Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

Democrat angst in Pennsylvania

Posted: July 12, 2022 by chrisharper in politics
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By Christopher Harper

The media pundits who predicted a Democrat walkover in the gubernatorial race in Pennsylvania are getting nervous. 

Although the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the liberal media in leftist towns, have portrayed State Senator Doug Mastriano as a wingnut, the people between the two coasts are leaning heavily toward the Republican. 

While I don’t place a lot of stock in polls, Democrats have to be worried about the last one, which was about a month ago from USA Today. 

Mastriano pulled to within three points—49-46—of Democrat Attorney General Josh Shapiro—a number within the margin of error. 

But there’s more troubling news for Democrats in the poll. Almost 85 percent of respondents said the country is heading on the wrong track, and more than 75 percent said the state is going in the wrong direction. 

Only 30 percent said they felt the economy was working for them, pointing to inflation as their most critical issue. 

The big-city media fail to understand how my fellow residents of central Pennsylvania—part of what is known as “the red T” that votes about 70 percent GOP—hate polls and Joe Biden.

Philadelphia political adviser Kurt Knaus wrote after the 2020 election that Democrats got creamed in almost everything but the presidential vote.

“Where federal races produced a bit of blue mixed with neutral tones, state results were decidedly red – blood red, in fact, solidifying Pennsylvania voters’ reputation for splitting their tickets on Election Day,” he wrote.

 “Before November 3, Democrats boasted about their chances to potentially wrest control of the state House and chip away at Republicans’ majority in the Senate. Neither happened. Instead, Republicans knocked out the House Democratic leader and enlarged their majorities in both chambers. 

 Will Bunch, the leftist columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, is apoplectic about the current gubernatorial race. 

“If the staunchly anti-abortion Mastriano—currently polling within the margin of error against Democratic opponent Josh Shapiro—rides a predicted GOP midterm wave of voter anger over inflation and President Joe Biden’s unpopularity, and if his victory also were to extend the right-wing dominance in the legislature, the long-term consequences would likely reach far beyond women’s health,” Bunch wrote recently.

“An extreme abortion ban in Pennsylvania will turn the Keystone State into a pariah for many of the nation’s best and brightest young people when they are deciding where to attend college, and not only stunt but probably reverse the growth of high-tech and professional jobs that have fueled the 21st century revival of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and their suburbs.” 

[Note: Grammarly.com, a computer program I use, insisted that both of the above paragraphs be rewritten for clarity].

It’s difficult to glean any logic from the argument. Does Bunch really believe that the choice of a college depends on a pro-choice state government? Does he really think businesses determine economic viability based on fetus viability?

Whatever the case, his screed underlines just how worried he and other leftists must be. 

Merrick Garland is America’s worst attorney general since Harding’s Harry M. Daugherty

Posted: July 10, 2022 by John Ruberry in congress, crime, News/opinion, politics
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Official Merrick Garland portrait

By John Ruberry

America has endured some terrible attorneys general, Eric Holder, who served under Barack Obama and was held in contempt of Congress over the Fast and Furious scandal, John Mitchell, a Richard M. Nixon AG, who became the only the second US cabinet official to spend time in a federal prison, and Harry M. Daugherty, the leader of corrupt “Ohio Gang” during the administration of Warren G. Harding. 

And finally, there is Merrick Garland, once heralded as a moderate after Obama nominated him to succeed Antonin Scalia on the US Supreme Court in 2016. Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell didn’t hold confirmation hearings on Garland. Donald Trump was elected president later that year, he nominated Neil Gorsuch to the SCOTUS bench, where he is now part of the conservative majority. 

Garland is the worst US attorney general since Daugherty.

Who was Daughterty? He was a minor political figure in Ohio who gained power as a behind-the-scenes kingmaker. A drinker like Harding, hey, like most Americans in the early 20th century, Daugherty got involved in the prohibition movement for political expediency. And he’s the man who worked the famous “smoke-filled room” at Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel to win Harding the Republican nomination for president in 1920. In Harding’s words about his successful election, “We drew a pair of deuces and filled.”

Although Harding’s cabinet had some magnificent choices, Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of State and Andrew Mellon as head of the Treasury Department, the Harding cabinet included Daugherty and Albert Fall, secretary of Interior. Fall accepted bribes as he sold cheap oil leases on federal land in what became known as the Teapot Dome Scandal, which led to a prison term for him, a first for a cabinet member. Daugherty, if he investigated it at all, barely looked into Teapot Dome. 

Daugherty’s assistant at Justice, and his roommate, was Jess Smith, who probably allowed alcohol owned by the federal government to be sold to bootleggers. Smith committed suicide a few months before Harding’s death in 1923.

Besides corruption, the Ohio Gang was known for its alcohol-fueled poker games at its de facto headquarters, “the Little House on K Street,” in Washington. Yes, there was a two-tiered justice system then.

And that’s been the charge against Garland’s Justice Department. No, not the poker games, but a two-tiered justice system. Don’t get me wrong, the January 6 rioters deserve punishment, even though most of them are probably guilty of nothing more than trespassing. 

Jim Banks, who Nancy Pelosi prevented from serving on the House January 6th Committee, summed up Garland’s hypocrisy perfectly. 

From the American Thinker:

Citing the Justice Department’s lenient treatment of left-wing rioters compared to the harsh treatment of Jan. 6, 2021 rioters at the Capitol, including many who “are not accused of entering the Capitol or committing violence,”

Rep. Jim Banks (R.-Ind.), in a two-page letter dated June 14, 2022, accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of leading “a two-tiered system of justice” at the Department of Justice. Congressman Banks asserted: “Violent rioters who are likely to vote Democrats [sic] are often released with a slap on the wrist, or less, while January 6th defendants are prosecuted to the harshest extent possible.”  

Asserting that “the unequal application of justice is an injustice,” Mr. Banks accused the attorney general of politicizing federal law, thereby assaulting “the basic American principle of equal justice under the law.” 

Then there is Hunter Biden, a Chicago-style influence-peddler. Garland is from the Chicago area; he surely knows a lot about mediocre people like Hunter throwing his weight around as he enriches himself and his family.

Just now on Fox Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, US Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told the host, “We have a two-tiered justice system, one that will treat with kid gloves, or cover up for, Democrats and their powerful friends, the elite–and the rest of Americans. And I think we are seeing that big time with Hunter Biden and all of his very suspicious [financial] transactions.”

Ever since the Supreme Court draft on Dobbs v. Jackson was leaked, the case that overruled Roe v. Wade, there have been protests, in violation of federal law, in front of the homes of conservative justices. So far no one has been charged, even though there is voluminous video evidence that had been aired by news outlets and on YouTube that includes clearly recognizable faces. Announcements of protests are posted on social media.

Is Garland quietly cheering on these illegal protests? Don’t forget, it was Garland’s office that asked the FBI to investigate parents protesting school boards over the teaching of Critical Race Theory, citing unnamed threats.

Last month former Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro, who was 72 years old at the time, was put in leg irons by the FBI, after being indicted on contempt of Congress charges. “Who are these people? This is not America,” Navarro said during his first appearance in federal court. “I was a distinguished public servant for four years!”

Navarro, who has not faced prior legal troubles, is hardly a flight risk. 

Earlier this year, former Illinois House speaker Michael Madigan, who served in that role for four decades–and the former chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party–was indicted on a slew of corruption charges. 

Who wants to make a bet with me that Boss Madigan, also a septuagenarian, was not put in leg irons after his indictment?

Daughtery was later asked to resign as attorney general by Harding’s successor, Calvin Coolidge. He faced trial twice on unrelated charges. Both trials ended with hung juries. 

Garland will face tough questions next year, as congressional investigations led by Republicans will zoom in on the many debacles created by the Biden White House. Look for Garland to answer in the same fashion as Nixon’s Watergate co-conspirators did during the Watergate Senate hearings. “I don’t know” was a common response, as was “I don’t recall.”

Maybe, just maybe, Garland will answer questions about whether he plays poker at boozy parties in Washington.

John Ruberry regular blogs at Marathon Pundit.

“F*ck the Fourth” among many pro-abortion protests planned for Independence Day

Posted: July 3, 2022 by John Ruberry in abortion, culture, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

While I was a child at the time, I don’t recall much during the politically turbulent 1960s and early 1970s in regard to protests of July 4th, that is, America’s Independence Day. 

But of course, 21st-century leftists will take things too far. And the progressives never seem to be at a loss for anger. The most egregious attack on the 4th, and to be fair, America, comes from Tucson, Arizona and in a since-deleted Tweet, captured by Libs of Tik Tok, the Pima County Democratic Party wrote, “F*ck the Fourth,” along with a graphic that included this message for the Tucson Women’s Network, “Bring comfortable shoes, water, lawn chairs, posters, and your anger.” The other group’s graphic, as you can see, doesn’t use an asterisk in the F-word.

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1542994095001325569?cxt=HHwWgsCisYm96OkqAAAA

The “F*ck the 4th” protest is in response to last month’s US Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson case, in an expected ruling–courtesy of a leaked draft opinion–which overruled Roe v. Wade and returns the abortion ruling to the states. 

And in those states, besides Arizona, there are pro-abortion protests planned in conjunction with Independence Day. There’s a call to wear black, instead of red, white, and blue on July 4th, which is not a particularly wise idea if you plan to be outdoors a lot on the holiday. The high temperature where I live is expected to be 91 degrees on the 4th. 

Bans Off Our Bodies Florida is now in the middle of a weekend boycott on retail spending to protest Dobbs v. Jackson. Also in Florida, on the Space Coast, there’s a pro-abortion protest there, Gannett’s Florida Today reports. Here’s some irony: To reach the story I had to click through a July 4th subscription special pop-up ad, as I did for another Gannett publication, the MetroWest Daily News, to learn about a Framingham, Massachusetts anti-Dobbs protest. “Fourth of July is cancelled,” one of the organizers says.

I don’t feel compelled to mention each protest, you get the point. But here’s one more. Leave it to my state, goofy Illinois, to take thing a step farther. The owner of a Chicago children’s boutique is organizing, along with the Chicago Abortion Fund, a “Families for Abortion Access” march.

Of course, the right to free speech, which of course includes unpopular speech, doesn’t go away on July 4th, once again the far-left is being offensive and angering the persuadable center by calling for “F*ck the Fourth” and more.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit. He plans to spend part of the 4th at the Morton Grove Days festival, watching fireworks there, wearing red, white, and blue.

Some Advice From My Grandfather for Those Doing Political Prosecutions These Days

Posted: July 2, 2022 by datechguy in politics
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My Sicilian Grandfathers were born on the Island in the 1800’s and my memory of them is slight as they died when I was 3 and 4 but some of their wisdom was passed on down to me by my parents and siblings who were old enough to hear it.

One of those bits of advice came from my mother’s dad who was a Barber with a shop about 3-400 yards from where I am now typing this. He said this about confronting an attacker with a weapon:

Never use a weapon that you are afraid of

That is to say don’t use a weapon that you’re afraid of having turned on you.

Somebody needs to give the Democrats who seem to have decided to use trumped up indictments against their foes all over the country to slow down GOP candidates. For the whole this is backfiring but a more important point is this. Such use of government against one political enemies sets a precedent that in a time of polarization will be a dish that the GOP will be happy to serve on the left once they are in power.

And one of the basic truths of American politics is that sooner or later your political foes will always be in power and able to wield the same weapons that you choose to use against them.

I understand the Democrats are getting desperate, all their tactics suggest they don’t trust their ability to get the votes of the people, they smack of desperation.

But I would strongly suggest to them that the rising stars in the GOP have a definite Jacksonian streak and will take positive joy in returning in giving you the same treatment you gave them.

So to the left I give this good advice that you will ignore: Think long and hard before you go all in on using the government at the federal, state or local weapon against us, because you don’t know how it’s going to end.

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