South Africa 2025 > racism than South Africa 1985
The South Africa of 2025 is a far more racist, more violent, more evil place than the South Africa of 1985. The Apartheid of South Africa 2025 is much greater, much worse, than the South Africa Apartheid of 1985. The South Africa that we see today is a failed state, a leper among nations, and I do not suggest that I know how it can get better. My role is to simply call it what it is: Racist evil.
Like all inveterate racists, today’s South African “leaders” have to want to get better, they have to want to repent, and they have to actually make substantive policy changes, before they are actually better people with a more representative democratic government. Right now, President Ramaphosa and his many associates are only in the early stage of being confronted about their evil racism, and they are trying to put up a fight. Not that Ramaphosa et al are in denial about their racism, no, they are simply telling us all to talk about something else. At least their racist White predecessors acknowledged their own racism. These current people are just bad liars.
Very well do I recall watching the Super 8 camera footage and nascent video footage of uniformed South African police (of all skin colors) beating black South Africans with rubber truncheons in 1985. My dad and I were watching the evening news on television, and the violent images were highly disturbing. Peaceful, non-violent protestors were being beaten badly, sent to the hospital, so that a racist and race-based government in Praetoria could maintain control. It was awful, about as a bad as any government could be. It motivated me to participate in the construction of our own student “shanty town” in front of Old Main at Penn State, and to hold many demonstrations there.
Those violent images did not stop until several years later, when the Whites-only South African regime stepped down and turned political power over to everyone else who lived in South Africa – black, brown, Asian Indian, Muslim, Hindu, white, Christian, etc. You name it, the entire ethnic and religious melting pot that the original South Africa had attracted to live there from across Africa and Europe and Asia since its founding in the early 1700s.
But then new South African images began to enter the nightly TV news: Black South Africans burning each other alive with gasoline and car tires. Butchering one another with machetes. Dragging one another behind vehicles until only a bundle of bloody rags with some bones and tattered meat remained at the end of the rope. Entire shanty towns burned, with poor mothers and children running pell-mell to escape. Such is the cost of political turmoil, one supposes. Perhaps when democracy and self-rule emerges from this turmoil, everyone involved will step back and call it quits.
Nope.
South Africa may have given up the original Apartheid of roughly 1947-1987, but it has only exchanged it for an Apartheid of Black-on-Brown and Black-on-White oppression. Racial oppression is evil, regardless of who is doing it, and the current South African leaders are a bunch of evil racist bastards, who use butchery, rape, and torture to hold on to political power. Don’t try to explain this away. Evil is evil, racism is racism, oppression is oppression, regardless of who is doing it.
And I think one of the lessons we have learned about the current Apartheid South Africa is that they will tell everyone that their oppression and racism is not oppression and racism. That the images of whites being beaten to death on their farms (which I have seen and will not re-post here), and white women being gang raped (which the perpetrators enjoy filming because they are not held accountable, and they are in fact encouraged by President Ramaphosa) before being be-headed, are not violence.
Today President Trump hosted President Ramaphosa at the White House. Ramaphosa wanted to talk about trade and getting more free money from hard working White American taxpayers, but Trump forced him to sit through about five minutes of horrible video showing Black-on-White political activity and hate speech from South Africa, including white-owned farms being gleefully ransacked by racist assholes. Trump also had some White refugees from South Africa talk about being ethnically cleansed from the land their families had called home for over 300 years. Three hundred years anywhere makes you a native.
And yes, let’s talk about human migration a bit, because that seems to be at the heart of all this Apartheid-reverse-Apartheid stuff going on. Fact is, humans migrate across this planet. They all do.
Asians especially have migrated a lot to then-empty lands, occupied them, called them home. Blacks have migrated to Europe in huge masses, seeking economic opportunity unavailable in their home sh*thole countries run into the ground by racist people like Ramaphosa. Whites have migrated out of Europe, Arabs and Asians have violently migrated into Europe over the past thousand years (Ghengis Khan, the Ottoman Turks, the Muslim Arabs).
There has been a non-stop human migration around the planet, but when white Europeans do it, it is oddly decried as Colonialism. Even when the white Europeans founded incrediblly developed, wealthy nations like South Africa, which in turn attracted even more human migration, because of the unprecedented opportunity in the region, and which formed the basis for the modern day Apartheid South Africa that is now run by people like Ramaphosa, corruptly lapping up the last dregs of civilized development and wealth that remain, and creating none to replace what is taken.
Yes, white refugees from South Africa are a reality that breaks the racist narrative that only White people can be racist. Fact is, everyone can be racist – Blacks, Browns, Whites, Yellows, Reds, and all shades in between. Everyone of all skin colors can hog power, and use it unjustly. We are seeing these simple truths with Hamas and Hizb’alla, with the race-mocking Ramaphosa, and with the poorly mis-named International Court of Injustice and Official Discrimination that has sought to finish what master racist Adolph Hitler tried against the Jews.
Only here in America, it appears, do we have an opportunity to create a non-racial society, a racially blind society, where the quality of your character is the sole basis for judgment and measure. I am proud of President Trump for starting a conversation about racism that is looooooong overdue. The fact that the South Africa of 2025 is much worse than the South Africa of 1985 – more racist, more Apartheid-y, more cruel and violent, shows how much work needs to be done. Ramaphosa is a useful foil.
I am looking forward to the honest discussion about it, and in the meantime to helping the refugees from today’s racist South African Apartheid.
Shameless Fake News New York Times created the alternative media that replaced it
The Blaze posts facts that are inconvenient to liars like the New York Times
Vote for Josh Prince on Tuesday
This coming Tuesday is Primary Election Day 2025 here in Pennsylvania, and if there is one person you vote for, it should be Josh Prince, candidate for Commonwealth Court.
Josh has an incredible career as an attorney. Remarkable for someone his age. He has amassed a lot of wins in court by dint of his hard work and intelligence. I know from my own personal experience as a co-client of his, here in Harrisburg, where he successfully represented FOAC, me, and another person, in challenging Harrisburg City’s illegal anti-gun ordinances.
This is why Josh Prince has been endorsed by so many state-wide and national organizations, like FOAC and Gun Owners of America.
Josh’s opponent is the exact opposite of Josh: Matt Wolford is a dreary, inexperienced state government attorney, from an agency known for beating up on innocent people, and who has an interesting criminal history of his own.
Yes, the PAGOP selected Matt Wolford and endorsed him, despite the fact that he is far less qualified than Josh Prince. This strange choice is par for the course and SOP for the PAGOP, which always always endorses weak candidates who then go on to almost always lose in the general election. Probably because the PAGOP wants weak people they can control, instead of strong independent-minded people like Josh Prince.
The PAGOP always prefers to lose elections to Democrats than to have independent-minded conservatives win.
But you, the Pennsylvania voter, do not have to follow the PAGOP. You have agency, your own ability to act on your own, to act in your own best interest, to see your own ideas and values through at the voting booth. If you want the best possible person to be elected to the Commonwealth Court, then vote for Josh Prince on Tuesday.
Also, vote NO on all PA supreme court retentions later this year. Send a strong message. Tell the Uniparty political establishment that you, We, The People, want qualified citizens sitting in judgment of us and our claims. Not spineless political hacks picked from the bottom of the barrel.
You can learn more about Josh Prince at https://www.princeforjustice.com/.
Trump storms the Middle East
Awful lot of hand-wringing and anxiety over President Trump’s un-orthodox approach to the Middle East this week. Understandably. A lot is at risk if the president fails, and he is jumping head-first into a region that is already steeped in failure.
From the Sunna-Shia conflict that most recently showed up in Syria, where Sunni jihadists massacred thousands of Alawite (Shi’ite/Shia) men, women, and children, to the perilous position of all minorities (Jews, Christians, Yazidis, Druze, Coptic Christians) in a now overwhelmingly violent Islamic area, it just seems like the Middle East is a gigantic minefield where no matter where a person steps, the likelihood is high that an explosion will follow.
Into this minefield runs head-first our president, Donald Trump. His approach is probably completely different than anything done before by the West. It appears that Trump is forcefully grabbing everyone there into one gigantic bear hug, full of economic prosperity and political legitimacy. So long as they all participate on his terms.
Judging by the openly amazed smiles of the Saudi, Qatari, and Syrian leaders, as they stand shoulder to shoulder with President Trump, they are indeed surprised and also willing to be hugged. It remains to be seen if they truly understand what Trump wants from them, or if they think they can outwit him and get what they want, without having to give.
Yes, there is real risk with Trump’s approach, but if nothing is risked, nothing is gained. Qatar is funding a great deal of the pro-terrorism unrest on American college campuses right now, as Qatar has also been the source of most Sunni-oriented terrorism around the planet. Home to Islamic propaganda outlet Al-Jazeera and Hamas leaders living in luxury, Qatar has never been a huge friend of the West, but rather an antagonist who has used the West’s openness against it. So, accepting an airplane from Qatar to serve as a government-owned makeshift Air Force One, as Trump has done, and standing with the emir of Qatar as chums, has blurry optics, let alone the probability the plane is loaded with Chinese spying devices that will undermine American security.
But…what if Qatar can be turned from its evil ways? Huuuuge win for world peace!
And Trump trusts American security personnel to sweep the Qatari Trojan Horse gift plane for spy devices, of course, and any that are found will probably be held quietly in reserve, in the event that Trump needs to reverse course with Qatar. Which is a real possibility, as Trump’s tariff negotiations have revealed: Today you are in like flint, tomorrow you are out in the cold, but the following day you are allowed back in the house because you did the right thing. Thus far, Trump has masterfully played tariff and international trade policy like a maestro conducting a symphony orchestra.
Let’s hope Trump can do the same magic in the Middle East, because recognizing as legitimate the bloodthirsty, murderous jihadis in Syria (who most recently axe murdered a bunch of Druze), and negotiating a doomed-from-the-start nuclear deal with ever-lying Iran, carries enormous risk, as does having all kinds of separate American relationships with the Saudis et al that do not include Israel. If Israel sees Iran gearing up for nuclear blackmail or all-out war, then Israel will have no choice but to strike hard.
So, it appears that suddenly Israel is the wild card here, not the evil nuke-happy Iran or jihadist Syria or terrorism-enabling Qatar. And yet, everyone knows Trump is already in like flint with Israel….
What a strange pattern we have here, as President Trump weaves a creative new web to capture and finally hold stable the most difficult and unstable region on the planet. Let’s hope he is successful, and that a Pax Trumpica can finally happen.
John Fetterman, canary in a coal mine
If a healthy body politic is measured by the amount of middle-ground, America is in trouble. If the health of the body politic is assessed by polarization, America is in trouble. If the body politic’s veins are full of founding principles, great, and of the veins are full of foreign bodies and alien ideas, then the very bloodstream is being poisoned and is not healthy. A poisoned blood stream means the body has not long to live.
It might be popular in the Democrat Party’s mainstream media to accuse Republicans of being racist, or extreme, but the fact is that the GOP is filled to the brim with mealy mouthed “moderates” incapable of taking a policy stand of any sort or substance. Note how US Attorney nominee for Washington DC, Ed Martin, was blocked by old guard RINO Sen. Tom Tillis and at least a half dozen other similar minded Republican senators hiding in the shadows.
And it is the Democrat Party that is increasingly radical, extreme, anti-America, and unwilling to brook any kind of moderation in its own ranks. Note how US Senator John Fetterman is now hostilely surrounded by his own party, the constellation of far-Left Marxist interest groups, and their media apparatus, for the simple crime of being too moderate.
And John Fetterman is no moderate! He has simply broken with far-left woke orthodoxy on American jobs, border security, and supporting key American ally, Israel.
This slight amount of independent thinking alone has made him unacceptable to the Democrat Party…then again, RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard were also almost destroyed by a Democrat Party enraged that any of theirs could possibly find ways to work with the other side. His own party is trying to drive him from office with fake MSM reports about him.
All the time I get these ridiculous emails from the Pennsylvania Democrats decrying “extremism,” and yet it is they who are openly extreme. I have no idea how anyone normal supports the Democrat Party today, because their actions and words left all normalcy behind a very long time ago.
Way back when I was a Democrat, over three decades ago, it was a JFK political party that loved America and Americans. I will also say that the NRA member pro-gun and pro-Life Central Pennsylvania Democrat Josh was more conservative than at least half of the elected Republican Party today. This is how far far far Left the Democrat Party has moved.
Who would have guessed it, but Senator John Fetterman is now the main canary in the American coal mine. His political health is the indicator of how healthy and safe America is overall, how politically balanced we are.
If John Fetterman is driven from office, then the only moderation will be on the political “right,” and it will exist only because corrupt spineless jellyfish career GOPe officials like Tom Tillis are too afraid to take quintessential stands on policy based on First Principles (Constitutional principles from our nation’s Founding in 1776 and 1787-1789). And yet they will fight for re-election like their lives depend upon it, because they are making sooooo much money on insider trading.
Senator John Fetterman, you have this Republican’s admiration, and hope for your physical and political health. Hang in there, buddy. We are all watching your senate tenure as a vital sign of life of America.
UPDATE 5/13/25: Senator Fetterman has friends in unexpected places
Says who, the zero credibility far-Left AP? The far-Left teacher’s unions? Sure appears to be a set-up to get a fake negative headline on Fetterman
New York Magazine is another stalwart far-Left Democrat Party machine outlet. Like a sewer outlet.
Sy Snyder is a devoted Democrat Party 360-degree all-things Pennsylvania Democrat “daily pulse” email that also contains the usual left wing marching orders. PennLive is a super partisan pro-Democrat Party political activism organization posing as a “media” outlet. Ha ha.
Don’t leave your records in the sun and other solid life tips
John Hartford played every instrument I could imagine – fiddle, guitar, banjo, harmonica, spoons, sticks, rocks, fence posts, and he played them all well. He was a 20th century artist from the days of the American frontier, or maybe the 1850s traveling circuses, with his crumpled top hat and tatty clothing. Only occasionally obliquely bawdy, most of his songs were silly and clean fun, done in the folk music style that every American enjoys on a sweaty summer day. Summer time is the time to forget all of your anxieties and frustrations, and let traveling entertainers like John Hartford make you laugh with gusto.
Golly, we are just about in summer time, aren’t we? Time for the Artists’ Fair (or is it the Artisans’ Fairies?) in State College, with non-fraudulent all natural ice cream from PSU’s The Creamery. Hot and sweaty guaranteed in the heart of summer. Time to start planning your summer trips, if you have not already done so. And if you find hotels full or too expensive, there is always the local county fair to fall back on, or The Grange Fair in Centre Hall.
Ahhhh, the Grange Fair in Centre Hall, a family staple of ours….My sister puked on one of those big spinny roundy roundy pill-shaped rides that make me sick just to watch, and her vomit hit everyone locked in the cage with her, as well as the many innocent bystanders running for cover. I have not been back to the Grange Fair since that Great Vomit Assassination On The Grassy Knoll in 1977. But I hear the fair is still great. John Hartford could have written a funny song about that vomit event.
Anyhow, John Hartford performed many silly songs, including my favorite, Don’t Leave Your Records in the Sun. For you young people, a record is a round shiny object we used to listen to for entertainment. Now I think you can find videos online of people eating them for entertainment. But they did make pleasing sounds, including music, and if played slowly backwards you might hear Satan’s voice saying something almost on the tip of your tongue. They sure were a lot more entertaining than the chip embedded in your skull these days. And if you left them in the sun, as John Hartford warned us not to do, they would in fact get warped, and they would skip and repeat and make all kinds of annoying sounds.
I have recently learned another piece of useful folk wisdom that John Hartford should have sung about: Don’t leave your butternut squash anywhere you don’t want them to die and make a mess. Because when a butternut squash dies, it takes the surrounding environment with it.
Some of my prized butternut squash (I grow them in my summer garden and eat them all year long; the Princess of Patience savors the seeds roasted with salt) were stored up high on a pine board shelf in a cold guest bedroom hardly used during the winter. I put them there in January, thinking I would pull one down as needed, but last week, when I went to get one, all I found were these horrible science experiments gone wrong. I think the best thing is to keep your prized squashes on a metal rack in the basement for maybe a month or two at longest, after they are picked in late October. Then you have to skin them and cut them up and freeze them in plastic bags.
Or if you have a warped sense of humor, you can deliberately let your butternut squashes die badly, and make a Rumble video about it. Maybe a video of some circus geek eating these dead squashes with a side of crushed record. You would probably get a million hits and become a famous influencer.
Dear John Hartford, we miss you. I saw him at his last performance in State College, when he was in the throes of cancer. I heard he wanted to write a silly song about that, too. Don’t do that, is my advice.
Don’t leave your records in the sun or your butternut squash on a board, shelf, or really anywhere
Kinda proud to say “I made that!”
No, you cannot even make a tea from this horror. Throw it away
Fake News & their fake public surveys
The establishment media – NPR, NYT, MSBNC, CBS, ABC, etc – are out wide and wide open, to borrow a football phrase, and we all see it. No denying it, the mainstream media are aggressively partisan political activists. Not news or information reporters. As political activists, they lie, lie, lie to try to get the political outcomes they want.
In football, when a team is hard pressed and is closely behind and running out of time, a wide receiver will often run down the field and out wide and wide open, usually alone in the field, completely visible to the defenders. Then the quarterback will launch what is usually termed a Hail Mary, aimed at anyone where the receiver could be in the end zone. But often times this throw is unbelievaby accurate and aimed perfectly. If the wide receiver is brilliant, he will catch the long, hanging pass, despite the hands and helmets of the defenders trying to grab or knock the ball away, and he will score the winning touchdown.
This is the condition of our Fake News Media right now. They don’t seem to care that everyone can see them standing out there in the field, wide open. Everyone sees their intentions, and everyone knows what they are up to. There is no hiding it. It must be that these politically partisan Fake News Media employees feel like they are behind in the game, because they lose credibility even with their most devoted fans when they are this blatant. They are setting their credibility on fire.
Yes, I concur with you, I too am mystified that any American watches MSNBC or CBS, or reads the New York Times, or listens to NPR, without some inkling that something is amiss. I mean, a consumer of this toxic crap would have to have some scintilla, a tiny sparkle, in the back of their mind that maybe all the myriad other new information outlets and sources exist for a reason…. that the “alternative” media sources must have something of value, by the mere fact that the market demands their product.
Despite growing up with and surrounded by Liberals and Marxist Democrats, I confess that I have never understood them. Never. And I understand them even less today. These supposed arch intellectuals self adulate because they are in effect drug addicts. They constantly consume information that reinforces what they already believe, or want to believe, or expect to be told. And they assiduously avoid information that is contrary to what they want to hear.
Like Pavlov’s dog, Liberal Democrats salivate at the sound of the NPR theme music, and when they hear what they want to hear, the dopamines just torrentially unleash in their brains. That rush tells Liberals that they were right all along. The emotional flow, that congruence between mental expectation and mental reward, is really like a drug addiction rush. Liberal Democrats are dopamine drug addicts. And it makes them hard to pry away from the establishment media junk they are snorting up.
In truth Liberal Democrats are living inside a tiny bubble, or an echo chamber, as some say. I prefer the image of the bubble world that looks like almost every grey, destroyed, run-down, bombed out Democrat-run jurisdiction in America, where outside of it are believed to be scary monsters and unhappy feelings, but in fact warm sunshine and healthy green fields beckon. And so Liberal Democrats abuse themselves and stay on their closed-loop flow dopamine high in their drug addled state, unaware of the pure crap they are being fed.
While the Democrat Party has openly become the political party for and of America-destroying murderers, rapists, pedophiles, violent criminals, Antifa, Black Bloc, lawless judges, Tesla vandals, open hate, insurrection, and illegal aliens committing untold crimes against American citizens, the Democrat Party is also trying to burn down their pro-America opponents.
That alternative information seems to be driving them crazy and into a frenzy!
One of their methods of destroying their opponents is relying on “anonymous sources” in negative establishment media writings and TV appearances. Another is using fake, made-up polls and public opinion surveys with 100% non-scientific methodologies. Today, the New York Times, and its family of fake information outlets on TV and radio, released one of these ridiculous polls claiming that President Trump is precipitously losing popularity.
What a hilariously ridiculous crock of crap!
Today on the log landing, the logger and I were talking about the negative effects the White House’s tariffs are having on our freshly cut, high value oak logs. Terrible timing for us, as we just started a new logging job that has, or had, great financial promise… when the markets are in smooth operation. We each had also touched base with several sawmills this morning, to hear what they are experiencing from the tariff wars.
You know what everyone involved said to us today? Something along the line of It sucks to work as hard as we work, and to then not get the kind of financial reward we would have received just a few weeks ago. But we understand the tariffs are necessary for America to regain its trade footing. We are not upset with President Trump, and we still 100% support him and his policies.
I have yet to meet one person who voted for President Trump and who has regret or remorse now. Not one. These surveys have to be fake, as the mainstream media’s polls and surveys propping up Kamala Harris’s silly campaign were fake, and done for their value as the power of suggestion, for simple political impact purposes. But I do see that Trump’s policy successes are driving the America haters into a fury. And so they have to try to lure gullible people away from supporting Trump with blatant wide-open lies that everyone can see from a mile away.
Folks, my fellow Americans, step away from MSNBC and NPR and CBS and the New York Times. It is all fake, it is all unhealthy for you to consume. And if you do consume it, at least take the antidote: Read some Breitbart or Gateway Pundit. Factually accurate information is good for you.
Upcoming Primary Election recommendations
Pennsylvania’s primary election (Democrat vs. Democrat, Republican vs. Republican, and sadly, no one else vs. anyone else i.e. fewer choices for voters) is coming up in a few weeks. On May 20th, Pennsylvania voters should all be going to vote for candidates they believe will best represent their interests in our self-run government.
Through voting, We, The People, select our fellow citizens to represent us, to be a voice for us, to make sound choices for us, in the giant government blob. Why more Pennsylvanians do not vote, why so many fail to vote, eludes me. Nothing is more important than casting your vote, and yet, historically, few people vote overall, and especially in primaries. Voting is not difficult. It does not take money, or good looks, or nice clothes, or a lot of time, or a fancy car. You, the voter, simply have to make it a 15-30 minute priority on one day in the Spring, and then again one day in the Fall. You go to your voting precinct and vote for those candidates who best represent your views, religion, ideology, whatever. Many elections are really close, and every vote counts. Your vote counts, so do it.
In the state-wide Republican primary races, Ann Marie Wheatcraft is the superior candidate for Judge of the Superior Court. Judge Wheatcraft is hard on criminals and supportive of crime victims, which is how good judges should be and how they used to act. Now, it seems popular for judges to themselves break the law and to also throw Americans aside in favor of hardened criminals. As if the hardened criminals are somehow victims who need the judge’s protection. That appears to be the upside down mindest of Maria Battista, Wheatcraft’s opponent. No thanks. America has had quite enough of this nonsense.
Vote for Ann Marie Wheatcraft for Superior Court.
Joshua Prince is the by far and away best possible candidate for Judge of the Commonwealth Court. Josh has distinguished himself for decades as a court room force for good and for sticking up for the little guy against government over-reach. I know from personal experience, as Josh Prince has represented me personally, and a group I am a member of (FOAC), in a Harrisburg 2A lawsuit we simply had to bring (and which we won). Josh’s demeanor in the court room is impressive, steady, clear, and really organized. I have seen him run rings around attorneys touted as the best of their kind.
I have nothing personal against candidate Matt Wolford, but like so many grass roots voters, I am frustrated by the behind-closed-doors process that got Matt Wolford into his candidacy. Matt Wolford is a product of the Republican Establishment, which across America, and especially in Pennsylvania, is one of the biggest failures of any sort of organization. This is a cookie cutter group that time and time again loses easy races and then says “Aww shucks, we’ll get ’em next time,” even though there is no next time. With the Democrat Party aggressively gerrymandering the voting map, and engaging in motor-voter registration of illegal aliens and last minute changes to voting laws, honest elections look like a thing of the distant imagination. So campaigns must be hard-fought, which is not the PAGOP’s forte.
Of all the GOP groups across America, the PAGOP is especially mostly run by election consultants, who get paid well, whether they win or lose. Pennsylvania GOP politics is all about getting political management and consulting contracts, which has yielded a bitchy and mean-spirited entitlement attitude among the consultant class. They like candidates who will bend the knee and give them consulting contracts when they win. They do not care about policy or philosophy of government; every vote to them is a question of horse trading for money.
While I am on this bitchfest, let us point out that Dauphin County was one of the few PA counties to LOSE Republican voters in 2024. While the rest of PA was moving right with increased Republican voter registrations and votes, Dauphin County regressed. And Dauphin County has been regressing for years. It is probably due to the fact that the Dauphin County GOP chairman spends all of his time on…. high paying political consulting contracts, instead of focusing on winning elections.
To me, politics should not be about making money. But then, I never won any of my election races, which were run strictly on policy. Perhaps if more people like me and Josh Prince did get elected, America would be in better shape.
Anyhow, Matt Wolford comes out of this failed insular, unprincipled, and artificial process, which always seems to yield the most tepid, boring, unimpressive candidates who then go on to lose to aggressive Democrats. Let’s not do that again.
Vote for Josh Prince for Judge of the Commonwealth Court.
Here in the county court system, we have the Court of Common Pleas, where the most basic cases are heard. This is where you, the voter, want a most stable and normal person sitting up there on the bench, judging you. Two great candidates for this role deserve your vote: Fran Chardo and Jim Zugay.
Fran is the current District Attorney of Dauphin County. A more stand-up, normal, clean hands guy you will not find in American politics, anywhere. Fran is even keeled, does everything by the book, is a great listener, and will be exactly the kind of fair-minded judge you want looking back at you when you get carted into court for making some first-time-ever stupid decision that you regretted the moment you did it. Good guy.
Vote for Fran Chardo for Court of Common Pleas.
The other candidate for the Court of Common Pleas who deserves your vote is Jim Zugay, a long-time Dauphin County steadfast functionary and do-er git-er-done kind of guy. Jim has been (I think) Dauphin County Recorder of Deeds, among several other important county roles. And let me tell you straight up: Jim Zugay does not like me, because I am a pain in the butt. Jim is a serious, level headed, by-the-books guy, and he does not like bitchfesty people like me asking annoying questions that are not about getting the job done right now. I admire Jim for that, even though he grimaces when we encounter one another at social events.
Vote for Jim Zugay for Court of Common Pleas.
No, please do not vote for Katy Kennedy-McShane for this judge role. Yes, Katy and her husband are boxers, which is cool, and yes, they work with disadvantaged minority kids, which is very very cool and meritorious. But Katy’s ideological/ philosophical perspective on legal outcomes is not Constitutionalist. Rather, Katy will be a judicial activist, trying to make herself into judge, jury and executioner, or rather judge, legislator, and chief executive, all in one. This failed approach to judicial review has created so many problems by now that America is having a tough time sorting them out. Our constitutional rights cannot withstand this ongoing leftwing assault.
America and Dauphin County need judges who rely on precedent and the Constitution to make narrowly applied decisions. That’s Chardo and Zugay. America cannot take another activist judge, and Katy Kennedy-McShane will be an activist judge. No, no, no.
Finally, Graham Hetrick is the handsomest, most debonair coroner in American history. Few men who carry a gun and badge are better looking or better dressed or nicer or smarter than Graham. For some reason, a lot of coroners are colorful characters, and Graham is the most colorful of them all, while also maintaining stellar standards. The guy had his own national TV show, and smitten lady friends from lives past in distant states would call me out of the blue to ask “Do you know Graham Hetrick? OMIGOD can you get me his autograph, Josh, dear?”
Graham probably has this same electrifying effect on the dead, too, as well as justice for the dead. Vote for him. Dauphin County needs his steady hand in crime solving.
April 15th Tax Day vs April 19th Freedom Day
Today is April 15th, AKA “Tax Day,” because income tax reports are due to be submitted to the IRS by close-of-business today. Or at least American taxpayers are required to submit a somewhat detailed extension request today, because America’s tax laws and regulations are incredibly arcane and complicated. Everyone deserves the same opportunity to file the most law-abiding self-benefiting income tax report they can do.
(This is why I use a certified public accountant. There is no possible way in a zillion years that I would ever be able to fully understand or properly apply the tax laws and regulations to the income I have earned over the year. Yes, I have a very understanding CPA, someone who works with me, who goes over line items. The cost is worth it to me, given the potential consequences for making even small mistakes.)
April 15th symbolizes the government’s Sheriff of Nottingham coming to take away our money and our things, by threat of force. Nothing says “You are a serf and a powerless peasant” like having to bow and scrape before the mighty tax collector. It is worth noting that Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) has submitted legislation that will remove all armed law enforcement roles and duties that the IRS has somehow accreted over the years, and sell off the agency’s weapons and ammunition. Isn’t it strange that the IRS of all agencies has amassed a huge armory and stockpile of ammunition?
Contrast today, April 15th Oppressive Government Compliance Tax Day, with the upcoming April 19th, which I am hereby naming Freedom Day. It is strange that we rarely ever hear about April 19th as a holiday or even a day of note, even though our great American freedom started exactly 250 years ago on April 19th…
On April 19th, an armed dispute erupted between American colonists and the British Army, in the towns of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, outside of Boston. What came to be known as “The shot heard ’round the world” was fired April 19th, 1775, on the Lexington town green. It is unknown who exactly fired this first shot, Minute Man or British regular, but what ensued was the beginning of the American experiment in democratic rule: Government of, by and for The People, and nor by king or powerful army.
What is most noteworthy about the April 19th fatal confrontation beween the colonists’ militia men and the British “regulars” is that the individual American citizens were almost as well armed as the Redcoats. Each militia member carried a long gun, an edged weapon like a long hunting knife or a short sword or a hatchet, and plenty of lead and black powder ammunition for a prolonged fight. British military personnel were armed with the latest and best of all weapons, but the quality of the Patriots’ armaments were often not too far behind.
This model of the 1775 Minute Man militia member has stood the test of time, as a great many Americans today are also well armed and well provisioned with ammunition. This model of an armed free citizen, capable of standing up to an oppressive and lawless government, was later enshrined in the 1787-1789 Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees that all Americans can own and openly carry firearms at all times.
To me, what a strange and wonderful juxtaposition this week represents: Oppressive Tax Day backed by government force, vs. Freedom Day, the day that individual Americans collectively stood up for all oppressed individuals around the world. I think the takeaway message of this week is this: Pay your taxes, but keep your family well armed and always prepared, and always coordinate with those who share your freedom-loving views.
Some evocative images of April 19th 1775 and the resulting Bunker Hill battle by artist Don Troiani:
Artist Don Troiani’s depiction of the Minute Man patriots at the Lexington Green, April 19th 1775
Artist Don Troiani’s depiction of the Patriot militia at the Concord Bridge on April 19th, 1775
Artist Don Troiani’s depiction of the American patriots at the Battle of Bunker Hill