Tag Archives: truth

Apr 18 2019

To Like Or Not To Love. That Is The Question

 

A comedian once joked that he loved all of his kids, but there was a couple he just didn’t like. As with all good comedy, the hyperbole is often grounded in truth. To love does not always mean you have to like.

Today relationships seem more littered with eggshells than honesty. Any parent raising children can acknowledge that our love is unconditional, but our children can have behavioral cycles that are just plain unlikable. Parents can explain the reasons we don’t like the child right now, and guide them toward the path of change.

But the modern counselor will tell you to dislike, to critique, and to admonish is to hate. All negativity is to be muted in an all embracing malleable sponge that squishes every action into a mush of acceptability. Defining love as never challenging, never exposing, and never exacting, the new society now is at loss to understand why the new generation of young adults are emotionally paralyzed at the slightest hint of adversity, never acknowledging that they have been programmed to think, if they are not liked, they are not loved but hated.

Ah, then there is the Christian whose words of rebuke are not the loving words of Jesus Christ. The same Christ who fashioned a whip to chase money-changers out of the Temple calling them thieves. He called people liars, hypocrites, dull of wit, slow of heart, children of Satan, and the list goes.

There were lots of people on this earth Christ didn’t like but he loved them all enough to die on cross for them. Christ didn’t accept every act of every person and neither should I. My faith demands that I love all humankind, but I don’t have to like you.

-Andy Torbett

May 7 2018

Moody’s Blues

 

Once again the media and the political establishment have anointed who they think should be the candidates, explained to the voters why we should just except their established infallibility, and just embrace the inevitable by voting the way they indicate. So again, it’s the same old, same old. Two candidates, who the “powers that be” have foisted upon us, to which we are expected to except without question.

But I think not! For the Republicans, the establishment pick, Shawn Moody, has too many questions about too much duplicity, and not enough answers to assuage the doubts that surround him. The Republican Party does not do voters justice by anointing a candidate simply because the LePage political machine demands they do so.

Moody’s campaign from the onset has been based upon fallacy. It continues to brazenly spout these assertions and no one seems willing to challenge them. Let’s start now.

The Outsider: This claim seems more of the stuff of late night comic relief than a viable campaign strategy. Yes, the terminology is en vogue as of late but it is hard to substantiate when you are shouting it from inside the bowels of the LePage political power structure. Yes, the shuffle heard ’round the State was the movement of all the Governor’s soldiers moving their camp to under the Moody flag.

Not a politician: Again, do they speak in jest? How does a man run an Independent race for Governor, become a political appointee, and surround himself with all the Governor’s horses and all the Governor’s Ladies and Gents and not be a politician? The Moody campaign seems to enjoy playing fast and loose with facts.

The only one who has worked in the private sector: Now we are approaching sit-com level humor. Everyone of Moody’s opponents has worked in or run a private sector business. I find it unsettling that a man who wants to be Governor has such a narrow view of what is a valid profession in the private sector.

Mike Thibodeau, who has left the race, ran a very successful construction business and still owns a private sector business that manufactures snow shovels. Ken Fredette has a successful law office. Garrett Mason worked in the family construction business as a boy and then worked as an administrator for a professional sports team. Mary Mayhew has also worked in administration.

If only Shawn Moody had been given a few more opponents, he could have disparaged the entirety of the private sector profession save for Auto-body Technicians. Poorly thought out and thin on facts, Moody’s campaign song, constantly chirped and parroted, may in the end have him singing the Blues. With such a questionable foundation for a campaign, one has to wonder of the validity of the platform.

Conservatism?: Really? This is hard to swallow when the man spent an entire election railing against the tenets of conservatism. Seven years as a political appointee in the LePage administration and he never spoke out once of his embrace of conservative principles until right before announcing his conversion to a Republican and run for Governor? The people are right to question the convenience of Moody’s “Road to Damascus” moment on the eve of his new “NotapoliticianOutsider” campaign.

Traditional Family Values: This is to be expected. Every Republican candidate has a “Come to Jesus” moment in spring/early summer, when they realize they have to get elected. The question is, Who has a consistent record on those issues? Moody is murky at best and needs to speak with clarity on this and other issues.

For instance, the Ranked Choice Voting issue. Rumor has it that Shawn Moody has been in support of RCV until recently when political expediency dictated he switch. What is Shawn Moody’s stance on this issue? He needs to clarify.

And what of Medicaid expansion? Again, rumor has it that Mr. Moody has been in favor of expansion, while his new found Republican colleagues have been staunchly fighting the growth of this bureaucracy. Mr. Moody needs to set the record straight on these issues.

Shawn Moody has difficulty being a straight shooter when he has to keep dodging his political past. If Mr. Moody gets the Blues, it’s because he plays a song that has no soul. His rhythm strikes a chord of deceit and we’ve all heard this song before.

Feb 23 2018

Here’s a Thought

A Stadium should be filled with members of the NRA so Piers Morgan, Joy Bahar, CNN, ABC, NBC, and all the others can tell us all how we are terrorists and blame the deaths of our children on us, not our spokeswoman, Dana Loesch. Then when they leave the arena,  remind them we were all armed and none of us retaliated for the puke they threw in our faces. There has not been one mass murder committed by a NRA member, yet government, who they want “to take out the NRA” and “Kill the NRA” has committed, by far, the most of all the heinous mass murders in all of world history.

Dec 6 2016

Q3 Postmortem

 

My children are looking forward with great anticipation for the next installment of the Star Wars franchise. The idea of the rag-tag warriors battling against insurmountable odds and somehow winning has captivated viewers the world over and my family is no exception. In reality, Maine participated in its very own “star wars saga” this past election cycle, complete with dark lord, rag-tag army, and the obligatory insurmountable odds.

For those who have questioned where yours truly of TMCV was during this election cycle, suffice to say my usual role of heard but not seen was relegated further to not heard and not seen. My voice was behind the phone calls and my person behind the door knocking as I was the NRA’s field coordinator for the ground effort to defeat Bloomberg’s Question Three. Now emerging from my bunker, I thought I would deliver a postmortem on the battle with some reflections on our victory.

As I mentioned in an interview with Guns.com, this victory belongs to the people of Maine. Despite a barrage of false information and relentless attempts (almost 6 million worth) to browbeat and shame the voters of Maine into giving up their natural born right to self-defense, Maine people held secure to their mooring of common sense and withstood the storm. It is real testament to the resiliency of Maine’s independent spirit to stand in the face of the dark lord himself, Bloomberg, his media machine, and local minions who were willing to betray their own state to gain favor with a politician from New York City, still, with all the odds stacked against them, the people of Maine stood resolute.

David Trahan was the face of the resistance, the tip of the spear in the fight to push back Bloomberg’s invasion into Maine. The countless hours spent, funds raised locally, and the many dogged challenges to the false narratives spun by the media were done by this man and his great staff at Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine. The battle would not have been won without David’s team at SAM.

The spear really was by the end of the battle a trident, with my small contribution at the end, but the second invaluable point of Maine’s defense was Gun Owner’s of Maine. Todd Tolhurst and the GOME “rag-tag” army spread out all over the state to get the message out and combat the Bloomberg machine. Again, without this army of pickup trucks, gun owners, and hunters fanning out into the hi ways and byways of Maine spreading the message person by person this battle would not have been won.

As for me, my job was below the radar. I was coordinating phone banks and canvassing events. While we were late to the battle, I am glad the NRA funded this battle front and we were able to make inroads into the enemy assault.

As for reflections, we know that Bloomberg is coming back. His fixation with limiting the natural born rights of his fellow citizens consumes him. So how to we prepare to meet him.

First at a grassroots level, we need to expose the dishonest polling data that Everytown for Gun Safety uses to mislead the public. This activist organization has been caught repeatedly skewing or flat out lying with their polling data. I have some articles in the works on that.

The police chiefs who endorsed Q3 and failed to let the public know they were on the board of the activist group that sponsored the referendum should at the very least have their lack of ethics and conflict of interests exposed. Perhaps, this sort of thing can be investigated? I’m sure there are those who better understand the nuances of these things, but be assured that Bloomberg’s storm troopers will be used again, if not discredited.

Fund-raising! If we know he’s coming back, we better start stockpiling now. If you thought 6 mil was a tsunami, wait until he doubles it.

Finally, continue to build on the network we’ve established. Look at town results. If there are towns we should have done better that we were weak, let’s shore those up! Yes, let’s strengthen our defenses so that when Bloomberg comes, we’ll have a Welcome Party waiting for him.