In a bow to political nonsense, a new Pennsylvania law will likely curtail the reenactment of historic battles in the state, a key battleground in the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War significantly.
Without a public vote, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission restricted reenactments, including any battles with blank ammunition or physical altercations.
Gee, folks, you mean people can reenact a battle without guns, bullets, knives, or people playing dead? That sounds rather unhistorical.
The so-called “no force-on-force standard” maintains such reenactments are “disrespectful” to the memory of those who died in or were affected by the conflicts.
“There are more impactful and safer educational methods through which we can teach the public about the complex mix of ideas, events, social structures, etc., that led to violent conflict,” PHMC official Howard Pollman wrote via email. Museum staff decided without a vote from the commission, which includes elected officials and other state leaders because the decision fell under the so-called “professional interpretation standard.”
That’s government-speak for the lower-case deep state knowing elected officials might actually listen to their constituents and stop such nonsense.
Furthermore, the staff determined that Native American reenactors must be Native Americans. The museum consulted representatives of the Seneca, Seneca-Cayuga, Shawnee, and Delaware tribes regarding its interpretation of Native American history. All of these tribes, which are located in New York, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin, consider Pennsylvania to be their ancestral homeland, Pollman said, but the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania does not recognize any Native American groupings in the state itself.
During conversations with representatives, Pollman said they have repeatedly shared concerns that museum sites lacked Native American perspectives on history. Also, the Native American tribes have refused to participate in the reenactment events in Pennsylvania.
“To continue this interpretive programming without evaluation and significant input from those tribes connected to Pennsylvania would go against the best practices of the public history field,” Pollman wrote. “It also undermines the Commonwealth’s efforts over the past two years to develop channels for communications and to establish trust with these sovereign nations.”
Although it’s unclear how many reenactments may suffer as a result of these actions, one significant event has already been canceled. The annual reenactment of the battle in August 1763 between British and Native Americans was halted in Penn Township, near my home in central Pennsylvania. The event took place on Bushy Run, a site under the control of the museum commission.
The battle reenactment was Bushy Run’s biggest fundraiser, drawing hundreds of historical reenactors and thousands of observers. But leaders of the reenactment decided that the lack of battlefield actions and Native American tribes’ prohibition against participation in the event made it impossible to move forward.
Fortunately, the new state regulations do not stop the annual reenactment at Gettysburg, which is held on private land.
Simply put, it’s incredible how much government can muck up good ideas.
We talk about why Europe doesn’t defend itself but while the Russia Ukraine war is nearing the end of year 1 it’s worth nothing that since World War 2 and American Troop stationed in Europe there has not been a major war between European Powers.
That is the longest period in centuries that this has been true and even the wars we have seen (Russia vs Ukraine, Balkans War) have all bee from states that had been broken up (Yugoslavia) or part of each other.
For all the PITN about defending Europe that’s quite an accomplishment.
Of course one of the disadvantages of this has been the empowerment of the international deep state. Once wealthy elites did not have to worry about national wars destroying their wealth they discovered they had more in common with each other than the people of the land they lived in or ran businesses in. They became, in effect their own nationality a group who believed that it was their right and destiny to direct the world around them and for others to bend the knee.
Welcome back feudalism! That’s the goal (with them as the Lords astonished that the people demand the comforts that they possess) but it is only doable against an unarmed population.
That’s why gun control will never be off the table for the left.
As I look at the attempt to wrest Project Veritas from James O’Keefe all I can think of is Matt Drudge. Because Drudge was pretty much a solo flyer it only required buying one person willing to be bought.
I suspect after the Pfizer expo an attempt to buy O’Keefe was attempted and failed and thus plan B was put into effect.
It’s always been easier to buy people to get what you want. I wonder how much the folks on the board were paid and if it was contingent on the ousting of O’Keefe?
Speaking of real reporting vs phony stuff apparently Senator Fetterman’s condition has reached a point where it is impossible for the media that insisted he was well and denounced anyone who said otherwise to tenably make that argument.
For myself, I would not allow him to resign or be replaced in any situation short of death. The people of Pennsylvania decided they wanted a brain injured invalid as their Senator and by golly they should get what they asked for.
On a personal level of course it would be nice if he recovered, it must be murder on his family and himself and I’d feel bad for anyone with such health issues but in terms of politics he decided to get onto the playing field and if he’s on the field during the game he doesn’t get the right to be left open.
Speaking of games today is Superbowl Sunday and with Tom Brady’s retirement New England’s interest in the game is going to return to the “once a decade” mode at best or more likely to the “not us” mode that it was in pre-Brady.
That a franchise had a 50% chance of making it to the Superbowl over a 20 year period is, next to the Celtics run of championships with Bill Russell, the most incredible run you will likely ever see. (You can even argue that it’s more impressive since in a best of 5 or best of 7 series you can have a bad game and still take home the gold, Brady didn’t have that luxury). Watching the sudden decline of the team has been like watching the sudden decline of the American republic. People thought it would last forever but it can’t unless you keep it up.
It’s appropriate that WEEI named their Patriots postgame show “The six rings postgame show” it will be many decades before they’re forced to rename it again.
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.
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.
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