Hunting season is always glorious
To a lot of American hunters, including me, hunting season is a unique and special combination of extended holiday, camping trip, hiking trip, family gathering with the family members you like being with, nature viewing, rest and relaxation in pretty places, occasional deep naps way out in the woods, and opportunities to talk with God in remote spots that probably only see humans once every year or two when some hunter clambors his way out there for an hour.
Even for the urbanites who will be joining me over the coming weeks, simply hanging around “hunting camp” has a special role in re-charging personal batteries long depleted in bumper-to-bumper traffic and urban clutter with endless noise. Some urban guys are real go-getter hunters, while others enjoy sleeping in, drinking coffee and catching up with old friends, and having a cigar inside. Yes, this is a guys-only, cigars-permitted environment. People also say naughty things and tell politically incorrect jokes.
Comparing hunting knives, blade sharpening techniques, and new rifles is of course de rigeur.
After all, where else can a guy go and hang about with a bunch of other guys and talk about guns and knives all damned day and night long, while eating way too much food that their wives would never approve of: Only at hunting camp.
And whether you actually get something big and hairy, or not, the time spent there is always glorious. Believe it or not, there is plenty of Bible study, too.
I am looking forward to this hunting season, as I always do, and perhaps more so now that I am in my early sixties. Decades have flown by, some friends have died along the way, some have moved too far away to join me, and some of them were never really into the hunting anyhow, while others have jobs and businesses that absorb every waking moment of their lives. Which is a way of saying that I am appreciating this special time even more so this year.
We have not killed a bear here since 2006, not that our guys have not tried, and missed, since then. Nor have I killed a big buck here in years, despite having many opportunities. Seeing a big trophy buck in the woods gives me great pleasure, and 9.9 times out of ten, I will sit and let him walk by. Does, almost never.
Hunting season is not really about the killing; it is more about the hunting. Our hunting camp tee shirts this year say “One hunts not in order to kill; rather, ones kills in order to have hunted.”
Just being here, and being afield in the Big Woods with friends, is a deeply satisfying feeling. I hope the hunters who read this have a successful and safe season. And to the as-yet non-hunters reading this, get with it. We can mentor you, and show you the way of being a complete and whole human being.
Hunting season is also about running into old friends. Pam Mould was our township tax collector for decades, and our neighbor until about five years ago. Ran into her at Wolfe’s General Store in Slate Run today, while getting milk etc
Who is MAGA? What is MAGA?
Quite a bit of debate going on about the Make America Great Again movement started by candidate Donald Trump in 2015. Now that the movement to get Donald Trump elected succeeded a third time, and his policy goals are being implemented, the next question becomes “Whither MAGA?”
The question of why any American opposes the mere concept of Make America Great Again is beyond me. Why an entire political party has defined itself as opposing everything that a president does, including pledging to demolish the privately funded ballroom addition he is overseeing on the White House, is a question more for psychiatrists than political scientists. Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, it is measureable, it is quantifiable, and it is probably operationally definable, if some enterprising PhD student wants to contribute something useful to an otherwise useless, politicized, and anti-ideas moribund academia.
Americans suffering from TDS have a real problem, and I hope they get it treated professionally. On the flip side, conservative patriots like moi viscerally despised impostor Barack Hussein Obama, but not to the point of irrationally opposing even the occasional good things he did. You know, throwing out the baby with the bath water. Not that I can recall good things that Obama did, but probably there were some, like adding new acreage to a national park somewhere.
More to the moment are the questions of who is MAGA and who runs MAGA and what will become of this political movement when Preisdent Trump terms out of office. Who in the world of politics will pick up Trump’s mantle, his movement, and reassemble the successful team for future campaigns?
Right now a bunch of professional pundits have claimed the MAGA gatekeeper role for themselves. Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Roger Stone, maybe Alex Jones, and a few other public opinion figures who make their living from speaking into a microphone and to a camera continue to make strident statements about MAGA, as if they own it, define it, speak for it. Other political pundits, like Dinesh D’Souza, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, et al, certainly speak to and about MAGA principles, but they make no open claims to actually own or represent MAGA.
I reject all of these people, and anyone, frankly, from claiming this role. Even President Trump no longer really “owns” this movement that he created ten years ago.
This whole question, raging though it may be, reminds me of the whole predecessor Tea Party movement that began in 2008-2009 in Central Pennsylvania. No sooner had someone, and I won’t bother to research who it was who dubbed this grass roots voters backlash against the woeful Republican Party establishment and its hand-holding big brother Democrat Party, but immediately, anyone involved in conservative politics, conservative political activism, issue activism, or donating to conservative or GOP political campaigns, was awash in Tea Party related emails, appeals, mailers, brochures.
Quite a few so-named “Tea Party” 501(c)(4) groups were formed in 2008-2012. Even more related LLCs were formed. All were run by aggressive business people who sensed an opportunity to make money from politics yet again, and who appealed to voters and activists as being leaders who best captured and represented Tea Party ideals and principles. Many of these people claimed to be moral leaders, leaders of morality and ideological purity. Most of these people and their groups and organizations were shams, frauds, fakes, and did not stand the test of time. They are found few and far between today as part of the MAGA movement or cause, having been exposed as simple opportunists.
On the opposite end of this spectrum sits people like yours truly, my past political campaigns, and this blog, who have never made a net gain penny from politics, but who instead continue to hemorrhage personal money in the cause of political dialogue, policy debate, individual freedom, small government, accountable government, constitutional principles, our nation’s founding principles, etc.
I can also think of a few tireless, devoted political advocates here in Pennsylvania, who I will not name in full, who continue to donate their personal time and money to the cause of First Principles, without hope or expectation of remuneration. Dean, Ron, Jim, Jeff and others have all stood the test of time since our collective political arousal in 2008-2009. Yes, others have risen up to contribute their voice to the cause of freedom, and honest elections, but they also seek to make a living doing it. That is a business endeavor, not a selfless devotion.
Despite plenty of political activism in the 1980s, as a conservative Central PA Democrat, my own first personal try at elected office was in 2009-2010, when I ran as a Tea Party conservative Republican candidate for US Congress here in Central PA. I ran for state senate in 2012 and 2015, eventually removing myself from a great race for state senate in late 2015, due to a severely injured knee obtained while bear hunting. Back-to-back surgeries on what had been my “good” knee in January 2016 eliminated my ability to do what I enjoyed and did best, going door to door and meeting voters. It marked the end of my interest in elected office. But not the end of my interest in politics.
In 2015 I became full-blown MAGA, despite plenty of mockery from establishment Republicans serving on county GOP committees. Their 2016 “Dump Trump” slogan failed, as their shallow RINO candidates failed.
2016 marked the end of the Tea Party, as it morphed from a broad, ground-up, grass-roots-led freedom movement into the MAGA movement led by one Donald Trump. Trump used that movement of First Principle America lovers to get elected to office. Now that he succeeded, I do not think anyone can justifiably claim to lead it, or own it, or speak for it. Not even Trump.
I now look at people like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson the same way that I looked (sideways) at the people who came out of the shadows in 2008-2010 to claim un-earned leadership roles and money-making opportunities in the Tea Party. That populist movement may have finally found its footing under a new name, MAGA, and it may have elevated some people who spoke or occasionally speak our language, but it is wholly owned by you and me, citizen voters.
The strength of the Tea Party and its MAGA incarnation is that we Americans spoke to each other in town halls and municipal meeting rooms and at rallies. This was the most authentic voice and debate possible.
Each of us has an equal voice in this. People who make money and a living from this movement are automatically suspect in my eyes. They can’t possibly be in this for the right reason.
And like the big family we American citizens are, you and I can argue and bicker and sometimes disagree with one another about policy and candidates. But not one of us is a gate keeper for our collective movement, and no one we might want as a spokesman, would have the ridiculous arrogance to claim such a role.
The Warrior Ethos
The warrior ethos, also known as “purity of one’s weaponry,” has defined humanity since humans began. Stronger humans dominate weaker humans, and weaker animals, whether people like it or not. This has been the established rule among humans until very recent times.
Western civilization’s unbelievable material success has bred complacency among us, and an assumption that America is too big to fail. A sense that we can experiment widely with hating ourselves, hating the civilization that feeds and clothes us, hating others who are smarter, stronger, more hard working, more successful. A resulting freak show array of faux self-martyrdom aka virtue signaling now delineates the political Left from Americans simply trying to do a job, feed their family etc.
Today’s virtue signaling public is especially repugnant, because its practitioners pretend that they are giving up things they need. Despite dramatic statements, tattoos, bumper stickers, aligning themselves with drug dealers and child traffickers and violent felonious illegal border crossers, they do not actually give up anything but their credibility. Their virtue signaling is empty, and costs nothing. It is done to make them feel good about themselves, at whatever cost to everyone else.
One of the things targeted by leftist virtue signalers is the warrior ethos. An enormous fabricated cultural Marxism house of cards social construct was created to try to eliminate/ cancel/ punish those Americans with the warrior ethos, aka “toxic masculinity”, so that the weaker, whinier, dumber, less productive and less useful people could do the dominating for once.
Yes, weak, whiny, annoying humans also want to dominate, bully, control, get their way over others. But until recent years, they could not do so. DEI, affirmative action, and political correctness were the government coercion-enforced means of unnaturally, artificially, unwholesomely overturning a million years of warrior ethos. Deliberately promoting fat, weak, stupid people over lean, fit, intelligent people was the very emblem of virtue signaling success.
And yet, despite the decades-long government bureaucrat utopian assault on men and boys and human nature, the warrior ethos slumbered in the bosom of millions of Americans. It roared back to life in defiance a year ago, electing an American president devoted to the tried and true old ways of being a wholesome human on this planet.
Yes, our military is seeing an enormous resurgence of popularity, and with it are higher recruitment numbers. National pride is back in style, instead of the anti American public flagellation commonly promoted in the establishment media and rejected by most Americans. But….
….last week the same Americans who elected a warrior ethos president in 2024 went back to sleep, and they did not ride the wave or take the fight to the enemy. Despite losing cultural standard bearer Charlie Kirk just a couple months ago, these American voters apparently forgot, also under the evil spell that America is too big to fail. They did not bother to vote.
These words are written on the backs of American military veterans, whose 250 years of sacrifice make possible every opportunity and happy moment Americans enjoy. Instead of being dominated by Russia, or Iran, Americans still self-rule, and, strangely, self-flagellate. I am unsure if America is able to educate and vote its way out of the cultural impasse we are in right now.
Obviously, I want peace and peaceful resolution to the stark political and cultural differences that divide us. But I also increasingly wonder if the old men, even the ancient men of American militaries past will one day have to fight our own spoiled brat children in American streets for control of this nation. These aging and old men are really the last vestige, the last memory we have of the old Warrior Ethos that won America its freedom from Britain 250 years ago, and held onto it until our own domestic enemies became strong enough to tear it all down from the inside.
These old Veterans may yet save America, just on her own shores next time. Happy Veterans Day, I suppose.
The old warriors can still save the day
Back hair, chest hair, belly hair…baby, I got it all and more
Confession time: I have a hell of a collection of back hair, belly hair, chest hair, even butt hair and ear hair. Fo’ real.
I know, I know, a man of my age does not age well, as “things” begin to grow from every orifice and heretofore unknown location, but so why then do we have to write about it…sorry, my apologies. There is an honest purpose here.
You, the lone, long-suffering sole reader of this blog, are probably already thinking to yourself “Good Lord, this guy has finally gone off the deep end with this TMI shock jock shtick. ” And were we actually talking about real body hair from my own voluptuous, idyllic form, you would be correct. However, as racy or as disgusting as this may sound, the fact is that I do have a pretty cool record-setting collection of all the aforementioned clumps of hair, but they are not from my own body.
Again and now even more so, whoever is left reading here at this point is gagging, and wondering what happened to the erudite intellectual who used to occupy this lonely outpost of fascination. Well, the bad news is I yet remain under the mal-influence of one Bill Heavey, the also-lonely humor writer of the once-wonderful magazine known as Field & Stream, now digitally un-dead and unknown to Americans under the age of sixty.
The good news is that I am not talking about human hair here, but rather the hair, or fur, of the many deer I have shot arrows at over the past five decades. This is true. I am not lying.
See, I fancied myself an archer at a young age, and so I got somewhere (probably at the kind of now-gone country auction that elderly collectors dream about and salivate over) a cheap recurve bow and a motley assortment of mis-matched arrows and dull broadheads, and set out to bag a deer.
Yes, I practiced, for years, as only the uninitiated and un-groomed and un-mentored can practice. Which meant that on Tuesdays and Fridays my archery “form” aligned well enough that I could hit the broad side of a barn, which were plenty, large, bright red, and quite broad where I grew up. And on all other days of the week my arrows sailed off into the wild blue yonder, to sit hidden in the fallow weeds and maybe puncture a neighbor’s tractor tire the following spring. Or maybe eventually catch my eye and be re-purposed as an arrow, more defunct stick than game-getter at that late point, but available and at-hand, and so useful nonetheless.
As a young man, I shot at deer from the ground and from neighbor’s hillbilly blinds, AKA rickety wooden death traps in today’s more refined hunting circles. My woodcraft was then and remains now unbeatable, and I am not lying or exaggerating when I tell you that I could stalk within feet of a dumbfounded deer, and let fly. Only to watch my arrow clip hair from the aforementioned areas and parts of the deer’s external anatomy, time and time again.
Bill Heavey would tell you, had he been as cool as me as a kid himself, that the deer died of laughter from the ridiculousness of the experience. But no, my deer did not die of anything. Not from shock, not from surprise, not from overwhelming mockery of the incompetent human mere feet away, and not an arrow in the heart. No, my deer stood stock still, with grass or acorns or corn hanging out of their slack jaw, staring at me in disbelief. Some even provided me with two shots.
I could have died from the shame of it all.
This routine of Bad-Indian-Sucky-Bow went on for decades, even as I graduated to used but working Fred Bear Kodiak recurves and then to custom “stick” bows. My prize and pride is a beautiful reflex-deflex longbow made by none other than Mike Fedora, the dean of modern traditional archery in America. Back in 2000, Jack Keith and I traveled from Harrisburg to the Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous, then at Denton Hill in Potter County (home of many more bears than people), where we connected with Jack’s dear friend John Harding, and where I was introduced to Mike Fedora.
At ETAR, Fedora traced my bow-holding hand, did some phrenology-like measurements of my various body parts, and pronounced that the bow of my dreams would be ready within a few months. And no sh*t, Mike Fedora did produce a beautiful bow that was like an extension of my soul. I could then and still can shoot that thing into bullseyes all day long. At archery targets, me and that custom bow are deadly.
At deer, I still drop the ball. No can hit. Must be nerves, which are steely when I am hunting with a rifle. And so my arrows continue to clip bits of hair from all over deer bodies all over Upstate New York and Upstate Pennsylvania.
I am telling you, my collection of these bits and clumps of hair is large and legendary. If nothing else, no human being alive has missed so many deer at so short a distance for so long as I have. A living, walking, malfunctioning Guiness Book of World Records I may be in this regard, around these parts it is nothing to brag about. Rather, I inspire pity from even little kids dressed in camo who have already arrowed several Pope & Young bucks by the age of seven.
In the not too distant past, someone with my pathetic archery hunting skill would have perished from starvation long before amassing even the beginning of such a fine and rare collection.
And yet, I have discovered hope, salvation for my pathetic-ness and hopeless skill-less-ness. As much as I hate to admit it, I, a traditional archery snob who mocked bows with “training wheels” (compound bows) and belittled “bow-guns” (crossbows) as un-sporting arms that no worthy deer would allow itself to be taken by, I have finally fallen to the siren song of the modern crossbow. Or, to be honest, the cross-gun that shoots a short arrow like some kind of James Bond super-weapon.
Despairing of my ineffectiveness at archery hunting, and desiring to finally carve some notches in something to prove my prowess as a traditional hunter before I expire, I went and bought a Ravin R10X crossbow. It came highly recommended by contractor Ken Pick of Renovo, PA, whose son aced a very nice mountain ten point with one two weeks ago at the distance of 87 yards.
I can barely hit a deer with a modern centerfire rifle at 87 yards, so when I saw the photos of the young chap and his buck and his James Bond cross-bow-gun, I decided if I could not beat them, I had to join them. And join them I did, by buying said Ravin R10X at Baker’s Archery in Halifax, PA. Vindication and verification and all related cations came at me real fast as soon as I took that scary-ass contraption afield.
This is no lie and no exaggeration: Ten minutes after I took a little mosey to a spot where I had not hunted before, but where I thought deer had to be (this is the woodcrafty Josh), I had whacked an anterlessless deer. I had only put the scope reticle on the spot where I thought the arrow would hit the deer, and before I even pulled the trigger a loud THWACK resounded in the woods.
The deer ran twenty yards and died of fright, with a gigantic hole coursing through its body where I must have aimed but do not remember doing so, due to my own shock at having actually killed something with a stick and a string.
Life is full of surprises. Don’t deprive yourself of these dangerous-as-hell you’ll-shoot-yer-eye-out-kid bow-gun contraptions. Dude, they are cool and totally worth it.
Take my experienced word for it.
The trophy of my dreams: A yearling button buck taken with a James Bond super weapon on a ground stalk
A young man who was mentored in traditional archery, with good form, at ETAR 2020 at Ski Sawmill
People’s trail cameras are literally everywhere. This was sent to me as I was preparing to ask this kind young man to help me drag the deer fifty feet to the gravel road
No joke about it, my friend and archery and life mentor, Jack Keith, was the real deal in everything, and I miss him every day.
People who subsist on archery can’t afford to write silly essays about sucking at archery
Traditional archery legend Fred Asbell showing how to correctly hold the bow while hunting. Fred took all kinds of animals all around the world with traditional archery tackle
A young man with even better archery form at ETAR 2022
The Hangover Part 27: The Trump Effect
Welp, that didn’t go well yesterday, did it…
Like a lot of other conservatives, I am sitting here with a political hangover, trying to make sense of the ass whoopin’ we got at the nationwide polls yesterday. Looks like I woke up with a freaky Democrat-shaped tattoo across my face, and a set of tire tracks across my back.
Couple of things jump foremost into my mind:
One lesson is that Leftists / Democrats care about winning, period, end of story. Winning at any cost, with any candidate is their Job #1. Anyone with a “D” after their name gets Democrat Party support and votes. Heck, the entire Democrat Party is openly devoted to protecting and supporting illegal alien invaders, violent criminals, and drug cartels, at enormous cost to American citizens. And yet…they do it.
One successful Democrat candidate in Virginia had openly fantasized about killing Republicans and their children. He is now the Attorney General-elect there. His voters did not care one whit or one bit about his violent fantasies. They wanted him in power. In fact, many Leftists probably share his violent fantasies.
Lesson #2 is Rule #2, Republican activists and voters and politicians care waaaay too much about public perception. Even manufactured perception. The Democrat Party media (AKA establishment media ABCCBSNPRBBCNBCNYT etc) knows this and aggressively preys upon it. When a Republican anywhere sneezes out of place, the establishment media is all over it, critical of it, magnifying it. Had a Republican candidate for dog catcher, much less AG, anywhere in America similarly written his fantasies about murdering Democrats and their children, his career, not just political career but his life supporting career, would be over. Finished, kaput, done, canceled, terminated. The (far-left) media sees to it every time, even as it protects Democrats from legitimate scrutiny and criticism.
Why Republicans / conservatives / normies continue to play by this rule is a mystery to me. And in fact, I do think that many in the conservative base are tiring of the political “professionals” foolishly playing by this rule, and that is why we have such a strong swing among some towards truly extreme and evil views. It is probably why treasonous bullshit artist Tucker Carlson and angry closet homosexual Nick Fuentes enjoy any support at all. Plenty of voters on the Right are just sick and tired of playing by the Left’s rules, and losing, and so they are beginning to make up some rules of their own. Not all of these rules are wholesome or pure American goodness.
Lastly, lesson number three, for better and for worse, the Trump Effect was in full force yesterday. The Trump Effect is a double-edged sword. On the one hand when Trump’s name is on the ballot, voters come out in droves to support him. On the other hand, when his name is not on the ballot, those same people stay at home and sit out the election. They think “Why should I vote? Trump is in office and he is kickin ass and getting things under control.”
Which is a fatal mistake, because while he is in office kickin ass and getting law and order re-established, Trump is also up to his eyes in lawless alligators afraid of being turned into hides on the wall. Trump threatens the political Left unlike any prior Chief Executive, all of whom, including Ronald Reagan, were content to play by the political establishment rules, written and enforced by the political Left. And so Trump invigorates the political Left through fear, and pushes them to the polls, while his own voters think everything is just hunky dory and stay home.
Add to this a lethargic and largely moribund Republican Party establishment, or an aggressively insular and inward-looking state GOP like we have here in Pennsylvania, and we can see that it does not take much effort for the political Left to win elections.
I will tell you that we did have some wins yesterday. One was in Lycoming County, where the No Butts on the Bench campaign did eject the county’s sitting president judge, Nancy Butts. Judge Butts had once run and won on a campaign of law and order, but had then become the usual backsliding leftist activist Americans have come to expect of establishment Republicans once she got on the judicial bench. She is now uninvited, disinvited, ejected and soon to be no longer a judge.
Another win reported to me by a friend in Schuylkill County is Christian Lengel, who becomes a Magistrate District Judge. A good candidate surrounded by fierce volunteers, Mr. Lengel now becomes Judge Lengel, to the advantage of western Skook citizens.
And that is a wrap. I am out of words and not quite yet out of feelings. It is time now to crawl back under my bed with a bottle of Jack Daniels.
Me, this morning, and possibly you, too
Election Day confession
Confession: I am a political junkie, addict, hound, nerd. Have been so since age fifteen. Don’t know why, but I really enjoy being involved in political everything. Today I yet again donated much of my time to being a poll greeter. You know, one of those annoying, pushy people promoting candidates and certain policy positions to voters walking up to the polling place.
My shtick is to make people smile, hopefully laugh. Especially the ever-crabby Liberals. Self-deprecating humor works. At least with older Americans.
Most of my time today, at a poll in West Hanover Township, was spent handing out “palm cards” promoting Jim Zugay and Fran Chardo, candidates for county judge. Fran is Dauphin County’s current District Attorney, and Jim is our current Recorder of Deeds. Both have been practicing attorneys for decades, and are highly qualified. Unlike their opponents, one of whom has been a lawyer in private practice for less than ten years.
I enjoyed talking policy etc with several interesting Democrats, who were up to it. Civil discourse is awesome. One said I had persuaded her to vote for Jim Zugay, who she said she had heard good things about. The one Democrat poll greeter, Sarah, was very nice and easy to chat with. She stayed until about 6:15 tonight, right after I left.
Yours truly on site, reporting live
Two military veterans discuss their combat experiences, and how those shaped their political views. Fascinating to listen in
A bad moon rising on Election Day? We shall find out momentarily
People are cool. I collect people. This windshield message accompanied a (I think) Democrat voter today
I confess to not understanding how Liberals think. But I enjoyed talking with some today, as we all engaged in the most important thing Americans can do: Vote.
Vote like this on Tuesday
- Vote “NO” to not retain activist judges who act like kings. You want no kings? Then eject king-like rogue judges here in Pennsylvania, whose wild behavior belongs in the legislature, not on the judicial bench.
- Speaking of qualified judges, here in Dauphin County, vote for Fran Chardo and Jim Zugay. They are the two most qualified candidates for the two county judge spots that are open. Fran is the current District Attorney, known for his fair minded, staid and serious demeanor. Jim Zugay has been a Public Defender, a private practive lawyer, and the Dauphin County Recorder of Deeds. A lady named Kennedy-McShane is running against them, and while she is nowhere near as qualified as Zugay and Chardo, she is just too liberal, on every issue, to be a judge. Liberalism and liberal / leftist policies just do not work; they hurt people and break communities. Dauphin County deserves solid judges, not radical leftists with a nutty political agenda. Vote for Zugay and Chardo.
- Here in Harrisburg City, we have an interesting contest between two liberal Democrat candidates for mayor, Wanda Williams and Dan Miller. Wanda is a nice enough person, but she has not done much as mayor. Dan Miller has been City Controller and I think will do more good than harm. I am voting for Dan Miller, and I hope other city residents will, too.
Democrat Party shut down the US govt, aiming for America
American federal government has been shut down for weeks now, as a result of all Democrat Party US senators being unwilling to vote for the same continuing resolution bill they voted for four or five times already in the past several years. Because this funding bill requires a super-majority, not a simple majority, even the minority party (Democrat) can stop it.
Much has been said elsewhere about why the Democrat Party would not vote to keep their own precious government open and their own precious federal workers (Democrat) on the job and paid. Yes, it is true that they (Democrats) are demanding (forgotten) taxpayer subsidies for illegal alien healthcare that (forgotten) taxpaying Americans themselves do not qualify for, let that sink in.
And yes, these same recalcitrant senators have already voted a bunch of times for the same “clean” bill before, without the illegal alien healthcare subsidies they want put in it now.
But what seems to be missing in the public debate about why the Democrat Party has shut down the American federal government is the real why. The core purpose. Which seems to be their goal of shutting down America, all of it, all of us, forever.
After all, this is the same group of people (elected Democrats) who allowed an incredible illegal invasion of America to happen from 2021 to 2024. The roughly 15 Million illegal aliens who illegally crossed our borders imposed budget-breaking costs on hospitals, public schools, and public infrastructure, and sky-high crime rates that overwhelmed police departments and court systems.
You don’t allow America to be overwhelmed and severely damaged, if you love America.
This is the same group of people (elected Democrats) who have time after time, even this weekend, sided with violent illegal alien criminals over American citizens, sided with South American drug dealers and child sex slave traffickers over American citizens, sided with violent repeat American criminals over law abiding American citizens, etc.
The Democrat Party is openly not on the side of America being successful or peaceful or happy. Rather, they (Democrats) are public about their disdain for pretty much everything that makes America successful. Except your tax money, of which they want a lot more.
So this government funding dispute seems to be really about just shutting down America, totally, trying to create all of the chaos and unhappiness possible, and probably also about trying to stop the Trump Administration from operating.
For the umpteenth time over the past ten years at least, it sure appears that the Democrat Party wants to once again burn America to the ground.
So I have a question for registered Democrats: Can you explain this situation? Can you defend it? Can you help us bystanders understand it?
Can you tell us what the Democrat Party stands for that American citizens might support? Can you explain why you continue to vote for Democrat candidates?
I ask as a former Democrat myself. Because I did not leave the Democrat Party, they left me; just like they are leaving America behind right now. And I am confused about how anyone who loves America continues to support this bizarre and destructive organization.
Does JD Vance have what it takes to be president?
Like nearly everyone, or probably literally everyone, on my side of the ideological spectrum, I have enjoyed watching JD Vance’s political life grow from infancy to Vice President of the USA over the past few years.
The guy went from rural poor house to successful book author (“Hillbilly Elegy”) to state politics to US Senator to Vice President in a short amount of time. Pretty much the American dream. Most people have to spend a lot of time to get this far in politics.
Another dream: Unlike 95% of former Vice Presidents, Vance has been greatly empowered by President Trump to have a robust public life on key policy issues. Historically, most Vice Presidents are shunted aside, or are given vague ribbon cutting ceremonies at best. Under Trump, Vance has been all over the place, all around the planet, speaking his mind, carrying the administration’s messages on fair trade, free speech and Western Civilization, etc.
Vance has thus gained traction among many on the right, who were unhappy with his past vilification of Trump, which we saw as un-earned and more of a publicity stunt than a legitimate policy critique.
Vance’s throaty America First stance certainly gets people like me standing on our feet in full applause. Over and over, Vance has said what conservatives think has been absent from most Republican leaders (or any other elected officials, for that matter) for decades. So, until a week ago, I and many others in my corner were excited about Vance’s prospects as a 2028 presidential candidate.
And then came Vance’s openly arrogant and pompous declaration about Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria, both the current administrative arrangement and the prospective legal annexation. For a guy like Vance, who earlier this year proudly championed the prospective outright American annexation of Greenland, by legal or military means, and who prides himself on maintaining a rational, logical, linear policy perspective, this statement was a non-sequitor surprise.
There are few if any Americans living in Greenland.
America has never claimed Greenland as the USA has claimed Puerto Rico, Guam, or other territories we captured in war.
Israel is 8,019 square miles in size. Greenland is 836,331 square miles in size, literally over a hundred times the size of Israel. Judea and Samaria are the historic homeland of the Jewish People; they comprise 2,183 square miles, nearly 1/400th the size of Greenland, and are home to about a million Jews.
Many of the current Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are built on the ancient ruins of former Jewish settlements dating back 4,000 years. Jews living there today are not newcomers to the area. Rather, they are de-colonizing it. Fact check alert: Arabs are from Arabia, Muslims are from Mecca, neither of which are in Judea or Samaria. Muslims and Arabs who live in Judea and Samaria are the colonizers, as they are the colonizers elsewhere across the entire region.
Israel captured Judea and Samaria in a defensive war, and reaffirmed their hold on the area in subsequent defensive wars. To the victor go the spoils of war, in treasure and in land; this is elementary international law. Israel has every right to control or annex Judea and Samaria. Vance himself invokes this very same principle in his argument for America taking over Greenland (which I support).
To watch Vance on camera on this subject is painful. He comes across as a petulant, arrogant bully, back to where he was when he vilified Trump just a few years ago.
Vance actually said that he was “insulted” that Israel’s democratically elected parliament had passed a bill to annex Judea and Samaria. Why would JD Vance feel personally insulted about the sovereign act of a soverign democratic nation fighting for its life that has zero to do with him, he, JD Vance, late of 1794 militarily conquered and European colonized Maumee Indian lands in Ohio?
If Vance is so opposed to Israel being in Judea and Samaria, to which they have a 4,000 year old claim, then is he going to make a big showy statement and give back his Ohio home to the Maumee Indians? We all know the answer to this. Vance likely believes that the conquest of American Indian tribes and the colonization of their lands is settled business.
Does Vance really think that Israel annexing a small area over which it has maintained control for nearly sixty years is going to somehow hurt the United States?! Even a little bit?
From a rational policy perspective, Vance’s blanket statement on Judea and Samaria is a 180 degree deviation from all of his other American policy statements. Perhaps this is attributable to all of the Qatar money pouring into American politics right now. Or maybe it is attributable to the Vatican’s longstanding antipathy towards Jews, Judaism, and the modern state of Israel. Whatever his reasons for his a-historical rules-for-thee-but-not-for-me statement, Vance is way out of step with Ambassador Mike Huckabee, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the hardest core of American patriots who feel directly connected to Israel, Judea, and Samaria, and who see Qatar’s cash dump into American politics and universities as a huge threat to Western Civilization.
It makes one wonder if JD Vance has what it takes to be our president. An effective president cannot afford to alienate anyone on his side, at least not for long. Trump can get away with pushy bluster, because he is a likable person with a very long track record of positive achievements in both private enterprise and public office. Sometimes his bluster is just that, bluster, to test the waters.
Conversely, Vance’s personal anger about Israel’s one policy looks the equivalent of Joe Biden’s public “I’ll be damned” brag about corruptly quashing Ukraine’s investigation of Burisma and Hunter Biden. This is not presidential stuff, it is not leadership stuff, sad to say. I hope JD Vance fixes this, not just the policy stuff, but his own public performance, his control of his own personal self.
It is one thing to be a heavily battle scarred Donald John Trump and say sh*t, but to be a relative newcomer overnight rock star like Vance, his strange outburst could and should hurt his prospects.
Middle East ain’t like Mid-Town Manhattan
Despite President Trump’s best efforts at creating “peace” or at least the absence of violence, for a while, in the Middle East, the latest agreement, deal, whatever we call it, is failing.
Of course it is failing. The Gaza “ceasefire” was declared to be the “peace in our time” of most-mistaken Neville Chamberlain, without anything backing it up beyond President Trump’s own public standing. Which is taking a beating now that Hamas has killed a bunch of Israelis, in violation of the supposed ceasefire terms.
Vice President JD Vance said that there is “no mechanism to dis-arm Hamas”, which means the Trump Administration rejects the only mechanism there is: the IDF. Vance is going to Israel momentarily, mostly to strong-arm Israel into not responding militarily to Hamas violence against Israel. This is just going to result in more ceasefire failure and policy failure and more one-sided violence.
President Trump has oddly placed his own personal credibility in the hands of those who support Hamas, Qatar and Turkey.
I give Hamas some credit, for returning the twenty remaining living Israeli hostages. Hamas did get a hell of a boost to their fighting ranks, however, with the simultaneous release of over 2,000 hardened criminals held in Israeli prisons, most of whom with innocent blood on their hands. So it was a careful calculus that Hamas did. Had nothing to do with peace, and everything to do with rebuilding its obliterated ranks.
The mistake that all Westerners make when dealing with Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East (versus the Muslim Arab American guy in the cubicle down the hall from your own office here in America, who has a chance of being fairly acculturated into American values) is believing that if we are nice, they will reciprocate, and that their pledges mean something.
Their pledges -hudna, takiya- don’t mean anything, except for buying time, so Hamas et al can regroup and go back to war better than before.
President Trump is a good man, with good intentions, good hopes, good dreams. He is trying to do good in the Middle East, but he is failing. Badly. He is trying to do a deal there like he would do a real estate construction deal in mid-town Manhattan, where the shared win-win 360-degree rising tide of financial success floats all boats whether they are contractor, union, supplier, or whomever. This is a fine model for rational problem solving in America, and we certainly do need more of it here.
But the Middle East is not Manhattan, and it is not New York, or America, or even Europe, yet. Rather, the Middle East is the martyr-littered place that the Christian Crusaders attacked for hundreds of years, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. It is the place that is riven by a million bloody blood feuds, run by back-stabbing and suicide bombing and civilian murder as a matter of course. Western ideas of mercy, fairness, kindness, earnestness, honesty etc have no place in the Middle East, and President Trump is only now beginning to learn this hard fact.
Because Israel will go along with most of what President Trump wants or needs, it is natural for the Trump Administration to lean ever more heavily on Israel to acquiesce and bend and absorb the foolish notions, rather than push harder on Qatar, Turkey or Hamas, who will never bend or acquiesce. They will lie, at best. But Israel will once again be put in a weakened position, and this will incite the blood lust of its enemies, and the cycle of violence will begin anew.
Because the Trump Administration wants to “be nice.” For God’s sake.
Similar foolish mistakes:
- Forcing Israel to stop bombing the evil Iranian regime when it was at its most vulnerable and the most change could be brought to the region. President Trump believed that showing the Iranian mullahs mercy would inspire them to act like Westerners and acquiesce. But nope. Iran says they will get the nuclear bomb and the ICBM means to shove it up America’s ass no matter what. Iran learned nothing from Trump’s largesse, and Trump gained nothing from his largesse, and the world is a more dangerous place because of his largesse.
- Giving evil terrorism sponsor and Hamas-hiders Qatar protection from Israel. This inspires Qatar to double down on its active terrorism and rotgut far-left academic investments in American universities.
- Failing to hold Egypt accountable for its unwillingness to accept fellow Arab Muslim refugees from Gaza, and for creating a huge offensive military buildup in the Sinai Peninsula, contrary to the peace agreement with Israel.
- Failing to hold Turkey accountable for its Islamist terrorism machinations and imperialist dreams.
- Failing to help establish Kurdistan once and for all.
- Giving the psycho sadist ISIS and Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria any credibility.
The list of policy failings in the Middle East grows longer every day, and as a result the world becomes less safe and less stable. Again, President Trump deserves credit for trying something new, but now that we all see that it has failed and that his empty threats against Hamas are laughed at (and that his real threats against Israel for retaliating against Hamas ceasefire violations damage Trump’s standing even more), it is time for this incredible president to stop being Mister Nice Guy.
It is not working, so stop it, for your own good.
No Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Trump, despite him earning it a hundred times over. No recognition was given to him by the Islamist-run United Nations. Absolutely zero of the so-called self anointed “peace” organizations gave Trump any credit for his peace-making efforts. So, Mister President, forgetaboutit, as they used to say in the Bronx when they spoke American there.
You want to create peace in the Middle East?
Here is how: Tell Qatar that they and their oil fields now belong to America, and that the royal family will enjoy a generous stipend, but that they also no longer run the tiny country. Same goes for the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Take their oil, take their lands, make it ours, and we will see peace like you never believed possible begin to reign across that crazy region. Hell, we will see peace right here in America and in Europe like we have not seen since the 1950s!
This is real out of the box thinking, and it is exactly the realpolitik that everyone in that region understands fully. It will work. The issue is whether or not the Trump Administration has the stomach for it.
Good luck, President Trump! We still love you. We just know what is best for you better than you do. You are blinded by good intentions.