Posts Tagged → policy
Carpe diem, carpe lifeum, carpe friendum
Carpe diem – Latin for sieze the day – was popularized in America by now deceased actor Robin Williams in a wonderful (if moronically anti gun) movie called The Dead Poets Society.
In his characteristic full-throttle mode, hard to tell if he was acting or just being him-so-interesting-self, Robin Williams playing the school teacher, beautifully exhorted his high school students to carpe diem, seize the day, to gather ye rose buds which ye may, to live life fully moment by moment and day by day, to miss nothing, let no opportunity slip by, to live and be their best.
This is an ages-old challenge for all of us, especially Americans, whose lives today are filled with so much clutter and nonsense, especially online (except for this blog, of course), so much material chasing, and ego driving, and so little opportunity for reflective contemplation.
Well have I been reminded of carpe diem in just the past couple days. Another friend gone, before their time, before the years said they should be gone and leave us. A wonderful and interesting person, full of life and cantankerous fist-waving at President Trump and Republicans, who was a pretty conservative rural white Southerner, nonetheless, whose personal views on borders and illegal immigration and public welfare for new immigrants fell deeply into Republican policy territory. Whether this contrary policy place was cognitive dissonance or confusion or misplaced brand loyalty to a political party that had long ago left this person behind, I do not know, nor do I care.
I never cared. It just made them an interesting person, whose chemistry somehow strangely matched with my own.
This old friend was important to me, as are so many old friends from, let’s say, the past fifty years of my ever-shortening life. And yet, not important enough to see in person for many years, despite mutual declarations of intentions and desires to do so. So much to catch up on, the kids, the grandkids, career, friends, family.
Now, this person like a puff of smoke in a gentle breeze – poof – is gone from my life, and from the life of their own children and family, who loved them very much.
As I age, I am seeing more and more friends literally drop dead or get sick and die. People I care about very much, and maybe to whom I have not expressed my appreciation in a long time. Or my apologies for stupid behavior in our youth. Or to share some knee-slapping hilarity over ridiculous and probably dangerous adventures we did together, long ago, when rural American youth did such things with impunity, and without fear of being branded a terrorist.
Yes, I have regrets, now that my friend is dead, before I had a chance to sit down with them one more time. And in this moment of regret, or recurring moments as I move through my day from one errand and activity to another, I am reminded to carpe diem.
And… Carpe Lifeum, Carpe Friendum.
To miss no opportunity to breathe in the richest of life that I can muster, at every moment. Enjoy my friends, my life. Before I, too, suddenly and unexpectedly breathe my last breath on this earth.
Not to sound morbid, but my friend did just unexpectedly die, literally dropped dead, and so let us both turn this sad black rose into a red rose bud that we gather together, and treasure together, while we yet may.
Goodbye, old friend, and Hello, living friends. We need to have a coffee or a beer together, don’t we…
Does JD Vance have what it takes to be president?
Like nearly everyone, or probably literally everyone, on my side of the ideological spectrum, I have enjoyed watching JD Vance’s political life grow from infancy to Vice President of the USA over the past few years.
The guy went from rural poor house to successful book author (“Hillbilly Elegy”) to state politics to US Senator to Vice President in a short amount of time. Pretty much the American dream. Most people have to spend a lot of time to get this far in politics.
Another dream: Unlike 95% of former Vice Presidents, Vance has been greatly empowered by President Trump to have a robust public life on key policy issues. Historically, most Vice Presidents are shunted aside, or are given vague ribbon cutting ceremonies at best. Under Trump, Vance has been all over the place, all around the planet, speaking his mind, carrying the administration’s messages on fair trade, free speech and Western Civilization, etc.
Vance has thus gained traction among many on the right, who were unhappy with his past vilification of Trump, which we saw as un-earned and more of a publicity stunt than a legitimate policy critique.
Vance’s throaty America First stance certainly gets people like me standing on our feet in full applause. Over and over, Vance has said what conservatives think has been absent from most Republican leaders (or any other elected officials, for that matter) for decades. So, until a week ago, I and many others in my corner were excited about Vance’s prospects as a 2028 presidential candidate.
And then came Vance’s openly arrogant and pompous declaration about Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria, both the current administrative arrangement and the prospective legal annexation. For a guy like Vance, who earlier this year proudly championed the prospective outright American annexation of Greenland, by legal or military means, and who prides himself on maintaining a rational, logical, linear policy perspective, this statement was a non-sequitor surprise.
There are few if any Americans living in Greenland.
America has never claimed Greenland as the USA has claimed Puerto Rico, Guam, or other territories we captured in war.
Israel is 8,019 square miles in size. Greenland is 836,331 square miles in size, literally over a hundred times the size of Israel. Judea and Samaria are the historic homeland of the Jewish People; they comprise 2,183 square miles, nearly 1/400th the size of Greenland, and are home to about a million Jews.
Many of the current Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are built on the ancient ruins of former Jewish settlements dating back 4,000 years. Jews living there today are not newcomers to the area. Rather, they are de-colonizing it. Fact check alert: Arabs are from Arabia, Muslims are from Mecca, neither of which are in Judea or Samaria. Muslims and Arabs who live in Judea and Samaria are the colonizers, as they are the colonizers elsewhere across the entire region.
Israel captured Judea and Samaria in a defensive war, and reaffirmed their hold on the area in subsequent defensive wars. To the victor go the spoils of war, in treasure and in land; this is elementary international law. Israel has every right to control or annex Judea and Samaria. Vance himself invokes this very same principle in his argument for America taking over Greenland (which I support).
To watch Vance on camera on this subject is painful. He comes across as a petulant, arrogant bully, back to where he was when he vilified Trump just a few years ago.
Vance actually said that he was “insulted” that Israel’s democratically elected parliament had passed a bill to annex Judea and Samaria. Why would JD Vance feel personally insulted about the sovereign act of a soverign democratic nation fighting for its life that has zero to do with him, he, JD Vance, late of 1794 militarily conquered and European colonized Maumee Indian lands in Ohio?
If Vance is so opposed to Israel being in Judea and Samaria, to which they have a 4,000 year old claim, then is he going to make a big showy statement and give back his Ohio home to the Maumee Indians? We all know the answer to this. Vance likely believes that the conquest of American Indian tribes and the colonization of their lands is settled business.
Does Vance really think that Israel annexing a small area over which it has maintained control for nearly sixty years is going to somehow hurt the United States?! Even a little bit?
From a rational policy perspective, Vance’s blanket statement on Judea and Samaria is a 180 degree deviation from all of his other American policy statements. Perhaps this is attributable to all of the Qatar money pouring into American politics right now. Or maybe it is attributable to the Vatican’s longstanding antipathy towards Jews, Judaism, and the modern state of Israel. Whatever his reasons for his a-historical rules-for-thee-but-not-for-me statement, Vance is way out of step with Ambassador Mike Huckabee, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the hardest core of American patriots who feel directly connected to Israel, Judea, and Samaria, and who see Qatar’s cash dump into American politics and universities as a huge threat to Western Civilization.
It makes one wonder if JD Vance has what it takes to be our president. An effective president cannot afford to alienate anyone on his side, at least not for long. Trump can get away with pushy bluster, because he is a likable person with a very long track record of positive achievements in both private enterprise and public office. Sometimes his bluster is just that, bluster, to test the waters.
Conversely, Vance’s personal anger about Israel’s one policy looks the equivalent of Joe Biden’s public “I’ll be damned” brag about corruptly quashing Ukraine’s investigation of Burisma and Hunter Biden. This is not presidential stuff, it is not leadership stuff, sad to say. I hope JD Vance fixes this, not just the policy stuff, but his own public performance, his control of his own personal self.
It is one thing to be a heavily battle scarred Donald John Trump and say sh*t, but to be a relative newcomer overnight rock star like Vance, his strange outburst could and should hurt his prospects.
Why retain lousy judges?
Pennsylvania voters will have the rare opportunity to NOT RETAIN three lousy judges in a few weeks, and how can you vote to retain these people?
Don’t!
The “PA Dems” send me their daily emails, which I dutifully read. It is fascinating material, mostly because there is no substance to it. It relies on an “Us vs. Them” version of politics, which I think most Americans are tired of in so many ways. This same tribal hate-filled scapegoating is what got Charlie Kirk murdered, and which has boiled up from the far-far-Left gutter of the Democrat Party’s base.
Just like the phony “COEXIST” bumper sticker, the old “Hate is Not a Family Value” bumper sticker also was a bold lie. Americans who sported these on their cars were neither coexisters nor peace loving non-haters. The coexist people are the meanest, angriest, least capable of co-existing with different Americans, and hate is now an out-and-proud defining characteristic of the Democrat Party base.
It all flows from the 1960s Marxist academics, like Herbert Marcuse, who told their college students that it is OK to hate and hurt people who disagree with Marxists, because those people are automatically just bad, bad people, and they deserve to be hated, and hurt. And so hate has become a fundamental part of the Democrat Party messaging, including the emails that I get.
The PA Dems say that the court is their “firewall” on policy, but this is all wrong, that is not what courts are supposed to do. Congress and state legislatures are charged with writing laws and policy, and the courts are supposed to simply interpret it all as either consistent with the constitution, or not. Not act as another legislature of just a few people. And so it is this political activist judge thing that has got so many Pennsylvanians wound up tight about this upcoming retention vote.
Says one activist I admire, “Vote “NO” to retain the PA Supreme Court Justices. Below are the current salaries of those justices along with all tiers of the judicial system including our local Common Pleas Court Judges. By choosing to run for retention instead of re-election, these Justices, if retained, will be serving another 10-year term in which their salary for that time will total $2,619,760, and the Chief Justice will receive a total of $2,695,990. I don’t believe she can serve another full term due to mandatory retirement age in another two years or so. In addition to their generous salary, they also receive an annual cost of living raise and the best benefits as far as healthcare, prescription drugs and eye care. Regardless of the justices being on the wrong side of so many issues, there is no reason to hand them another term instead of making them stand for election.”
In other words, the judges chose a simple political dodge instead of running a real campaign, to stay in their cozy taxpayer funded jobs. Even one who should automatically age out in just a couple years!
We do not need more elected officials with this rotten, selfish mindset.
Additionally, the activist policies these judges pushed were destructive nonsense that served the political interests of just one political party, at the cost of tossing our rule of law right out the window along with believable election results:
- they approved a heavily gerrymandered electoral map, which a lot of Americans say they do not like,
- they allowed the use of highly corrupt vote “drop boxes” despite Act 77 not authorizing them,
- they extended the deadline for mail-in ballots by three days, in violation of the law, among other non-legal, anti-legal decisions that damaged Pennsylvania’s election integrity
Christine Donohue, David Wecht, and Kevin Dougherty do not deserve to serve as judges any longer. They have failed at this job, badly, and they should not be retained. Time for a change, time for people with integrity to sit in those seats.
Vote NO on November 4th to not retain them on the court.
You must flip over your ballot to check the NO box.
And you can also term-out Judge Dubow and Judge Wojcik, too.
Tucker Carlson, dingbat mean girl
The past two years of Tucker Carlson’s life have been devoted to attacking Israel and everyone who supports it, as well as revisiting essential Adolf Hitler messaging, like “the Jews” control media, banking, government etc. One of the pro-Israel groups, AIPAC, is one of his special whipping boys. Tucker accuses AIPAC of forcing American politicians to “obey” and thus AIPAC “controls” American government. He says.
Tucker ignores the truly vast amounts of money spent lobbying and influencing American government and decision makers at all levels by China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and many others who are definitely not American allies. AIPAC’s pipsqueak budget doesn’t compare, but if you are looking for a scapegoat, nothing beats “the Jews.”
Another thing Tucker has repeatedly said is that Iran is not America’s enemy (even though it very much has been since 1979), Iran is only Israel’s enemy, and that any real war against Iran’s nuclear bomb program, by either Israel or America, will automatically result in WORLD WAR THREE.
In this way, Tucker became the chief Iran First advocate in America. Given his open, unhidden, unapologetic personal animosity towards Jews and Israel, Tucker probably supports a nuclear-armed Iran as some sort of counter-balance to Israel’s longterm survival, and thus the survival of the Jewish people, if not an outright threat with a high likelihood of succeeding in turning Israel into smoking rubble.
But the problem is, if you are Iran First, like Tucker is, then you are America Last, and yet Tucker claims to be a MAGA America First guy. He cannot have it both ways. Iran’s record of hostility towards its “Great Satan” America runs the gamut from holding 66 American hostages for 444 days, to multitudes of bombings that have killed Americans around the world, to holding weekly rallies declaring “Death to America” in Iran and in countries it has exercised control over, like Syria and Lebanon. Iranian leaders have said countless times that its nuclear bomb program is intended to destroy both Israel and America. Iran has openly bragged about having terrorist sleeper cells here in America.
And yet, Tucker has done all one person can to protect Iran from military intervention by its likely victims. He really is Iran First, and so it logically follows that Tucker is okay seeing American cities go up in mushroom clouds if he also gets to see Israel destroyed. And while Tucker harbored anti Jewish sentiments in the past (e.g. his initial FOX News report on Sam Bankman Fried’s felonious Ponzi scheme dripped with personal animosity towards Jews), it was given rocket fuel by huge payments from both Iranian businessman Omeed Malik and Qatar. Reportedly over ten million dollars.
Yes, the same Qatar that has been funding the destruction of American college education in the pursuit of destroying American culture and borders.
So, Tucker may have been a kind of mean girl in the past, but his dislike for Jews and Israel really took off after he left FOX News. Left to himself and his anti-Western, Islamo-supremacist financiers, Tucker’s anti-Jew stuff ballooned into an open movement, a greater-good willingness to sacrifice America on the old Adolf Hitler altar that also destroyed Germany.
To this neo-isolationist banner Tucker attracted a whole posse of fellow MAGA conservatives, like open Jew hater Candace Owens, Alex Jones, Jack Posobiec, Patrick Bet David, even Charlie Kirk, who I thought would have had the common sense and honest Christian charity to stay away, and a whole bunch more. Some of these people have embraced Jew hatred as a business, and honestly, they seem to be doing OK at it.
Led by Tucker Carlson, this posse of mean girls has subsequently greatly shaped the public debate, the internal MAGA debate, and President Donald Trump administration’s policies about Israel, Iran, and American foreign policy in general. To intervene or not, to get regime change or not, to support an underdog ally, or not.
My opinion is that Tucker’s posse of mean girls has elevated non-interventionism and neo-isolationism into a graven image, an idol to be worshiped at any cost. Really guys, no regime change in Iran now, when probably 80% of the Iranian people want it? When we can most easily achieve it? You have a solid argument for this? I don’t see it.
Imagine being so “pro freedom” that you violently argue for ninety million Iranians to remain under the jackboot of the evil Shia mullahs. Because regime change is supposedly always bad. Again, I don’t see the logic or sound reasoning of this argument by the posse of mean girls. The blood of this week’s Iranian victims, civilians right now being rounded up by IRGC soldiers, is on your hands.
For the record, I have been MAGA since 2015, when Citizen Trump descended the escalator to announce his candidacy. Max campaign donations (even still on a monthly basis), all of the MAGA/ Trump tee shirts, boxer shorts, socks, hats, signs, banners, memes, you name it, I paid top retail to show my support for the one person I believe can save America. This blog is a record of my absolute commitment to President Trump at every turn over the past ten years. His America First policies are everything I believe in.
And for the record, I was a huge Tucker Carlson devotee when he was at FOX News, because he asked all the right questions about the right things, policies, and people. His goal was freedom and his aim was true. Tucker’s unintentionally comedic WASPy hostility towards Jews at the end of his Sam Bankman Fried report was tolerable, because who the hell doesn’t dislike Leftist Jews? They are a pox on America, as are most Leftist Catholics, Leftist Protestants, Leftist Muslims, Quakers et al.
Yes, Leftist Jews should know better than anyone else about how evil Leftism is, because of all that the Jewish People have been through, especially at the hands of arch Leftists. But Tucker has made it openly clear, most recently in his interview with US Senator Cruz (where Tucker revealed that he is a deliberately fake Christian), that he maintains an animosity for all Jews, including the politically and culturally conservative ones who are devoted to America and Western Civilization. The same people a politically active conservative would normally share the political trenches with.
World War Three never happened after the apocalyptic genocidal death cult running Iran was brought to heel, and America and Israel successfully defended Western Civilization together without America losing one military person or citizen. And thus is Tucker revealed as a destructive dingbat, and not a serious thought leader about real policy issues.
Hurricane Trump spawns endless Zeitgeist
Back in the 1980s, which for you young people is when the world began, a confused and confusing publication called The New Republic entered a new-ish word into the American journalistic lexicon: Zeitgeist.
Meaning more or less “the spirit of the age,” this word Zeitgeist has been used among writers and journalists as a way to introduce certain specific government policies or political statements or ideologies for discussion. Or as The New Republic mostly Marxist writers used it, as a foil to hold up for examination certain political motifs they thought wrong. In their case back then, TNR writers were mostly reacting to Republican president Ronald Reagan, who was then aggressively rebutting many of the government policy failures he was elected to end.
Well, President Trump’s first week in office has unleashed so many policies and government actions that America is fully back into the time of Zeitgeist. Trump is waaaay ahead of where Reagan began. By 2024, clearly the American people had had their fill of destructive DEI/ CRT/ ESG nonsense, they voted for a huge and hard break with it all, and we are now witnessing a veritable Hurricane Trump descend upon both Beltway Bandit and Ivory Tower Academic alike, as well as murderous gang members whom the Mainstream Media naturally depict as pet Democrat sad puppies.
Where do we even begin to mark down the wonderful new things among the slowly but inexorably unfolding wreckage?
- California Man Childs: California voters could not adult, they elected man-children as officials, lived a life of unsustainable fantasy, and burned down their most valuable real estate as a result. The wildfires were inevitable. Empty fire hydrants, empty city reservoirs, DEI fire departments filled with overpaid fat slobs chosen because of their female anatomy or feminine appearance, instead of their actual abilities to fight fires and save people or keep fire engines running, the list of policy failures is as long as my arm. The man childs have been busy blaming “climate change ate my homework” and even Trump for their own policy failures, and thus far it appears the California voters are sticking with them. Some human beings are just not programmed to evolve or even to save themselves. Stay tuned for more self inflicted disasters and even more self inflicted voting patterns in California, as Trump demands adult policy changes before taxpayer funding the return to leftist self destruction. Relatedly, an entire federal agency, FEMA, is now under the gun, as a result of multiple failures in North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and now California. FEMA is kind of the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the alphabet agencies popularly hated by the American people (ATF, EPA, FBI etc).
- DEI (“didn’t earn it”): Supposedly, according to DEI ideology, the way to end discrimination against people because of their skin color or gender is by aggressively discriminating against people based on their skin color and gender. DEI does not make sense when you read it this way, which is the accurate way, and the American voters have had more than their fill of it. DEI is DOA in the Trump executive branch, and so the bloated administrative state blood is beginning to leak out wherever DEI stood. Cutesy cat-and-mouse games where DEI staff are re-named something innocuous sounding are being met with beautifully placed sledgehammer responses. The reality of DEI rot damage to our national fabric is becoming apparent, and the American people are vindicated.
- January 6th: Acccording to the Democrat Party’s Mainstream Media, January 6th was the first ever unarmed “insurrection” in human history, and was worse than the Japanese attack on pearl Harbor and worse than the American Civil War (!). This perspective justified the Biden DOJ’s subsequent Gestapo response against their political enemies. I was there in front of the US Capitol on January 6th, and I witnessed the reality: Uniformed police rained down a storm of illegal ultra-violence and abnormal sadistic abuse on peaceful protestors, eventually provoking a just and normal response by a free people. Antifa hoodlums (who I saw with my own eyes) and federal employees led the way in property destruction and violence against uniformed police. With the Biden DOJ Gestapo gone, personal J6 videos are now coming out of hiding. These videos show exactly what the MSM did not show you: A peaceful protest bombed, beaten, blasted into responding to the lawless police, and now a crumbling MSM political narrative just as fake and unsustainable as Los Angeles fire supression and prevention policies.
- Illegal Invaders: Yes, starting in 2021 the Democrat Party opened up the American borders and just let anyone who wanted come into America, and even paid them to do it. This was done to get enough new voters and enough US Census population count bodies to help the Democrat Party create a stranglehold on America. A one-party country, which everywhere else in the world is an autocratic non-free miserable place, was their goal. Meanwhile, across America public schools and hospitals and public parks are awash in these non-English speaking criminals, subjecting taxpayers to an incredible and unsustainable cost burden. Yes, the Democrat Party wants to burn down America to get control of America, but it appears that the Trump Administration will be deporting a thousand invaders a day, at least. Whether America has dodged this particular bullet or not remains to be seen. If strong election integrity laws can be implemented that protect American elections and voters from the illegal invaders, then all will be well in the end.
As some of these individual policy happenings show us, a true Zeitgeist is emerging: A Spirit of ’76, a recapturing of the federal bureaucracy by those American citizens who pay for it and underwrite it, a re-purposing of the federal government away from funding the world and instead funding our own American citizens in need.
Hurricane Trump has only just hit the coast, it has barely started to move inland, and so-so-so many much needed changes are already well under way. Things are looking beautiful.
Forgive Me for Asking, But I Must
Forgive me, it is not my intention to cast cold water on our collective rejoicing at having President Donald Trump re-elected, again, and thus at having dodged the Democrat Party’s communist anti-democracy bullet aimed at America’s heart. It is true that Trump’s election gives us hope that our constitutional republic is not over. However, I feel like I am watching a repeat of 2016-2017, where highly qualified conservatives and Republicans were mysteriously bypassed, overlooked, left untouched by the then-new Trump Administration.
Well do I recall someone of real stature writing publicly then (2017-2018) about how mystified he was that no one from Team Trump had contacted him about any of the unique policy strengths he had, and how the new Trump Administration seemed disinterested or lost on whatever that policy subject was. Well, here we go again, from where I sit.
Trump supporters have learned to forgive the 2016-2017 lapses, missteps, failures, and missed opportunities as due to Trump’s unfamiliarity with government, his natural reliance upon long established and unreliable DC Beltway insiders, his understandably misplaced trust in deep staters and other bad actors, his misplaced faith in the weight of federal employees’ oaths of office.
We watched as Trump’s first term slowly, painfully, peeled away the mask from the hostile administrative state, generously bankrolled by American taxpayers and yet also so openly at war with us. We grudgingly learned to accept the stolen 2020 election as the cost of doing business within the parameters set for us by the establishment media, the administrative state, and its constellation of hostile non-government organizations, who then worked furiously from outside to undermine the very rules they set.
And so we miraculously prevailed in 2024, and America as founded yet lives again. And now we have earned the right to say openly, can we please not make the same and very avoidable mistakes again, this time around?
While President Trump is indeed appointing strong leaders who are willing to assertively implement his bold vision for a better government that is closely attuned to America’s founding documents and principles, one question has not been addressed: Who exactly is going to carry out these deep reforms?
With few exceptions (the US Dept. of Commerce being one), nearly the entire federal workforce was already openly insubordinate to President Trump the last time around. And there is no reason to believe that these public employees are going to honor their oaths of office this time. And if Trump follows through on the DOGE promise to eliminate entire federal agencies, and greatly streamline those that remain, then which law-abiding civil servants will there be to carry forward in those same agencies the Trump Administration’s policies?
Put another way, if President Trump installs leaders who, for example, change the name of the radicalized US Environmental Protection Agency, then which of the old USEPA staff will there be to then follow through with the systemic change through every artery and vein inside the old institutional body? If the federal government is going to aggressively do compliance checks or reel back in billions of dollars in Biden grants to far-left NGOs, then who exactly is prepared to hit that ground running? The current federal workforce is almost entirely unreliable, and if left in place, each and every federal employee will become a road block of one. The DOGE people had better be collecting lots and lots of names of prospective civil servants who are prepared to take the place of existing staff, who should end up fired from federal service for any number of good reasons.
House cleaning is promised, but who then moves into the house to give it new life?
Ending where this essay began, it is my turn to publicly complain: No one from Team Trump contacted me, way back in 2016-2020, or now, about my unique area of expertise. I am one of a very small handful of truly conservative Republicans nationwide with extensive hands-on experience with public land issues and wildlife habitat/ land conservation policy. No Trump staffer has called to ask my experienced opinion on federal appraisal standards, especially related to eminent domain, or on rights-of-way issues surrounding federal properties. To my knowledge, none of my few colleagues have been contacted, either. I am not looking for a job. I already run a small business that I really enjoy. But I am willing to volunteer my precious time to help shape sound federal policy that is a significant deviation from the longstanding horrible status quo.
President Trump has the loyalty of so many talented and experienced conservatives, any and all of whom will jump at the opportunity to simply help this one man (and his administration) who can save America. This is the big chance to get America back on track.
So why then do I feel like America via President Trump is once again missing easy opportunities to make lasting, good policy? If the right people do not identify and help fix these longstanding horrible policies, the civil servants will keep them in place, and we will miss a once in a lifetime opportunity for good government.
Censoring climate mockers
Guest post, courtesy of Tom Shepstone:
by Vijay Jayaraj
“We have reached the end of the Olympic summer in Paris, comprising of the Olympics and the Paralympics. Though the U.S. finished at the top in the Olympics and in the top three at Paralympics, much of the world’s attention was on the Olympics’ obscene mockery of Christianity in its opening ceremony at Paris.
It also overshadowed some unprecedented events in the city. A few days prior to the games, French authorities fined the country’s second most popular news channel 20,000 euros for challenging the popular narrative about a purported climate crisis.
CNews, a round-the-clock news operation, was charged by the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (ARCOM) with a broadcast’s failing to adequately challenge views skeptical of the global warming scare.
“This is the first time in France and internationally that ARCOM or a regulatory authority has issued a financial sanction for a breach concerning an environmental subject,” said QuotaClimat, an organization that reportedly has complained in the past about the climate reporting of various media.
The case of CNews raises serious concerns about press freedom – a cornerstone of democratic societies — and the public’s access to diverse perspectives on environmental issues. While the regulator argued that the channel failed to provide sufficient context and counterarguments, critics contend that the decision sets a dangerous precedent, effectively requiring media outlets to adhere to a specific ideological position.
The role of journalism in a democracy is not to parrot official viewpoints or consensus opinions but rather to investigate, question and present different perspectives on important issues. By imposing restrictions on how climate issues can be reported, France undermines this crucial function of the media.
This crackdown on climate reporting exemplifies a broader trend of using authorities backed by official powers to curb the expression of views that challenge a government’s preferred narrative, a concerning development for anybody favoring an open society.
The practice has become far too common in academic research as well. Scientists who challenge the crisis narrative are subjected to witch hunts and termination from their professions.
Many climate scientists, influenced heavily by funding sources, are transforming their discipline into something that hardly qualifies as science. While their work has the appearance of scientific research and is conducted by those with scientific credentials, both its methodologies and findings are heavily shaped by the agendas of special interest groups, political figures and international governing bodies.
Researchers and their organizations, in too many cases, have become harvesters of grants rather than seekers of truth. Such scientists are supplicants of governments and wealthy foundations wanting particular findings and willing to pay for them.
Those who champion genuine scientific inquiry must speak out against deliberate efforts by climate alarmists to discredit sceptics, whose questions are manifestations of critical thinking. Inquiry into popular theories should be welcome, not treated as sedition.
From Galileo’s astronomical discoveries to more recent controversies in fields like genetics and nuclear energy, attempts to protect the popular view have often backfired. slowing scientific progress and technological advancement.
In the case of climate change, this is true too. Restrictive energy policies — justified on the basis of addressing a “climate crisis” — already have impeded economic growth and increased prices. Ideologues seek to reverse decades of advancement in clean-coal power generation, oil and gas development and other technologies.
Scientific understanding of Earth’s climate is not furthered by silencing dissent but through rigorous research, peer review and open debate. By allowing a diversity of voices in the media, including those that challenge the so-called “consensus,” opportunities for truth arise.
Isolated intrusions on press freedom are annoying. But actions like that of the French regulator for reporting on a climate story can be replicated by other governments and for other subjects – a certain eventuality without the intervention of honest citizens
For this is the proverbial slippery slope greased by powerful people’s lust for control or money or both. Left alone, only the most ruthless of the politically connected get to say where it ends. Even they can’t say for sure, but history tells us it ends badly.”
This commentary was first published at yourNews on September 10, 2024.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K., and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, U.K.
#France #Climate #Jayaraj #CO2Coalition #FreeSpeech #Censorship
Project 2025 & Hawk Tuah Girl
Liberals are not “crazy” or “idiots” or “stupid.” Liberals/ woke/ PC/ Democrats just see the world differently than people who want to survive.
While the political Left is not very religious, it is messianic about the coming role of big government that has to happen for the world to be perfected, in their view. Most leftists decry socialism, and earnestly deny they are socialists, but the policies they want are all socialist. And leftists are OK with or will look the other way from the brutal anti-freedom actions and crushing societal dominoes falling that need to happen for leftist policies to be implemented.
So I don’t think leftists/ Democrats are “crazy” or “idiots.” They just see the world really differently than I do. And I believe that their policies are either overtly communist or are going to naturally usher in communism, which is the end of a free America.
Why leftists/ Democrats think this way is confusing to me. America is a pretty great place to live, the best place, actually. So why screw it all up? As radio host Mark Levin pointed out last year, the Democrat Party is now the party of big government. It sure is NOT the “party of the common man, the little guy.” That ended a long time ago when Silicone Valley, Wall Street, Corporate America, mainstream media, academia, teacher’s unions, federal government, etc all fell into the Democrat Party partisan orbit.
There is no room in that elitist orbit for the common man, the little guy, the electrician or auto worker. His sole role is to work hard, pay taxes, obey the elites’ arbitrary laws and diktats, and feed that hungry constellation of interests with his union dues and taxes.
And I say all this because of not yet meeting one leftist / Democrat (in my entire life) who is able or willing to engage with me in a calm, sustained, analytical discussion about politics or economics. Without fail, the leftists/ Democrats in my family, life circle, work world all quickly become hostile, defensive, begin to yell, and cannot have a civil discussion when their ideas are questioned. They go from a calm 0 to a set-you-on-fire 100 in about twenty seconds.
Probably because Leftists/ Democrats are thinking with their emotions – the exciting feeling release of dopamines when their brains’ neural pathways smoothly flow with the perfect messianic mantra of Democrat Party political words and promises of utopian Nirvana on earth in our lifetimes. If only with higher taxes and less damned freedom in the way. How dare I drop a turd into the punchbowl at their dopamine party and screw everything up that just feels so good with my annoying numbers ‘n stuff?
Something like that.
Again, leftists/ Democrats are not stupid, or dumb, or idiots, they are emotional thinkers uncomfortable with the boring numbers and cold logic of conservatives. These are two ships passing one another in the night, and never the twain shall meet. Except they do tend to meet at Antietam, Gettysburg, Bull Run and let’s not remind ourselves of where this fracture naturally goes and flows.
So when the cold, annoying numbers of “Project 2025” suddenly burst on the national scene, it was the leftists/ Democrats who were the first to chimp out and draw attention to it. Literally no one else in America had heard of Project 2025, most especially the Republicans and conservatives who had their faces smooshed into it by Democrat mainstream media accusations. President Trump plainly said “I have no idea what you are talking about. I have never heard of Project 2025 and no idea what it is.” He was speaking for all of us. It was true.
The fierce leftist/ Democrat accusation being that mean old Project 2025 was Trump’s own personal policy agenda. And apparently this policy agenda really sucked for Democrats because it was full of annoying numbers ‘n stuff. Zero emotion. Ergo it must be bad, must be destroyed, and everyone associated with it or who could be thrown onto the bonfire with it.
Like Trump and everyone else around me (to many people in my personal life and work circle I am “Mister Republican” and “the political guy” who people call, email, and approach on the work site to talk about politics) I had no idea what Project 2025 was when the mainstream media went crazy with it. Like I just said, and which you can see for yourself with the link above, it is just a bunch of wishful wonky policy gobbledegook by the policy nerds at the Heritage Foundation, a thinktank in Washington, DC. But Project 2025 served as the scary harsh foil and mean boogie man for the Democrats’ happy happy joy joy joy approach to politics.
While all of this oh-so-crazy hullaballoo was happening about Project 2025 and Elon Musk live interviewing President Trump and other really just terribly awful things that ruin emotional thinkers’ days and America too, some cute young lady was overheard in public talking about (sorry folks, this is actually real) spitting on a man’s p*nis.
“You just go hawk tuah, and spit on that thang,” said Haliey Welch, joking around in her Southern Tennessee twang.
And just like that, an American star was born. No lie, Haliey Welch, a pretty and nice enough young lady who lives with her memaw in a farming community in rural Tennessee, became a rock star. An influencer. Big time. With lawyers, and agents, a team, and trademarks and intellectual property contracts and lawsuits and millions to be made. Overnight, Haliey Welch went from 0 to 100 in about one week. That’s probably measured in millions, not miles per hour.
And you know what? Hawk Tuah stickers and tee shirts and emblems and flags are now everywhere in America. Nobody knows what the hell the phrase means, until you look it up on the computer chip implanted in your hand while driving behind a truck with Hawk Tuah on their back window in the grocery store parking lot, and you then say out loud in your most shocked emotional thinking voice possible “Is that really what the hell that means?!”
So get this straight, my fellow Americans: Project 2025 is very, very naughty, and everyone who can be accused of being associated with it is also very naughty. Hurt them, destroy them, go chimp out on them and get all sadistic on them. But Hawk Tuah? Why that is happy happy joy joy joy! Wahoo, let the good times roll.
Everybody get a Hawk Tuah tee shirt on, a cold beer in hand, and smile and laugh, and just feel good for whatever reason enters into your brain at that moment. Mom and dad buy all the groceries and pay all the bills, and college tuition is gonna be free one way or another, and man is life good in America.
Ain’t America in great shape?
Excuse me while I hawk tuah on the ground.
PA Game Commission changing leadership
Kind of a wildlife management wild ride here in the Keystone State, though it is tough to tell if anyone really noticed or if anyone really cared. I care. People who care about animals should care.
In just a few weeks the Pennsylvania Game Commission has gone from from a very traditional conservation leadership style and background to a new style and background we have not seen in over a hundred years. I think this is a good thing, though I am sad about how it happened.
Recall that several months ago, attorney Steve Smith was promoted from director of the PGC’s Bureau of Information to deputy director of the agency, second in command to executive director Bryan Burhans. A good choice, as Smith is the very image of the dutiful, honest, earnest, hard working, straight shooting, unemotional, careful, procedurally diligent government employee. While PGC is a long way from the colorful Wild West frontier culture it once had, it still has a shadow of a bunker mentality and insular culture that do not serve the agency, its employees, or the public, and Steve is not representative of that.
Where Bryan Burhans had worked at the American Chestnut Foundation and other iconic conservation and wildlife management groups, with direct personal contacts in the nonprofit and foundation world, Steve Smith is an attorney who just happens to hunt, fish, and trap, and of course share the wildlife and habitat conservation ethos that animates hunters, trappers, and “fisherpeople” everywhere.
A devoted family man, Smith worked in private legal practice before joining PGC’s legal staff about 16 years ago. Where Burhans carried the mail for nonprofit advocacy groups both out of PGC and in it, which is the traditional model for wildlife management agency leaders across America, Smith has been long focused on public agency nuts and bolts. Dotting I’s and crossing T’s in the shadow of big speeches and public policy debates.
There is a gigantic world of difference between these two men, Bryan and Steve; their backgrounds, personalities, and outlooks could not be more different. Again, we are going from strength to strength with the change.
Bryan Burhans gets tons and tons of credit for gently, sometimes assertively molding the PGC into a more publicly accessible, publicly responsive public agency. Unlike most of his predecessors, Bryan was not a former Game Warden. And so from his own get-go seven years ago he was less insular, less committed to the law enforcement view of all things wildlife.
Yes, if you read some news reports about Bryan’s departure a couple weeks ago, you will then read about some state lawmakers griping that the agency is still not as accessible or responsive as the PA Fish & Boat Commission. I am sure that is true, and for good reasons. But compared to where the once insular and bunker-mentality PGC was, say, ten years ago, or especially twenty-five years ago, it is light years better now. Much improved. And, gasp if you must, the PGC actually now employs women in senior positions. This may be not big news to most people, but it is a fact that wildlife agencies are notoriously hide-bound and ultra traditional, the PGC having rung the bell in this regard for a long time. Celebrated wildlife biologists like Mary Jo Casalena may work for PGC, but it is as rare as hen turkey teeth that they also then get into senior management positions.
What is interesting about Steve Smith’s elevation to executive director upon Bryan’s departure is that we are actually seeing Pennsylvania wildlife management style return back to the days of Kolbfus and Pinchot – Americans without the supposedly key wildlife science “credentials” who simply care very much about wildlife, environmental quality, and habitat, and who have the intellectual capacity and personal management skills to implement the necessary policies.
PGC’s executive director is going from an outspoken advocate (albeit occasionally for things unrelated to wildlife management) to a quiet, humble, careful, almost reticent thinker. I am lamenting Bryan’s good-bye, because he did an outsanding job, and I am also really welcoming Steve’s hello. I believe that the many passionate watchers and stakeholders of PGC will be happy with Steve’s leadership there. Of course, those hunters who demand more deer than the landscape or society can sustain will never be satisfied, and I feel sorry for those people.
Update: Long and interesting interview with new ED Steve Smith is here.