Posts Tagged → Jake Corman
PA senate floor scrap is microcosm of GOP vs Dems nationwide
If you pay attention to politics, and why else would you be one of the three readers here on this blog than you are a political junkie, then you know that one hoax after another has been trotted out against the president since he took office, in an effort to blunt his presidency.
If one hoax doesn’t work, like the “Russia collusion” thing that the chief “investigator” himself (Mueller) torpedoed in public, then another one is tried. Latest and greatest hoax is this Ukraine thing where one political party tries to cover up their corruption in the Ukraine by accusing the president of doing something wrong when he literally calls for an investigation into the corruption.
As ridiculous as this is, there is an arrangement that has taken shape in Washington, DC, and across America. Basically one political party is at war and uses anything available to them to advance that war, at any cost, and the other political party is kind of dumbfounded like a deer in the headlights.
One political party is throwing dust up in the air and running around screaming, or allowing ANTIFA Brownshirts to attack peaceful protesters while the city police are illegally told to not protect the peaceful protesters, while the other political party stands there slack-jawed, incredulous that anyone would abuse our governmental system so badly. That the DOJ is AWOL on ANTIFA and anti-civil rights mayors who enable their violence does not help.
If you want to watch all of what is happening in Washington, DC, and Seattle and Portland and Minneapolis and Charlotte, in a nutshell, then watch a fascinating fight on the Pennsylvania senate floor (below) where the Democrats throw the law and senate rules right out the window, and in response the Republicans mill around like a bunch of confused and rattled little school girls while one of them barks repetitively for a very long time about how the Democrats WILL follow the rules and hand over that microphone right now.
Which the Democrats do not do, of course. Instead, they do exactly what they want to do, which is to take control of the senate through lawless chaos and anarchy. They have zero respect or use for the law, or the rules, because at the moment neither suits their purpose. Wait until the rules and the law finally DO suit their purpose, and then watch out! They will bring a hammer and a sickle down on anyone standing up to them.
So, like what happens in DC, the Pennsylvania senate Republicans here are basically standing there flat-footed, dazed, confused, addled, with Jake Corman barking “Point of order! Point of order!” like a worn out old dog whose angry bark is all it has. He has no bite.
Sad thing to me is that Jake is not a small guy, physically. He should have some confidence to stand up to his political opponents. I wanted to fist fight him a few years ago, but he wouldn’t stoop to it, and now here he is facing off with a real live Democrat insurrection, and he can’t even muster the courage to storm the podium and wrestle back the microphone and control of the senate floor. What a loser!
Jake, you are a weak kneed little girl, because all your career you have had everything handed to you. When you are needed most, you don’t have the strength of character to stand up and fight.
Lawless Democrats, confused, spineless Republicans, just like across America and in DC.
By the way, this lawlessness is exactly how the Communists took control of eastern Europe, because the good guys/better guys were too proper, followed ‘the rules’ even when there were no rules, and thereby failed to assert themselves when their leadership was most needed. The good guys lost.
Here is the amazing video.
Why I am a Political Activist
Over the years I have been asked why I am so involved in politics, particularly as an unpaid activist representing my own sense of justice and fairness (as opposed to them being determined or set by corporate or union interests).
More recently, like yesterday, the opening salvo of a campaign to find and elect a primary candidate against incumbent state senator Jake Corman has prompted some citizens to ask me why. And not always so nicely.
That’s OK, because it is rewarding to see any American give a damn about politics, even if their favored elected official is a self-serving creep like Corman.
Folks, it is real simple. I am an activist so that you can enjoy your liberty and freedom, because that is what I believe in. No one pays me to do this. Rather, I take money out of my pockets and spend it so you can make a more educated decision, even if you don’t think you want that information. And believe me, after decades of the Corman clan hoodwinking the good people of central Pennsylvania, a lot of work is needed.
While I am not a member of the Armed Services, I am a member of the American citizenry, where individual political activism is part and parcel of our cultural fabric.
For me, political activism is a love of liberty, inspired by the freedom and promise of America. I feel inspired when I think of these things, and I am willing to fight for them, for you. Even if you don’t agree with my specific views.
Think about it: Most of the people on this planet live under tyranny, with no freedom, no choice, no opportunity, no liberty to express themselves or seek redress for bad political choices. China alone has over a billion serfs. Russia has several hundred million disenfranchised citizens, who are daily watching what vestiges of democracy they had cobbled together crumble.
What we have in America is rare, but here in America we also have so much material wealth and tranquility that our success is now putting people to sleep. People take everything we have for granted, forgetting the incredible amount of work and sacrifice it took to build this nation up to where it is.
We cannot take America for granted. America is not on autopilot, though to a lot of people it sure looks that way. Too much is at stake to have this attitude.
The hard fact is, you simply cannot outsource or delegate your role as a free citizen. No one else cares as much about your freedom and liberty as you care, and no one else will advocate for you as much as you yourself can, or will.
Another way of saying it is that democracy is where you get the form of government you deserve or have earned.
If you the citizen do not stay involved in civics, politics, and voting, then we will all lose what we have. Corporate interests, union interests, corrupt political interests, control freaks will all happily take over running the country for you, dividing it up amongst themselves, and increasingly edge you out of the picture while using you for your tax money.
Examples include Obama’s trillion-dollar Porkulus bill that enriched his allied interest groups; or Solyndra, the fake solar energy company to which Obama gave nearly $500 million of taxpayer money, your money. And then there is the Clinton Foundation, whose principals used government access and influence to generate kickbacks construed as charitable donations. In the Bush II administration, US VP Cheney helped steer a $400 million no–bid contract to his former employer Halliburton to help clean up Iraq.
As an ongoing enterprise, America takes constant vigilance by its beneficiaries – you, the citizen.
In 1787, at the end of the First Constitutional Convention held at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin stepped out from behind the closed doors into the throng of citizens waiting outside.
There, on the same cobblestone streets so many of us are familiar with today, a Mrs. Powel asked him “Doctor Franklin, what was decided, shall we have a monarchy, or a republic?”
To which our good doctor Benjamin Franklin quickly responded “A republic, if you can keep it.”
And that is why I am an activist, because it takes constant citizen activism to keep our republic. It is what our great nation is built on.
Won’t you take my hand, or lend a hand, and help out?
Dangerous RINOs Ahead
Around the world, both the leading and moderately successful democracies are unsustainably absorbing huge numbers of illegal immigrants who both refuse to integrate and probably could not integrate, even if they wanted.
In most places they show no signs of integrating, and are instead associated with lawlessness and chaos.
Europe, Israel, and America are where this is happening.
The faux “victim” status of the invaders has given them access to publicly funded health and education benefits, against the will of the people paying for them.
This invasion-in-fact puts increasing economic and social pressure on existing populations, the people who built their societies from the ground up. You know, the “natives.”
These European natives live in the very places against which the invaders are entitled to “resist occupation.” Why and how it is “occupation” when Europeans and Americans move to other countries, but it is a morally required population shift when everyone moves to Europe and America, is one of those mysteries that can probably only be explained by being steeped in the ‘deep thinking’ of Marxism.
This presently unarmed invasion is made possible by ruling elites who either benefit financially from the cheap labor influx, or who personally enjoy signalling their great virtues and thus willfully ignore the huge problems descending upon the natives.
While you would think leaders from opposite sides of the aisle would collide on this civilization-ending invasion, the truth is that huge collaboration between left and right party establishments is what has enabled this in the first place. Most of the left and the right are run by ruling class elites.
Among the world’s ruling class elite, the RINO is the most dangerous animal. This is because the RINO says it is a watch dog, when in fact it is a guide dog for the invaders while the American family lies asleep inside the cozy home.
Living in its own cushy, posh, comfy little corner, insulated from the reality around it, the careerist RINO just has to successfully pretend to be a watch dog and occasionally bark like a watch dog. That keeps most of the rabble away. Never mind that the rabble are the citizens the RINO is supposed to be watching.
Aside from a small group of conservatives in Congress and in state houses, the GOPe is not protecting America. The GOPe is not standing guard. Sure some of the GOPe members make a few noises about standing up for the citizens they represent, but just like with the GOPe recent unwillingness to eliminate ObamaCare, these RINOs cannot bring themselves to make a principled stand when the time has arrived. It might upset someone and threaten their cozy elected job.
Around here in central Pennsylvania, career congressman Charlie Dent is probably the greatest example of the most worthless of RINOs in Congress, and state senator Jake Corman is the best example in the PA legislature. Won’t a couple patriots please challenge Dent and Corman in their upcoming primaries?
It is time to make these RINOs an endangered species. Otherwise, America will become an endangered specie itself.
“Black Shoes. Basic Blues. No Names. All Game”…. gets me back in the game
Congratulations to the Penn State football team on its defeat of Wisconsin for the Big Ten conference title last night.
How strange that Ohio State is in the running for the national title, when they neither beat Penn State in the regular season (OSU lost to PSU), nor did they win their conference (PSU won it last night).
We are back in the familiar conundrum of old, where PSU got and still gets no respect. How many decades did PSU go winning, winning, and winning, but frequently blocked from playing for the national title?
It is time to stop this unfairness and give to PSU what is their due: A shot at the national title. This requires making the OSU guys feel bad, which is nearly always what happened to PSU in the past. Sorry OSU, enjoy a shot of your own medicine.
After coach Joe Paterno was railroaded and publicly humiliated at PSU by a weak board and a weaker CYA-run administration that made former assistant coach Mike McQueery a wealthy man, my interest in PSU everything pretty much dropped to zero. I stopped watching the games, stopped caring, stopped donating to the university, and basically dropped PSU from my life. The cataclysmic Paterno auto de fe signaled a break from the core values and principles I had grown up with and identified with. I was no longer Penn State Proud.
That said a lot, because I grew up in the State College area, graduated from PSU, my mother has her PhD from PSU, and I attended PSU home games from the time I was seven until I left for Vanderbilt to pursue my career as an academic. Plenty of our family have graduated from PSU, and watching Penn State football together during the holidays was a family tradition. I went to school with two of the Paterno kids and still maintain contact with one of them, the one I was closest to and spent the most time with. Time spent in the Paterno home listening to Coach Paterno recruit players shaped my own life. He was all about clean living.
Last night’s win over Wisconsin was meaningful to me not because PSU is back in the winning game, but because the fans, the alumni, the board (more on that pathetic, worthless PSU board of trust-less-ees in a moment) and the administration have given Coach Franklin the breathing room to resurrect the destroyed team from the ashes of annihilation at the hands of State Senator Jake Corman, disgraced pedophile Jerry Sandusky, the NCAA, former FBI head Louis Freeh (a great fiction writer), PSU administrators, and the worthless PSU board.
Coach Franklin needed the space and time to breathe new life into a program that always was and always should be top ten quality. He needed the kind of space and patience Paterno had received. Getting the damned names off the jerseys, and getting back to the no-frills basics of Black Shoes, Basic Blues, No Names, All Game. Getting this space marks somewhat of a return to normalcy, where professionals are allowed to be professionals. Professionalism was one of the former hallmarks of PSU football. Staid dedication and loyalty were once a hallmark of PSU administrative culture. The former players’ conservative, humble, and respectful approach to playing football always contrasted with the weak hotdogging that plagues the NFL and most college teams.
Shades of Coach Joe Paterno here. Might we be touching greatness again? I am looking.
So I am now finding myself maybe interested once again in PSU football. But not all football, because I am still boycotting the NFL – not one NFL game watched this season – due to the league’s support of anti-America player Colin Kaepernick. Thank you, PSU folks. This could be rewarding to me, as leaving PSU football was a sad time in my life.
Now, about the PSU Board of Trustees, that worthless aggregation of empty names that supposedly runs Penn State University.
Last week, Harrisburg businessman Alex Hartzler was appointed to the PSU board by Governor Wolf. Alex and I attended PSU together, and we were both active in politics there. We have stayed in touch for the past fifteen years. Alex’s entrance into the snake den is a bright spot, because simply put, Alex don’t give a sh*t about whatever crybaby weak stuff the other members are bringing in as fodder for their continued presence there.
Alex and I differ on almost every policy subject. He is one of the few Democrats I know to ever emerge from Lancaster County, and a farm boy at that. I am a Constitutional conservative who thinks the Republican Party is worthless, and also from Pennsylvania farm country. While Alex has maintained his partisan loyalty to one party, even as it was going over the cliff, he has always displayed a sharp and incisive intellect and tough attitude that brooks no bullcrap. I think Alex Hartzler is exactly the kind of person to help PSU get its act together. Yes, he will want policies on climate change junk science, same-sex bathrooms, and a bunch of other PC issues that I believe are unworthy of consideration let alone debate, but at the end of the day, I expect to see lightning bolts from the moribund board. Thank you, Alex.
Let’s get the PSU show back on the road.
UPDATED: Tea Vs. Establishment Battle comes to Dauphin County
Aside from the epic power struggle over Lebanon County’s Republican Committee, and a smaller but equally strenuous 2010 battle in York County between 912 Patriots and entrenched Republicans, which ended in the summer of 2011 in favor of the Tea Party insurgents, Central Pennsylvania, and Dauphin County specifically, has not seen such a contest.
Until now.
Now, that open competition has fully arrived, and it may become open warfare. Oh sure, there have been some past skirmishes. The first skirmish involved former Dauphin County commissioner Lowman Henry being dumped in 2002 by the party in favor of a candidate the inner circle liked more; that planted a seed of factionalism.
Two years ago those rumblings erupted forcefully during the PA-17th Congressional District Republican Primary race, when traditionalists advocated party endorsements and the outsiders wanted an open primary, in the American spirit of “May the best person win.” That is, may the highest merit be rewarded with the highest accolades and well-earned support. No more skulduggery to edge out unwanted candidates and strong leaders by insiders whose interest is perceived by some to be retaining power and control.
In 2010, the outsiders prevailed in one way, with only one GOP Dauphin County group doing an endorsement (the Susquehanna Township GOP Committee). The other challenge came from a committee member, Alan, who unsuccessfully challenged party chairman John McNally for that chairmanship. Challenges are uncommon, and it was a second seed planted next to the Lowman Henry tree, or maybe it was fruit from that tree.
Soon after in 2010, those outsiders became identified with and then known as “Tea Party” activists. Their view was that they were merely seeking to return America’s conservative movement and Republican party to essential American traditions and principles. The way they were viewed by the established, inner-circle GOPers was with disquiet.
When the open insurrections began, no one thought they were more than disagreements between liberal and conservative Republicans.
Now, an open power struggle has erupted for the heart and soul of the Dauphin County Republican Party.
On the one hand are more conservative Republicans, feeling shunted aside and unappreciated, despite their significant sacrifices and hard work for the party. Some others had declared their interest in or intentions to run for certain seats, only to then find themselves carefully dissected from those seats in the new redistricting. Their own party did that dissecting.
Dauphin County GOP Chairman John McNally has declared his candidacy for the newly created and open state senate seat carved out of retiring senator Jeff Piccola’s district. York County businessman Steve Johnson has indicated his interest in the same senate seat. Johnson ran for lieutenant governor in 2010 among a slate of eight candidates.
UPDATE: Bill Seeds, a long time supervisor of Lower Paxton Township, is declaring his intention to run for the same senate seat, as is the York County Clerk of Courts. Each group is using the tried and useful divide-and-conquer method, as they cultivate new candidates from the opposing candidate’s county.
McNally has temporarily handed his chairmanship to Dauphin County commissioner Jeff Haste, with the expectation that McNally will re-occupy it if he loses to Johnson. However, long-time GOP activist and congressional candidate Toni Gilhooley has stated that she will seek the Dauphin County GOP chairmanship.
State representative Sue Helm is now challenged by a 26-year-old attorney, Jenna Lewis, who is endorsed by the GOP establishment, including much-liked Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico and her own father, Judge Lewis.
Susquehanna Township is a changing political landscape, where Helm, a well-known businesswoman, barely held onto her seat two years ago against Democrat activist Gene Stilp, of The Pink Pig fame.
Conservatives unhappy with Helms’ past performance now find themselves having to choose between Helm or the very young, inexperienced, and untested Lewis. Given that Lewis has the establishment wagons circling around her, the outsiders are quietly rallying to Helm.
What intrigues me is how the Tea Party began in Lebanon and Berks counties, when then-senator Arlen Spector spoke a lot of hogwash to fed-up American Joes. The Tea Party spread to Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and Massachussettes, where Republicans swarmed rickety barricades manned by corpulent, unprepared Democrats.
Now what? With the Lebanon County Republican Party firmly in the hands of the pluralistic Tea Party, will Dauphin County go the same way? And if it does, will Perry County and Centre County follow suit?
Centre County is, after all, the home turf of state senator Jake Corman, known to many as the “Silver Spoon Senator” for having casually inherited his father’s former senate seat. Corman voted for the legislative pay raise and remains one of the very few elected officials upon whom rural Pennsylvania taxpayers have not yet sought revenge.
Like Perry County, Centre County is a deeply conservative region ripe for the same frustration and political dynamic that changed Lebanon County and has now landed squarely in Dauphin County.
Corman’s presence could be the spark that lights those other Tea Party fires.
Stay tuned.