Question Time Philadelphia 2024
The Panel:
Martina White (Republican)
Malcolm Kenyatta (Democrat)
Brian Lanza (Trump advisor)
Anthony Zurcher (BBC corespondant)
Mehdi Hasan (Broadcaster)
Venue: Philadelphia
What’s the state capital of Pennsylvania? Wrong! Harrisburg. Added to the list of things we don’t know, are the things we aren’t told about. A gushing BBC biography of Kamala Harris’s husband and potential first ‘gentleman’, Doug Emhoff, tells of an extramarital affair that ended his first marriage but omits to mention he got the nanny pregnant and used to hit a previous girlfriend. As for Harris’s running mate Tim Walz, our national broadcaster mentions Walz’s 24 years of service in the Army National Guard but forgets he lied about being in combat when he hadn’t been.
I wonder if anything is happening in politics on this side of the pond that they don’t tell us about. Hmm.
Looking down the list of upcoming QT venues reveals locations beyond the ken of this humble reviewer; Guildford, Basingstoke and even close-to-home Rotherham. However, Puffins will be pleased to hear that the longitude and latitude of my personal experiences extend to the far side of Philadelphia. You may recall Postcard from Carlisle. Not the Great Border City, but Carlisle Pennsylvania where, en route, Puffins got to see my snaps of touristy Philadelphia, particularly Independence National Historical Park, the venue of tonight’s QT. This is where, 250 years ago, the terrorists and slaveowners held their early congresses and constitutional conferences after, despite having been beaten by the Red Coats in the War of Independence, King George gave them the colonies anyway.
Speaking of democracy, Pennsylvania is not only a vital battleground state but one of those places where you don’t need ID or even a name and address to register to vote. In November last year, a federal judge ruled undated mail-in ballots should count in next month’s presidential election. Last month the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overruled the decision, meaning undated mail-ins, some of which will already have been cast, won’t count after all. The take-home being that the courts, not the voters, may well decide the next president, possibly months after the November election. In other words, look out for another steal.
Long-suffering readers may also remember The Swaling, a tall tale of derring-do from my previous life more interesting. The ‘Tammy’ character was based upon a real-life acquaintance who lived close enough to Front Street to call herself a Philadelphian but far enough out of the metropolitan area to not be murdered. In those days downtown was a bit rough – to put it mildly. It will have improved in the intervening four decades. Then again, it might not have. Hide your valuables, be aware of your surroundings and avoid being alone – even when looking around on Google Street View.
A few miles from Tammy sits the childhood home of a no-nonsense millennial called Martina White, a Republican House of Representatives member since 2015, sound on immigration and on the police shooting people. A business administration graduate of Elizabethtown College, Martina’s grandfather was the proprietor of Marty’s Express trucking company. Upon completing her education Ms White, the oldest of John and Lisa’s three children, went into wealth management before entering politics after being recommended towards a vacant Republican seat.
Described in the guff as being from blue-collar-sounding North East Philadelphia, in reality, Martina hails from Chalfont in north-north-north-north-northeast Philly, so far away from the Delaware waterfront that her family’s pleasant suburban subdivision neighbours Tammy’s.
Easily excited Puffins must not expect too much of Ms White. When we say the House of Representatives, we mean the Pennsylvania House of Representatives – i.e. the county council. On her website, rather than bringing peace to the Middle East or committing to change the weather, the 36-year-old promises to help with car registrations, tax rebates and birth and death record applications – while marooned in Harrisburg.
Californian Brian Lanza graduated in Political Science and Government from California State University, Long Beach, in 1997. Moving into politics, he worked as Chief of Staff in the State Senate and Assembly. His early work focused on key policy areas such as agriculture, health, and transportation. At the age of 26, Lanza founded his own public affairs firm, Lanza Strategies, which he led successfully for nearly a decade before transitioning into national politics where he is currently a senior adviser to former President Trump’s campaign.
Anthony Zurcher was born and raised in Ohio and is a graduate of Washington’s Georgetown University. After a two-decade-long career editing syndicated newspaper features, Anthony moved to the BBC where he is currently a North America corespondent.
Formerly of this parish but now an American citizen, public school boy (£27,000 a year Merchant Taylor’s) Medhi Hassan was born in Swindon and is a PPE graduate of Christ Church, Oxford. After completing his education, Mehdi has done nothing other than media and, having been sacked or had shows cancelled on both sides of the Atlantic, the 45-year-old has now set up Zeteo. This ‘new media organization seeks to answer the questions that really matter, while always striving for the truth.’ Oh. ‘A movement for media accountability, unfiltered news and bold opinions.’ Indeed.
Today’s Zeteo front page announces to a world desperate for unfiltered news, ‘Shut the **** up: CBS staffers escalate criticism of Tony Dokoupil’s hostility on Palestine.’ Puffins (including all at QT Review HQ) unaware of who Tony Dokoupil is, are also likely to wonder who was sat opposite Medhi when he interviewed Ta-Nesisi Coates or a Mr Anwar Ibrhahim (who turns out to be the prime minister of Malaysia).
Not to worry, the left-hand side of today’s Zeteo front page has been held for the unfiltered news that Mehdi has won an integrity award from ‘Democracy for the Arab World Now’ (DAWN). DAWN’s integrity extends as far as being ‘independently’ funded by private individuals and foundations worldwide who, according to the DAWN website, ‘remain anonymous’.
A committed Muslim, Mr Hasan refers to non-believers as cattle. He can be viewed ranting about the infidel here.
Malcolm Kenyatta is another Pennsylvania state representative. In a measure of the significance attached to serving on Pennsylvania Parish Council, in 2018 he won the Democratic Party nomination with a whopping 2,270 votes. In the 2020 election, he received none – as he was re-elected unopposed.
A graduate in Public Communication from both Temple and Drexel Universities, Malcolm has never had a job beyond community activism and political advocacy. In 2019, the 34-year-old took a three-week executive education programme at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Hmmm. Am I the only Puffin who suspects our very own David Lammy’s much-vaunted Harvard education was a similar summer school short course for Dummies?
Son of a social worker and healthcare worker and grandson of a professor, Malcolm really does come from North Philadelphia, but from one of the nicer parts. This doesn’t stop him using his Temple University biography page to pretend to have grown up in poverty. *pukes*.
***
Question one, how important is character in the presidential election? Bryan Lanza thundered about Clinton saying it was the economy that mattered not character. Donald Trump kept his promises in office. What about the wall, asked La Bruce? It was cancelled by the following administration and we need a wall, responded Bryan.
With Mehdi Hasan, the Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) was off the scale. You’ve heard it all before. The BBC audience applauded. However, one lady defended Trump. The Donald will save the country, she said, to less applause from the carefully selected assembled.
The slight pause in the TDS resumed under Malcolm Kenyatta. Everybody is supporting Kamala Harris, even the Republicans, he said, despite the polls being too close to call.
A gentleman in the audience made an important point. The Democrats aren’t offering anything to the country, they just attack Trump.
Martina said character was important, especially being able to trust someone to do what they said they would do, and that’s what Donald Trump does.
La Bruce delivered a carefully prepared line, does it trouble you that he’s a convicted criminal? It troubled Martina that the criminal law system was no longer impartial.
A woman in the audience played the race card saying DT had a problem with Kamala’s race. Take a look at their birth certificates, lady, both Trump and Harris are Caucasian.
Anthony Zurcher said Trump’s disruptive ability is what people find attractive. Knocking Trump just encourages his supporters. Zurcher might as well have repeated QT Review’s truism – if you throw mud at the mud monster, it just makes the mud monster get bigger and bigger. As for Kamala Harris, she did say lots of things previously that she has since renounced.
No, she didn’t renounce anything, interjected Bryan, she was lying in the first instances.
They’re all narcissists and lairs said an audience member, and we’re all sick of it.
La Bruce paused to express her embarrassment that she was obliged to announce that next week’s QT will be from Rotherham. ‘Rotherham.’ she said it a few times while the audience laughed. Have they been on Street View too?
Question two was about the USA’s broken immigration system. Malcolm declared they were a nation of immigrants but also a nation of law so there had to be a lawful immigration system. There had been a bipartisan immigration bill which didn’t make it to the statute book. He blamed Trump, even though Trump wasn’t president at the time that this ‘consensus bill’ was voted on. Hold on, if there was a consensus then how come most of the Congress voted against it?
Illegal immigration is a Biden/Harris disaster, said Martina. She listed crimes caused or planned by illegal immigrants.
All the panellists talked over each other regarding the literal meaning of ‘sealing the border.’
Why not just build a wall?
Hasan became more demented. Did we pay the Americans to take him?
Bryan was going to start by deporting convicted murderers and rapists who’d come illegally across the border. His mother and father are Mexican and Bolivian. They vote for Trump.
The wall’s not going to happen, you can’t build a 2,500-mile-long wall, according to Anthony Zurcher. Why not? There’s a 600-mile-long wall between Saudi Arabia and Iraq and a 1,100-mile-long wall between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Closer to home the old Iron Curtain was 4,500 miles long.
The next question was about foreign policy. Hasan was not a fan of the administration and saw Biden’s policy towards Gaza and support for Netanyahu as horrific. Remember, his starting point is that Netanyahu has hooves and horns.
Martina admitted she wasn’t an expert on foreign affairs but had both Ukrainian and Russian families in her district. La Bruce asked if Donald could really end the war in Ukraine in one day. He’s a very good negotiator, replied cool Martina, and no new wars started involving the United States under Trump.
It’s a war of attrition in Ukraine, one that Ukraine can’t win, pointed out a man in the audience. The line in Putin’s sand was trying to get Ukraine into NATO. It was NATO who was on the offensive. La Bruce told him he was wrong.
The next question was about the economy. Martina outlined inflationary pressure under Biden. On the other side of the equation, illegal immigration lowers American wages. There’s natural gas in Pennsylvania which needs to be fracked.
La Bruce informed the Americans that were were wrong and that the economy there was doing well.
Inflation has made America unaffordable, that’s undeniable, pointed out Bryan. And he’s correct. That and the administration’s dismal response to the recent hurricanes might just swing a close-call in the direction of the Donald. Fingers crossed.
Added to which, Mehdi’s tone-deaf comment that consumers were wrong because the American economy is growing twice as fast as Canada – a country that most Americans don’t even know exists – will have gifted a bit more of the brown stuff to the mud monster.
© Always Worth Saying 2024
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