With McDaniel’s Reelection, the GOP Establishment Doubles Down

By J Robert Smith

  • Jan. 28, 2023
  • 3-min read

During last year’s midterm elections, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell thumbed his nose at the GOP’s conservative base. He now famously said that the crop of America First Senate candidates were lackluster, at best. Now, why would wily old Mitch say that? Oh, to pour cold water on the chances of Arizona’s Blake Masters, Georgia’s Hershel Walker, and New Hampshire’s Don Bolduc to raise money and build grassroots support. But, principally, old Mitch wanted to dampen down fundraising for these men.

Then Mitch pulled Senate Republican dollars from Masters and Bolduc, while sending millions to help his crony, Lisa Murkowski, win against fellow Republican Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska. The deck was already stacked against Tshibaka when Murkowski and her allies pushed through ranked choice voting. Without that fix and McConnell’s heft, Murkowski would have lost.

To make matters much worse, after the elections, McConnell helped Democrats pass an obscenely costly budget, to the tune of $1.7 trillion. McConnell didn’t want the new GOP House majority – not yet sworn in – to interfere with the binge spending that he heartily approves of.

Now, Ronna McDaniel was just reelected Republican National Committee chair. She won decisively with 111 votes out 168. The RNC is controlled by establishment Republicans who despise Donald Trump, the America First movement, and grassroots conservatives generally. They’re a subset of the Washington establishment and serve, for the most part, as the Democrat Party’s shadow. It’s the Washington establishment versus the grassroots, and we know where GOP mossbacks stand – against us.

Harmeet Dhillon — a smart, shrewd, politically savvy lawyer and longtime activist — was the insurgent candidate for the chair. She’s also one of Trump’s lawyers defending him against the relentless onslaught from Democrats and establishment to destroy him.

Dhillon made these charges against McDaniel, per the New York Post:

“Dhillon had insisted that the party needed new leadership and had called for the RNC to move its headquarters out of Washington. Her aggressive campaign against McDaniel including allegations of chronic misspending, mismanagement and even religious bigotry against Dhillon’s Sikh faith — all claims that McDaniel denied.

“The night before the vote, Dhillon ripped McDaniel’s performance as RNC head in a speech to her supporters, saying: ‘I know she’s done her best and I also know that that isn’t good enough for the next three years.’

“On Friday morning, Dhillon tweeted out a warning that Republicans ‘must change—or keep losing’ and hinted at political consequences for those who would continue to back the incumbent McDaniel.

“ ‘Ignoring the will of the voters in your state is a good way not to get elected again,’ she told the Associated Press before the balloting began.”

But the game was rigged from the beginning. Dhillon had to know it. But she was running to provide a counter, a contrast, to failed Ronna McDaniel and the inbreds who squandered millions in the midterms running old-style campaigns and failing to aggressively link Joe Biden to the country’s woes and then make connections to Democrat contenders.

A bit of advice for grassroots voters. Don’t send a penny to the RNC or the GOP U.S. House and Senate campaign committees. In 2024, take the time to find conservative candidates who are worth supporting. Send your dollars directly to their campaigns, whether in your state or out. Don’t let the fools and incompetents who run the RNC waste your money.

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Why I Returned to Twitter

By J Robert Smith

  • Dec. 14, 2022
  • 3 min read

In January of 2021, when Twitter brass suspended Donald Trump’s very popular and powerful account, it was the last straw for me.

I’d been on Twitter since the autumn of 2013, as I recall. By July 2020, with a lot of sweat equity, I’d built my account to nearly 16,000 followers. I was adding an estimated 100-200 followers daily during that tumultuous summer. The riots and general lawlessness that Democrats were permitting in the cities they ran were fueling my following. Then there was the contentious presidential race. With frequent posts about the Trump-Biden dustup, my profile was rising and reach spreading. A conservative surging in popularity was always a red flag among Twitter’s woke monitors.

Then, suddenly, my new followers slowed to a trickle. Some days, nothing. Then over the course of the next few weeks, my existing following started to dwindle. I went to a Germany-based platform that determines if your Twitter account is being “shadow-banned,” among other surreptitious means of muzzling members conservatives. My account was being shadow-banned.

Went the reports, Twitter was allegedly purging “bots,” phony accounts. By November 2020, as I recollect, I’d lost about 4,000 followers. Sure, bots have been and are a problem at Twitter. They inflate Twitter’s aggregate count. Twitter’s member volume helps sell advertising and ups pricing.

But purging bots in the middle of a hotly contested election season? Elon Musk questioned Twitter’s price tag in negotiations because, he contended, the platform’s value was inflated by Twitter execs allowing bots to increase its value. Seems a little too coincidently, doesn’t it?

So, when Trump was dumped, I said enough. I closed my account and said, “Bye bye” to so aggressively partisan and devious an enterprise. Google, Amazon, and Apple had crushed Parler, where I had an alternative account (I had built my Parler account to 4,000 followers). I landed at Gab, where I’ve built a following of 5,000-plus freedom-lovers. At Gab, I’m not shadow-banned… not locked out from time-to-time for whatever Twitter’s leftwing monitors considered “inappropriate” messaging (usually branded “hate speech,” which was a crock).

So, what have we learned with Musk releasing the Twitter files? Well, they confirm how brazenly partisan execs and employees were. We learned that execs lied about censorship measures aimed at conservatives and anyone who ran crosswise Twitter’s “progressive” worldview. We learned that Jack Dorsey perjured himself in front of a congressional committee. Dorsey has since made a quasi-apology for his decisions that compromised the “internet and society.” Dorsey was in charge and the buck stopped on his desk. His backpedaling doesn’t sell.

So, why did I go back to Twitter two weeks ago? On a gamble. That Musk firing 80% of Twitter’s workforce is about more than cost efficiency, but an attempt to change the enterprise’s culture. His releasing the Twitter files is another big step in trying to make transparent the flagrant abuses of what was supposed to be an open social media platform – a free speech platform that didn’t censor people because of their beliefs and politics, but only if there were actual threats of violence and intimidation directed at other members.

Twitter, at its best, was a free speech venue were diverse opinions were welcome and healthy clashes of opinion occurred.

I’m betting that Musk means to return Twitter to its original mission. If he does, I’ll stay. If he doesn’t, I’ll scram.

Time will tell, but let’s hope that Musk proves to be the real deal. Thoroughly reforming Twitter would blow a huge hole in the establishment’s attempt to destroy the 1st Amendment and gain a monolithic stranglehold on speech in America. Musk being true to his word is critical to freedom.

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Georgia GOP Playing Wrong Game in Warnock-Walker Runoff

By J Robert Smith

  • Dec. 3, 2022
  • 5-min read

If we could go “Back to the Future” in the 1990s, the likes of James Carville, George Stephanopoulos, and Paul Begala (Bill’s Clinton’s hired guns) would tell us that elections today are “About the ballots, stupid.” And, as much as conservative grassroots and Republicans detest hearing that, it’s true. Thanks to the infamous Covid lockdowns, changes made to election laws in the states, early voting and mail-in balloting have dramatically altered the elections landscape.

Democrats are gleefully stealing marches in mail-in voting, in particular. It’s a monumental tactical error for Republicans and Trump activists to urge voters to wait until Election Day to vote. Why? Because not all pro-Republican voters get out to vote, for various reasons. Democrats no longer try to persuade voters to vote. They’ve put in place systems to obtain their target voters’ ballots early.

Case in point, the Georgia U.S. Senate runoff between incumbent Ralph Warnock and Hershel Walker. The election finale is this Tuesday, December 6.

The betting is that Warnock has a slight edge because the instant Democrats were free to start extracting ballots from their voters, they did so. Not haphazardly, mind you, but systematically. It doesn’t appear that Georgia Republicans are doing anything comparable. That may prove fatal.

From ABC News, December 3:

Georgians swarmed to the polls on the last day of early voting before next week’s Senate runoff, setting a new record for single-day early in-person turnout.

At least 352,953 people voted in person on Friday, bringing the total number of votes, either in person or absentee, to over 1.8 million. That number represents 26.4% of active voters.

Of course, we can’t know for certain that more of those votes are Democrat or Republican ballots, but it appears the trend is repeating itself. Like the 2022 general elections in Georgia and elsewhere, Democrats are clocking the GOP in mail-in and early voting.

From CNN Politics, December 1:

So far in early voting, Black voters make up a little more than 33% of the electorate, while White voters account for 54%. At a roughly similar point in the general election based on the number of early votes cast, about 31% of voters were Black and about 57% were White.

This may seem like a small difference, but given the large partisan gap between Black and White voters, it suggests that those who have gone to the polls so far are more Democratic than at a similar point in the general election.

I should note that a number of Democratic counties opened up early in-person voting sooner than Republican-leaning counties. That said, voters in all Georgia counties have been able to cast a ballot for a number of days now, and the racial voting gap between the general election and runoff has not gone away.

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Two Reasons Why the Red Wave Wasn’t… and What Republicans can do about It

By J Robert Smith

  • Nov. 24, 2022
  • 3-min read

There’s more than a couple of reasons why the expected Red Wave didn’t happen. Here, we’re referring specifically to congressional elections. But there are two reasons that aren’t very sexy but most definitely blunted Republican gains. One is early voting and mail-in balloting.

The second, which pertains to U.S. House contests, is redistricting. Republicans actually won about 6 million more votes in House elections in 2022 than did Democrats. The trouble was that district lines were drawn in such ways that diluted GOP strengths.

Redistricting is mandated by the U.S. Constitution. It isn’t a sexy topic. In fact, it’s sort of wonky, but in redrawing U.S. House district lines in 2021, Republicans were either out maneuvered by Democrats or victims of “redistricting commissions.” That depends on how states decide the every ten years reapportionment of House seats. Democrats were definitely aggressive in New York and New Mexico, drawing lines that lopsidedly favored them. Surprisingly, the New York Supreme Court struck down the Democrats’ grossly gerrymandered map, replacing it with a map that actually allowed Republicans to gain seats. No such thing happened in New Mexico, where Democrats drew lines that cost the GOP the one seat it held.

We can add that the U.S. Census, which was conducted in 2020, undercounted population gains in some red states, while overcounting population in some blue states. That’s more than a little suspicious.

There’s no point into getting deep into the weeds about redistricting. The next round of redistricting happens in 2030, though the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a Civil Rights case about Alabama’s lines being racially discriminatory in early 2023. Nonetheless, the cake is baked.

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The Pennsylvania House Impeaches Philly DA Larry Krasner

By J Robert Smith

  • Nov. 17, 2022
  • 1-min read

Pennsylvania’s lame-duck House Republicans have impeached the awful, criminal-loving Philly DA Larry Krasner. Both his misfeasance and malfeasance as district attorney merit impeachment.

Per Fox 29, Philadelphia:

“Lawmakers voted 107-85 to impeach Krasner, setting the stage for what would be the first Pennsylvania Senate impeachment trial in nearly three decades. Republicans currently have a 29-21 majority in the state Senate, going to 28-22 early next year, and a two-thirds vote would be required to remove Krasner.”

Which means that because of Democrats, the Senate will never achieve a two-thirds vote to oust this shameless pro-criminal hack. Philly residents suffer from unsafe streets and crime victims continue to pile up because Krasner refuses to do his job and throw the book at hoods and thugs of all stripes. Who’s the bigger scumbag, a mugger or Krasner, who let’s bad guys walk?

Our sympathies always to crime victims, their families, and friends in Philly. Civilization in your city is breaking down because of a Democrat political elite that no longer has the character and moral rectitude to keep Philly streets safe. You deserve better, and all Philly citizens should demand better. Oh, vote out the debauched characters whose coddling of criminals or disregard for safety makes everyone in the “City of Brotherly Love” a potential crime victim. Start with that moronic windbag, Jim Kenney, your illustrious mayor.

Now, a mea culpa. In my last piece I wrote:

Blame atrocious, criminal-loving DAs like Philly’s Larry Krasner, who’s moral compass isn’t broken because he never had a compass to break. That creep should have been impeached by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. That won’t happened now. PA Republicans lost the House to Democrats for the first time in years. They lost because of the “No Questions” mail-in balloting that they helped enact. Thanks, Republicans, for helping keep Philly’s streets safe.

I got that wrong. Kudos to PA House Republicans for doing the right thing and issuing articles of impeachment before their 2022 session ends.

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In Philly, Crime Victims’ Families are Suing Gas Stations for Negligence

By J Robert Smith

  • Nov. 14, 2022
  • 3-min read

Crime continues to explode in the “City of Brotherly Love.” You name it. Assaults, murders, robberies, carjackings, gang shootouts in Philly’s mean streets. Philly is now the Wild West.

There are plenty of innocent victims. Families are grieving for loved ones who were killed. Victims suffered dumb luck: they happened to be in the wrong places at the wrong times.

Looks like robberies, carjackings, and shootings are on the upswing at Philly gas stations. Families of victims have decided to blame gas station owners for negligence.

Crime is getting so bad that a big c-store chain in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, Wawa, is curtailing store hours and closing stores in Philly. Continue to allow criminals to own Philly’s streets and the place will become a virtual ghost town. Businesses will shut in droves.

Reports the Philadelphia Inquirer, November 14:

While gas station owners say the uptick is simply a manifestation of Philadelphia’s broader gun-violence problem, the trend has caused several people who have been injured or lost loved ones to file negligence lawsuits. They say gas stations should have done more to protect patrons.

Again from the Inquirer article:

“I don’t think the public is aware of this because they may think of shootings usually happening at bars or nightclubs, certainly not at gas stations,” said lawyer David P. Thiruselvam, who has filed nine lawsuits against gas stations. “But it’s becoming an epidemic, and the gas station industry is aware of it because it’s in the news all the time. But they are not doing anything about it.”

Gas station owners aren’t doing anything about crime, says the trial attorney hunting for a big payday?

Set aside that gas stations are being victimized by Philly hoods, too. Since when is it the obligation of businesses to protect their patrons from criminals? Isn’t that the role of government?

Is Philly plagued by crime because business owners aren’t manning their establishments with armed guards? And if they did, imagine the lawsuits when guards gunned down thugs. Imagine the criminal felony charges that woke DAs would spin to nail not just the guards but the business owners for daring to protect their patrons and their properties.

Why is crime out of control in Philly? That isn’t hard to figure out.

Blame Democrats. Blame the “progressive” mindset that dominates policies and governance in not just Philadelphia but big cities across the country. Blame the “criminals are the real victims” view and the view that law enforcement (beat cops right up the chain) are the bad guys. Blame atrocious, criminal-loving DAs like Philly’s Larry Krasner, who’s moral compass isn’t broken because he never had a compass to break. That creep should have been impeached by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. That won’t happened now. PA Republicans lost the House to Democrats for the first time in years. They lost because of the “No Questions” mail-in balloting that they helped enact. Thanks, Republicans, for helping keep Philly’s streets safe.

Here’s the ancient, basic reason why government exists. Etch it in stone: Government exists to protect it’s citizens from harm… from predation by criminals or attack by foreign enemies. F.U.N.D.A.M.E.N.T.A.L. Not your local c-store… not your grocery store… not your neighborhood fast food hangout – GOVERNMENT.

When any government fails in this most basic duty, the people have a right to question why that government exists at all. And, whatever Democrats believe, government doesn’t exist to line their pockets and the pockets of the moochers who vote for them.

So, here’s the million-dollar question for the beleaguered citizens of Philadelphia: If your government can’t or won’t protect you, isn’t it high time to change your government?

Think about it… but not for too long.

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2022 Midterms: No Stink on the Republican Establishment?

By J Robert Smith

  • Nov. 13, 2022
  • 1-min read

Attacks on Donald Trump have begun in the aftermath of the midterm elections. We should have set our watches. Washington’s Republican establishment is pushing the line that the GOP’s underperformance in the midterms is “100%” Trump’s fault. Of course, there’s no stink on D.C. Republicans — not Kevin McCarthy, not Mitch McConnell, not Ronna McDaniel, not Tom Emmer (chairman, RNCC), not GOP consultants and pollsters… Not on any Republican who hangs out at the Capitol Hill Club.

Conservatives shouldn’t be goaded into a Trump versus DeSantis fight. Trump and DeSantis shouldn’t permit themselves to be baited, either. It’s so transparent, it’s laughable. That’s exactly what the establishment is trying. Washington Republicans don’t intend to just knock out Trump, but split conservatives. Is that rank odor wafting through the air from Karl Rove and Jeb! lurking behind the curtains?

Read the full article at American Thinker. Follow this link. Thanks.

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Oz Beats Fetterman?
Well, there’s a Catch

By J Robert Smith

  • Oct. 20, 2022
  • 2-min read

Newsweek reports that Dr. Mehmet Oz is expected to slide past stroke victim and knee-jerk leftist John Fetterman for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat.

From the Newsweek report, October 20:

An analysis by Real Clear Politics (RCP), based on opinion polling adjusted to take account of past inaccuracies, projects Oz will win Pennsylvania by 1.9 percent of the vote.

That’s welcome news, except there’s a variable that isn’t being considered: mail-in voting fraud. Pennsylvania is a “No Questions” mail-in balloting state. That means fraud isn’t only possible, but likely. What it’ll boil down to is the scope of the fraud. Will it be sufficient to tip election outcomes?

The Keystone State has made scant reforms to its election system since 2020. Republicans control the legislature and have advanced election reform measures, only to have them struck down by Tom Wolfe, PA’s lameduck Democrat governor.

There’s every reason to believe that a critical, high profile Senate election will be prone to ballot hijinks. Shifting control of the U.S. Senate away from Democrats (Vice President Kamala Harris holds the tie-breaking vote) means a switch of just one seat. So, the stakes are high. The PA contest may decide which party runs the Senate in 2023.

Unfortunately, there’s a back story. Pennsylvania legislative Republicans created this mess. In 2019, many months before the Covid pandemic began, Republicans cut a deal with Wolfe. In exchange for wide-open mail-in balloting and really early voting, straight-ticket voting would be struck from ballots.

Republicans actually thought that they’d benefit from ending straight-ticket voting, while, evidently, not considering what “No Questions” mail-in voting could lead to. It was an asinine deal then that proved disastrous in 2020. The presidential contest was fraught with “irregularities.” Since then, Republicans have tried to walk back this epic stupid deal. Needless to say, Democrats have no interest in reform.

Oz needs more than a 1.9% margin to beat Fetterman. Election fraud – ballot fraud, in particular – thrives on close elections. The greater the margin between a Republican who leads voting and a Democrat, the tougher it is for Democrats to produce enough fraudulent ballots.

Fetterman is physically and mentally incapable of meeting the daily demands of a U.S. Senator. But, then, Joe Biden was and is unable to meet the demands of the presidency. Yet, in key states – critically, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania — Biden won… with a little help from Democrats and their allies who have no interest in fair elections when they cut against their candidates.

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The GOP is the “Reasonable” Party on Abortion

By Rob Meyne

  • Oct. 13, 2022
  • 3-min read

The decisions issued in June by the Supreme Court are, collectively, about as important a collection as we have seen in decades. The most notable, and most relevant to conservative Constitutionalists, is of course the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

When a major decision is issued, especially one that impacts the laws of the fifty states and DC, it can take time for the effects of it to work their way through the system. Many state laws will remain unchanged while some will fine-tune them as a result of the decision. In fact, in several states, it happened automatically, as they had trigger laws that went into effect because of the ruling.

It is important to recognize, up front, that abortion is among the most contentious issues in America. Yet a look at the opinions of Americans shows there is actual common ground. In addition, the people overwhelmingly reject the position of Democratic leaders.

The Democratic position on abortion today is that there should be no restrictions on it. None. Women (if you can define the term) should be able to kill their babies through the ninth month, for any reason or no reason. Biden says so, apparatchiks like Stacey Abrams say so, and so do 49 out of 50 Democratic senators who voted for a bill that would eliminate all restrictions on abortion. About ninety percent of Americans oppose that view.

Yet, the prevailing narrative is that the GOP is the extreme party. Nonsense. Republicans have an opportunity to demonstrate they are the party closest to the American mainstream.

Those of us who believe life is sacred, begins at conception, and should be defended are often not satisfied with partial victories. The reversal of Roe was a huge “win” for those who value life. It is also true that there is still work to be done as we manage state laws moving forward. It is worth asking what, if any, concessions ought to be made to build consensus with those who believe abortion should be legal but not available through nine months.

As outlined here, third-trimester abortions do happen, and often for the same kind of reasons people get abortions earlier, and relatively rarely to save the life of the mother. There is a lot of survey data on abortion, but one summary, here, is typical. A majority think abortion should be legal in some situations while also opposing it in the final trimester. Another survey shows 75% of us favor limiting abortion to the first trimester. Again, most of America does not support the Democratic position.

There is a good piece, here, that fairly summarizes a position that has a lot of merit. It spells out a strategy would do a lot of help position the GOP as reasonable and compassionate on this issue.

As is so often the case with difficult issues, the most extreme positions on abortion don’t help us to find common ground. Polls show huge majorities of Americans believe abortion should be legal in the first trimester but not the third. They also believe incidents like rape and incest should be considered separately, as should cases where the health of the mother is endangered.

Putting aside for a moment the question of whether conservatives should EVER compromise on issues of life, there is a strong argument to be made that the pro-life movement benefits when we don’t let the perfect, in this case, be the enemy of the good.

It is fair to say most of us probably never actually thought Roe would be reversed, in our lifetimes. Now that is has happened, it provides conservatives a once in a generation opportunity to reach out the persuadable, middle of the road, however small or mythical it may be.

No political battle is ever final, as the reversal of Roe shows us. Today, those who value life can celebrate tremendous progress. At some point, all elective abortion may be illegal. Today, conservatives can “take the win” and demonstrate compassion and reasonableness as we look to the future and adjust to life without Roe.

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The Herschel Walker Smear

By J Robert Smith

  • Oct. 10, 2022
  • 4-min read

Democrats operate by a simple dictum: If one of their candidates may lose, smear the Republican opponent.  And if that doesn’t cut it, cheat.  Or do both, just to play it safe.

Herschel Walker is the recipient of a Democrat sneak attack.  That’s because he’s running neck-and-neck with a tainted U.S. senator, the Rev. Ralph Warnock.  The smears made against Walker are called “October Surprises.”

Sandbagging Walker isn’t much of surprise, actually.  Walker is a football legend in Georgia.  His college career with the Bulldogs made him so.  He’s public about his embrace of Christianity and doesn’t hesitate to admit that he’s made his share of mistakes over the years and, yes, sinned.  But as the Rev. Warnock should know, Christians make no bones about their sinfulness.  Some of the greatest sinners became the greatest Christians.  The Apostle Paul is the preeminent example of a bad man gone very good through his encounter with Jesus Christ and his repentance.

So, like the rest of us, Walker is a flawed man, but the smears leveled against him are lies.  Walker flat-out denies that he impregnated a past girlfriend and paid for her abortion.  The allegation stinks of an election-motivated gambit. 

Said Florida senator Rick Scott (who should be the next GOP Senate leader, not sold-out Mitch McConnell) , Newsweek, October 4:

Senator Rick Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, defended GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker amid his latest controversy and suggested that Walker was up against the same “smear machine” that targeted Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas.

Coincidence that on the eve of Kavanaugh’s and Thomas’ confirmation hearings that they were slammed with uncorroborated accusations of sexual misconduct?  Now, just weeks before the November election, Walker is being slapped with a charge that he paid for an abortion?

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