Josh First's Blog

Acts of Valor vs. Acts of Phoniness: Dave McCormick’s huge fake on PA

Isn’t it intriguing that people who serve in military combat will do all kinds of unbelievably and beautifully brave things at the risk of their own life and limb (thank you all for your service to us back home), but when they are elected or appointed to office, they immediately become political cowards…unwilling to take even nominal risks to do the right thing.

This is not a question, it is an empirical fact. Very few military combat veterans who have been elected or appointed to federal office in America have conducted themselves even remotely as selflessly, fiercely, and as at real personal risk as when they were on the field of battle with firearm in hand and in mortal danger. And we don’t mean physical risk here, but risk to one’s position of official power. Even the toughest combat veterans are demonstrably over and over extremely reluctant to do anything to risk their high official station. No matter how badly America needs their former bravery brought to bear in Congress or in the federal bureaucracies.

Who knows why this is, but it is. Perhaps these wonderful human beings shine most when they know that everything is on the line, and when they later take office, they end up believing or realizing that nothing is actually on the line, except their cushy job and super-high-yield insider trading investment opportunities. And this realization turns them into either simpering weaklings or testily dodgy bullies, who will do absolutely any whore’s job to hold onto their elected or appointed job.

Just a few recent examples of this strange juxtaposition include former senator John Kerry (DC), deceased senator John McCain (RI), and current congressman Dan Crenshaw (RI). Surely there are at least a hundred other such elected or appointed military people, if only your author here spent the time to think or write much more about it.

The one modern exception to this rule that immediately comes to mind is President Theodore Roosevelt, whose adage to “speak softly and carry a big stick” was an excellent rule he both implemented and also nonetheless frequently flouted. Roosevelt flouted his own rule because he was utterly fearless, on the battlefield and off it. His fearlessness begat incredible effectiveness and measurable results, and it is what got his face on Mount Rushmore.

And we should give former Navy SEAL and Trump Administration DOI secretary Ryan Zinke some credit for his brief time at the helm of Interior, where he was daily beset by taxpayer-funded enemies of America and their partners in the mainstream media. But Zinke was in office too briefly to really measure.

Even fellow military combat veteran President Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961) was never going to get his face on Mount Rushmore, but on the silver dollar instead, because while he was a true battlefield warrior, once elected to office he was halfway tough and halfway wuss. Anyone interested in what I mean here can easily and quickly research Eisenhower’s strange autoimmune disease-like combination of Cold War hawk and weak-ass dove.

The point being that politics seems to attract people who we innately admire for their battlefield service or even their heroics thereon, but who then greatly disappoint us once they enter politics. And current candidate for US Senate Dave McCormick is one such example.

McCormick’s campaign website says:

Dave was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. While at West Point, Dave was a four-time letterman on the Army wrestling team and a co-captain his senior year.

Upon receiving his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant, Dave attended Airborne School and Ranger School, where he graduated with honors at one of the toughest schools in the Army. Dave was assigned to the Army’s All-American 82nd Airborne Division, where he was in the first wave of American troops sent into Iraq during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. His unit was tasked with clearing minefields and destroying enemy munitions, and he was awarded the Bronze Star.

As I am a former wrestler (grade school into college), I do value McCormick’s wrestling experience, because I know quite personally that this uniquely difficult and challenging sport builds good character and tough personal traits. And I naturally also value McCormick’s exceptional military training, and like many people, I also greatly appreciate his presence on the field of combat in Iraq.

So while it’s a damned huge shame that these laudable traits did not compute into a great political character for McCormick, it’s also no great surprise. Because RINO McCormick is following in well trod footsteps by many who have preceded him.

• Dave McCormick is nowhere near the person he says he is, or who he is trying to portray himself as. (Neither are several of McCormick’s opponents, either: Dr. Oz was a flaming liberal until recently, when he decided to run for office as a Republican. Oz’s candidacy is 100% Hollywood Media hype and puffery, and his political persona/ policy positions is all totally made up utter bullshit. Jeff Bartos is an unabashed RINO who stands for nothing. Carla Sands is marginally better than Oz or Bartos, but still an establishment political hack who also ‘came home to roost’ in PA from out of state when she smelled a juicy opportunity to run for office…she represents just more of the same old political opportunism like Hillary Clinton did in New York, so no, no thanks, Carla).
• McCormick is, or at least was until very recently, a resident of Connecticut, where he resides in a big fancy house surrounded by other megarich people in big fancy houses, far away from the blue collar stink of Pennsylvania voters, who he now suddenly needs if he is going to convert this juicy political opportunity into more self-improvement. And so suddenly, kapow!, McCormick is a tree farmer (I am a Tree Farmer myself) from central PA in down-home plaid flannel shirts and dungarees, so he can get that Everyman appeal moving in the right direction. I will say that it is true McCormick grew up trimming Christmas trees on his family’s Tree Farm in central PA, and I will also say that he long ago ditched that honest work and healthy way of thinking when he became a greedy, heartless, globalist.

• McCormick made hundreds of millions of dollars from running hedge funds, which make money the opposite of earning it: They bet against American companies and jobs, and when American workers and investors do badly, hedge fund guys sit around smoking big fat cigars and congratulate themselves on making craploads of money off of our misery.

• McCormick is a trustee of the Aspen Institute, which is a globalist anti-America make-the-ultra rich-even-richer Leftist think tank funded by the Gates Foundation (ultra Left), the Ford Foundation (ultra Left), and the Rockefeller Foundation (mostly ultra Left). Having myself served on many boards, I can tell everyone who cares that the Left does not allow anyone near their organizations who is not one of them.

• McCormick served in the George Bush administration from 2005 to 2009 in several high level positions. And while in the bad old days of American politics this kind of resume impressed America First voters, we now see that the most anti-America, anti-Trump, anti-America First people were… George Bush and his administration! They did plenty of behind the scenes anti-America dirty work that America hater Obama could never do, and since 2016 George Bush has been one of President Trump’s fiercest policy critics, even now. So knowing what we now know about open borders globalist George Bush, McCormick’s roles in his administration are no longer an asset, they are a liability. Because America has already been betrayed by a thousand other globalist Bushies/ establishment Republicans/ RINOs just like Dave McCormick. NO MORE.

America as a constitutional republic is hanging by a thin thread, and if our nation is going to survive, we must elect strong leaders. We cannot afford any more RINOs like Jeff Bartos, Dr. Oz, or Dave McCormick, so-called “moderates” who fight for nothing, demand nothing, and stand for nothing except their own personal glory and finances.

Sorry this took so long to say, but it had to be said just right. It does neither me, you the reader, nor Dave McCormick any justice to just poke some holes in his totally rotten political establishment and mostly anti-America resume. There is a real person behind Dave McCormick’s name, and before that person grew up, left central PA, and became obsessed with greed and personal power, he probably was the kind of person we would have wanted as our next US senator from PA. But not any more, because Dave is no longer that person. He abandoned his roots when he joined the globalist ranks, and he does great disservice to his own personal achievements by slyly trying to pass himself off as just the local, humble working guy he once was.

The only person worth getting my vote or yours for US Senate is Kathy Barnette, a humble, honest, down to earth working person and US Army veteran.