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Do you miss sunshine and long days? I do

We are in the shortest days of the year right now. The winter solstice will be in just a few days, December 21st, the shortest day of the year. We all see it, we all feel it, especially here in central Pennsylvania, Upstate New York, Michigan’s UP, Canada, and I am sure in Russia, too. Just when you feel like the day is about to begin, like your formal work day ends and you are ready to do something fun, it’s actually dark outside. Gloomy. Usually cold, windy, and raw, because it is Winter, after all. Darkness now comes at four o’clock in the afternoon, and by 6:00 PM dinner time, everyone is yawning and stretching, ready for bed, feeling like it must be hours later than it actually is. Because of the early darkness.

I don’t know about you, but this early darkness business is just wearing on me, and I am feeling ready for some happy sunshine and those longer days where I can actually do something fun or productive after working hours. My mind keeps skipping to June and July, when the sun doesn’t set until 9:00-9:30, and we spend all afternoon outside, either doing yard work, or gardening, or just enjoying the nice weather and long days to get stuff done at a leisurely pace. Sundays can be spent barbecuing in the back yard with friends or family….ahhhh, that sunshine and daylight is just so rewarding.

This small fact keeps my chin up: We are about to turn the corner on daylight. In just four days, every day will be getting longer and will have more daylight. This gives my mind something happy to hitch onto. I miss sunshine and longer days, and in fact, they are just about to start.

Hang in there, folks. I know you miss sunshine just like I do. Spring will be here before we know it, and with it all the happiness and relief from these long, dark, dreary, cold days. From yeccchh to yay, coming up soon.

Hang in there.

An apple picker I know has an early morning sunrise and stretch on a farm

 

The nine people most responsible for PA’s Election Day mess

While it takes a whole village to try to steal the votes of hundreds of thousands of citizens, and thereby disenfranchise millions of others, here in Pennsylvania there are nine people who are most clearly responsible for our corrupted Election Day results. And while some people are going to say “Who cares?,” there are others who are at least curious about how this gigantic confidence game happened in the first place, and yet other people so dedicated to good government that they want to try and correct the obviously weak voting procedure we have. This essay is dedicated to the latter, with hopes for an epiphany among the former.

In order of their level of culpability, the nine people most responsible for this election fraud are:

  1. State Senator Jake Corman (R -Centre). State senator Jake Corman is the last man standing in the Pennsylvania legislature who helped re-write the new ridiculous election law that facilitated all of the cheating we just witnessed last week. When the other political party presented Corman with a proposed Trojan Horse election law change, which included mail-in ballots lacking certain guarantees of authenticity (a gigantic reg flag to any normal American adult), he swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. It isn’t that Jake Corman is gullible, he is not. Because his entire career has been spent within the Republican Party in one job or another, including now occupying the senate seat his late father held, Corman is nothing if not a self-serving, politically crafty, cunning, and ruthless deal maker. As a child of political privilege, he is also a spoiled brat, and is used to getting his way, no matter how wrong it is for everyone else; it is this lamentable trait that got Corman to accept and pass the Democrat Party election law Trojan Horse. Because Corman is so deeply inside horse-trading politics, with gigantic political blinders over his eyes that prevent him from seeing the self-evident all around him, he traded what is obviously a panoply of stupid and undesirable election law changes (mail in ballots, after Election Day, with questionable qualities) for something…what…it is not clear what the quid pro quo was. Why did you approve this law, Jake? Did someone give you insider investment information, Jake, that you used to enrich yourself, thereby inducing you to allow this election Trojan Horse inside the city gates? What good thing exactly did Pennsylvania’s citizens gain from or in exchange for the Election Day Trojan Horse that you foisted upon us?
  2. Governor Tom Wolf (D). Watching Tom Wolf stand at a podium the other day, bald-faced lying, seriously attacking the justified legal challenges to the blatantly obvious voter fraud in Philadelphia is one of the great low points in American electoral history. Wolf has been in this election fraud up to his eyeballs, and now that he is defending that fraud he becomes one of the lowest characters in modern American political history. One would have hoped that he would have at least adopted the approach of police captain Renault in Casablanca: “Election fraud, here in Pennsylvania?! I am shocked, shocked!” But Wolf is not shocked because this debacle is his own handiwork, and he is unashamed. For shame!
  3. Lt. Governor John Fetterman (D). Ditto above. And when Fetterman sent a tweet last week before Election Day, acknowledging Trump’s 59,000-strong voter rally in Butler, PA, and demanding that Democrat voters “bank those 700,000 ballots,” we now know exactly what he meant. Fetterman meant for his followers to engage in the orgy of election fraud witnessed and documented and complained about by so many people in Philadelphia. And is it not amazingly convenient that late on Election Day evening Trump had a 600,000 vote lead, and yet by last Wednesday morning he was at a 100,000 vote deficit? Wonder where those extra 700,000 ballots came from! Fetterman is a phony. He is not for the little guy, the under-privileged, the worker. Rather, Fetterman is for Fetterman and his own power, at whatever cost to America and its workers.
  4. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D). Josh Shapiro is PA’s attorney general, the chief law enforcement officer in the state. It is a significant position, entrusted with great authority and powers. An attorney general anywhere is expected to remain above the partisan political fray, and to implement and execute the law without favor to anyone. And yet, Shapiro announced before Election Day that “Trump will not win Pennsylvania.” Not only is this obviously partisan electioneering, it is clear that Shapiro knew all about the gigantic voter fraud scheme prepared to illegally turn Trump’s hard-earned Pennsylvania win into a fraudulent Biden win. Shapiro had knowledge of the election law crimes that were about to occur, and not only did he not stop them, or investigate them after the fact, he actually gloated about them right before they were committed.
  5. 5-9. The last five people most responsible for PA’s Election Day fraud are the five Pennsylvania State Supreme Court members Christine Donohue, David Wecht, Debra Todd, Kevin Dougherty, and Sally Mundy, all (D), who issued a last-second, patently illegal/ unconstitutional order to extend Pennsylvania’s Election Day vote count for many days after Election Day, and to even further diminish the normal commonsense safeguards that guarantee that every LEGAL vote is counted. The Court majority’s decision went against the plain texts that guide and shape jurisprudence. It was clearly partisan and designed to give every leeway for the election fraud that inevitably followed in its wake. In contrast to their decision, Pennsylvania’s Constitution and the US Constitution make it clear that the state legislature is the sole source of Election Day date, time, and rules. Not the courts. So what these five political activists on the Court did is turn themselves into a five-person legislature, usurping the decision making authority of their co-equal branch of government. If jurists are not people of letters, but rather raw partisan political warriors, then that branch of government has failed.

Where does this leave us? Well, all I can do is write about what is happening. If Pennsylvanians are so apathetic and uninvolved that they allow these people to remain in their public offices, then we have brought down upon our own heads our own demise. Because American government only exists by the consent of the governed. When the governed become uninvolved, uncaring, and allow incompetent or criminal behavior by elected officials to persist, then self-government has failed. Consent has then been given to officials to do whatever they want, regardless of law or constitution. It means that the rule of law has ended, and a simple political power tug of war is under way in its place.

Apathetic citizens will always lose that tug of war, because the political insiders always find a way to accommodate each other.

In worship of the binary Mother goddess

Though this may be impolitic among the impolite society of the politically correct, I will today, Mother’s Day, testify to my worshipfulness of the Mother goddess.

So high has her self-denying patience been throughout my life, and especially my adult life, that I may see and call her a deity.

First she bore me, and my own, for nine long sweaty, uncomfortable months. Then in great pain, and long discomfort after, she birthed me and mine into this world, a gift, for better or for worse, to do with as we will, as we all might, our best, or best of our intentions.

Then, in great diligence and self-deprivation she watched over me and mine, warned me of the hot stove, bandaged my thrice-burned fingers, and held that same hand many years thence as I wound my way along a zig-zagging path, two steps forward and one backward, of mine own choosing, of all our own choosing.

Finally, she acted as grand-mother or grand-mother-in-training to mine own and her own, never once breaking the chain she forged with love.

Motherhood is both miracle and a curse. This miracle is of course obvious to all but those who would joyfully kill the fruit of the womb both on the tree and after it has fallen to within reach, unimaginable as this may be. Motherhood is a curse when those it has borne would kill all who follow in their path, or who show such unappreciation for the gift of life as to behave in ways that make the mother goddess sad for what she has borne to the world around her.

With all due disrespect to the anti-binary anti-Motherhood anti-child among us, Motherhood and her fruit is all that is good on our planet. Motherhood’s nurturing instinct from the moment of conception to the last of any of her breaths, is the best of human kindness, its quintessence.

Motherhood is the ultimate binary: A choice between good and evil, right and wrong, human and inhuman. Just like there is no kind-of pregnant, there is no kind-of Motherhood, no kind-of-fertile. Among all things human, the good and the bad, Motherhood is all-good; her motherly love is fertility itself. Everyone human knows this, and has known this since the dawn of our species.

Today the rainy streets and roads here are all but abandoned, silent testimony to the powerful instinct of humans to be with Mother, with family, to avoid unnecessary distractions. We all worship her, rightly so; or we should, anyhow.

An ancient “Venus” fertility figure from the dawn of human time, showing the special relationship between Mother and all who come from her. Among the many human civilizations around the planet, only materialistic Westerners have degraded Mother, and motherhood, and her fruit.

Sometimes a threesome just sucks

Welp. Primary Election Day is now behind us. Thank God.

Yesterday’s bright moment was Andrew Lewis running and winning against a large part of the GOP establishment in the 105th State House District.

It lies around out through Harrisburg’s eastern suburbs and could easily swing “RINO,” but yesterday it did not. Proving the power of staying positive and of doing door-to-door, Lewis impressed so many voters that many of them eagerly relayed to us volunteer poll workers their happy experiences meeting him at their home’s front door.

That said, much of yesterday’s political outcomes were unfortunate, for those of us who trust and hope in We, The People and who have learned not to trust the GOP establishment.

Woody Allen once quipped “I believe in relationships. Love between two people is a beautiful thing. Between three, it’s fantastic.”

Well, sometimes that truism just doesn’t hold water, and nowhere was this observation more evident than the results from yesterday’s political threesomes in Pennsylvania.

As we political watchers and participants have seen repeatedly, and as I myself have experienced as a candidate for office, three-way races can and often do allow liberal Republicans to prevail. And in fact, it now seems that the threesome approach is a significant strategy for GOPe candidates.

Yesterday, Dan Meuser won the PA 9th congressional district election (he lives in the 8th District) through the benefit of the two grass roots candidates  (Halcovage and Uehlinger) each siphoning off sufficient votes to allow the establishment candidate to get the plurality. There is some question out there about whether Uehlinger was, in fact, a conservative, or even a Republican; despite getting in the race first, his campaign seemed the least organized. Halcovage was not terribly organized, either, and did not respond to important questionnaires from interest groups. Firearms Owners Against Crime advised voters to select only Meuser of the three candidates.

Actually, Meuser may have obtained more than 50% of the vote, which is an indication that he might have won on his own merits (e.g. he was the only candidate deemed acceptable on Second Amendment rights to FOAC). All his negatives notwithstanding.

One lesson for sure comes out of that particular three-way race: If you cannot present yourself as an organized, credible candidate, then please spare everyone the drama and do not run.

People who wake up on some Thursday morning and say “What the heck, I am gonna run for office” have every right to do so, but recognize that there are consequences to this. Better to have a one-on-one clear choice for the voters. We will almost always have an establishment candidate, so pick the one best grass roots candidate as The People’s champion, and chase off the rest.

In the PA governor’s race, liberal dark horse Laura Ellsworth knew she had no chance of winning. I mean, with liberal policy positions like hers, she should run as a Democrat (she said she would not accept money from the NRA). But run she did, and though she obtained less than 20% of the vote, she siphoned off sufficient votes (especially in Western PA) from true conservative and US Army veteran Paul Mango to get Scott Wagner the plurality.

Mango is from western PA and would have otherwise obtained most of Ellsworth’s votes.

Yesterday I was a volunteer poll worker from 7:00 AM until 7:35PM in the Harrisburg area.

What I heard from GOP voters (and mostly from women over 50 years old) at several different polls was that they were angry at both Mango and Wagner for all the negative ads. They knew Ellsworth was liberal, but they were voting for her as an alternative to the two boys engaged in distasteful roughhousing.

Wasn’t this a variable we were picking up from women voters weeks ago? Yes.

Did someone pay Ellsworth to run? One asks, because she knew her chances were very low to nil, that her liberal ideas and policy positions are way out of synch with the vast majority of Republican voters.

Ellsworth the Spoiler has now burned her bridges with about 40% of the state’s Republican super voters, which even the most obtuse political nerds would expect as a logical outcome.

So why else was she in it? One cannot help but wonder if she was paid to play the spoiler. It was done in the last race I ran in….by someone involved in the race she ran in…so…

When we look at Idaho’s primary yesterday, a similar scene unfolded. The unlikely liberal GOPe candidate beat the conservative, by way of siphoning of votes by a third candidate who himself had no hope of winning.

Folks, the only way these third candidates can run is if they are independently wealthy and just yee-haw running for office; or, they are willing to sacrifice their name in one race by trying to build it up for a future run at some other office; or, most likely, they have “other” sources of income or promises made to reward them for playing the spoiler in the current race.

So, as we move into a more experienced and savvy grass roots political landscape, begun just ten years ago as the “tea party,” we are learning that our own strength can be used against us judo-like by the same corrupt political establishment we are trying to defeat.

Threesome races may look democratic, and it is true that every American has the right to run for office. But sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes those threesomes are designed to undermine the conservative grass roots candidate, and to help the plain vanilla milquetoast establishment candidate win.

Sometimes political threesomes just plain suck. And not in a good way. They can be designed to exploit the big-hearted nature of so many grass roots activists, so that their enemy, the GOPe, can win.

Lesson learned.

Fathers are important

Thank you to all the fathers and father figures out there, working to hold together a family, to provide a voice for kids to rely on. There’s no substitute for family. Happy Father’s Day.

From here on out, it’s all downhill

Yesterday was the Winter Solstice. The shortest day of the year. In a winter-dreary location like Central Pennsylvania, it also marks the beginning of longer days, leading to sunnier days. From here on out until June 21st, it’ll be easier sailing.

Sure, we’ve burned half our firewood and we expect the balance to be gone by February’s end, but just knowing that our friendly neighborhood sunlight will be filtering in more often is a reason for hope. And no, annual trips to islands and warm beaches just do not seem to break winter’s grey grip.

Thank you to our Veterans!

Armistice Day, Veterans Day, commemorations of values that are rapidly slipping out of mainstream America. Let’s keep those flags flying high!

And yes, I am working on an analysis of what the hell happened last Tuesday night. Good God, what a disaster. Thank you for the prompts, dear readers.

PA-17th Cong. District Update

Many supporters of my 2009-2010 Republican campaign for the PA-17th Congressional District are asking what my plans are. Will I run for Congress again?
My answer is that I’d like to run again, but it depends on what the PA-17th looks like after redistricting. That process is happening now and several reports have the district as we have known it divided up into several different pieces. Harrisburg, where I reside, may end up in Congressman Platts’s district, while Dauphin County is further divided among other current members of Congress.
Until the proposed plan is unveiled, I can’t give a complete answer. In 2010 our election results were an impressive 24%, out of four candidates, on just $11,000. Our amazing volunteers, like Carl Fox, made that difference.
So please check back here soon. I hope to have an answer shortly. And thank you for all your encouragement and support!
Wishing you a glorious Independence Day holiday,
Josh