With the American political system always in overdrive and me getting crankier in my old age, I thought it would be fun to give my less-that-professional opinion on the American political system as I see it. I’m going to do my best to be even handed, but when I see something stupid, I’ll call it stupid. If I see something genius, I will do the same, even if it’s evil genius. The whole thing’s a circus anyway.-Jose Antonio Ponce
Dialing for Dollars
So, here’s a curious thing.
We use my phone number for as a contact for my wife Kathy’s medical needs. Because she is frequently asleep or generally unavailable for any number of reasons, it is best if her doctors, the medical laboratory or the insurance company reach out to me to re-schedule an appointment, call with follow up information or just general information. I do have medical power of attorney and during those times when she has been in the ER or undergoing a procedure, it gives the medical community a contact point where they can get any additional information. Bottom line, my number is listed under her name.
Kathy is a registered democrat. I am not. Recently, I have been receiving texts from folks claiming to be or representing democratic candidates across the country asking for campaign donations. At first, I simply responded with the customary STOP to get off of the contact list, but then the texts became more frequent. In every case, these texts talk of their dire need to raise additional dollars to combat the republican spending machine.
These solicitations often purport to be from current and former congressional and senate democratic leaders including Joh Tester (Montana), Chuck Schumer (NY) and James Carville. I’ve received texts from the campaigns of James Talarico (Texas), John Ossoff (Georgia), Gina Hinojosa (Texas), Roy Cooper ( North Caroina), Sherrod Brown (Ohio) Mary Peltola (Alaska) and more. I’ve even had solicitations from two people claiming to be parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook shootings some years ago. These requests for money don’t endorse any particular candidate. Other texts come from democratic super pacs like Flip the Senate, Act Blue and Progressive Majority.
Now, I don’t give money to anyone online or via a text. Too many skunks out there and ordinarily I would just dismiss this out of hand, but the one thing that makes me think that somehow the democratic party has somehow got ahold of my wifes medical info is the fact that I have yet to receive anything asking for money for Abduel Al Sayed. The superpacs have been very leery about sending money his way.
I did hear something about out e-health site, where we login to get messaging, lab results and make appointments, being hacked some time ago, but I can’t verify this. Either way, the democratic party seems to have found it’s way into my phone believing that it is my wife’s contact number. Either way, I don’t really care. As they say in sports, “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.” All is fair in love and war and politics. There are those people who will give money to these folks without thinking just because they are progressive voters. If indeed these are scammers, no one will ever catch them. Even if someone were to look into the political aspec of this scheme and find a guilty party, nothing would be done. There would just be a lot of denial from one side and a lot of whinining from the other. It just goes to show you that a small dose of paranoia is not a bad thing.
October 20th, 2026