The Patriot Post® · Unhatching the Hatch Act

By Burt Prelutsky ·
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/73270-unhatching-the-hatch-act-2020-09-14

There is probably no single piece of legislation that is mentioned so often but remains as mysterious as the Hatch Act.

Named after Sen. Carl Hatch, a Democrat from New Mexico, it was passed in August, 1939. It restricts federal employee participation in certain partisan political activities. Certain rules prohibit both on-duty and off-duty conduct.

It goes on to state: “Partisan activities are those activities directed at the success or failure of a political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group. While most Federal employees are permitted to take an active part in partisan political management and partisan political campaigns, the Hatch Act does prohibit certain participation by all Federal employees. Federal employees may not seek public office in partisan elections, use their official title or authority when engaging in political activity, solicit or receive contributions for partisan political candidates or groups, and engage in political activity while on duty.

In other words, everyone of those people in the various departments of government, including the entire cabal at the FBI, the NSA, the CIA and the Justice Department, could be brought up on charges immediately, no matter what John Durham finds or doesn’t find.

It also means that the statute of limitations hasn’t run out on Lois Lerner, the shrew at the IRS who used her official status to make life miserable for conservative groups and individuals.

It would also serve as a warning to postal employees whose union has endorsed Joe Bidden, which should constitute a major violation of the Hatch Act all by itself, that they had better not even think about dumping ballots they have reason to believe favor President Trump. They might not be getting out of Leavenworth before the end of President Mike Pence’s second term or Senator Josh Hawley’s first.


Another concern of mine is that owners or staffers at nursing homes will go ballot-harvesting by getting elderly invalids to sign ballots that their caretakers have kindly filled out for them.

That’s not to say that the elderly patients whose deaths were helped along by people like Governors Cuomo and Phil Murphy moving those afflicted with Covid-19 into nursing homes won’t still be voting in November. After all, death never stopped those in Illinois from voting, and I don’t see any reason why dead people in New York or New Jersey should ever say die.


With the first of the presidential debates fast approaching, I am already concerned that Chris Wallace, who is even to the left of his old man, is going to moderate it.

I know that Wallace tries hard to conceal his revulsion of the President, but he doesn’t try hard enough.

He can barely say the words "President Trump” without choking and coughing up a hairball.

I’m concerned that he, who sees himself as the fount of all political truths, will channel Candy Crowley, who took advantage of her position as moderator of a 2012 presidential debate to act as an on-site fact checker and falsely contradict a true statement made by Mitt Romney about the Liar-in-Chief Barack Obama.

And what with Donna Brazile now being employed by Fox, I fear that she will be able to funnel questions to Biden and, even more likely, to Kamala Harris, as she did in 2016 on Hillary Clinton’s behalf.

If Wallace and Brazile had their way, they’d let Biden and Harris employ cue cards for their debates.

Keeping so-called fact-checkers in check isn’t as easy as it should be.


I hate to keep pounding on the goons from Black Lives Matter and Antifa. It hardly seems fair, inasmuch as they are clearly large groups of illiterate numbskulls. Just check the spelling on their graffiti; they can’t even get the obscenities right.

And now that the fast food chains have mainly gone automated, flipping burgers is as passé as landlines and dial phones.

Still, these people — too proud to stay home and accept welfare — are out in the streets night after night, doing their best to earn the money that George Soros is paying them, ready at a moment’s notice to pack up their bricks and bottles and move from Portland to Chicago or from Seattle to Kenosha.

They would almost be admirable if their efforts weren’t criminal in nature and expended on behalf of a vile, America-hating, degenerate.

Speaking of which, pulling down statues isn’t a new thing. It’s only a recent fad in this country. In other places, people generally destroyed monuments that despots like Benito Mussolini and Saddam Hussein erected to celebrate themselves.

Here, the barbarians smashed and defiled statues of men — Columbus, Washington, Jefferson, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Jesus Christ – whose achievements and influence helped to create the best and freest nation the world has ever seen.


I suspect if anyone had actually been able to coax an honest answer out of Nancy Pelosi when she was asked why she felt she had the right to get a rinse and a comb-out when no other woman in California was able to visit a hair salon, she would have said: “Hey, Lori Lightfoot got to do it and she’s only a mayor. I’m the Speaker of the House of Representatives and if anything happened to Donald Trump and Mike Pence … uh, God forbid! I’d be the President of the United States of America. And as such, my hair and nails have to look really nice.”

I found it interesting that when a security camera that had been installed at the beauty parlor five years ago caught Pelosi breaking the rules set up by her nephew, Governor Newsom, she apologized, but only for being a sucker who had been set up. She wasn’t clear about who the villain was; she could only identify the innocent victim of the frame; that being herself.

Blaming others for your own sins is straight out of Saul Alinsky’s playbook. Oddly enough, it is also straight out of old Joan Crawford movies. For an hour and a half, Ms. Crawford would carry on scandalously with a series of lovers. Then, in the final reel, her husband would beg her forgiveness.


Bob Schenck brought up the possibility that, thanks to the Democrat-controlled legislature, Uber and Lyft might be forced to abandon California because they refuse to treat their independent drivers as full-time employees, forcing the companies to provide them with weekly salaries, health care and pensions.

I predicted there would be a major blowback on the politicians because so many people, particularly the elderly, depend on these services to not only get to their medical appointments, but to the bank, to lunch dates and the pharmacist.

At that point, some smart entrepreneur is going to swoop in, provide insurance for passengers and do a better job of vetting their drivers, who have occasionally been known to rob and rape their passengers.

That’s the way things work in America when the politicians get out of the way.


According to Glynnda Duntley, the UK Express reports that China is making an overt move into Argentina. They have built an operational military facility in that country in order to serve as a guidance station for their BeiDu Satellite positioning system.

Ah, for the good old days when Argentina simply served as a safe refuge for Nazis escaping punishment at the hands of the Nuremburg judges.


I liked the meme sent me by Bob Hunt. It showed a guy ready to go hunting with an AR-15. The caption read: “Once you’ve managed to defund and eliminate the police, there’s nobody to protect you from us. Keep that in mind.”

I liked the one sent along by Joseph Neuner even more because it made me chuckle. It showed Joe Biden saying: “If you’re not rioting and looting, then you ain’t a Democrat.”