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Interesting PA 15th district state senate race

Now that the Super Tuesday primary election is over, which Our Lord and Savior President Donald Trump completely dominated in a historic crushing nationwide landslide,  Pennsylvania has only another six weeks of national irrelevance to go until our primary election on April 23rd. Which makes Pennsylvania less than unimportant in the grand scheme of national politics, but allows us to focus on some interesting local races.

The election race that grabs my interest the most is for the 15th state senate district here in central PA, centered on Harrisburg City. This is a senate district I ran in one-and-a-half times. First in 2012, which entailed a real head-butting with the GOPe, and in which I did well but did not win. The second time I ran was 2015-2016, and I was the first candidate out of the gate. Color me surprised when another candidate announced (John DiSanto), quite establishment with the charisma of an old shoe, and who was backed by the same acidly anti-establishment state senator I had worked hard to elect in York County (Scott Wagner).

Political races are often weird, and in Spring 2015 I was just getting with the weirdness of facing off against people whom I had worked hard to elect, and who had no explanation for why they were opposing me, when the race got more complicated.

Enter out of the clear blue yonder a very young and very ambitious guy (Andrew Lewis), just moved back to Pennsylvania and fresh from military intelligence work in Washington, DC (now that MAGA knows how corrupt and evil our own American intelligence establishment is, one must wonder if this connection will hurt Andrew Lewis in his future political ambitions). With no local work or volunteer history, other than his family lived in both Juniata and Perry counties, Andrew Lewis became the alternative conservative candidate to me. Good looking and bright, Andrew made a fine candidate. His presence in the race bit into my rural support, and the fact that he, too, was financially supported by Scott Wagner bit deeper into my feelings about Scott Wagner and the people working for and with him.

What the heck did Scott Wagner have against little old me?

My participation in the race came to an abrupt end in late November, 2015, as I stepped up onto a boulder high on a mountain while bear hunting, and awkwardly fell off. My left knee was the knee that had not been previously operated on, and I had babied it for thirty years. The two back-to-back surgeries required to fix its resulting bad tears in the cartilage and frayed ligaments meant I could barely walk. And if there was one advantage I had it was my good door-to-door effort that had paid off before.

Not being able to walk door to door, I had no way of really running a competitive three-way race, and so I bowed out in December. And never a sore loser, I endorsed the same monkey-wrenching Andrew Lewis as the superior of the two candidates.

John DiSanto won that springtime primary election and went on to defeat the incumbent Democrat in the Fall of 2016. After eight years of voting reliably Republican present, but with no distinguishing leadership on issues like election integrity or the state system of education, DiSanto is now giving way to the heavily gerrymandered new senate district.

Our new 15th district map was created by the PA Dems to favor forever incumbent PA House member Patty Kim, a terribly undistinguished, sleep-walking, cookie cutter Marxist Democrat who is tired of not having to run for re-election every two years and now desires to not have to run for re-election every four years.

So we know who the Democrat candidate will be: Patty Kim.

On the GOP side we have two candidates, and this is what I find so interesting about this race. One candidate is an outsider, a nice man named Ken Stambaugh.

Local politicos will recognize the Stambaugh name because so many people from this large and engaged family are involved in politics across three counties here. Having appreciated the opportunity to speak at length with Ken Stambaugh, and having read his near-daily campaign trail updates, I come away with the impression of a good guy with good intentions, and no policy experience or even a desire for good policy, and not a lot of charisma. That he was recruited by incumbent state senator John DiSanto for the Fall suicide run against Marxist Patty Kim seems doubly lost on Ken.

That Ken was endorsed by the Dauphin County GOP is not lost on me or other conservative grass roots activists who abhor party meddling in primary races. Candidates today who tout their party endorsement in a primary race have a tin ear, or just don’t care about the voters.

Sometimes not being “political” can work well to a person’s advantage, and in this case, I think Ken Stambaugh probably sleeps well each night not knowing what politicos know. Let’s keep this a secret, because Ken’s earnestness is refreshing. He means well, which is to his credit.

Out of the blue, longtime politico, former Dauphin County commissioner, and newly elected Dauphin County treasurer, Nick DiFrancesco, has also decided to run for this same state senate seat.

Two weeks ago, the Lower Paxton Township Republicans issued a statement, calling on Nick to drop out of the race.

I told everyone Nick would not take the treasurer position seriously,” said one frustrated politico.

You crazy man,” I wrote to Nick. After all, having worked so hard to re-ingratiate himself with the Dauphin County GOP and barely win the county treasurer seat last November, to now run against the party takes real Italian-style chutzpah. Or too much ambition. Or balls. Or leadership….

However Nick’s thumb-in-the-eye and kick-in-the-shins entry into this race is characterized, Nick is at the opposite end of the politico spectrum from nice guy candidate Ken Stambaugh.

Nick DiFrancesco is very experienced with running for office and all of the “retail politics” this includes, such as money grubbing and networking. He also has Dauphin County name recognition, which always goes a long way in a primary race. Nick may be as establishment as a Republican can get, but to run against the party establishment is about as anti-establishment as it gets. Intriguing!

Which raises the question of whether Nick DiFrancesco has a political suicide urge, is addicted to running for office, or does he think he can really win against Patty Kim? I think Nick believes he can win against Patty Kim in the Fall. He says so, and I believe him.

The entire 15th senate district R vs D race in the Fall comes down to the R candidate reaching deeply into the Harrisburg City black community, and getting their votes. Which with the right candidate can be done. After all, decades of Democrat Party rule has left Harrisburg City and its majority black citizens bankrupted and left behind. Like pretty much every other Democrat-run city in America, it should be noted.

American blacks are not stupid, they are incredibly loyal (why blacks identify with the party of Slavery, the Democrats, and not the party of Abolition, the Republicans is a case of effective marketing vs. no marketing at all). They are smart enough to begin asking what the hell have they been loyal to and loyal for. The American black community is beginning to wake up to the fact that white liberal Democrats like Patty Kim are the most racist people on Planet Earth, and that repeatedly voting for them and their guaranteed failure and intergenerational poverty is stupid. And no, I don’t think candidate Alvin Q. Taylor has what it takes to lead, sorry, buddy.

Nick DiFrancesco should play Malcolm X’s “Political Chump” speech all over Allison Hill and Uptown Harrisburg, and lead Dauphin County in a political revolution that all of America needs. If there is one candidate who can do this, who has the balls to try it, to show all the scared Whiteys huddled up in their country clubs that Black people are very engaging and very interested in what candidates have to say, it is Nick.

In this primary race, and in the Fall race, I think Nick DiFrancesco has all of the advantages.

 

Hanuka 2023, every USA conservative is a Jew

The past seven years have seen increasingly aggressive censorship and violence against American conservatives, especially on college campuses. Since the October 7th Hamas massacre of Israelis, American Jews find themselves under violent attack, especially on college campuses. Conservatives and American Jews don’t often occupy the same space, but now they do, and they should support each other.

Historically, Jews have been the canary in the coalmine for civilizational health. Countries where Jews have enjoyed freedom have done exceedingly well, and countries that murdered, robbed, raped, and expelled their Jews have fallen by the wayside. The proofs for this assertion are legion, and they include ancient Rome (what is Italy today?), 15th century Spain (what is Spain today?), modern Germany, Soviet Russia, and almost every single Muslim country today. And yes, modern Germany is rapidly swirling down the toilet. England is swaying wildly on the fence, and America is not far behind.

Western civilization is failing, and one of the victims, the beleaguered Jew, is the most prominent symbol of the evil forces that are tearing our western nations apart.

As a result of Hamas’ October 7th massacre of Israelis and their still unending rocket barrages on Israeli civilians, and then Israel’s just response to that blitzkrieg, the world has been engulfed by a mostly Islamic movement to dehumanize Jews and delegitimize Israel and Western Civilization. A bunch of white sadists and envious losers have joined in the pro-Hamas, pro-genocide, pro-Apartheid marches.

In case you have not been paying attention, Jewish-owned restaurants in Australia, Britain, Canada, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, have been targeted by violent mobs chanting about Israel and killing Jews. This same effort has also engulfed nearly every single American university, where conservatives and free speech have been aggressively banned for the past seven years. It has been interesting to see this intersection of Jew haters against freedom of speech, because their actions have shined a bright light on the plight of all American conservatives.

Turns out, American conservatives share the same fox hole as American Jews. Both are subject to unfair and unconstitutional vilification, dehumanization, and suppression of their basic human rights by the very people who claim to be the most tolerant, most open minded, most caring. Ahem.

The other day three major university presidents (UPenn, MIT, Harvard) sat before Congress and each testified that people calling for the genocide of Jews on their college campuses was not necessarily against their college policies. What a disgrace. It was shocking to see these cookie cutter leftist women presidents smirking and being coy while playing their word games. Had the words black, Hispanic, gay, transgender, lesbian, Muslim etc. been substituted for the word Jew in this policy discussion, well my gosh, of course that would have violated their college policies against hate, bullying, and harassment.

But not Jews. Nope. With Jews, these very sophisticated and exclusive women leaders had to judge the “context” in which the calls for genocide happened. Was the Jewish student actually being genocided on MIT or Harvard’s campus, like hanging from a lamp post with a rope around his neck? Well, that would certainly violate their school policy against hate, harassment, and bullying. But up until that physical violence, why, calls for genocide against Jews is just free speech, they said.

University presidents who never gave a hoot about free speech, but who rather inflicted un-American McCarthy-esque speech codes against their ideological opponents are suddenly all for free speech when it comes to calling for massacring the Jews. And this strange thing has naturally and refreshingly caused quite a backlash.

What is happening here is that the Jew is the breakwater for the American conservative, who has been illegally pounded into dust for years by the same racist , Stalinist, Hitlerite Diversity-Iniquity-Equity university/ media/ government people as were testifying before Congress the other day.

If America can agree that treating Jews differently and much worse than everyone else is wrong, then I think we are also about to agree that the evil Stalinist Diversity-Inclusivity-Equity critical race theory nonsense that put both Jews and conservatives on the chopping block was a huge un-American mistake. It is time for this nonsense to end, and for the rule of law and constitution to return.

Tonight is the first night of Hanuka, a 2,300-year-old Jewish festival that is about religious freedom in Israel earned by the edge of the sword. There is nothing joyful or miraculous or oily about Hanuka. This holiday was and still is only about the need to fight like hell with everything you have if you want to survive. The ancient Jews prevailed militarily against the enemies of all that is good, in the land of Israel, and this is what is celebrated this week.

Sounds like a good message to American conservatives and Jews alike: Fight back against the evil that is engulfing America, including the college campuses that are supposed to be beacons for learning, or you will lose everything. Firing these three evil university presidents at UPenn, MIT, and Harvard will be a good step forward.

 

 

 

RIP my friend Nevin Mindlin

Nevin Mindlin was probably an annoying precocious kid. He was probably one of those kids in school who at a young age would constantly raise his hand to answer questions posed by the teachers, because he actually knew the correct answer and he also probably knew a great deal more about whatever the subject was. Although I did not know Nevin at the tender age of eight, I am certain this lovingly annoying ability of his was probably becoming pronounced right about then. And it never stopped and it served him well all the way up until his death this morning in south Florida.

I will miss Nevin, for a lot of reasons. A good friend is always tough to find, and human chemistry is always a mystery. Opposites attract is an old saying, and as opposite as Nevin and I were from one another, we always enjoyed one another’s company. Maybe it was because I, too, was the annoying kid in grade school, but without Nevin’s intelligence. Probably I secretly admired him and I also wanted to be like him.

Nevin went to college, not just anywhere, but at Goddard College, a hippie freak school in the 1970s. Which must have been an interesting experience for all involved, because Nevin was a conservative Republican. He got his MBA from Lehigh University. He served in the US Navy and learned to take apart radios and fix complicated things. This ability to deconstruct and reconstruct complex bits of wires and capacitors became one of his annoying habits as an adult, when he would describe whatever public policy we were grappling with as a radio or electronic array. Nevin could diagram a public policy like no one else, and as he drew on the blackboard in his mind he saw electric wires, capacitors, and other radio components. Maybe he was just overthinking stuff, but it was impossible to refute him on his own terms. He would stop explaining and ask for questions, and the people in the room would just sit there staring, unable to conjure the right response. He should have been a salesman.

After working in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for a long time, where he was the executive director of the House Labor & Industry Committee, Nevin went on to be the policy director at the PA Department of Labor & Industry under Governor Tom Ridge in the 1990s. Of course Nevin was smarter and more experienced than most of the other appointees (except fellow appointee Tom Armstrong, whom he admired), and he always struggled with reconciling his clear headed and deeply held principles with impolite political necessity. This business of trading off principle for necessity would plague Nevin his entire life, and I don’t think he ever felt good about it. Maybe he should have been a philosopher. If he had been a salesman, he probably would not have been a rich one.

Nevin retired a bunch of years ago and ran for mayor of Harrisburg. As a candidate, he was very popular, especially among the Black population, even as a conservative Republican, and he scared the pants off the political establishment. I was in the courtroom when a now departed county judge held that Nevin’s reliance upon the official opinion of the county elections department was Nevin’s mistake, and not the mistake of the paid professionals who advised him, and thus was he disqualified from running for mayor at the last minute. It was a disgraceful moment in the history of human self-rule. Even the judge found his moment of political necessity distasteful, and his shame at having to remove this pure hearted, well meaning, popular man from the ballot and from threatening the political establishment was written all over his own unhappy face. I will never forget it.

Nevin served the Harrisburg Jewish community in a number of roles, including president of the Silver Academy Yeshiva. He never stopped dabbling in local politics, until he moved to southwest Florida a few years ago and said “What the hell, I think I’ll just go fishing from now on.” I always felt proud of having taught Nevin to fish, because it brought him great pleasure. We used to fish the Susquehanna River here in Harrisburg, back in the early 2000s, when a guy could catch 100-150 smallmouth bass in a day, and have a real shot at the huge muskellunge we had back then. Those were real good times together. He also enjoyed splitting wood with me, and fishing Pine Creek.

One Fall night on our way up Pine Creek Valley, probably twenty years ago, we encountered a wrecked SUV sideways in the road, the driver injured and hanging out her window. An enormous buck lay alive panting on the other side of the road. Despite having all four of its legs cleanly removed from its body due to the collision with the front of the SUV, and despite being hardly able to move more than a couple of feet at a time on its bloody stumps, the buck was full of fierce fight and aggressive lunges toward anyone who approached him. I was trying to maneuver into a safe angle where I could dispatch the suffering animal when the driver’s husband showed up. He barely noticed his wife in the driver’s seat of the steaming, crumpled SUV, and walked over to the buck. The man clearly admired the buck’s huge rack (I’m guessing it was in the 140s-150s) and tried to get ahold of it to twist and break the animal’s neck. That was a mistake, as the buck quickly lunged and speared the guy squarely in the gut with its long tines, drawing blood. The man was filled with rage, and I handed him my 9mm pistol that I had been prepared to dispatch the animal with. He damn near emptied that entire clip into the buck before he handed the gun back to me.

We left the dark wreck scene with its gory buck, steaming disabled vehicle, and the injured woman with her uninterested husband running his hands over the deceased buck’s rack, and Nevin said “You deer hunters are a really weird bunch of people.” He really should have been a philosopher.

Nevin was married twice. First to Gail, who gave him three great sons he was crazy about, Joshua, Avi, and Hillel, and then to Jean, who was with him when he died today. Nevin leaves a legacy of clear headed public policy, of absolutely beautiful principles based on America’s founding documents and the Torah, which he tried to follow, and memories among his friends of his explosive, joyous, easy laugh and always happy demeanor. I will miss my friend Nevin so very much. Godspeed, old friend. I hope you get to fish on your journey.

He will be buried this Sunday in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he grew up.

Nevin Mindlin fishing in south Florida, looking like an Amishman who had taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up in Heaven

 

 

The king you got, not the king you wanted or needed?

Two days ago was Coronation Day in England, whereupon the former very very longtime Charles Prince of Wales became Charles King of England AKA King Charles III. Even in The Year of Our Blessed Freedom From Monarchy 2023, this is still a big deal, because like it or not, kings and queens can matter when they want to, for better or worse.

This new king follows on the heels of his most amazing and impactful mother Queen Elizabeth, whose traditional values and top notch leadership skills many people miss. It appears Charles also wants to matter, like his mother, to be of consequence, to make what he believes is a positive difference on Planet Earth. So, we take note of his ascendence. He may not be the high caliber of his mother, who many would have liked to have seen replaced by another woman or man of equal qualities (good luck finding such a person anywhere in Western Civilization today), but Charles is nonetheless now the monarch. For better or for worse, or most likely a mix of both really bad and some good, King Charles is not going to be invisible.

Setting aside the die-hard monarchists for a moment, there was still a lot of worldwide public interest in Saturday’s coronation, if only because several mini-dramas played out in the coronation process. One being the role of His Most Spoiled Brattiness Prince Harry (strategically blocked from camera view at the actual coronation by a tremendous red feather plume in his aunt Anne’s hat in front of him), two being the marked absence from the coronation of Harry’s horrendous harridan of a wife, MeGain Markle, three being the final and hard public point being put on Charles’ longtime relationship with Priscilla, which had been openly maintained even while Charles was married to the most glamorous human being ever to grace the earth, Princess Diana Spencer. Many people never forgave Charles for his affair and disrespecting of Diana, but now, it’s officially all over. Charles and Priscilla are officially married and officially King and Queen of England.

Surely there are other notable features of this coronation, but to me, the one that matters most is the one that almost no one (that I could find) took notice of, and that is King Charles’ masculinity and his love of field sports, notably hunting. With guns, and occasionally spears. In a world of the establishment war against boys, against masculinity and manhood, of forced and artificial feminization of men at every turn (like Bud Lite’s Dylan Mulvaney debacle in the USA), King Charles’ quiet but absolute manliness is a crucial symbol for normal people and for those who should want to return to being a natural, normal, healthy human.

If nothing else, King Charles may end up being a potent symbol of How To Be A Man. Laugh if you want about this, but at one time not too long ago, 99% of boys naturally wanted to become masculine men when they reached adulthood, to be service-minded police officers, brave firefighters, adventurous cowboys, heroic soldiers, and hunting was a bedrock experience that trained many boys for these fields. In a western world now under siege from within our borders and from within our own governments that are captured by our worst enemies, who among other things are doing double duty to weaken us by erasing manhood and masculinity from our population, having public symbols of masculinity and manhood, like King Charles, is more important than many people realize.

Setting aside his many bad policy positions, King Charles is no dithering dandy, no fop. Quite the opposite. He speaks firmly, rides tall in the saddle, properly and expertly handles rifle, pistol, and shotgun, and is not afraid to kill his own dinner or get blood or dirt on his hands or clothes. This is a king I could like and who we all need, if only because he is a real man. Long live this manly king.

Thanks to Westley Richards for this photo

Recent gun “buy backs” hugest waste of money and time

Leave it to people who are so consumed with hate that they can’t think straight to make a solid public policy, and so they expend public time and funds on really stupid things.

We are talking here about the hate that so many elected officials (99.5% of whom are registered Democrat Party) have for firearms. Firearms that otherwise secure our police forces, secure our armed forces, secure food for the table, and secure our private homes and personal bodies from violence. Firearms by themselves never did anything to anybody, but if you are an ineffective elected fool, and you are looking to make some kind of statement about how effective you are to people who are easily impressed, you do a “gun buy back.”

Such foolishness recently happened here in Northampton County, Pennsylvania and in Utica, New York.

Never mind that there is no “back” in the gun buy-back, because the guns being purchased never belonged to the official buyer. But hey, fools are gonna fool, especially with foolish sounding policy names, and so we get these mis-named public gun purchases in mostly Democrat-run towns and counties. *I grew up in a rural area where the Democrat Party was heavily represented. Today, not one person out there is a registered Democrat, because this political party has gone off the rails.

Public funds are expended to buy guns, with great fanfare and yet very little or no gain in public safety. Usually the public message goes something like this: “If our purchase of guns here today stops just one mistaken shooting, just one crime, just one accident, why then this is all worth it.”

Which is of course more foolish nonsense. The same communities are often wracked with violence and epidemic official failure, causing hundreds of local citizens to die unnecessarily and prematurely every year. But the “just one life” thing always sounds so serious.

Never does anyone ask What if these guns were used instead to defend our borders by state militia in Arizona, or New Mexico, or California, or Texas? Think about how many lives THAT would save, given how many drug and drug violence deaths are being walked across America’s open southern border right now. These guns in the hands of private citizens defending the American border could probably save hundreds of thousands of lives!

Or, what if the local police put on a gun safety program and taught these same private gun owners with little firearms experience how to safely shoot and store their guns? They would probably make their homes so much more safe and crime-resistant!

When all of the potentially saved lives are compared to the one or two potentially, theoretically, possibly saved by the “gun buy-back,” then we see these gun buy-backs a) don’t save lives and b) are a waste of public money.

What really strikes the eye in these publicized public firearm purchases are the purchased firearms’ low quality, the large number of antique black powder guns that have not hurt anyone since the 1860s, the valuable historic and collectible guns that should be sold to raise money for public agencies, and the simple hunting-grade weapons that leftists tell us they never ever want to take away from us. And all of the hunting ammunition! Destroying this stuff is the crime!

Why don’t the police use the ammunition for police officer training? Why destroy something so valuable as ammunition?!

And since when does the government rip off private citizens, paying them literally pennies on the dollar for high value guns, and then instead of monetizing that public money investment, the government employees then destroy the high value property?

Why doesn’t the government have an appraiser on site who can advise private citizens about the actual high value of the old gun the local government is offering them $75.00 for? Why is ripping off local people a good policy?

In Utica, New York, roughly $30,000.00 of public money was spent on purchasing… “ghost guns,” which is a political term, a loaded term, and a fake term to describe guns that are manufactured off the grid. And you know what? Those “ghost guns” that sound so dangerous and scary to the New York Attorney General… they were printed on a 3-D printer! In other words, they probably cost a few bucks each to make, and then the public mis-paid the owners hundreds of dollars each.

How does any of this make sense?

And yet all of these guns and the ammo are destined to be destroyed. So say the unquestioning mainstream media fools, who stand up in front of the cameras and parrot the talking points they are handed. Hint to the paid media people: You got a degree in “journalism,” I think because you were supposed to be…journalists? What kind of a journalist doesn’t ask questions, especially of those in positions of political and official power? (Answer is: Mainstream media people are not journalists and they do not ask questions. Instead they parrot narratives given to them by leftist government employees).

So we here are doing the job of the “journalists” who appeared in writing and on TV with the articles and reports about the gun purchases in Northampton County, PA, and Utica, NY. We are asking the simple questions, and making the simple points that these are not intelligent uses of official time or money. But then again, we do not begin at the assumption that destroying any and all firearms is the right and intelligent thing for government to do, because we are not filled up with mindless hate for inanimate objects.

[Question to the pro 2A activists in Northampton County: Why not sue this nincompoop of a DA, Terry Houck, and demand that he at least assess the market value of these guns before having them destroyed? In no other area of government do people get rewarded for destroying valuable public property]

Terry Houck is Northampton County’s idiot DA, who takes great pride in knowing zero about the collectible, valuable guns he is destroying

Flintlocks, black powder percussion guns, hunting shotguns, single shots, highly collectible and valuable Veteran bring-back guns from Europe, all said by DA Terry Houck to be dangerous. And yet…none of these are associated with crime. And therefore they are not dangerous.

These are not the kinds of guns used in crime. Simple single shot shotguns and one really valuable over-under hunting shotgun, all destined to be destroyed. For no public benefit at all. Just to make fools feel good about themselves

If you stand in front of a camera and talk like a parrot, are you a journalist? Priscilla Liguori asked no questions, committed no acts of journalism in the making of her report about Northampton County’s gun purchases. One more big mainstream media failure

The green-colored gun is a Remington 20-gauge pump shotgun used for hunting birds and rabbits. The rifle at the far right bottom with the rounded pistol grip is a high value Veteran bring-back gun from Europe that never hurt anyone. The gun at the very top of the heap is a single shot black powder FLINTLOCK muzzleloader used to hunt deer; with 1790s technology, it has zero potential use in crime. Only hatred-filled firearm prohibitionists cheer on the destruction of these useful and safe recreational and collectible guns.

Three more, very brief, thoughts about Roe v. Wade

With the US Supreme Court addressing the policy question of abortion by simply returning it to the fifty states to decide themselves individually (and not in any way ending all abortion ever), a lot of silly hot air has been exuded in response over the past two weeks. And also a lot of terroristic death threats against the US Supreme Court justices have been made, too, by the usual “we represent all peace and love and justice” people. Some of these threats being made right outside their homes, and some while the Justices are eating at Morton’s Steak House in DC. You know, only the real basic elements of democratic process at play….at least according to the Biden Administration, which refuses to implement the federal law that categorically prohibits people from protesting or picketing outside the homes of judges. Because of threats n stuff.

So all this activity inspires yours truly to add three more real simple, brief thoughts on this subject:

  1. Everyone reading this…be thankful…you were not aborted,
  2. Proponents of unlimited abortion on demand have become unbelievably callous about human life and body autonomy, even while simultaneously demanding that Americans/ Canadians/ Europeans automatically, unconditionally, unquestioningly submit their bodies to mysterious government injections and body movement passports and chip implantations to force our physical compliance with government bureaucrats. Is there any logical consistency among these human death cult people? Do you guys ever think through your policy positions? Do you value logical consistency?
  3. The intellectual wackiness and slovenly behavior of the pro-abortion-all-the-time advocates is so extreme that even satire about it is actually funny: Meet Satan.

Abortion activist Satan specifically thanks the useless, spineless Republicans and their leader Mitch McConnell (Source: Babylon Bee)

Roe v. Wade was never about abortion

Like so many other far-reaching court decisions, or laws, or executive orders emanating from Washington, DC, Roe v. Wade was originally cast publicly as something it actually wasn’t.

Yes, on its face Roe v. Wade was about abortion, the termination of human life while still inside the mother’s body. But in fact, the way the court’s decision was structured, it was the exuberantly creative legal theory behind the Roe decision that was most important. And it was that legal theory that laid the ground work for so much of the openly political activist behavior we see emanating from way too many judges and federal bureaucrats across America.

Roe v. Wade was decided within a time of great social turmoil and cultural change, and a lot of the contemporaneous political activism pressure from the Left is visible in Roe. Especially the twin evil sisters of moral relativism and intellectual relativism. One example is the in-artfully creative use of the word “penumbra,” a sort of shadowy shadow that reputedly lay over so many different amendments to the US Constitution that clearly listing them all was just too tiring to Roe’s authors. Yes, the Court majority invoked aspects of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and went on to stitch together a pseudo- logical framework for legal decision (then using the 14th Amendment) making that is still with us today.

Vagueness as a reason for heavy handed policy is now the Left’s standard. “Because we told you to do it” is the way that is spelled out.

Every professor who taught me constitutional law was a liberal, and every single time any one of them delved into Roe, a smirk was on their face. Lots of eye rolling and chuckling accompanied these professors’ analysis of the poor legal reasoning behind the decision. Which meant to me then, and even more so now, that no one with real constitutional law training believed Roe was a legitimate legal decision based on actual logic, law, and fundamental constitutional principles. Rather, all the liberals who exulted in Roe did so because it backdoor-attained a policy goal they could not achieve through the legislative process, and because it established a mush-headed standard for all future legal decisions.

So today, some fifty years after Roe v. Wade-type legal analysis has wafted its way throughout the legal profession, the courts, and the bureaucracy, we see the ultimate and inevitable result of such a “creative” legal approach: Although the Second Amendment says crystal clearly that citizens may both keep and publicly bear firearms, and that this right shall not be infringed, a zillion policy makers and courts blatantly ignore 2A’s plain wording and just start throwing anti-gun policy ideas into the pot. These judges give no respect to what the Constitution actually says; rather, they use their court rooms purely for writing policies that fit their political views. Same goes for ATF bureaucrats.

I blame Roe v. Wade for where our court system is now. And where it is now is not just political policy shops in black robes, but we have defiant leftist activists in black robes, who simply ignore the Supreme Court’s precedents and make their own damned ruling. Even if their damned ruling is totally contrary to a US Supreme Court decision from just weeks or months ago. This approach is junk law, and it calls into question the entire field of jurisprudence. It highlights in just one more way how the Left is hell bent for leather to implement its political policy goals, at whatever cost to America’s legal and cultural fabric.

In case you don’t know it, when a lower court openly defies the Supreme Court, the entire court system is thrown out the window. We then have nothing but anarchy.

So, when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two weeks ago, it was not surprising to see the Left melt down, as if their ability to kill babies had in fact been fully deprived of them. After all, when a person sees every branch of government as nothing more than a policy shop devoid of logical process, then everything becomes about winning or losing the policy war. Here the Left feels they have lost, when in fact, all this recent Court decision did was turn the issue over to the various states (No, Barack, there are not 57 states). Where actual voters get to choose how they want their state government to address what should be a sensitive subject.

(The same 1960s and 1970s people who had just protested against American soldiers as “baby killers” in Vietnam then became the biggest champions of killing babies…go figure).

To its proponents and supporters, Roe v. Wade was never really about abortion or babies, it was about introducing a weak-minded, unprincipled, grab-what-you-can “by any means necessary” approach to forming government policy. And in fact one of the main reasons I left my US EPA policy job in Washington, DC, was because I personally witnessed many regulations and rules being formed exactly this way, where (liberal/ Left) agency staff would literally just imagine a bunch of shit and put it in the regulation or rule. Justified or no, or extra cost to industry and consumers be damned. It is a terrible way to run representative government. But it is the way that Roe taught liberals and Leftists to think about government.

As a proponent of good government, where transparency and accountability are everyday occurrences for the taxpayers, I am glad that Roe is gone. Now the politically difficult part of democracy is upon all of us: Figuring out how many babies people can kill, when, and where. Based on my principles, I would expect this democratic process to follow a certain logic path. But we are not dealing with principles here, but rather a passion on the Left for absolute control. And they don’t like losing control. Or thinking hard. Or debating issues with evidence and cross-examination and due process.

Should be interesting going forward.

 

Matthew McConaughey = Hollywood Idiot #1,367,189

So an actor named Matthew McConaughey has stepped into the freedom debate, advocating for stripping law-abiding citizens of our Constitutional rights because of what certainly appears to be a remarkably well funded and coordinated attack on the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school.

None of what McConaughey advocates for would have stopped the attack, although “hardening” the school would have easily defeated the mysterious gunman. McConaughey did not advocate for hardening public schools. He wants American gun owners to be at the mercy of unaccountable bureaucrats and vindictive neighbors who disagree with private gun ownership, period.

Why the hell does any American in their right mind care what this actor guy says? McConaughey is a paid actor, someone who engages in silly dress-up and make-believe fairy tales for a living. This ain’t rocket science stuff, it is childish. McConaughey is just one more idiot from Hollywood, whose forte is definitely not public policy. And we all know that lawless, goofball, doped up, Marxist Hollywood has been at war with a Constitutional America for fifty years, in any case. So of course people from Hollywood will come up with all kinds of ridiculous policy ideas like McConaughey has.

I for one do not care about McConaughey’s opinions, nor do I care for his acting. Actors are a dime a dozen, generally unimpressive to seriously failed as individuals, and they depend upon the support of their audience to make the ridiculous millions of dollars they get for simply fooling around in front of a camera.

McConaughey has definitely lost a lot of his audience with his publicity stunt. But then again, he probably already has so much money in the bank from ticket-buying gun owners while he has play-acted being a violent gun owner in his movies that he doesn’t have to work for a living.

If only some Hollywood script writer would write this whole farce up into a movie…it would probably make a lot of money as a macabre comedy.

Ten take-aways from my Election Day experience

With the Kerwin men, quality people

Primary elections are more important than the general election every November, because voters choose who is going to be representing them at the November election. And in the case of Republican Party voters, if you don’t vote for constitutional America-First candidates, you are guaranteed to have a Republican In Name Only (RINO) liberal running against the Democrat Party liberal in the November election. There’s not a whole lot of philosophical difference between the Republican liberal and the Democrat liberal, and after that November election between a RINO and a Democrat it’s just a question of how rapidly America is destroyed under your feet, slowly or quickly.

On Tuesday I volunteered at four different election polls, handing out brochures for Kathy Barnette, and I spoke with a lot of voters. Here are some take-aways from my experience during and after Tuesday’s Primary Election here in PA:

  • Unsurprisingly, voters make both simple and complicated choices in voting for candidates. Simple choices can be lazy or principled, and complicated choices can be bizarre or carefully thought out. Candidate selection is as complex as any other choice in life, and I think that is a good thing.
  • Party establishment endorsement is a negative among Republican/ conservative voters, who appear to increasingly view the GOP as a force for bad and not for good. For example, Lou Barletta’s campaign unleashed a tidal wave of Republican establishment career politician endorsements in the days before Tuesday’s election, and if anything these endorsements seemed to hurt Barletta at the polls, not help him; Doug Mastriano crushed Barletta.
  • On the other hand, Democrat voters seem highly attuned to and in synch with their establishment, as witnessed by political newcomer Justin Fleming’s trouncing of long time Democrat Party activist Eric Epstein in the newly created 105th Legislative District (PA House). For at least ten years, and probably closer to twenty years, independent-minded liberal Epstein has run for everything from dog catcher to school board to state senate, almost always unsuccessfully but always with close-call results. Not this time. Apparently ten unions and the House Democrat Campaign Committee aggressively weighed in to stop Epstein from finally capitalizing on his well-known household name in southcentral PA. Fleming the unprincipled “electoral pragmatist” won with 61% of the vote.
  • Money is not all that it used to be, but it can still matter in elections, no surprise. Case in point is a very small amount of money (like $157,000 total), old fashioned shoe leather, and reasonable social media networking got conservative grass roots favorite Kathy Barnette up to 25% of the vote in an eight-candidate race. This is a huge statement about the lack of importance of money. However, when the wildly false negative attacks against Barnette started pouring in during the last week from McCormick and Oz and their supporters, like Sean Hannity, Barnette lacked sufficient funds to get out her last-minute rebuttals on TV and radio that could have gotten her over the finish line to win. Enough confusion and obfuscation was created by the attacks to blunt Barnette’s position at the top, and allowed both Oz and McCormick to grow their own voter returns at her expense. Had Barnette possessed a million dollars to do last-minute TV and radio ads, she probably would have won the election.
  • Negative advertising does work, and it also greatly suppresses voter turnout. At all of the five polls I was at yesterday, voting was down between 10% and 20%, and I believe many voters were just fed up and confused by all of the negative advertising. SO they stayed home and said “I will just vote in November for whoever wins this primary race.”
  • Conservative voters are much more oriented toward ideology and principles than political party.
  • Almost every primary election has one winner and some losers, and almost always the losers say they will take their ball and go home if they don’t win, and they won’t back the winner of their race. For weeks before and even after the election was over, I heard unceasing complaints from Republicans about how Mastriano is “too conservative” for Pennsylvania, and that his win will automatically hand the governorship to Komrade Josh Shapiro. I also heard unceasing complaints from Republican voters that Lou Barletta was too milquetoast to appeal to anyone in November, except for blue haired suburban GOPe Republicans. Folks, get used to these competitive races. They are good for us. This competition is just the nature of real and healthy primary races, something that Republicans really need, and something that the GOPe HATES. The Republican Country Club Party hates hates hates sharing decision making with the unwashed dirty masses, who keep gumming up GOPe dreams of easy ill gotten wealth and posh fundraisers. Sorry not sorry, GOPe, get used to ceding more and more decision making to the actual people you claim to represent. It is a good thing, and it is why Mastriano won by an enormous margin.
  • For the most part, the GOPe got its ass kicked in PA and elsewhere in America. RINOs like Jake Corman (the sitting President Pro Tem of the PA Senate!!), Jeff Bartos, et al either dropped out or finished below 5%, while underdog candidates like Kathy Barnette and Dr. Oz scored big time vote returns against the establishment’s wishes. We are witnessing a power shift away from GOP party bosses, which is a good thing, because party bosses are corrupt and self-serving people.
  • Charlie Gerow is still a good guy, and still not a catchy candidate. Once again, voters enjoy Charlie as an articulate proponent of conservative values, but not as a representative in government for their needs. Charlie is a salon intellectual in the mold of William F. Buckley, one of the 20th century’s great conservative crusaders. Not winning elections doesn’t mean Gerow isn’t relevant, it just means his strength is in policy debates and in the conservative salon of ideas. Nothing wrong with that.
  • Finally, yard signs and road signs do not mean anything close to what they used to represent even ten years ago. At one time yard signs and roadside signs were a big part of electoral public outreach, but in this digital age, they are becoming less important. I would not say they are unimportant, because in some ways they can be used to get a sense of voter engagement. Like, lots of signs for Candidate X in a county or in a region probably means that Candidate X is well known there. But it does not mean that Candidate X is necessarily going to convert that name recognition into an Election Day win. Information is now moving so fast and so far across the political landscape, that just one gaffe or one slip-up by an otherwise reasonable candidate can mean the end of their lead or presumptive win. No amount of yard signs can counter a fifteen second video of a candidate doing or saying something ridiculous.

Thank you to all the voters who spent time talking with me on Tuesday. I promote candidates at polls on Election Day every year because these are people I believe in, and I believe in sharing the why and how I have arrived at my decision on whom to vote for. One thing that has not changed among voters at polls since I was a teenager is this: Liberal voters at polls are always surly, grumpy, dismissive, or disrespectful. Do not ask me why this is, but it does hint at how some people think.

 

 

Response to PA Gov. Tom Ridge on Conservatives & the Environment

On April 22nd this year, Earth Day, The Atlantic published an opinion piece by former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, about conservatives and the environment (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/environment-gop-out-touch/610333/). The Atlantic solicited responses to Ridge’s essay, and so I submitted one to them, but received back no indication they would publish it. They did not publish it, because liberals like those at The Atlantic accept and publish only liberals, and reject conservatives.  So here it is, my response to Governor Ridge’s essay about conservatives and the environment.

I felt compelled to respond to Governor Ridge’s essay, in part because I worked in his administration, and in part because I have met few Republicans who can articulate a truly conservative view of environmental policy, which Governor Ridge failed to do. I was also afraid of being seen as attacking someone I hold in high esteem, and I need to say that while I may disagree with Governor Ridge’s essay and some of his recent public stances, like supporting PA governor Tom Wolf’s covid19 lockdown, I remain impressed by Governor Ridge’s high character. I am proud to have served in his distinctively excellent administration.

Governor Ridge’s  essay slightly opens a doorway that I am both pleased and also reluctant to push all the way open. But it needs to be opened, all the way, because for far too long establishment Republicans have claimed to be conservatives, while acting like liberals.

Governor Ridge writes his essay “as a conservative,” and despite boldly leading by example in placing highly competent gays, women, and minorities in senior government positions literally decades ago, long before most Democrats followed suit, Governor Ridge was, in fact, a true conservative. His achievements in conservative policy are legion, including Pennsylvania becoming a shall-issue concealed firearm carry state and his administration’s brownfield land recycling program.

Nonetheless, the emphasis today is on he “was.”

Governor Ridge was a conservative, and by today’s standard, he is not. This is not because Governor Ridge has changed, but because what now defines a conservative has changed so dramatically since the time he was governor. The same holds true for liberals, by the way, in their own way (we see the Democrat Party now a totally, openly, violent, racist, anti-America Marxist organization).

And like so many, if not all other political elites, especially Republicans, and most especially establishment Republicans from the hide-bound, bunker-mentality Pennsylvania GOP, Governor Ridge has not changed with the times. Governor Ridge was a conservative, and today he often speaks like a liberal, and sides with liberals on policy disputes. He is not alone in this, but each Republican who does so still causes pain to us conservatives in the political trenches. It is frustrating as hell to experience a former Republican appointee or elected official try to speak with authority as some sort of representative of conservativism, when in fact, they are simply liberals. Or RINOs for short (Republican In Name Only – not conservative).

Probably the biggest indication that Governor Ridge is out of synch with today’s conservatives is how he encourages us to adopt a laundry list of liberal environmental policies in his The Atlantic essay. This means that his solution for conservatives to succeed is for us to adopt liberalism. Even though most of the “environmental” groups are simply employment offices for Democrat Party operatives pushing Marxist, partisan policies. Very few environmental groups today are even seeking solutions, because they are busy dreaming up new problems.

Most of the policies pushed by environmental groups today are by definition Big Coercive Government, Small Defenseless Citizen, anti-Constitution, disregard for private property rights, mountains out of mole hills, and so on. These groups are not about the environment, they simply use the subject of the environment as another avenue to push Marxism and the Big Government necessary to force it down our throats. Governor Ridge should know this, of all people.

What Governor Ridge failed to address is: How can we conservatives embrace the very same failed and inferior liberal policies that drove us to becoming conservatives in the first place? If we adopt liberalism, then we are abandoning conservativism, and failing as conservatives.

Every single environmental policy recommendation that Governor Ridge lists in his essay directly contradicts core conservative principles, like small government, less intrusive government, less spendy government, less activist government, less regulatory government, accountable government and accountable taxpayer-funded government employees. Literally every single policy he lists requires the government to intervene in a big, coercive way, often over trifling differences or demonstrably false premises.

Governor Ridge’s environmental ideas are not conservativism; they are quintessential big government liberalism.

Perhaps the centerpiece of his essay is that conservatives must concede at least a bit on “climate change.” Yet, for conservatives, this particular issue, more than any other, highlights the distinction between us and liberals. For conservatives to agree with the Marxist, disproven, and notoriously phony climate change religion would be to abandon basic, solid, conservative principles altogether….like Capitalism 101, solid math and science, and transparency. Again, we are unpersuaded the climate warming-cooling-change-whatever issue even exists, let alone that a government solution consistent with America’s Constitution could be found.

Governor Ridge writes “The Republican Party has largely abandoned environmental issues.” To which I and a host of other conservatives would respond, No, but many Republicans have abandoned the citizen voters and the forgotten taxpayers of America. Many careerist Republicans have embraced popular culture and its feel-good-now bubblegum policies. For Republicans to respect openly partisan “environmental” groups and embrace liberal nonsense like so-called ‘climate change’ and similar policies would only be one more betrayal in a long line of policy and political betrayals committed by the Republican establishment. Conservatives have perfectly sound environmental policies based on perfectly sound, all-American principles. If you but ask us, we will explain them. We conservatives didn’t abandon environmental issues, nor did we leave the Republican Party. The Republican establishment abandoned us.

Josh First is president of Appalachian Land & Conservation Services, LLC. He has worked at the US EPA in Washington, DC, The Conservation Fund, the Central Pennsylvania Conservancy, and was Director of Environmental Education and Information at the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation & Natural Resources in the Governor Tom Ridge administration.