Archive for the ‘congress’ Category

By John Ruberry

Hello parents! Do you want to raise children who will enter politics? Then keep reading.

Rather than bringing up kids to act responsibly, your politico children need to end up the complete opposite of that.

Unlike me. Which is why rather than claiming the idea for this blog post as entirely my own, I have to credit an old Mad Magazine article from decades ago. 

Here we go.

Your political children need to be proficient liars. Incoming Republican congressman George Santos of New York invented an entire past for himself. He lied about where he worked, what schools he attended, what religion he is, how much money he made, where and when his mother died, and possibly even his sexual preference. Apparently, Santos was more truthful when he ran for Congress in 2020. And what did that get him then? A defeat. 

Over on the Democratic side, US Sen. Elizabeth Warren, all the way back to her academic career, claimed to be a Native American. In preparation for her 2020 presidential run, Warren released a DNA test that she claimed there was “strong evidence” that she had an Indian ancestor six to ten generations back, making her anywhere from 1/64th to 1/1024 indigenous American.

That lie led Donald Trump to dub Warren “Pocahantas.” As for the former president, he refused to release his tax returns after announcing his first run for president because the real estate mogul said we was undergoing in IRS audit. He wasn’t. 

But our current president, Joe Biden, is a Baron Munchausen-level fabulist. Some of his lies are humorous, such as the tale, which has been debunked numerous times, about Biden being told in the 2010s that he traveled over one million miles on Amtrak by an on-duty conductor who retired twenty-years earlier. Other lies, such as Biden the blaming the rise in gasoline prices since he took office two years ago solely on the war in Ukraine, betray a lack of emotional maturity. 

Just last month, Biden claimed to have been the impetus for the awarding a Purple Heart to an uncle, a World War II veteran. That didn’t happen

And the Inflation Reduction Act is simply an expensive falsehood.

Your political children need to blame others for their mistakes. In addition to blaming Putin for high energy prices, Biden and his administration pointed their collective finger at Trump for the highest inflation America has suffered in four decades. Rather, it was Biden’s anti-energy policies and his pork-laden $1.9 trillion stimulus bill of 2021 that were the culprits. The American economy was well on its way to recovery from the COVID-19 lockdown by then, the bill was not only unnecessary, but also harmful. 

Your political children need to procrastinate. Just a few days ago, as a government shutdown loomed, Joe Biden signed into law a massive spending bill, one that will almost certainly add oxygen to our roaring inflation fire. Spending bills are due annually before October 1, but not since 1996 has a spending bill has been signed into law before that date.

So when one of your children drops a bomb on you that urgent help is needed on a ten-page term paper–which is due the next morning–you should be proud. You are raising a politician. Which brings me to my next recommendation.

Your political children need to ignore their homework assignments. Here’s one more item about that most recent spending bill. It’s over 4,000 pages long. Few if any members of Congress read it before voting on it. And I am certain that man who signed it into law, Joe Biden, didn’t read it either.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

A lot of accounts have been restored in to twitter over the last several months under Elon Musk from Donald Trump to Project Veritas to the Gateway Pundit and I cheer the return of these accounts and for a semblance of free speech for conservatives to come back. I must say frankly that I’m getting sick of waiting for the folks at twitter to restore the account of Robert Stacy McCain.

He was one of the first conservatives to be targeted by the twitter cancel crowd because like Libs of Tictok he dared to quote feminists directly using their own words against him to make his point.

I keep seeing these other worthy folks come back but there still remains no sign of Stacy’s @rsmccain account being restored. He had over 80K followers when he was tossed and as a writer no longer connected with major media the loss of such an account had I suspect a real effect on his reach and potential income which was the entire point of kicking him off.

I understand Elon Musk is a busy man but I urge him to take a few minutes out of his schedule and end this injustice against a reporter with thirty years of print media experience behind him and #freestacy

It’s the right thing to do.


A lot of GOP voters are rightly upset about the omnibus spending bill that just passed and the number of GOP senators who voted for this goody package for the left to make it happen.

While it outrages us it should not surprise us as I’m sure this bill contained a bunch of goodie packages for these individual senators and/or their states and/or contributors.

Unfortunately this has been the norm in congress for a very long time, it was the removal of earmarks that was a change from the routine and the people who paid a lot of money to get these folks elected expect to get their dough.

And if it means funding a bunch of stuff that helps the left in their culture war against the country, what do their care as long as they get their cut?


Lauren Boebert’s statement on Ukrainian president after his speech to congress was spot on.

She correctly acknowledged that Zelenskey is doing all he can to save his country from the Russians but also noted that it is our duty to make sure the billions we are sending to him to defend his country actually go toward that goal.

I don’t blame Zelenskey one bit, Ukraine was a land of graft and grift before the Russian invasion and if I was in charge of Ukraine and the US offered me dough but the big guy & his pals wanted their 10% or more I’d not care if thousands of grifters got their share as long as I got kept getting the dough and weapons that I needed to save my country from the Russian hoards. That’s got to be his primary goal.

But it damn well should the goal of a representative of the United States to make sure that the taxpayer dollars of Americans that are being spent to save Ukraine isn’t all about making the rich and connected richer and even if my own rep doesn’t care about it it’s nice that SOMEBODY in congress does.


We got out of work a couple of hours early yesterday so I had a chance to watch the 2nd half of the Jets Jaguars game which pitted Trevor Lawrence the 1st pick overall in the 2021 NFL draft starting for Jacksonville against Zach Wilson the 2nd overall pick in the NFL draft starting for the Jets. In two Seasons Lawrence has taken a bad team and put them within a game of their division lead and a game and a half away from the final wildcard spot this season.

Meanwhile Wilson in a year marred by injury got himself pulled shortly after the start of the 2nd half after taking a Jets team that had a lot of promise nowhere. It makes the 2nd time this season that Wilson has been sat down for poor performance but subsequent injuries to his replacements pressed him back into service.

This goes to show you how thin the line is between success and failure is in the NFL. Both of these two young men excelled in college and have physical tools to make the NFL, tools that 99.99% of the population don’t come near to. Yet one of them has the stuff to make it in this league and one did not. Meanwhile in San Francisco the # 3 pick in that draft Trey Lance is recoding from injury while Brock Purdy the 262nd and final pick in this years NFL draft Mr Irrelevant is about to lead his team to a playoff bearth.

Until the iron comes out of the forge you don’t know where it’s been.


Finally as I did last year at work I came in wearing a full Santa Suit for the final work day before Christmas. Given I have both a real stomach and a real Santa beard (that I will shave shortly after Christmas to the delight of my wife) which causes little kids to gasp when I walk into restaurants this time of year it’s very effective.

I could practically not punch in as about half of the woman (and a few men) punching out for 1st shift wanted a picture and my first hour on the job while I was in theory trying to pick orders was in fact spent taking pictures with groups of very attractive women, many dressed for the season, who all wanted a picture with Santa Claus.

It’s slightly ironic, As I’m one of only 4 white English speaking white Americans on my shift and with very few exceptions old enough to be the father or grandfather of just about everyone in the place it often makes for a lonely & silent work day (the “silent” bit will shock folks who know me) since I have few conversations during the day and can’t understand the conversations around me in Spanish, Portuguese (Cape Verde) , Creole or French (Haitians you know) everyone knows who I am and says hello but I’m generally left alone

But one day a year, for just a few hours when I come in and during the Christmas party I become the most popular person in the place.

By John Ruberry

I was around for the 1994 and the 2010 Red Wave elections. And for the most part, they were pretty awesome, particularly the first one, when the Republican Party bulldozed the Democrats and captured the Senate after eight years of Democrat control, as well as the House of Representatives, after a record 52-year reign by the Dems. And while the GOP didn’t win the Senate in 2010, the Republicans gained an astounding 63 House seats in what is now known as the Tea Party election. 

After both midterms, conservatives salivated at the prospect of the next presidential election. In 1992, Bill Clinton was victorious, it was believed, because George H.W. Bush ran a lackluster campaign–that was true–and votes for third-party candidate Ross Perot siphoned enough support from the GOP conservative base to elect the Democrat. In 2008, the feeling was that John McCain never had a chance against Barack Obama after the Great Recession market crash two months before Election Day. But McCain ran a lackluster campaign too. 

Overconfidence, bordering on hubris, kicked in for the GOP after those Red Waves.

As of this writing there will be a Democrat majority in the Senate in the next Congress, and maybe, a razor-thin Republican majority in the House. 

Bubba had a come-to-Jesus moment–having Dick Morris in his camp helped–and Clinton after the ’94 midterms pivoted to the center by declaring, “The era of big government is over.” The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, widely-known as the Welfare Reform Bill, offered tangible proof.

After what Obama deemed “a shellacking” in 2010, Obama, as he does best, talked a good game–but he didn’t pivot. With no hope of getting unpopular legislation, such as cap-and-trade passed by the new GOP House, he channeled his charisma to win in 2012–as conservatives seethed. And ObamaCare didn’t go into effect until 2013.

Besides over-confidence hindering their White House chances, Republicans nominated country club-flavor Republicans, Bob Dole and Mitt Romney, for president in 1996 and 2012, respectively. In essence, their campaign was, “I’m not the other guy.” Yawn.

As of this writing there will be a Democrat majority in the Senate in the next Congress, and maybe, a razor-thin Republican majority in the House. 

Election denial.

It’s time for the GOP to look at what went wrong this year, starting with election-denial. As I wrote in March, Joe Biden versus Donald Trump was not a free and fair election. Big Tech and media meddling in regard to suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, in my opinion, was the foremost reason. Richard M. Nixon was the victim of a suspicious presidential election tally in 1960. I was a child in 1968 and 1972, but I don’t recall reading about Nixon mentioning the 1960 race at all during his ’68 or ’72 successful presidential runs.

Deal with it. The Dems won in 2020 and we lost. Move on. If Trump runs in 2024, that needs to be his message. Most of the candidates in close races who said that Biden stole the election from Trump in 2020 were defeated. Election denial is toxic for Republicans.

The big winner in the midterms was Florida governor Ron DeSantis. He’s not an election denier and he has a solid list of accomplishments to point to after four years in office.

The new election playing field.

I loathe mail-in voting, “election season” instead of Election Day, and ballot drop-boxes. But these things aren’t going away. To prevail, Republicans have to adapt and find ways to perform better on the new playing field. Mail-in voting is a good place to start. Increasingly, the GOP is the party of private sector jobholders. Let’s say you’re a construction worker raising a family who is told by his boss, “Hey, I need you at this worksite tomorrow in Nebraska–it pays well.” But that worker hasn’t voted yet and Election Day is two days away. Meanwhile, in Blue Illinois, Election Day is a holiday for government workers.

What if it snows on Election Day? That happened in a Republican area in Nevada last Tuesday.

Shortly before Election Day in 2016, my mother was hospitalized. She had voted in every presidential election since 1956, but mom wasn’t able to vote for Trump, much to her disappointment. We need to reach out to seniors and, gently of course, convince them to utilize mail-in or early voting. 

Republicans need to build on its increasing support among Hispanics and reach out to Asians. The GOP is the party of law and order. However, the media wing of the Democratic Party labels the phrase “law and order” as racist. So Republicans need to rebrand and become, let’s say, the “safety and security” party. Safety and security is an appeal that will resonate among all racial groups.

Tribalism.

If the increasingly frail and mentally feeble Joe Biden runs for reelection and wins renomination–the Democrats won’t have a strong campaigner like Clinton or Obama on the top of the ticket in ’24. And Biden has already said that he won’t pivot, as Bill Clinton did, to the center now that the midterms have passed.

Woo-hoo! We’re gonna win!

Slow down there, cowboy.

Republicans face disaster if they underestimate the support Biden will enjoy from the tribalist base of the Democrats. That tribe will vote every candidate who has a “D” next to their name. In the Chicago area, I live among millions of these people. They might wise up one day. Maybe they won’t. But as Dan Bongino said numerous times in the last week, “Things are just not bad enough yet for a lot of people to wake up from the Kool-Aid slumber.”

And it’s not just Illinois that is afflicted by Dem tribalism. Pennsylvanians chose a cognitively challenged far-left US Senate candidate, John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke this spring, over a mentally nimble Republican candidate, Dr. Mehmet Oz. True, Oz could have run a better campaign. 

Ronald Reagan, in his 1984 landslide win over Walter Mondale, won 49 states. But in the popular vote–yeah, I know, the Electoral College declares the victor–Mondale still collected more than 40 percent. In 2024, even if Biden is in worse physical and mental shape than Fetterman is, he’ll do much better, courtesy of tribalism, than Mondale did, in both the Electoral College and the popular vote.

Fetterman, if by some other-worldly convergence ends up as the Democrat nominee for president in 2024, could match Mondale’s popular vote percentage. I am dead serious about that. Tribalism is a tough nut to crack.

There is much to think about and much to do for the Republican Party. But at least the GOP won’t be overconfident in 2024. That might be the best news out of this Red Ripple election.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

By John Ruberry

The warning signs have been there for many weeks. Shortly before winning the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman had a stroke. How severe was the stroke? We don’t know, because Fetterman, who appears to be morbidly obese, hasn’t released his medical records. 

But he’s a solid leftist Democrat, and that’s all that his party leadership and the people working on his campaign need to know. But can Fetterman perform the job as senator?

His brief public appearances have been filled with gaffes and non-sensical statements, such as this one, made during an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, in response to this question, “I just wanted to check in and see how you’re doing?” Fetterman’s response was, “I’m doing fantastic, it’s not about kicking balls in the authority or anything.” Earlier this month Fox News reported that since his stroke, Fetterman had participated just four interviews with a national media outlet-all with MSNBC. Possibly in reaction to that story, Fetterman reached out to NBC. Dasha Burns interviewed him–and the candidate was aided by a teleprompter. As part of her report, Burns said that Fetterman had issues engaging in “small talk” prior to their interview. There was no teleprompter until the cameras were switched on. 

The left-wing Twitter blue-check media army attacked Burns; Fetterman’s wife said that she should face “consequences” for doing her job, which in this case was providing information to Pennsylvania voters so they can make an intelligent choice on who to vote for in the Senate race.

Fetterman’s campaign says as a result of the candidate’s stroke–oh, once again, where are those medical records?–he suffers from auditory processing challenges. And if Fetterman doesn’t improve, how will he be able to understand what is going on in a Senate committee hearing?

Last week’s sole debate between Fetterman and his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, was a debacle for the Democrat. 

“If this had been a boxing match,” Laura Ingraham said of the debate on her Fox News show, “the referee would have called this in the first sixty seconds.” Fetterman’s opening remark was, “Hi, good night, everyone.” Like his other post-stroke campaign appearances, the debate with Oz was another gaffe-fest for the Democrat. Fetterman was particularly ghastly when trying to explain his position on fracking. His campaign blamed the closed captioning on the candidate’s teleprompter. The network that broadcast debate strongly dismissed that complaint.

But to leftists, none of this stuff matters. That’s because Fetterman is “right” on all of the issues, well, maybe not fracking anymore. Maybe. He’ll vote “correctly,” the leftists believe, presumably with the help of his teleprompter, on the Senate floor. After all, under the protection of pandemic restrictions–they were overblown in my opinion, but I want to stay on topic–a frail and obviously mentally feeble Joe Biden was able to win the presidency while hiding in the basement of his Delaware home. 

If the basement bunker tactic worked for Biden, leftists probably believe, it can work for Fetterman too. 

But we are in the middle of a disastrous presidency, which includes a humiliating military defeat, high inflation, and a likely recession.

Back to Pennsylvania and Fetterman: If it were Dr. Oz who had suffered a stroke, state party leaders, and possibly his campaign staff, would call for, perhaps quietly, Oz to step aside in time for a replacement candidate to appear on the general election ballot. While conservatives of course have core principles, our side consists of many more pragmatists. That’s how we roll. For instance, how many conservatives do you find in academia? Or in the arts? The Democrats are the party of noble intentions. The GOP is the party of good results.

And Dems continue to hammer away on unworkable and unpopular polices, such as attacking fossil fuels, confronting inflation with even more government spending, and conducting catch-and-release so-called prosecution of criminals. Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner is one of the worst proponents of such prosecutorial malpractice.

Which means the hardcore support by the left for John Fetterman makes sense. A twisted sense, that is.

When you vote in this year’s general election–vote for pragmatism. Vote Republican.

As for you Pennsylvania voters–you need to say “good night” to Fetterman.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.