Category → Government Of the People…
Harrisburg politics as usual from someone we should not expect it from
“Politics as usual.”
That is a statement, a curse, a wry observation, an accusation, a vexation to the free citizen, and most surely, it is a threat to good government.
Wherever there is “politics as usual,” we find double standards, empty promises, hypocrisy, a lack of forethought, an absence of careful or diligent thought, and an act of putting political gain ahead of citizen gain. And please don’t kid yourself that only “their” political party does it. Both main political parties engage in politics as usual, and even some of the fringe political parties are awash in it, because for their single issue cause to succeed they must overlook tons of contrary evidence to keep selling their purist issue.
This past week saw a classic example of politics as usual, and it disappointed me, because the person who engaged in it ought to know better. I certainly believe that he is better than that, and that he has a capacity to act bigger than his silly politicized statement.
What happened was that Governor Tom Corbett line-item-vetoed some “legislative” funding (that is taxpayer dollars used by the legislature for their office coffee, cars, walking-around-money, and parking on Capitol Hill), and state senator Rob Teplitz claimed that it would damage Harrisburg’s recovery plan.
Nothing could be farther from the truth, because that money vetoed out of the budget belongs to taxpayers and has zero to do with Harrisburg’s recovery. Only an overly creative imagination can find some vague link between the loss of cheap cash for legislators and the loss of economic advance for Harrisburg City.
Making it worse is that Senator Teplitz voted against the state budget to begin with. If he votes against something, how can he then claim that someone else shouldn’t vote against it, too?
The simple reason that Teplitz said this is for cheap political gain, a lame attempt to damage Corbett among voters in Harrisburg City. This qualifies as politics as usual, and it is destructive of the political process because it cheapens the political process. It dumbs it down. Instead of talking about Big Important Issues, we end up talking about nonsense that has nothing to do with anything material or substantial, and voters walk away from it.
When voters walk away from the political process, America is damaged. Maximum voter participation is needed for the nation to function properly.
Teplitz should know better than to do this. He is a bright guy, and I think he is a good guy. Although principled, he is overwhelmingly partisan, and that is why this kind of silly waste of time came naturally to him. Like all other partisans, Democrat and Republican, Teplitz only really cares about the party enterprise. He forgets about the citizens, their Constitutional rights, their personal money they remove from their pockets and place in the state coffers.
It is no secret I hope to be the Republican nominee in 2016 for the 15th PA senate district. If he runs for re-election then, Teplitz will be my opponent. I have no problem publicly singing his praises where he has earned them, and I can attest to several good things he has done for me and other people in the district. If Teplitz has had one strength so far, that I have seen, one truly laudable characteristic, it has been his willingness to wade into bad government, force a meeting or two, confront recalcitrant bureaucrats, and represent well a constituent’s interests. That is a real skill, and we should all recognize it.
That is why Teplitz disappoints so badly with his spurious attack on Corbett. I just know he can be bigger and better than this politics as usual.
How the Left did once and would again gain control of a nation
Plenty of conservatives have a bit o’ swagger, because they have the guns and the liberals do not.
True enough.
In a fight for America, our side has the civilian firepower, no question.
But what if the liberals gained enough control of enough of the military and local police to gain control of enough American territory that they could do as they needed with their enemies (to borrow a word from Barack Hussein Obama)?
Don’t they have that kind of infrastructure, already, if we imagine what a civil war in America looked like once, and could look like again; how certain regions and states would be drawn up?
And it’s not like conservatives have a standing army. We are individuals, living in homes, separated from a concentration of power. Few of us belong to militias, much less shooting clubs or hunting clubs.
As individuals, we are sitting ducks. It is easy for even a weak government to take, capture, and whisk away individuals, to control individuals, to disappear individuals. Only together, acting as groups, can conservatives and patriots represent any formidable force to be reckoned with.
If you want to see how a country can be lost, because good men, good people, good individuals, have a sense of honor and duty to their nation that is stronger than their will to survive with a new identity, an identity detached from the nation they once knew, then watch this movie, below. The last 15 minutes spell out the kind of official coercive force that Liberals have always used and still covet today, because they are so “right.”
This movie below is a true story about how the Soviet Russians murdered the cream of Polish society, leaving the Polish people rudderless, leaderless, and easier to rule with a Liberal iron fist. The Soviets were the liberals of their day; you know, doing great things for everyone: Free cars, free houses, free food, free healthcare. They had it all! Soviet Russia was a real paradise…<sarcasm>… You know, the kind of “paradise” that Obama is building here in America, with the help of his coercive IRS and various federal agencies.
Watch “Katyn.”
UPDATE: No doubt that some readers will outright dismiss these concerns. If you want to see a real-life, current example of how each patriot or conservative activist could be ‘taken out of circulation” by a lawless government using federal, state, and local law enforcement people, read this article about how in the middle of the day a military helicopter, a dozen cars, and swarms of SWAT officers descended on a school soccer field in a town of 850 people in rural Illinois. Their goal: One house, three miles away. Overkill, anyone?
Good move by Gov. Corbett
If I hear one more false accusation that Tom Corbett is short changing government schools, I am gonna buttonhole that next person who says it. It is not true that government school funding was or has been cut by the Corbett administration. Like so many things that former governor Ed Rendell had done, those previous annual education budgets were temporarily bolstered by one-time FEDERAL money. That funding was never intended to be continuous, and if it is not continuous, then it is in Barack Obama’s hands, not some governor who has zero control over federal spending.
Whatever your beef with Tom Corbett may be, and Lord knows, people have legitimate beefs with him, he is not responsible for “cutting education funding.” That is a lie.
Today, Corbett did the right thing by signing the legislature’s proposed budget, but using his line-item veto power to exclude the state legislature’s hoggish claim to some $72 million taxpayer dollars. I have seen the state legislature hog over $100 million, and even higher, for their pet projects that the careerist leaders and their “pets” use to spend on projects to buy votes and get re-elected.
Corbett is angling for the legislature to return and fix the state pension crisis.
Good move, Tom Corbett.
America, the only country with real citizen independence from government
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
Weakness in the West has consequences
Adolf Hitler rose to power in a sea of pacifism and “peace-ism,” that euphoric act of sacrifice that kills all the innocent people and empowers the evil ones.
Hitler knew the West was weak, and therefore ripe for consumption. Pacifism empowered Hitler. Weakness invited his genocidal attacks.
In beating Nazi Germany and then confronting their sister, the Soviet Union, at huge costs, the West found again its spirit of liberty and survival instincts. During that time the West experienced incredible material success and unimaginable increases in the quality of life.
But you know how over time material success breeds creature comforts and disinclinations to do anything that might upset the comfortable lifestyle emanating from material success. So pacifism and peace-ism have risen again, among European countries and many Americans, even as war is carried to our doorsteps.
Andrew Tahmooressi is a Marine Corps sargeant who took a wrong turn in the wild, unmarked American desert with his legal guns, and has been imprisoned by Mexico for months ever since. America has done zero to get him back, but the Obama administration has done everything possible to open the border to terrorists, children, criminals, and assorted other illegal burdens on two legs.
In Israel, three teenaged boys were abducted three weeks ago by Muslim supremacists, and then found today, dead, killed soon after they were taken. Half a dozen Israeli military and police officers have lost their jobs over the boys’ deaths, which were avoidable: One boy called the police and said they were being kidnapped. The policewoman called it a prank and did not act on it. Her Israeli military counterparts have been primed by overwhelming political correctness to look for Jewish kids with spray paint cans as their primary target, not murderous Arab terrorists, and they, too, ignored the phone call.
Europe is filled with Islamic institutions where hatred is preached and acted out every day, non-Muslims are gunned down in the streets, and the perpetrators and proponents are called “victims.”
The list goes on and on. The West is awash in enemies and insecurity, anarchy, but nothing is done.
Weakness breeds contempt and increased attempts to dethrone the boss. It is happening across Western Civilization: Our collective and individual weakness is being exploited by people who would take over our countries and change them into something else, something unrecognizable, something where liberty is unknown.
Will you choose to be weak? Or will you take action to preserve American liberties?
PA AG Kane: The Breck Girl
Pennsylvania’s attorney general is Kathleen Kane.
Pennsylvania citizens deserve much better than Kane. We deserve more than what she brings to her public job.
Kane acts like the silky models who showed off their long hair with pirouettes and head tosses for Breck Shampoo. One is reminded of the song “I’m Too Sexy.”
Based on her carefully groomed public appearances that coincide with an honest-to-goodness inability to grasp or articulate the issues of her office and the public, she is henceforth dubbed “The Breck Girl.”
Kane’s flippant, vacuous approach to serious public policy and legal issues, emphasized by a physical appearance crutch, complete with slow-motion hair tosses and giraffe-like Cheshire Cat radioactive radiant grins, have earned her this nickname.
Breck Girl, you are not up to the job. You are incompetent. If Pennsylvania had a recall provision in our constitution, you’d be recalled by now.
Hopefully, you will be impeached soon. If Pennsylvania must have a Democrat as AG, I personally know several men and women attorneys in that party who would qualify much better than you, Breck Girl.
Ken Matthews, local reporter extraordinaire
WHP580 AM radio has long been a source of news for those hungry for accurate reporting outside of the establishment media liberal agenda.
Bob Durgin was the lovable, garrulous, crotchety, cowboy hat wearing local man-on-the-street news guy from 3:00 to 6:00 daily, and his news items shaped a good deal of local, regional, and state politics. Because Durgin worked in the state capital region, he was listened to by a population of political activists. So when the PA state legislature midnight pay raise happened, Durgin was on the soap box, giving vent to his frustration. He inspired an entire movement and generation of political activists; existing activists like Gene Stilp, Russ Diamond, and Eric Epstein were bolstered by having weekly access to his show as guests, and often sitting in for Durgin when he went on vacation.
After Durgin retired, Ken Matthews was hired by RJ Harris to run the 3-6 slot.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if Ken was going to make it during his first couple of months at the microphone. His listeners missed Durgin’s style, and they missed Durgin’s local content. It is a tough place to be, following three hours of Rush Limbaugh, and the natural inclination is to talk about national and international issues. After all, these big issues best reflect the great principles and ideas that guide government, both good and bad.
So Ken’s callers were hostile towards him. They didn’t like his style, his voice, or his views. It was a rough transition, and it came through the radio like a sharp thumb in the eye.
But to Ken’s credit, he dove into the Central PA culture and took a crash course in our ways and our people. There is a reason that this region is the most politically and culturally conservative area in America. Our people here will always fight the good fight, and they want to be knowledgeable about politics.
Ken Matthews has now mastered the audience’s interests and passions, and he has really hit his stride. Last week Ken reported on the frivolous but dangerous lawsuit against Perry County Sheriff Nace, by liberal county auditors seeking concealed carry permit holders’ information. Did the Patriot News report on it up front? No. But, surprisingly, that liberal activist newspaper had an incredible interview with citizen activist Jim Lucas, after the fact. So Ken is having an impact.
Ken’s reporting awakened a sleeping giant in otherwise pastoral, tranquil Perry County. Ken is a hero.
Perry County’s tranquility is often seen as being simple and backwards by outsiders. As a guy who grew up in very rural farm country, I can tell you that the outward tranquility masks a soul of steel and resolute commitment to American liberties. City slickers do not understand that. Here comes the political surprise, folks! The hornet’s nest was knocked down with a broom handle, kicked, and then a swarm of angry hornets poured forth. The implications for the 2016 state senate race in the 15th PA senate district are huge. Perry County voters are now riled up.
Thank you to Ken Matthews, a friend of our Second Amendment rights, and a fantastic local reporter. We are pleased to have you wearing Bob Durgin’s big cowboy boots.
AG Kane exonerates Corbett with backhanded, ironic report
PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane “exonerated” Governor Tom Corbett with the most back-handed investigative report seen in a long time.
While acknowledging that Corbett, previously as AG himself, investigating Jerry Sandusky, did not politicize the Sandusky investigation, Kane still called Corbett’s choices in that investigation “inexcusable” and “inexplicable.”
Without question Penn Staters like me, who have followed the Sandusky debacle from beginning to end, we tend to feel like Penn State’s reputation never was considered by anyone involved. Well, it was the paramount consideration by former PSU president Graham Spanier, at a time when the school’s reputation should not have mattered at all, and the kid victims’s interests should have been advanced immediately and at any cost.
So, too little, too late for Penn State by everyone, including a majority of the PSU trustees, Louis Freeh, and state officials everywhere. If Corbett was guilty of failing to jump to Penn State’s defense, he was in damned good company. Pissed at Corbett? OK, then be pissed at many of the sitting trustees.
But what irks me is to see the most politicized AG in Pennsylvania’s history use the words “inexcusable” and “inexplicable.”
Kane’s behavior in the AG office has been both of those words and much much more.
My favorite misdeed is how she refused to pursue the unethical PA Liquor Control Board members, whose financial misdeeds have been widely reported.
What has not been reported is how her family, Kane Trucking, holds PLCB contracts worth millions of dollars. Kane’s failure to apply the law here could be due to a large financial incentive for her to not rock the PLCB gravy boat. Is anyone investigating THAT?
No. In fact, the establishment media has circled the wagons around Kane, with not one word yet mentioned in print about this ethical lapse of hers. In fact, a fawning, fluffy, cheerful, supportive interview with Kane was posted by the Patriot News two weeks ago, and worse yet, by reporter Charles Thompson, a writer I have long considered one of the last real investigative reporters in Harrisburg. Thompson made no mention of any of Kane’s lapses, or of her pending impeachment, in that unpaid advertising piece run by the Patriot News. She was even photographed laughing away, her head held high, her artificially white teeth flashing for the camera.
While people are still asking if Kane’s report on Corbett’s role as AG has any salience for the governor’s race, what informed citizens want to know, is: Why does it appear that Kathleen Kane is protecting Kane Trucking’s PLCB contracts? Now that is a real public policy question worth asking.