Patriotism, Hockey, and Democrats

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

I have to admit something that will definitely get me canceled in Democratic circles- I find Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.” In fact, I find gratuitous acts of patriotism to be fun. I was celebrating outside of the White House the night Osama Bin Laden was killed with thousands of other young Americans. I was cheering for both Alysa Liu and the Men’s Hockey team at the Olympics. In fact, I generally support America on almost everything. This does not mean I don’t know or care about Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears, Japanese Internment camps, slavery, or any of the other atrocities committed by our nation. It does not mean I wasn’t a protestor during the Iraq War. Far from. In fact, I see no problem with blasting “Free Bird” and acknowledging our problems, even in the era of Trump.

In our currently “black and white” era of politics, there are folks who think picking sides is an absolute. You’re either team AOC or team Vance, period. This extends to the point of an Olympic hockey team, because a.) a majority of them are either conservative or politically disengaged, and b.) they’re white men. Yeah, Kash Patel is a weirdo, and yeah, Trump’s joke about the women’s team was piss poor, but if that’s what you took away from the Olympic Hockey Final, or if you were arguing about Alyssa Liu’s (liberal) politics against people that wanted to re-cast her as simply an anti-communist crusader (she’s both liberal and a tremendous symbol against communism), you kind of missed the point. We don’t watch sports to get political commentary. I think many of us are well aware that the athletes playing on the television have political views like the rest of us, they’re people. You can’t possibly watch what’s going on with ICE in America and *not* have an opinion on it of some kind. The point is that yes, it actually doesn’t matter when I’m watching a hockey game. People are not wired to functionally live in a constant war with their fellow citizens like this. It’s weird. Most people think it’s weird. Trying to force it turns off way, way more people than it attracts.

I get that many people on the American left-of-center side are worried that this will be our final President and that our current state is permanent, and so they think the only choice is to fight on every battlefield, all day, everyday. I do not share that sentiment. I believe Trump will lose the House of Representatives in November and his Presidency will practically end. I do believe we will elect a new President in 2028, regardless of who it is. I don’t think a bunch of hockey players visiting the White House after they win a Gold Medal threatens that. I’m sorry, I think this is a fight and argument that generally makes the left look a lot less appealing to unradicalized normies who actually will decide who that new President is. So I think this was stupid.

Btw, I wrote this in the time it took me to listen to “Free Bird,” “American Girl,” and “American Idiot.” Not bad.

Crooksy and Republican Crosswell’s Impending Nuclear War

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Well, we’re like three months or so from Pennsylvania Primary Day. Republican Ryan Crosswell and Bob “Crooksy” Brooks have the most money in the PA-7 race. Crosswell is fraudulent. Crooksy is the biggest fraud in the field. Now we know that Crosswell was the source of most of the negatives on Crooksy too. Both men are virtual unknowns. Both know that only one of them has a shot to take off in this race. The only question is who bites who first? If you ever wanted to watch a scorpion fight, you’re in luck with this race.

Here’s the thing, a lot of people are going to opine for everyone to stay positive. That’s not an option here. Crooksy can’t afford to not hit Crosswell. Crosswell has more money than he does, and if he gets to tell his made up story of standing up to Trump first and people buy into it, Crooksy will have no oxygen to rise in this race. Crosswell can’t afford to not hit Crooksy either. If Crooksy has the Governor lie to people and tell them that he’s a good Democrat and good person, Crosswell won’t be able to pry those votes back from him, no matter what he says. Both need to hit the other, and both need to do so before minds are made up. Both start out with no base of votes, and need to find people gullible enough to buy into their fictional stories about their lives. If one beats the other to the punch, the ball game may be over. If they both go positive? Well whoever feels like they’re behind will need to absolutely tear the other to the ground to have any chance to win.

Both of these guys have never run for office before. Both are entirely creations of a DC consultant class that is trying to drive the Democratic Party off of a cliff right now. Their high priced spin masters will probably tell them that going negative is too dangerous, and blah blah blah. That will only hold for a little while. There is no way both of these two can build themselves up from nothing. Eventually one of them has to start firing the very obvious opposition research that is out there on both. These are two very objectionable people and it would be malpractice to run a campaign where you don’t inform the public of how fraudulent the other is. If they don’t do it to each other, who will? No one else can come in with that kind of heft and define these guys for who they are.

I Didn’t Need to Watch the State of the Union to Know What It Is.

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I’m pretty happy I didn’t watch Trump’s State of the Union last night, unlike many of you who read this blog. From what I gather, he gave the longest speech in history, for the second straight year. Yeah, no thanks. Honestly, listening to this guy ramble for hours about how wonderful he is and how great things are is bad for your mental health. You lose brain cells and you might even be tempted to respond to him. There is no point to that. You are persuading no one by arguing about him. You are also not debating a normal politician. If job growth is tepid at best, he’ll tell you he created a billion jobs. Facts and figures don’t matter. For the most part you’re not debating any sort of actual policy. He talks about immigration for instance, and his chaos in the streets policies to deport illegal people here are less effective than Clinton and Obama simply taking people out of prisons who were arrested for crimes and were here illegally. The guy finds a way to even do things that people want in the dumbest way possible, and there’s no point acting like he’s anything but an ignoramus. The people voted for him, and they’ve got him for four years, if they still want to watch, go on ahead. My guess is the ratings were piss poor.

I also don’t watch for all the other theatrics that go on in the room. Honestly, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court, and the Congress are three loathsome institutions at this point, filled with strange people and strange ideas that aren’t doing much good for the public. I don’t need to watch Democratic members who did go yell at the President so they can get their 20 seconds on TV and raise money off of it by text message later. While Trump may be the center piece of decline in that room, let’s not pretend the rest of the room are not complicit in their own ways for reducing our country to a carnival side show. Congress has become successively worse over the last 30 years at doing anything beyond basic appropriations bills to fund stuff they want to do, and even then they often times fail to do it on time and end up shutting down the government. Our current Congress is among the least productive in the history of man kind, a symbol of failure in Western society that deserves scorn from all angles. Even when someone proposes something broadly popular and supported from all sides, you’re lucky if you can get it a vote, let alone pass it through both houses. And the court? They created our current mess. We won’t waste more words on them.

So how is our country doing? Health care, housing, and food all cost too much, and they are all things that are essential to our survival as human beings. We’re actively rolling back protections for our air, water, soil, and food, poisoning the Earth we live on in the name of what? I don’t know, let’s just say profits. Our government is dysfunctional. Our economy is not meeting the public’s needs. Our people are fighting on social media over nonsense. Yeah, we’re doing great. The state of our union is “stronger than ever.” This is just what Americans died in wars for, right?

We’re a shitshow. And if you watched it, that was on display. Me? I had nothing to do last night, but I was too busy for that.

The Tree Fell in the Forest and Absolutely No One Heard It- Tiburcio Elected to Represent Allentown in Harrisburg

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First, the good news- Ana Tiburcio won in the 22nd House District last night. Democrats keep their 102-101 majority. The Mayor, County Executive, and entire state legislative delegation all don’t wear egg for supporting the candidate. Not only did she win, but she won big. She got 67.28% of the vote. In other words, Bob Smith got a lower percentage than he did in 2022’s race. It was a blowout. Allentown’s Latino majority population now has a Latina State Representative, which is how it should normally be.

Now, the bad news- absolutely not a ****ing soul voted in that God forsaken election. I’m not kidding. 6.9% turned out to vote in this thing. Had Smith got the 3,662 votes he got in 2022, or if he had even got half the votes he got in that election, he would have defeated Tiburcio by a fairly comfortable margin and flipped the state house. 2,249 people out of 32,737 registered voters voted in this election. An election to empower someone to vote on your schools, roads, police, firemen, zoning laws, and literally basically every part of your every day life wasn’t intriguing enough for people.

Such is life on “Planet Allentown,” I guess. I’m not sure a vote total this low makes me think Representative-elect Tiburcio can beat Ce-Ce Gerlach, but now she’ll have at least a few weeks to get a check from every lobbyist in Harrisburg. Also, rumor has it that something “disqualifying” is going to be put out into the public about Gerlach, and my guess is we’ll get that in the next month or two. Gerlach has a base of support though, and I’m not sure the powers that be can dissuade her support, or for that matter beat it. This race will be very interesting to watch.

Perhaps a slightly different read here though- yes, Allentown has a recent history of poor turnout in elections, but are numbers this low emblematic of something greater in the air? 6.9% turnout suggests that people are not nearly as enthusiastic to vote as many people think. Now, the 2025 elections produced astronomical turnout, and perhaps that tells us more. Or perhaps it doesn’t. It’s brutally difficult to watch the news right now, and watching it doesn’t excite anyone. I guess we’ll find out where people’s heads are at in May.

Your World Last Week, 2/24

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Have you dug out of the snow yet? I guess that depends where you are. In a rare snow event, you’re better off in Mt. Pocono after this weekend than you are in Cape May. New Jersey got a blizzard. Here in the Lehigh Valley, the storm underperformed. Go figure.

The Olympics are now over. Pop quiz, let’s see people find Milan and Cortina on a map now. Last week I listed the Gold Medalists through that point, so today let me finish the U.S. Medalists list. Mikaela Shiffrin won Gold in the women’s slalom event. Elana Meyers Taylor won Gold in the women’s monobob bobsled event. In the two-woman bobsled, Lailie Armbruster Humphries and Jasmine Jones won the Bronze. Armbruster Humphries added a Bronze in the women’s monobob event. Ben Ogden and Gus Schumacher won the Silver in the men’s cross-country skiing team sprint. Alyssa Liu won the Gold in the women’s figure skating event. The freestyle skiing mixed aerials team of Connor Curran, Kaila Kuhn, and Christopher Lillis won the Gold. Alex Ferreira won the gold in the men’s halfpipe event. Mac Forehand won the Silver in the men’s freestyle big air event. Corrine Stoddard won a Bronze in the 1500m short track skating race. Jake Canter won a Bronze in the men’s snowboard slopestyle event. Jordan Stolz won a Silver in the 1500m men’s speed skating race. The team of Ethan Cepuran, Casey Dawson, Emery Lehman, Conor McDermott-Mostowy, and Jordan Stolz won Silver in the men’s team pursuit speed skating race. Mia Manganello won a Bronze in the women’s mass start race in speed skating. Oh, and of course the women and men’s hockey teams won Gold, too. Free Bird, bitches. The complete list is here.

So tonight is the President’s State of the Union address. I will not be watching, antique road show/random NBA game/The Weather Channel is on then. We will probably bomb Iran within days, as our government is saying they could have the capability of building a nuclear bomb within a week. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is causing chaos and panic in the Mexican state of Jalisco after their leader “El Mencho” was killed apparently by the Mexican government, but American officials tried to take some sort of credit as well and so they’re threatening Americans there. France is telling Jared Kushner’s daddy to stay in his playpen, taking away the Ambassador to France’s ability to talk directly to government ministers on the behalf of the United States after he stiffed them on a meeting. Shocking that Charles Kushner isn’t a good Ambassador, since he got the job for being rich and related to the President. Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales is making a strong play for biggest piece of shit in the world this week, as we get more and more details of his affair with a staffer that worked for him that lead her to light herself literally on fire to commit suicide. One thing’s for sure, Washington, D.C. is always there to make us proud of our nation. Oh, and the DNC thinks Kamala Harris lost for not siding with Hamas. This message seems like a sure way to lose elections for the rest of our lives. In better news, Baseball is back. Not like real, good baseball, but there are players being paid to play in Florida and Arizona right now for real teams. The World Baseball Classic is coming up too. I can’t wait until the 2028 Summer Olympics, when we get a baseball tournament, in-season, with the best of the United States, Japan, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Canada, Venezuela, South Korea, Australia, Puerto Rico, and Mexico, to name a few. Duke beat Michigan, Arizona beat Houston, and UCONN dog walked Villanova in college basketball. The NHL is getting ready to come back from it’s break. Tyler Reddick won the second NASCAR race of the year, to go along with his Daytona win, and Michael Jordan again gave the first interview after his driver won. Back to uplifting news, Savannah Guthrie’s mom is still missing, but FBI Director Kash Patel got to make his wish and celebrate with the U.S. Hockey team at the Olympics. Oh, and the President’s tariffs were thrown out by the Supreme Court, so he just made up a new legal argument for them and raised them. The government also has no real plan to return the money.

The world is awesome. The World is fine. Have a great week.

Bari Weiss, The Washington Post, and an Increasingly Broken Media

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

You may not know much about Bari Weiss. I wouldn’t blame you. Most folks, even blog readers, don’t know media figures like they know pop stars and athletes. I actually find Bari Weiss fascinating though. You see, politically she’s sort of a unicorn. She is the founder of “The Free Press,” a center-rightish publication. She is the editor at CBS Evening News, and it’s going pretty rocky. The far right hates her because she is an LGBTQ woman and Jewish. Most of the left hates her because they think she is appeasing Trump with her “free speech” and “diversity of opinions” shtick. Her website famously features her “resignation letter” from the New York Times a few years ago, which was clearly written to turbo charge her career. Weiss wants to hold herself out as an intellectual, a leading voice on free speech, and an important person. She also wants to appease her bosses at Paramount, maintain access with powerful people, and create viral, lightning rod level moments in the media. The result is a CBS that is a mess.

At the Washington Post, it’s hard to argue anything is going well. The paper of record for our nation’s capitol fired it’s sports section. Seriously. The paper is owned by Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, but is behaving like a flea market bargain shopper. When the Washington Nationals open their season next month, there won’t even be a lead reporter assigned to the team. The paper that brought us Watergate is dying a slow death, in front of our eyes.

Our media is dying, and so far as I can tell, no one gives a shit. Most of America hates the media for one of two reasons- either they think they’ve become a bunch of sensationalist hacks that give us “both sides” stories all the time in order to keep access, or they think the media has a bias against their side because they won’t tell them what they want to hear. I’ll let you decide which side is which (or if both are both), but let’s be honest, most of you reading this hate the media too. Sports fans hate ESPN because they think ESPN tries to set the agenda of what sports news is (they do). Political readers think the press is biased. I’m sure art and food readers have reasons they hate the press too. Let’s be honest, we all hate the press. We just all have our reasons.

Here’s the thing though- our press is broken, and our populace is already ignorant enough with a healthy media. If people are getting their media from TikTok instead of PBS, you’re going to get the quality of public that you’d likely expect. Here in Easton, the Express-Times no longer prints a daily newspaper, it is fully online, behind a pay wall. The Morning Call is dying in Allentown. The Bethlehem Globe Times died when I was a kid. We’re basically down to a television network, a PBS, and an NPR, but the funding for those things is drying up. Consolidation already has seen publications like “The Athletic” bought by the New York Times and basically turned into the news section for professional and college sports nationally. An ever smaller group of wealthy folks have bought up the major television networks in the nation. Radio has already been consolidated to a few conglomerate groups. And now, we’re seeing budget cuts done to the consolidated news sources. Our media ecosphere is dying. That’s assuming it’s not already dead.

I’m not sure media can be done well as a for profit business. With that said, I’m not sure how you can finance media companies if you don’t make money. I think the future is in writer-managed publications like The Lehigh Valley News, but they need reader subscriptions or reader funding to survive. I’m not sure if that is going to work, given the state of current media publications.

With ever the less positions in the media, our media is becoming very similar to our politics- a bunch of Ivy League and elite institutional grads seeking their next viral moment. That is entertainment. I’m not sure it’s journalism. I’m fairly sure it’s not good for us. And I’m fairly sure David Ellison and Jeff Bezos don’t give a shit.