Category → Government Of the People…
Janelle Stelson vs Scott Perry for Congress
We have a real contest for the congressional seat here in Southcentral Pennsylvania, currently held by Scott Perry. Former Republican, now-Democrat Janelle Stelson is the Democrat Party nominee to challenge Scott Perry, and how this will end is anyone’s guess.
Years ago, I met Janelle Stelson a few times in social settings, mostly arranged by her then-fiance. We met for dinner or lunch once, in Hershey, I think, and then at a Pennsylvania Environmental Council awards dinner in Harrisburg, where we sat together. Might be a third time, but my memory is hazy about things that happened earlier today, let alone meetings years ago. Point is, I have met Janelle and have a feel for her as a person.
My impression of Janelle Stelson: She is obviously a very attractive woman, poised, and often charismatic, and as a former reporter she has lots of experience in front of the studio news cameras. She is also very smart, very bright, highly articulate.
I do recall her political opinions running Moderate Republican. Like pro business, pro free markets, pro gun rights. She also held some liberal views on abortion and what I used to consider moderate views on environmental quality, but which have now (like so many other political issues) skewed hard to the far Left.
In sum, Janelle Stelson was a really impressive and enjoyable person to meet. Had she remained a moderate Republican, she would have been really attractive as a candidate. However, Janelle decided to toss all that moderate stuff over the side of the boat she was in, and become an arch Leftist Democrat. I do not really understand this choice, nor do I really believe it, or even respect it. Janelle’s decision to become a Democrat, and a very liberal one at that, who is way out of step with Central Pennsylvania voters, reeks of political opportunism.
And that scares me.
By definition, political opportunists are not settled people. They are not being forthright. They are subject to the whims of political tides and political machines, instead of captaining their own ship. And as I have received copious literature from Janelle’s campaign, my impression is that she is simply seeking power. Sorry Janelle, but I have to say Yuck. Had she remained the thoughtful moderate Republican, and challenged Scott Perry in the primary, I would have had total respect for her.
Scott Perry has been in political office a very long time. He and I ran in separate but congruent primaries at the same time in 2012, I for state senate and he for congress, and we shared a stage together several times in that process. At the time he was a state representative in the PA House. Scott has always been ambitious, which I have no real issue with. But I do have an issue with career politicians of either party, and I think this is the one criticism Janelle has leveled at Scott that is real.
However, on balance, I prefer a damned career politician I know, and mostly agree with, to someone like Janelle whose campaign is being run by one of the arch Leftists out of Washington DC, and whose financial support comes from the far Left. If she is elected, Janelle looks like she will be a puppet of the far Left, to which I say No Thank You. America cannot afford more of that, and Central Pennsylvania has never embraced that kind of extremist philosophy.
And no, Janelle, Scott Perry does not advocate for zero abortions, goodness gracious. What a silly allegation. Man, political campaigning really brings out the worst in people, the biggest piles of horse carp…any lie to win, I guess. Yuck.
I hope that Scott Perry wins this race, and then retires from politics. Maybe take a role in the next Trump administration. Hand the baton on to some other citizen who has not yet had an opportunity to serve in elected office. No more stepping stone step ladders for wannabe careerists, this congressional seat should be open to someone new to politics.
Yes, Scott has been a leader of the anti-establishment anti-DC Swamp Congressional Freedom Caucus, which has been refreshing, but in my mind, all congressmen are like milk in the refrigerator…they just need to be drunk up when they are fresh, and poured out when they have been there too long.
I voted for Scott Perry already, but I sat and looked at the ballot a good long time before I colored in his name. Oh, the things that could have been with Janelle, had she remained Republican and not joined the ever-farther-lefter Democrat Party of Lenin and Stalin and Marx.
Who knows, maybe Janelle Stelson will win and happily surprise us with her more moderate personality and high intelligence, but I doubt it. I felt safer betting on and voting for the person I already know and trust, and that was Scott Perry.
Powerful Pictures
Censoring climate mockers
Guest post, courtesy of Tom Shepstone:
by Vijay Jayaraj
“We have reached the end of the Olympic summer in Paris, comprising of the Olympics and the Paralympics. Though the U.S. finished at the top in the Olympics and in the top three at Paralympics, much of the world’s attention was on the Olympics’ obscene mockery of Christianity in its opening ceremony at Paris.
It also overshadowed some unprecedented events in the city. A few days prior to the games, French authorities fined the country’s second most popular news channel 20,000 euros for challenging the popular narrative about a purported climate crisis.
CNews, a round-the-clock news operation, was charged by the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (ARCOM) with a broadcast’s failing to adequately challenge views skeptical of the global warming scare.
“This is the first time in France and internationally that ARCOM or a regulatory authority has issued a financial sanction for a breach concerning an environmental subject,” said QuotaClimat, an organization that reportedly has complained in the past about the climate reporting of various media.
The case of CNews raises serious concerns about press freedom – a cornerstone of democratic societies — and the public’s access to diverse perspectives on environmental issues. While the regulator argued that the channel failed to provide sufficient context and counterarguments, critics contend that the decision sets a dangerous precedent, effectively requiring media outlets to adhere to a specific ideological position.
The role of journalism in a democracy is not to parrot official viewpoints or consensus opinions but rather to investigate, question and present different perspectives on important issues. By imposing restrictions on how climate issues can be reported, France undermines this crucial function of the media.
This crackdown on climate reporting exemplifies a broader trend of using authorities backed by official powers to curb the expression of views that challenge a government’s preferred narrative, a concerning development for anybody favoring an open society.
The practice has become far too common in academic research as well. Scientists who challenge the crisis narrative are subjected to witch hunts and termination from their professions.
Many climate scientists, influenced heavily by funding sources, are transforming their discipline into something that hardly qualifies as science. While their work has the appearance of scientific research and is conducted by those with scientific credentials, both its methodologies and findings are heavily shaped by the agendas of special interest groups, political figures and international governing bodies.
Researchers and their organizations, in too many cases, have become harvesters of grants rather than seekers of truth. Such scientists are supplicants of governments and wealthy foundations wanting particular findings and willing to pay for them.
Those who champion genuine scientific inquiry must speak out against deliberate efforts by climate alarmists to discredit sceptics, whose questions are manifestations of critical thinking. Inquiry into popular theories should be welcome, not treated as sedition.
From Galileo’s astronomical discoveries to more recent controversies in fields like genetics and nuclear energy, attempts to protect the popular view have often backfired. slowing scientific progress and technological advancement.
In the case of climate change, this is true too. Restrictive energy policies — justified on the basis of addressing a “climate crisis” — already have impeded economic growth and increased prices. Ideologues seek to reverse decades of advancement in clean-coal power generation, oil and gas development and other technologies.
Scientific understanding of Earth’s climate is not furthered by silencing dissent but through rigorous research, peer review and open debate. By allowing a diversity of voices in the media, including those that challenge the so-called “consensus,” opportunities for truth arise.
Isolated intrusions on press freedom are annoying. But actions like that of the French regulator for reporting on a climate story can be replicated by other governments and for other subjects – a certain eventuality without the intervention of honest citizens
For this is the proverbial slippery slope greased by powerful people’s lust for control or money or both. Left alone, only the most ruthless of the politically connected get to say where it ends. Even they can’t say for sure, but history tells us it ends badly.”
This commentary was first published at yourNews on September 10, 2024.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K., and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, U.K.
#France #Climate #Jayaraj #CO2Coalition #FreeSpeech #Censorship
I USED to be a Democrat
I used to be a registered Democrat, until 1992, the last time I voted for a Democrat for president, when Bill Clinton became president and immediately went to war against private gun ownership. Guns in civilian hands is a sign of a healthy nation, and when politicians want to disarm the civilians, it is a bad sign, that tyranny is awake and active. The Democrat Party hates private gun ownership and is constantly trying to end it. Kamala Harris is on record that she will come and take our guns, if she is elected. No way.
So I am not a big believer in political parties, because as the Pennsylvania GOP has shown over and over, it is really just about a small handful of wealthy elite people here making most of the decisions. This is not democratic, open, transparent, or good for representative government. Both political parties suck, it is just that one is much worse than the other.
That said, one thing that is really acutely toxic to democracy is a group like today’s Democrat Party. This is the political party of tyranny, of big government, of market intervention, of no gas stoves for you, indoctrinating little girls to cut their breasts off in school, and so on. Today’s Democrat Party is anti freedom, anti choice, anti child, anti education, anti family, anti religion, anti science, and anti America. It is so bad that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of all people had to leave it. So as bad as the PAGOP is, the Democrat Party is worse, and it must be resisted at all turns.
I have yet to have a meaningful conversation with ardent Democrats. They to a person turn off, tune out, walk away, get really angry and defiant. Not one has been able to have a calm conversation about politics, or to calmly explain what they stand for and why they stand for it. Way too many are waving around signs that have some nonsense about Trump and Project 2025. Trump had nothing to do with the Heritage Foundation’s ultra nerdy conservative wishlist Project 2025.
The #WalkAway movement is really valuable, and anyone feeling like they are uncomfortable with the Democrat Party can simply Walk Away from it like so many others are doing. I am not saying you have to become a registered Republican, although the more independent minded voters that register as Republicans, the greater the likelihood that The People can finally defeat the bad GOPe. If you become an Independent or No Political Party, you will suddenly find yourself…unburdened by what was.
Hurricane Helene says No Such Thing as White Privilege
“White privilege” may be the most racist thing you will hear anyone say or allege in your lifetime, probably from the most racist people on Planet Earth, white liberal Democrats, but that has not stopped this fake social construction from being pronounced and bandied about like it is actually real.
Well, Mother Nature herself has recently descended from the heavens above to demonstrate that in reality and in the natural world too, there is no such thing as “White privilege.”
In the form of Hurricane Helene last week, Mother Nature inflicted huge devastation and destruction upon eastern Tennessee and northern North Carolina and the regional demographic there. It is a group of people I have had a lot of life experience with and who I maintain intense admiration for, white rural working people.
That there are a lot of white liberal Democrats in Asheville folded into the mix of Hurricane Helene victims does not mitigate or reduce my sympathy or hope for everyone’s full recovery there. Everyone is equal before the law, everyone is created in the image of God, and we are all Americans who should be caring for one another, regardless of our political opinions or religious views.
So Hurricane Helene destroyed billions of dollars in built infrastructure, including homes, towns, villages, farms, rural roads and interstates and bridges and schools and hospitals, stranding hundreds of thousands of largely white rural American citizens without power, water, or food.
And so just to demonstrate that white people can be victims and actually have no racial privilege whatsoever, the federal government response to Hurricane Helene has been… almost silent. Like cavalier and ignoring the huge mess of human misery. Like on purpose.
Recall that to our elites, Appalachian whites are the deplorable, disposable, ignored, maligned, forgotten Americans who nonetheless mine the coal that gives us most of our electricity, serve as the roughnecks on oil and gas drilling platforms that run our vehicles, fill up the special forces and combat infantry positions in our most highly motivated and patriotic high-risk fighting forces, who log the forests that provide us with high grade lumber for our fancy kitchens and furniture, who work for the railroads, and who drive trucks across the interstates that bring Amazon Prime to your home super pronto.
In every one of these professions, these (white, rural) people are taking big risks that almost always exceed their expected financial return. Why? Because they are proud to work hard, and they love America more than they love themselves. And they are devoted to America because there is no other nation anywhere that will give them the same freedom and opportunity.
White rural working people are the people who disproportionately make America work and run and give you, dear reader, the comfortable lifestyle to which you have become all too accustomed. And now that these people need a lot of help to get through this natural catastrophe, it sure appears that they are being abandoned by the same federal government that is simultaneously giving away unlimited taxpayer dollars right and left to border-jumping illegal migrants and to the porous demi-government in Ukraine.
I am hearing mostly consistent reports of aid efforts from acquaintences, friends, and family in Asheville and eastern Tennessee (some of their own photos are below; one of my family members from there is now in a hotel in South Carolina). Last week a friend of mine from Harrisburg loaded up his work van with bottled water and food and drove seven hours to the literal end of the paved road in eastern Tennessee, where he followed signs to a Baptist church. There in the church parking lot he was met with tears of fear and appreciation, and many needy hands as entire families sought shelter there with their sole remaining belongings: Their clothing on their bodies. (Some of his own photos of this are below).
Radio personality Glenn Beck reported his unbelievably negative experience with a sole FEMA crew instructive example of No White Privilege To Be Found Here.
Plenty of political fallout has resulted from apparent Biden-Harris government failure, or even willful blocking of aid efforts. While checking his email at a FEMA post, a partisan leftist Democrat in my family there said this is all politically generated misinformation, but I don’t know if I can accept that. The damning reports and real-time online videos are overwhelming and seem irrefutable, while politically partisan mainstream media outlets appear locked into a defend-Kamala Harris-at-all-costs posture, instead of having their crews on the ground recording what the citizens journalists are capturing.
Tons of on-the-ground reports are pouring out of the region, showing a complete lack of federal interest in helping, and a complicated mix of local territorialism, miscommunication, petty power flexing, and even theft of supplies. And even when the Biden-Harris Administration does speak publicly, they are actually saying sorry, we have no money for your disaster relief.
Because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ALREADY GAVE AWAY all the unsustainable taxpayer money to illegals and the endless war in Ukraine.
Folks, not only was there never any such thing as White privilege, but when there was an opportunity to demonstrate that American Whites get treated at least equally with everyone else, both American citizen of color and illegal border jumper alike, the point is made by our current federal government that American White people come last, if they get any help at all.
Elon Musk’s short and sweet warning to us
“Very few Americans realize that, if Trump is NOT elected, this will be the last election. Far from being a threat to democracy, he is the only way to save it!
Let me explain: if even 1 in 20 illegals become citizens per year, something that the Democrats are expediting as fast as humanly possible, that would be about 2 million new legal voters in 4 years.
The voting margin in the swing states is often less than 20 thousand votes. That means if the “Democratic” Party succeeds, there will be no more swing states!!
Moreover, the Biden/Harris administration has been flying “asylum seekers”, who are fast-tracked to citizenship, directly into swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona. It is a surefire way to win every election.
America then becomes a one-party state and Democracy is over. The only “elections” will be the Democratic Party primaries. This already happened in California many years ago, following the 1986 amnesty.
The only thing holding California back from extreme socialism and suffocating government policies is that people can leave California and still remain in America. Once the whole country is controlled by one party, there will be no escape.
Everywhere in America will be like the nightmare that is downtown San Francisco.”
Gun owners prevail against lawless Harrisburg City
Gun owners have finally prevailed against the lawless and dishonest City of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in a case that was first filed in January 2015, and now, over nine years later, has finally reached a conclusion favorable to logic, to the rule of law, and to fealty to the various federal and state constititional clauses enshrining firearms rights as “Shall not be infringed” and “Shall not be questioned.”
The case was originally brought by Kim Stolfer of Firearms Owners Against Crime, against Harrisburg City, as a result of Harrisburg City openly, brazenly, lawlessly disregarding superseding state law when the city passed and implemented a number of anti-gun ordinances.
In Pennsylvania, state law holds that no political subdivision can enact its own gun regulations, for the same reason that no one wants to go to jail for having an abortion that is legal in the township next door, but illegal in your own township, same state, and because no one wants to encounter different driver’s license requirements in East Succotash, PA, than those found in Wild West Philly, PA. Such a fractured arrangement would be untenable, unsustainable, a legal catastrophe. The law must be unified across the state so that the citizens can live there normally.
And so many years ago, Pennsylvania enacted a pre-emption law that says only the state can pass firearms restrictions, not municipalities. Oh, for lawless leftists this kind of common sense law is a challenge, and of course Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg had to test the citizenry. And they have lost time and again, every time one of these places places an innocent gun owner in handcuffs. As a result, numerous large sum financial judgments have been generously granted to gun owners discriminated against by these lawless political subdivisions over the years.
Think about this: Democrat-run Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh not only wantonly waste taxpayer’s limited dollars by trying to defend the indefensible here in court, they then have to pay out huge awards to aggrieved victims. None of this has to happen, but the mindset of Democrats everywhere seems to be so hell-bent on lawlessness and abusing political opponents.
And we here in Harrisburg are about to begin that financial award phase of our lawsuit, now that it has been successfully decided just days ago, when Judge Andrew Dowling decided that Harrisburg City’s gun ordinances violated state law.
In addition to Kim Stolfer there is another hero here, Attorney Joshua Prince, who has climbed Mount Everest a hundred times over the past nine years in his hard work to keep the city accountable and the rule of law alive. I do not know what the payment arrangement betwen FOAC and Josh Prince is, but I am sure Josh is not getting much more than a few bucks an hour at the present. A financial award commensurate with appropriately smacking down the city’s lawlessness might and hopefully will reset the ledger in favor of Joshua Prince. Josh also maintains a stable of attorneys helping him.
Other people involved in this lawsuit are Kim Stolfer’s successor at FOAC-ILLEA, a dogged and articulate ex-cop named Jim Stoker, a plaintiff named Howard Bullock, who works in the City of Harrisburg, and yours truly, moi, Josh First, who lives in the City of Harrisburg. Part of my sometimes colorful testimony in court last month is highlighted below.
Josh Prince’s blog post today about this important holding is here. The actual court decision is here.
If you are a gun owner, or a freedom lover, or a good government believer, definitely donate some bucks to FOAC-ILLEA. They have earned your support!
Trump supporters, do these two things
If you are a Trump supporter, you need to do these two things, if you have not already done so:
- Donate some money to the Trump campaign here. It doesn’t matter if it is a one-time donation of ten dollars, every cent helps, every penny is important. Political donations may not be your most comfortable experience, and believe me, I understand your feeling on this. My average political donation is probably $25.00, simply because I work very hard to earn the money I have, and so many elected officials are just so disappointing. even the ones I support. But this year, in 2024, America is on the line. Do you want to save democracy from the leftist censors and totalitarians? Give everything you can afford to Trump’s campaign.
- Mail your absentee ballot request, get your absentee ballot, and vote with it. Mail it in and keep the receipt you get that it was received; you may need this. It is important to vote early this year, and avoid the BS that happened in 2020, where the corrupt vote counters hid behind blacked-out windows and added as many fake ballots as they needed to let Joe Biden claim victory.