The NRCC’s “Machete Cognetti” website.<\/p>\n
Republicans are scrutinizing Scranton, Pennsylvania\u2019s Democratic mayor Paige Cognetti\u2019s track record with a new microsite.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The microsite, details of which were obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter, is from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and dubs Cognetti \u201cMachete Cognetti,\u201d referencing a series of high-profile violent crimes that have taken place under her watch.<\/p>\n
The NRCC hones in on a tragic incident in which a man murdered two women and a service dog with a machete in Scranton in December 2025. Cognetti, in a recent interview, downplayed Scranton\u2019s rise in crime, saying that it is \u201crelatively low compared to what, unfortunately, some cities suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to overshoot in terms of saying that this is an unprecedented crisis,\u201d she said amid the rise in crime. In 2020, Cognetti said that she would like to see Scranton as a city where police officers do not carry firearms.<\/p>\n
The NRCC\u2019s \u201cMachete Cognetti\u201d site features a series of headlines that voters in Pennsylvania\u2019s 8th District, which is currently represented by Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R., Pa.), will likely see in the months before November\u2019s elections. Among them are \u201cScranton man faces burglary, indecent assault charges\u201d; \u201cMan charged with aggravated assault after girlfriend hit by car, dies in Scranton\u201d; \u201cMember of the city\u2019s Human Relations Commission faces multiple charges\u201d; \u201cScranton man severely beat another man, tried to clean up blood\u201d; and \u201cScranton man choked, threatened ill mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NRCC\u2019s Reilly Richardson told the Reporter ahead of the site\u2019s launch that \u201cpolitical opportunist Paige Cognetti\u2019s soft-on-crime policies have put Scranton families in the crosshairs of a violent crime wave. Unfortunately for Pennsylvanians, Cognetti is too busy focusing on her personal vanity congressional campaign to care.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Across the country, Republicans are looking to tie Democrats to violent crime that happens on their watch. The Senate GOP\u2019s Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) launched a \u201cFelon Friday\u201d campaign to \u201chighlight one of the 3,500 criminals [North Carolina Senate candidate Roy] Cooper released early from prison and the danger Cooper brought to North Carolina\u2019s neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a recent profile of a criminal let out by Cooper, SLF noted that \u201cconvicted murderers, rapists, and other violent criminals like Shannone McClintick are now roaming freely through North Carolina communities because of Roy Cooper\u2019s soft-on-crime agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NRCC’s “Machete Cognetti” website. Republicans are scrutinizing Scranton, Pennsylvania\u2019s Democratic mayor Paige Cognetti\u2019s track record with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-134191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}