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By Salena Zito
ERIE, Pa. — Every election cycle in America, plenty of people will decide, for one reason or another, not to show up to vote. Their reasons often vary. They may not like either candidate's personality or may not feel either candidate represents their views — or they just don't think the government will change, no matter who is in power.
Sometimes, however, they make that decision based on cues from someone who they believe has their and the country's best interests at heart, somehow thinking that by abstaining from voting, they are sending a message. In the heat of the moment, though, they forget the real-life consequences of elections.
In January 2021, around 400,000 Georgia Republicans decided to stay home and do just that, with most of them freely admitting they were deterred from voting by then-President Donald Trump's insistence that the 2020 elections in Georgia were "illegal and invalid." Consequently, they doubted, even if they showed up, that the state's election system would produce valid results.
It was a decision that gave the Democrats control of the U.S. Senate in addition to the White House and the House of Representatives. By now, Republican voters are painfully aware of that Democratic power monopoly, particularly after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., struck a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to create a new tax-hiking bill on climate change.
For some reason, the press and the Democrats anticipate that the bill's passage will motivate Democratic voters to show up and get independents and centrist Republicans back on their side — much in the same way they foolishly speculated that the passage of Obamacare was going to save Democrats from a midterm catastrophe in 2010. Instead, Democrats caused their own political catastrophe, with Republicans sweeping to power in Congress that year.
So, what about this November?
The answer lies not on Twitter or in strategy Zoom calls or on a keyboard in a newsroom but instead is found in the towns and the suburbs across America — and, in particular, here in Pennsylvania.
The answer also lies in the psyche of the voters — in particular, Republican voters: Do the Pennsylvania Republican voters want to be known as equivalent to the Georgia voters of 2021, not showing up because their guy or gal didn't win the primary?
Ask Georgia Republican voters, and they will tell you they regret that decision and loathe the consequences.
Ask a Pennsylvania Republican voter, and they will tell you unequivocally no.
Currently, FiveThirtyEight's forecast model has Democratic nominee John Fetterman as a 67% favorite to win the Senate race in Pennsylvania, though actual polls show Fetterman at 50% to Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz's 46.8%. That number may soon be changing, though, based on two things: voters starting to understand that Fetterman isn't the blue-collar guy his image suggests, and Pennsylvania Republicans not wanting to be like the Georgia Republican voters of 2021.
Voters are also raising concerns about Fetterman's health after his stroke earlier this year — but they do so quietly.
Fetterman, for his part, has spent his time on Twitter, largely because of the impact his stroke has had on a number of his sensory abilities, and adopted a take-no-prisoners Twitter persona similar to Trump's that has effectively driven up Oz's negativity.
Fetterman has also run ads cut before his stroke — again, very Trump-like — that discuss his decision to move to the tiny town of Braddock and run for mayor so he could improve the town. It's a constant claim that should motivate the national and local press to dig in to see if he did indeed improve Braddock.
A drive along Braddock Avenue from one end to the other may lead some to doubt the notion.
When Fetterman became mayor in 2006, the population of the once-booming Mon Valley city, whose heyday was over 50 years ago, was 2,159. When he left 13 years later to become lieutenant governor, that number had dipped 20 percentage points to 1,721, with most residents living in poverty. The median income is a paltry $22,000.
Everyone knows the gritty stories Fetterman tells and knows about wife Gisele's impressive "Free Store" along Braddock Avenue — but few tell the rest of the story.
Crime rose, not fell, when Fetterman was mayor, with hikes in property crimes, thefts, robberies and assaults. The center of the community, not just for jobs but also for socialization, Braddock Hospital, was torn down, and while a brewery and a high-end restaurant were brought in, one has since closed down and the other barely stays open four days a week. Both were too expensive for the people in Braddock to afford.
Last week, the Philadelphia Inquirer revealed that Fetterman, whose York County family is wealthy, had lived off his parents' money from 2006 to 2019, indicating that his blue-collar image is largely manufactured.
This week, Fetterman is set to headline his first rally in Erie, the politically fickle county he says is the center of the Senate race. In 2016, it gave Trump its vote; it voted for then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020; and last year, for the first time in decades, the entire county voted Republican for county executive.
It is a county that Oz has visited relentlessly, at business roundtables, diners, festivals and drop-ins walking through the towns — visits that never make the national or local news but, like the 130-plus stops he made across the state last month, count in earning voters' support.
Oz's challenge isn't Oz himself, and it isn't even Trump. It is the mystique surrounding Fetterman that the press has created that has turned him into a folk hero. But the answer lies in the voters who must decide whom they want to have the power in November. If they vote on putting the brakes on the Democrats' policies, it will be Oz, but if they are going for imagery, it will be Fetterman.
Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. She reaches the Everyman and Everywoman through shoe-leather journalism, traveling from Main Street to the beltway and all places in between. To find out more about Salena and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
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A lesson on how not to do it: https://www.visualcapitalist.
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Suckers at the Casbah: America Getting Played Again by Iran
JNS.org – Some people are surprised that the terror regime in Iran has been more conciliatory of late in the negotiations to return to the 2015 nuclear deal. Because the process has taken so long, they assumed that the mullahs were serious, rather than bluffing, with their prolonged intransigence.
It’s only when the West recently held their ground that the mullahs softened their demands and made a deal closer at hand. Why? Because the mullahs need the moolah.
The nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, provides billions in sanctions relief to Iran in return for Iran committing—for a limited time– not to advance its nuclear program.
From the beginning, critics have attacked this formula as being, essentially, a lot of money for a lot of nothing.
First, the idea of trusting a regime that has shown over the years a genius for chronic cheating is dubious at best and folly at worst.
But even in a best-case scenario where the mullahs don’t cheat, they just need to wait a few years until the sunset clauses kick in. By then, they will have every right to build a nuclear bomb and hold it over Israel’s and the world’s head. In the meantime, nothing in the deal hampers their terror activities.
Suckers at the Casbah, indeed.
What Western negotiators, most notably the Biden administration, have missed is that nuclear concessions are only a cover for what the Iranians really want, which is money, and lots of it. The nuclear bomb can wait for the sunset clause. For now, there is more terror to spread and more Jews to kill.
We know that Iran is the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terror. We know that it uses its proxy armies in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen to wreak havoc across the region. We know that it seeks not accommodation but regional domination. We know that it wants to wipe Israel off the map.
And of course, we know that maintaining this enormous terror machinery takes a lot of money, and that the sanctions have sucked up plenty of it.
What has changed is Iran’s level of chutzpah.
There’s no longer even a tiny pretense to hide its evil ways. Just this week, in the midst of finalizing a deal that would free up hoards of cash, it had the nerve to trot out the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Salami, to lay out for Fars News its future strategy to wage war against the Jewish state.
As reported on Aug. 20 in The Jerusalem Post, Salami is salivating at the prospect of a multi-front war against Israel. Here’s just a sliver from the Fars report:
“When you add Lebanon’s Hezbollah to this equation, you realize that, for example, hundreds of thousands of rockets are arrayed in front of the Zionist regime, and these can be fired from the north and west in the Gaza Strip and in the north, from Hezbollah’s side, but not in a limited volume—[to] make all the points of the Zionist regime the point of fire.”
This is the terror regime that the Biden administration is preparing to empower. Have they asked themselves: If Iran is spreading so much terror now, how much more will it spread with more billions at hand?
The alternative to a lousy deal is not war but sabotage. The United States and Israel have the capabilities to covertly obstruct Iran’s nuclear program indefinitely. While this happens, the US needs to impose more sanctions, not lift those that are already in place.
The first step is for the US to walk out of the Casbah, and not return when the mullahs run after them.
David Suissa is editor-in-chief and publisher of Tribe Media Corp and the “Jewish Journal.” He can be reached at davids@jewishjournal.com.
This article was originally published by Jewish Journal.
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I am not a criminal I just do not enforce the law:
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Philly DA Larry Krasner says a Pa. House subpoena aimed at his office is ‘illegal’ and ‘anti-democratic’
Krasner said the subpoena — issued earlier this month by a Pennsylvania House of Representatives committee investigating his office — was “wholly illegitimate.”
By Chris Palmer
Philadephia District Attorney Larry Krasner said his office will not comply with subpoaenas issued by a legislative committee investigating his policies and practices, calling the probe a political stunt.
Philadephia District Attorney Larry Krasner said his office will not comply with subpoaenas issued by a legislative committee investigating his policies and practices, calling the probe a political stunt.Read moreTYGER WILLIAMS / Staff Photographer
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said his office will not comply with a subpoena issued by the state legislative committee searching for grounds to impeach him — calling the probe “illegal,” “anti-democratic” and politically motivated.
In an interview Tuesday, Krasner said the subpoena — issued earlier this month by a Pennsylvania House of Representatives committee investigating his office — was a “wholly illegitimate” attempt by the Republican-controlled chamber to undermine the will of Philadelphians who voted for him and his reform-oriented policies.
“This is a fraud,” Krasner said, adding: “They don’t get to choose [Philadelphia’s] leadership.”
Attorneys for Krasner said in a letter to the committee Monday that its efforts “repudiate the law of this Commonwealth” and “serve no valid legislative purpose,” among other criticism. As a result, they said, Krasner’s office “will not search for or produce any documents” in response to the subpoena.
“We’re not going to legitimize an illegal process,” Krasner said.
The maneuver marked the latest development in the effort to impeach Krasner, and was all-but-certain to heighten the political and legal fight playing out in the Capitol. House Republicans moved to investigate the possibility of impeachment earlier this year over what they called Krasner’s “dereliction of duty” in addressing Philadelphia’s gun violence crisis.
Committee members did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
The committee was formed in July and tasked with investigating, reviewing, and drafting a report on Krasner’s tenure amid a rise in violent crime in Philadelphia. It came after some House Republicans, most from outside the city, criticized the DA as failing to sufficiently prosecute crime at a time when the city is facing a record-setting shooting crisis. Krasner has rejected that assertion and defended his tenure.
» READ MORE: Pa. House to investigate Philly DA Larry Krasner’s office as Republicans hunt for impeachable offenses
State Rep. John Lawrence, a Republican who represents parts of Chester and Lancaster Counties, was named chairperson. Fellow Republicans Wendi Thomas, of Bucks County, and Torren Ecker, of Adams and Cumberland Counties, were also appointed, as were two Philadelphia Democrats: Amen Brown and Danilo Burgos.
Brown and Burgos initially voted against the committee’s formation but later said they welcomed an examination of gun violence in the city.
» READ MORE: Committee to investigate DA Larry Krasner’s office has been selected, and work will now begin
Krasner, a Democrat, said Tuesday he believed the committee’s intention was not to explore crime or criminal justice. Instead, he said, he expected Republicans to use the process to attack him during an election cycle — while also threatening to remove an elected official over partisan differences.
“I can hardly imagine anything more anti-democratic and more authoritarian than people who do not even live in Philly throwing out Philadelphia’s elected officials after a free and fair election,” Krasner said.
Impeachment has been rarely used in Pennsylvania. To succeed, the state House would have to approve the proposal by a majority vote, and the state Senate would then hold a trial, after which a conviction would require a two-thirds vote.
The last time an elected official was convicted by the state Senate was in 1994, when former state Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen was found to have improperly discussed cases with a Pittsburgh attorney.
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The Woman Who Launched the FBI Ransacking of Mar-a-Lago
Donald Trump is the victim of a...
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An absolutely disgraceful act.
https://thefederalist.com/2022
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