Originally, Governor Rendell threw money at Delaware senator Joe Biden’s campaign. Then it was New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. But now? It’s Hillary Clinton, in town today for a 1:15 p.m. press conference at City Hall to pick up the sloppy thirds support from our beloved roly-poly Eagles fan.

The Hillary stop is an impromptu pause on the way to Jersey to start restocking her stump arsenal for a showdown in the Garden State with Barack Obama during the February 5th primaries. Meanwhile, husband and former intern-diddling president Bill Clinton was supposed to head to South Jersey, but has reportedly backed out — perhaps because he forgot his bulletproof vest?

Rendell to endorse Clinton at City Hall [Inquirer]

Of course, Governor Rendell’s gun showdown in Harrisburg today was bound to bring out strident Constitutionalists attempting to apply “It’s not guns, it’s crazy people!” logic to an excitable city in the throes of a murder crisis. People like former gubernatorial candidate Jim Panyard, who did God’s work this morning by offering up his conservative perspective about what’s really the cause of Killadelphia:

Traditional families are disappearing. North and West Philadelphia’s ghettos are as much poverty and alcohol soaked reservations as any tribal lands in the far west. Government schools are holding tanks and no longer provide even a basic education. Community standards no longer exist in an age of relativism. Over the last 33 years we have voluntarily aborted more than 47 million American lives, mostly the victims of “sexual mistakes.” We honor and worship what was once viewed as abhorrent behavior.

See? Even the most stringent gun laws are not going to make up for the fact that Philadelphia is a chaotic moral wasteland whose citizens are reckless Sodomites on the people-mover to hell.

But here’s the thing — if you strip out the right-wing rhetoric and thinly veiled racism, is it possible Panyard’s actually onto something? Given the state of the city, it’s tough to dismiss him entirely — and who hasn’t thought some version of his closing sentence: “All I know is the weight of a 9 mm. pistol on my hip gives me more peace-of-mind when I am strolling through the City of Brotherly Love at midnight than any political promise ever could.”

Well, maybe not.

It’s not the guns governor; it’s the people [Penn Patriot]
Rendell about to pitch for gun-control bills [Inquirer]

Don’t be alarmed this evening if you hear sirens wailing, are confronted by road-blocked streets, and observe an unnerving amount of police/fire/ambulatory vehicles circling — the world is not ending, nor has Sharon Pinkenson commissioned a J.J. Abrams project. It’s just the Office of Emergency Management running a test drill along the BF Parkway.

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Broad Street has reopened as the bomb squad quickly disposed of the suspicious brown leather bag left by a woman this morning. The squad took no chances with what appears to be the collected remnants of a deranged homeless woman. Justice is swift.

Broad Street reopens after bomb squad blows up suspicous bag [Philly.com]

Philly cops shut down Broad Street between Spring Garden and Callowhill thanks to a 40ish woman dropping and leaving a leather bag in front of the school district’s administration building. No word whether the bomb squad will be called in, but it looks like more inconvenient precaution than panic at this point.

Suspicious bag closes down Broad Street [Inquirer]