You’re Living in a Different World Than Everyone Else

By Rob Meyne

  • May 20, 2023
  • 4-min read

If you ever feel like you are living in a different world than your friends, neighbors, or work mates, it is because you are. We may reside on the same planet, but the specifics that make up our “worlds” are distinct in infinite ways.

Our opinions on political issues are often in conflict because they are based on a completely different understanding of the facts. It is hard to overstate how much this contributes to national division.

Constructive policy can be developed through collaboration and compromise. But it is difficult to do that when you don’t even agree on the facts. Since we’re not making decisions based on a common, agreed upon set of data, it is inevitable there will be huge disagreements.

A variety of dynamic factors have led to this.

For one, the way we get information has changed more dramatically in the past two decades than at any time since a guy named Guttenberg was doing his thing. Newspapers, broadcast TV, and radio are still around, but their influence is waning. Cable and streaming services exert tremendous influence, as do podcasts, social media, and various subscription services.

Mainstream “corporate” media is still powerful, but its role has been largely usurped by digital communications that are accessible wirelessly. This diversification in communications – the way information is conveyed – is unprecedented and getting more complex.

Two, governmental agencies, mainstream media, tech companies, political organizations, and NGOs are very good at coordinating their activities, suppressing speech, and promoting only those messages that meet their preferred narratives. If you don’t believe this, spend ten minutes looking at the “Twitter Files.” It is no longer deniable that the CIA, FBI, and even the Democratic National Committee are able to censor stories on Twitter and other platforms on an ongoing basis.

As artificial intelligence gets more pervasive, it will become the source of editorial direction that impacts everything we see. It will make it easier to censor even accurate information long before it has a chance to enter your newsfeed or inbox.

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If You Think the Parties Are the Same, Look Again

By Rob Meyne

  • May 9, 2023
  • 4-min read

Whose side are they on?

It is often argued there is little or no difference between America’s two major political parties. In all honesty, if you say there is NO difference between two options you are uninformed or lying. There most certainly are differences. The issue is how important are they?

The bottom line is this: the differences between the two parties are both few and essential. Yes, in many ways, each party is depressing and like the other. However, it is the few areas of distinction that make one party worthy of tentative support and the other deserving of unending derision.

As we’ve observed previously, the biggest factor that makes both party organizations distasteful is that they are composed of … wait for it … people. Many people are lovely and admirable, but far too many are corrupt, undependable, and narcissistic. And those are their GOOD qualities! 😊

All humans are to some extent dishonest. That’s like saying water is wet, the sun is bright, and Al Gore is boring. So how much sense does it make to clutch our pearls and whine about how our institutions have failed us when we know organizations are fundamentally flawed, from the start, because flawed humans are in charge of them?

Those who perennially throw up their hands in desperation and say “there is no one to vote for” are lamentably honest IF they are looking for perfect people to support. And if you’re looking for them, just stop it, please. You’re going to be disappointed.

People who are disappointed in political choices strike me as folks who don’t know much about life in general. What area of life offers you perfect choices? Do you have the perfect job, spouse, kids, house, car, or church? (I have a perfect wife, of course, but most don’t.) Most of life’s choices present us with alternatives between imperfect options. So what? They can still be marvelous. Perfection isn’t a necessary predicate for most of life. It makes no sense to expect it ONLY from government.

That doesn’t mean we don’t get to be disappointed. Of course we do. Anyone who wishes we had “better choices” has a lot in common with most of us. Who doesn’t? But focusing on primarily the negative aspect of candidates and parties isn’t likely to lead us to a better place.

Neither party is perfect. That is not the same thing as saying they are equal. They are not. The way our system is supposed to work is that people vote for a candidate that pledges to do things we want them to. We were never expected to vote for someone who we enjoy hanging out with, who we would like to see date our sister, or who you would hire to mow your lawn. We’re supposed to care about the policies that determine our quality of life and the future of our nation. And we’re supposed to vote for the people or party that support the policies that we do. It isn’t that complicated. Yet we act like we either can’t figure that out or care more about a person’s looks, personality, or tweeting habits than we do the well-being of the country.

But back to this: yes, the Republicans suck, but the Democrats suck even more. If that seems like a weak campaign slogan, it is. There are differences, even if neither party has earned your support. The parties are not the same, but the world looks different under Democratic leadership in 2023 than it did under Republican leadership in 2020. If you don’t see that, again, you just aren’t living on the same planet as we are.

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New York City … Or the Rotting Apple

By J Robert Smith

  • April 4, 2023
  • 2-min read

New York City was once celebrated as the “Big Apple.” Frank Sinatra sang about it. Small town and farm boys and girls dreamt about moving to NYC and making their marks. As Old Blue Eyes crooned, “If you can make there, you can make it anywhere, New York, New York”…

It used to be that the Bronx was notorious for poverty, crime, and squalor, but thanks to progressive Democrats (are there any other kind?), New York and it’s boroughs have become sumps of homelessness and crime. Under Giuliani and Bloomberg, Manhattan – midtown, anyway – was safe to walk at night. Midtown, then, was family-friendly. But who walks Manhattan at night, anywhere, particularly alone? Bring families?

Things started going downhill for the now Rotting Apple with the election of Warren Wilhelm Jr, aka, Bill de Blasio. De Blasio, the “social justice warrior,” who started to make lawbreakers and hardened criminals into victims. Who started to tight-leash the once-vaunted NYPD. Warren started turning NYC into a version of the dystopic novel, A Clockwork Orange, where the thugs, murderers, and rapists owned the streets, especially nights.

After Warren, New York voters, in their infinite wisdom, elected Eric Adams mayor. One is hard-pressed to decide which of the two is the dumber progressive box-checker. Since de Blasio has faded into the woodwork – for the time being – and Adams currently holds the office, we’ll say Adams, because he’s The Guy, who, along with every other office-holding progressive Democrat in NYC, is driving New York into the ground.

While Adams pushes pot smoking on the late night shows and laughs it up with cronies, nights, at some of New York’s finer eateries and watering holes (Adams has a security detail, so he doesn’t have to worry about burgeoning street crime), all sorts of New Yorkers have to watch their backs for attacks and/or being accosted by homeless looking for a buck… Or having to play dodge ’em on city sidewalks. Dodge the piles of human feces or vomit and puddles of urine. Oh, and syringes, because shooting up in the streets ain’t so bad anymore in the Rotting Apple.

Trump’s indictment by New York’s other big dolt, Manhattan District Attorney, Fat Alvin Bragg, merely underscores New York’s growing reputation as a Third World banana republic. Not only is Bragg a Soros tool, who obediently follows the script handed to him by letting off hardened criminals to terrorize New Yorkers – the old, disabled, poor, and disproportionately people “of color” (black-on-black crime is soaring). After all, when you think of Rio, what do you think of other than its annual decadent Carnival? Scads of government corruption, impotent or bribed cops, widespread filth, rampant crime, open-air drug markets, and plenty of real victims.

Rio is where the Rotting Apple is heading – without the flare of Carnival, unless St, Paddy’s Day is thoroughly debauched by “progressive” New Yorkers. Don’t bet against that.

If you don’t think that New York can’t be reduced to has-been status, take a look at Detroit. Detroit was once a thriving, world-class manufacturing powerhouse. Over the course of two short decades – the 60s and 70s – Detroit was reduced to the wreck it is today. It’s never recovered. It may never, ever recover. Does the same fate await NYC?

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There Are Two Sexes, not 498,304,840

By Rob Meyne

  • Feb. 9, 2023
  • 3-min read

If twenty-five years ago you had been able to peer into the future and see what we would be debating in 2023, you probably would not have believed it. Today we are divided on questions for which there are clear, logical, scientific, and common-sense answers. Yet for reasons of woke ideology and political correctness, we pretend there are not.

Anyone who says we have lost our collective minds can make a decent case for it.

A concomitant problem is that we do ourselves, and our progeny, a disservice by spending so much time talking about things that are manifestly less important to our collective future than many other issues that go unattended. No wonder so many younger people think they are justified in focusing on their personal problems — is someone using the wrong pronoun? — rather than concentrating on building knowledge and skills that will help them become happy and successful.

We spend scarce time and resources quibbling about what is the right pronoun to use for a specific individual, but surprisingly little collective attention is devoted to an open southern border, skyrocketing fentanyl deaths, or crippling inflation.

One of the issues that seems to be a top priority for the federal leviathan, media, and the politically correct crowd is gender identification. If there were ever questions that have obvious answers, but millions bend over backwards to ignore them, it is them. Let us offer a few points.

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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:

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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?

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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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