Posts Tagged → PA
May 13th, 2022
US Senate candidate Kathy Barnette is one of my fellow America First conservative activists who GOPe scum sneer at because we run impossible political campaigns at great personal expense, just to move the ball down the field a foot or two. And like a lot of other grass roots voters, among other reasons I like her for her risk taking and sacrifice on our behalf.
In 2009 I ran in a congressional primary in a four-pack of candidates. This was at the very beginning of the Tea Party movement. I was politely asked to not run by a Republican state senator who ended up running and barely winning the primary race himself (then he was crushed in November by the incumbent Democrat), as well as by a significant Pennsylvania GOPe donor and by the PAGOP chairman. I burned some bridges by staying in the race, and I did very OK in the end.
In 2012 I ran for PA state senate, and at the last minute the PAGOP gerrymandered me out of my own 15th state senate district. The then-Republican-led PA Supreme Court threw out the gerrymander plan, citing my situation (the justices called it an “iron cross designed to keep someone in particular from running for this senate seat”), and so I was back in the race with just days to get on the ballot. Then the PAGOP ran another candidate in addition to me and their chosen one, in order to dilute the vote. Their second candidate was a long-time sitting elected official. The PAGOP plan worked, and the “very moderate” chosen candidate won with 43% of the vote, while I had a very respectable second place. I think we spent about ten thousand dollars, while the GOPe candidate spent $300,000 and the GOPe candidate #2 spent $34,000.
The PAGOP “very moderate” candidate who won that Republican primary nomination went on to be utterly crushed by a liberal Democrat in a Republican +10% district. So much for the PAGOP and GOPe regular RINO program working out. This is why so many grass roots conservatives no longer trust the GOPe or PAGOP to find good candidates.
I ran for that state senate seat again in 2015, and again it was me versus the moderate PAGOP candidate. So a third candidate was selected to dilute the vote and help the moderate win. That race ended in November 2015 when I fell during a bear hunt high up on a northcentral Pennsylvania mountaintop and wrecked my knee, requiring two back-to-back surgeries so I could walk again. The moderate Republican won that primary and beat the liberal Democrat the following November, and has been a mostly do-nothing, know-nothing bench warmer ever since. It depresses me to think of what might have been, might have been achieved, had we gotten a conservative in this seat…
…anyhow, I can relate to Kathy Barnette, because I, too, have personally risked and sacrificed a great deal to do my own best to steer political outcomes in the right direction. She has my total respect and support.
Fast forward to today, and warrior princess Kathy Barnette is being criticized for having lost her congressional race in liberal Montgomery County several years ago. In a district that is Democrat +25%, conservative Barnette ran anyhow, just to stir things up. How many of the anti-Barnette sneering weenies in the PAGOP have ever risked anything, or sacrificed anything, like she did, for the good of the cause?
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Someone GOPe just did a laughably dishonest and fake video about Barnette that was shown on TV, where one-second snippets of her various speeches were sloppily combined to make her sound like she supports Black Lives Matter (she doesn’t), hates police (she doesn’t), and hates white people (she doesn’t).
In every case Barnette was actually saying exactly the opposite of what is claimed in the fake video: That she does not support BLM, which she called “parasitic,” and she does support the police and does not support defunding the police, and that she opposes anti-white racism. Etc.
A reporter named Jack Posobiec has posted a video on Rumble where he exposes each of these lies about Barnette. Posobiec also posted a video about how he has combed through over 1,300 of Dr. Mehmet Cengiz Oz’s TV appearances over decades, and has found ZERO pro-America or even conservative content of any sort, cultural or political.
Dr. Oz:
- served in the Turkish armed forces, while Barnette served in the US Army Reserve
- voted in Turkey in 2018, while Barnette votes in her home nation of America
- holds dual citizenship with Turkey and America… a huge conflict of interest; Barnette is just a plain ol’ American citizen
- is a long-time Hollywood liberal who suddenly discovered the GOP when he decided to buy a senate seat in a state he does not live in
- lives in New Jersey, not PA, unlike Barnette, who actually lives in PA
- supports hormone blockers for little boys and transexualism/ transgenderism for little children
- supports anti-gun rights “red flag” laws, whereas Barnette is endorsed by Gun Owners of America
- Barnette is endorsed by US Senator Joni Ernst, General Mike Flynn, Susan B. Anthony List, and a long laundry list of other conservative organizations and individuals
Two other criticisms of Barnette do have a smidgeon of relevance, but are easily dismissed.
One is that she is “anti gay,” which is a dishonest way to characterize Barnette’s support for a Christian baker who did not want the government to force him to bake a cake for a gay wedding. And Barnette correctly points out that what began as an understandable cry for fair treatment by the gay community has turned into a relentless demand for absolute endorsement of homosexual behavior, with heavy punishment for dissenters. Americans and humans everywhere have a right to their own beliefs, and a right to be left alone, and a right to say they are uncomfortable with other people’s sex lives. Barnette was correct in her position on this.
The other claim is that Barnette is “anti Islam,” which is yet again a dishonest way of reporting that Barnette wants the same kind of public debate about public policy issues surrounding Islam in America as Islamic groups demand about Christians, Jews, and pro-Israel groups in America. Barnette correctly points out that if it’s OK for Islam and Muslims to criticize people for their religious views, then it is fair for those same people to similarly criticize and question Islam and Muslims for their religious views. Fair is fair, equal is equal. This is not difficult to understand or to support. Every fair-minded person should support Barnette on these issues.
In short, Kathy Barnette is right over the target, she is poised to win and upset many years of RINO planning, and the bullcrap flak is coming in heavy, from the GOPe and the PAGOP and the RINOs. I have no way of knowing if Barnette will win next week, but if she does, it will probably be by a couple thousand votes. And if she loses, it will probably be by a few hundred votes.
Everyone who loves a free constitutional America must absolutely vote for Kathy Barnette, an American icon of bravery and selfless sacrifice.
p.s. Candidate Dave McCormick is a World Economic Forum member and a serial RINO from Connecticut. I keep getting emails from him claiming he is pro-2A, but then why did Barnette get endorsed by GOA? Turns out McCormick did not even bother to answer the GOA candidate survey… what an arrogant man.
April 19th, 2022
As it is said, even a blind pig can find an acorn, and while I am not one to brag a whole lot, I did predict from the beginning of this primary race for US Senate that candidate Kathy Barnette stood a very high likelihood of finishing at the very top. Whether I am a lucky blind pig, or just an old political hand who was due for a decent crystal ball moment of his own, it is a fact that Kathy Barnette is presently in a statistical dead heat for number one with the two predicted winners, Dave McCormick and Dr. Mehmet Oz.
As more accurate information has gotten out about Dave McCormick, his status has fallen and his supporters have been dwindling. McCormick is nothing like what he claims to be. He is a poser, a fraud even, because as much as he sells himself as some sort of down-home country boy from rural PA, the fact is he made his hundreds of millions of dollars in partnership with China. At your expense, at my expense, at America’s expense. And his policy positions over the years have been pretty liberal. Why would anyone be surprised that a rich high society guy like Dave McCormick, who is FROM CONNECTICUT and not Pennsylvania, is liberal?
The same goes for Oz, too. He is a rich Hollywood personality, whose positions on the Second Amendment have ranged from F- Minus to C-Minus, but who now suddenly disavows everything anti-gun he has said over the years. Nope, we ain’t buyin’ it, Oz. You, too, will just say anything to fool Pennsylvanians into voting for you.
So is it any surprise that Kathy Barnette’s own standing among Pennsylvania voters has been rising? I mean, where else would a smart voter put their one vote? Barnette is honest, earnest, truthful, and representative of working people and putting America First. As of last week, Barnette was in a statistical tie with Oz and McCormick for first place. See the poll results below.
Vote for and support America First candidate Kathy Barnette!
April 14th, 2022
For five long, brutal years President Donald Trump withstood a non-stop cyclone of misinformation, disinformation, lies, hoaxes, endless false accusations, two fake impeachments, and outright mutiny and insubordination by federal employees and military officers.
President Trump handily won re-election in November 2020 with the devotion of his ardent supporters, and the big lie that basement dwelling corrupt, doofus failed career politician Joe Biden was president only became an official narrative because that cyclone of official insubordination and mutiny around President Trump reached its climax from November 4th 2020 through January 2021 with the help of Big Media lies and Big Tech censorship. All statutory and constitutional safeguards set up to protect sacred American voting from being tampered with failed, because the people entrusted with those safeguards deliberately failed.
And all throughout that five year period tens of millions of American voters kept faith that President Donald Trump would prevail, because they knew that only he, of all of America’s elected officials, believed in a free America with liberty and justice for all. Despite the Democrat Media – Big Tech industrial complex’s best efforts to divide Trump’s followers from Trump, the Trump Train continued full speed ahead. As it does even now, when Trump draws huge crowds to his rallies.
Radio personality extraordinaire Rush Limbaugh used to explain how the Big Media people just do not understand the connection that Trump has with his followers. Rush said many times “Only Trump can destroy Trump’s relationship with his followers. Because that bond of trust between them is so strong.” In other words, it would take a betrayal of that trust by Trump to sever that bond. No big lies, no hoaxes, no fake impeachments would ever dent Trump’s popularity.
And I think we are beginning to see that bond fraying, only because President Trump is fraying it through his own deliberate actions that directly alienate his strongest supporters. No one ever accused President Trump of being a politician, and in fact it is his greatest pride that he is not a politician. He didn’t think that way and he didn’t act that way. But by trying to act like one now, Trump is reaping the kinds of results that politicians invariably get when they literally play politics.
In the past week we have seen President Trump officially endorse for US Senate a known Hollywood liberal RINO candidate, Dr. Mehmet Oz, instead of a true conservative candidate who actually lives in Pennsylvania. This endorsement was so bizarre that many people are booing its mention at voter gatherings here in Pennsylvania. It is not a popular decision among Trump’s followers.
And now President Trump is actually, incredibly, unbelievably encouraging PA Swamp RINO problem child Jake Corman to stay in the PA governor’s race. Even though Corman has been the biggest obstacle to conducting an official audit of the stolen 2020 election here. Which makes people wonder if Trump is going to endorse Corman, who was just about to file paperwork to withdraw his name from the race, but who is now following Trump’s advice to stay in.
So many old adages address this situation. One goes “If you have nothing positive to say, then say nothing at all.” Another goes “It is better to be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” And of course Rush Limbaugh’s warning to President Trump (paraphrased here): “Only Trump can destroy Trump.”
If President Trump continues destructively mucking around in Pennsylvania politics, of which he knows little, and in which many of us have devoted decades of our lives at great personal cost while battling the corrupt PAGOP and the Harrisburg Swamp, then Trump is going to break his bond with us.
All of my friends are saying this, and I am saying it, too, as painful as it is. President Trump, we will follow you to Hell and back, if we believe that you have our backs. But when you behave this destructive way and hurt us, then we no longer trust you.
April 11th, 2022
In his endorsement of non-Pennsylvanian, non-conservative, liberal Hollywood TV elite personality Dr. Mehmet Oz for the open US senate seat here in Pennsylvania, President Trump made it crystal clear in his statement that this was a strategic decision. Not an ideological decision.
By strategic, President Trump said and meant that Oz is (in Trump’s opinion) the one “Republican” candidate with the widest general appeal in November’s general election, when the Republican nominee will face evil anti-America leftist Josh Shapiro (the word evil is my own choice, because I believe that Josh Shapiro is absolutely evil, pure evil, cruelly evil, horribly evil, not because of his policy positions, which he is entitled to, but for his evil mis-use of his important Attorney General position for purely politically partisan purposes, at enormous cost to Pennsylvanians of all beliefs and viewpoints).
Trump made it absolutely clear that his support for Oz is not based on anything that Trump believes in or actually wants, more than a simple “R” in the senate instead of a “D,” and a Karl Marx/ Josef Stalin-driven “D” at that. To Trump, having another senate “R” here, even in the image of RINOs Rick Santorum, Arlen Specter, Patricia Toomey, et al, is still a win.
OK, I suppose there is a logic to that thinking and approach to electoral politics. It is a time-honored approach in Pennsylvania. Heck, we see it 24/7 with the GOP in general and the PAGOP in particular, both of whom automatically sell the most dumbed-down, weakest, most “moderate” candidates possible every race, on the basis that this weakness sells, because it is non-threatening to non-conservatives.
Problem here is, Pennsylvania is becoming a more conservative state. Most of the Democrats I grew up with were like me – pro-Second Amendment and pro-Life – and they, like me, are no longer registered Democrats. Even those with long Democrat Party allegiance and pedigrees going back to FDR had been voting mostly conservative for a long time already. Making the step from pro-America Democrat to Republican was not too terribly difficult for most of them. And Trump has no way of knowing this, because he is not from Pennsylvania and he does not know our conservative blue collar politics.
The other problem with Trump’s thinking on this odd Oz endorsement is that he seems to forget that he himself was once (in 2016) the ideological outsider with “no chances” of winning any election, primary or general. And he also seems to forget that it was precisely his own fervent America First ideology that captured votes from across the political spectrum in PA and elsewhere.
If President Trump were to really think carefully about this PA senate race, he would have endorsed either no one, or he would have endorsed his ideological mate Kathy Barnette. Endorsing no one and just leaving his unwillingness to select media-favorite dangerous RINO WEF mole Dave McCormick would have sent a clear message of his justified rejection of McCormick. But it seems to me that Trump’s unhappiness with McCormick is more personal, and on that score we all know that his personal feelings about loyalty and betrayal can be both Trump’s best and worst character traits.
In this instance, it seems Trump’s personal antipathy for McCormick goaded him into wrongly endorsing McCormick’s perceived rival, Dr. Oz.
But I do not at all believe the “professional” polls showing this race a dead heat between Oz and McCormick. And I do not at all believe that this senate race is and will be only between RINOs Oz and McCormick. Rather, I am watching Kathy Barnette quietly amassing strong public support across eastern and central Pennsylvania. This is not yet really evident in any of the polls, and I think Barnette is going to give everyone – pollsters, pundits, and politicians alike – a run for their money in this primary election at its very end.
If Trump were being the best of Trump, he would have spent some time here talking with voters on the street and hearing what they are saying, and he would have rendered either an endorsement of someone who tracks with his America First ideology, or no endorsement as a result. But instead he kind of shot from the hip, for a kind of understandable reason, and then he kind of shot himself in the foot. Because I do not know one Republican voter who is going to vote for Oz, either before or after Trump’s endorsement. Trump has alienated his strongest supporters with this endorsement; he has not persuaded them.
Instead, Republican/ conservative voters (lots of conservatives feel caged and locked up in the useless Republican Party) are saying “I don’t care that Our Lord and Savior President Donald Trump just endorsed someone. It is a flawed endorsement that makes no sense. So I am not voting for that person.”
And the one name I keep hearing and seeing written by these voters is candidate Kathy Barnette.
March 9th, 2022
Isn’t it intriguing that people who serve in military combat will do all kinds of unbelievably and beautifully brave things at the risk of their own life and limb (thank you all for your service to us back home), but when they are elected or appointed to office, they immediately become political cowards…unwilling to take even nominal risks to do the right thing.
This is not a question, it is an empirical fact. Very few military combat veterans who have been elected or appointed to federal office in America have conducted themselves even remotely as selflessly, fiercely, and as at real personal risk as when they were on the field of battle with firearm in hand and in mortal danger. And we don’t mean physical risk here, but risk to one’s position of official power. Even the toughest combat veterans are demonstrably over and over extremely reluctant to do anything to risk their high official station. No matter how badly America needs their former bravery brought to bear in Congress or in the federal bureaucracies.
Who knows why this is, but it is. Perhaps these wonderful human beings shine most when they know that everything is on the line, and when they later take office, they end up believing or realizing that nothing is actually on the line, except their cushy job and super-high-yield insider trading investment opportunities. And this realization turns them into either simpering weaklings or testily dodgy bullies, who will do absolutely any whore’s job to hold onto their elected or appointed job.
Just a few recent examples of this strange juxtaposition include former senator John Kerry (DC), deceased senator John McCain (RI), and current congressman Dan Crenshaw (RI). Surely there are at least a hundred other such elected or appointed military people, if only your author here spent the time to think or write much more about it.
The one modern exception to this rule that immediately comes to mind is President Theodore Roosevelt, whose adage to “speak softly and carry a big stick” was an excellent rule he both implemented and also nonetheless frequently flouted. Roosevelt flouted his own rule because he was utterly fearless, on the battlefield and off it. His fearlessness begat incredible effectiveness and measurable results, and it is what got his face on Mount Rushmore.
And we should give former Navy SEAL and Trump Administration DOI secretary Ryan Zinke some credit for his brief time at the helm of Interior, where he was daily beset by taxpayer-funded enemies of America and their partners in the mainstream media. But Zinke was in office too briefly to really measure.
Even fellow military combat veteran President Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961) was never going to get his face on Mount Rushmore, but on the silver dollar instead, because while he was a true battlefield warrior, once elected to office he was halfway tough and halfway wuss. Anyone interested in what I mean here can easily and quickly research Eisenhower’s strange autoimmune disease-like combination of Cold War hawk and weak-ass dove.
The point being that politics seems to attract people who we innately admire for their battlefield service or even their heroics thereon, but who then greatly disappoint us once they enter politics. And current candidate for US Senate Dave McCormick is one such example.
McCormick’s campaign website says:
Dave was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. While at West Point, Dave was a four-time letterman on the Army wrestling team and a co-captain his senior year.
Upon receiving his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant, Dave attended Airborne School and Ranger School, where he graduated with honors at one of the toughest schools in the Army. Dave was assigned to the Army’s All-American 82nd Airborne Division, where he was in the first wave of American troops sent into Iraq during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. His unit was tasked with clearing minefields and destroying enemy munitions, and he was awarded the Bronze Star.
As I am a former wrestler (grade school into college), I do value McCormick’s wrestling experience, because I know quite personally that this uniquely difficult and challenging sport builds good character and tough personal traits. And I naturally also value McCormick’s exceptional military training, and like many people, I also greatly appreciate his presence on the field of combat in Iraq.
So while it’s a damned huge shame that these laudable traits did not compute into a great political character for McCormick, it’s also no great surprise. Because RINO McCormick is following in well trod footsteps by many who have preceded him.
- Dave McCormick is nowhere near the person he says he is, or who he is trying to portray himself as. (Neither are several of McCormick’s opponents, either: Dr. Oz was a flaming liberal until recently, when he decided to run for office as a Republican. Oz’s candidacy is 100% Hollywood Media hype and puffery, and his political persona/ policy positions is all totally made up utter bullshit. Jeff Bartos is an unabashed RINO who stands for nothing. Carla Sands is marginally better than Oz or Bartos, but still an establishment political hack who also ‘came home to roost’ in PA from out of state when she smelled a juicy opportunity to run for office…she represents just more of the same old political opportunism like Hillary Clinton did in New York, so no, no thanks, Carla).
- McCormick is, or at least was until very recently, a resident of Connecticut, where he resides in a big fancy house surrounded by other megarich people in big fancy houses, far away from the blue collar stink of Pennsylvania voters, who he now suddenly needs if he is going to convert this juicy political opportunity into more self-improvement. And so suddenly, kapow!, McCormick is a tree farmer (I am a Tree Farmer myself) from central PA in down-home plaid flannel shirts and dungarees, so he can get that Everyman appeal moving in the right direction. I will say that it is true McCormick grew up trimming Christmas trees on his family’s Tree Farm in central PA, and I will also say that he long ago ditched that honest work and healthy way of thinking when he became a greedy, heartless, globalist.
- McCormick made hundreds of millions of dollars from running hedge funds, which make money the opposite of earning it: They bet against American companies and jobs, and when American workers and investors do badly, hedge fund guys sit around smoking big fat cigars and congratulate themselves on making craploads of money off of our misery.
- McCormick is a trustee of the Aspen Institute, which is a globalist anti-America make-the-ultra rich-even-richer Leftist think tank funded by the Gates Foundation (ultra Left), the Ford Foundation (ultra Left), and the Rockefeller Foundation (mostly ultra Left). Having myself served on many boards, I can tell everyone who cares that the Left does not allow anyone near their organizations who is not one of them.
- McCormick served in the George Bush administration from 2005 to 2009 in several high level positions. And while in the bad old days of American politics this kind of resume impressed America First voters, we now see that the most anti-America, anti-Trump, anti-America First people were… George Bush and his administration! They did plenty of behind the scenes anti-America dirty work that America hater Obama could never do, and since 2016 George Bush has been one of President Trump’s fiercest policy critics, even now. So knowing what we now know about open borders globalist George Bush, McCormick’s roles in his administration are no longer an asset, they are a liability. Because America has already been betrayed by a thousand other globalist Bushies/ establishment Republicans/ RINOs just like Dave McCormick. NO MORE.
America as a constitutional republic is hanging by a thin thread, and if our nation is going to survive, we must elect strong leaders. We cannot afford any more RINOs like Jeff Bartos, Dr. Oz, or Dave McCormick, so-called “moderates” who fight for nothing, demand nothing, and stand for nothing except their own personal glory and finances.
Sorry this took so long to say, but it had to be said just right. It does neither me, you the reader, nor Dave McCormick any justice to just poke some holes in his totally rotten political establishment and mostly anti-America resume. There is a real person behind Dave McCormick’s name, and before that person grew up, left central PA, and became obsessed with greed and personal power, he probably was the kind of person we would have wanted as our next US senator from PA. But not any more, because Dave is no longer that person. He abandoned his roots when he joined the globalist ranks, and he does great disservice to his own personal achievements by slyly trying to pass himself off as just the local, humble working guy he once was.
The only person worth getting my vote or yours for US Senate is Kathy Barnette, a humble, honest, down to earth working person and US Army veteran.
January 10th, 2022
Kellyanne Conway, Trump advisor and advocate extraordinaire, has hired her political gun out to the Jake Corman for Governor campaign. What an odd couple, this highly principled, positive, and well spoken woman with this unprincipled, mean-spirited, spoiled, corrupt product of nepotism, Jake Corman.
It is easy for Pennsylvania conservatives to smack their foreheads and cry out “Why Kellyanne, WHY?” Because her action here is at a right-angle inconsistent with what she said and did when she was in the Trump Administration, where she fought daily against RINOs just like Jake Corman. You can’t find two more different people in politics than Conway and Corman…and yet, politics makes strange bedfellows.
I am willing to bet that Kellyanne Conway suffered a lot after the stolen 2020 election. I will bet that her private life and her finances took serious beatings, and I will also bet that she has been very nearly canceled out of just about every aspect of her prior life. She probably went from international spotlight articulate presidential spokeswoman and advocate for America First principles in January 2021, to almost a political nobody in January 2022.
That has to be tough to take. If this same kind of crushing lifetime cancellation landed on you or me, like all negativity when we went to restaurants or the library or the food store, we would be desperate to get some aspects of our former life back. It would be too painful to ignore, unless a person is substantially independently wealthy. And even then those ultra wealthy people tend to live inside their own weather system, so that even small disruptions to their personal lives are artificially magnified and extraordinarily painful to them. And if you aren’t independently wealthy, and I do not believe Conway is, then all the more so does an opportunity like this political consulting job with Corman become attractive.
I think we can all understand her needs and what this job provides her. There is no need to judge Conway harshly. And there is no need to take her seriously, either.
Thus, even a corrupt RINO like Jake Corman has something to offer Conway: some redemption, a small opportunity to re-enter public life with some dignity and public standing; some recognition of her former importance. And some big, big bucks.
Because we just know that the GOPe is writing her a huge check, because so much RINO-ism and continued political corruption is riding on the success or failure of a corrupt man like Corman. The GOPe and their little pet Jake Corman need every swinging awesome woman on deck they can get. I would not be surprised if Conway is being paid a million dollars or more for her campaign role as symbolic figurehead until Primary Day this Spring.
And what does Jake Corman’s campaign get out of spending crazy money on a figurehead like Kellyanne Conway? He gets some of that Donald Trump aura, some of that gen-u-ine all-America-First patriot that Jake Corman himself cannot produce and does not himself represent and can never have. Corman is too well known in Pennsylvania, and especially in his own senate district (where he was about to get primaried), as a corrupt phony and backstabber, to ever stand on his own two feet. After all, his entire career is due to his daddy being a state senator before him. Jake has literally never had a real job!
And oh, the irony of an anti-America RINO like Jake Corman trying to bathe himself in the stars-n-bars Trump glow, transmuted by Conway, because Corman is the primary reason why Trump’s voters never got an election recount in Pennsylvania. Corman not only did all he could to block a recount or an audit of the stolen 2020 election, but he then fired all of PA Senator Doug Mastriano’s senate staff when Mastriano got too close to starting an actual election audit.
Corman’s campaign is like an evil, rotting, dead pirate ship slipping through dark waters, trying desperately to attach a new figurehead to the bowsprit to fool voters from afar. Many people are sad to see Kellyanne Conway in this figurehead role for someone as gross as Jake Corman. I hope it is worth it, honey, because the Pirate Corman stench will never really rub off.
Welcome to PA.
Former President Trump advisor and spokeswoman, Kellyanne Conway
If political pirate Jake Corman had a ship, this evil, demonic skeleton would be its figurehead
What RINO Jake Corman is hoping his evil pirate ship’s figurehead will turn into with his hiring of Kellyanne Conway
December 23rd, 2021
Steve Bannon has been a hero to so many of us in the conservative/ patriot/ constitutionalist movement. In 2016 he fought like hell to get President Trump a win that exposed what is really happening in America (federal bureaucrats, the bipartisan Uniparty, and globalist billionaires tearing America away from the citizens who own it), and even after he was booted from the White House for covering Trump’s back (and neither Trump nor anyone else but Bannon understood the game that was going on there until too late) he continued to be an advocate for America First and President Trump.
And for the past several years he has maintained a radio/TV show called Steve Bannon’s War Room that is like so many other political radio/TV shows. Every day, Bannon discusses the zeitgeist of political issues and personalities from his political perspective. Which is a perspective I share.
That’s the “good” Steve Bannon.
Then there is the “bad” and even possibly “ugly” Steve Bannon. And we are not talking about looks here, folks. I don’t comment on people’s looks, because that is irrelevant, immaterial, and often just shallow cheap shots. Rather, we are analyzing one of Bannon’s public activities and statements, and wondering WHISKY TANGO FOXTROT is going on in that War Room of his.
Below is a screen shot from Bannon’s War Room show as it appears on Rumble a week ago or so. As you can see from this screen shot, Bannon is actually lauding Pennsylvania GOPe careerist-political weasel-hack Jake Corman. This makes no sense, because it isn’t warranted because it’s not true.
Corman is a catastrophe for Pennsylvania, for the Republican Party, and for America in every single way. Corman’s many flaws are well known (directly associated with deep corruption, nepotism, RINOism, failing his constituents in favor of big money Democrat donations etc), and his opposition to a forensic audit of the stolen 2020 election is both public and subject to a behind the scenes battle. As leader of the PA senate, Corman stripped PA state senator Doug Mastriano of his senate staff. Because Mastriano has been working hard to fix the blatant election fraud that occurred here in Pennsylvania in 2020.
All of this and much much more (like Hey Jake, do you know what happened to Centre County DA Ray Gricar? Do you know what happened to his body? How did his mysterious disappearance help you? What criminality were you at risk of having Gricar expose?) makes Corman someone that a “good” Steve Bannon would naturally oppose.
Like, fiercely oppose, call out, expose, and challenge when Corman appears on his radio show and engages in totally obvious dodges and solipses. After all, we are all in the fight of America’s life right now. There is zero room for anyone like Jake Corman to be anywhere near politics or anything else that is important. Bannon is a political gate keeper and should be acting like one.
But instead, we get Steve Bannon actually heaping unearned and laughably incorrect plaudits on Corman on his show, and pitching him bizarre softball questions.
It is difficult to know if Bannon is just kind of playing along with Corman, so he can spring on him later, or if Bannon is bamboozled, or, in the worst and ugliest case, if thirty pieces of silver changed hands to buy Bannon’s fire. And it is this last possibility that strikes both fear into the hearts of constitutional warriors, and also deep resentment and anger. If Bannon has been bought by the enormous and enormously corrupt constellation of bad actors orbiting around their investment Jake Corman, then Bannon is not just “bad,” he is “ugly.”
So which is it, Steve Bannon? Are you good, bad, or ugly? If you are truly good, then you will side on the right side with the good people who are resisting the evil bipartisan takeover of America by the likes of Jake Corman and George Soros. You won’t post ridiculous headlines like this on your show. You will push back against bad people, phony people, dangerous people like Jake Corman.
Whose side are you on, Steve Bannon? Jake Corman’s side, or We, The People‘s side?
Steve Bannon actually wrote this laughably false headline.
December 12th, 2021
It doesn’t matter if you archery hunt for deer religiously, from October 1 to mid-November; the archery season is always over way too fast.
It doesn’t matter if you archery hunt a bit for bear and deer, hunt the week of early muzzleloader for bear and doe, do some small game hunting, have the men up to camp for bear season for four days, and then hunt every day of deer rifle season. The ending is always the same: It ended way too fast. We wait all year for this time, and before you can blink an eye, it is over.
For many hunters, this time is about being afield, hunting. The occasional actual killing part is a welcome indication that the hunting part was done well. Proof that the time spent outside was not wasted.
Oh, we still have some late deer season remaining, which is the late archery and flintlock hunt. But by now, deer everywhere in Pennsylvania are on high alert. A twig falling out of a tree and rustling a leaf on the ground will send a nearby deer herd into panicked stampede into the next county. So getting deeply enough into the sensory zone of these intelligent animals to take one with a bow or a flintlock at this stage takes real skill, not just the usual luck.
Although I will hunt the flintlock deer season, because I have some DMAP tags left, looking back even now with a sense of longing has me thinking about the anatomy of a good deer season. Some take-aways:
- Eat good food. Whether it is home-made jerky and dried fruit we make ourselves for our own time afield, or it is the extra thick gourmet steaks we bring to hunting camp, eat the best quality food you can afford. Hunting alone or with friends and family is a celebration, so eat like you are celebrating. And because Man does not live on bread alone, make sure your drinks are of a commensurate high quality.
- Practice, practice, practice with your gun. Archery hunters practice non-stop, but for some reasons many gun hunters leave it to one box of ammo and the days right before the season to “practice” shooting. Well do I recall sharing a range with a guy from Lancaster County at the bench next to me. Friendly enough, he enthusiastically, if spastically, launched his one box of “extra” shells down range as rapid fire as a bolt action can fire. I had offered him the use of my spotting scope and Caldwell shooting sled, and he declined. He did end up relying on my spotting and calling his hurried shots, however, because he didn’t quite have his scope figured out. The old random “spray n’ pray” is the approach he packed up and drove off to hunting camp with. Do any of us think he hit what he shot at?
- Bring your best jokes, naughty or practical. Hunting camp is fun, and each of us must contribute to that festive atmosphere. Many years ago, I bent down to inspect a strange looking object hiding under the cabin’s kitchen counter. And just as quickly I jumped back and screamed like a little girl when the damned thing took off running. That it was merely a muskrat pelt attached to a fishing line being pulled by Bob and followed by uproarious laughter at my expense just made my revenge all the sweeter. As for naughty jokes and rhymes, the list is endless. Look them up and bring half a dozen. Maybe I am lowbrow, or maybe I have low expectations, but it sure seems that everyone present laughs at these men-only jokes.
- Get out into position early, like at least an hour before first light, and when you move play the wind (nose into the wind), go quietly and slowly, and carry your gun port-arms and not across your back. If you can get out into position at 4:30am, even better. Just bring a blanket and some Zippo hand warmers.
- Food sources matter for deer and bear, too. We humans are not the only ones who both enjoy and need food. In a year of abundant acorns, a stand of sweet tasting white oaks will draw more deer and bear, and you can sit down wind of that stand of trees. In a year of scarce acorns, like this year, any tree that had a decent crop will still draw animals pawing in the leaves for whatever may be left in early December. By this mid-November, almost all of the already scarce acorns were eaten up, and both bear and deer seemed to be moving widely across the landscape in search of any food. It makes for tough hunting, and so we have to team up with buddies and other camps to work together to scoop up what animals are out there. Be flexible and think outside the box of a permanent stand.
- Speak animal language. Last year I grunted in an Adirondacks wilderness buck after busting him out of his bed. He was a territorial and aggressive SOB. But the conditions were all wrong for playing around, and although his body was visible, I could not shoot through the beech brush to get him. This year I returned for Round Two with the same animal, which had probably never seen a human being, and after two days of tentative efforts, Day Three resulted in the furious huge buck storming right in to my position with leaves, twigs, snot and mouth foam flying. I shot him in the neck at five yards, five miles from my truck. Lot of work, totally worth it for that DIY hunt of a lifetime. My position was carefully chosen for what he could see or smell under a certain wind direction. I waited until it was all just right, and let fly. His response was immediate.
- Take pictures, send them in emails. While journaling is not dead, most people today do not write in a personal or camp journal. Instead, we take photos and email them around. The recipients always appreciate them. Especially when ten or twenty years has suddenly passed, our knees don’t seem capable of all those steep climbs and hard sidehilling drives any longer, and a lot of our best times at hunting camp are sitting around with dear friends and reminiscing together. So don’t forget to take pictures and share them.
Northern PA’s acorn crop largely failed in 2021, possibly due to a late frost that killed the acorn flowers. Acorns remaining on the ground looked OK from the outside, but were all rotten like this on the inside. Wildlife is hungry and moving widely to locate food.
My “Freedom Buck,” killed on Sunday November 28th at 7:45am, on private property in PA. The ban on Sunday hunting is an attack on freedom, and so I named this Sunday morning buck after my declaration of freedom.
By Josh • Posted in
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November 6th, 2021
If politics makes odd bedfellows, Pennsylvania politics is making an odd assortment of fellows, period. And the only one who isn’t odd is also not a fellow, she’s a she.
Off the bat we can discount present PA AG Josh Shapiro, who hungers for the PA governorship. Shapiro proved a year ago and even as recently as a week ago that he is a power-hungry Bolshevik, willing to use his office for personal political gain. To be fair, almost all Attorneys General use their office to make a bunch of show trials that launch them into their particular state’s governor race. Shapiro is a partisan hack who cares little (I won’t say he cares nothing) for The People.
The Democrat Party candidate for US Senate most interesting to anyone with a pulse is John Fetterman, an unapologetic communist with the physique of an iron worker. Fetterman has the weirdest charisma and should not be discounted just because he lies constantly about his wife being attacked, or about voter fraud not happening, or whatever else this kookus mongus communist thinks he needs to lie about. The sad thing about Fetterman is that he would be truly dangerous if he was simply honest, and spoke honestly. That he has a degree from Harvard means only that he was heavily indoctrinated with communist dogma, not that he is necessarily smart.
The Republican side has the most action, and in some ways some of the least interesting people to offer themselves to the body politic in a while.
Former congressman and Trump Administration appointee Lou Barletta is running for PA governor. Two years ago he ran the ultimate Low-T, low energy, slow-walk race against incumbent US Senator Bob Casey Junior. It was not even a contest, and it appeared that Barletta had simply signed up his blindingly white teeth to be on the ballot, and then had not done a single campaign event. Casey blew Barletta’s doors off in the general election.
I am not picking on the guy, and I am not opposed to Barletta. He seems a good person, and as the GOPe goes, he is fairly conservative. He does not come across as a conservative street fighter, opposed to John Fetterman who is an aggressive leftist street fighter, and the greatest fear Barletta inspires in Republican grass roots is that he will install Part II of the Tom Corbett Administration. Recall that the spectacularly failed Corbett Administration appeared to have a religious test/requirement for senior employees/appointees, and that it was chaotically run by a slew of unaccountable arrogant young puppies who seemed to relish detonating the GOP at every turn. Please, no no no no, let’s not do that again.
Barletta is doing the hard work of racking up endorsements, and he is speaking publicly. He appears to be the GOPe guy.
However, now Jake Corman has announced his bid for PA governor. Corman is the PA senate “leader,” the recipient of tons of Democrat Party supporter money, the ultimate GOPe insider hack, and is widely hated in his own district. His announcement appears to be a political last hurrah before he faces a primary challenger next spring. www.jakethesnake.us has a run-down on Corman’s voluminous failings and weaknesses. He is the spoiled child of Pennsylvania politics and probably believes he has a good chance at winning the primary, but he has never faced the angry Republican voter. I believe that given a choice, Republican grass roots voters will happily vote for Barletta rather than unhappily vote for Corman.
Candidate Charlie Gerow has been written about previously. Charlie is a swell guy who runs a conservative salon. He is a convener of various points of the GOP and the GOPe, a consultant and lobbyist. He is a conservative intellectual in the model of William F. Buckley, a thinker, a debater. Charlie loves politics and policy, so he runs for office. I can’t blame him, but I don’t see him engaging the electorate the way Barletta’s gleaming teeth can.
PA senator Doug Mastriano just announced an exploratory committee for governor, which I think is a mistake. Mastriano just started making good waves in the PA senate, and he is needed there. If Corman leaves the senate, Mastriano could rise and take on a leadership role. He could do it even if Corman does not leave the senate. How sweet that would be, to see the guy whose entire senate office was defunded by Corman because Mastriano sought to audit the 2020 stolen election (there was that Democrat $$ speaking for Corman) become a or the senate leader.
Montgomery County commissioner Joe Gale is said to be a candidate for governor, but I have neither seen hide nor hair of the guy, and a request to interview him submitted on his campaign web page was not acknowledged. It is tough to tell if he is for real; if he is, then he seems to offer a lot. He is an unapologetic pro-America conservative and not afraid to fight for us. But again, has anyone seen or heard from Gale?
On the Republican side of the looming John Fetterman street fight for our US Senate seat thankfully being vacated by Patricia Toomey, we have Jeff Bartos, Sean Parnell, and Kathy Barnette.
Jeff Bartos is non-committal to either the GOPe or to the Trump voters, stands for maybe something or maybe nothing, and he comes across as yet one more moderate Philly Jew in the mold of Arlen Specter, who absolutely no one misses. Bartos tried to make political hay out of Sean Parnell’s recent divorce, which involves cute little kids, which is just a bullshit weak-ass move by a desperate, drowning man from Philly. Go away, Bartos, and do not come back. You offer nothing to politics or voters anywhere. Zero. Spare us your drama and ego; please just leave.
Sean Parnell is a handsome, confident, all-American former combat Soldier who stands for everything Pennsylvanians and Americans support and want again from our government. He just went through a divorce, which happens, and in almost every divorce I have witnessed, the two parties pretty much despise each other by the end. OK, it happens, and none of this divorce thing has anything to do with Parnell’s qualifications to be a hard-hitting US senator. Which he probably will be. He is a solid choice for US Senate.
Giving Parnell the real run for the money is candidate Kathy Barnette. Also an Army veteran, Barnette is as pretty a woman as Parnell is handsome a guy, and she is even more articulate and charismatic than he. Her politics are clearly and unapologetically A+ on the pro-America money. That she is black holds a huge potential upside, because white conservatives are wildly supportive of Black conservatives. If Barnette can get out enough to get known among the voters, then she has a very good chance of facing Fetterman in the general election next year, and I think she would crush him in debates and in a state-wide vote.
October 4th, 2021
Penn State forestry professor emeritus, department head, and all-things-forestry guru Jim Finley died yesterday. I was told that he was either felling a large tree on his property, or he was trying to dislodge a large tree that had been felled but was hung up on another tree. Whatever the actual facts are, Jim died from the tree falling on him. It is a reminder that even the best, most experienced forestry professionals are at grave risk.
As trite and awkward as it sounds to write here, the fact is that Jim Finley died doing what he loved in the environment he considered sacred. I am quite sure that had he been asked about whether he would like to die from a tree falling on him, or some more peaceful and less traumatic way, he would have given us the look he is giving below. It is that knowing “Why are you saying that, you know it is wrong” look. In his mid-70s, Jim was nowhere ready to leave us, and we were nowhere ready to let go of him.
His death is a huge loss.
Jim was a remarkable man, who I admired, and who left a way outsized hand print on Pennsylvania conservation and the practice of forestry in eastern America. He was a force to be reckoned with, an institution in his own right, a political-cultural movement, a gentle soul with a will of iron, kind and easy but also passionate and unrelenting.
He did not suffer fools easily, though he accepted honest debate and earnest dissent exactly the way an academic ought to: His eyes took on this hard laser focus, and you could tell he was actively listening and processing, not always ready to give an answer, either. His response might come tomorrow or next year, and if your argument was good, you could tell it had moderated Jim’s perspective.
Jim Finley was an academic, and sometimes prone to the idealism that academics naturally grow into. However, he also had the ability to be hands-on practical, and even more important, he had the ability to support aggressive, hands-on, totally practical forestry practices. You know, the kinds of visual impacts that most urbanites recoil in horror from, and which many land conservation groups really did not want to see, either, no matter how scientifically they were needed or justified. It is an admirable and rare trait to be able to be honest about unpleasant things, and Jim could look at a heavily cut tract with tree tops lying all over the place, and cheerfully explain all of the wonderful things that were now going to follow on the heels of all that disturbance. Because of Jim, conservation easements in Pennsylvania are now a lot more forestry-friendly than they used to be. And a landowner who is able to manage his or her forest as aggressively as they need to under a conservation easement, is a landowner who is much more likely to sign that easement and protect their land in the first place.
Jim invited me to speak to his classes a couple of times, and we worked together when I was at DCNR and the Conservation Fund. I knew him when I was a kid in State College, I knew him as a professional forester and academic at Penn State, and I knew him as a colleague of land conservation legend and Penn State forester Joe Ibberson, whose PSU forestry department endowment Jim presided over at the end of his formal career. It is always a huge loss when someone of Jim’s high caliber leaves us, but it is even more so when he was just starting to become mature, as he would put it in the terms of a tree.
So long, old friend. Happy travels in your peaceful forest cathedral. We who are left behind mourn your untimely departure and we will miss you greatly. You were a hell of a guy, Jim.
Wooden bowls and a vase turned by Jim Finley. Photo kindly provided by forester Dale G.
