Over the past decade, the rise of democratic socialism in America has been most acute in coastal states like California, New York, and Washington.
Generally, America’s heartland has refrained from embracing the democratic socialist grievance agenda. However, as the 2026 primary season heats up, we are seeing several democratic socialist candidates running for office in places across the heartland.
Democratic socialists are not just campaigning in so-called flyover states; they are winning.
In Pennsylvania, democratic socialist Chris Raab cruised to victory late last month in the state’s primary for the 3rd U.S. House District. He is virtually assured a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives next year, given that the GOP did not run a candidate in the primary.
In the Bluegrass State, democratic socialist Robert LeVertis Bell, who trounced his moderate opponent in the primary for the state’s House District 43, “is poised to make Kentucky political history” when he likely becomes “the first socialist elected to the Capitol in 148 years.”
In upcoming contests, democratic socialists are leading in primary races for the U.S. Senate in Michigan and Maine as well as the U.S. House of Representatives in Colorado. At the gubernatorial level, they are also making inroads in places like Wisconsin, where democratic socialist Francesca Hong is the frontrunner for the Democratic Party’s nomination.
Suffice to say, democratic socialism could be a political force for years to come in the American heartland.
Alessandra Coote was walking on a trail with her 2-year-old daughter and dog two-and-a-half years ago when a man began yelling at her and threatened to kill her dog. When the petite single mom made it back to her Utah home, she decided she needed a firearm for protection.
A few months later, while living in what she described as a “shady part of town,” a homeless man threatened her. After that encounter, she began regularly carrying a firearm under Utah’s Constitutional Carry law.
Coote, who just graduated this spring from the University of Utah, says carrying the gun has given her the confidence to feel safe in public. “It’s been life-changing,” she told RealClearInvestigations. Although she has never had to draw or fire the weapon, she has faced a threatening individual when she was armed, but stopped the attack by merely letting the man know she was carrying.
Alessandra Coote says carrying the gun has given her the confidence to feel safe in public.
RCI
Coote is part of a growing trend of strapped Americans. A new survey of 1,000 general election voters conducted last month by McLaughlin & Associates found that almost 30% of respondents said they carry a firearm. More specifically, the survey found that 13.2% respondents said they carry a firearm all or most of the time, while an additional 16.6% said they carry one sometimes or rarely. These results show a 5.5% increase in the number of respondents who said they carry firearms since a similar poll was conducted in December 2024.
Both polls were commissioned by the group I lead, the Crime Prevention Research Center, and have a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent.
Since 2021, 13 states, covering 34% of the U.S. population, have adopted constitutional carry laws. As a result, 29 states do not require law-abiding citizens to obtain a permit to carry a concealed handgun. A little less than two-thirds of those who are carrying a concealed handgun in these states have a permit.
The survey is the latest evidence challenging claims linking firearms and violent crime. As data show both the number of firearms and the percentage of people carrying them is increasing, preliminary estimates show the U.S. murder rate is likely to hit a record low in 2025 – at least 10% below the previous record low.
“It doesn’t surprise me that while the country is experiencing record-low murder and violent crime rates, we are also experiencing a record high number of people legally carrying concealed handguns for self-protection,” Alan Gottlieb, the executive vice president and founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, told RCI.
Bradford County, FL, Sheriff Gordon Smith said lowering crime rates “isn’t rocket science.” He told RCI, “You reduce crime by putting more cops on the street, increasing arrest and conviction rates, and imposing meaningful prison sentences. But you also cut crime by empowering law-abiding citizens to defend themselves and their families through constitutional carry.”
Gun control groups – Everytown, Brady United, and Giffords Law Center – declined repeated requests to respond to the survey data and crime statistics.
Blacks, Hispanics & Women
The CPRC survey also found that politically engaged citizens are more likely to carry firearms. Respondents who identified as general election voters were twice as likely to have concealed handgun permits as other adults.
Blacks and Hispanics also carry at disproportionately high rates. Black people make up 11.0% of likely voters but account for 15.9% of those who carry all or most of the time. Hispanics are even higher, accounting for 18.8% of frequent carriers despite comprising only 11.0% of likely voters. By contrast, whites and Asians carry at rates below their shares of likely voters. Whites constitute 72% of likely voters but only 62.6% of those who carry all or most of the time, while Asians account for 4.0% of likely voters but just 2.0% of frequent carriers.
Audrey Bodiford says she has used her handgun for protection on several occasions.
RCI
Audrey Bodiford, a 5’2” black woman living in Lansing, Michigan, told RCI she owes her life to her handgun and having a concealed handgun permit. On Valentine’s Day in 2022, she said, the over 6-foot-tall man she had been dating “kind of went crazy,” threatened to kill her, and pulled a knife on her. Fearing for her life, she shot him in self-defense.
Because she lives in what she describes as a “not good” neighborhood, this was not the only time she relied on her firearm for protection. In another incident, she said she accidentally let a door slip from her hand while trying to hold it open for a man leaving a store. The man became verbally abusive, followed her, and aggressively closed in on her. She turned slightly so he could see that she was armed. He immediately backed off, ending the confrontation. Asked if carrying has given her more confidence: “I feel more safe, definitely,” she said.
The survey found relatively small differences between men and women. While women make up 52% of general election voters, they comprise 45.1% of Americans carrying concealed weapons; men are 48% of the electorate and 54.9% of those who carry all or most of the time. The breakdown for Constitutional Carry states is relatively higher for women, with 47.5% of those carrying all/most of the time being women and 52.5% men. Constitutional Carry may benefit women who suddenly face threats from a stalker or former partner and often do not feel they can wait the months it takes for officials to approve a permit application.
Research shows that two groups benefit the most from carrying firearms: physically weaker individuals, such as women and the elderly, and those most likely to become crime victims, such as poor blacks living in high-crime urban areas. These groups have also experienced the largest percentage increases in concealed handgun permits over the last decade (2015–2024). During that period, permits for women increased 112% faster than permits for men, while permits for blacks increased 284% faster than permits for whites.
“A firearm dramatically increases a woman’s ability to defend herself,” Professor Carl Moody, a crime researcher at the College of William & Mary, told RCI. “Without a firearm, a woman is almost always at a significant disadvantage if attacked by a man. With a firearm, she can avoid an unfair fight with an opponent who usually has a size and strength advantage. Almost always, it is only necessary to announce or display the weapon to dissuade the attacker.”
More Guns, Fewer Violent Crimes
Although NJ Gov. Phil Murphy warned that a Supreme Court ruling making it easier to carry a concealed weapon would imperil residents, the murder rate soon fell in the Garden State.
AP
After the Supreme Court struck down a New York state law in 2022 which had sharply limited the number of people who could carry concealed weapons, six states, including California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, were forced to make it easier to get a concealed handgun permit by eliminating arbitrary discretion and establishing objective rules on training and other qualifications. “This dangerous decision will make America a less safe country,” Democratic New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy warned. Those states did, indeed, see an enormous increase in the number of permits issued. In New Jersey, the number of concealed carry permit holders increased from 1,212 in 2022 to 57,245 in 2025. In Hawaii, the total has now gone from zero to 4,000.
Violent crime, however, has fallen in all six states. The murder rate in New Jersey fell from 3.9 per 100,000 people in 2022 to 2.4 in 2024, and the preliminary numbers show it falling to as low as two per 100,000 in 2025. A press release from New Jersey’s attorney general announced a “Historic Low in Gun Violence for 2025.” Some attribute the drop to the increase in permits. “Today, more than 58,000 law-abiding New Jerseyans can exercise their right to carry a firearm. And while some warned this would turn our streets into the Wild West, the reality has been far different,” Republican New Jersey Assemblyman Greg Myhre claimed.
An easier thing to measure is that permit holders are exceptionally law-abiding. States revoke their licenses for firearm-related violations at rates measured in thousandths or even tens of thousandths of a percentage point. Police officers rarely commit crimes, yet concealed handgun permit holders prove even more law-abiding than cops. Permit holders are convicted for firearms offenses at just one-twelfth the rate at which police are convicted of comparable firearm-related crimes.
“The data clearly show that concealed carry permit holders are among the safest and most responsible users of firearms,” David Mustard, a distinguished professor at the University of Georgia who researches extensively on crime, told RCI. Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith confirmed that this is his experience with Constitutional Carry: “The data is clear: The vast majority of concealed carriers are among our most responsible residents, not the problem.”
Despite the fears raised by gun-control advocates, over 91% of street police officers support concealed handgun laws. Law enforcement professionals understand that self-defense is a key element of public safety, in part because they know they usually arrive only after criminals commit crimes. An overwhelming body of academic research finds that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns reduces crime.
Sheriff Wayne Ivey is among many law enforcement professionals who say firearms help law-abiding citizens protect themselves.
RCI
This is especially true for women, who often struggle to defend themselves against much larger and stronger men, who also tend to run faster. While both men and women benefit from carrying a concealed handgun, research shows that each additional woman who carries a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by roughly three to four times more than an additional man carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for men.
“Too often, women who are being stalked or threatened are told to limit their movements, alter their routines, or rely on a piece of paper to stop someone determined to harm them,” Robyn Sandoval, the president of A Girl & A Gun, told RCI. “Women deserve better than living in fear. By learning to responsibly carry a firearm, they can gain the confidence and means to protect themselves and live their lives without fear.”
“Every day, more law-abiding citizens choose to legally carry firearms because they refuse to be victimized by criminals and thugs,” Brevard County, FL, Sheriff Wayne Ivey told RCI. “Responsible gun owners know that even the best police response times takes minutes, while violent criminals can take a life in seconds!”
The term for the political tactic of manipulating boundaries of electoral districts for unfair political advantage derives its name from a prominent 19th-century political figure — and from a mythological salamander.
The term, originally written as “Gerry-mander,” first was used on March 26, 1812, in the Boston Gazette — a reaction to the redrawing of Massachusetts state senate election districts under Gov. Elbridge Gerry.
Though the redistricting was done at the behest of his Democratic-Republican Party, it was Gerry who signed the bill in 1812. As a result, he received the dubious honor of attribution, along with its negative connotations.
Gerry, in fact, found the proposal “highly disagreeable.” He lost the next election, but the redistricting was a success: His party retained control of the legislature.
One of the remapped, contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble the shape of a mythological salamander. The newly drawn state senate district in Essex County was lampooned in cartoons as a strange winged dragon, clutching at the region.
The person who coined the term gerrymander never has been identified. The artist who drew the political cartoon, however, was Elkanah Tisdale, a Boston-based artist and engraver who had the skills to cut the blocks for the original cartoon.
Gerry was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a two-term member of the House of Representatives, governor of Massachusetts and U.S. vice president under James Madison. His name, however, was forever negatively linked to this form of political powerbroking by the cartoon shown above, which often appeared with the term gerrymander.
California’s decline is no mystery: decades of one-party rule have turned America’s golden state into a warning about the costs of ideological governance.
The recent California gubernatorial and Los Angeles mayoral elections—where, remarkably, Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt both appear to have advanced to the general election in November—offer a glimmer of hope.
Could it be that some on the Left, along with a number of Independents, have finally realized that neither wealth nor an upscale ZIP code can protect them from the Left’s vindictive socialist madness?
California gas prices, even prior to the Iran war, had reached the highest levels in the continental United States.
The cause is self-evident: left-wing policies that forbid most new gas and oil exploration, impose radical green-fuel mandates and levy the highest gas taxes in the U.S. and drive out oil refineries.
Illegal immigration has soared. Currently, some 11 million Californians—28 percent of the resident population—were not born in the U.S. This foreign-born demographic exploded at precisely the time that civic education and melting-pot assimilation and integration were denigrated in the public schools and replaced by ethnic chauvinism and pre-civilizational DEI tribalism.
A third of the nation’s welfare recipients and nearly a third of the homeless live in California. Almost a quarter of the state’s population lives below the poverty line.
California has the highest electricity rates in the mainland United States and the steepest income taxes in the nation. And yet it annually runs the highest budget deficits of the 50 states.
Despite massive unfunded pension debts of $265 billion, the state has spent billions of dollars on illegal-alien subsidies, from free health care to solar panels.
The state has wasted between $15 billion and $20 billion on its Bakersfield-to-Merced high-speed rail line since the project was approved in 2008.
It appears James Talarico’s church practices what it preaches, which isn’t a good thing. His woke church, which believes God is non-binary and that Jesus would have been a-okay with abortion, is spending some of its money on woke initiatives, including a trans summer camp and funding travel for out-of-state abortions. At the Texas church where the Democrat senate hopeful preaches sermons on the need for abortion in the “trans community,” church funds are sent not only to abortion giant Planned Parenthood, but also to radical organizations that pay to help facilitate out-of-state travel for women to kill their unborn babies, and an organization that runs a summer camp for transgender-identifying kids as young as 11. St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, the woke Austin church attended by Talarico, lists Planned Parenthood, which ends the lives of hundreds of thousands of unborn babies every year, as one of the organizations that shares its “vision and goals for the world.”
The church, which The Daily Wire reported last week stocks sexually explicit books aimed at young people in its library, sets aside money every year for Planned Parenthood, according to its website. It also describes itself as a “Reproductive Freedom Congregation,” meaning it believes that “abortion is a blessing.”
At the Texas church where the Democrat senate hopeful preaches sermons on the need for abortion in the “trans community,” church funds are sent not only to abortion giant Planned Parenthood, but also to radical organizations that pay to help facilitate out-of-state travel for women to kill their unborn babies, and an organization that runs a summer camp for transgender-identifying kids as young as 11.
St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, the woke Austin church attended by Talarico, lists Planned Parenthood, which ends the lives of hundreds of thousands of unborn babies every year, as one of the organizations that shares its “vision and goals for the world.”
The church, which The Daily Wire reported last week stocks sexually explicit books aimed at young people in its library, sets aside money every year for Planned Parenthood, according to its website. It also describes itself as a “Reproductive Freedom Congregation,” meaning it believes that “abortion is a blessing.”
At the Texas church where the Democrat senate hopeful preaches sermons on the need for abortion in the “trans community,” church funds are sent not only to abortion giant Planned Parenthood, but also to radical organizations that pay to help facilitate out-of-state travel for women to kill their unborn babies, and an organization that runs a summer camp for transgender-identifying kids as young as 11.
St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, the woke Austin church attended by Talarico, lists Planned Parenthood, which ends the lives of hundreds of thousands of unborn babies every year, as one of the organizations that shares its “vision and goals for the world.”
The church, which The Daily Wire reported last week stocks sexually explicit books aimed at young people in its library, sets aside money every year for Planned Parenthood, according to its website. It also describes itself as a “Reproductive Freedom Congregation,” meaning it believes that “abortion is a blessing.”
Notice that the church doesn’t provide support for mothers who want to keep their children, at least not publicly. It’s also unlikely they provide emotional support to mothers who have miscarried or regretted aborting their child.
It’s not much better in some segments of the Catholic Church, as this writer — a Catholic — can attest to.
America has experienced stock market crashes, great depressions, and other national financial or economic emergencies. As we enter our 250th anniversary, it seems that we’re no stranger to economic difficulty.
But there’s something about pride that keeps America from facing up to the fact that she’s sliding down the tubes. Add to that the fact that we have someone at the helm of this nation in the person of President Donald Trump that helps us to feel a little bit extra confident about our economic future. He’s experienced, he’s rich, and he constantly puts the welfare of this nation at the top of his list of important matters.
Ah, what could go wrong?
Everything could go right. Everything could go wrong, but it is pride that makes us think we can push 17 to the dealer.
Back in the sixties, this writer loved to listen to the Canadian folk duo Ian and Sylvia. One of their best songs was written by Ian Tyson, who died in 1989.
It is the one line from that song that always impressed me and made me think how we act this way with everything to do with the future, especially Americans. What is that line? Let’s see.
“Never hit seventeen When you play against the dealer For you know that the odds won’t ride with you”
That’s a Blackjack strategy tip — and it’s actually a common misconception worth clearing up!
The saying “never hit seventeen” refers to hard 17 (no Ace, or an Ace counted as 1). That part is solid advice — with a hard 17, hitting is statistically worse because you have a high chance of busting.
However, soft 17 (Ace + 6) is different. Basic strategy actually says you should hit (or double down) on soft 17, because the Ace can drop to 1 if you bust, giving you a safety net.
Quick guide:
Hard 17 → Stand. Always. The risk of busting is too high (~69% chance of busting if you hit).
Soft 17 → Hit or double down. You can’t bust in one card, and you’re likely to improve.
Dealer showing 2–6 → Even more reason to stand on hard 17; let the dealer bust.
The full saying is better expressed as: “Never hit a hard seventeen.” The soft 17 rule trips up a lot of players who treat all 17s the same way.
No doubt some people will ask, “Why does a prophet know so much about gambling?” Let me assure you, I am not a gambler. I just love that song, and I wondered what that saying meant. I got to finally look it up. Got a little help from AI.
In an article titled “Prophecy 2022” I reveal the exact words I was given when I was told God was putting me in a prophetic ministry. Those words were hard to say back then because we were in the booming Reaganomics economy of the 80s. It’s even harder to say now because we’re in a very vigorous Trump economy. But hard or easy, this is what I was told to say.
Penury is a state of extreme poverty and destitution, characterized by a severe lack of money, resources, or material possessions. Derived from the Latin penuria, meaning scarcity or want, the word goes beyond ordinary financial hardship to describe a condition in which a person or community is stripped of even the most basic necessities of life — food, shelter, clothing, and security. Penury is not merely being “broke” or temporarily short on funds; it implies a grinding, persistent deprivation that limits one’s ability to participate meaningfully in society. It can be the result of systemic forces such as unemployment, lack of education, or economic inequality, as well as personal circumstances like illness, loss, or displacement.
Part B — Penury in America
In the American context, penury manifests in ways that can seem paradoxical in one of the world’s wealthiest nations. It looks like families living in cars or tent encampments beneath highway overpasses, individuals forced to choose between medication and groceries, and children going to school hungry in communities where opportunity has long since dried up. In rural areas — from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to tribal lands in the Southwest — entire regions have been hollowed out by economic neglect, leaving generations with little prospect of escape. In urban centers, penury hides in plain sight: in overcrowded shelters, in the working poor clocking double shifts yet still unable to afford rent, and in the elderly surviving on fixed incomes that haven’t kept pace with the cost of living. Despite a vast network of social safety programs, gaps in coverage, bureaucratic barriers, and the stigma attached to poverty leave many Americans in a state of true penury — invisible to mainstream society but very much present.
President Trump says we are about to enter America’s new golden age of prosperity and influence, and I am not going to be the person to say that is not going to happen or cannot happen. I am the person who says, “Happen or not, it will cease suddenly.”
I can’t tell you how, because I don’t know. We’re living in a time when the world has an economy that affects everyone else in the world more and more and more. When antichrist comes, he will set up an economic system. There are those who study prophecy who think America, in its pride, in its self-assurance, will not want to be part of an antichrist system. It could cost them their entire future.
Others think that America may be attacked by a Eurasian pact of nations, it could be nuclear or an attack on the grid, leaving us helpless. We don’t know exactly, and I don’t know. I do know this: the Bible shows Israel being attacked by all of the enemy she has now, but it sees no one stepping up to help her. As America is now, where is America? Why is America not acting to help Israel in that moment? I don’t know the reasons for it, but I would venture it could be found within the meaning of these words, “Ov Ov Penury”
What can one say after one of the two major political parties in the country nominates a man who volunteered for an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, was an acolyte of the Blind Sheik, the man who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and who sides with Hamas against its victims?
I am at a loss. If you can support degenerates like this, you are broken.
Some of the very best people I know are or have been Democrats, and I still don’t believe that most Democrats truly are comfortable with evil. But they have lost their way. They are, at best, brainwashed. And at worst, total degenerates.
After watching the Democratic Party embrace truly evil policies over the past decades, you have to wonder about whether Satan himself coming out and endorsing a candidate would dissuade many Democrats from voting for he/she/it.
Probably not. Instead, they would go on a rant about Trump’s ballroom.
Democrats voted to put Jay Jones into office. They have rallied around Graham Platner. They insist that Zohran Mamdani is not a communist. They will scream in your face about how evil you are if you don’t want a young boy’s penis cut off.
Every time I have a conversation with a Democrat these days, it seems to me that they live in a different world than I do. No matter how many facts you put before them, it all comes back to Trump in their minds. I don’t see horror in their eyes when yet another man tries to kill the president, because so many of them wish he had succeeded.
When over a thousand innocent Israelis were killed, how many immediately sympathized with the killers? Were they horrified when they saw people ripping down posters of women and children being held hostage by savage Islamists?
Not many. Instead, they thrill to see monsters wearing keffiyahs, or look away, pretending that antisemitism has nothing to do with it.
I see people grasping onto every obvious hoax as an excuse to blame Republicans for all the ills in the world. No matter how absurd an accusation is, they rush to believe it as long as it confirms their priors.
Joe Biden is sharp as a tack! That illegal alien rapist has a right to stay in the United States!
I thought I had seen things hit rock bottom. Then this. Electing Jay Jones wasn’t despicable enough. No.
Why not elect Mr. Al Qaeda?! That’ll be fun. Aside from the bombing, he’s a pretty good guy. And he assures us that the Blind Sheik didn’t preach Jihad ALL the time. Just sometimes.
Otherwise, he was a pretty good speaker, you know.
I laugh when I hear them complain about Ken Paxton. Does anybody even know what he is accused of? Or is it just that they were TOLD that he was beyond the pale, unlike Graham Platner, who is just a regular guy who likes to chat on a dating app aimed at teens.
Who doesn’t? And since the alternative is the infinitely evil Susan Collins—yes, I have seen that excuse—it’s OK to vote for the guy who left his Nazi past to become a communist!
Do I sound despairing? Well, it’s because I am. I cannot conceive a world where people who dedicate their lives to “decency” will vote for people like this.
And you know what really stings? If you bring any of this up, they will excoriate you as a supporter of a pedophile who supports Vladimir Putin, and they believe that because proven liars tell them so.
It’s unclear why so many Californians decided to light their ballots on fire, as the votes amounted to wasted trees in California’s top-two primary, especially after Swalwell suspended his campaign and resigned from Congress after a series of women — including former staffers — accused him of sexual misconduct.
Swalwell, an East Bay Democrat and once-prominent critic of President Trump, suspended his campaign after two bombshell reports by the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN detailed disturbing allegations. Swalwell denied any wrongdoing while admitting to extramartial affairs, calling the incidents “mistakes in judgment.”
The revelations came too late for Swalwell’s name to be removed from the ballot, leaving voters with the option of no fewer than 60 other candidates. And still, almost 17,000 people seemed to have been unaware or unconcerned.
Swalwell did not respond to a request for comment.
After his career imploded, Swalwell installed himself as treasurer for his defunct campaign for governor, giving him full control of a $4 million money pot. Much of that money has since gone to paying his lawyers.
Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton held a narrow lead Tuesday night as more returns came in, with the Republican drawing 1,029,950 votes, or 26.8%, while former Biden administration health secretary Xavier Becerra followed with 990,114 votes, or 25.8%.
Progressive billionaire Tom Steyer trailed in third with 756,013 votes, or 19.7%, while Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco remained well back with 438,344 votes, or 11.4%.
Former congresswoman Katie Porter was next with 193,442 votes, or 5.0%, followed by San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan with 164,655 votes, or 4.3%, and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa with 53,177 votes, or 1.4%.
Former congresswoman Katie Porter had 191,040 votes, or 5.1%, followed by San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan with 163,135 votes, or 4.3%.
Results remain will continue to be counted before the election is certified July 10.
Spencer Pratt has confidently claimed he’s already looking ahead to a November runoff as election results Tuesday night showed him comfortably in second place behind incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.
“She knows it’s on. I hope she’s ready,” Pratt said on Tuesday. “I literally could not be more excited.”
“I am ready for whatever God puts in front of me,” he said.
“I was going to be happy if I wasn’t moving forward, but now I feel very confident.”
Pratt told reporters, “I literally could not be more excited,” when asked about a potential runoff. Andy Johnstone for CA Post Pratt said the coming months will allow him to continue building a team capable of governing Los Angeles.
“We have five months to put the best team the city could ever dream of,” Pratt said.
Pratt’s bullish comments came as Bass advanced to the November runoff while Pratt held second place ahead of socialist City Councilmember Nithya Raman in third.
While a large number of ballots remain to be counted, political observers increasingly view a Bass-Pratt matchup as the most likely outcome.
Pratt told reporters he entered election night prepared for any result.
Spencer Pratt and two other men in suits talking at an election night event. 5 While a large number of ballots remain to be counted, political observers increasingly view a Bass-Pratt matchup as the most likely outcome.
“We do have that team. We’ll see who is ready to come forward because retaliation is a real thing with Bass.”
Pratt also said a potential runoff campaign would give him an opportunity to demonstrate the amount of support behind his candidacy.
“I think the next five months I’m going to have time to build out this team to show the level of Democratic supporters I have behind me,” he said.
A key element of the left’s identity politics is the intersectional ranking of oppression.
That’s a fancy way of saying that there are levels of oppression, and you get what amounts to points for each box you tick.
At the bottom are heterosexual white women; they are victims of the patriarchy, but also beneficiaries of white supremacy and colonization, so they really are no better than white men unless they want an abortion. Wanting to kill your child bumps you up a notch, especially around election time.
At the top would be a transgender Muslim sex offender who entered this country illegally, hates Jews, is a communist, and who identifies as a deaf furry pedophile, or something like that. Maybe their pronouns should be Jihad/pedo or something to get extra points.
You probably have noticed that there are an awful lot of Muslims suddenly popping up as Democratic Party candidates, and that their calling card is their sympathy for terrorists and their hatred for Israel, combined with a taste for communism. Most people thought Abdul El-Sayed was the apotheosis of this trend, but he has been displaced by an actual former volunteer for al Qaeda, who is almost guaranteed to win his election to Congress.
The story of Adam Hamawy seems too bizarre to be true, given that he is about to be transported to the halls of the Capitol by the Democrats, who find Islamists to be like catnip these days. Put on your keffiyah and join me and Jim Geraghty on this journey into the rabbit hole.
You might be asking, what could be worse than a Senate candidate with a Nazi tattoo?
How about a House candidate who did some work for al-Qaeda?
Adam Hamawy’s past relationship with terrorist mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman has loomed over his rapid rise in the race to succeed retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ). . . .
But just one year before Hamawy took the witness stand to describe his travels with Abdel-Rahman, the now-Congressional candidate made a different journey with another party entangled in terrorist conspiracies: to Bosnia, with a group subsequently shut down for providing “logistical support” to Al-Qaida.
In a 1996 interview with the Newark Star-Ledger, according to a copy Jewish Insider recovered through an archive of print publications, Hamawy described volunteering in Bosnia during the summer of 1994 with a Chicago-based nonprofit called the “Benevolence International Foundation.”
“I worked in Sarajevo for 10 days and then the rest in Zenica, a large regional center in central Bosnia,” Hamawy, who had just graduated from medical school, told the paper about the five weeks he spent with the organization. “We went out to hospitals around the area and in the mountains to check what supplies they needed and we tried to deliver them.”
Sarajevo and Zenica were the exact cities where Benevolence International maintained its offices — offices that Bosnian authorities raided in 2002, part of a joint effort with U.S. authorities to dismantle the group, which they had identified as a front for Al-Qaida. The 9/11 Commission Report would later identify the foundation’s base in the Bosnian capital as part of the “impressive array of offices [that] covertly provided financial and other support for terrorist activities” that Osama bin Laden established in the early 1990s.
Well, that explains why Hamawy didn’t list a reference for his work for the Benevolence International Foundation on his résumé. His boss was killed in Pakistan in 2011.
And that’s not all! He was a character witness for the Blind Sheik after the World Trade Center bombing because he knew him well. His explanation? Well, he didn’t preach murder ALL the time, you know.
Gee, that seems a bit sketchy.
Adam Hamawy’s past relationship with terrorist mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman has loomed over his rapid rise in the race to succeed retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ).
Their relationship spanned a 1991 road trip the two took together to Detroit, Hamawy’s service as the sheikh’s translator for a press conference in which Abdel-Rahman denied any role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and Hamawy’s testimony on the sheikh’s behalf at his 1995 trial, where the Islamist leader was convicted of plotting to carry out a campaign of terrorist attacks in New York City.
But just one year before Hamawy took the witness stand to describe his travels with Abdel-Rahman, the now-Congressional candidate made a different journey with another party entangled in terrorist conspiracies: to Bosnia, with a group subsequently shut down for providing “logistical support” to Al-Qaida.
He also volunteered in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war, which essentially ensures that he is a Hamas sympathize
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