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Low-Level Democrat Strategist Fails Miserably to Make a Name for Himself on Social Media

June 20, 2017
 Staff

WRITER

So much for hoping the rhetoric would dial down following last week's shooting at a GOP baseball practice where five people were shot. Tuesday on radio, Glenn addressed Democratic strategist Jim Devine starting a hashtag that turned a few heads, and a few stomaches --- #HuntRepublicans.

RELATED: Tucker Carlson Shuts Down Democratic Strategist Who Tweeted ‘Hunt Republican Congressmen’

"What was that guy doing? He was hunting. He had a list of people he was trying to kill. He was an assassin. That's like after Oswald, you say, 'Hunt Soviets. Hunt Russians in America. Hunt -- hunt Republicans then.' What are you talking about? You don't use that after someone has attempted to assassinate someone," Glenn said.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: Listen to Tucker Carlson interview a -- a -- a progressive who put out a tweet as a columnist, right after the shooting last week, with the #HuntRepublicans.

TUCKER: People were horrified, of course, by last week's assassination attempt on Republican members of Congress, which wounded five people and nearly killed House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.

But most people, apparently, does not include some people, including New Jersey Democratic strategist Jim Devine. After the shooting, Devine tweeted this, quote, we are in a war with selfish, foolish, and narcissistic rich people. Why is it a shock when things turn violent? #HuntRepublicanCongressmen.

After many people objected, Devine did not back down. He followed up by tweeting this: I'm sorry if my HuntRepublicanCongressmen hashtag hurt the feelings of any G.O.P. snowflakes. But you have not engaged in civil discourse, end quote.

We invited Jim Devine to come on the show, and remarkably, he agreed. He's brave at least. Jim Devine joins us tonight.

So, Jim Devine, under what circumstances is it morally acceptable to use violence for political ends?

JIM: It's never -- it's never acceptable to use violence for political ends, except perhaps in the most extreme cases like George Washington and those guys. The fact of the matter is, we do with ballots in this country what they do with bullets elsewhere. And it is not uncommon in politics that we use the language of war. We talk about fierce rhetoric. We talk about the crusades. And so on. You were on a television program. And I don't know what your body count was, when you were on crossfire. I assume that there were no real casualties there.

PAT: Jeez.

GLENN: Stop. Stop. What is he saying there?

PAT: It's ludicrous.

GLENN: He's saying that we're used to this. We're used to this. This is violent rhetoric, sure. War rhetoric, but there was no body count on crossfire. So he is accepting CNN's crossfire. CNN's crossfire.

And saying that there was no body count.

STU: And also, by the way, retroactively mocking every Democrats' position in 2011. Retroactively saying, "That was completely fine." What do you mean? It was on crossfire. You guys, was there any body count there?

GLENN: Correct.

STU: Now, that was the exact opposite position they took when it was thought initially that a Republican may have shot a congressperson. Of course, that wound up not being true. But when they thought it was true, they said it was about the violent rhetoric. It was.

GLENN: Violent rhetoric. We got to stop the violent rhetoric. Okay.

VOICE: You know what, stop. You know what, I want to have a reasonable conversation. I want to demagogue this.

But in the hours after, five people were shot, including the House Majority Whip, you sent out a tweet that said hunt Republicans. I mean, it was clearly a reference to the assassination attempt against Congressman Scalise. It's hard to imagine how you could justify writing something like that.

JIM: In the immediate aftermath of the shooting at the Sandy Hook school, we heard people say, "This is not the time to talk about gun violence." We've heard lots of things follow this.

PAT: What does that have to do with it?

GLENN: Stop. Yeah, what does that have to do with it? In the immediate aftermath, we don't make policy decisions. That's when you're emotional. You don't -- you find out exactly what's going on.

PAT: You make terrible decisions when you're super emotional.

GLENN: Do we need to talk about the Duke lacrosse team?

PAT: Come on.

Yeah.

GLENN: When things are at an emotional high, you make really bad decisions and you destroy people's lives. That only makes sense. You don't strike out in anger.

STU: This also seems like when you have your quarterback and he gets hurt and then your backup comes in and he gets hurt and then your third string guy comes in and he get hurt, and then you have to have the punter be quarterback for the rest of the game. That's this guy's role of the Democratic Party. He is not good at this.

PAT: No.

TUCKER: But that's not what you were saying. You were encouraging gun violence. Wait. Hold on. You were encouraging gun violence.

JIM: Absolutely not. Oh, no, absolutely not. I've never encouraged gun violence, and I stated --

TUCKER: What did you mean by that? And put down that paper. I'm talking about you, not some other paper. I mean, please.

JIM: But this is what's been out there.

TUCKER: But put that down. I'm not interested in what other people --

JIM: We see stuff like this. This is not an uncommon thing --

TUCKER: That's great. But we're not -- okay.

So your excuse apparently is other people have done it. That's not an excuse. I'm here to ask you about something that you wrote, and why don't you explain it?

JIM: It's not an excuse. What I'm saying is that for too long, Republicans in this country have failed to distinguish the differences between politics and war. And a lot of Democrats have failed to see the similarities. So you guys either have to tone down the rhetoric, or we have to step up.

GLENN: Unbelievable.

TUCKER: So by saying hunt Republicans --

JIM: Hunt Republicans.

TUCKER: -- there's nothing wrong with that?

JIM: Sarah Palin put the crosshairs on Congress. I'm just saying hunt Republicans.

GLENN: Okay. Stop. Stop.

PAT: Oh, jeez.

GLENN: Here's the difference. Here's the difference: This -- Sarah Palin did that before. He did this within hours of someone attempting to assassinate. He wasn't a shooter. He's an assassin.

PAT: Sarah Palin's implication too was target these districts for election purposes. His implication is hunt them down and shoot them. Because that happened right after the shooting.

GLENN: Target the district is different than hunt Republicans.

PAT: Unbelievable. Yeah.

GLENN: What? How do you hunt? You hunt with a gun. What was that guy doing? He was hunting. He had a list of people he was trying to kill. He was an assassin. That's like after Oswald, you say, "Hunt Soviets. Hunt Russians in America. Hunt -- hunt Republicans then."

You -- what are you talking about? You don't use that after someone has attempted to assassinate someone.

STU: Yeah. It's obviously -- the timing there is crucial. I mean, the Sarah Palin thing -- and, by the way, Democrats were also using maps with targets with them at the exact same time.

GLENN: It doesn't matter. I know. But it's been so overdone. And the press here and the Democrats -- and this is your point, I think, is we all know this.

STU: Right.

GLENN: We all know this.

STU: Yeah. It's an obvious thing. Both sides have always done it. This guy's point -- even his ridiculous point that the Democrats need to start doing it more isn't even valid. It's all a bizarre justification.

My guess is he, at the moment, tried to do something controversial so he would get attention. Because we're in that age, right? The social media age, where here's an unknown punter-level quarterback trying to make a name for himself in the Democratic Party.

GLENN: That is an insult to all punters.

STU: It is. It is.

But that's why I said punter-level quarterback. Punters are fine.

GLENN: No, no, no.

It's -- that is an insult to all punter-level quarterbacks.

STU: Okay. This is the water boy --

GLENN: Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

PAT: Oh, wow. Wow.

GLENN: Holy cow. This guy is not even in the stadium. He has not seen a football.

STU: Right.

GLENN: He thinks football is soccer. That's how far away he is.

STU: And this is a guy who thinks saying something like this will make him brave so he can get on television.

GLENN: Yeah.

PAT: Uh-huh.

STU: And stand out from the other 9,000 Democratic consultants out there. But this is not --

GLENN: But he is a guy -- he is speaking a different language. And I don't think he's speaking American. He might be speaking English, but he's not speaking American.

So the question is, why is he doing this? I don't know.

Is this healthy? No.

How do we respond? That is what has tripped me up for the last probably four years. You have been asking me: Glenn, how do we get out of it?

And I've given you platitudes. I've given you, "Well, stick by your principles." And, quite honestly -- and I've said this to you before, I've given up hope. I mean, I've been lying to you, when I'm saying, "Well, there's a way out. We're going to -- been lying.

Because I know there is. I just haven't been able to find it. I don't know what it is.

I have been doing a lot of studying and a lot of soul-searching in the last eight months. The last four months, I've really gone to work and buckled down and -- and got up off the floor and said, "Okay. Enough is enough." The -- the -- the answer is surrender or find a new way to live. And I knew I didn't want to surrender. I've been here before.

As an alcoholic, I was down on the floor in my apartment that smelled like soup. And I was broke and out. And I was on the floor. And I thought to myself, "I'm either going to die and commit suicide, and I'm done, or I'm going to stand up and start again."

And I didn't have any idea when I stood up, what it was going to take. And for a long time, I didn't know. I've done it again. And this time, I am at the beginning of really knowing exactly where we need to go. And I want to share some of that with you when we come back.

A contested Democratic convention could lead to the ONE candidate who could beat Trump, says Michael Medved

Paul Morigi / Stringer/ Getty

On Wednesday's TV show, Glenn Beck sat down with radio show host, author, political commentator, and film critic, Michael Medved.

Michael had an interesting prediction for the 2020 election outcome: a brokered convention by the DNC will usher in former First Lady Michelle Obama to run against President Donald Trump.

Watch the video below to hear why he's making this surprising forecast:

Use code BECK to save $10 on one year of BlazeTV.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

FLASHPOINT? Virginia Gov. Northam declares state of emergency to ban firearms ahead of gun-rights rally


Zach Gibson / Stringer

On Thursday's "Glenn Beck Radio Program," BlazeTV's White House correspondent Jon Miller described the current situation in Virginia after Gov. Ralph Northam (D) declared a state of emergency and banned people carrying guns at Capitol Square just days before a pro-Second-Amendment rally scheduled on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Jon told Glenn that Gov. Northam and the Virginia Legislature are "trying to deprive the people of their Second Amendment rights" but the citizens of Virginia are "rising up" to defend their constitutional rights.

"I do think this is the flashpoint," Jon said. "They [Virginia lawmakers] are saying, 'You cannot exercise your rights ... and instead of trying to de-escalate the situation, we are putting pressure. We're trying to escalate it and we're trying to enrage the citizenry even more'."

Glenn noted how Gov. Northam initially blamed the threat of violence from Antifa for his decision to ban weapons but quickly changed his narrative to blame "white supremacists" to vilify the people who are standing up for the Second Amendment and the Constitution.

"What he's doing is, he's making all all the law-abiding citizens of Virginia into white supremacists," Glenn said.

"Sadly, that's exactly right," Jon replied. "And I think he knows exactly what he's doing."

Watch the video to catch more of the conversation below:

Use code BECK to save $10 on one year of BlazeTV.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

Ryan: Trump Louisiana Finale

Photo by Jim Dale

Part One. Part Two. Part Three.

At the end of Trump rallies, I would throw on my Carhartt jacket, sneak out of the press area, then blend in with everyone as they left, filing out through swinging doors.

Often, someone held the door open for me. Just 30 minutes earlier, the same person had most likely had most likely hissed at me for being a journalist. And now they were Sunday smiles and "Oh, yes, thank you, sir" like some redneck concierge.

People flooded out of the arena with the stupidity of a fire drill mishap, desperate to survive.

The air smacked you as soon as you crossed the threshold, back into Louisiana. And the lawn was a wasteland of camping chairs and coolers and shopping bags and to-go containers and soda cans and articles of clothing and even a few tents.

In Monroe, in the dark, the Trump supporters bobbled over mounds of waste like elephants trying to tiptoe. And the trash was as neutral to them as concrete or grass. They plodded over it because it, an object, had somehow gotten in their way.

It did not matter that they were responsible for this wreckage.Out in the sharp-edged moonlight, rally-goers hooted and yapped and boogied and danced, and the bbq food truck was all smoke and paper plates.

They were even more pumped than they had been before the rally, like 6,000 eight year olds who'd been chugging Mountain Dew for hours. Which made Donald Trump the father, the trooper, God of the Underworld, Mr. Elite, Sheriff on high horse, the AR-15 sticker of the family.

Ritualistic mayhem, all at once. And, there in Louisiana, Trump's supporters had gotten a taste of it. They were all so happy. It bordered on rage.

Still, I could not imagine their view of America. Worse, after a day of strange hostilities, I did not care.

My highest priority, my job as a reporter, was to care. To understand them and the world that they inhabit. But I did not give a damn and I never wanted to come back.

Worst of all, I would be back. In less than a week.

Was this how dogs felt on the 4th of July? Hunched in a corner while everyone else gets drunk and launches wailing light into the sky? configurations of blue and red and white.

It was 10:00 p.m. and we'd been traveling since 11:00 a.m., and we still had 5 hours to go and all I wanted was a home, my home, any home, just not here, in the cold sweat of this nowhere. Grey-mangled sky. No evidence of planes or satellites or any proof of modern-day. Just century-old bridges that trains shuffled over one clack at a time.

And casinos, all spangles and neon like the 1960s in Las Vegas. Kitchy and dumb, too tacky for lighthearted gambling. And only in the nicer cities, like Shreveport, which is not nice at all.

And swamp. Black water that rarely shimmered. Inhabited by gadflies and leeches and not one single fish that was pretty.

Full of alligators, and other killing types. The storks gnawing on frogs, the vultures never hungry. The coyotes with nobody to stop them and so much land to themselves. The roaches in the wild, like tiny wildebeests.

Then, the occasional deer carcass on the side of the road, eyes splayed as if distracted, tongue out, relaxed but empty. The diseased willows like skeletons in hairnets. The owls that never quit staring. A million facets of wilderness that would outlive us all.

Because Nature has poise. It thrives and is original.

Because silence is impossible. Even in an anechoic chamber, perfectly soundproofed, you can hear your own heartbeat, steady as a drum. A never-ending war.

I put "Headache" by Grouper on repeat as we glided west. We were deadlocked to asphalt, rubber over tarface.

And I thought about lines from a Rita Dove poem titled "I have been a stranger in a strange land"

He was off cataloging the universe, probably,
pretending he could organize
what was clearly someone else's chaos.

Wasn't that exactly what I was doing? Looking for an impossible answer, examining every single accident, eager for meaning? telling myself, "If it happens and matters the next year, in America, I want to be there, or to know what it means. I owe it to whoever cares to listen."

Humans are collectors and I had gone overboard.

Because maybe this wasn't even my home. These landmarks, what did they mean? Was I obvious here? When I smiled, did I trick them into believing that I felt some vague sense of approval? Or did my expressions betray me?

Out in all that garbage-streaked emptiness — despite the occasional burst of passing halogen — I couldn't tell if everything we encountered was haunted or just old, derelict, broken, useless. One never-ending landfill.

Around those parts, they'd made everything into junk. Homes. Roads. Glass. Nature. Life itself, they made into junk.

I cringed as we passed yet another deer carcass mounded on the side of the road.

As written in Job 35:11,

Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds in the sky?

Nobody. Look at nature and you feel something powerful. Look at an animal, in all of its untamable majesty, and you capture a deep love, all swept up in the power of creation. But, here, all I saw were poor creatures who people had slammed into and kept driving. Driving to where? For what reason? What exactly was so important that they left a trail of dead animals behind them?

So I crossed myself dolorously and said an "Our Father" and recited a stanza from Charles Bukowski's "The Laughing Heart"

you can't beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.

Out here, nothing but darkness. Needing some light, by God. Give me something better than a Moon that hides like an underfed coward.

Jade told me about some of the more traumatic things she'd seen while working at the State Fair.

"Bro, they pull roaches out of the iced lemonade jugs and act like nothing happened."

"All right but what about the corn dogs?"

"You do not want to know, little bro."

She looked around in the quiet. "Back in the day, the Louisiana Congress refused to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21," she said. "They didn't want to lose all that drunk gambler money. So the federal government cut off funding to highways."

We glided through moon-pale landscape for an hour before I realized what she had meant. That there weren't any light poles or billboards along the road. Nothing to guide us or distract us. Just us, alone. And it felt like outer space had collapsed, swallowed us like jellybeans.

Like two teenagers playing a prank on the universe.

In the cozy Subaru Crosstrek, in the old wild night, brimming with the uncertainty of life and the nonchalance of failure, we paraded ourselves back to Dallas. Alive in the river silence that follows us everywhere.

New installments come Mondays and Thursdays. Next, the Iowa caucuses. Check out my Twitter. Email me at kryan@blazemedia.com

Amid election security concerns, states should look to blockchain

Wikimedia Commons

The Iowa primary is just around the corner, and concerns of election interference from the last presidential election still loom. Back in 2016, The Associated Press found that a majority of U.S. elections systems still use Windows 7 as an operating system, making them highly susceptible to bugs and errors. And last year, a Mississippi voter tried multiple times to vote for the candidate of his choice, but the system continuously switched his vote to the other candidate. It's pretty clear: America's voting systems desperately need an update.

That's where blockchain voting comes in.

Blockchain voting is a record-keeping system that's 100% verifiable and nearly impossible to hack. Blockchain, the newest innovation in cybersecurity, is set to grow into a $20 billion industry by 2025. Its genius is in its decentralized nature, distributing information throughout a network of computers, requiring would-be hackers to infiltrate a much larger system. Infiltrating multiple access points spread across many computers requires a significant amount of computing power, which often costs more than hackers expect to get in return.

Blockchain voting wouldn't allow for many weak spots. For instance, Voatz, arguably the leading mobile voting platform, requires a person to take a picture of their government-issued ID and a picture of themselves before voting (a feature, of course, not present in vote-by-mail, where the only form of identity verification is a handwritten signature, which is easily forgeable). Voters select their choices and hit submit. They then receive an immediate receipt of their choices via email, another security feature not present in vote-by-mail, or even in-person voting. And because the system operates on blockchain technology, it's nearly impossible to tamper with.

Votes are then tabulated, and the election results are published, providing a paper trail, which is a top priority for elections security experts.

The benefits of blockchain voting can't be dismissed. Folks can cast their vote from the comfort of their homes, offices, etc., vastly increasing the number of people who can participate in the electoral process. Two to three-hour lines at polling places, which often deter voters, would become significantly diminished.

Even outside of the voting increase, the upsides are manifold. Thanks to the photo identification requirements, voter fraud—whether real or merely suspected—would be eliminated. The environment would win, too, since we'd no longer be wasting paper on mail-in ballots. Moreover, the financial burden on election offices would be alleviated, because there's decreased staff time spent on the election, saving the taxpayer money.

From Oregon to West Virginia, elections offices have already implemented blockchain voting, and the results have been highly positive. For example, the city of Denver utilized mobile voting for overseas voters in their 2019 municipal elections. The system was secure and free of technical errors, and participants reported that it was very user-friendly. Utah County used the same system for their 2019 primary and general elections. An independent audit revealed that every vote that was cast on the app was counted and counted correctly. These successful test cases are laying the groundwork for even larger expansions of the program in 2020.

With this vital switch, our elections become significantly more secure, accurate, and efficient. But right now, our election infrastructure is a sitting duck for manipulation. Our current lack of election integrity undermines the results of both local and national elections, fans the flames of partisanship, and zaps voter confidence in the democratic system. While there's never a silver bullet or quick fix to those kinds of things, blockchain voting would push us much closer to a solution than anything else.

Chris Harelson is the Executive Director at Prosperity Council and a Young Voices contributor.