Posts Tagged → political
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.
Send in Delta Force to DC Govt offices?
President Trump was sworn in to office three days ago, on January 20th, and within 24 hours he had signed something like a hundred executive orders. Maybe more. I lost count. One Trump executive order covered 78 EOs signed by Joe Biden.
Two Trump policies in particular have garnered widespread discussion and deserve focus: The pardoning of roughly 1,500 January 6th political prisoners and hostages held by the Federal DC Swamp, and the immediate suspension of all DEI activities and staff in federal offices.
Every pardoned J6 hostage was required to be released from jail immediately, and every DEI staff person was required to leave office and stay out of federal offices. With all DEI activities ended, there was no reason for those staff to remain in office. The pardons are a legal directive, and when the rule of law prevails, the pardoned immediately walks out of jail to their relatives or friends.
In response to President Trump’s executive directives, open insubordination, really an open insurrection and mutiny against the government, by public taxpayer funded employees has unfolded. Many of the DEI staff were simply moved into new positions with new titles in their agencies, instead of going on administrative leave, as their boss directed them to do.
Many of the J6 political prisoners are still being held in jail, and some have been badly beaten by prison staff within just the last 24 hours. Other J6 hostages have been deliberately flown and released into remote places far away from their homes and families, with no money, hardly any clothes, some wearing only prison slippers in the dead of winter in cold parts of America.
We are witnessing a raw power contest between the entrenched and heretofore unaccountable federal bureaucrats (Deep State or Administrative State), and their chief executive, their boss, the president of the United States. The president has issued directives, and the bureaucrats are telling him “Go eff yourself, we are not going to listen to you.”
Emboldened by decades of weak executive leadership and zero accountability (I have my own crazy war stories I can tell from my years working for the Federal government in DC three decades ago) (for a federal worker to get fired, both Heaven and Hell must be moved simultaneously, which is impossible to happen), federal employees are thumbing their noses at the president. I don’t think they are consciously daring him to follow up on his authority. Rather, the bizarre and artificially insulated, cozy culture that surrounds most federal workers has shielded them from ever experiencing real accountability, and it seems they do not expect to experience it. They can’t even imagine it.
From where a lot of outsiders stand, it sure looks like a large portion of the federal workforce has declared its autonomy from the chief executive, and is in the beginning of a full out insurrection against the American people, the Constitution, the rule of law. Recall that the American people chose this chief executive, this chief commanding military officer, this president. So when federal bureaucrats and military officers tell this president to Eff Off, they are telling the American people, the democratic process, the Constitution, and the rule of law to eff off.
We have not even begun to see the full DOJ, FBI, CIA, or Pentagon insurrrection, or a real showdown between ICE and lawless jurisdictions aiding and abetting illegal invaders.
And so, one concludes that President Trump must do the updated version of what President Lincoln did under similar circumstances in 1861: Send in the troops and secure Washington, DC.
In 2025, however, the US military is not riven by North-South/ Pro-Slavery-Anti-Slavery divisions, as Lincoln faced, or like George Washington faced between Patriots and Loyalists in the Revolutionary War. Rather, President Trump now faces a federal bureaucracy and a great portion of the US military that sees itself as autonomous from and removed from the American people. So who can President Trump rely upon to enforce his lawful orders and directives?
Sad to say, there are only a few military units that have withstood the anti-America, anti-democracy DEI onslaught, and who remain purely loyal to the constitutional chain of command and to their oaths of office: The elite American warriors, including the Navy SEALs, the Green Berets, and Delta Force commandos. These are the people who President Trump can most reasonably rely upon to see that his orders are being fulfilled in a timely fashion.
These are the people who President Trump needs to send into the J6 prisons, the FBI headquarters, the CIA headquarters, the ATF headquarters, the Pentagon, with full arrest powers, to ensure that the constitutional chain of command is being honored. Or in the alternative, that the insurrectionists are arrested and processed through the proper courts.
And I would suggest that the proper courts to hold trials of the insurrectionists are all out in the hinterlands, like western Nebraska, northern Idaho, Wyoming, west Texas, where judges still know how to properly mete out justice.
Matt Gaetz nomination is last test of MSM
We are witnessing right now the last real gasp of the evil mainstream media aka the corporate media aka the legacy media, whose unhealthy grip on information and thus on political outcomes has been hugely damaged this election year.
One naturally thinks the MSM might actually be suffering from insufficient market satisfaction, and be headed for a well deserved fall and comeuppance. After all, the MSM lies appeared to fall on very few ears this year. Trump won, despite the constant MSM lies, hoaxes, conspiracy theories etc.
A test of the MSM’s health is presented by the nomination of Congressman Matt Gaetz, a powerful voice for government transparency and accountability.
A routine faux “scandal” has been drummed up by DC Beltway banditos and their MSM enablers against one of the very few candidates for Attorney General who could actually do the work needed to Clorox out the DOJ, FBI, BATF et al, Matt Gaetz, late of the US Congress.
This is the same kind of attack that was used successfully against Judge Roy Moore in Alabama six years ago, successfully against Gen. Michael Flynn eight years ago, unsuccessfully against Justice Brett Kavanaugh five years ago, successfully against Lt. Governor Mark Robinson in North Carolina two weeks ago, and against many many other Republicans over the years.
The attack has just two ingredients: A politically partisan fake news source like CNN or the New York Times, and usually a salacious supposed sex story involving a Republican. A bonus if there has been some sort of formal “investigation,” which always turns out to be 100% BS political crap done for the simple reason that it makes the fake allegation look plausible. The salacious sex story does not have to have anything behind it, just allegations of “an investigation.”
Just having a fake allegation against a candidate is supposed to drive them from the public square and destroy their political career. In the not distant past, merely saying that Matt Gaetz was “investigated” would have normally sent the longtime MSM-abused and highly conditioned GOP running for cover, tossing nominees and candidates overboard right and left.
But we are thankfully living in different times, and everyone now knows what this disgusting game is about. We all know that the MSM lie lie lie and lie some more, and that they have zero credibility and should be reviled, shunned, and hated for their evilness. No one with a brain in their head trusts The New York Times.
Matt Gaetz was only “investigated” by a corrupt DOJ that is thankfully coming to a close, because he has been a strong critic of this corrupt DOJ. See how that works? Just more weaponization of the federal government against its critics, not what America was supposed to be about. Matt Gaetz didn’t do anything wrong, but the DOJ staff sure did.
So if President Trump stands strong and keeps Matt Gaetz as his nominee to the Attorney General position, the MSM are defeated. They will have been unable to stop Gaetz’s nomination. And even better will be if Matt Gaetz is confirmed as AG. If he has to be a recess appointee, so be it. Gaetz will still bring the old tyme religion that American politics needs oh so badly, and he will also be driving a wooden stake through the MSM vampire’s heart once and for all.
UPDATE: Matt Gaetz has withdrawn as nominee for AG, damnit. Infuriating. Republicans feel shame for the dumbest crap, and Republican voters punish Republican candidates for the smallest of infractions. I am so tired of this. Republicans must grow a thicker skin, a greater devotion to implementing their policy goals, and simply ignore the Leftist mainstream media and their pet Democrat Party, both of which have zero shame about anything no matter how egregious e.g. Endless brazen lying, Democrat murder sprees (many Clinton victims like Seth Rich), mass child sex trafficking from 2021-present, bribery, theft, etc etc etc. SO FRUSTRATING.
Hurricane Helene says No Such Thing as White Privilege
“White privilege” may be the most racist thing you will hear anyone say or allege in your lifetime, probably from the most racist people on Planet Earth, white liberal Democrats, but that has not stopped this fake social construction from being pronounced and bandied about like it is actually real.
Well, Mother Nature herself has recently descended from the heavens above to demonstrate that in reality and in the natural world too, there is no such thing as “White privilege.”
In the form of Hurricane Helene last week, Mother Nature inflicted huge devastation and destruction upon eastern Tennessee and northern North Carolina and the regional demographic there. It is a group of people I have had a lot of life experience with and who I maintain intense admiration for, white rural working people.
That there are a lot of white liberal Democrats in Asheville folded into the mix of Hurricane Helene victims does not mitigate or reduce my sympathy or hope for everyone’s full recovery there. Everyone is equal before the law, everyone is created in the image of God, and we are all Americans who should be caring for one another, regardless of our political opinions or religious views.
So Hurricane Helene destroyed billions of dollars in built infrastructure, including homes, towns, villages, farms, rural roads and interstates and bridges and schools and hospitals, stranding hundreds of thousands of largely white rural American citizens without power, water, or food.
And so just to demonstrate that white people can be victims and actually have no racial privilege whatsoever, the federal government response to Hurricane Helene has been… almost silent. Like cavalier and ignoring the huge mess of human misery. Like on purpose.
Recall that to our elites, Appalachian whites are the deplorable, disposable, ignored, maligned, forgotten Americans who nonetheless mine the coal that gives us most of our electricity, serve as the roughnecks on oil and gas drilling platforms that run our vehicles, fill up the special forces and combat infantry positions in our most highly motivated and patriotic high-risk fighting forces, who log the forests that provide us with high grade lumber for our fancy kitchens and furniture, who work for the railroads, and who drive trucks across the interstates that bring Amazon Prime to your home super pronto.
In every one of these professions, these (white, rural) people are taking big risks that almost always exceed their expected financial return. Why? Because they are proud to work hard, and they love America more than they love themselves. And they are devoted to America because there is no other nation anywhere that will give them the same freedom and opportunity.
White rural working people are the people who disproportionately make America work and run and give you, dear reader, the comfortable lifestyle to which you have become all too accustomed. And now that these people need a lot of help to get through this natural catastrophe, it sure appears that they are being abandoned by the same federal government that is simultaneously giving away unlimited taxpayer dollars right and left to border-jumping illegal migrants and to the porous demi-government in Ukraine.
I am hearing mostly consistent reports of aid efforts from acquaintences, friends, and family in Asheville and eastern Tennessee (some of their own photos are below; one of my family members from there is now in a hotel in South Carolina). Last week a friend of mine from Harrisburg loaded up his work van with bottled water and food and drove seven hours to the literal end of the paved road in eastern Tennessee, where he followed signs to a Baptist church. There in the church parking lot he was met with tears of fear and appreciation, and many needy hands as entire families sought shelter there with their sole remaining belongings: Their clothing on their bodies. (Some of his own photos of this are below).
Radio personality Glenn Beck reported his unbelievably negative experience with a sole FEMA crew instructive example of No White Privilege To Be Found Here.
Plenty of political fallout has resulted from apparent Biden-Harris government failure, or even willful blocking of aid efforts. While checking his email at a FEMA post, a partisan leftist Democrat in my family there said this is all politically generated misinformation, but I don’t know if I can accept that. The damning reports and real-time online videos are overwhelming and seem irrefutable, while politically partisan mainstream media outlets appear locked into a defend-Kamala Harris-at-all-costs posture, instead of having their crews on the ground recording what the citizens journalists are capturing.
Tons of on-the-ground reports are pouring out of the region, showing a complete lack of federal interest in helping, and a complicated mix of local territorialism, miscommunication, petty power flexing, and even theft of supplies. And even when the Biden-Harris Administration does speak publicly, they are actually saying sorry, we have no money for your disaster relief.
Because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ALREADY GAVE AWAY all the unsustainable taxpayer money to illegals and the endless war in Ukraine.
Folks, not only was there never any such thing as White privilege, but when there was an opportunity to demonstrate that American Whites get treated at least equally with everyone else, both American citizen of color and illegal border jumper alike, the point is made by our current federal government that American White people come last, if they get any help at all.
One meme that says everything about Josh Shapiro
PA governor Josh Shapiro is on the short list to be Kalamity Kamala’s VP running mate. Well, I don’t agree with a lot of Shapiro’s actual policies, although I did like some of the policies that he ran on and then discarded after getting elected.
One incident really speaks volumes about Josh Shapiro’s horrible character, and that is the coverup of the Ellen Greenberg murder in Philly. You can read all about this sweet girl’s horrendous homicide in all kinds of news outlets, just don’t use Google because that search engine is terribly compromised.
The short story is that Ellen was murdered with a knife in her kitchen, and yet her patently obvious murder was inexplicably changed to “suicide”.
Most suspicion is focused on Ellen’s fiance at the time of her death, Sam Goldberg, because all of the crime scene evidence points directly at him. Ellen’s body was covered in bruises, the kind that come from physical abuse. It is really emotionally painful stuff to look at, those autopsy drawings and pictures. I knew Ellen, and she was a wisp of a beautiful and gentle creature. She did not deserve to be physically abused nor murdered.
Josh Shapiro fits into this because as PA AG he deliberately allowed the coverup of Ellen’s murder to happen, and then blocked it from being revisited years later when public pressure and legal challenges mounted to get all of the facts out of the recalcitrant Philly police.
Why would Shapiro be such a piece of sh!t? Because he was then and is now personally close with the uncle of Sam Goldberg, attorney James Schwartzman, a big and generous political donor to Shapiro’s many political campaigns. James Schwartzman and his lawyer son Kamian Schwartzman were both called by Sam Goldberg right before Sam Goldberg called 911 to report his fiance’s murder.
Try to make sense of that…calling two different lawyers in your family before you call 911 to report a murder, which Sam Goldberg laughably described to the 911 dispatcher as “Ellen stabbed herself.”
The Philadelphia DA at the time ended up going to federal prison not much later for bribery. To my knowledge no one has asked him what he knows about this rotten situation. I tried several years ago, and he broke off with me, a friend of many decades. It is going to take real legal force to re-open this murder case and bring justice to gentle Ellen.
So now that Shapiro is up for operating on the national stage, new focus has been brought to this obvious murder and to the coverup that Shapiro oversaw on behalf of one of his big donors, the uncle of the murder suspect.
In sweet Ellen’s memory, I would like to contribute a meme about this murder and coverup. The meme, below, uses one of the forensic drawings done to show the many stab wounds to Ellen’s head and neck. Let’s circulate this meme and help Josh Shapiro’s career go exactly where it should have gone long ago: To Hell.
Conspiracy theory that can’t be true
Talk about a real, genuine conspiracy theory – a significant number of Americans who oppose President Donald Trump are actually saying publicly that his near-assassination was staged by Trump himself. To garner sympathy. For real.
What is the operational definition of this alleged conspiracy? How exactly did it happen? What are the actual working parts to the conspiracy?
Here is what we know: The shooter is dead, Corey Comperatore is dead, James Copenhaver and David Dutch are both critically injured. President Trump went from speaking live on TV with no wounds to suddenly bleeding, falling to the ground, and getting back up with blood streaming across his face, all in a few seconds.
You conspiracy theorists are saying that this attempted assassination is fake, staged, a lie, and yet you can’t explain the factual nuts and bolts of how it happened….
While on a regular good day the political Left suffers from terrible moods, an addiction to bad information, and black hate for their political opponents, now cheering and mocking the assassination attempt, mocking Trump’s wound, mocking the wounded and murdered audience members, and concocting a bizarre conspiracy theory to assauge one’s own blinding hate is a low spot in the annals of human politics. No wonder the political Left engages in so much political violence; their heads are brimming with hateful ideas and the violent images and desires that naturally flow from them.
Coming up with a physically impossible conspiracy theory is an embarassing statement about the demented frame of mind of too many Americans. I won’t say it’s all or even a majority of registered Democrats, but let’s be honest, a sizeable proportion of them have been so wound up and tuned up they willingly let their hateful thinking tangle up the wiring in their brains. Remember, registered Democrats, hate is a not a family value nor is it a proper component of our national political dialogue.

Here are the facts on the ground. How do you twist them into a believable conspiracy theory? Go! Do it! You are a crazy person!
Trump groupie or devoted admirer?
President Donald Trump inspires tens of millions of loyal Americans, no doubt about it. When he is able to publicly campaign and is not being artificially held in some kangaroo courtroom by some tyrannical petty judge or bureaucrat bent on illegally interfering with the ongoing election, Trump’s public events draw record numbers of fired up participants.
Americans sleep out overnight to get into a Trump rally.
People stand for hours in the rain to get into a Trump event.
People take off from work to stand along a road or highway for hours to cheer on Trump’s motorcade as it passes by for five seconds.
No two ways about it, President Donald Trump inspires a lot of devoted people, most of whom were never involved in politics before, including many who had never even voted, until the 2016 election.
And so this almost rock star quality surrounding Trump has of course inspired his political opponents to deride said followers and supporters as “groupies” and “zombies” etc, to the point where even some of Trump’s own supporters hesitate to show the full measure of their true devotion to the guy. No one wants to be thought of as a mindless devotee, or a “cultist.”
I understand a person’s resistance to becoming a political groupie or acting excited enough to be labeled as one. But the reason so many of us Americans and even people I know in foreign countries are so emotionally devoted to Trump is because he is not just some politician, or a candidate. Rather, Trump is a symbol. To both his supporters and his opponents, Trump is a powerful symbol, either powerful medicine or bad ju-ju, depending on one’s fealty to the American founding documents and our founding first principles.
So as this powerful symbol, Trump has taken on the shape and aura of a true martyr, a hero, willing to risk everything for his holy cause. The man has taken so much unwarranted, unjust personal damage, and has taken so much risk just to do what is right for America, that he rises far above just being a vessel or a tool for us voters.
Have you seen any other political candidate defy anywhere near the same level and length of abuse and serious threats as Trump has? I haven’t.
Trump has become in some ways on a par with America’s founders, who also pledged and staked their reputations, their wealth, their homes, their families, their futures on the outcome of their inspired rebellion against Britain in 1776. And many of them lost everything, or lost so much that they were never the same person. A handful of America’s founders lost their lives. At this point right now, in addition to all of the fake legal jeopardy being thrown at him, and on top of all of the personal cost and financial cost he has had to bear, Trump is certainly also in the crosshairs of an actual assassin or two, including the Biden FBI, which crazily charged into Mar-a-Lago with actual written shoot-to-kill orders from the corrupt DOJ.
So yeah, I am not a groupie so much as I am simply in awe of Trump, an impressed admirer of his resilience and his selfless devotion to us Americans and to our country, regardless of how many unjust and serious wounds he receives. And therefore I am devoted to him and to his cause. Trump is my cause. He is the cause of and a one-man movement for a constitutional and free America, which right now hangs by a fraying thread.
Yes, I will say it, President Donald Trump is America.
Easter & Passover = Time for American Renewal
America as a representative, constitutional republic run by The People is being purposefully killed by the Biden Administration. In case the horrible inflation and scary economy and ATF cold blooded murder-execution of Bryan Malinowski in his bedroom did not grab your attention recently, maybe today’s headlines will: Joe Biden declared today to be a “transgender day of visibility,” despite today actually being Easter.
A more grotesque and purposefully evil statement could not be imagined, but then again, what evil haven’t we seen with Joe Biden. Sorry to the transgender people out there, but today is a major Christian holiday, and to flaunt hypersexual nonsense at the expense of America’s founding belief system is a major slap in the face of all Americans.
If Biden’s bizarre effort to outright ignore Easter and flaunt hyper sexuality seems to you like a big political risk for very little political gain, you are correct. What you are forgetting is that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election and has not felt accountable to voters ever since. This first-ever bizarre day of trans whatever nonsense is what politicians do when they believe they are not going to experience electoral pushback. And if you steal elections, you don’t feel accountable, and you just do whatever crazy crap you want to do. Like tyrants everywhere else.
America is in huge trouble. Enormous trouble. Who the hell ever saw a president so deeply committed to destroying the foundations of America, as well as its national defense, the rights of its citizens, its economy, etc? Joe Biden is not some aberration, he is being inflicted on America in order to destroy us as a people and as a nation. Joe Biden’s constant assault on America is not sustainable, and you should not think that America is too big to fail. You are watching America be failed on purpose right in front of your face.
Easter is based on Passover, which is right around the corner. Easter is more theological and Passover is more about national identity, and I think this year, these two holidays can, and must, together, mark an American spiritual, cultural, and political renewal that is borne out at the ballot box this November. Christians can pray that a free constitutional America rises again, and Jews can pray that a lawlessly brutal and sadistic federal government is defeated by The People, so that The People can go free and live their American lives as was envisioned from the beginning in 1776.
Hopefully enough Christians and Jews recognize that Easter and Passover of 2024 are uniquely placed to prompt them, you, us, to have a spiritual and national renewal, and that such a renewal allows us to throw off Joe Biden’s slave chains, so that we Americans can be a free people once more. This renewal must be implemented at the ballot box this November. The rejection of Joe Biden’s bizarre un-American/ anti-American values must be so overwhelming that there is no hope of his election cheating again this November.
Pitfalls and pratfalls of primary elections for candidates and volunteers alike
While digging through old stuff in my office recently, I encountered a bag in a corner with a bunch of campaign tee shirts made for volunteers who had helped me run in the 2010 primary race for congress here in central PA. Seeing the pinned-on names on each shirt, I felt embarrassed that somehow I had neglected to get these tokens of appreciation into the hands of those dedicated volunteers. They had donated their time to me, to a campaign they believed in, and it is absolutely incumbent upon all candidates to express appreciation, and show it if they can, to their volunteers, win or lose. Here was evidence that I had failed to do that fully with these several people whose names appeared on the tee shirts, and it made me feel badly.
Fast forward fourteen years, and I have just learned by doing an internet search that a political candidate I had contributed real time and effort to had dropped out of the race last Thursday. This person and I had exchanged many emails and texts for the past month, I had drafted a press release for her, and gotten her about forty ballot petition signatures to help get her on the April 23 ballot. Despite all my time and effort on her behalf, I did not qualify for the email the media says she sent to her supporters, announcing her bowing out of the race. I felt like all my time and effort dedicated to this person was not appreciated or valued, which makes one feel badly.
Dear political candidates, you have to express your appreciation to your volunteers! Volunteers are how every campaign runs, whether it succeeds or fails, and showing your appreciation to the people who make up the campaign is your duty to those people who take time away from their families, their businesses, jobs, etc to help you get ahead. Failing to express appreciation hurts not just your own reputation, but it also leaves your volunteers wondering if they should ever volunteer on a campaign again for anyone else.
I have seen other candidates cold-drop their volunteers when the campaign ends, and even drop their campaign staff. This is usually due to the exhaustion a candidate feels at the end of the race. Campaigns are all brutal exercises, all-out sprints over a relatively short amount of time, and at their end usually everyone involved is feeling tapped out and emotionally drained. It is tough to sustain that high energy after the race ends, but again, dear candidates, you absolutely owe it to your volunteers to say Thank You. An email, some text messages, some cards to the people who put in the most work and hours. Tee shirts if you made them.
What took out this latest candidate I was helping was Pennsylvania’s archaic ballot petition process. Depending upon the office sought (state house, dog catcher, US senate, congress etc) candidates for office in Pennsylvania are required to collect hundreds or even thousands of registered voter signatures on complicated forms where the slightest mistake, mis-spelling, or poorly written word can result in a disqualification. There is an entire arcane process surrounding the screening, challenging, and defending of the ballot petition signatures. The only people who benefit from this are the attorneys who specialize in this arcana, and the two main political parties.
If enough of the candidate’s ballot signatures get disqualified, then the candidate does not achieve the minimal threshold of signatures, and does not qualify to be on the ballot. A lot of hard work and volunteer hours can get flushed down the drain if insufficient signatures are obtained to keep the candidate on the ballot.
PA’s complicated ballot petition process is designed by and for the political parties, which have the experienced volunteers, lawyers, and updated voter lists necessary to get far more signatures than are needed. It is designed to keep political outsiders out of office, and political insiders in.
According to this now un-candidate’s statement in the news article, the attorney who challenged her ballot petition signatures had also threatened to bury her campaign in a pile of legal costs if she tried to fight her way through all the nit-picky challenges. All indications are that US Senate candidate David McCormick is behind this challenge and threat. This is really about a billionaire bully booting pesky candidates out of his way on his path to self-serving elected office.
Yuck.
Pennsylvania voters want choice, and we do not benefit from the current ballot petition process, which was once described to me by a Dauphin County Republican Committee Woman as a necessary precaution to prevent “unqualified people” from running for office.
Said I, “Why don’t we just let anyone run who wants to run? Shouldn’t all citizens have a right to run, aren’t we all qualified? Isn’t that the heart and soul of the democratic process, to keep it as open and accessible to The People as possible?”
Said she, “That sounds like too much democracy to me.”
And so we see yet another victim of this ridiculous gatekeeper process, which both political parties can agree must be kept intact so they can retain maximum control of who gets to run, and who does not. It is really about control, not democracy.
Yuck.
These are some of the pitfalls of running for political office here in Pennsylvania, and while some are unavoidable, it is best to work hard to avoid the pratfalls: Campaign volunteers and supporters will always appreciate and fondly remember a kind word, a nice email or text message saying thanks. And also will they remember that their hard work went unnoticed and unremarked in the end, and so they will feel used.
Double yuck.