This is just who these guys are. They run these populist campaigns and get people to give them $10 at a time until it adds up for them. If they win, great. If they lose, it’s another lake house, right?
Ok, so there they are. Epstein e-mails. A drop in the bucket out of the Epstein files. Damning as hell though. As a legal matter, this wouldn’t warrant conviction on it’s own, probably. As a political matter, they spent months blocking this. Basically, his whole Presidency. According to Jeffrey Epstein though, Donald Trump spent time with one of his girls. In plain black and white, he wanted Ghislaine Maxwell to use that as blackmail.
In a sane world, we’d focus on the blackmail and say this man is too compromised to serve as President. He is. That’s not what will happen though. Democrats will focus on the actual criminal act here, and well, I’m not even sure where that can go. Epstein is too dead to testify against Trump. Both he and Maxwell are convicts, and would be tough to put on a witness stand. Of course, there is the whole matter of Trump being sitting President now too. DOJ will take the position that they can’t prosecute their boss. Even the states, Manhattan basically let him go even after his conviction, because he had won the election. This is legally DOA.
Then there’s the politics. Ask yourself something- what would it take for Republicans to care about this? They didn’t mind his “grab ’em by the pussy” moment, his Muslim ban, his insulting John McCain, his election denial, or for that matter, January 6th. Now you think they’re just going to say “yep, he did it, he has to go?” There’s virtually no chance. They’ll question the authenticity, question if it’s as bad as it looks, complain about someone else they allege to be involved, or some other nonsense to distract from the black and white words in the email. Maybe a few of them get mad, but they will simply be ostracized by the party and left to die. If they had video of him sleeping with a young girl, hell if he got caught sodomizing a small dog or boy on 5th avenue, they’d move the goal posts. That’s what they’re going to do here.
Democrats and people who dislike Trump in general have spent a decade trying to find the magic bullet to “cancel” Trump. They don’t get it, you can’t. They can hope other Republicans eventually feel some shame and split with him, but why would that happen now? Oh sure, this is really bad. So was January 6th. It arguably strengthened him.
Chuck Schumer ended the government shutdown. Make no mistake about it. Republicans needed seven Democratic votes to re-open the government. They got eight. They even got two retiring Democrats who had no reason to walk the plank. The Democratic Caucus made sure the GOP got their votes.
There was absolutely no reason for it. Leave the government shut down. The Republicans offered absolutely nothing for those eight votes. The “promise” of a vote on subsidies for health insurance under the ACA is utter bullshit. There will likely not be a vote in the House ever, and it probably won’t pass the Senate either. The Democrats were offered nothing and took it. SNAP was gutted in the “Big Beautiful Bill,” so don’t tell me they needed to save that either, they’re saving a less than whole program (Which is already going to be a massive, massive problem). As for the federal workers, you make the GOP cave to pay them. They’ll get back pay then. Besides, in saving SNAP and federal workers from temporary pain, they’ve permanently lost a working health care system. It wasn’t worth the deal.
The politics are worse than the policy. Democrats won the 2025 Elections a month into the shutdown. Voters weren’t revolting against the Democrats. There was no price to pay. Not even a little bit.
Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats overvalue the government. There’s no reason to keep it open, no reason to save it. It’s not doing much good right now. Society was not falling apart without it yet. Yes, I know government has a role to play, and it is important to our society working, but that’s in normal times. This idea that this government is as important as it was in say, 2022, is silly. It’s foolish. It’s misguided.
Democrats had the GOP’s backs to the wall. They are unpopular and were ineffective. You tell John Thune and the Senate GOP to either make a real offer or they get no votes. Restoration of the subsidies should have been a bare minimum to talk, not a guideline. Thune could always have just ended the filibuster and funded the government himself. Democrats didn’t need to sign off on this.
I would say I hope you enjoyed this weekend of football, but did you watch that thing last night? I’m not going to call it a game. It was hideous. Those are GOOD teams, and they gave you 10-7. That wasn’t super exciting. But hey, as an Eagles fan, it was a win at Lambeau.
The AFC is a mess. The Bills, Ravens, and Chiefs are supposed to be the best teams. They’re all alive now, but you get the Patriots, Colts, and Broncos on top of the conference. The NFC mostly makes sense, but even there we have surprises. You knew the Eagles, Rams, and Lions would all be good teams. Maybe even the Bucs too. Seahawks? Bears? Maybe a little early on the arrivals here. The next four weeks should sort a lot of things out. Bills-Bucs feels like a massive game now for both teams. Rams-Seahawks is probably the biggest NFC game of this year so far. Eagles-Lions is important, for the Lions, but the Eagles are probably going to clinch the NFC East before you’re allowed to open Christmas gifts. If that’s the case, they can take a game or two off and get their “bye” even if they don’t win the top seed. If you had the Panthers surging at this point in the season, pat yourself on the back. You picked the right brand of weird for 2025.
There are roughly 24 teams with some slim chance of somehow sneaking into the playoffs, but realistically the last four are basically done (barring a quick return by Joe Burrow that goes well). The first 20 teams are all between 4 and 8 wins, which is about as classic NFL as you can get at this point. The first 11 teams all have at least some realistic shot at home field in their conference, which really isn’t bad halfway through the season. It’s been a decently entertaining season.
It feels like a lifetime ago, and maybe it was now, that I worked as Field Director for Bonnie Watson Coleman. It was 2014 and she was running for her first term in the Congress to replace Congressman Rush Holt. She had served in the New Jersey State Assembly for years by that point, holding the same seat as her father before her, and rising to be the Majority Leader of the Assembly from 2006 to 2010. When she won, I am fairly certain she represented the whitest Congressional seat of any CBC member. She also made history when she won. She became the first African-American woman to represent New Jersey in the Congress. Yes, that’s New Jersey, one of the original 13 colonies. That night in Trenton when she declared victory was extremely satisfying.
I’m going to mostly gloss over the politics of that campaign because they’re the least important thing I’ll write here. The 12th Congressional District at that time was quite different than it is today. Parts of four counties- Union, Middlesex, Somerset, and Mercer- were in the district. While they were areas that voted fairly blue for President, Chris Christie had done decently well in them, Trump hadn’t happened yet, and we had to be concerned about some of the demographic politics of Central Jersey, one of the most diverse places in the country. Cory Booker was running for his first full term at the time too, and our ground operations were, for lack of any better way to put it, entirely coordinated. I came on after the primary and Bonnie had an incredible campaign operation already in place. I built out a general election field team. She got 61% and won all four counties that year, so everything went well.
Ok, so here’s the part I want to tell you about- Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman was an awesome person with one of the best teams of people I ever worked with. Her first two Chiefs of Staff, James Gee and Kari Osmond, were incredibly smart and two of the best people you could work for. It was easy and fun to go to work every day and work long, hard hours for them all. I don’t try to make friends in this business. I would tell you that even on the worst day they were some of the best people I ever worked with. When she said she wanted to serve and be an advocate for her community, she meant it. Not once did I have to say one thing about her to activists, party leaders, or voters, that I did not consider to be 1,000% truth. That was one of the easiest hard jobs I ever had.
With her announcement today that she is retiring, she has decided to end her incredible political career on her own terms. As with any member of Congress, she took positions I liked and I didn’t like, but she always stayed true to who she is. I suspect there will be an incredibly vibrant primary to replace her in the solidly Democratic seat. That can wait for another day. For today I salute her incredible career and service.
I’m an OG Bernie hater. When his online weirdos put me on their hate list in 2017, it was a badge of honor. I knew then that he was a grifter. His campaign, his super pac (Our Revolution), and his institute (Sanders Institute) all employed his family. Some of his organizations bought his books (great for royalties). He made a profit off of running for office. So he kept running for President in a political party that he slams repeatedly and isn’t a member of. It’s a great existence, for him. He disowns all the stuff that is inconvenient for him, vaguely claims the populist stance, and makes a lot of money off of it. It’s easy to see the guy isn’t real.
I also never trust the people he elevates as our “future.” He has given us some real doozies. Bernie gave us Tulsi Gabbard (who literally had an internal campaign “hate” list that they put me on too). Tulsi Gabbard told us Assad in Syria was “not an enemy,” essentially blaming the U.S. for Russia invading Ukraine, and that Hillary Clinton is drugged and refusing to back her over her foreign policy and cheating Bernie out of the nomination. Today, Tulsi Gabbard is Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, claiming that Russia did not seek to help Trump in 2016 (they did), contradicting a GOP lead Senate report saying they did. Gabbard’s revisionist history is the backbone of the government’s case that former Obama era intelligence leaders lied to Congress and tried to frame Trump. In short, Tulsi Gabbard is a psychopath. Bernie Sanders told us she’s not. Of course, she got her rise by being a trusted friend to Bernie.
There are apparently 10 8 Senate Democrats ready to vote to re-open the government. After 40 days, they’re going to cave on health insurance subsidies for the promise of a future vote that will never happen, and even if it did, Republicans will vote it down. Yes, they’re going to vote to re-open the government, in exchange for nothing. Useless pile of human waste, Senator John Fetterman appears to be one of the ten. That’s no shock. He was ready to sell out 20 million Americans from the start.
What was the point of the 40 day shutdown? Americans weren’t mad at Democrats on Tuesday, but now they’re caving for nothing at all. A Democrat not willing to fight for health care is not really a Democrat at all. If this wasn’t a fight worth winning, why start it? I mean really, they’re giving the subsidies away anyway. They could have done that 40 days ago if there was an expiration date on their spines.
Chuck should retire. These Senators should be primaried. Sure, some bums will emerge in the new group, but less us be disappointed then, with a few scalps in hand.
He ran for President twice in a party he refuses to join. He lost both times, by millions of votes, but did worse the second time. He told you Tulsi Gabbard is a good person. He told you to vote for John Fetterman. His wife publicly hoped Hillary Clinton would be indicted in 2016, which I’m sure was helpful. He has a super pac that buys his books, helping fund his multiple lake houses. The pac also has employed family members. He has an institute named after him where his friends and family are all on the board. Lately he’s told you to vote for the guy with the Nazi tattoo in Maine and Bob “Crooksy” Brooks. He’s done almost nothing in three plus decades in Congress. He is the world’s greatest grifter and fraud. He is this week’s alpha dog of the week, Bernard Sanders of Vermont.
Happy Saturday, friends… and enemies too! You see, I have a very, very good idea of my audience on this blog, and well, that impacts what I write here. I’d love to write my thoughts on the Sixers, or next year’s Foo Fighters tour, or the Phillies off-season. I write about how Bernie Sanders sucks and what’s wrong with Ryan Crosswell and Bob Brooks, and you read it though. Yesterday, I talked about how the Allentown crew put self preservation over what’s right, and you read it. You know who you are. A couple thousand hits in the immediate hours after can be confusing, but I still know who most of these readers are. Readers in Arlington, in Washington, in Philadelphia, in Rockville, in Ashburn, in Brooklyn, in White Plains, in Allentown, in Bangor (ok, this one slightly confuses me), in Easton, in McKeesport, in Bethlehem, in Princeton, in Camp Hill, in Braddock, in Phillipsburg, in Hazleton, in Harrisburg… shit, I’m going to be honest, some of you read this so much that I actually am like 99% I know who each of you are. I know who my daily reader from Nazareth is. I also know why you read this, because I pretty much know who you are. And look, that’s great. I write this so someone reads it. I don’t write it to read myself.
Most of you reading this enjoy it. Some of you (hey opposition researchers!) send me into to post here. When I’m reasonably sure it’s true, I post it. Some of you wonder why, and even are critical of me doing it, as if Rich Wilkins not posting something a.) makes it untrue, b.) means it won’t get out. It is a uniquely poor trait of Pennsylvania politicos, more so than any of the other states I’ve been in, that we think we can keep secrets. We can’t. I’m not on any of the campaigns right now, I’m not paying for this stuff, it’s so easy to find that any idiot could do it. Which gets to my other point here- most of you enjoy reading this blog, but yesterday the smoke coming from Allentown looked like a mushroom cloud. One subject was sending the post around complaining, one actually complained to me personally (one talked to me and we actually joked about it, but I’ll leave that for another time), and one is probably already reading this and fuming. I could hear the words that I’m sure came out of one of their mouths- “Rich is a nobody anyway and no one cares what he says.”- while literally talking about what I wrote. Hey, I like irony. The truth is, there’s lots more to come on Crooksy and others. I already have some of it. I’ll print it when I want to. Assuming I want to. And you should be glad I do. If I’ve found all this on a zero dollar budget, don’t you think Ryan Mackenzie has this and more (he does)? At least by me writing it, you know about it now, not when it’s hitting you in the face.
Look, I’m not your boss. I’m not your dad. I’m not your Governor. I give you information, if you don’t care about that, it’s fine. If you’re fine with racism, fine. If you’re fine with extremism, fine. If you’re fine with political violence, that’s not fine, but you can be. If you’re fine with being untrustworthy, fine. Look, if you think Kaepernick was an ass for kneeling during the national anthem, that’s your choice. Bob Brooks agrees with you. Just own that though. Don’t claim he’s changed, because now he’s telling you he did because it’s good politics. Don’t claim it was “just a messy divorce,” when he didn’t pay his mother-in-law back one penny for over 14 years before she sued him. She had him sign a contract after four years of not being paid, and he still didn’t pay her. Just own it. If you’re fine with this because the guy’s union gave you a few bucks for your re-election, I actually totally get it. Just be real with yourself. He doesn’t dispute that he got sued and lost, hell he appealed it and lost. He doesn’t claim he didn’t post racist and extremist memes, he just says that was then. Hell, Ryan Crosswell at least tries to claim he wasn’t “really” a Republican, even though he re-registered in multiple states, and that he only worked on non-competes, not union busting as a private lawyer. Crooksy pretty much admits everything. Or just says it doesn’t matter.
Blogs aren’t the real world. This blog will not move voters next year. Maybe a few of you won’t vote for one candidate or another over something I show, but my audience is in the thousands, and as I stated above, you live in lots of different districts. Basically 90% of you are here reading for politics. A few of you are here reading about the other topics, and you’re my favorites. Most of what I write on this blog is for my audience’s interest though, a bunch of politicos. Sometimes it really reaches a broader audience, of politicos who never met me before. That’s great. This blog can only serve as a guide to how to win an election, it’s not going to get it done on it’s own. That takes money and mass communication with voters. That is not happening here on this page.
Apocalypse Vibes 