Christian Bartulovich nominated for the PA 122nd House District

The current representative in the 122nd House District is Republican Doyle Heffley.  This spring the Democrats in Carbon County (the county covered by the district) did not produce a candidate who had the requisite 300 petition signatures.  Six years ago Heffley sent a mailer to Democrats asking them to write his name in.  Over 300 did, resulting in Heffley running in both parties, just like elections in the old Soviet Union.  

This year anger at Heffley’s support for data center construction boiled over in Penn Forest Township and other areas of the county.  One data center has already been approved, and three more are planned.  Residents of Penn Forest approached one of their Supervisors, Christian Bartulovich, and asked him to run a write-in campaign on the Democratic side.  (Bartulovich is a registered Republican.)  

In one of the most amazing campaigns I have witnessed, a group of fairly novice volunteers put a campaign together in about 20 days, including mailers, signs, social media ads, and volunteers to stand at the polls.  Heffley got wind of the effort, of course, and sent out THREE separate mailers to Dems asking them to write in his name.  He is one of those Republicans who call the Democratic Party the “Democrat Party,” and he did that in his mailers–not a particularly smart move.  

In any case Mr. Bartulovich had more write-ins on the Democratic side than Heffley.  He will be the Democratic candidate in November.  Bartlovich also received hundreds of write-ins on the Republican side, indicating that Heffley has irritated quite a few Republicans as well.

I have met Mr. Bartulovich.  He is intelligent and listens to constituents.  That’s so different from our current situation.

What's the Matter with Texas?

In 2004 Thomas Frank wrote a book entitled “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”  His thesis was that people in Kansas were voting against their own self-interests by voting Republican.  Frank missed the point that for many people, their ideological beliefs take precedence over their economic or social interests.  I, for example, might find it in my self-interest to vote Republican.  I’m old, not an immigrant, no kids in school, fairly set financially–would it be in my self-interest, very narrowly defined–to vote Republican?  Well, don’t hold your breath.  Ain’t gonna happen.  My self-interest is connected to a different set of values.  

What I do not understand is the Republican voters of Texas who elected Ken Paxton as their candidate for the U.S. Senate in a landslide.  On what grounds–ideological, economic self-interest, love of country–would a Texas Republican prefer a crooked and dipshit politician over a reasonably decent conservative, and yet they did.  Are they blindly following Trump, and if so, why?

Something not quite right down there in Texas.

Did we win, again?

Usually when I wake up I turn on the news to see what terrible things happened overnight, and, according to Trump, we had an agreement with Iran.  Iran will open the Hormuz Strait, the UK will disarm the mines in a 1000 foot-wide corridor, and Iran won’t build nuclear weapons, although it was not clear if Israel was on board.

Then later in the day I heard the U.S. forces may resume bombing.  

And Trump is going in for a medical checkup?  Did I hear that right?

And Sen. Andy Kim (NJ) was pepper sprayed outside a detention center?

I can’t wait until tomorrow.

Fetterman, McCormick, and Mackenzie

I’ve worked a slew of different jobs in my lifetime.  I’m not about to list them all, but one of them was a Field Representative for a California State Senator.  I worked for him approximately two years.  The Field Office was in Santa Clara, CA, and we had a Chief of Staff, two Secretaries, and four half-time Field Reps, along with a small cadre of volunteers.  The Field Reps had different responsibilities; my areas included intergovernmental relations, the environment, and subjects that didn’t quite fit any of the other categories.

California has 40 State Senators.  That means a State Senate district has more constituents than a PA Congressional district.  We got a pile of letters every day.  One of the secretaries opened the letters and routed them to the relevant Field Rep.  It was our job to answer questions, track down info, and reply to the writer.  Letters that came in from outside the district were usually forwarded to the relevant representative–local, state, or federal–with a note on what we had done.

We answered EVERY letter.  We had polite ways of telling constituents that the Senator might not agree with their position, but we thanked them for writing.  We didn’t wait long.  If we needed time to gather more info, we wrote to explain what we were doing.  (This was before internet searches.)

In early May I wrote to PA Senators Fetterman and McCormick and Representative Mackenzie about two African boys from the Congo who were attending high school in Mississippi.  They were here legally.  They were seized by ICE.  An article in the New York Times detailed all of this.  

I asked those members of Congress what happened to those boys.  I asked them to look into it.  I pointed out that this was on our 250th anniversary.  I mentioned the Japanese internment.  You can read the text of the letter if you scroll back in the blog entries to May 4.

I have heard nothing.

Destroying planes and boats

Someone needs to explain this to me like I’m in fourth grade, because I am not understanding it.  The U.S. Justice Department indicts Raul Castro because the Cuban government shot down two planes some years ago, evidently after they had dropped leaflets on Cuba attacking the government.  The planes were over international waters.

On the other hand, the government of the U.S. has sunk many boats in international waters both in the Caribbean and in the Pacific.  The boats were supposedly carrying drugs, but evidence was not collected, and almost all the people in the boats were killed.  Since Trump is commander-in-chief, could a foreign government indict him?  

I’m not being a wise-ass here.  I really don’t see the distinction.

The Democratic "Autopsy" on the 2024 election

I have not read it, but evidently a big reason the report on why the Harris/Walz ticket lost was not released was because it was so badly written.  The Party finally did release it, but I understand the “Biden problem” was underplayed, the border issue was hardly discussed, and the failure of Harris to distinguish her policies from Biden’s weren’t examined.  The Dems put the the emphasis on how terrible the Republicans were as opposed to explaining what they planned to do.

I’m not sure we are going into the November elections in much better shape.  The Republicans have much more money, and the Dems are still picking at each other.  

On the other hand, I really shouldn’t criticize a report I haven’t seen.  I’ll hold off on further comments until I read it.  

Trump is "More Disciplined" in his 2nd term

That is what Jeff Bezos said in an interview with Andrews Ross Sorkin on CNBC.  Bezos also said, “Trump has lots of good ideas, and he’s been right about a lot of things.  You have to give him credit where credit is due.”

Bezos also said that the $35 million Melania Trump movie financed by Amazon was not an attempt to win favor.  

Really, he said that.

Info for this post is from Katie Robertson, “Bezos Praises Trump as ‘More Disciplined’ and Defends Cuts at Newspaper,” New York Times, (21 May 2026), p. B-4.