Fourteenth Anniversary of This Blog; Blog Visit Report

Fourteenth Blog Anniversary: Today is the fourteenth anniversary of the launch of my blog in 2008. Thank you for visiting, following, commenting and for giving positive feedback offline. Please continue to visit regularly, especially during these challenging times. I am pleased to have been able to post again after resolving computer problems, despite the glitch that continues to prevent line spacing and indentation, and have posted the most in four years. Blog Visit Report: After a slight decline in the number of visits per month tracked by Blogger after the hiatus from posting, particularly to the homepage, the host of my blog, there has been a significant increase in the number of pageviews per day, from about 10 to 25. Although Blogger does not track nearly as specifically as StatCounter, it does pick up on many pageviews that the latter does not. Because it tracks the country of origin, I can see that the blog continues to be visited often from foreign States, especially in Europe, in addition from America. The vast majority of visits are to the homepage, but every post is additionally viewed as its own page several times. The visits encourage me to continue to post for liberty, representative government and good language.

Happy Thanksgiving

I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! We Americans thank God for our birthright of freedom and for His bounty. We are grateful for the European settlers who came to the New World and for their friendship with the Native Americans, as well as for our immigrant ancestors. I am thankful especially for faith and hope and also for having this blog and for you, its visitors.

Update on the Conservative Analysis of the 2022 General Election

As more votes are counted, I can update the conservative analysis of the 2022 General Election I posted about last week. The one incumbent Anti-Trump Republican United States Senator on the ballot, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, is leading her contest. For the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans won a narrow majority, less than typical for a midterm election and less than expected considering the challenge of inflation, for which they exaggerated the blame on the Democratic President. Just as extreme Trumpists will have leverage over the GOP House caucus, the small number of non-Trumpist Republicans will, too. The far Left will have similarly disproportionate influence on the Democratic caucus. Republicans fared better in gubernatorial races, but Democrats made gains in other States across the American. A Trumpist gubernatorial nominee in Maryland lost, despite the popularity of the non-Trumpist term-limited Republican incumbent. In Pennsylvania, Democrats not only retained the office of Governor, but won control of the State House of Representatives for the first time in more than ten years, while gaining a seat in the Senate, where the GOP still holds the majority. Republicans were weighed down by an arch-Trumpist gubernatorial ticket at the top of the GOP ballot. There was an additional referendum result favorable for conservatives: Tennessee rejected forced union membership. The mixed results of the elections for offices, and the often close results thereof, as well as for referendums, suggest there is continues to be division among Americans, with both parties competitive when they offer qualified candidates. Conservative ideas and candidates are not necessarily being rejected by the American voters, but Trumpist (populist, protectionist, nativist and isolationist) conspiracy theorists and candidates who are against reasonable protections for public health clearly are being rejected.

A Pennsylvania Democratic Campaign Professional Is Convicted of Ballot Petition Fraud

A Philadelphia Democratic campaign operative was convicted last week in state court for forging signatures on petitions to have candidates’ names printed on primary election ballots. The candidates were seeking to be placed on the ballot for Judge of the Court of Common Pleas and Magisterial District Judge. Pennsylvania requires a certain minimum number of signatures of qualified voters to have a name printed on ballots for each office. As I noted in my column in National Review Online, https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/a-2020-election-audit-is-a-bad-idea-for-pennsylvania-republicans/, ballot petition is a particularly rampant form of election fraud in the Keystone State. This example was a particularly flagrant one, but countless other ballots are permitted to be filed that are base at least in part on fraudulent or invalid signatures or illegal circulation of ballot petitions. Republicans should focus on such real examples of election fraud, while refraining from tolerating foreign interference that benefits them, instead of focusing on false conspiracy theories of election fraud that undermine efforts for election integrity, as I noted in my column.

A Dutch Court Sentenced Kremlin-Backed Russian Separatists for Downing a Civilian Airliner

A court in the Netherlands last week sentenced to life imprisonment two Russians and a Russo-Ukrainian separatist for using a missile supplied by the Russian Federation to shoot down a Malaysian Air civilian airline jet that had taken off from Amsterdam over Ukraine in 2014, killing hundreds of innocent people during the early phase of Russian aggression against the former Ukrainian Soviet Republic. The Russian Federation, led by ex-Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Putin, is trying to restore the Soviet Union, which broke up in 1991. Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine, seizing Crimea and covertly backing separatists in Eastern Ukraine in 2014, before conducting a full-scale invasion this year to seize the rest of Ukraine, in violation of its agreement to recognize Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Russia has committed many war crimes during the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Conservative Analysis of the 2022 Federal and State General Elections Across America

Although the results have not been certified for last week’s 2022 General Election for federal and state offices across America, enough results have been reported to be able to offer a conservative analysis. Donald Trump was a major factor in the 2022 federal and state General Elections, in which the Republicans failed to make the large congressional gains they expected, despite economic challenges. As I have noted, Trumpism is a populist mix of protectionism, nativism, isolationism, dishonesty, disloyalty, corruption and authoritarianism. In addition to the GOP’s implied argument that Trump should have been reelected over Joseph Biden, Trump made the election a referendum on him through his endorsements in the Republican primaries and in the general election and by basing them on personal loyalty to him and the acceptance of his false claims about the 2020 presidential elections. He was also a factor because the election became a test of his domination of the party he leads. Trump further made himself an issue by teasing his potential 2024 presidential candidacy. Trump, who had cost the GOP its congressional majority in 2018 before losing the presidency two years later, backed unqualified, populist candidates for federal and state offices who believed in conspiracy theories and opposed reasonable public health protections against contagion. Many of them lost Tuesday, including some who were his most prominent supporters, with his endorsed candidates faring well only in races that had not expected to have been competitive. All the candidates who did not repent of participating in the January 6, 2021 Insurrection that Trump inspired lost. Candidates who were prominent deniers of the legitimacy of the 2020 election fared poorly, particularly those who were candidates for secretaries of state who threatened the integrity of elections. By contrast, Georgia’s Republican Governor and Secretary of State were both reelected after opposing Trump’s fraudulent efforts to overturn the election of presidential and vice-presidential Electors in 2020, while the Trump-backed Senate nominee in that State was headed for a runoff. The two Republican United States Representatives who voted to impeach him for encouraging the insurrection were reelected, while the Senate incumbent is headed for a runoff. By contrast, one of the seats of an anti-Trump Republican was lost to a Democrat after the incumbent was defeated by a pro-Trump Republican in the primary. The Democratic strategy of supporting Republicans in primaries who were the most unelectable in the general election, which underscores the need to eliminate primary elections or at least make them less vulnerable to popular manipulation, worked, as all of the extreme GOP candidates backed by Democrats lost. Republicans exaggerated the blame for inflation on Democratic President Biden while making unrealistic or even inflationary proposals, as I have noted. They misunderstood that some of the discontent in the polls with Biden came from the left. Democrats did not do well in this election, but beat expectations by doing better than the average for mid-term elections for the party of the incumbent president. As a result, there are finally growing calls for the GOP to move on from the loser Trump. An important note on the campaign issues is that the pro-life movement was tainted by association with Trump because of his misogyny and authoritarianism, as I have noted, and by the ends-justifies-the-means election fraud that won him the GOP nomination and election to the presidency in 2016. Like the Republican Party and the conservative movement, the pro-life movement was undermined morally by its “deal with the Devil” of backing a candidate with poor character who was hostile to protecting innocent life in several ways. A separation from Trump is critical for all three. Referendums: There were mostly negative results on issues of interest to conservatives, but there were some proposals from the left that were rejected. California rejected a measure to tax higher income earners; the measure would have funded corporate welfare for a particular industry (electric vehicles for ride-hailing companies). Louisiana rejected a measure to end forced labor as a punishment for crimes; the U.S. Constitution allows involuntary servitude as punishment for crimes as an exception to the prohibition against slavery. Although Maryland and Missouri legalized recreational marijuana, Arkansas and the Dakotas rejected it.

Blog and Personal Notes

Blog Notes: My last post was the 1,300th to this blog. Thank you for visiting my blog. I have been able to continue to post, despite suffering several family losses and other tribulations over the last year. It is still necessary to continue to have to work around the host glitch that prevents line spacing or paragraph indentation. It also prevents the posting of web links. Personal Notes: I have been polled so frequently in recent years, especially this year, that I have gotten out of the habit of posting about it. I was pleased to be able to donate supplies to United Ukrainian American Relief Committee for the Ukrainian refugees who have been displaced by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, whose tyrannical leader, Vladimir Putin, an ex-Soviet intelligence officer, is trying to restore the Soviet Union. Consider making a donation of needed supplies.

Foreign Digest: Brazil, Ukraine, Lebanon and Iraq

Brazil: The far-right President of Brazil lost narrowly to the leftwing candidate in the Brazilian presidential Elections earlier this month. A center-right candidate, such as usually nominated by Brazil’s center-right parties, would likely have fared better. The incumbent, like his political ally, Donald Trump, had minimized the Coronavirus pandemic, among other controversial policies. Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky won the Liberty Medal, awarded by the National Constitution Center, which is located in Philadelphia. Zelensky has exhibited extraordinary leadership in defending Ukraine military against the Russian invasion, and thereby defending fellow former Soviet Republics and Satellites, and the principles of independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Under tyrannical ex-Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Putin, the Russian Federation is trying to restore the Soviet Union. Lebanon and Iraq: Lebanon extradited a grandson of former Baathist tyrant Saddam Hussein, who is charged by Iraq with leading a massacre committed in 2014 on behalf of the Islamic State, the offshoot of the al-Qaeda Islamist terrorists. The Islamic State murdered well over a thousand Shi’ite and non-Muslim cadets and militiamen at a training facility in Iraq. Hussein’s grandson, who fled to Lebanon after the massacre, could face death by hanging, like his grandfather. Al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks on New York, Virginia and over Pennsylvania that killed nearly 3,000 people, which were the deadliest in history. I have previously posted of the alliance between the Islamist Islamic State and the “secular” Baathist regime remnants, which contradicts the argument of opponents of the Liberation of Iraq in 2003 that the Baathist Hussein regime and violent jihadists would never ally with each other, despite the all the evidence to the contrary.

Putin Associate Admits to Russian Interference in American Elections

A close associate of Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, the ex-Soviet intelligence officer who is trying to restore the Soviet Union, today admitted that the Kremlin has been, is currently and will continue to interfere in the American elections. The admission would not have been made without the approval of the Kremlin, whose bidding the Putin ally does as the founder of the infamous Russian mercenary organization, the Wagner Group. Putin interferes in the elections of many foreign States, overtly and covertly in various ways, including through stealing and releasing information, and through disinformation, and sometimes through violent acts. Russian active measures, which accelerated after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, are intended to divide Eastern Europeans from the West, divide Western Europeans from each other and the United States, to divide Americans against each other, and to undermine confidence in elections and in the truth, in addition to backing candidates favorable to Putin. Russian interference in the 2016 American elections, including in both major parties primaries, resulted in the Republican nomination of Donald Trump and his election to the presidency. Trump, who welcomed and accepted Russian interference and who was favorable to Putin, was backed again by the Russian tyrant in 2020. Trump believed Putin’s previous denials of interference, despite the unanimous conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies, a Republican Special Prosecutor and the GOP-majority Senate Intelligence Committee. He and his supporters have denied and minimized intereference from a hostile foreign power, or even justified it, or tried to blame the Democrats or Ukraine, or claim that Russia was helping the Democrats. Now Russia has admitted it is continuing to do what it has had success with, a success that is aided by acceptance of the fruit of Russian interference by most Republicans. Russia recently openly urged voters before the Italian parliamentary elections to punish governments that imposed economic sanctions on Russia for its full-scale aggression against Ukraine, which contributed to the gain by the opposition party to the national unity government. The Italian result thus discouarages other governments from asking their citizens to make economic sacrifices to deter aggression. Americans go to the polls in federal and state elections on Tuesday.