Are Dems Stealing Votes Again?

There are strange results in PA

Joe Fried CPA Mar 30, 2025 @ Joe Fried CPA Election Central

Election analyst Seth Keshel recently issued an alarm. Keshel reported the surprising results of a special election that was held this month in the 36^th Pennsylvania State Senate District (near Philadelphia). It appears likely that Democrats are engaged in wholesale cheating — again!

I say “again” because massive cheating in Pennsylvania took place during the 2020 election. That cheating involved over 100,000 ballots for which there were no registered voters. The subterfuge was analyzed and documented, but never rebutted. Details are available in an article I published in September and in an earlier, more detailed account.

The results in the 36^th District should be a wake-up call to all voters concerned about election integrity — especially Republican voters. The 36^th district, which lies entirely within Lancaster County, had 19% more registered Republicans than Democrats in November 2024, but in the recent special election the Republican candidate lost by a slim 482 votes.

According to a volunteer group called “Audit the Vote Pennsylvania,” the Republican candidate (Josh Parsons) received 816 fewer mail votes than GOP mail ballots that were completed and returned. On the other hand, the Democrat candidate (James Malone) “wound up with 1,745 more mail votes than Democrats who returned ballots....”

Those results could happen only if large numbers of Republicans decided to vote for the Democrat candidate.

Are we to believe that the Republicans in Lancaster County are unhappy that Republicans in Washington have closed the southern border? Or that Elon Musk is eliminating billions of dollars of waste? Or that men won’t be able to play in female sports? Polls show that a huge percentage of Republicans support those changes.

It also appears that Parson was a very acceptable candidate, as shown by this statement made by Seth Keshel:

“...Parson has been elected multiple times by the same voters in Lancaster County, and in November 2023, an off-year election, had the most votes ever for his position.”

For these and other reasons, Keshel wonders if “votes are being tossed in the trash.” So do I.

I highly recommend Keshel’s article, which is found here.

Bob Casey and PA Democrats Flout the Law to Reverse Election Loss

Surrogates for the ousted incumbent want illegal ballots included in the Senate race recount.

By Graham J Noble | Nov 19, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Opinion, Politics

He refused to accept the outcome of an election and decided that he was not prepared to hand over his office to the man who beat him at the ballot box. And so, he and his associates decided that, by whatever means possible, they would find enough votes to reverse the result of that election. Is this about Donald Trump in November of 2020? No, this is about Democrat Bob Casey in 2024.

Casey, who was running for his fourth term as Pennsylvania senator, was defeated by his Republican challenger, David McCormick. When the Associated Press called the race for McCormick on Nov. 7, the margin of votes separating the two candidates was slim. The Republican was leading Bob Casey by about 26,000 votes. The call in favor of McCormick was made on the determination that, of the votes still to be counted, not enough of them were from precincts favoring the incumbent, and there was little to no chance that Casey would overcome the deficit. As AP put it, there “were not enough in areas supporting Casey for him to make up the difference.”

Nevertheless, the senator refused to concede. The result, as it stood, was within a one-half of one percentage point difference, and, in accordance with state law, that triggered a recount.

Nothing much to see here so far, right? A very close race goes to a recount. This was certainly not a first. The problem – and it could turn into a legal one for Democrats – is which ballots are being included in the recount. Prior to the Nov. 5 election, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that incorrectly dated or undated ballots could not be counted. However, Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia has announced that the ballots ruled ineligible by the Supreme Court will now be counted.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has a Democrat majority.

Bob Casey Has Friends in All the Right Places

Ellis-Marseglia was endorsed by Bob Casey when she ran for the office of commissioner. She reportedly donated to Casey’s re-election campaign. Her justification for disregarding a state Supreme Court ruling? “[B]ecause I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country and people violate laws anytime they want. So for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.”

What the commissioner meant by that is open to interpretation. And certainly, she is not speaking for all Democrats. Ellis-Marseglia has come under fire by members of her own party in the Keystone State. Nevertheless, the commissioner is openly admitting that she is willing to disregard state law – and clearly, in this case, she is doing so because she believes or suspects that enough ineligible ballots can be counted to overturn the election result in favor of Bob Casey.

Give Cable TV the Boot – Check This Out!

When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer invited freshman senators to Washington, DC, for orientation, he did not initially extend an invite to McCormick.

Pennsylvania Republican Party Chair Lawrence Tabas declared, “What’s taking place in these counties is absolute lawlessness.” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley took to X, stating, “Let’s be clear about what’s happening here: Democrats in Pennsylvania are brazenly trying to break the law by attempting to count illegal ballots. They are doing this because they want to steal a senate seat.” And it seems Republicans are not the only ones who think so.

As Fox News reported Monday, November 18:

“The state Supreme Court reaffirmed its prior decision in a 4–3 ruling Monday that counties cannot count incorrectly dated or undated ballots. The decision singled out the Boards of Elections in Bucks County, Montgomery County, and Philadelphia County, whom they said ‘SHALL COMPLY with the prior rulings of this Court in which we have clarified’ for mail-in and absentee ballots in their Nov. 1 ruling.”

This ruling prompted Pennsylvania’s Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro to finally weigh in on the matter. He said “Any insinuation that our laws can be ignored or do not matter is irresponsible and does damage to faith in our electoral process… The rule of law matters in Pennsylvania. … It is critical for counties in both parties to respect it with both their rhetoric and their actions.”

Lost Causes and Election Deniers

The recount will run through Nov. 26, with the result expected to be announced the following day. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, reporting on the contested race, observed, “Recounts that have changed the result of a statewide election are exceptionally rare. Of the 6,929 statewide election recounts across the country between 2000 and 2023, only three resulted in the trailing candidate coming out ahead, according to an analysis by the election-focused nonprofit FairVote.”

The paper added, “The four automatic recounts that have taken place in Pennsylvania during that time have all confirmed the leading candidates’ victories.” By most accounts, Bob Casey has nothing more than the slimmest chance of prevailing in the recount.

Casey could have conceded. He could have waived the recount that, by various estimates, will cost the taxpayers of Pennsylvania between one and two million dollars. Instead, the senator and those who are backing him in his likely hopeless fight to keep his seat have decided to commit what so many elected Democrats at the federal level have declared a cardinal sin. Then again, this is by no means the first example of certain high-profile Democrats taking the position that election results cannot be disputed – unless they lose.

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

Read More From Graham J Noble

Trump Needs an extra 3 percent to win in Pennsylvania

By Joe Fried CPA,  Sep 08, 2024 @ Joe Fried CPA Election Central

Trump is likely to win the most votes in Pennsylvania (PA), but unless he leads by at least 3 percent on Election Day, it is likely that Harris will be declared the winner. If that happens, the Republicans will have to take extraordinary steps to dispute the stolen election. To understand the need for an extra 3 percent, we must review the serious problems of the 2020 election, which remain today.

Two big problems

PA does not require ID when voting by mail. That is bad enough. But just before the 2020 election, PA’s Supreme Court eliminated the only other way to determine if a ballot comes from a real voter: It ended signature matching. That absurd ruling remains in effect for the 2024 election, so there will be no way to determine if mailed ballots are submitted by legitimate voters. Indeed, there will be even less security for the 2024 election because the radical PA Supreme Court just ruled that ballots no longer need to be dated.

The problem in PA is not just theoretical: It is led to an invalid certification of the 2020 election. On December 28, 2020, nearly two months after the 2020 election, 16 members of the PA legislature put out an urgent press release warning that 202,377 ballots (nearly 3 percent of the total vote) had not been matched to registered voters. In response, the Secretary said, effectively, the “check is in the mail.” These were her words (almost two months after the election):

...some counties have not yet finished entering into the SURE system what are called voter histories. Each history is tied to the record of the individual voter who cast a ballot... [T]hese counties included Philadelphia, Allegheny, Butler and Cambria, which would account for a significant number of voters... 

The Secretary’s explanation was good enough for mainstream media “fact checkers,” who immediately declared that the problem raised by 16 Republican legislators was “debunked.” But no one in media bothered to follow up to see if the ballots were finally matched to registered voters. I can tell you, factually, they were not.

A high-quality data analysis firm called “Verity Vote” prepared a meticulous analysis that compared ballots received by each county to the number of registered voters who actually voted in each county.1 To prepare the analysis, Verity Vote purchased voter registration updates from the PA Secretary of state for each week from late October 2020 through the beginning of February 2021. At all times, there was a voter deficit ranging from 121,000 to 202,000. As a veteran auditor with over 40 years of experience, I independently obtained registration data and reviewed the Verity Vote analysis extensively. It was completely accurate.

If you wonder where the phony ballots came from, here is the answer. True the Vote (TTV), the data analysts behind the 2000 Mules movie, estimated that there were 210,000 to 275,000 Pennsylvania ballots harvested just before the 2020 election. Although the mainstream media declared that the TTV estimates were faulty (too imprecise), those “fact checks” were simplistic. As I note in a separate article, a review of six so-called “fact checks” showed that...

• No fact checker mentioned the very precise cell phone tracking that is possible when multiple GPS signals are used. According to the U.S. federal government (GPS.gov), when two or more cell phone frequencies are combined, it is possible to obtain results accurate to within centimeters, or even millimeters (instead of several feet). That is information the fact checkers ignored.
• Fact checkers also ignored TTV’s claim to have used three different types of signals — not just one. TTV asserted that, by combining 3 signals, it achieved average real life accuracy to within 39 inches (not the 40 foot accuracy reported by fact checkers).2

Although no one can say for sure that the 210,000 - 275,000 ballot estimate is accurate, or that TTV was as meticulous as it claimed, it is virtually certain that a huge number of ballots were illegally harvested, and those harvested ballots probably accounted for much of the problem reported by the 16 PA legislators, and confirmed by Verity Vote.

Unfortunately, there is no reason to think that there won’t be fake ballots in PA’s 2024 election. After successfully smearing the 2000 Mules movie, Democrat ballot harvesters probably feel more emboldened than ever before. They will cheat again.

The solution

As I stated earlier in the American Thinker, the Trump team must be prepared to accumulate strong evidence to prove that votes are suspect. Once the election is over the only method that will work is post-election voter canvassing.

Although the exact method will vary by location, here are some of the specific steps that will be required:

1.    The voter database of each large county must be obtained. It should include all registered voters and their addresses, and it must identify the voters who cast a mail-in ballot.

2.    A large sample of addresses must be selected from the population of people shown to have voted by mail. The sample must be representative of the county’s population, and it should be selected by an expert statistician.

3.    Trained volunteers should knock on the doors of selected voters.

4.    When a resident responds at the door, the volunteers should identify themselves as private citizens who are conducting voluntary election integrity research.

5.    Several questions should be asked:

a.     Did you vote?

b.    What method did you use to vote (in person or absentee)?

c.     How many ballots did you receive in the mail for yourself?

d.    How many ballots did you receive for person(s) who do not live here?

e.     What did you do with any extra ballots received?

6.    When all data are received, the results should be compiled and analyzed.

After the 2020 election, a massive canvassing effort was performed in Maricopa County, Arizona. It determined that 5.7 percent of the alleged voters were unknown at the voting address. Unfortunately, the survey was produced far too late to be useful. In Macomb County Michigan a survey determined that there was a problem with about 18 percent or more of the alleged voters. That canvass effort was shut down prematurely by Dana Nessel, Michigan’s radical Attorney General.

There are other factors to consider:

1.    Even though canvassing activity is legal in most areas, Democrats will furiously try to block any canvassing, so lawyers must be familiar with election and solicitation laws for each community.

2.    The surveys must be completed within days after the election, before memories fade and people get confused.

3.    For each major county within a swing state, a bi-partisan group of leaders should be selected. If possible, these leaders should be retired judges, lawyers, doctors, engineers, and accountants, and they should have unblemished credentials. They will select and supervise the volunteers.

4.    A professional statistician must be used, and she must select a sample large enough to achieve high confidence with a small margin of error. For most counties the required sample might range from 500 to 1,000.

5.    Accurate records of all responses must be kept. If discrepancies are found, sworn affidavits should be obtained, if possible.

When done properly, the findings will be solid evidence that can be used in an election lawsuit. It won’t prove that a particular candidate won, but it can show that a new election must be held.

There is one more option, and it is much better: Trump can avoid all of this by increasing his lead to over 3 percent by Election Day.

---

1. PA’s unique registration system, called the SURE system, indicates total registered voters as well as the number of registered voters who actually voted in the prior election. For that reason, it is possible to compare ballots to actual registered voters who voted.

2. By “real life accuracy” I mean the accuracy achievable after consideration of buildings, trees, and other obstructions.

Court derails Keystone State’s membership in RGGI

November 6th, 2023 |117 Comments @ CFACT

A plan by former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf (D) to circumvent the legislative process and force the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) was thwarted Nov. 1, when Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court ruled the move violated the state’s constitution.

The court ruled that Wolf’s unilateral move from 2019, which would have Pennsylvania abide by RGGI’s emissions-trading scheme, constituted the imposition of a tax and thus required legislative approval. Now, the current administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) has 30 days to appeal the decision to the state’s Supreme Court.

RGGI is a consortium comprising the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia that caps and reduces CO2 emissions from power plants through periodic auctions of emission credits. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) is spearheading efforts to remove his state from the consortium, saying that membership in RGGI places an inordinate burden on low-income electric-utility ratepayers.

The majority on the five-judge panel that heard the Pennsylvania case sided with Republican Senators who argued the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) did not have the constitutional authority to collect revenues from RGGI auctions, and that only the legislature can levy taxes. Judge Michael Wojcik spoke for the panel’s majority in addressing the sensitive constitutional issue of taxation:

“Where, as here, the moneys generated and received by the Commonwealth’s participation in the auction are ‘grossly disproportionate’ to the costs of overseeing participation in the program or DEP’s and EQB’s [Environmental Quality Board] annual regulatory needs, and relate to activities beyond their regulatory authority, Pennsylvania’s participation in RGGI are invalid and unenforceable,” he wrote. “Stated simply, to pass constitutional muster, the Commonwealth’s participation in RGGI may only be achieved through legislation duly enacted by the Pennsylvania General Assembly…”

“We are gratified by the court’s decision and are pleased to have been part of the widespread opposition to RGGI,” said Gregory Wrightstone, executive director of the Arlington, Va.-based CO2 Coalition. “Our analysis found RGGI to be unscientific, unnecessary, economically damaging, and of no environmental benefit.”

False Premise

“RGGI, like all so-called green initiatives, is based on the false premise that emissions of carbon dioxide from human activities are overheating the planet,” Wrightstone explained. “CO2 is in fact an essential plant food, and modern increases in atmospheric levels of the gas have contributed to record crop harvests and an overall greening of Earth. The decision to kill RGGI is a vote for benefitting humanity and a prospering economy.”

Judge Wojcik’s clear statement that states participating in RGGI are imposing a carbon tax on their citizens has both constitutional and economic consequences. As Wrightstone explains:

”RGGI would have imposed a tax on emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants that burn coal and natural gas to generate electricity, adding hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state’s energy sector. The 2019 proposal by Gov. Wolf is believed to have accelerated the July [2023] closing of the state’s coal-fired power plant at Homer City and to have discouraged the development of new fossil-fuel generation in the state.”

Gov. Shapiro’s administration is widely expected to appeal the RGGI ruling to the state’s Supreme Court.

Pennsylvania AG Announces Arrest in ‘Widespread’ Ballot Fraud Operation Days After Midterm Election

by  Kyle Becker 

Only days after a midterm election that dragged on for days beyond Election Day, Pennsylvania’s attorney announced the arrest of a Democratic consultant for orchestrating ‘widespread’ ballot fraud that included forging thousands of signatures. Attorney General Josh Shapiro on Wednesday announced the arrest of Rasheen Crews, a Philadelphia-based Democratic consultant, for charges related to forging signatures on nomination petitions to get his clients on the ballot for the 2019 Democratic primary races in Philadelphia..........To Read More....

PA Voters File Lawsuit to Delay Certification After Officials Detoured from Counting Center into a Closed Building for 6 Hours on Election Day

By Jim Hoft November 16, 2022  

 

Pennsylvania election observers filed a complaint against the Delaware County Board of Elections after county officials took a detour on election night with the county’s ballots and v-drives into a closed building for six hours.  Poll watchers were prevented from entering the building at the time.  The county also deleted 194 voter registrations that were deleted after election day whose ballots were counted. 

That is the definition of voter fraud.  It’s too bad we no longer have a DOJ or law enforcement who will investigate actions like this.  They’re too busy plotting against Trump supporters............To Read More...

 

Democrats’ Mail-In Voting Strategy Outmaneuvered Republicans in Every Pennsylvania County

By Beth Brelje November 15, 2022 

 

The Democrat strategy of using mail-in ballots to vote played a pivotal role in last week’s election results. Pennsylvania Republicans are talking amongst themselves about how to react in the next election. Republicans have two views: get rid of mail-in voting—which seems unlikely with more elected Democrats in power—or learn how Democrats got an avalanche of mail-in votes and employ the same strategy.

The Epoch Times asked the Pennsylvania GOP to discuss the 2022 results and its strategy regarding mail-in ballots in future elections, but it chose not to participate in this story. Pennsylvania Democrats were also asked to comment on their mail-in strategy but did not not respond.

In stump speeches and on social media, Pennsylvania Democrats actively encouraged voters to vote by mail in the days before the election. Often supporters would tweet at a candidate that they just mailed in their ballot.  A look at the numbers behind the election show just how much Democrats relied on mail-in voting..........To Read More...

 

More on the Fetterman/Oz Senate Race

By Rich Kozlovich

 

 

I have a number of people I correspond with regularly from around the country, who are also in my list to receive P&D.  This is a comment from a correspondent in Pennsylvania who is somewhat politically active in Pennsylvania, and is thoroughly aware of what's going on, and I especially appreciate his noting the "possible" McCormick connection, who is a Republican.

 

 Here are his thoughts.

 

Just a note on your commentary about the Fetterman/Oz race. Because of the relentless TV ad attacks from the McCormick campaign and his supporting PAC(s) during the Republican primary, Oz’s “negative perception by voters” was around 38% - higher than the 31.1% or so who actually voted for him. No other PA Senate primary candidate on either side of the political aisle had such high negatives after the primary.

 

The ads in particular were quite vicious with themes of carpetbagging and the arrogance of being a media star. The ads were especially effective because:

 

(1) Oz had in fact spent very little time in the state getting to know party personnel on the local level; and 

(2) the attacks came from a member of his own party and therefore had added credibility with Republican voters.

 

The Fetterman campaign simply repackaged the McCormick ads, and kept hammering away with continued success.

 

To his credit, Oz has since spent a great deal of time touring the state and getting to know PA Republicans and what they want. But it has been difficult to overcome the devastating effects of the McCormick campaign.

 

I often wondered in the primary whether the McCormick PACs were getting money from Democrats, and whether McCormick the hedge fund manager was a Democrat stalking horse who didn’t mind carrying a hunting rifle and pretending he was a regular Joe. I had seldom seen such relentless personal attacks between Republicans in a primary campaign.

 

It has been fortunate for Oz that he now has the Fetterman stroke issue to help him. Oz’s own ads mostly attack Fetterman as soft on crime, and fleetingly mention Oz’s accomplishments as a physician and son of immigrants at the end of the ads.

 

So yes, PA has not been good about producing good Republican candidates in recent elections. But Oz’s wounds have mainly been inflicted by a member of his own party. 

 

It should be clear to the most casual observer John Fetterman has an abysmal record regarding crime and criminals.   What in the world would possess the Democrats to choose  a person as their pick for the United States Senate who brags about freeing murderers?  Fetterman is a disaster, and yet it's my contention he'll get "elected".  Why? Two words.  Voter Fraud!

The Human Side of Pennsylvania’s Capitulation to Woke Environmentalism

by Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris | Jun 8, 2022 @ America Out Loud

There is a disconnect between the elites in government, business, labor, and academia and common citizens in America. Many of the elite “have never worked an honest day in their lives,” as old-school folks might say. They do not understand what it takes to earn a living, run a business, or feed a family by the sweat of their brow. And some of those with beginnings in the “real world” — say, union officials — find themselves corrupted by money and power when they achieve positions of leadership.

President Joe Biden went to law school and became a politician. Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania inherited a successful business and lived off its wealth. We have young people major in political science, then become legislative staffers until there is an opportunity to run for office. They have no idea what goes on in the world of profit and loss, hiring and firing. They have no appreciation of what it takes to produce food and energy or make steel, cars, or widgets of any kind.

In the climate arena, we have people falling for climate scares and willing to risk impoverishing an entire civilization to finance windmills and solar panels that cannot possibly sustain a modern society. And it’s not just government. It’s big business, big labor, and practically all of academia. This state of affairs has had a terrible negative impact, particularly on the state of Pennsylvania.

Visible from western Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountain ridges are coal-fired power plants — and their plumes of water vapor — that have been integral to much of the regional economy for 50 years. Three plants east of Pittsburgh directly employ 550 people and support an estimated 8,100 jobs, according to Power PA Jobs Alliance, a coalition of labor and industry groups. Now, two of these power plants — the generating stations of Conemaugh on the Indiana-Westmoreland county border and Keystone in eastern Armstrong County—are slated to close by 2028.

The owners blame costs from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) wastewater rule. The regulation is expected to lead to at least 26 plants in 14 states to stop using coal, according to news reports. Another factor in Pennsylvania is Gov. Tom Wolf’s unilateral decision to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

“These plants have sunk billions of dollars into environmental projects,” said Ken Umholtz, a Conemaugh employee commenting on the EPA’s concern about water quality. “We no sooner finish one thing, and it’s something else.”

Though the Conemaugh plant recycles most of its water, Umholtz said, “Environmentalists. . . plan to regulate us out of business, but they are not going to have electricity because there is nothing to replace us. 

After eight regional refineries closed and others downsized, workers at a Philadelphia refinery hope the government won’t kill their jobs too. The modernization of the Trainer Refinery south of Philadelphia is initially obscured by aged brick buildings and hulking equipment. With closer examination, however, emerge brightly painted pipes, scores of gleaming white tanks, and towering construction cranes that hint of ongoing upgrades.

With a growing post-pandemic economy and strong energy prices, prospects are bright save for threats of a controversial carbon tax scheme by the governor and federal regulations. Federal rules have contributed to the closure of seven independent refineries on the East Coast since 2009, leaving only Trainer and three others remaining. And one of those — owned by PBF Energy in New Jersey — closed half its refining units and laid off 250 employees last summer. 

PA-based Monroe Energy, which owns the Trainer Refinery, annually spends tens of millions of dollars on improvements to keep abreast of government regulations and customer needs. A few years ago, it invested nearly $200 million installing equipment to make low-sulfur gasoline. Currently, the company is building high-efficiency electrical substations, as well as water-cooling units that enable millions of gallons of water to be reused, dramatically reducing dependence on Delaware River water.

Monroe employs approximately 500 people and hires at any one time up to 1,400 members of the Philadelphia Building Trades for maintenance projects that can last for months. Because of their work, Trainer produces daily more than 8 million gallons of fuel, mainly for transportation and heating.  

Despite this, the overall decline of regional production capacity has left the East Coast vulnerable to supply interruptions and more dependent than ever on imported fuels.

Wolf’s proposal to institute a tax on electricity generators that use fossil fuels through the RGGI is intended to encourage the replacement of fuels like coal and natural gas with more expensive wind and solar energy.

In comments to regulators, Monroe noted its extensive use of electricity and cited data showing that the cost of power was 38 percent less in non-RGGI states. Despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars on environmentally beneficial investments, with plans for more, Monroe fears “that enacting a program like RGGI will increase costs to such an extent that we may be unable to move forward with some of these projects.” 

Both RGGI and the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requiring ethanol in all gasoline have drawn widespread criticism from labor and industry groups and from politicians of both major parties. While Pennsylvania and New Jersey governors are supportive of RGGI, both have written the EPA with concerns about the issue of RFS credits.

Yet more than 50 organizations representing millions of people have written in support of RFS reform. Even the National Wildlife Federation opposes the RFS because increased ethanol use has led to croplands infringing on natural habitats. Trade organizations of the dairy industry and bakeries have objected to RFS’s pressures on corn prices and supplies.

The negative consequences of both RFS and RGGI — including job losses and diminished fuel security — seem obvious to nearly everybody. Yet the employees at Trainer are still waiting for relief from Washington while also hoping to avoid the economic wreckage proposed by the governor and the absurdity of bureaucrats trying to improve the climate.

“We hope people will side with us and allow us to keep doing our jobs,” says Trainer employee Ron Pierce. A retired Marine sergeant, Pierce started as a unit operator and now leads the facility’s emergency-response teams and acts as refinery fire chief. Yet all that is in jeopardy now due to woke environmentalists and their cowardly and uninformed political supporters. It must be stopped!

Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris

Dr. Jay Lehr is a Senior Policy Analyst with the International Climate Science Coalition and former Science Director of The Heartland Institute. He is an internationally renowned scientist, author, and speaker who has testified before Congress on dozens of occasions on environmental issues and consulted with nearly every agency of the national government and many foreign countries. After graduating from Princeton University at the age of 20 with a degree in Geological Engineering, he received the nation’s first Ph.D. in Groundwater Hydrology from the University of Arizona. He later became executive director of the National Association of Groundwater Scientists and Engineers.

Tom Harris is Executive Director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition, and a policy advisor to The Heartland Institute. He has 40 years experience as a mechanical engineer/project manager, science and technology communications professional, technical trainer, and S&T advisor to a former Opposition Senior Environment Critic in Canada’s Parliament.

 

 

In the Pennsylvania Senate Race What Motivates Voters Is Complicated

Oz's challenge isn't Oz himself, and it isn't even Trump. It is the mystique surrounding Fetterman that the press has created that has turned him into a folk hero.

 

By Salena Zito August 22, 2022

Every election cycle in America, plenty of people will decide, for one reason or another, not to show up to vote. Their reasons often vary. They may not like either candidate’s personality or may not feel either candidate represents their views — or they just don’t think the government will change, no matter who is in power.................. 

Fetterman, whose York County family is wealthy, had lived off his parents’ money from 2006 to 2019, indicating that his blue-collar image is largely manufactured........ has spent his time on Twitter, largely because of the impact his stroke has had on a number of his sensory abilities....Fetterman has also run ads that discuss his decision to move to the tiny town of Braddock and run for mayor so he could improve the town. It’s a constant claim that should motivate the national and local press to dig in to see if he did indeed improve Braddock.   A drive along Braddock Avenue from one end to the other may lead some to doubt the notion. ,...............

 It is a county that Oz has visited relentlessly, at business round tables, diners, festivals and drop-ins walking through the towns — visits that never make the national or local news but, like the 130-plus stops he made across the state last month, count in earning voters’ support.  Oz’s challenge isn’t Oz himself, and it isn’t even Trump. It is the mystique surrounding Fetterman that the press has created that has turned him into a folk hero...........To Read More....

My Take - Interesting piece and two things appear to be true.  Fetterman's cloak of invisibility has worn out and he's not looking all that good, either physically or philosophically, and it appears Oz has been a lot busier than realized and reminded me of Teddy Roosevelt's 1912 whistle stop campaign which worked when he ran as Vice President, but failed to get him elected as President that time.  The difference was he was running as the Bull Moose Party candidate, a third party he created that split the Republican vote sweeping Woodrow Wilson into power, creating "America's first fascist President". 

Oz is a loon, but this is a sort of "whistle stop" campaign, and the Republican party isn't spit here, and if he blasts the airways with advertising starting in September, but at the very latest the beginning of October, I'm now convinced he will win.   

As a side bar, here's what Mark Twain had to say about Teddy Roosevelt. 

“We are insane, each in our own way, and with insanity goes irresponsibility. Theodore the man is sane, but in fairness we ought to keep in mind that Theodore, as statesman and politician, is insane and irresponsible.”....... “Roosevelt is the most formidable disaster that has befallen the country since the Civil War, but the vast mass of the nation loves him, is frantically fond of him, even idolizes him. This is the simple truth. It sounds like a libel upon the intelligence of the human race, but it isn’t; there isn’t any way to libel the intelligence of the human race.”

 

Ya gotta admit, Ole Sam had a way with words.

 

Also this article outlines ten things Biden, the Democrats, and Fetterman stand for:

• 1) Illegal immigration is rampant under Biden,
  
• 2) Lawlessness has become the norm in American cities,
  
• 3) COVID mandates
  
• 4) Blowout spending
  
• 5) Biden’s war on fossil fuels
• 6) The Left’s bizarre denial that there are two sexes
• 7) Biden’s foreign-policy ineptitude and weakness
• 8) Democrats’ divisive color-consciousness
• 9) Democrats’ rejection of our founding documents
• 10) Democrats’ abortion extremism

The author ends by saying: 

Biden has governed with an unprecedented blend of radicalism and incompetency, and a party that can’t capitalize on that had better rethink its approach.

I imagine that's true of Oz also. 

 Here's Kurt Schlichter's view of Oz, Stop the Dr. Oz Hate and Get With the Program, saying: 

I did not support Dr. Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate primary, but I am sure supporting him now against Heart Attack Shrek, the communist mutant who spent the first half-century of his life sponging off his parents and now wants to spend the second half sponging off the feds with a DC sinecure. John Fetterman makes Bernie Sanders look like Milton Friedman, yet there are still Republicans who are not all in on Oz.............Is it hard to swallow your pride and get on-board? Yeah. So what? Life’s not fair. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and drive on.

 

I'm thinking this may be what Pennsylvania may be embracing.

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Court blocks Pennsylvania carbon pricing scheme

By Craig Rucker |July 12th, 2022|Energy|66 Comments @CFACT

“Don’t let activists who believe that putting Pennsylvanians out of work will help ‘save the planet.’ It’s time to confront the wannabe planet savers here in this room and this state and tell them not only NO, but HELL NO.” That's what CFACT's Marc Morano declared before the Pennsylvania House of Representatives when Governor Tom Wolf tried to push The Keystone State into “The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative” (aka RGGI) scheme without authorization by law. A state court agreed and blocked Wolf's power grab as an attempt to establish an “unlawful tax.” The court said plaintiffs “raised a substantial legal question” since taxing is a power that is supposed to be wielded by the Pennsylvania General Assembly rather than the Executive. As reported by the AP, “The Power Pa Jobs Alliance, a coalition of industry and labor groups, said that power plant operators would have started paying what it called the ‘carbon tax’ on Friday had the court not issued its injunction. It contends the carbon policy will impose higher electricity costs on consumers. The group called Friday’s ruling a ‘significant win for working families.’” Winning court decisions are important and cause for celebration. But we must remind ourselves that oftentimes they’re only isolated “battles” and don’t necessarily determine the larger outcome. Take, for example, how the Biden Administration is brazenly moving forward on its climate agenda despite the fact the Supreme Court handed them a stinging defeat on regulating carbon dioxide emissions in West Virginia v. EPA. No sooner did the court wallop them, than Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg rolled out plans to regulate CO2 emissions from motor vehicles and boost his power over the states in ways Congress never intended. As CFACT senior policy analyst Bonner Cohen reported at CFACT.org: “One week after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency could not regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants because the agency lacks congressional authorization to do so, the Biden Department of Transportation (DOT) proposed a rule targeting CO2 emissions from highway vehicles, for which DOT also has no legal authority.” “In a rare moment of regulatory candor, the administration acknowledges in the docket supporting DOT’s proposed rule that DOT’s scheme will ultimately encourage Americans to switch from gasoline-powered cars to EVs.” For those on the Left, court decisions are a useful tool if they propel their agenda forward -- but if they suffer a setback then they proceed on as though it’s just business as usual. They need to lose again and again to force compliance. Let's hope the courts continue to teach Governor Wolf, Secretary Buttigieg and their armies of bureaucrats a sorely needed lesson in constitutional checks and balances. For nature and people too!

The Human Side of Pennsylvania’s Capitulation to Woke Environmentalism

By Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris  Jun 8, 2022 @ America Out Loud Climate Change, Energy, Lifestyle, Politics 

There is a disconnect between the elites in government, business, labor, and academia and common citizens in America. Many of the elite “have never worked an honest day in their lives,” as old-school folks might say. They do not understand what it takes to earn a living, run a business, or feed a family by the sweat of their brow. And some of those with beginnings in the “real world” — say, union officials — find themselves corrupted by money and power when they achieve positions of leadership.

President Joe Biden went to law school and became a politician. Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania inherited a successful business and lived off its wealth. We have young people major in political science, then become legislative staffers until there is an opportunity to run for office. They have no idea what goes on in the world of profit and loss, hiring and firing. They have no appreciation of what it takes to produce food and energy or make steel, cars, or widgets of any kind.

In the climate arena, we have people falling for climate scares and willing to risk impoverishing an entire civilization to finance windmills and solar panels that cannot possibly sustain a modern society. And it’s not just government. It’s big business, big labor, and practically all of academia. This state of affairs has had a terrible negative impact, particularly on the state of Pennsylvania.

Visible from western Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountain ridges are coal-fired power plants — and their plumes of water vapor — that have been integral to much of the regional economy for 50 years. Three plants east of Pittsburgh directly employ 550 people and support an estimated 8,100 jobs, according to Power PA Jobs Alliance, a coalition of labor and industry groups. Now, two of these power plants — the generating stations of Conemaugh on the Indiana-Westmoreland county border and Keystone in eastern Armstrong County—are slated to close by 2028.

The owners blame costs from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) wastewater rule. The regulation is expected to lead to at least 26 plants in 14 states to stop using coal, according to news reports. Another factor in Pennsylvania is Gov. Tom Wolf’s unilateral decision to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

“These plants have sunk billions of dollars into environmental projects,” said Ken Umholtz, a Conemaugh employee commenting on the EPA’s concern about water quality. “We no sooner finish one thing, and it’s something else.”

Though the Conemaugh plant recycles most of its water, Umholtz said, “Environmentalists. . . plan to regulate us out of business, but they are not going to have electricity because there is nothing to replace us. 

After eight regional refineries closed and others downsized, workers at a Philadelphia refinery hope the government won’t kill their jobs too. The modernization of the Trainer Refinery south of Philadelphia is initially obscured by aged brick buildings and hulking equipment. With closer examination, however, emerge brightly painted pipes, scores of gleaming white tanks, and towering construction cranes that hint of ongoing upgrades.

With a growing post-pandemic economy and strong energy prices, prospects are bright save for threats of a controversial carbon tax scheme by the governor and federal regulations. Federal rules have contributed to the closure of seven independent refineries on the East Coast since 2009, leaving only Trainer and three others remaining. And one of those — owned by PBF Energy in New Jersey — closed half its refining units and laid off 250 employees last summer. 

PA-based Monroe Energy, which owns the Trainer Refinery, annually spends tens of millions of dollars on improvements to keep abreast of government regulations and customer needs. A few years ago, it invested nearly $200 million installing equipment to make low-sulfur gasoline. Currently, the company is building high-efficiency electrical substations, as well as water-cooling units that enable millions of gallons of water to be reused, dramatically reducing dependence on Delaware River water.

Monroe employs approximately 500 people and hires at any one time up to 1,400 members of the Philadelphia Building Trades for maintenance projects that can last for months. Because of their work, Trainer produces daily more than 8 million gallons of fuel, mainly for transportation and heating.  

Despite this, the overall decline of regional production capacity has left the East Coast vulnerable to supply interruptions and more dependent than ever on imported fuels.

Wolf’s proposal to institute a tax on electricity generators that use fossil fuels through the RGGI is intended to encourage the replacement of fuels like coal and natural gas with more expensive wind and solar energy.

In comments to regulators, Monroe noted its extensive use of electricity and cited data showing that the cost of power was 38 percent less in non-RGGI states. Despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars on environmentally beneficial investments, with plans for more, Monroe fears “that enacting a program like RGGI will increase costs to such an extent that we may be unable to move forward with some of these projects.” 

Both RGGI and the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requiring ethanol in all gasoline have drawn widespread criticism from labor and industry groups and from politicians of both major parties. While Pennsylvania and New Jersey governors are supportive of RGGI, both have written the EPA with concerns about the issue of RFS credits.

Yet more than 50 organizations representing millions of people have written in support of RFS reform. Even the National Wildlife Federation opposes the RFS because increased ethanol use has led to croplands infringing on natural habitats. Trade organizations of the dairy industry and bakeries have objected to RFS’s pressures on corn prices and supplies.

The negative consequences of both RFS and RGGI — including job losses and diminished fuel security — seem obvious to nearly everybody. Yet the employees at Trainer are still waiting for relief from Washington while also hoping to avoid the economic wreckage proposed by the governor and the absurdity of bureaucrats trying to improve the climate.

“We hope people will side with us and allow us to keep doing our jobs,” says Trainer employee Ron Pierce. A retired Marine sergeant, Pierce started as a unit operator and now leads the facility’s emergency-response teams and acts as refinery fire chief. Yet all that is in jeopardy now due to woke environmentalists and their cowardly and uninformed political supporters. It must be stopped!

To discuss the situation in Pennsylvania and how we can fight back against politically correct but scientifically-ignorant activists and their government allies, we have invited Gordon Tomb, a senior fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation, a PA-based free-market think tank, to be our guest this week on THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY on AmericaOutLoud.com on June 11 and 12 at both 11 am and 8 pm.

Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris

Dr. Jay Lehr is a Senior Policy Analyst with the International Climate Science Coalition and former Science Director of The Heartland Institute. He is an internationally renowned scientist, author, and speaker who has testified before Congress on dozens of occasions on environmental issues and consulted with nearly every agency of the national government and many foreign countries. After graduating from Princeton University at the age of 20 with a degree in Geological Engineering, he received the nation’s first Ph.D. in Groundwater Hydrology from the University of Arizona. He later became executive director of the National Association of Groundwater Scientists and Engineers.

Tom Harris is Executive Director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition, and a policy advisor to The Heartland Institute. He has 40 years experience as a mechanical engineer/project manager, science and technology communications professional, technical trainer, and S&T advisor to a former Opposition Senior Environment Critic in Canada’s Parliament.

The Weirdness of Oz

By Rich Kozlovich 

As anyone who stays on top of the news, at least as much as possible, I found Trump's endorsement of Dr. Oz mind boggling. Of course my views were already set because I know what a loon he is based on the loony stuff he promoted on his television show.   And history is everything!  History is the paved pathway leading to the stepping stones to the future. And my level of trust for Ole Doc Oz is so low if he told me day was light and night was dark, I'd have to to outside to see for myself.

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012 I published a piece entitled,  More Lunacy in the Land of Oz.  Let's face it, I think Ole Doc Oz is a loon.  I have thought that for some time.   In the beginning he had some interesting things to say, but after a while I began to realize he was practically talking out of the play book of the “all natural” crowd.  All of which is based on horsepucky, speculation, lies and scare mongering.  Organic isn’t healthier, it doesn’t taste better and doesn’t deliver more nutrition.  However; organic is more expensive, still uses pesticides and is the source of diseases such as E. coli and Salmonella far more often than produce grown conventionally.  His claim is that pesticides, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, is the greatest threat to our children. 

Here's reality. The greatest threat to our children's health are scaremongering MD celebrities and the PhD’s from academia, green activists and the insane politicians who promote and support them. 

 Sri Lanka shows what happens when we follow radical environmentalist principles - By Andrea Widburg - Sri Lanka is facing agricultural collapse, which is a disaster in a nation that has only recently raised itself out of poverty...thanks to its agricultural growth.  The cause is the outgoing government's decision to follow the environmentalist path and use only natural fertilizer. Meanwhile, here in America, Samantha Power, who is the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, is pleased that the War in Ukraine is stopping the flow of fertilizer from Russia, allowing the world to go organic.

On January 10, 2019 Alex Berezow published this piece, Dr. Oz Preys on Gullible Americans in His Modern-Day Medicine Show, asking:

Why are charlatans like Dr. Oz so popular? As of 2014, America's Quack had promoted no fewer than 16 different weight loss miracles. (Who knows how many he's peddled by now?!) Obviously, his advice isn't working. People are fat and getting fatter.

Dr. Oz isn't a new phenomenon. In the mid-19th Century, traveling medicine shows became all the rage. As described by the website Legends of America, medicine shows were like "a small traveling circus, complete with vaudeville-style entertainment" and various "magic tricks." Of course, they also had something to sell, usually an elixir that would solve a variety of medical problems.

Today, we may laugh at how gullible we once were. But have we really changed? Dr. Oz, who remains popular despite offering "medical" advice with little to no basis in scientific fact, is the modern-day equivalent of the traveling medicine show. What explains the centuries-long persistence of snake oil salesmen in America?

 

In June of 2018 Alex again exposes Dr. Oz as America's quack who endorses astrology.

 

In case anyone still had any lingering reservations about Dr. Oz's quack status, he removed all doubt in his recent endorsement of astrology.  Just to clarify, that would be astrology, not astronomy. The latter is a real science that studies the universe; the former is what fortune tellers and tabloid newspapers use to dupe gullible people into buying their products. It's not even fair to call astrology "junk science" or "pseudoscience," because that implies astrology is at least based on something resembling science. But it is not. It is unadulterated charlatanism. The positions of Jupiter and Venus in the night sky have absolutely no relevance to your life -- unless you own a telescope.
 

As of 2014, he had advocated for at least 16 different miraculous weight loss regimens. Additionally, according to Forbes, Dr. Oz talks to the dead, says that 200 orgasms per year will extend a person's life by six years, endorses Reiki healing, and claims that his wife and kids use homeopathy. 

 

Back to Trump endorsing Ole Doc Oz.  This isn't the first time he's promoted him.  Alex Berezow writes in May of 2018, President Trump, announced plans to appoint this quack to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition, saying, "This is an abomination to the biomedical science community."

 

Want to end anxiety?  Stop eating grapefruit!  But not just grapefruit.  Stop eating chickpeas, dark chocolate, quinoa, chamomile, avocado, salmon, oranges, and that pumpkin seeds, edamame and kefir will cure your mental illness.  Then there's his take on green coffee.  

 

A paper that appeared in 2012 in Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy claimed that consumption of green coffee bean extract caused overweight people to lose a substantial amount of weight, even without any changes in their diet or exercise routine......Dr. Oz became enamoured with the product. So much so that the show could have been renamed “The Buy GCA and You Will Turn Into Brad Pitt Show.” Dr. Oz got ripped to shreds by Senator Claire McCaskill in a congressional hearing on the safety of dietary supplements. Also, ACSH’s Dr. Josh Bloom had a few unflattering things to say about this unseemly incident on Science 2.0.   It turned out that the data from India was made up, and Vinson and Burnham withdrew their paper, as reported by Retraction Watch.

 

Then there's apples.   Apples are bad.  At least to Ole Doc Oz, because there's arsenic in apples.  Arsenic is bad, ergo, apples are bad.  Bad, bad I tell you!  

 

Well, that's called the fallacy of composition, because it appears medical science doesn't understand chemistry very well, or at least in the case of Old Doc Oz because he did "not distinguished between organic and inorganic arsenic — an important distinction, because organic arsenic is considered to be non-toxic".  It turns out real scientists view Old Doc Oz’s report as “irresponsible and misleading” for creating hype and fear around a perfectly safe product."  

 

How is it possible he didn't know that chemical distinction?  He's a loon and maybe not the brightest pebble in the brook?  Or maybe his just corrupt?  Just a thought.

I have felt for a long time that Dr. Oz is a loon.  That doesn’t mean that he isn’t presenting some valid information. However, just because there is something of value there doesn’t give them a pass on stuff in which he has no expertise and being a doctor doesn’t make anyone an expert on everything. All of that is what I call the “He made the trains run on time” fallacy. 

 

An old German guy used to tell me that Hitler was a great man because he made the trains run on time. Just because Hitler made the trains run on time didn’t give him a pass on the rest of life. And as far as I am concerned that applies to these TV doctors who can only stay on the air and make all of that lovely, lovely money by maintaining an audience. That means they have to entertain as well as inform. Part of being entertaining is being outrageous, and then they lend themselves to outrageous scare mongering.

 

In my article, More Lunacy in the Land of Oz I go over many of his false accusations and statements, including organic farming and pesticide residues on food, making absolutely provably false claims he has to know are false, which leaves the question is it Dr. Oz, or Dr Ooze?  One thing we can conclude it isn't Dr. Trustworthy.

So, what's all this past information about?  To lay foundation to address the issue of Dr. Oz and trust, and clarity of thought.

 

He seems to think Old Mitch has done wonderful things.  Really?  And so can we assume if he's elected as a Senator from Pennsylvania he's stand with Mitch McConnell as leader of the Senate?  Could be!

Then we have this issue with Oz having dual citizenship with Turkey. 

 

"Oz drew attention to his Turkish citizenship after he said he would forego certain security clearances, if elected, to maintain his status with Turkey. However, after facing backlash for those comments, Oz later pledged to revoke his Turkish citizenship if he won the election in November."

 

Overall, his statements about why he's maintained this dual citizenship over all these years are really shaky.  According to him he only maintains it to take care of his elderly mother in Turkey.  Really? 

 

In light of Oz’s service in the Turkish military, his endorsement deal with Turkish Airlines, his Turkish real estate portfolio, and his vote in Turkey’s most recent presidential election, scholars are speculating that his mother’s health may not be the true reason he maintains his citizenship in the country...........

 

 Oz could be considered a foreign agent of Turkey, according to an advocacy group that recently called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Oz for a possible violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act for his work with Turkish government-backed Turkish Airlines.

 

So, this really all comes down to an issue of trust, and as Carla Sands noted,  “Mehmet Oz doesn’t share our values. Not only is he not from Pennsylvania, and we all know it, but he’s never been America First.  He’s been Turkey first. He served in the Turkish military.”  And it appears that's the thinking among many in Pennsylvania as  Mehmet Oz was booed at Trump rally in Pennsylvania.

 

And now we have a major upset in the making.  One of my correspondents noted in the past the Republican party in Pennsylvania is a mess promoting globalist candidates like McCormick.  But now it appears there's a potentially Trump like 2016 election wave occurring in Pennsylvania.   

 

Kathy Barnette, a real MAGA anti-abortion conservative is a largely unknown, has a momentum building in Pennsylvania. Is it real? While Trump endorsed Oz, which I think is an ill thought out and ultimately wasted endorsement on Trump's part, a new poll of the state’s GOP Senate primary suggests her momentum really is building.

Barnette, who is essentially in a three-person race with Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick, gained notoriety recently after she turned in a viral debate performance. Some of her noteworthy moments included calling both Oz and McCormick out for being associated with the World Economic Forum, perhaps the most disturbing globalist organization on the planet. She also hit Oz on his long history of holding pro-abortion views.

Update 5/11/22:   

• Kathy Barnette Attacked Trump in 2016 GOP Primary: ‘Horrid,’ ‘Very Little Substance,’ ‘Moral Character is Questionable’. Note: You will find the comments interesting, and I think more insightful than the article.  RK

 Update 5/12/22 

•  Kathy Barnette and the Pennsylvania primary 
•  Questions over Kathy Barnette Military Records Take Center Stage in Pennsylvania Primary  Note:  At this point it looks like she's toast.  RK

As of May 9 Old Doc Oz was still in the lead, just barely, but even with such an incredible small margin, that really amazes me, but I find most people have minds filled with mush so it shouldn't.  But it still all comes down to history and trust.   

 

Based on his history we still have to come back to this question:  Is it Dr. Oz, or Dr Ooze?  But he's not Dr. Trustworthy!