Our reader Jersey Joe added this postscript from The Guardian about the Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania:
From the guardian, 10-24-22: quote – Doug Mastriano, a retired army colonel who has enthusiastically indulged Donald Trump’s fantasy that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, is the Republican candidate. If he wins, he plans to deregister every single one of Pennsylvania’s 8.7 million voters. In future elections, Mastriano would choose who certifies – or doesn’t – the state’s election results. [snip] As a state senator in Pennsylvania, he said women who violated a proposed six-week abortion ban should be charged with murder. Mastriano frequently attacks trans people, and has said gay marriage should be illegal, and that same-sex couples should not be allowed to adopt children. end quoteThe man is a far right wing nightmare determined to end democracy in this country. According to these maniacs, elections are fair and valid only if the GOP wins.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In the commonwealth of Pennsylvania the only sane choice is Josh Shapiro, a low key, ethical former commissioner of Montgomery County who is not afraid of taking on dishonest corporations and reforming law enforcement. He will put the interests of the people of Pennsylvania first. It is a clear choice, Mastriano, an anti-Semite and fantasist that still clings to the lie that Trump won in 2020, or a ethical man that wants to bring the commonwealth back to economic stability and serve the people.
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Amen
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After I finished reading, I checked the polls. While I hope the polls are wrong that the odds favor Republicans taking back Congress and are closing the gap in the Senate too, I hope this poll is correct.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/governor/2022/pennsylvania/
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Ignore polls! IGNORE POLLS!
They are often wrong and they discourage voters by saying “your candidate lost before the polls opened. Don’t bother.”
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Polls are self-fulfilling prophesies.
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And here’s the central question: what is the point of a poll? (Other than to generate clicks and revenue for Nate Silver, an economist who believes he is a scientist and statistician, but doesn’t even include uncertainty in most of his “estimates”)
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Two recent posts about Mastriano at this blog and not one commenter wrote about the impact of the vote of conservative Christians in the outcome of the race.
Jenna Ellis, an evangelical and Trump supporter, is Mastriano’s advisor. She labeled Shapiro a secular Jew and Biden a secular Catholic.
Shapiro was the state’s AG in 2018. He oversaw a grand jury report about abuse in Pa. Catholic dioceses. PoliticsSpa reported on 9-26-2022 that Mastriano said Shapiro has a grudge against the Catholic Church. Four days ago, Newsweek posted the headline, “Catholic Votes Overwhelmingly Favor GOP Candidates,” which referenced the Mastriano race.
The preface to the 2022 Penn. Catholic Conference Voter Guide states, “…Catholics may identify and support… different political parties and platforms, we must always remember that we are first and foremost Catholic Christians.”
Prospect’s article 10-27-2022 focuses on Mastriano’s campaign, “The GOP Gentiles Judging Jews.”
Two points come to mind- (1) many self-identified Democratic activists have been and are deliberately ignoring Christian religionists who are a substantial factor in political race outcomes and (2) the strategy undermined democracy over the past several decades and it may doom democracy.
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Alas, people like him are the Republican Party now. Buckle up. We’re in for some rough years when these goose-steppers seize power.
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Thanks, Diane, the full article was written by Adam Gabbatt in Butler county, Pennsylvania for The Guardian.
These right wing Trumpists are running all over the country, they are extreme and dangerous to a functioning democracy. I really hope that Mastriano loses in PA.
Here’s more from that same article: Quote -At an event this summer, organized by a pair of self-described prophets, Mastriano told his supporters: “We have the power of God with us.” He added that Jesus Christ was “guiding and directing our steps”. While working at the Army War College, an academy for military members, Mastriano posed for a faculty photo wearing a Confederate uniform.
And as a key schemer in Trump’s bid to overturn the presidential election, Mastriano spent thousands of dollars chartering buses to Washington DC on January 6, where images showed him close to the violence as Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol. end quote
Shaking my head in disbelief.
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Dangerous to Democracy…
Political philosophers posit there
are more than 2,234 adjectives used
to describe democracy.
Adjective:
A word that describes nouns.
Noun:
A word used to identify people,
places, or things.
Does “Democracy” identify
systemic capitulation to
monied interests?
Does “Democracy” identify
systemic capitulation to
an omnipotent scotus?
Does “Democracy” identify
a system where every vote
DOESN’T count?
(electoral college)
So when it comes to
banging the democracy
drum, who are playing
for?
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With respect to how the issue of abortion is framed, Pro-Choice Democrats bear some of the responsibility for the problem. They have never framed the issue, only conceded from the start, when they acknowledge abortion is an ethical issue. It is a biological issue that we have infused with a false morality. Even the most extreme case that the anti-choice crowd likes to throw out, late-term, last trimester abortions, is ensconced in moral terms that are fictions. There are no women who frivolously wait around until after six months to have abortions. There is a tiny fraction who do not even know they are pregnant until after six months. The vast majority are, as I have quoted Pete Buttigieg’s eloquent remarks on this, incredibly tragic cases of women who WANT to have a child, who expect it and anticipate it. This talking point ends.
Morality begins at the time of birth, not at the biological time of conception. Judge them by the immorality of the way they treat living Americans who are not like them or opposed to them. Morality is about those actually living, not those who are theoretically alive in some world that never existed and never will.
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The trajectory toward fascism-“framing” in religious-themed terms
It’s the rhetoric of immoral conservative men and women. The right wing’s abortion talking points were created to keep the party of racists, colonialists and misogynists in power. A substantial voting segment of the alliance of the U.S.’ two major religious sects are the enemy of democracy and the pawns of despots.
The Catholic church’s history is one of marginalizing women, a characteristic of fascism. Matt Schlapp’s political power is no accident. reportedly, his wife is/was Opus Dei.
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We had a vigorous debate about anti-Semitism and humanity a while ago. Here’s a horror about which we can all agree: Republicans have made it acceptable to be vocal about racism of all forms and they constantly try to recruit others, intimidate them if they can’t.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/34910291/jaguars-florida-georgia-condemn-antisemitic-message-game
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