Posts Tagged → political
Calling President Trump! Calling President Trump!
Americans elected Donald John Trump to represent them in 2024, because he ran on a platform of reform and reconfiguration of a tremendously bloated and corrupt federal government. Without question, President Trump hit the ground running in 2025 and began implementing huge changes.
Eliminating USAID was an important step, because it was 100% captured by one political party and was serving as a fire hose of taxpayer money going directly to Democrat Party activist groups.
Ditto for the unneeded Department of Education. If education is a state and local thing, then what the hell does America need a federal agency for, to what end? To further enrich the greedy and destructive teacher’s unions? No thanks. Not a good use of limited taxpayer funds.
Ditto for US EPA, a place I worked for seven years and for whose complete and utter corruption and ideological capture I can personally attest. Burn that place to the ground and start over with a pencil stub and a scrap of paper. Administrator Lee Zeldin is making slow but steady progress towards taming that freakshow.
But one of the problems the Trump Administration faces is the unbelievable lawlessness of the judiciary, where so many ideologically activist judges openly flout the law and Constitution to block Trump Administration policies. Policies that are solely the purview of the Executive Branch, and about which the Judicial Branch should have zero jurisdiction or oversight.
Latest in this judicial over-reach is the White House expulsion of far left ideological activist groups falsely representing themselves as “news reporters.” Included are CNN, MS NOW, and some other openly partisan group that is hardly an arbiter of fact or news, but rather an actor trying to create news and political narrative.
President Trump is within his right as Chief Executive to expel these frauds, and anyone else he wants, from access to the White House, which is the home and office of the Chief Executive. Absolutely no one else has anything to say about White House operations. Not the Congress, not the Judiciary.
And yet, another lawless activist judge has “ordered” that the White House allow these leftist activsts inside its doors…and instead of just saying no to this lawlessness, President Trump appears to be deferential to it.
Recall that judges do not run America. Their decisions are not final, nor are they binding if they are illegal. Judges do not make executive branch policy, nor do they make legislation, which is the purview and job and sole jurisdiction of the Congress. Judges who over-reach and who try to make policy, write legislation, or run executive branch operations are waaaaaay outside their constitutionally defined role, and are putting their own credibility and influence at great risk. Judges who over-reach and then get ignored are like the boy who cried wolf; people stop listening to them altogether.
Recall that American government is set up with three co-equal branches of government, and a natural tension exists between them. That natural balance is upset not only when one branch over-reaches its established jurisdiction, but when it is allowed to do so by the other co-equal branches.
Which is what is happening right now with this aggressive over-reaching judge (and many other judges) and the over-weaning White House.
Yes, America has a Constitutional crisis over press access to the White House only because President Trump is waaaaaayyyy too deferential to lawless judges, who themselves have zero standing in saying how the president runs his White House. There is no other Constitutional issue here, certainly no First Amendment right to access a government building exists, and certainly not the heart of the Executive Branch.
Freedom of the press means that fake news misinformation groups like CNN and MS NOW, as well as actual legitimate news organizations, are free to say to the American public anything they want to say. It does not mean that these disinformation activists at CNN get to go say it wherever they desire to go.
I am not going to elaborate over the double standard here, not only ignored but also sometimes protected by many of the same over-reaching judges now trying to insert themselves into the presidency, compared to when the Joe Biden White House yanked the credentials of 400-some news reporters who refused to regurgitate Biden talking points and narrative. Or when the same Biden White House ordered Twitter and Facebook to shut down political voices and information sources that the Biden Narrative opposed. Or when the Biden FBI kicked in the doors of journalists who were lawfully reporting on the salacious and disgusting contents of Ashley Biden’s diary (she made her father, Joe Biden, sound like he sexually molested her).
No, what is really at the heart of this issue is Donald John Trump’s softness, his dislike of confrontation or of prolonged difficulties. I know, his enemies describe him as the opposite, but the proof is right here in front of us.
He very much wants to make everything into a New York real estate deal, a natural and healthy give-and-take negotiation that results in an even handed resolution. He is also doing it with Hamas in Gaza, Iran’s IRGC, Turkey’s modern day Caleph Erdogan, and with America’s grossly over-reaching judiciary. All with huge problems resulting from his lack of a firm hand, a firm stance. Big mistake, President Trump!
American government involves an on-going, nonstop power struggle among the three branches of government. This natural tension is built into the framework of America’s bones. When it fails, the entire premise of American democratic rule is placed at risk. And it is failing now, because one political party is devoted to grabbing as much power as it can “by any means necessary,” while the other political party is deliberately in avoidance and refuses to fight back, regardless of the cost. One party is crazy, the other is lazy.
And the one man America pinned a badge on to bring order to the chaos is throwing gasoline on the fire, instead of putting it out.
This failure is made worse by President Trump’s outright refusal to stand up for his office, for the Chief Executive, for his basic Constitutional rights as the only person elected by the whole country. Bizarrely, he keeps deferring to his enemies, including this rogue judge, as if they will give him a fair deal, a fair shake, fair treatment. He seems to keep on hoping that his sworn political enemies will somehow come around and see the wisdom of mutual benefit conflict resolution, when the result of his deference and kindness is just more intransigence and confrontation and undermining of his executive role and policies.
It is long past time that President Trump puts his foot down and tells these rogue judges to go ahead and enforce their illegal, unconstitutional decisions, if they can. Without his compliance, their power-grabbing decisions are meaningless. And there is no reason why a self-respecting Chief Executive like President Trump should be outsourcing management of the White House to the Judiciary, which has zero jurisdiction there, especially on White House day to day operations.
Calling President Trump! Calling President Trump! The Bat Light is flashing over Gotham, the bad guys are rampaging through society, and we need you more than ever now! Where are you, President Trump? Where did you go?
What makes a good podcast
Podcasts are such a hot thing right now, and have been since the 2020 covid plandemic, that even people employed in the mainstream media are trying their hand at it. Part of the draw is cache, like la la I have a podcast, as though it confers personal specialiness and high intelligence, and the other part of it has to do with simple reach and monetary remuneration.
Everyone who thinks they are someone, or who wants to be a someone, “has” a podcast.
Podcasts are a big net benefit to the world, to humans, to public policy debates, to the spread of ideas (good and bad), information (good and bad). Podcasts have democratized the spread and flow of opinions (artful and bluntly foolish), and have drawn a lot of disenfranchised people, people dejected by the low quality of ubiquitous legacy mainstream media, back into the public marketplace of ideas and news information.
American culture and politics are arguably now informed more by podcasts than by corporate establishment outlets.
Since 2020, when the world was largely locked down and stuck inside, podcasts became the latest and greatest information outlet. Doctors sitting in their living rooms, describing in detail how their hospital administration had politicized their treatment of covid patients, covid survivors, parents finally seeing for the first time the utter slop being served up as “public education” by the politicized teachers’ unions, you name it, podcasts became the end-run around the censorship-industrial machine weaponized against We, The People by the legacy media, Big Tech, and the installed Big Brother Biden Admin.
The dam had to break, the river had to find its level, and the podcast world was the most creative way for people with information that countered the brazen lies of Doctor Mengele Fauci to feel heard. And so it was with people sick and tired of the establishment lies and narrative about covid, which was more about controlling people than it was about public health.
And now that a bazillion people have jumped into podcasting since 2020, a Jurassic-level leveling is taking place. No, no metaphoric meteor is streaking towards Podcast World, ready to hit the Yucatan square on its nose and re-assemble all podcast life on our planet. But simple market forces are beginning to play out. Some people, who had made a big name for themselves during the covid plandemic and the Biden years, are now struggling to find their place in podcasting. Others took a few Tucker Carlson punches to the head and fell down, only to climb back up and give Tucker a few in the kisser himself, and now he is fallen.
Point being that actual marketplace dynamics are determining the success or failure of the podcast world. Supply and demand, risk and reward, appear to be the main arbiters of a podcaster’s success.
Unlike the legacy mainstream media, which has long been propped up by one political party and its constellation of funders and, really, political donors. Market forces only lately seem to have become a factor in the staying power and eyeball presence of partisan mainstream media outlets like CNN, CBS, NPR, the Washington Post, the New York Times. Slowly, the water falls into the cracks, freezes, expands, and widens the cracks over at the MSM. But the cracks are becoming more apparent.
So what makes a good podcast? Here are some of my filters, or requirements, that keep me returning to a podcast:
- Knowledgeable and experienced hosts. Twenty-something-year-old podcasters may be cute, they may be smart, but honestly, these people have no real life experience that I can look to in order to trust and value their opinions. Alternatively, highly experienced adults who have maybe failed here or there in their adult career, now these people intrigue me the most. They are grounded in reality, and nothing trains like pain. I will spend my precious time listening to someone who has learned some tough life lessons, and is sharing them. Alternatively, I cannot spend my precious time listening to or watching someone who merely represents my own methodology or values. This is where political/ religious/ cultural ideology is least important.
- Smart, incisive, witty commentary is a must. Simply reciting a litany of complaints or critiques should be insufficient for every prospective listener who values their own time. Humor goes a long way with this listener.
- Understandable, measured cadence in delivery. One famous podcaster is smart and knowledgable, sometimes witty, but he speaks so damned fast I cannot understand what he says half the time. It is almost physically impossible to listen to such a person.
- Creative and able to link the mundane to the big picture. A great deal of podcasting is simply evaluating and relating news events through the eye of the podcast host, and their simple blunt reactions / analysis are not (or should not) suffice to get your attention. Looking for the meta-link between small facts on the ground and bigger body politic ripple effect is the sign of a true analyst. Someone who adds real value to our understanding of current events.
So, yeah, I thought we were done with the podcast thing a few days ago, but it is such a big and timely subject that this part of the discussion had to be addressed. Because Google / YouTube so aggressively censored political and cultural ideas that its far left staff did not like, Rumble became the go-to place for intellectual refugees. Give it a shot.
Why I do not have a podcast, and won’t
Couple years ago, a longtime older friend, financially successful and politically active, asked me why I do not have a podcast.
“I see all these podcasts online, and I think, Wow, Josh would be great at that You should do it.”
And to me, even though I am not going to be a podcaster or have a podcast, what a great and appreciated compliment that is, for several reasons.
The most important being that discerning thinkers — people who more carefully consider the information they consume — are increasingly tied into podcasts. Both Left and Right, and a lot of Americans in the middle, are hungry for information that breaks from the worn out, politically partisan, and openly fraudulent mainstream legacy media outlets like the New York Times, ABC-CBS-NBC-CNN-NPR-BBC, Washington Post, LA Times, etc.
These mainstream legacy media organizations are not fair-minded arbiters of accurate information. Rather, they are highly tuned political activism outlets. And it is no “conspiracy theory” to say this; they proudly flaunt their partisanship every single day. At this point, there is no material, substantive difference between the New York Times and Mother Jones magazine, other than the NYT is living off the fumes of its once great reputation and the closed circuit dopamine high that leftists live in (“I only read information sources that align with my values” said an old friend to me several years ago, deliberately not self-aware about how self-defeating such a non-diverse, mono-syllabic approach to information is to those people, especially, who pretend to consume only the very best and purest of information).
The NYT masquerades as a serious place, whereas Mother Jones has been a gleeful juvenile bomb thrower for decades. Both are far-left America-hating Marxist activism proponents who abuse their masochistic audiences.
And yes, I have the hands-on experience with both of these outfits to speak authoritatively about them. Suffice it to say that we all have a family…
And so, in this general vacuum/absence of accurate news i.e. mainstream media’s deliberate misinformation fake news, podcasts have opened up huge opportunities for people genuinely interested in learning the actual factual truth. And market demand has been met by market supply; podcasts are now such a thing that plenty of Americans run for office or commit public displays of strangeness, just to get enough of a following to launch a podcast.
Today, there are an awful lot of podcasts available. It seems like every would-have-been college professor and wingnut and ex-CIA officer and ex-combat veteran with loads of ink on his arms has started a podcast. A podcast is what serious would-be “influencers” do. The actual “influencers” just seem to post brief TikTok videos of themselves in various stages of undress, or eating messy sandwiches in an expensive car while wearing expensive clothes.
I would say most of the podcasters on the right are pretty careful thinkers, not all, but most. People who kind of defined conservative podcastistan for a long time (long by podcast terms), like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Alex Jones, have largely discredited themselves by abandoning facts and rigorous thinking for nonsense only slightly better packaged than the trash at the New York Times or Mother Jones.
This is the beauty of the podcast world today: Dip your toe in the water and check it out. Jump in for a swim and lap up all the many flavors of individual opinions you like. It is a much richer, more diverse, more interesting, more informative place than all of the monosyllabic legacy media outlets put together.
So given my positive view of podcasts in general, why did I not start a podcast of my own? Several simple reasons: I do not have the time to do it; I am not narcissistic enough; though I am a very strong public speaker, I enjoy writing much more than talking; and I do not know how to do the necessary selfie videos, which feel socially awkward to me.
Too many podcasters really scramble to stay on top of the wave, every day, which can lead to some humorously foolish, or sophomorically high schoolean, dis-believable grasping at straws. Publicly. Which I am old enough and old school enough to feel self-conscious about. So, no thanks. This blog is a satisfying enough outlet for me. And I am not in the information “business” or in this for money, i.e. note the absence of advertising on this website.
I write because I feel compelled to write. It is an undeniable energy that wells up inside me all the time, and it is part of the reason I had at one time aspired to be an academic. If you do a search of “Josh First Harrisburg” outside of Google (which is not an honest broker about accurate information, but rather has made itself highly politicized with inaccurate search results), you will find dozens and dozens of essays and articles I have written over the past 25 years, as well as news reports and interviews on my various land projects and on some of the political races I have run in.
What emerges from that resulting morass of printer’s ink, I think, is the clear image of a guy who has strong opinions about a lot of subjects, who enjoys public speaking and writing, and who has several feet in several different worlds simultaneously.
And I am most happy limiting that all to writing one or two essays a week in my blog here, which fits in with my busy work schedule. No podcast necessary. No podcast desired.
But I will give credit to the conservative podcastistanians, whose overall grand number, high volume, interesting topics, and really wide intellectual diversity shows us just how important the First Amendment is, even as the legacy media try to hog that all to themselves, and to discredit and take it away from anyone who does not march in lockstep with their leftist narrative.
I recommend that anyone with an ounce of interest in starting a podcast do so. Explore it. Be your best self. And if you fail, that is OK. At least you will have checked it off your list. Take comfort from knowing that I will not be able to do that, because I am just too lazy.
What NFL football game? Halftime halfwit what?
I keep hearing about this NFL something-or-other, and seeing headlines about this football halftime thingybob today. No idea what these people are talking about, what these events are.
See, in 2015 the National Football League began going “woke” and invoking national politics while trying to pose as athletes peforming circus tricks for audiences seeking a time-out from life. Being politically Leftwing while trying to entertain the masses are two mutually exclusive endeavors. Never the twain shall meet. And both shall fail.
It was intriguing that in 2016 the NFL players began kneeling during the National Anthem, as a sign of disrespect to America. The same America that made these halfwit imbeciles multi-millionaires was suddenly no good, they said, and apparently by demonstrating that they rejected America, the NFL players showed how virtuous they were.
None of it made any sense, until we realized that it all had to do with rejecting Donald trump’s Make America Great Again political message and movement, and the capitalist American culture that created the NFL among many other things.
So, since 2016, I have ceased watching football. I refuse to support something and somebody that does not support me. I refuse to embrace and celebrate people who reject and denigrate everything I hold dear and value the highest (America, our flag, our anthem, our 250 year old identity as a constitutional republic etc etc).
So, no NFL game for me today, and no halfwit time-out “entertainment” freak show by a South American man in a woman’s dress who sings about how much he hates America, followed by a Canadian band called Green Gay or Green Bay or something, who also sing about how much they hate America.
None of this makes sense to me, none of it is entertaining to me, but all of it does make me recognize, yet again, just how acidly destructive the political Left is. Because the Left makes every effort to take over every institution it can get ahold of, and then bend that institution to its ideological purpose of promoting Marxist revolution and destroying freedom and capitalism, it will destroy the very things that the people hold dearest. Like football.
At one time football was “America’s sport,” and from PeeWee Football on up to the NFL, young men from every corner of our great nation aspired to qualify to aggressively compete in front of the nation. It was fun, it was an honor, and the NFL was a good income. Now? To quote Rush Limbaugh, watching the NFL games is like watching the Crips versus the Bloods, a gang fight. Very little class, all violent, all selfish and arrogant behavior, and now in 2026, with a huge helping of We Hate America FU poured on top of it.
No thanks, NFL. You can stick your crappy event and your crappy business up your you-kn0w-what. You lost me. I will be spending my evening reading by the fire, maybe smoking some cherry cavendish in my pipe, maybe a glass of whisky at my elbow. Things here at my home will be peaceful, happy, and all-American, not that you NFL people have any idea what I am talking about.
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What the hell do you write on a blog these days?
What the hell does a guy like me write on his blog these days, with the insurrection crap in Minnesota and California, people hurting ICE agents, foreigners coming here to aggressively defraud us taxpayers of billions of dollars?
This is all both painful and infuriating, and I am just tired, worn out from all of the disputatious fighting and broken government. I cannot believe America is undergoing this again, after the 2020 “Summer of Love” leftist + BLM wave of destruction that killed innocent people and cost billions in damage. Once the weather improves, America probably will go through that again.
What I WANT to write about is our outdoors lifestyle, Biblical insights, my friends, business, anything but more political violence. I am scared and angry about this stuff. Especially because neither political party seems willing to do anything about it. Not the enabling Democrats nor the cowering Republicans.
Welp, gotta go pull an oak splinter outta my paw. Got it pulling in firewood, because we are burning a ton of wood daily. The wash room pipes are frozen, and who knows what else is in store with the coming wave of deep freeze. Sitting next to a hot fire on a cold winter evening is a satisfying and reassuring thing to do. No, I do not suck my thumb.
But I sure as hell am tempted to…
Confused…Real Damned Confused
If you are a person who lives your life by simple logic, by a set of basic logical values and related actions that result in your life achieving its maximal happiness or success, then you are joining me in being real. damned. confused. right now.
America has been in nonstop turmoil since 2015, because one group of people who live here, dare we call them Americans, are so desperate for all-controlling power, that they will do anything, say anything, contradict themselves a hundred times, just to sow chaos and conflict, if only to prevent someone else from exercising their power and decision making.
Over the past year we have seen our president stop the outrageous illegal invasion of America by tens of millions of economic vagrants, by sealing our borders. Our president has justifiably and most legally confronted the nonstop flow of illegal killer drugs, like fentanyl, into our nation, by giving the killers a dose of their own medicine. Our president’s new administration has uncovered many, many billions of dollars of brazen government fraud, which is stealing from taxpayers like me and you.
And in response, a group of people, so-called Americans, have every single time taken the side of the illegal border crossers, taken the side of the the drug dealers, taken the side of the dealers in child prostitution, taken the side of the economic migrants committing massive taxpayer fraud within months of arriving here in America.
Back in the Fall, I read a letter-to-the-editor by a candidate for office, which was representative of this bizarre approach to being an American. The letter whines about the supposed lack of “due process” for violent criminals illegally here in America, as they are captured and deported. Grave concern was also expressed by the author for the alleged “due process rights” of the dangerous drug runner terrorists being sunk at sea in their “fishing boats” that are laughably not fishing boats.
Nowhere in this letter does the author, then a candidate for elected office in America, express one molecule of concern for the due process rights (i.e. the implementation of the existing laws to protect Americans from illegal invaders and sadistic drug runners) of her fellow American citizens. American citizens have laws we passed to keep illegal invaders and drug runners from illegally entering America and committing illegal crimes here. That due process should be foremost in the mind of every American, you would expect. But it isn’t, strangely.
And now, now that our president has captured a lawless, election-stealing international drug dealer posing as a head of state who has been on an international WANTED list for years and who has the deaths of hundreds of thousands of young Americans on his hands, now that same confusing group of people, including that former candidate mentioned above, living right here in America, are angry about that. Never mind that many of these same “outraged” people have many times called for the ouster and capture of this same Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.
Call me confused, because I am. I am really confused about an entire political party that is devoted to identifying with and helping illegal alien fraudsters and child dealers and drug dealers and foreign nations who are America’s sworn enemies. It makes no sense to live here in America, benefit from all of the incredible blessings that we enjoy here in America, and also simultaneously try to destroy America, hurt America, damage America. Especially when one occupies an elected position in government, at any level.
“Domestic enemies” is the term used by America’s founding documents to describe people like this, because clearly they are enemies of America. And a political party that engages in this most confoundingly illogical approach to participating in American politics as official business is a political party that looks a super lot like the same political party (of the same name) that lead an insurrection and secession in 1860 that resulted in our Civil War.
Basic logic dictates that we humans learn from history, and avoid the mistakes and bad things that happened in the human past. No one who is sane and logical should want to live in chaos and confrontation and violence. And yet, America has this, a whole group of people and a whole political party devoted to exactly this kind of chaotic mess.
It was bad enough when they tried to defend the taxpayer fraud committed through USAID programs, uncovered by DOGE. It was bad enough when they tried to defend violent illegal aliens, and treat them as victims when in fact they were repeat rapists, murderers, robbers, burglars. It was bad enough when they provided illegal aliens, who can neither read nor speak English, with commercial driver’s licenses, with the kind of resulting death and mayhem a logical person will expect to see. It was bad enough and super confusing when they objected to illegal drug runner boats, piloted by some of the most cruel, heavily armed, and violent people on our planet, being blown up on their way to America.
And now, all but a very small handful of elected Democrats are strenuously objecting to the capture and trial of Venezuela dictator Nicolas Maduro and the return of huge oil company assets that his predecessor dictator, Hugo Chavez, illegally seized from Americans.
This all seems terribly confusing to me. Especially because many of the most vociferous have previously supported the capture and trial of Maduro, and the return of American assets to their rightful owners. It is as if just raising hell and creating chaos is their way of running America. Which any sane and logical American rejects, because the entire purpose of living in America is to enjoy the stability and benefits of our shared nation.
Once upon a time, I was a registered Democrat Party member. I did not leave them, they left me. Today, I cannot understand how any American can still affiliate or identify with this lawless group of destructive people. Please feel free to explain yourself; I am all ears, and just real. damned. confused.
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Election Day confession
Confession: I am a political junkie, addict, hound, nerd. Have been so since age fifteen. Don’t know why, but I really enjoy being involved in political everything. Today I yet again donated much of my time to being a poll greeter. You know, one of those annoying, pushy people promoting candidates and certain policy positions to voters walking up to the polling place.
My shtick is to make people smile, hopefully laugh. Especially the ever-crabby Liberals. Self-deprecating humor works. At least with older Americans.
Most of my time today, at a poll in West Hanover Township, was spent handing out “palm cards” promoting Jim Zugay and Fran Chardo, candidates for county judge. Fran is Dauphin County’s current District Attorney, and Jim is our current Recorder of Deeds. Both have been practicing attorneys for decades, and are highly qualified. Unlike their opponents, one of whom has been a lawyer in private practice for less than ten years.
I enjoyed talking policy etc with several interesting Democrats, who were up to it. Civil discourse is awesome. One said I had persuaded her to vote for Jim Zugay, who she said she had heard good things about. The one Democrat poll greeter, Sarah, was very nice and easy to chat with. She stayed until about 6:15 tonight, right after I left.
Yours truly on site, reporting live
Two military veterans discuss their combat experiences, and how those shaped their political views. Fascinating to listen in
A bad moon rising on Election Day? We shall find out momentarily
People are cool. I collect people. This windshield message accompanied a (I think) Democrat voter today
I confess to not understanding how Liberals think. But I enjoyed talking with some today, as we all engaged in the most important thing Americans can do: Vote.
A Tale of Two Men, Two Peoples
We have in the past couple weeks been able to observe the best and worst of human behavior in America. Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the outpouring of grief and love on the one side, and the mockery, cruelty and evil on the other, has stratified Americans like few other events.
Even the George Floyd response (before the resulting burning, looting, and murdering riots) had some basis in widespread earnest initial belief that Floyd had been unfairly killed by a policeman, which crossed all political and ideological boundaries.
Not the Charlie Kirk assassination.
Starting the day of his assassination until just a few days ago, I have spent a good deal of time with mainstream liberal Americans at different events, and I can tell you there is no sensitivity there, that I can detect. No sorrow, and no open animosity, either. Indifference mostly, as far as I can tell. Unless we scratch the surface…
Last week, at a mostly liberal soiree in a special place, a nice looking older woman approached me and chatted with me. Her name tag said she was from New Jersey, so I made some humorous quip about the unfavorable Pennsylvania view of New Jersey’s polluted environment and its erratic drivers.
“Oh no, I live in the center of the state, near Princeton,” the nice lady replied. “Though I have to admit I also live near HIS golf course, if you know what I mean. The TRUMP golf course.”
Her eyebrows arched up and down with implied meaning. Apparently rotten-to-the-core Princeton is just fine, but a pretty golf course has all sorts of problems for her.
Said I, using one of my standard golf-related quips, “I do not play golf, I hunt. Because there is not a golf course anywhere on this planet with sufficient liability insurance to allow me to pick up a club. I am safer to be around with a shotgun chasing after geese in the water hazards than swinging at a ball.”
She smiled wanly, un-used to meeting anyone at a posh soiree who does not at least pretend to like golf. When our pregnant quiet moment was at its ripest, I followed up with “Besides, I am a huge Trump fan. And I don’t think we should all be shooting at each other over these differences, because we are all Americans and can work out our differences with our words.”
What she said surprised the hell out of me: “No, we shouldn’t.” And then she was gone, a scowl on her attractive visage. As if anyone on the Trump side of things has been shooting anyone, anywhere. Or maybe she meant that we shouldn’t be using our words…?
There are two different peoples here right now, inhabiting our country. Each one orbiting two different men, Christian activist Charlie Kirk, on the one hand, and once-humorist pagan Hollywooder Jimmy Kimmel, now fired and late of late night TV, on the other hand.
While some Americans oppose Charlie Kirk’s policy preferences on intellectual grounds, I guess, a lot of them also seem to be seething with hatred or animosity about him and anyone associated with him. This is strange to me, because Charlie Kirk never hurt anyone. He was a gentle person, civil, generous, a listener, he asked questions. He did politics the right way: He talked. What on earth about him would make people filled with hate?
Yes, he had some strong opinions based on his Biblical values, the same values that founded America. And….guess what? His political opponents also have strong views, based on God only knows what, because I do not know. Does having strong opinions simply make a person a bad person? If so, then the hate should flow both ways. But it does not.
It appears that the ever-angry, lying, mis-informing, wildly partisan Jimmy Kimmel is fully representative of the political Left and the Democrat Party partisans right now. When faced with consequences for his poor behavior (mocking the assassination of Kirk and lying about who did it), Kimmel is defiant and petulant. People losing their TV and radio shows in the cancel culture war was fine for Kimmel when they had different opinions than he. However, when the shoe is on his foot, and his words fail in the marketplace, suddenly he is aggrieved, and foot stomping, and like a spoiled child demanding demanding demanding.
Never mind that Kimmel was in essence telling leftists that they could murder their political opponents for disagreeing, and that TV personalities would cover for them. Kimmel was violating the basic conditions on which his employer, ABC, had been granted an FCC public broadcast license decades ago. We can debate whether the FCC should even exist, but it does right now, and if one has a broadcast license from the FCC right now, then one must meet its “public benefit” requirement, or let go of it. Kimmel’s lies placed his employer’s FCC license at risk, and so his employer cut him loose and with him the liability.
When we compare and contrast Kirk vs Kimmel, we see two totally opposite men, and totally opposite ways of conducting one’s self in public and in private. Charlie Kirk’s assassination has brought out a lot of good people, and also a lot of troubled people. We now have a tale of two different men, and the two very different peoples surrounding them.
I hope you, dear reader, choose the gentle one. America needs this, not the hate.
