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Posts Tagged → Centre County

Why Ken Matthews’ show was terminated at WHP580 AM

In 2013 or 2014, radio personality Ken Matthews followed the late and great gravelly voiced, cowboy hat wearing, hard charging, chiseled face long time prime time radio host Bob Durgin here on Harrisburg, PA’s WHP580. While Bob frequently talked about the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s most recent ridiculous and pointless regulation that had squashed Mabel’s farm stand, or that had SWAT raided some little girl’s lemonade stand, which, believe me, all resonated here in Central PA, Ken Matthews brought a broader and more general American government policy discussion.

Like most conservative talk show hosts today, Matthews hit the daily or weekly zeitgeist of subjects and issues, from the global warming/ global cooling/ global whatever hoax to regional politics to the 2020 stolen election. But when he first arrived, it was clear that Matthews was working hard to impress the radio station engineers. And it was clear that they were making him work at it, because his first few months on air were a little tense. Listeners could feel that tension, and it seemed that Matthews might just be a fly-by.

Eventually, Matthews and WHP580 engineer Art Selby hit their rhythm, and the show took off. When he first arrived in town, I did some amateur on-the-ground citizen reporting “live from the Perry County court house!” for Ken. I frequently called in to the show or sent an email, either of which Ken would almost always take on air. After all, I have been involved in politics and culture battles for a long time, and I try to offer substance. And for a long time it felt like I, too, had a quiet, good rhythm with Ken Matthews.

But then somewhere around 2019 Ken changed. He became more popular, more self-aware, more self-important. He did some radio shows for Rush Limbaugh, and suddenly Ken’s on- air voice changed. His personality changed. His patience with callers changed. His voice was clipped. He sounded snooty. It was obvious that Ken Matthews was awfully proud of Ken Matthews, and that he looked down on just about everyone. Because he was important, ya know.

My last interaction with Ken was mid-January, 2021, I think when his radio show became nationally syndicated and Ken was feeling especially very important. While I was on a long drive returning a car trailer to a garage in rural Centre County from Harrisburg, a very low, unimportant-person kind of thing to do…I suppose. Below are the screen shots from our emails that immediately followed my being on hold for half of Ken’s entire three hour show. What was so important at my end? Well, I wanted to share with Ken and his listeners my own law-abiding experience in Washington, DC, on January 6th. It was exactly the kind of call-in Ken used to take, about a subject he was covering.

I actually ended up staying on hold just because I was fascinated at the technology at play. My truck’s own AM radio had long since lost contact with WHP580, but here I was clearly connected via a tenuous but unbroken cell phone call. Driving across the lightless, deep darkness that is rural Central PA in winter time, hearing WHP580’s on-hold show through my bluetooth connection made me feel a bit like an astronaut floating way out in space, far from Earth, yet with a very slight connection to the Houston control room back home. It was both fascinating and a little assuring.

As you can see from the emails below, Ken’s snarky, disrespectful responses showed he relished keeping me on hold. He was enjoying being mean. I don’t know why he didn’t just get on the phone with me during a radio break and say that he didn’t want to talk about January 6th, or why he didn’t simply ask call screener Art Selby to come back on and tell me they were not going to take it (Art had told me they would take the call) (And why not just send a normal email response that says “I am sorry you think that”). Instead, Ken enjoyed being a jerk, even and especially when someone he knew was a loyal follower told him he was. Ken’s sense of personal power and self importance took over his brain. Making people feel badly made Ken feel good.

And that is exactly what got Ken’s nationwide radio show canned two weeks ago. Ken Matthews’ ever increasing on-air arrogance eventually overrode his professionalism so egregiously that he was terminated on the spot. His behavior has been called a “slip-up,” a hot mic moment etc. But the actual truth is Ken Matthews had long since cared little about what other people thought or think, because he had become way too important.

While I felt stung that January night on my way up north, my desire for revenge against Ken for treating me like a jerk was gone a few hours later, by the time I got back to Harrisburg late that night. Afterwards, I never called or wrote in to the radio show, and only quite infrequently listened to it. Because let’s face it, Mark Steyn, Mark Levin, and a bunch of other radio hosts all do pretty much the same format and content. And listeners can hear pretty much the same thing, without having to listen to Ken Matthews’ self-important, arrogant voice grating on your ears.

It had been my long time loyalty to local station WHP580, and the occasional local story flavor, that had kept me listening to Ken Matthews for several years, during his transition to “stardom” and then after he had become an all-out on-air jerk. All that shred of loyalty ended with the email exchange below in January 2021.

So I am not happy that Ken Matthews got his come-uppance. But boy, did he need it. And he earned it. Hopefully he learns from this experience, but it is doubtful he will.

 

 

You say you want an audit of the PA 2020 election?

Lots of Pennsylvania voters are saying they want an audit of the obviously fraudulent 2020 election. A big petition is circulating, digitally. Groups of citizens in almost every county are personally demanding their elected officials get up off their butts and do the audit. Several go-getter PA state legislators traveled to Arizona and toured the election audit taking place there.

OK, so you, too, want an audit of Pennsylvania’s 2020 election? Well OK, here is what you must do to get it.

The biggest hurdle to a genuine audit of the PA 2020 election is the GOPe itself (GOPe means the establishment GOP, not conservatives, not patriots, but careerists who look out for their careers first and foremost, not for their constituents). In particular, Republican PA legislators Jake Corman, Kerry Benninghoff, Brian Cutler and Seth Grove are stonewalling an election audit. State senator Dave Argall may be on board with an audit, or he may not be. He’s all over the place, which is no surprise for such a crafty old political survivor.

So, dear reader, while I admire your enthusiasm and optimism for the possible audit process that is right in front of us, the best path to getting an audit is finding serious primary contenders for these above GOPe RINOs in the near future. Getting primary challengers has the effect of scaring the GOPe into action now while possibly removing them later.

Off and on for five years, I’ve been trying to get someone to primary Corman. It’s tough. Three years ago I bombarded the super voters in his district with absolutely brutal emails detailing Corman’s nepotism, laziness, lack of care for his constituents, insider dealings etc. Feedback from super voters there was overwhelmingly positive, but I was unable to recruit an actual primary challenger.

However, the effects of that email carpet bombing showed clearly when Corman was challenged in the general election that Fall by a liberal Jewish kid from out of town who openly disliked PSU and guns. Which is sacrilege in Centre County. Nonetheless, Corman hardly had a big win. There was just single digit separation between this so-called “Republican leader” and the liberal idiot flatlander. For someone so tough and important, Corman should have had a huge lead over the kid.

One can only imagine how that race would have gone with a serious contender. Even more so a serious primary challenger before we have to let some leftist fool take a Republican seat. Corman among all of these RINOs listed above is vulnerable. No one likes him. He has no allies, outside of a few PAGOP staffers and “leaders.” Getting a solid primary challenger to face Corman next spring could really help Corman find a way to do the 2020 election audit.

This is my considered response to those voters who say they want an audit. You are going to have to work on tangentially related things – personnel changes in the Pennsylvania legislature – to come back around to getting what you really want. This approach prevents us audit advocates from relying on others to do the audit, and particularly unreliable and disinterested others. It keeps the heat on those who can do the audit right now, while giving us the possibility of removing them from elected office entirely not too far from now.

So, if you live in one of these political districts (seats held by Corman – Centre County, Benninghoff – Centre County, Cutler – Lancaster County, Argall – Schuylkill County, and Seth Grove – York County), then start talking to good candidates who can effectively challenge one of these failed elected officials. Set up an election committee, get your candidate on the ballot, and then get them more votes in the primary election than the failed incumbent we need to remove from office. You might just get two birds with one stone.

Good luck!

I am a happy PA Game Commission partner

For the past ten years, we have enrolled 350 acres in Centre County with the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s public access program.

We pay the taxes on the land, the PGC patrols the land, and the public hunts and traps on the land. From personal items left lying on the ground, like underpants and beer cans, it is clear that some members of the public are using it in more creative recreational ways.

Cleaning up these things is part of the burden we bear to provide the public with nice places to hunt and…”picnic.”

Because our land is surrounded by State Game Lands, it made sense to open it to the public.  We were approached to lease it as a private hunting club, and we have resisted that for all these years.  We recently sold 100 acres to PGC, and we wanted it to be a seamless experience for the public, used to walking in on a gated road and immediately hunting.

Overall our experience has been positive.  Yes, we get frustrated by people leaving trash behind, when they could easily put it in the vehicle they brought it in with. But we take great satisfaction knowing that the majority of visitors are exhilarated to be there, and they use the land respectfully.

Our family is proud to help other Pennsylvanians have a beautiful place to hunt and trap, so that these ancient skills can be passed on to younger generations.  We are proud and pleased to partner with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.