Election 2022, “Jen Showalter for America”

Written by David DiCrescenzo on . Posted in Politics

Early voting begins today in what will be a critical moratorium for America and by extension, the free world.  Let me begin by saying that I am not and never have been a supporter of early voting because of the inherit potential for vote manipulation which has sadly become rampant across the country.  That said, it does offer two weeks for everyone to stop complaining, get to your assigned voter precinct in person, and make your voice heard.

Never have we been so divided on so many issues.  Voices on the left and the right are at a fever pitch, and it is time to make it “official” at the ballot.

There are as many bad candidates as there are good ones, and as usual, there are ballot initiatives which are written in such a way as to confuse everyone.

The focus of today’s article is voter turnout and making changes.  In my area back in August voter turnout for the primaries was pathetic at the least and abysmal at the best.  For all the screaming about wanting change, the turnout was a paltry 23%.

As far as actual turnout is concerned, you, me, and everyone we know and don’t know MUST vote and we MUST vote in PERSON.  Unless one is legitimately involved in a business that keeps them out of the country for long stretches of time, is actively serving our nation abroad, or is physically incapacitated, there is absolutely NO good reason or excuse for not voting in person on election day itself.  Mailing in a ballot is an absolute invitation for unscrupulous people to commit voter fraud, and as we have seen, they do without so much as a second thought.

Before you cast your ballot by whatever method, ask yourself some important questions.  Do you honestly and intelligently think our nation is headed in the right direction..?!  Do you believe we are better off now than we were two years ago..?!  If you answered yes to either of these questions, you don’t really need to read any further.

If, on the other hand, you do recognize that we are in serious trouble on all fronts, please take the time to really investigate who and what you vote for, because if we don’t remove many of the incumbents and replace them with people who have a clear vision for America’s future, we will very likely find ourselves at the point of no return if we haven’t reached that point already.

To bring it a little closer to home for me, down in Palm Beach County I know a candidate by the name of Jen Showalter who is running for the most local of all offices, that of School Board.  As I sat down to write this and was putting my thoughts together, I realized that she is exactly what we need in every elected position at every level of government.  

She is at once highly intelligent, articulate, and focused on her mission, and also that woman in front or behind you in the checkout line at Publix who happens to be a mom and a homemaker. 

She has spent the last two years talking with parents, teachers, administrators, and legislators, totally immersed herself in what is going on in the Palm Beach County School District and has taken more than her share of the barbs and arrows from her detractors who are clearly terrified by her.  Her dedication to the needs of all the parents and students is apparent the moment one hears her speak.

She embodies the spirit of what elected officials should be, mostly because she is NOT any sort of politician, and she is NOT going the path of so many using this “low level” position as a launching pad to a career in politics.

I would ask everyone, everywhere in America to look at who they are considering casting their ballots for to see if they are a “Jen Showalter,” because if this great nation is to have any chance of getting back on track, we need men and women like this woman put in place immediately. 

If you have had enough of elite politicians who: 

Are only focused on party politics and personal agendas. 

Think “it’s a privilege” to stand before them at public meetings. 

Have rules in place that intentionally make it a challenge to attend meetings in person, and bog down the meeting agenda with sometimes hours of bestowing themselves and others with meaningless awards ahead of and instead of discussing business.

Hold the threat of arrest over the heads of attendees for “breaking” these or other arbitrary rules.  

Everything mentioned above and more can be witnessed at every meeting of the School Board in PBC, and with just a few tweaks here and there, can certainly be witnessed at any government meeting at every level across this nation.

If you want to see it end, find, and vote for the “Jen Showalter” in every race and for every office on the ballot wherever you might be in these United States of America. 

I don’t know if it’s possible to change direction at this point, but as the saying goes, “if something doesn’t change, nothing will ever change.”

 

National Security On Election Hold

Written by Julio Rivera on . Posted in Politics

Publisher's note:  This is the second article that Mr. Rivera has asked me to share with my readers.  Mr. Rivera packs a lot of information in a very short space and this article is well worth the time spent to review.

Julio Rivera:  Senate Democrats are Slow Walking Critical National Security Issues Until After Election Day

With a potential government shutdown on the table that would begin at the stroke of midnight on October 1st, both chambers of Congress were able to reach consensus Friday Government shutdown averted after House, Senate pass funding bill - ABC News  on a temporary spending package that will keep the federal government running through mid-December. 

With an ever-so-critical midterm election roughly 5 weeks away, it can be assumed that neither party wanted to wear the stain of a shutdown, especially one that would have led to the furlough of scores of voters that hold the power to voice their displeasure with the party they perceive to hold the blame.

Within the deal that was struck to avoid shutdown was a whopping additional $12 billion in military and economic aid for Ukraine. As the total amount of US assistance for Ukraine races towards $100 Billion, new polling shows that a large percentage of Americans are beginning to tire of the US government’s financial and military support of Ukraine and want to see increased diplomatic efforts to end the war if taxpayer funded aid is to continue. 

Also, in the shutdown averting deal was a critical $1 billion in heating and utility assistance for low-income families that comes just as summer turns to autumn, $20 million to address the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi, as well as a five-year reauthorization for Food and Drug Administration user fees.

But, despite the immediate respite on some items of interest, scores of issues that are of particular importance to the security of millions of Americans, were effectively punted to mid-November. At the top of that list is the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). 

Leadership in the upper chamber however, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), offered on Thursday that the debate process for the bill will begin in mid-October. “While we have accomplished a great deal so far, more than any Congress in recent memory and we all should be proud of what we accomplished, we still have much to do and many important bills to consider. Proceeding to the NDAA will save us valuable time, enabling us to get more done. But members should be prepared for an extremely, underline extremely, busy agenda in the last two months of this Congress,” Schumer said Thursday.

Many in the Senate, including chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), were “pushing hard” to get the NDAA on the floor before a planned recess that should be occurring ahead of November’s midterm elections. In mid-June, SASC advanced its $847 billion version of the NDAA out of committee, after the adoption of a $45 billion topline increase during a closed-door markup of the bill. The $840 Billion House version of the bill was voted 329 to 101 to pass in mid-July.

Among the more important items included in the legislation are several matters related to American cybersecurity. America, like most of the rest of the world, is seriously lacking in qualified cyber personnel. The shortages have been felt as of late and not only in America, as Iranian attacks, carried out by government sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups, affected nations around the globe including Albania  

The already passed House version of the bill includes a provision that establishes term limits for leadership at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) under the CISA Leadership Act. Should the provision make it to the Senate version of the bill, officials appointed to lead the agency will serve five-year terms, in an effort to see their term durations extended beyond presidencies. The amendment also specifies that the appointment process will require the sitting president to appoint new CISA directors "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." 

Also included in the House version of the NDAA, is a promising provision that would direct the Veterans Affairs secretary to establish a new pilot course for veterans and their spouses around new cybersecurity training programs. The programs would include coursework that would qualify for college credits that can be applied towards associate or baccalaureate degrees. Additionally, new virtual learning opportunities and performance-based assessments will be created that would ultimately lead to federal work-based learning opportunities and programs. These kinds of provisions, that help the tragically underserved American Veteran community, should always be supported in a bipartisan manner.

The rise in threats like ransomware and browser hijackers will only continue to grow in 2023. For this reason, and countless others, politicians on both sides must recognize the importance of passing a robust NDAA with global instability only worsening as the Ukrainian conflict rages.

Julio Rivera is a business and political strategist, the Editorial Director for Reactionary Times, and a political commentator and columnist. His writing, which is focused on cybersecurity and politics, has been published by numerous websites and he is regularly seen on National and International news programming.

 

Another Woke Disaster

Written by Julio Rivera on . Posted in Politics

Publisher’s note:  I was approached recently by Julio Rivera who is the author of this well written and well documented article.  Mr. Rivera asked me to consider the merits of what he had to say and if I might be interested in sharing it with my readers.  Since I am always open to such submissions, I welcomed it with open arms, and I’m glad I did as Mr. Rivera hits the nail on the head in his discussion of the failed administration of Joe Biden.  You will find more information about Mr. Rivera and where his work can be found at the bottom of this article.

Julio Rivera:  Another Woke Disaster? Will Security Challenged Biden Administration Be Capable of Closing Cyber-Gap?

Joe Biden is about a year and a half into his first, and hopefully last term, and one thing crystal clear – the United States has never faced a larger number of security issues. After beginning his term with major issues in regard to the US-Mexico border early last year as a result of the new President’s short-sighted executive order that terminated the national emergency declared by the Trump administration and established with Proclamation 9844, the ongoing construction of the border wall was halted and the subsequent months saw the development of a severe border crisis that has seen well over a million illegal border crossings since early 2021. 

As a result of this disaster, that in addition to being the impetus for the resurgence in COVID-19 cases in border states at several points during the last 18 months, has provided financial support to the human trafficking operations in the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico, the Biden administration is now attempting to quietly reverse course on bad policy by authorizing the completion of the Trump-funded border wall in what is a particularly high traffic area of southern Arizona near the City of Yuma.

In addition to border failings of the past year and a half, Biden has also had to deal with some of the more devastating high-profile cyber-attacks against the United States ever, particularly in 2021. In 2021, the supply chain halting attacks that targeted Colonial Pipeline and JBS Foods rocked the American economy.

These attacks displayed the potential for disaster that exists in the theater of cyber warfare. As most countries operate at a serious disadvantage against the US militaristically, the only shot most of our enemies have at causing significant damage against the US lies in the cybersphere.

In an attempt to address these issues, this past week, the Biden administration rolled out a multi-agency initiative intended to create hundreds of new cyber apprenticeship programs with private businesses that it thinks will address the serious lack of IT staffing in both the public and private sectors. The new program draws its funding from the larger $500 million Commerce Department program named the Good Jobs Challenge. 

But, like seemingly every liberal-led initiative in our current era of phony wokism, instead of concentrating on identifying the best possible candidates for these apprenticeships and creating a merit-based system, the Democrats running this show are looking to ageistly and perhaps even racistly, focus on recruiting young people, women, and minorities.

Not that there is anything wrong with offering opportunities to young people, women, and minorities, but the anti-white rhetoric that is already flowing from the administration officials tasked with initiating the program contains overtones that sound suspiciously racist. 

For example, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo at a White House event this past Tuesday was quoted as saying, "We're not going to find 700,000 people if we're only looking for white men. It's not going to happen,"

One of the other new cyber-related initiatives that was recently launched by the administration centers around security for the upcoming midterm election, as the State Department announced in June that this new program will grant a reward of up to $10 million for information regarding foreign-based interference in the election. 

The new initiative's international elections analyst, Marie Harf, told a recent workshop hosted by the University of Southern California Election Cybersecurity Initiative that there are fears related to potential attacks that are likely to continue into this November's midterm elections.

“Much of that concern, again, centers on Russia, and how it could exploit American divisions and seed false conspiracy theories about the integrity of our elections,” Harf said.

The Workshop’s presenters also attempted to educate those in attendance on spotting fake news, how to secure their passwords more effectively, and how they can stay safe from "phishing" scams, that involve cybercriminals sending phony emails in an effort to draw personal information like passwords and social security numbers from victims.

Joe Biden, through his ineptitude, has exposed America to an unprecedented number of dangers in just this past a year and a half. The border, dangers presented to American servicemen and women during the tragic botched Afghanistan pullout, and ongoing attacks against police officers in many major American cities, the majority of which are run by Democrats. 

If the United States is to be kept safe against threats like increasing ransomware attacks and the dangers posed by state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) Groups that exist in the cybersphere the next two and half years, the sadly reactive and futile Biden administration must perform at a much higher level than it has so far, as the long-term security of not only America, but of the entire free world, hinges on the United States ability to fend off the threats posed by countries like Russia, Iran, North Korea and China.   

Julio Rivera is a business and political strategist, the Editorial Director for Reactionary Times, and a political commentator and columnist. His writing, which is focused on cybersecurity and politics, has been published by numerous websites and he is regularly seen on National and International news programming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.enigmasoftware.com/threat-database/ransomware/

 

https://www.cyclonis.com/threats/advanced-persistent-threat-apt/

 

 

https://www.reactionarytimes.com/

Melissa Martz For Congress District 18 Florida

Written by David DiCrescenzo on . Posted in Politics

America is firmly caught up in the coming mid-term elections and we at The Patriots Press were finally able to catch up with one candidate running for the US Congress.

Melissa Martz is a newcomer to the political arena and we asked her our usual first interview questions which you can listen to here.

As a candidate in Florida District 18, she faces a tough “David and Goliath” type battle from the established incumbent, Brian Mast.  

To learn more about Melissa Martz, you may visit her campaign website here.

 

 

Racing to the Florida House in District 91

Written by David DiCrescenzo on . Posted in Politics

On Thursday, September 24, 2020, I finally caught up with Sayd Hussain who is a candidate for Florida House in District 91and we discussed his position on a number of issues as well as some of his recent endorsements.  If you click on the link in red letters right after this word you may view that discussion here.

 

I am currently attempting to reach out to his opponent, Emily Slosberg who is the incumbent so that I can bring my readers a fair comparison.