U.S. Army Colonel Retired Douglas Mastriano Republican Christian Nationalist candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania might be the most dangerous Republican. I think his run for governor of Pennsylvania is a win or lose stepping stone to Commander and Chief.

SEE VIDEOS BELOW:

American Terror: The Military’s Problem With Extremism In the Ranks

AND VIDEO:

American Strategy and the Great War by Douglas Mastriano

 If as it now appears, Republicans take control of Congress it will be a QAnon Congress. Margery Taylor Green will be a Congressional leader.  The mashup of QAnon & Christian Nationalist could be normalized. 

"Last month, Greene sat directly behind the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, as he unveiled his agenda for the midterm elections. Republican candidates often ask Greene to campaign for them. She has become a major fund-raiser within the party. And Greene told Robert she had talked with Donald Trump about being his running mate if he were to run for president in 2024."

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New York Times

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Comeback

Oct. 17, 2022

Republican leaders have embraced the former political pariah, demonstrating Trumpism’s hold over the party.

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In 2024 Republicans will chose their next leader. Trump might be out of the picture. Mastriano could have a chance at the presidency. 

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Military career

After college, Mastriano was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Army and assigned to the Military Intelligence Corps.^[22][25] After initial training, he started his career in Nuremberg, Germany, with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in the area of the West German borders with East Germany and Czechoslovakia.^[26] Mastriano also spent four years at the NATO Land Headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany.^[27] Mastriano was deployed to Iraq for Operation Desert Storm in 1991.^{[28][non-primary source needed]} Mastriano then was in Washington, DC, in the 3rd Infantry Division and US Army Europe.^{[28][non-primary source needed]} He ended his military career as a faculty instructor in the Department of Military Strategy at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, during 2012–2017,^{[non-primary source needed][21]} and retired in 2017 at the rank of colonel.^[29][30]…

Mastriano is a prominent figure in fundamentalist Christian nationalism and has called the separation of church and state a myth.^[5][6] He has made social media posts referencing QAnon and has spoken at events that promoted QAnon and 9/11 conspiracy theories.^{[1][7][8][9][10][11]} A self-professed close ally of former president Donald Trump, Mastriano received national attention for his efforts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.^[12] He attended Trump's January 6 rally in Washington D.C. prior to the Trump supporters storming the United States Capitol^[12] and was seen on video passing through Capitol Police barriers after they had been breached by others in the crowd.^[12] Mastriano was subpoenaed by the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in February 2022; he stopped cooperating with the select committee in August.^[13][14]

^{MORE AT:}

Doug Mastriano

 

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 "Doug Mastriano is running an unconventional campaign for governor. He’s not raising a lot of money. He prefers to attend closed-door events with his base or campaign at public events where reporters are often kept at arm's length.

But the Republican nominee’s campaign is also notable for  another reason: Mastriano has surrounded himself with a non-professional, armed security team whose members include at least one person with direct ties to a militia group.

Mastriano’s detail includes several members of a relatively new evangelical church near Elizabethtown, LifeGate, whose leaders have spoken openly about electing Christians to office to advance biblical principles in government.

Scott Nagle

Perhaps the most visible member of the security team is James Emery, an Elizabethtown Area School Board member who has been photographed providing security to Mastriano at numerous events over the past year, sometimes armed. Earlier this month, Emery blocked members of the news media from entering a room in Erie where Mastriano was scheduled to speak to local business leaders.”

MORE AT:

LNP Lancaster Online

'Flow from the pulpit:' The LifeGate church members providing security to Doug Mastriano [Video]

CARTER WALKER | Staff Writer Aug 20, 2022 Updated Aug 20, 2022 

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#VICENews #News 

American Terror: The Military’s Problem With Extremism In the Ranks

 “After the events of January 6, it became clear many of the key players in extremist groups who organized the attacks were either veterans or active-duty servicemen. Since then, the Pentagon has scrambled to try and address the present-day problem of extremism in the ranks, which stretches back to the formation of the Ku Klux Klan after the Civil War. But a politically divided Congress and a polarized nation, are getting in the way of finding a solution.”

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“Belew’s book helps explain how we got to today’s alt right.”―Terry Gross, Fresh Air

The white power movement in America wants a revolution. Its soldiers are not lone wolves but highly organized cadres motivated by a coherent and deeply troubling worldview made up of white supremacy, virulent anticommunism, and apocalyptic faith. In Bring the War Home, Kathleen Belew gives us the history of a movement that consolidated in the 1970s and 1980s around a potent sense of betrayal in the Vietnam War and made tragic headlines in Waco and Ruby Ridge and with the Oklahoma City bombing and is resurgent under President Trump.

Returning to an America ripped apart by a war they felt they were not allowed to win, a small group of veterans and active-duty military personnel and civilian supporters concluded that waging war on their own country was justified. They unified people from a variety of militant groups, including Klansmen, neo-Nazis, skinheads, radical tax protestors, and white separatists to form a new movement of loosely affiliated independent cells to avoid detection. The white power movement operated with discipline and clarity, undertaking assassinations, armed robbery, counterfeiting, and weapons trafficking. Its command structure gave women a prominent place and put them in charge of brokering alliances and birthing future recruits.

Belew’s disturbing and timely history reminds us that war cannot be contained in time and space: grievances intensify and violence becomes a logical course of action. Based on years of deep immersion in previously classified FBI files and on extensive interviews, Bring the War Home tells the story of American paramilitarism and the birth of the alt-right.

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America’s Entry into World War I (History Institute)

American Strategy and the Great War by Douglas Mastriano

The second presentation at the Teaching Military History Institute entitled "America’s 

Entry into World War I." This History Institute was sponsored by FPRI's Madeleine and W.W. Keen Butcher History Institute, the First Division Museum at Cantigny (a division of the Robert R. McCormick Foundation), Carthage College, and FPRI's Center for the Study of America and the West. These remarks were made at the First Division Museum at Cantigny in Wheaton, IL, on April 9, 2016.

Liz Truss, the not quite Augusto Pinochet of London. Even conservatives should know by now that Milton and Rose Friedman’s & later Reagan & Thatcher’s Shock Doctrine Economics doesn’t work without political genocide & brutal torture.

 “Extract of Michael Winterbottom´s documentary "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" (2009), based on the book written by Naomi Klein. This extract talks about the imposition of the free market model in Chile from 1970 and forward, how the CIA assisted and funded the military coup of 1973, and the formulas used to implemet free market economy as opposed to Allende´s "marxism", drafted by the called "Chicago Boys", chilean students sent to University of Chicago to study free market economics under Milton Friedman”

"Shock Doctrine and Economic Policies

As the key economic advisors of the Pinochet dictatorship, the Chicago Boys were the forerunners of the economic policies of that government. They sponsored state run policies to decrease national spending, end inflation and promote economic growth. They promoted a policy of strict austerity and cut government expenditures substantially. Free trade agreements and the breakdown of barriers to trade were also promoted to help Chile compete in the world market. They also privatized public companies, and utilized the free market rather than government rule to promote their economic policies.^[9] This was part of the neoliberal economic views espoused by Milton Friedman, the ideological backer for their views. Friedman and his connections to the Chicago Boys was highly politicized especially after he received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1976. The policies are also sometimes referred to as shock therapy based on the fact that they were projected to hurt the economy but overall be beneficial in the long run.^[13] These policies influenced future governments and organizations tied to the neoliberal economic viewpoint such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and other International Organizations and governments. However, the relations between these organizations were not always close, and rivalry between neoliberal organizations still existed.^[14] The ideology of free market capitalism and laissez faire economics in conjunction with a strong military rule and total political control is the cornerstone of Pinochetism, in conjunction with a strong anti-communist political platform. These policies and their effects are both highly controversial in Chile and around the World, and represent a major divide in Chilean politics to this day.^[15]

International Influence

The economic success of the Chicago boys was a critical part of bolstering the Pinochet regime abroad. The Chilean miracle as it was called attracted a lot of necessary positive attention for the Pinochet government, and allowed Pinochet to exercise political repression without condemnation by economic allies. New policies such as structural adjustment, free trade, and tax cuts became incredibly popular with conservative political groups throughout the western world. These policies eventually spread into the United States and United Kingdom via their conservative leaders. Chile was one of the first countries to embrace these policies and they have since spread in part due to the initial success Chile experienced.^[3]"

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Chicago Boys

Populist vs elite. 

The other side of Liz Truss extreme economic failure is “populism.” The main stream press is still politely naming racist Jew, Muslim, brown people, nationalistic hate “populism.” 

“I am a fighter and not a quitter!” British Prime Minister Liz Truss thundered Wednesday in the House of Commons. “I am resigning,” she said Thursday, in a less bombastic tone of voice. Let’s hope conservatives here and around the world learn a lesson about both policy and populism  (racist Jew, Muslim, brown people, nationalistic hate).

In a larger sense, however, even if you leave aside her political ineptitude and her embrace of voodoo economics, Truss was in an impossible position. So was Johnson before her, and so will be her successor. The Conservative Party is in power because it embraced populism  ( racist Jew, Muslim, brown people, nationalistic hate ), which turns out to be a good way to win elections but an impossible way to govern.

MORE AT:

Washington Post

Opinion Liz Truss’s fall is a warning to populists everywhere

Eugene Robinson

October 20, 2022 at 3:04 p.m. EDT

Populist is a broad term that can be applied to Hitler and to Roosevelt, Trump and Bernie Sanders. 

Hitler was "of the people." but used antisemitism to become an elite.  FDR was of the elite but was called "a traitor to his class." 

Wealthy elitist Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave me, the son of a steelworker, prosperity. Then Reagan took prosperity away from children of steelworkers and following the economic principles of Milton Friedman gave it to the elite. 

Trump is an elitist who lied and claimed to be populist but picked out the racist, nationalistic part of populist. Bernie Sanders is "of the people and continuously supported "the people"  without the racism & antisemitism of Trump. 

But we lump Hitler, Roosevelt, Trump, Sanders & now Liz Truss & Boris Johnson into populist. See Populism below.

 “Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against "the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed in the late 19th century and has been applied to various politicians, parties and movements since that time, often as a pejorative. Within political science and other social sciences, several different definitions of populism have been employed, with some scholars proposing that the term be rejected altogether.

A common framework for interpreting populism is known as the ideational approach: this defines populism as an ideology which presents "the people" as a morally good force and contrasts them against "the elite", who are portrayed as corrupt and self-serving. Populists differ in how "the people" are defined, but it can be based along class, ethnic, or national lines. Populists typically present "the elite" as comprising the political, economic, cultural, and media establishment, depicted as a homogeneous entity and accused of placing their own interests, and often the interests of other groups—such as large corporations, foreign countries, or immigrants—above the interests of "the people". Populist parties and social movements are often led by charismatic or dominant figures who present themselves as "the voice of the people". According to the ideational approach, populism is often combined with other ideologies, such as nationalism, liberalism, or socialism. Thus, populists can be found at different locations along the left–right political spectrum, and there exist both left-wing populism and right-wing populism.

Other scholars of the social sciences have defined the term populism differently. According to the popular agency definition used by some historians of United States history, populism refers to popular engagement of the population in political decision making. An approach associated with the political scientist Ernesto Laclau presents populism as an emancipatory social force through which marginalised groups challenge dominant power structures. Some economists have used the term in reference to governments which engage in substantial public spending financed by foreign loans, resulting in hyperinflation and emergency measures. In popular discourse—where the term has often been used pejoratively—it has sometimes been used synonymously with demagogy, to describe politicians who present overly simplistic answers to complex questions in a highly emotional manner, or with opportunism, to characterise politicians who seek to please voters without rational consideration as to the best course of action.

In the 1960s the term became increasingly popular among social scientists in Western countries, and later in the 20th century it was applied to various political parties active in liberal democracies. In the 21st century, the struggle over the term intensified in political discourse, particularly in the Americas and Europe, with it being used to describe a range of left-wing, right-wing, and centrist groups that challenged the established parties.^[1]”

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Populism

The Shock Doctrine

"In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries."

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE THE RISE OF DISASTER CAPITALISM

Volkssturm, old men boys & girls conscripted by Nazis who knew they lost the war as a suicidal army. Putin is seizing old men & boys to fight the war he has lost in Ukraine. Russians are not willingly doing mass suicide for Putin's glory.

 “Police and military officers swooped down on a Moscow business center this week unannounced. They were looking for men to fight in Ukraine — and they seized nearly every one they saw. Some musicians, rehearsing. A courier there to deliver a parcel. A man from a Moscow service agency, very drunk, in his mid-50s, with a walking disability.”

"The Volkssturm (German pronunciation: [ˈfɔlksʃtʊʁm]; "people's storm")^[1][2] was a levée en masse national militia established by Nazi Germany during the last months of World War II. It was not set up by the German Army, the ground component of the combined German Wehrmacht armed forces, but by the Nazi Party on the orders of Adolf Hitler and established on 25 September 1944.^[3] It was staffed by conscripting males between the ages of 16 and 60 years, who were not already serving in some military unit. The Volkssturm comprised one of the final components of the total war promulgated by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, part of a Nazi endeavor to overcome their enemies' military strength through force of will.^[4] Volkssturm units fought unsuccessful futile battles against the Allied forces at the end of the war and on several occasions, its members participated in atrocities accompanied by German civilians and the Hitler Youth, which were overseen by members of the SS or Gau leaders...

For these militia units to be effective, they needed not only strength in numbers, but also fanaticism.^[18] During the early stages of Volkssturm planning, it became apparent that units lacking morale would lack combat effectiveness. To generate fanaticism, Volkssturm units were placed under direct command of the local Nazi party officials, the Gauleiter and Kreisleiter.^[19] The new Volkssturm was also to become a nationwide organization, with Heinrich Himmler, as Replacement Army commander, responsible for armament and training. Though nominally under party control, Volkssturm units were placed under Wehrmacht command when engaged in action. Aware that a "people's army" would not be able to withstand the onslaught of the modern army wielded by the Allies, Hitler issued the following order towards the end of 1944:"

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Volkssturm

"Police and military officers swooped down on a Moscow business center this week unannounced. They were looking for men to fight in Ukraine — and they seized nearly every one they saw. Some musicians, rehearsing. A courier there to deliver a parcel. A man from a Moscow service agency, very drunk, in his mid-50s, with a walking disability.

“I have no idea why they took him,” said Alexei, who, like dozens of others in the office complex, was rounded up and taken to the nearest military enlistment office, part of a harsh new phase in the Russian drive.

In cities and towns across Russia, men of fighting age are going into hiding to avoid the officials who are seizing them and sending them to fight in Ukraine.

Police and military press-gangs in recent days have snatched men off the streets and outside Metro stations. They’ve lurked in apartment building lobbies to hand out military summonses. They’ve raided office blocks and hostels. They’ve invaded cafes and restaurants, blocking the exits.

The press-gangs appear to descend at random. It is terrifying — and, at times, comically haphazard. Alexei, a 30-something pacifist, lives with his cat and, until he was hauled off, enjoyed hanging out with friends in bars, cafes and parks, going to concerts and planning his next holiday in Europe. (He and others in this report spoke on the condition that his last name be withheld out of concern for his safety. The Washington Post has confirmed the raid, but could not independently verify the details he provided.)"

MORE AT:

Washington Post

Russia is grabbing men off the street to fight in Ukraine

By Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbakumova 

October 16, 2022 at 1:00 a.m. EDT

Barry Goldwater threatened nuclear war, but he had no chance. Polling is in favor of Josh Shapiro but Hillary Clinton was favored in polls. Doug Mastriano as governor of Pennsylvania is the most frightening thing I have come across in 58 years of voting.

There were no bridges across the Susquehanna during the Civil War. Lancaster PA developed as a Northern city. York, PA developed as a Southern city. 

In my 79 years I’ve lived both on the Union side & the Confederate side of the Susquehanna. One summer in 1965 I lived in Stewartstown, Pennsylvania in York County. On the Mason Dixon Line, Stewartstown was a Southern Town. I lived in York, PA & worked in Hanover PA. 

Back then former German soldiers I knew would say Hitler was a bad guy but put people back to work. 

TWENTY YEARS AFTER WORLD WAR II A LOT OF MY TEACHERS WERE WORLD WAR II VETERANS. NOBODY SAID HITLER & NAZIS WERE GREAT! 

NOW IN 2022 MANY REPUBLICANS WANT THE FASCISTS OF WORLD WAR II BACK & WORSHIP NAZIS!

My Uncle Fred was a Army Combat Engineer. He landed
on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Fred is 2nd from right. 

There are lots of people on the Confederate side of Pennsylvania and many in small areas of Pennsylvania who will vote for Mastriano because of his Nazi level antisemitism. 

At an SPLC meeting at Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia Richard Cohen showed a slide. On one side was a man with a swastika tattoo on his forehead. The other side a man with a white shirt & tie. Mr. Cohen said the man with the white shirt & tie is the dangerous one. 

Nazis that hide their beliefs to gain political office are the dangerous kind. They can win elections & gain power. A Nazi Pennsylvania is imaginable under a governor Mastriano.

“You have a candidate who is Jewish, an observant Jewish candidate, who puts his observance and his faith in his campaign ads,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. “And then you have someone who associates with unapologetic, unabashed antisemites running against him...”

"This summer, Mr. Mastriano’s campaign came under scrutiny for paying $5,000 to the far-right social media platform Gab. The man accused of perpetrating the Pittsburgh shooting had posted antisemitic screeds on Gab, and Mr. Mastriano’s payment drew bipartisan condemnation. The platform’s founder, Andrew Torba, defended Mr. Mastriano and declared that “we’re not bending the knee to the 2 percent anymore,” an apparent reference to American Jewry."

"Mr. Mastriano has also spread the lie that George Soros, a Holocaust survivor and liberal billionaire often vilified on the right, was a Nazi collaborator."

MORE AT:

The New York Times

Mastriano’s Attacks on Jewish School Set Off Outcry Over Antisemitic Signaling

The G.O.P. candidate for governor, who promotes Christian power and disdains separation of church and state, is alarming Jewish voters in his contest with the Democratic candidate, Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish.

By Katie Glueck

Oct. 10, 2022

What kind of candidate keeps the press away from his campaign events with armed security? Doug Mastriano Christian Nationalist candidate for governor of Pennsylvania with armed security tied to militia Oath Keepers.

The Mastriano campaign begins at 8:13 in the video above.

What kind of candidate excludes the press from his campaign events?

Doug Mastriano seems more like a leader of a right wing terrorist cell who decided to run for office then a conventional candidate. His campaign is secretive. He doesn't allow the press. He surrounds himself with mercenaries for protection. - James Pitcherella

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"Doug Mastriano is running an unconventional campaign for governor. He’s not raising a lot of money. He prefers to attend closed-door events with his base or campaign at public events where reporters are often kept at arm's length.

But the Republican nominee’s campaign is also notable for another reason: Mastriano has surrounded himself with a non-professional, armed security team whose members include at least one person with direct ties to a militia group.

Mastriano’s detail includes several members of a relatively new evangelical church near Elizabethtown, LifeGate, whose leaders have spoken openly about electing Christians to office to advance biblical principles in government.

Perhaps the most visible member of the security team is James Emery, an Elizabethtown Area School Board member who has been photographed providing security to Mastriano at numerous events over the past year, sometimes armed. Earlier this month, Emery blocked members of the news media from entering a room in Erie where Mastriano was scheduled to speak to local business leaders."

MORE AT:

LNP Lancaster Online

'Flow from the pulpit:' The LifeGate church members providing security to Doug Mastriano [Video]

CARTER WALKER | Staff Writer Aug 20, 2022 Updated Aug 20, 2022 

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Scott Nagle, GOP committeeman, connected to Oath Keepers

'This photo of Scott Nagle (identified as Nagel in original captioning) at an Oath Keepers event at the 2015 Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg was posted to the Facebook page of Larry Liguori, the former Pennsylvania Oath Keepers president. The Oath Keepers are a right-wing group founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, a U.S. Army veteran from Montana. The name stems from the oath all U.S. armed service members take to defend the U.S. Constitution from “all enemies, foreign and domestic,” according to the nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Via Facebook page of Larry Liguori"

MASTRIANO WOULD ALSO BAN UNIONS CARPENTERS REACT The Republican said he would ban pole dancing in schools, “pornographic books that are in elementary schools,” and critical race theory.

 “Josh Shapiro is in the pocket of that radical, far-left wing school union that is spreading all kinds of propaganda about me,” he said, noting he supported increasing school funding statewide by $850 million while in the state senate.

MASTRIANO WOULD ALSO BAN UNIONS

"Mastriano celebrated Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ leadership in Florida and said he would make Pennsylvania a “little Florida.”

“It’s going to be a new day in Pennsylvania,” he said. “Pennsylvania will once again be that shining city on the hill.”

The rally featured a heavy emphasis on conservative Christianity. Pastor Dave Damiani, of Lansdale, Montgomery County, called on his peers to become more involved in politics and called Mastriano “the real deal.”

Mastriano, a retired army officer, has weaved Christian symbolism heavily into his campaign. He has also drawn criticism for his calls for mixing religion into government and association with a man who runs a social media platform known for antisemtic beliefs.

Last week, the candidate promoted 40 days of fasting and prayer ahead of Election Day. The campaign said the abstaining from food would help with restoring “true liberty, as an integral part of the strategy to win the general election in November.”

Jack Posobiec, a political operative, commentator, and prominent conspiracy theorist, was greeted with applause at the event and celebrated Mastriano.

Posobiec, who grew up in Norristown, Montgomery County, said Shapiro’s time as a state lawmaker, Montgomery County Commissioner, and state attorney general was a failure.

“We understand there’s so much a governor can do,” Posobiec said, urging Republicans to vote for Mastriano.

Posobiec said reporters were wrong by pointing out Mastriano’s campaign was having trouble raising money and drawing crowds at some events. He said the polls that show Mastriano trailing Shapiro were wrong and didn’t see the large crowds for the candidate on Saturday in Bucks and Chester counties.

“We are going to take Pennsylvania back,” he said.

Jamie Walker, a New Britain Township activist motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigation measures in schools, spoke to the crowd and vowed her support for Mastriano. She told the crowd she was a Democrat, but she supports Mastriano after the COVID-19 mitigation measures in schools.

“Pennsylvania parents will never back down when it comes to our children,” she said, calling Shapiro the “embodiment of the Democrat assault on our rights.”

Prior to rally, Mastriano held a VIP reception, but he quickly left after the rally as supporters tried to get his attention to talk to him, shake his hand, or grab a selfie.

The candidate then went a firearm group’s event at a Warminster Township park. The event drew some scrutiny because guns were being raffled at the park with playgrounds and basketball courts nearby."

MORE AT:

LevitownNow

Mastriano Brings Campaign For Governor To Bucks County, Calls For ‘New Day’ In PA

 Tom Sofield October 2, 2022

“No one fucks with a Biden.” except Mohammed bin Salman. Trump gave Saudis The U.S. largest refinery, Port Authur Texas. The Saudis slapped Biden & allied with Russia to raise gasoline prices so Republicans can take Congress & Saudis have Trump back.

Trump:

“Saudi Arabia pays cash.”

 

“No one fucks with a Biden” except Mohammed bin Salman.

"America's largest oil refinery is now fully owned by Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Aramco, the kingdom's state-owned oil behemoth, took 100% control of the sprawling Port Arthur refinery in Texas on Monday, completing a deal that was first announced last year.

Port Arthur is considered the crown jewel of the US refinery system. The Gulf Coast facility can process 600,000 barrels of oil per day, making it the largest refinery in North America.

Aramco previously owned 50% of Port Arthur through a joint venture co-owned with Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) called Motiva Enterprises.

But the two oil giants had a rocky relationship and reached a deal in March 2016 to separate their assets. Shell put out a statement on Monday confirming the "completion" of that break-up.

In addition to Port Arthur, Aramco is acquiring full ownership of 24 distribution terminals. Aramco also gets the exclusive right to sell Shell-branded gasoline and diesel in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, the eastern half of Texas and the majority of Florida."

Saudis take 100% control of America's largest oil refinery

By Matt Egan May 1, 2017: 1:53 PM ET

"Trump continued with this line of thinking at a Monday press availability alongside Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain, claiming that the Saudis “spent $400 billion in our country over the last number of years,” giving them credit for “a million and a half jobs,” and then observing that “Saudi Arabia pays cash.”

MORE AT:

Trump’s weird ideas on the US-Saudi relationship, sort of explained

“Saudi Arabia pays cash.”

Matthew Yglesias. Sep 17, 2019, 1:10pm EDT

"Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the Senate, had one of the more scathing reactions to OPEC’s announcement.

“From unanswered questions about 9/11 & the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, to conspiring w/ Putin to punish the US w/ higher oil prices, the royal Saudi family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation. It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without their alliance,” he tweeted Thursday.

By November, the Biden administration will have to decide whether to make another major concession to the prince. A U.S. court set that deadline for the U.S. to determine whether it will weigh in to agree or disagree with Prince Mohammed's lawyer that the prince has legal immunity from a lawsuit in U.S. federal court over the killing of Khashoggi.

Lawmakers are scheduled to be out of Washington until after the Nov. 8 midterm elections and when they return will be focused on funding federal agencies for the full fiscal year through September 2023. Prospects for a lame-duck Congress taking up the bill introduced by Malinowski and the two other lawmakers are slight.

Rising gas prices would be bad news for Democrats heading into the final stretch of the midterm elections, while Republicans remain eager to capitalize on the decades-high inflation and rising cost of living, with high gas prices a constant reminder as voters fill up their tanks."

MORE AT:

NBC

A Disappointment': Saudi Arabia Oil Production Cuts Slaps Down Biden's Outreach

The announcement comes three months after President Joe Biden fist bumped with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his trip to Saudi Arabia

By Ellen Knickmeyer, Chris Megerian and Kevin Freking • Published October 6, 2022