America

Thoughts on Northampton County’s Tax Increase, and Taxes in General

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

I supported Tara Zrinski for County Executive in 2025. I would again. She’s a hard working, smart, compassionate woman who wants to do what’s best for people who need that from a government. I hear from Republican county employees that they think she genuinely cares about them, and the jobs they do. Two things can be true at once though. I also think her 43.5% tax increase is bad politics and policy. It also appears that her defense of it at the last County Council meeting also wasn’t great. It was awful politics because it’s deeply unpopular with everyone, and it never had a chance in hell of getting the votes on council, which won’t stop it from passing, but it will literally dog her politically everywhere she goes for the next three years. It’s also bad policy. The public can’t afford it. People are squeezed by the price of living right now. You can ask, who shouldn’t get a raise, what should we do with government function X, but the reality is that if your public can’t afford the taxes, you become a dying community. The reality on the size and scope of government is you shouldn’t do anything that causes genuine pain to your public, even if that means you unfortunately can’t take care of everyone.

I also supported Lamont McClure for eight years, and was the Executive Director of his 2017-18 transition, not to mention I supported him for Congress. His government was incredibly lean, and I applauded that. Gracedale, Open Space, and low taxes were his entire political agenda as Executive, and frankly that was where the emphasis needed to be. He resisted silly ideas like building a new jail at Gracedale and always recognized that “the general consensus at the court house” was completely disconnected from the reality of the voters. He was a good Executive. But two things can be true at once though. You can’t squeeze blood from a stone. By not doing anything to raise revenue and using federal and state one time revenue sources up to avoid tax increases, eventually there wasn’t enough money to do the functions that are needed. Departments can only run lean for so long. You run out of space to stretch your dollars. And the bill comes due. No, it doesn’t come 43% due, or all due in one swift motion, but it comes due.

The situation at Northampton County isn’t unique. Lehigh County is doing a tax increase in the high teens. Most of the cities are doing tax increases now or in the near future. Schools are doing them all over. Government just costs more, because everything costs more. Now yes, executives should probably stay lean and limit their tax increases to funding the government as it exists or where it’s in crisis (my understanding is the situation at Northampton County prison is dire and that Gracedale needs nursing help), but it is unfair to blame new executives for the simple presence of any tax increase at all. Neither of the Lehigh Valley’s counties did a meaningful tax cut with their executives on their ways out the door, which was their prerogative, but did leave a need. Some of the cities in the Lehigh Valley have been avoiding tax increases for years by simply not filling out their work forces and neglecting things that are there jobs. The new person shouldn’t be blamed for trying to keep the city functional. On the other hand, new executives at all levels of the government then need to realize that a structural deficit is not a good time to promise things to the work force, make good on campaign promises, or live out their ideological dreams for the local government. People just can’t afford it.

We all need to recognize though that government has costs. There are seniors always complaining about property taxes, and liberals who want to eliminate sales or consumption taxes, and conservatives that want to whine that rich people and corporations cost too much- well then who the hell is going to pay for the government? If you want a functional Social Security and Medicare system, you almost certainly have to eliminate the cap on payroll taxes for rich earners making over $184,500 (while this is a minority or earners who would be impacted, the money we don’t tax above that cap is the majority of the money in our economy). If you want good public schools that are safe and have all the books and teachers they’re supposed to have, you either have to have your property taxes fund most of that at the state level, or you have to explain how you’re going to make up for that money if you eliminate it. Cops, fire fighters, EMTs, and first responders, as well as the equipment they use, cost money. If you like your county nursing home being there as a safety net in your community, you have to understand that federal Medicaid cuts are going to literally kill Northampton and Lehigh County next year (Thank you, Ryan Mackenzie). Basically, if you say you “back the blue,” or “support our troops,” or “want criminals in jail,” or “fix our pot holes,” or “fix our schools”- those things cost money.

We also need to place a lot of the blame on the federal and state governments. The “Big, Beautiful Bill” was a disaster, as were the Bush and Trump tax cuts. We’re basically spending a trillion dollars each on national defense, health care, retirement, and servicing our existing debt, and doing it on less and less real dollars. Washington failed us. Harrisburg has too. Let’s be honest as we go to the polls to re-elect our Governor and give him a Democratic trifecta in two weeks- the “Delaware loop hole” is not closed, we didn’t legalize adult recreational marijuana to create new revenue, we did do a $20 billion deal for data centers that isn’t creating anywhere near enough revenue for the state, and we did these things after a decade where we failed to tax Marcellus Shale even on par with Texas or Oklahoma, when we had the chance- and the results are things like no funding for SEPTA or other government actions we all wanted. Washington failed us. Harrisburg failed us. Maybe the alternatives are worse, both intellectually and personally, but let’s not play blind cheerleader here.

America could have a sane tax system, but it would require a world where every lobbyist hadn’t learned how to use the tax code to generate unheard of wealth for their industries. I get it, that’s their job, but it’s killed us. We could have a system with no write-offs at all, where no one pays on their first $50,000 of income, and then the rates are 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, and 25%, but people actually paid them. We could have a corporate rate of 10% or 15%, with the variable between the two being if the corporation did things we liked, like paying their workers a living wage, not outsourcing jobs, protecting the environment, of offering pensions, and those kinds of actions got them cuts. We could have tax our vices and actually spent less on enforcing morality (softer drugs, booze, gambling) laws and collected more revenue on them. We could have all of that. But in the absence of legislators who do their jobs, what we get is the tax code as the de facto law of the land, deciding the behavior of the public, both rich and poor.

Closer to home, I wonder if the “Zrinski experience” so many executives are going through in the coming years will simply drive people out of politics at the local level? What’s the reward in it? You’re blamed for warehouses, data centers, traffic, elderly folks falling out of bed at the nursing home, staff shortages at the prison, and all sorts of things that you either lack the money to handle, or that some far more famous statewide or national politician forced on you with policy decisions and funding threats from higher government. On some level, we should make things like taxation much cleaner and non-discretionary than it is. Why would any County or local Executive in their right mind authorize a reassessment in their jurisdiction? Let’s be serious, housing goes up as long as the federal tax code and rules for bank lending subsidizes it. So a reassessment is simply a tax increase. It’s literally part of our government system that we agreed upon to make it work, but if it’s something you can “decide” to do or not, you always just decide no. Should elected officials decide when to do reassessment? Probably not. If you make them, it’ll be decades before you see it done again.

Our society is deeply broken because our government is, and has been, deeply broken for a while. We pick that government though. I guess if you vote for someone because they tell you to fear the other guy doing “trans surgery on your kid during the school day,” what do you really expect to get? And don’t think I’m just banging on conservatives here. We have morons on our side suggesting we need riots like France is having, or to just empty out the prisons and eliminate the borders, and dump very expensive people into our citizenry. We are basically choosing here whether to elect a Congressman of questionable moral character who voted to cut our health care, our infrastructure, our first responders, and more, or elect a Congressman of questionable character who decided to not pay to insure his workers while taking tens of thousands of dollars from his in-laws and stiffing them out of the money for two decades. It’s an embarrassment. This is what we’ve got though.

What’s a Moderate? What’s a Socialist? Defining the Left

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

When people talk about right-wing ideology in America for the past decade, the reality is that so much of it is basically a simple batter of how much you bowed down to Donald Trump. While one could argue that someone like say Ryan Mackenzie is not like more extreme MAGA Republicans, such as say Lauren Boebert or Byron Donalds rhetorically, the reality is that he doesn’t vote any different than Boebert does in Congress, effectively. There are a few Republicans, like say Don Bacon, Brian Fitzpatrick, or Thom Tillis, who voted against Trump on meaningful votes, for the most part they did that because they were leaving Congress anyway. People like Pat Toomey or Mitt Romney that didn’t completely sell Trump their souls, left town. Congressman who are still around, or want to be around, bow to Trump.

What about the American left though? I feel like we don’t give enough credit to whatever the hell the last decade actually was. It would be easy to split Democrats on the left into two basic camps- Biden/Clinton Dems and Bernie Dems. That was essentially the split in the last two Presidential primaries, and it does answer the question of how the “opposition” party in the time of Trump (Yes, I know Biden was President for four years, no I don’t think he was ever the dominant figure in American political life though) ended up as the divided ones in a time when we were facing a united front intent on destroying liberalism in America. I don’t think it truly gets at just *how* divided Democrats actually are though. So I thought I’d take myself a crack at it, and try to break out the movement into pieces. So what are they?

Leftists. These folks have a lot in common with socialists, but the difference is that their ideology is more multi-faceted. They view virtually all things through a colonizer/oppression view point, be they economic, social, or foreign policy. They view countries like Russia, Iran, and Cuba as victims, rather than perpetrators, they excuse terrorist groups like Hamas, and even in some cases al-Qaeda, as freedom fighters. They actually hold much of the rest of the American left in contempt because they *don’t* want to engage in open confrontation over unpopular, politically suicidal positions, with the broader public. They hold “identity” politics in contempt in no small party because they view it as an excuse to “sanitize” non-white/non-male/non-straight politicians who don’t share their radical views. They love slogan politics, with overly simple views of things like “Defund the Police,” “Abolish Ice,” and “Free Palestine.” By and large, they are radical on most politics.

Marxist/Socialists. For the most part, this is actually pretty straight forward. This isn’t really DSA, because they’re actually socialists, and really they haven’t made up any ground in America. Sure, Mamdani is kind of, sort of trying to end private landlords in NYC, but there is no real scale of seizing the means of production though. These are people who actually believe in the teachings of Karl Marx. They’re insignificant in American politics, in no small part because they ignore social issues entirely and only want to talk class struggle. They really aren’t in the Democratic Party today.

Brogressives. A phenomenon that sort of grew out of Bernie’s 2016 campaign (By the way, I don’t quite *actually* put him in this group, himself.), was white guy leftism, for lack of a better way to describe it. These are mostly white men who want Democrats to stop talking about “divisive” things like social issues, but want to be “edgy and cool,” and vaguely sound like European social democrats. John Fetterman is probably the best, if imperfect, example of this in elected office, but despite everyone hating on him inside the party now, you have folks like Chris Murphy, Ruben Gallego, and Sheldon Whitehouse embracing candidates like this in 2026 primaries all over. I would absolutely put Bob Brooks in this category, if we get local, as he has expressed racial animus, intimacy for guns, and disdain for social causes of the Democratic Party. Despite not being white, Abdul El-Sayed’s primary campaign largely fit in here.

Progressives. For the most part, I think this is where the bulk of the 2026 Democratic Party’s primary electorate is, but what’s interesting is their willingness to flirt with the first three groups since 2024. These folks, for the most part, are fairly mainstream left on social, economic, and foreign policy issues. They want abortion legal, they also want rich people taxed. Despite their primary dominance, they are as much an outlier against the American electorate as any of the previously named groups, as they hold a strong ideological view of what they want the country to look like.

Liberals. Liberals in 2026 are interesting, because I think they draw their sort of origin from Hillary’s campaign in 2016, and how much of the left viewed her- economically moderate, socially liberal. A cursory look at Hillary’s actual positions (both pre and post primary) show her to probably be more of a progressive (I would argue the same of Biden), but perception is reality. There is a cadre of left-of-center voter that has no interest in Elizabeth Warren economics, but is heavily motivated by codifying Roe v. Wade, or putting a Black woman in the White House. They’re likely to strongly dislike Bernie Sanders, but idolize their vision of who John Lewis is.

Moderates. Moderates are exactly who you think they are. They are the people closest to traditional American policy medians, that aren’t on the Republican side. This group isn’t super left socially or economically, and really doesn’t identify with “movement” politics. This group has taken in a number of “Never Trump” Republicans in recent years, but one could think of Joe Manchin or the old school “Blue Dog” caucus. Most of their seats in Congress are gone, as the party has simply made it impossible to survive in their form.

Not Ideological. And here is the largest group. They don’t really vote in primaries. They make up the bulk of general election votes. They believe in broadly left of center ideas- a clean environment, good public schools, more access to health care, a fair tax code- but they lack sort of in-depth, concrete policy prescriptions they are demanding from the party or the government. They are the overwhelming majority of voters, the people who don’t give donations, don’t volunteer, aren’t Democratic Committee members, and don’t go to protests. More of them go to church than the rest of the party, especially if they aren’t white. More of them are truly, overwhelmingly “normal” than the bulk of the party. And more of them potentially could bolt on Democrats when they are unhappy. Some are very good, consistent Democratic voters, particularly Black voters and Jewish voters, especially the older ones who make up most of these voters. Some are less good, consistent Democratic voters. Think of the Obama-Trump-Biden-Trump Democratic registrants out there in swing districts across the country. Do they seem politically weird? Yes. Are they? Actually no. But they are taken for granted, because they don’t “fuel the machine” that makes DC run. They matter though.

That’s my breakdown of the American left. Again, I could do something similar with the American right, but it’s essentially “hardline Trump” vs. “Trump adjacent” at this point. It will be interesting to see if 2028 breaks that up a bit, or unites it.

Podcast Episode: Democratic Fights And Crooksy Chaos

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Pip: Every election cycle, someone promises the apocalypse is finally arriving on schedule — and every cycle, the map barely moves.

Mara: That's the territory Rich Wilkins has been mapping on Apocalypse Vibes — the structural limits on Democratic ambitions in 2026, the candidate quality problems making those limits worse, the progressive left's Israel politics, and what America's 250th birthday actually means when you're paying attention. Let's start with where the 2026 wave is, and isn't, headed.

The 2026 Map: Real Gains, Real Ceilings

Pip: The central argument in "Political Gravity in 2026" is that Democrats are probably winning the House, but the landslide narrative is running ahead of the actual numbers.

Mara: The post puts it plainly: "The best way to understand American politics is to understand that our country has been stuck in a 48-46% split for a quarter century or so now." That's the floor and the ceiling both.

Pip: Which means gerrymandering doesn't even need to work that hard — the electorate is doing most of the structural work already.

Mara: The post estimates roughly 400 of 435 districts are drawn so partisanly that even a wave doesn't move them, projecting a net Republican loss of fifteen to twenty seats. "The Delusions of the Progressive Populist Left" and "What Democrats Got Wrong" both reinforce why: the party is consolidating leftward while independents — now 45 percent of Americans — are calling themselves moderate, and they are not moving toward the Democratic Party as it shifts.

Pip: So the wave is real, the ceiling is low, and the party is spending energy debating whether to go further in the direction that's already not working.

Mara: That's essentially the argument. Which brings us to the candidates Democrats are actually fielding.

Crooksy Brooks: A Case Study in Self-Inflicted Damage

Pip: "Crooksy's Loose Lips" opens with a scene that pretty much writes the rest of the segment for us — Bob Brooks, at a private lunch, cracking jokes about a popular mayor's spelling while his own social media history is a liability archive.

Mara: The post is direct about the strategic problem: "The blueprint for Crooksy was written by literally the same people who created Nazi oyster farmer Graham Platner in Maine and John Fetterman here in Pennsylvania." Same consultants, same pitch, same early polling lead that is already shrinking.

Pip: A 47-43 internal in July, per "Bernie, Platner, Crooksy" — which also notes the NRCC didn't wait long to tie Brooks directly to the Fight Agency consultants behind Platner's campaign.

Mara: "Crooksy Goes to Court" lays out the financial record: money loaned in 2004, a signed promissory note from 2008, an appeal lost in 2022, and a reported hundred dollars paid to date. The post also notes an ethics complaint was filed with the House during the primary.

Pip: A hundred dollars. Over twenty-two years. That is a commitment to a position.

Mara: "The NRCC's File on Crooksy" details four lines of attack the Republicans have already assembled — unpaid workers' compensation insurance, racist social media posts, the mother-in-law lawsuit, and a pay raise Brooks took while cutting spending on actual union member advocacy. The post notes this probably is not everything they have.

Mara: Then there is the firefighter issue. "Bob Crooksy Brooks Doesn't Just Hate Barack Obama, He Hates the Folks Who Save Your Life" covers his social media posts calling IAFF members who also volunteer "scabs" and "shitbags." "Someone Ask Crooksy How Many Scabs Helped Fight Last Week's Massive Fire in Allentown" puts a concrete number on what that argument looks like in practice: over a hundred firefighters from as far as Carbon County, working for more than seven hours.

Pip: His pathway to victory, the post argues, runs through turning out the Susan Wild coalition — the very voters he most repulses.

Mara: And the through-line across all of this is candidate quality as a structural problem, not a one-race accident. Which connects directly to what's happening on the Israel and progressive politics front.

The Progressive Left, Israel, and the Limits of the Movement

Pip: "These Folks are Mentally Ill" is about the New York primaries, but the argument is really about where the progressive left can and cannot win.

Mara: The post draws the line precisely: "these embarrassing freaks are only winning certain kinds of races — very blue district, legislative races that usually have more than two candidates." Safe seats, low-turnout fields, places where you never have to acknowledge Republicans or moderate Democrats exist.

Pip: The Gaza politics driving a lot of these candidacies gets its own full examination in "For All the Talk About a Free Palestine, Nobody Has a Plan for Who Would Lead It."

Mara: That post walks through the practical obstacles — two separate governing authorities that do not recognize each other, Abbas whose term ended in 2009, Hamas, skeptical neighboring states, and an Israeli electorate that roundly rejected the idea after October 7th. The conclusion is that attaching conditions to foreign aid is reasonable; promising a functioning Palestinian state in the near term is not.

Pip: Serious conditions on aid — yes. Promising a flying cow — also apparently on the table, and the post is not more optimistic about one than the other.

Mara: From there, the question becomes what any of this means for a country about to turn 250.

America at 250: Pride Without Amnesia

Pip: "Happy Birthday America" is the outlier in tone — a genuine defense of patriotism that holds the country's failures and its achievements in the same frame.

Mara: The post names the failures directly — slavery, Japanese internment, Jim Crow, January 6th — and then pivots: "We're also the greatest country on Earth. There is a reason my friends in foreign countries want to come here." The argument is that a nation is more than the sum of its government and its worst moments.

Pip: Ho Chi Minh quoting Thomas Jefferson in Vietnam's own Declaration of Independence is the detail that earns that argument.

Mara: The post closes on that note — that the ideals in the Declaration of Independence matter more than the day-to-day failures, and that billions live in greater freedom today at least partly because of what this country did and inspired.

Pip: A structurally frozen electorate, a candidate class that keeps finding new ways to underperform it, and a birthday party anyway.

Mara: The through-line is the gap between what the moment calls for and what the parties are actually offering. That gap isn't closing before November — we'll see if it narrows at all.

Happy Birthday America

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment
Yes it was real.

Well, I’m home from eating hot dogs and hamburgers, drinking beers, and shooting off fireworks to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. No, I didn’t watch any of Trump’s speeches or freak show. No, I didn’t watch Mamdani’s speech either, because he’s not our leader. I divorced myself from real world politics today, and well, it was nice.

A lot of folks have suggested that Trump, and the issues facing our nation, made this July 4th less worth celebrating than past ones. Not surprisingly, I don’t agree. Part of celebrating America is celebrating the ideals of it, not necessarily the day-to-day reality of it. I also happen to think that a nation is a lot more than the sum of it’s government and laws. It’s worth noting that our Declaration of Independence was written years before our first real legal document, the Constitution, and is far more of an idealist document. It is a document that celebrates freedom, independence, and the idea of a country where all people are free to live as they want. It’s a beautiful document. It is a beautiful idea. And yes, we are a beautiful country.

The United States has a lot of failings. Slavery. The Trail of Tears. Japanese Internment Camps. Jim Crow. Segregation. The Immigration Act of 1924. The Iraq War. The Patriot Act. The War on Drugs. The way we treated Vietnam veterans when they came home from the war. I would argue January 6th and the current actions of ICE are not good moments. Our failings are pretty bi-partisan and very real. I suppose if you’re an absolutist, you could cancel us as a nation. Lord knows we’ve done it to plenty of people who we shouldn’t have.

We’re also the greatest country on Earth. There is a reason my friends in foreign countries *want* to come here. There’s a reason millions of people try to immigrate here illegally, or overstay visas, or try to float from Cuba, or even seek to marry to get here. It’s better here than it is there. Sure, it’s not *equally* better for all people, we don’t all have the same opportunities, and that’s a problem we should be trying to fix every day. No, I’m sorry though, there’s not really somewhere else I’d rather be. And you know, the rest of the world wants us at our best. The French maintain a cemetery at Normandy because brave Americans of all stripes were willing to sacrifice their lives for their freedom, as they did for us during the Revolution. We’re the country that lead the 20th century in innovation. We landed on the Moon. We won the World Wars. We built the interstate highway system. We built suburbia. We were a leader in the industrial revolution. Nations across the globe quote our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution in their own founding documents. Millions come see our musicians, actresses, and athletes when they come to their countries. Yes, sure, we did some shitty stuff in history that we should reckon with and avoid doing again. We’ve also done the greatest shit in world history. Like individual people, we should hang our head in shame because of our worst moments. Screw that, it’s no way to live. Billions live in freedom around the globe today, either directly because of what we did, or in part because of the inspiration of our own revolution. We fought a whole war with Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, and he and his nation directly quoted Thomas Jefferson in the opening of their very own Declaration of Independence. We’re not perfect, we’re not even the only great nation in this world, but dammit be proud, we’re the best.

So yeah, I celebrated like a red blooded American today. The idea of this country, the great things we do, matters a lot more to me than the failings. I hope to hell all of you celebrated too. God bless America.

Swalwell, Hypocrisy, and the Democratic Party

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Don’t sleep with subordinates. Don’t sleep around with co-workers. Don’t get women drunk for the purpose of taking them home for sex. Pretty simple rules to keep in your personal life. Keeping them won’t insure that you won’t be accused of something, nothing can prevent that if someone else wants to accuse you, but it does a lot for your defense later when you don’t have a string of people coming along to claim that you did something wrong. Look, this can get dicey obviously, most people that were in college at one point or another might have slept with someone, or multiple someones, after a night of hard boozing. That’s college boy behavior though. When you’re a 40 or 50 something year old man, you better have out grown that a solid decade plus ago, or it’s going to bite you in the ass.

I don’t feel in the least bit sad for Eric Swalwell. I’m not in the camp that says believe every accusation reflexively, but I’m in the camp that says you should take it seriously and investigate the claims. Let’s be honest about the Swalwell case, you have four separate women in the initial article, with dates and locations that match their schedule and his, claiming similar things about him getting them trashed drunk and taking them home, or striking up conversations on the internet that turned overtly sexual from professional quickly, claiming fairly similar things. You also have video surfacing of him kissing some woman, reportedly a sex worker, who was not his wife. You have folks, mostly anonymous or at the staff level, in the Democratic Party saying it was an open secret that Swalwell was always hunting for his next fun night in the sack. The most charitable possible read you could grant Swalwell is that someone coordinated these accusations to come out as a political attack on him right in the middle of a run for Governor of California, and embellished his behavior beyond what it actually was. The problem for Swalwell is that his reputation of behavior suggests that the allegations are believable, not to mention the volume of accusations. He says he will fight the “untrue” accusations now, but that he made errors in judgment and so he is dropping out of the race. One would presume that if he’s serious about fighting back, he’ll file suit against his accusers. Let the courts figure that mess out, but my guess is he’ll never file a single lawsuit denying the accusations. The point that we know is that Swalwell’s inability to control his impulses made him a uniquely poor candidate for Governor of the largest state in the union, and he could not continue campaigning as a serious candidate. He made his bed, now he has to sleep in it.

Now, I didn’t just make “Swalwell” the headline, I added the words “Hypocrisy, and the Democratic Party.” There’s a rather deeper argument to be had here about when and how scandals happen, and why they happen. There’s also a much bigger argument to be had about when people should withdraw from public life. Al Franken was knifed up and left for dead (metaphorically) over a photograph in the early days of the #MeToo movement that showed him with his hands hovering over a passed out woman’s breasts. Ralph Northam got caught with an old photo of himself during med school wearing “blackface” and a Klan robe. Tara Reade accused Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her in the Capitol basement when he was a Senator and she worked on the Hill, an accusation that largely fell apart when some of the locations she described didn’t exist at all and other facts in the story didn’t match. Katie Hill was driven out of Congress for having affairs with staff after her ex-husband released intimate photos and text messages of her with staff members, in what appeared to be a revenge porn case (a judge threw her suit against him and the publishers mostly out, saying it was a public interest story). Andrew Cuomo was driven out of office as Governor of New York after the Attorney General’s office issued a report accusing him of sexual harassment and assault, and not a single prosecutor was willing to take the case, but he nevertheless resigned rather than be impeached and removed. And of course, there was the Bill Clinton case. None of these were handled the same, nor were they the same on their surface. Some of these were shocking and came out of nowhere. Some were well known Washington truths that everyone knew. (As an aside, one of these scandals quite literally partially happened in a room/apartment I used to occupy, at a time I was not in town living there. If you know me, you can ask in private)

I want to focus in on the cases where everyone in Washington knew about these guys, and everyone turned a blind eye until it was convenient to throw the person overboard. Everyone knew Bill Clinton was a dog when he was Governor of Arkansas, then acted shocked when he had an affair with an intern in the White House. Voters knew what they voted for. At least that was all fairly publicly litigated. Democrats in Washington knew about Al Franken’s drinking long before his scandal. Again, as other staff and even “anonymous” Congressional sources have said, they knew Swalwell tried to have sex with or sext any woman he could. Andrew Cuomo’s divorce happened long before he was Governor, and it was well known that he was getting around as a bachelor, and probably even once he was dating later. How did Democrats in Washington know about Eric Swalwell for years, but only 50 or so days before the primary for Governor it becomes public knowledge? So basically as long as he was holding a seat in the House and voting for a Democratic Speaker, no biggie? But when he was potentially problematic in a Governor’s primary we might screw up as a party, now we learn he committed assault. The timing stinks. And well, if he’s horrible now (and as I said above, yeah), why wasn’t he horrible last year, or five years ago, or whenever?

Now look, last point on this- unfortunately voters only mildly care. Bill Clinton had an affair in the Oval Office with an intern and his approval shot up over 60% because voters didn’t want to hear about it and thought Bill was a good President. Democrats have spent years calling Trump every bad name in the book- racist, rapist, traitor- and he has received more votes and a higher percentage of the vote in three straight elections. The truth is that most of America doesn’t really view Washington as an honorable place and is content with the fact that powerful men (and some women) sleep around and do things that they don’t really want their own spouse to do, but let’s be honest, many Americans don’t even leave their spouse anymore for sleeping around. Almost nothing is really a cancellable offense in our society now. You’re either criminally guilty, or you’re not. Some would even argue that getting a Nazi tattoo and stealing from your mother-in-law is A-OK with the voters today. I guess we’ll see about that.

Your World Last Week, 3/31

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Hm, what’s going on in the world? Apparently a lot. I just wish it was a lot less.

Let’s start with some fun stuff. As Kristi Norm departs as Secretary of Homeland Security, we are finding out that apparently her husband is a crossdresser and maybe gay. Look, I think he should be whatever he wants to be, but his wife’s political stances on the subject are hypocritical and fair game. And perhaps we know why she was supposedly sleeping around. Meanwhile fringe nutjob candidate for Florida Governor, James Fishback, is claiming that looney-tune wacko Laura Loomer is a man. This is some crazy shit, but if you search “Larry Loomer” on X/Twitter, you’ll find that there is an audience that believes this stuff with their whole hearts and minds. Loomer says he’s an Islamist. This shit is incredible. Meanwhile in Nebraska, a Republican Pastor is running for U.S. Senate as a Democrat for whatever reason. I guess he had a genuine change of heart. Fresh off of being hacked himself and having all of his info put on the internet by Iranians, Kash Patel is ordering the release of files pertaining to Congressman Eric Swalwell’s supposed affairs with a Chinese spy years and years ago. Swalwell is currently running for California Governor. ICE Agents will be posted outside Marine Corps Boot Camp graduations to check if family members are documented. Lots of people are talking about streamer Hasan Piker, I’ll just remind you that he allegedly abuses his dog. Big emphasis on allegedly. He also yells at some Asian lady and doesn’t care about Black people. Great guy. In much more sane news, the bullet that killed Charlie Kirk can’t be matched to the alleged weapon that killed him. Yep, totally normal shit. Olivia Nuzzi’s ex, former Congressman and Governor Mark Sanford (of “hiking the Appalachians” fame.) is back, running for Congress. Student Loan forgiveness is basically dead. I guess Elizabeth Warren was wrong about doing it by Executive Order. Who could have known? PBS and NPR got temporary life from a federal judge. Good news.

Remember the “Bowling Alone” book? Well, it turns out that “Big Bowling” is literally trying to finish the story. Bowlero, the largest operator of bowling alleys in America, is basically buying bowling alleys and eliminating their local leagues to make room for higher income players. Sounds a lot like housing. Anthony Edwards didn’t start last night because he had to take a shit. No lie. Jason Kelce is working the Masters. Hell yeah. It’s Final Four weekend and Duke isn’t in it. That’s good. Arizona seems to be the favorite, but never count Hurley’s UCONN out. The UCONN women lead the women’s field, and they meet South Carolina in the annual war on the court, while UCLA and Texas meet in the other game. Baseball began with an opening night on Netflix. I actually liked it. I like NBC’s Sunday night set up too. Check back in a couple weeks for strong opinions of anything we’re seeing right now. If you look right now, Bryce Harper and Shohei Ohtani suck. Enjoy that if you’d like. Some guy named Wiemers started 10-for-10 for the Nationals. Move over, Mickey Mantle. 

I didn’t mention Iran this week. It’s not going great for anyone. We’re bombing the shit out of them, they’re closing the Straight of Hormuz, so gas is way up, and they’re fighting back with drones. I mean, I wonder how long it is before Trump either loses interest or does something insane?

And finally, it is Easter Week. Whether you celebrate the holiday or not, enjoy the time.

Your World, Last Week- 3/24

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

If you’re still stumbling, you drank too much. Happy week after St. Patrick’s Day. They told me not to, but I did. I took Florida in some brackets, Arizona in others. Figures that the one who is the defending champions were the ones who burned me. March Madness gave us the expected, such as Duke, Arizona, Michigan, Michigan State, and UCONN, and little to no fun. For the second straight year, and second time in the modern era, all the teams in the Sweet 16 come out of The Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Big 12, and Big East. In the era of the portal and NIL, good players leave mid-majors after two years to go play on power programs. Hey, at least we have St. John’s. At least it’s not the women’s tournament either, which is basically just UCONN, UCLA, and South Carolina dogging teams until they get to each other. Texas and their enormous athletics budget arrived as a #1 in the women’s tournament too, and has lived up to it, while their men won three games last week. Local teams Lehigh, Villanova, and Penn all got run out of the men’s side as well. Villanova and Princeton’s women were both sent packing too. Unrelated, but I lost every parlay I tried.

Penn State won the NCAA Wrestling title in the least shocking result ever. Meanwhile, Venezuela beat the United States in the World Baseball Classic final. I guess we take their President, they take our trophy. Cuba probably won’t get to keep either for themselves. Despite some socialist white kids from the U.S. visiting, the country is imploding under it’s own weight. Yes, I know we’re blockading them, which we basically have for 70 years, to varying degrees. Anyway, back to sports, Opening Day for MLB is on Thursday. I’m obviously quite excited, but you’ll get my predictions later this week. I’ll be at a AAA game on Saturday to see Zack Wheeler rehab and the Phillies and Nats on Monday. I’m more excited for betting my pitcher strikeout parlays again. I win on those most days.

In case you were wondering, we’re still fighting the war we won a couple of weeks ago in Iran. The Straight of Hormuz still isn’t open and the national average of gasoline is $3.97 a gallon, because Joe Biden. Israel is still fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as kind of fighting Hamas in Gaza, and fighting Iran in Iran, which only makes sense when you realize the same people are funding Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran. Here at home the Homeland Security Department government shutdown continues, and TSA is a mess. I mean, Al Jazeera calls it a crisis. Workers haven’t been paid in weeks, and some just don’t even show up for work now. Can’t say I blame them. President Trump wants to really fix this crisis, so he’s sending in his “A Team,” putting ICE at airports across America. In other mildly political news, Robert Mueller, the former FBI Director who investigated Russian interference in our 2016 Election and determined it happened and that the President couldn’t be prosecuted for it, died. Yes, Donald Trump celebrated it. He did not celebrate Chuck Norris dying though, though I doubt he knows he was a conservative Republican. It’s a real party in the USA these days.

The Bachelorette was canceled for this season. Apparently Taylor Frankie Paul, the star for this upcoming season, beat the living shit out of her ex/baby daddy, and the video leaked. Look, shit no one is proud of happens sometimes, but hear me out. A few dozen (?) “men” were going to go on a show and share a girlfriend for a few weeks, begging for love from a woman who will kick their ass when she’s pissed. The cucked American male is simply wildly out of control. Like, don’t you have any respect for yourselves? Don’t answer that. Apparently some guy who was on the show named Brad Ledford was actually the driver of the car that crashed into former North Carolina Congresscritter Madison Cawthorn and put him in a wheelchair. Seriously, first you picked the violent mom from “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” as the prize of the show, then you put these clowns on the show? This show wouldn’t be crazier if it were cast in a halfway house.

Have a nice week everyone. Enjoy!