., so no wonder they trailed at the break, 30-26. They did take the lead in the second quarter as the Sixers’ hands got chilly, but it was back and forth until our guys went on a 10-0 run toward the end. At the half: 58-49.

The Raptors recouped in the third and tied it back up, and Kelly Oubre was hit with a flopping foul for, apparently, flinching? With a few minutes left, though, our guys stepped it up and went up by 10. At the buzzer, Furkan Korkmaz, who’d played all of three minutes prior to this game, made it 90-77:

After that, it was off to the races; Furkan was workin’. Final score: 114-99.

The super-dumb NBA “in-season tournament,” to be played on unspeakably hideous courts, begins tonight, and no one understands how or why.

You Got a Weekend Wrap-Up?

Of course we do. The Sixers play again on Saturday, vs. the Suns, at home but at the ungodly hour of 1 p.m. I guess so it doesn’t interfere with Maxey’s birthday party; he’ll turn all of 23 on Saturday. Many happy rebounds! (And may we recommend you take a moment to read David Murrell’s 2022  profile of Maxey, the “absolute key.”) The Eagles host the (boo! Hiss!) Dallas Cowboys at the Linc on Sunday, starting at 4:25. We’re 7-1; they’re 5-2. You know what to do, Birds fans.

The Flyers also play.

What About on the College Gridiron?

Villanova visits New Hampshire, Ursinus goes to Gettysburg, and Penn plays host to Cornell, all at 1 p.m. on Saturday; the Navy Midshipmen visit Temple at 2; and Penn State is at Maryland at 3:30.

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