Phil Orenstein

By Robert Golomb 

Editor’s Note: This is syndicated columnist Robert Golomb’s latest column as published in the news and media outlet, The Published Reporter 

CARBONDALE, PA – A mayor’s endorsement of a presidential candidate in an election year is such a common political occurrence that it rarely garners anything other than strictly local press coverage. Such, however, was not the case with Justin Taylor, the mayor of Carbondale, a city located approximately 125 miles west of NYC in Pennsylvania’s Lackawanna County.  

Rather, soon after announcing his support of President Trump in June, 2020, Taylor became a sought after and frequent guest on national radio and television political talk shows, including conservative commentator Steve Bannon’s nationally syndicated radio program, “War Room: Pandemic,’’ and has also been interviewed by a host of major statewide and national newspapers, including the widely circulated The National Pulse.

“At first, I was surprised that my endorsement of President Trump would receive so much media coverage, but maybe I should not have been,” said the mayor during a recent telephone interview.           

Taylor, in fact, should not have been surprised by the wide spread media attention he received. The reason? Taylor is a Democrat, placing him among a very small number of Democratic mayors throughout the nation to support Trump’s reelection bid.

Explaining why he took the unusual step of switching party affiliation to endorse Trump, Taylor, 43, who was first elected 18 years ago as the city’s then 25 year-old mayor, told me.

“My decision to support President Trump was not difficult. My love of my country has always come before my party loyalty. From making our economy reach record highs before we were hit by Covid-19, to once again making America’s military the most powerful in the world, to making American energy independent for the first time in history, President Trump has kept his promise to ‘Make America Great Again.”’

“And I also support him,” Taylor added, “because by making America energy independent, he has boosted the economy of the entire oil and natural gas energy producing state of Pennsylvania. Citizens of Carbondale totally understand and appreciate this.”  

“So I’m confident,” Taylor continued, “that voters of Carbondale will vote for the president in such overwhelming numbers that it might well be the margin that turns the battleground state of Pennsylvania in the president’s favor. Which is why many Pennsylvanians now say ‘the road to the White House runs through Carbondale.”’

That last claim might seem hyperbolic, until you take a careful look at the recent political history of Carbondale. While the party voter registration of Carbondale’s approximately 8,500 mainly working-class Catholic citizenry currently favors Democrats by about a 2-1 margin, that number declined from a 4-1 Democratic party advantage just a decade ago. And, even more notably, Trump in 2016 won the city over Hillary Clinton by a 2,132- 1961 count, a small but not insignificant amount in a state which the president won by only 41,000 votes.

With recent polls showing Trump trailing Biden by 4%, in Pennsylvania, a traditional Democratic turned Trump supporting city like Carbondale might, Taylor prognosticated, be able to supply the votes which will enable Trump to overcome that deficit.  

“You see Trump signs everywhere you go in Carbondale, in homes, on the streets and on the roads,” stated Taylor. Then, referring to his earlier statement concerning the pivotal role that Carbondale might play in the election, Taylor added, “This is why I believe the president will hold on to virtually every vote he received four years ago [in Carbondale] and will also win the support of the overwhelming number of the Democrats and independents who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. If my forecast is accurate, which I am convinced it is, if Trump wins a razor thin victory in Pennsylvania, leading to his reelection, he well might have the voters of Carbondale to thank.’’  

In addition to Carbondale, Taylor elaborated that there are dozens of other small cities in Pennsylvania that, like Carbondale, have more registered Democrats than Republicans, but polls show are leaning to the president by large enough margins to possibly produce a Trump victory in the state.

“Almost every other city in the region, such as Old Forge and Clarks Summit, is as pro-Trump as Carbondale. For these voters, it’s God, family, country and work,” stated Taylor. “Unfortunately, Biden and his every increasingly socialist, anti-American Democratic Party share the opposite values.  

“And hearing Biden,” Taylor elaborated, “admit during the [second] debate that he plans to destroy the oil and natural gas industry will further convince Pennsylvanians that a Biden Presidency would be a disaster for families throughout the state and entire country.”  

Not afraid to make a bold prediction, Taylor, the married father of three young children with one on the way, forecasted, “As more and more Democrats across Pennsylvania and across the nation realize that they and their families have been abandoned by Biden and his Democratic Party, they will turn out in huge numbers for the president, and he will win in a landslide.”

I suspect that President Trump hopes Taylor’s prediction comes true.

Robert Golomb is a nationally and internationally syndicated columnist. His work has appeared in The South Asian Times, The Epoch Times, The Long Island Jewish World group of papers, the Muslim Community Report, the Messenger and more. You can email him at MrBob347@aol.com.

By Micah Morrison

Presidential races are critically important, but no matter who helms the Oval Office after the 2020 election, New York City will face enormous challenges brought on by Covid-19 and years of mismanagement by Mayor de Blasio. Crime is rising, social disorder is accelerating, the city economy is in tatters, and our schools are in deep trouble.

I’ve seen this up close as a proud resident of Queens, chief investigative reporter for the watchdog group Judicial Watch, and a member of the Queens District 28 Community Education Council. The CECs are part of New York City’s school governance structure, a middle ground between parents and the Department of Education. There is a CEC for every school district in New York. Our D28 CEC supports 40 elementary and middle schools—more than 40,000 kids—in Central Queens.

I recently wrote in the New York Post that during my time at the CEC, I’ve seen a community that is filled with moderate, thoughtful people. But there’s also a contingent of hard-core “progressives” intent on imposing their agenda on the city. They are led by a truly radical schools chancellor, Richard Carranza, and a mayoral administration aiming to ram through a left-wing educational agenda under the banner of “diversity.”

Today, the stakes are rising, because de Blasio and Carranza know they are running out of time.

2021 will bring the most consequential New York City municipal elections in a generation. Open positions include mayor, city comptroller, a majority of City Council seats, and the influential Manhattan DA’s Office.

District 28 is at the center of the radical push on education policy. Last year, Carranza’s DOE introduced a “Diversity Planning Process” that turned out to be no true process at all, and a mockery of diversity. But they did have a plan.

Kids, it appeared, would be moved to different schools to achieve a racial balance. Parents were aghast. Would there be busing? How would moving children fix school-funding issues?  What about the Gifted & Talented programs? What about the SHSAT—the Specialized High School Admission Test for entry to the city’s top schools? It turned out that while G&T and SHSAT were not directly linked to Diversity Planning, Carranza had plans to scrap those too, in the name of “equity.”

Carranza has been open about his agenda. “We see [the Covid-19 crisis] as an opportunity to finally push and move and be very strategic in a very aggressive way what we know is the equity agenda for our kids,” he said in an April 16 address.

In District 28, the community revolted. We slowed down Carranza’s plan. The pandemic led to an additional pause. But my reporting for the Post uncovered big City Hall money behind the diversity push and the apparent intention to impose radical change—enforced diversity, an assault on G&T and SHSAT—in the coming months.

It’s true that fault lines of racism and inequity run beneath the social topography of New York City. But solutions imposed from the top down will not work. Traditional American conservatism recognizes that imperfect as we all are, we can work together to form a more perfect union.

At the CEC, I introduced a resolution to scrap the mayor’s diversity planning process, pausing it for a year, until the pandemic passed, and starting over in a way that celebrates the diversity of Queens. The Left denounced me and my effort failed in a close CEC vote.

In 2021, all New Yorkers will get to vote. Republicans, conservatives, and embattled moderates need to come together to offer compelling alternatives to the programs of the Left that currently dominate New York City politics. In 2021, if we fail to act, those programs will grow much more powerful.

Micah Morrison is chief investigative reporter for Judicial Watch and a member of the Queens District 28 Community Education Council. He can be contacted at micah@micahmorrison.com