Posts Tagged → GOP
Welp, it’s the GOP vs. The People, again
Here in Pennsylvania, we have the annual GOP Stomp On The Little People Event happening again.
Mimicking the failed and useless PA GOP, which is pretty much a reflection of the failed and useless Ronna McDaniel and her ridiculous RNC, yesterday in Dauphin County and elsewhere across our Commonwealth was the county candidate endorsement meeting, where county committee people meet to endorse registered Republicans running for office.
Even before the ballot petition process has started.
Even before we know which candidates are going to be on the ballot and available to the voters.
Even before all the candidates have had an opportunity to present themselves for consideration to elected committee people and political activists.
In other words, this endorsement process is a charade designed to keep ironfisted authoritarian control over the choices available to voters.
If the GOP is wondering why so many people, so many voters, so many political activists are jaded and fed up with the Republican Party and elected Republicans, they might consider how the GOP treats said people, said voters, said activists, much less the Republican candidates, all of whom are Republicans because they believe in freedom.
One of the best ways the GOP shows its disdain and elitist mistrust of the great unwashed Republican Party masses is this endorsement process. Its endorsement process is 100% inside baseball, ultra insular, ultra inward looking. The party endorsement process is designed to keep the GOPe (Republican Establishment) in control of everything, including the usual milquetoast do-nothing stand-for-nothing empty suits who populate the Republican Establishment and its constellation of interest groups.
The Democrat Party is much better at this dance than the GOPe. The Democrats have made a science of both maintaining control of their base and also simultaneously giving a long leash to their base while feeding them plenty of red meat. It is a remarkable and terrifying feature of the Democrat Party that they are now so similar to how the German Nazi Party operated. They are way way ahead of the GOP, and it is no compliment to say that the GOP is unlike the Democrat Party.
The artless GOPe is both hamfisted and snobby, and so it finds itself with an ever shrinking sphere of influence. Its voters are in ever increasing revolt against their own political party.
Take for example the PAGOP’s fake “unanimous” endorsement of globalist RINO and tourist candidate for US Senate, Dave McCormick, whose leftist wife Dina Powell is up to her eyeballs in shoveling illegal immigrants into America.
Dave McCormick and his elitist leftist wife bear no resemblance to the Republican voter base. These two are everything that is wrong with the Republican Party establishment, with the GOPe, with American politics in general. Dave McCormick may have grown up as a tree farmer in central PA, but he long ago threw away those good values not just when he moved to Connecticut, but when he ran a New York City hedge fund and made his millions. Hedge funds operate by betting against and working against what is good for America, good for Americans, good for American workers and good for American companies. This makes Dave McCormick no good for America.
McCormick has an opponent. Her name is Brandi Tomasetti, and she lives in Lancaster County. Brandi is a study in contrast with Dave McCormick: She believes in America and wants to put America first, she is concerned about election integrity, she is concerned about the lawless flood of millions of illegal immigrants into our nation.
I spent about an hour and a half on the phone with her the other day, and I offered her as much help as I can provide in her effort to get on the ballot so she can challenge McCormick.
Brandi told me that she has been overwhelmed with an outpouring of offers of help, from Republican voters fed up with the GOPe and with the Dave McCormicks and the PAGOPs and the Dauphin GOPs and the games, the elitist attitudes, the constant resulting GOP establishment failure. I hope everyone who reads this essay contacts Brandi and helps her out.
First things first: In the next few weeks Brandi Tomasetti must get enough signatures to get on the ballot. She needs registered Republican voters to circulate ballot petitions for her. Hope you can help.
Why the GOP met to endorse Dave McCormick before ever considering Brandi Tomasetti, or any other potential candidates for that matter, is not a mystery. Rather, it is a sordid and pathetic story of insider elitist people lusting for power and control, and lusting for dirty money from democratic representational politics, and this crap is absolutely killing America. And they don’t care.
Put America first and help Brandi Tomasetti get on the ballot and beat the damned GOPe.
What GOP debate tonight?
Apparently there is a debate tonight among about seven Republican candidates for the GOP nomination for president. Primary election in the spring, winner will run against Joe Biden in November 2024. Biggest, most important election of your lifetime, because it determines whether or not America stays a constitutional republic, or if the federal administrative state takes over and with its allies in congress and the judiciary, eliminates the Bill of Rights and turns every American into a serf, a slave, a peasant.
So there is this debate tonight. The candidates are Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie, maybe Mike Pence and then some others I can’t remember. And I don’t need to remember who the other candidates are, because I don’t need to know who any of the candidates are tonight. This debate tonight is useless, pointless, meaningless. Governor Noem of South Dakota said it best a couple months ago: “Why run if you can’t win?”
She meant that all these candidates running is futile, because voter support for President Donald Trump is overwhelming. Trump is ahead of his closest competitor by somewhere between 25-30%. That’s not even close. And the more that Trump is turned into a Jesus martyr figure by the Democrat Party’s persecution, with its RINO helpers, the higher his voter support becomes. No one likes a cheater, and everyone sees that what is happening to Trump is simple cheating the system to try to hurt one guy.
And everyone knows if this lawless persecution can happen to Trump, then it can happen to any of us – you, me, even if we are absolutely innocent. Voters see that we are in a tug-of-war with the federal government and its state allies for who is going to retain power in America – We, The People or them, the lawless, unaccountable bureaucrats, and Trump is the guy in the middle being pulled back and forth. Everything else is a sideshow, maybe not unimportant, but much less important than getting Trump over the finish line in November 2024.
So like how most voters are thinking right now, I just don’t care about these other candidates. Nikki Haley? She’s a career RINO politician, with about as much backbone as a softy Eeyore donkey doll. Chris Christie? Professional politician who has done very little actually useful for Americans, and who is just hanging around to keep his name alive in the public’s mind, trying to be a darling of the Democrat establishment media. Mike Pence? He is hated by the Republican Party base because he sold out America to satisfy the Washington, DC, Beltway bandits in 2021. Ron DeSantis? He is surrounded and funded by the biggest RINOs in America. Yes, DeSantis has done a good job in Florida, but he is a young man in a big hurry to be a career politician like Chris Christie, barf, gag, puke. DeSantis needs to stay in Florida and make sure that the successes for freedom there stay in place. Show Americans he has what it takes to stay on top of the game, not game the political system to try to get artificially quickly to the top. And so on. There are no really impressive candidates talking tonight; even though Vivek Ramaswamy says a lot of good things Americans want to hear, his recent past shows he is very liberal on a lot of issues. We don’t need any more liberal Republicans like him or Hutchinson. Been there, done that, been unhappy with the outcome. We need advocates for America in office, not these ubiquitous get-rich-quick “Slightly Smaller Government Than The Democrats” RINOs.
So yeah, the establishment Republicans are all atwitter amongst themselves about the GOP primary debate tonight. Why wouldn’t they be all excited about it? They are establishment Republicans, RINOs, whose allegiance is to the Uniparty, not to America, or to you or me or the Constitution. Likewise for the establishment media and for the Conservative, Inc. media.
So, want to waste your time watching a bunch of has-been career politicians waste their time and yours on TV tonight? Go ahead and watch the debate tonight. Knock yourself out. Make a bigger deal about it than it really is. There is only one outcome that is likely in the Spring, and that is Donald Trump winning the primary election. My attention now and tonight is focused on President Trump, and getting him into the Oval Office, so that We, The People can have our country back. Anything less is unacceptable.
Mike Pence is everything wrong in the GOP
If you read anything on this site about the Republican Party, you will not be surprised at how much of it is criticism. My criticism is always constructive, meant to help the Grand Old Party of Abolition and Opposition to Slavery be the best that it can be. God knows, the GOP needs all the help it can get, and no, I do not mean money.
What challenges the GOP and holds it back from fulfilling its former glory as the rampart of freedom against Democrat Party slaveowners is the party’s current internal culture. It is no longer the political party of Emancipation that gave voice to and freed the Negro slaves. If the Democrat Party is now a Marxist freak show of unsustainable, racist, destructive policies and violent, lawless traitors, the Republican Party is a sloth-like, money-based, money-oriented, money-everything, boring, uncreative, risk-averse assembly of staid careerists who never saw a lobbyist-paid fundraising dinner they didn’t want to participate in.
GOP culture is heavy on golf games, fundraisers, social events paid for by consultants and lobbyists. Waaaay back at the end of the line The People, the forgotten taxpayer, might factor in for some Republicans. My own congressman, Scott Perry, seems to be one of the few elected Republicans who thinks government should first and foremost serve The People, and that elected American officials should always put America first in all things.
Did you see Tucker Carlson’s recent televised discussion with Mike Pence? Pence here perfectly represents the GOP: “That [America] is not my concern.”
Like most if not all establishment Republican officials today, Pence is waaaaay out of touch with American citizens, and way way more oriented towards international business interests than with America-is-our-home interests. Pence just doesn’t care about us, you, me, my neighborhood, my neighbors, or America as a whole. And this doesn’t mean that Joe Biden does care; he doesn’t care, either. Heck, the Democrat Party is in utter and total war against America. The problem for us American citizens, as represented by Pence’s brutal honesty, is that NEITHER of these political parties cares about us. The Republican Party could be better. It could improve, if it but wanted to do so. Its leaders could care as much about saving America as the Democrats care about destroying America, but they don’t.
Which is why re-electing President Donald Trump is so important. He is the only non-politician running for president. He is the only candidate not inured to government, but rather recognizing that government is the problem, not the solution, and that our federal government is attempting a coup d’etat against the American people. Trump is the only person capable of saving America.
GOP Resolution in support of J6 political prisoners
I drafted the resolution below last summer, and submitted it twice. I suggest that every county Republican Committee pass a similar resolution standing in solidarity with the January 6th political prisoners illegally held in Washington, DC, and elsewhere. An article published today about badly tortured political prisoner Ryan Samsel demonstrates how dire the situation is.
If politically active Republicans cannot publicly stand up for and in solidarity with fellow Republican political prisoners who are being held without trial for over two years, then what does being a Republican mean?
Dauphin County GOP Committee Resolution
DRAFT 7/7/22
DRAFT #2 Resubmitted 8/8/22
Whereas, the US Department of Justice has become an unabashedly politically partisan weapon in the hands of the Biden Administration, and
Whereas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has become an unabashedly politically partisan weapon in the hands of the Biden Administration, and
Whereas, many DOJ and FBI public employees are using their government positions to further their own personal political views by illegally targeting and officially oppressing their political opponents, and
Whereas, a great deal of illegal politically-motivated injustice against innocent American citizens has resulted and continues to result from the aggressive politicization of the DOJ and FBI, such as Ryan Samsel, and
Whereas, on August 8, 2022, the lawless DOJ and the rogue FBI have illegally attacked and invaded the home and person of President Donald J. Trump in Florida, and
Whereas, the Dauphin County Republican Committee stands for the rule of law, the equal application of the law, and the upholding of the US Constitution, therefore
Be it resolved that the Dauphin County Republican Committee hereby formally stands with and calls for the immediate release of the innocent-until-proven-guilty American citizen January 6th political prisoners now being held in jail, some without formal charges, some with only misdemeanor charges, some with improbable and non-violent felony charges, all without bail, all without trial, all without a speedy trial, all without a speedy trial in front of a jury of their peers, and often in inhumane conditions that violate the US Constitution and basic international human rights, and
Be it resolved that the Dauphin County Republican Committee calls on the Governor of Florida to use the Florida State Police to block lawless federal agents from operating there.
Respectfully submitted by Josh First,
Committeeman for Harrisburg City 14th Ward
Kevin McCarthy is an evil DC swamp thing
Congressman Kevin McCarthy is a corrupt career politician from the Marxist state of California. To be a Republican from California in 2023, you would by necessity have to be really slimy and corrupt. McCarthy has been in Washington DC for a long time, and his ties to the evil DC Swamp run long and deep. Heck, just look at his shielded face, his hooded eyes. You can easily read McCarthy’s crookedness by his outward facial appearance and body language. In fact, he has a lot of Justin Trudeau’s same body language going on (Canada). And Gavin Newsom’s for that matter (California governor).
These people above all share a common lust for power and control that overrides elementary human decency and empathy. Anyone who wants that much control should never be allowed to have it, and yet, if McCarthy becomes the next Speaker of the US House, then he will have it.
My congressman, Scott Perry, has been wonderfully vocal about McCarthy’s cozy relationship with the DC Swamp, and how McCarthy refuses to make commitments to transparency and accountability that would change the way Washington DC spends our taxpayer money. Thank you, Congressman Perry.
What is really amazing is how weak willed and sycophantic most elected congresspeople are. They each want power and control so badly that they fall all over themselves to elect someone dirty like McCarthy. The people supporting McCarthy for Speaker are not conservatives, they are career politicians in search of wealth and power through a public service job. And this list of lame-os now includes Marjorie Taylor Greene, a freshman congresswoman who has raised hell with Washington DC criminality since the day she arrived.
How did fake Republican Liz Cheney go to Congress for just six years at an annual $175,000 salary, and emerge as a multimillionaire? What kinds of illegal, unethical, anti-citizen, anti-America back-room deals did she make to earn that kind of wealth? And it’s not just Liz Cheney, it is the vast majority of the elected officials in Washington that use their official office for personal gain.
Yuck!
So here we are today with RINO Rep. Kevin McCarthy trying to gain the speakership at all costs and with no commitments to advancing Republican values like good government, limited government, accountable government and public employees. I wonder if USA arch enemy China has purchased McCarthy like a sack of potatoes, too.
Like a lot of Americans, I am fed up with the political parties. They do not interest me, because it’s like watching two criminal gangs fight each other. The citizens lose no matter which gang is in charge. What does interest me is limited government, transparent government, accountable government.
Like: Why the hell is the IRS now empowered to track our $600.00 (six hundred Dollar) purchases and incomes, along with enormous destruction of our individual constitutional rights, but We The People have zero control or information over how the federal government, like its IRS, spends OUR money?
Kevin McCarthy is an evil DC Swamp Thing. He cannot be Speaker, and if he does become Speaker through the weakness of most GOP congresscritters, then America is done for, because he will protect the DC Swamp from being changed or challenged or held accountable. And America will never have another opportunity after this Congress to hold DC accountable.
Ten take-aways from my Election Day experience
With the Kerwin men, quality people
Primary elections are more important than the general election every November, because voters choose who is going to be representing them at the November election. And in the case of Republican Party voters, if you don’t vote for constitutional America-First candidates, you are guaranteed to have a Republican In Name Only (RINO) liberal running against the Democrat Party liberal in the November election. There’s not a whole lot of philosophical difference between the Republican liberal and the Democrat liberal, and after that November election between a RINO and a Democrat it’s just a question of how rapidly America is destroyed under your feet, slowly or quickly.
On Tuesday I volunteered at four different election polls, handing out brochures for Kathy Barnette, and I spoke with a lot of voters. Here are some take-aways from my experience during and after Tuesday’s Primary Election here in PA:
- Unsurprisingly, voters make both simple and complicated choices in voting for candidates. Simple choices can be lazy or principled, and complicated choices can be bizarre or carefully thought out. Candidate selection is as complex as any other choice in life, and I think that is a good thing.
- Party establishment endorsement is a negative among Republican/ conservative voters, who appear to increasingly view the GOP as a force for bad and not for good. For example, Lou Barletta’s campaign unleashed a tidal wave of Republican establishment career politician endorsements in the days before Tuesday’s election, and if anything these endorsements seemed to hurt Barletta at the polls, not help him; Doug Mastriano crushed Barletta.
- On the other hand, Democrat voters seem highly attuned to and in synch with their establishment, as witnessed by political newcomer Justin Fleming’s trouncing of long time Democrat Party activist Eric Epstein in the newly created 105th Legislative District (PA House). For at least ten years, and probably closer to twenty years, independent-minded liberal Epstein has run for everything from dog catcher to school board to state senate, almost always unsuccessfully but always with close-call results. Not this time. Apparently ten unions and the House Democrat Campaign Committee aggressively weighed in to stop Epstein from finally capitalizing on his well-known household name in southcentral PA. Fleming the unprincipled “electoral pragmatist” won with 61% of the vote.
- Money is not all that it used to be, but it can still matter in elections, no surprise. Case in point is a very small amount of money (like $157,000 total), old fashioned shoe leather, and reasonable social media networking got conservative grass roots favorite Kathy Barnette up to 25% of the vote in an eight-candidate race. This is a huge statement about the lack of importance of money. However, when the wildly false negative attacks against Barnette started pouring in during the last week from McCormick and Oz and their supporters, like Sean Hannity, Barnette lacked sufficient funds to get out her last-minute rebuttals on TV and radio that could have gotten her over the finish line to win. Enough confusion and obfuscation was created by the attacks to blunt Barnette’s position at the top, and allowed both Oz and McCormick to grow their own voter returns at her expense. Had Barnette possessed a million dollars to do last-minute TV and radio ads, she probably would have won the election.
- Negative advertising does work, and it also greatly suppresses voter turnout. At all of the five polls I was at yesterday, voting was down between 10% and 20%, and I believe many voters were just fed up and confused by all of the negative advertising. SO they stayed home and said “I will just vote in November for whoever wins this primary race.”
- Conservative voters are much more oriented toward ideology and principles than political party.
- Almost every primary election has one winner and some losers, and almost always the losers say they will take their ball and go home if they don’t win, and they won’t back the winner of their race. For weeks before and even after the election was over, I heard unceasing complaints from Republicans about how Mastriano is “too conservative” for Pennsylvania, and that his win will automatically hand the governorship to Komrade Josh Shapiro. I also heard unceasing complaints from Republican voters that Lou Barletta was too milquetoast to appeal to anyone in November, except for blue haired suburban GOPe Republicans. Folks, get used to these competitive races. They are good for us. This competition is just the nature of real and healthy primary races, something that Republicans really need, and something that the GOPe HATES. The Republican Country Club Party hates hates hates sharing decision making with the unwashed dirty masses, who keep gumming up GOPe dreams of easy ill gotten wealth and posh fundraisers. Sorry not sorry, GOPe, get used to ceding more and more decision making to the actual people you claim to represent. It is a good thing, and it is why Mastriano won by an enormous margin.
- For the most part, the GOPe got its ass kicked in PA and elsewhere in America. RINOs like Jake Corman (the sitting President Pro Tem of the PA Senate!!), Jeff Bartos, et al either dropped out or finished below 5%, while underdog candidates like Kathy Barnette and Dr. Oz scored big time vote returns against the establishment’s wishes. We are witnessing a power shift away from GOP party bosses, which is a good thing, because party bosses are corrupt and self-serving people.
- Charlie Gerow is still a good guy, and still not a catchy candidate. Once again, voters enjoy Charlie as an articulate proponent of conservative values, but not as a representative in government for their needs. Charlie is a salon intellectual in the mold of William F. Buckley, one of the 20th century’s great conservative crusaders. Not winning elections doesn’t mean Gerow isn’t relevant, it just means his strength is in policy debates and in the conservative salon of ideas. Nothing wrong with that.
- Finally, yard signs and road signs do not mean anything close to what they used to represent even ten years ago. At one time yard signs and roadside signs were a big part of electoral public outreach, but in this digital age, they are becoming less important. I would not say they are unimportant, because in some ways they can be used to get a sense of voter engagement. Like, lots of signs for Candidate X in a county or in a region probably means that Candidate X is well known there. But it does not mean that Candidate X is necessarily going to convert that name recognition into an Election Day win. Information is now moving so fast and so far across the political landscape, that just one gaffe or one slip-up by an otherwise reasonable candidate can mean the end of their lead or presumptive win. No amount of yard signs can counter a fifteen second video of a candidate doing or saying something ridiculous.
Thank you to all the voters who spent time talking with me on Tuesday. I promote candidates at polls on Election Day every year because these are people I believe in, and I believe in sharing the why and how I have arrived at my decision on whom to vote for. One thing that has not changed among voters at polls since I was a teenager is this: Liberal voters at polls are always surly, grumpy, dismissive, or disrespectful. Do not ask me why this is, but it does hint at how some people think.
Election Day now and a year later
A year ago today I was working a poll in Paxtang, I think. Handing out Trump for President literature (Trump won, everyone knows it), and some US Congressman Scott Perry lit, kibbitzing with other poll workers, chatting up voters and asking for their vote. One thing that really hammered home to me the difference between the Trump supporters and the regular county GOP committee members is the energy level we brought.
I was high energy and on my feet for hours, walking up to voters and asking for their vote, explaining the differences in the candidates. The GOP committeeman was lounging in a folding chair most of the time, occasionally standing, handing out literature for PA rep. Sue Helm if voters walked by close enough to take it from his hand.
When I engaged in discussion with the Democrat Party poll watcher, a woman attorney from northern Maryland, it became clear that she was an unapologetic communist. After she flew into a rage over some “Proud Boys” Latinos who showed up in their Trump socks, Trump pants, Trump hats, Trump shirts, and Trump underwear, I asked her why she was a communist. And at that point the Dauphin County GOP committeeman sprang into action, consoling the Democrat Party poll watcher with giggling assurances that I was a lone kook, my own special kind of far-right lunatic, and not at all representative of the Republican Party.
Yes, the GOP committeeman had more in common with the communist poll watcher than with me, the President Donald Trump advocate and poll watcher. Think about that. I still haven’t shaken it. For a long time I wanted to write a letter to this Dauphin County Republican Party committeeman, and among other things ask him if I was wrong in asking her (the lady poll watcher) why she was a communist. Turns out I was correct, that the Democrat Party is now an open and unapologetic communist movement. Do GOP hacks ever admit they were wrong?
Today is Election Day once again, and we have more of a local race to look at now. Our spring primary election yielded an unusual outcome in Harrisburg, a black woman winning the Democrat Party nomination for mayor of Harrisburg City. Usually the white liberals have it all locked up by mesmerizing and lying to their modern-day slaves to vote for the white liberal candidate. But after decades of white liberal mayors failing to do a single thing to improve the lives of black people in Harrisburg City, black voters here decided to try something different. They voted for a black candidate.
Talk about a step on the road to recovery! Congratulations to my fellow Harrisburg citizens for shaking off their white liberal slave masters!
Eric Papenfuse is the sitting white liberal mayor who was ousted in the spring primary by Wanda Williams, a forever member of the Harrisburg City Council. Eric Papenfuse touted his long list of policy and financial failures and concluded with a communist pledge of a guaranteed minimum income for certain city residents. Yep, the white liberal promised yet more government dependency for a community that is drowning and dying in white liberal dependency. If you ever wondered why urban decay is filled with drug addiction, consider where that addiction started: White liberal crack aka public dependency programs that made black people dependent on white liberal handouts.
Wanda’s election signs proclaim her a “lifelong Democrat,” which is hardly anything to brag about. I mean, look at where the Democrat Party has gotten urban black people across America – generations of failed churches, failed schools, failed families, but by God, they reliably vote for continued Democrat Party failure like good slaves!
Despite Papenfuse’s desperate write-in effort, Wanda is likely to win today. I hope that she grows into the Mayor job with an epiphany that causes her to shrug off the built-in failures of the political past she has lived and worked in.
Dear Wanda, please forgo political parties. Forgo political payback or pay-off of any sort. Please help our city citizens climb out of the poverty and failure that white liberals like Eric Papenfuse deliberately put them in. There are a million creative solutions to the mess here in Harrisburg City, and none of them are loyal to any political party or derivative thereof, such as teacher’s unions.
What have we got to lose by trying something new? We already know all of the current players bring nothing but failure and misery. Break free; break the bonds of injustice, Wanda!
A year from now, at the 2022 Election Day, I hope to write a different retrospective than “Yep, the new mayor immediately embraced all of the failed policies handed to her by the outgoing administration and made them her very own.”
And goodbye Eric Papenfuse. I won’t miss you and your cozy cronyism one bit. You did absolutely nothing but hurt Harrisburg even more than it was hurting when you took office eight years ago. Your mayoral Skid Row proved once again that graduating from Yale (and any other Ivy League school) is a damning millstone hung around the necks of the puffed up unfortunates who brag up these worse-then-useless diplomas. You couldn’t think yourself out of a wet paper bag if an entire city depended upon you for it.