Friends and Fellow Patriots, the time has come to do something we clearly don’t do often enough.
We need to say…THANK YOU.
It’s just 2 words and they don’t come close to what we owe you, our readers, for all you have done for us at The National Patriot.
Tomorrow marks our 1 year anniversary.
Yep, The National Patriot is 1 year old and we hope that you’ll indulge us as we step just slightly away from politics for just 1 article.
Because of you, our Patriot readers, The National Patriot has become one of the fastest growing new conservative sites available and we thought it might be time to let you in on why we do what we do here.
In February of 2011, my cousin, Patty Robichaud and myself decided to try our hand at writing political articles for a website called, Politicular. After 3 months, the purveyor of that site decided to go in a different direction although he did offer to sell us the site which we built for him.
It didn’t seem like a good idea and besides, nobody knew how to pronounce the name of that site.
Heck…Neither did we.
Patty and I took a month or so off but, to be quite honest, we missed it.
In Early July of last year, I approached Patty with the idea of starting over. Our OWN site.
A Name which could be pronounced even if my own last name eludes most people.
We enlisted Joe Ammendolia to assist with the technical aspects and within a couple of weeks, we had a site empty and waiting for content. Well, Patty had, with great foresight and wisdom, managed to archive what we had done at Politicular and so, she added that to our new site…Which explains why our archives at The National Patriot go back a few months deeper than our 1 year anniversary.
We recruited a few friends to contribute when they could and, on July 27th, 2011, we launched The National Patriot!!
The idea was simple.
Commentary from the Right Side of Politics.
And one more thing…
Nothing but original content.
There are a great many sites which publish articles from a wide variety of sources and they do such a great job of it, including the Allen West Republic Daily and many other fine sites which regularly post our articles and for which, we will be eternally grateful but, we made the decision to…write our butts off…And provide 100% original articles.
Frankly, we had no idea what to expect.
Patty not only adds content, writing articles and masterminding “That’s Not Right,” our tongue-in-cheek nod to redneck political humor but, Patty is also the Executive Editor for The National Patriot.
From time to time, contributors, Jenn Stephens, Shadow Patriot, Patriot Rocker, Manny Etchells-Ayers, John Brewer, Mark Wallace, Margaret Smith and Kathleen MacClintock have added their talents to our site and we simply can’t thank THEM enough.
As for myself, I set a goal to pen 250 articles over the first year of The National Patriot.
Including 52 Friday Fumes…
This is my 392nd article.
We have been told that articles should be no longer than 600 words or, 800 words because people won’t read more than that in today’s sound byte world.
I call 600-800 words a good start.
At The National Patriot, we know our audience are those who are involved, active conservatives who want to know MORE than what they can get in a sound byte or 600 words. We’re here to paint the BIG picture and you just can’t fit the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel on a postage stamp and have it make sense.
Sometimes with humor, sarcasm, and satire…Sometimes with a fair degree of anger…At times with historical perspective and at others, with investigative efforts, we bring the hot-button issues to the forefront and try to help educate and inform our readers with the story, the story behind the story, the headlines and the lines between the lines.
I honestly don’t know if we make any difference at all but, I do know this…People ARE reading The National Patriot!!
In our first year, The National Patriot has been read in 178 different countries!!
Our map, pictured here shows in dark or light green, all the countries which have clicked in.
Some of those views have come from surprising locations…
Afghanistan 39 page views, Iraq 422, Pakistan 47, Saudi Arabia 95, China 107, South Korea 152, LIBYA 7, Jordan 25, Israel 464, SYRIA 3, Egypt 38, Cuba 1, Russia 137 and…IRAN 39.
GREENLAND…ZERO!!!!
Are there NO computers in Greenland??? I can understand not getting any views in North Korea but, really? NOTHING in Greenland???
In our 1st year, The National Patriot sports a total of 1,358,694 page views!!
Over the last 365 days, The National Patriot has been invited into more than 200 Facebook and social media groups!!!
To be fair…We’ve been thrown out of about a dozen too.
That means we’ve made a lot of friends and lit a few fires but…what’s the use of having inflammatory opinions if you don’t burn a few bridges? The thing of it is…I know when something we publish is gonna make heads explode…Even amongst some conservatives but…I won’t change a message to curry favor from different readers or hide it from this group while I promote it in that group…That’s the liberal/socialist way of doing things and, well, that’s just not honest.
It’s also been a blessing to have become something of a regular guest on several radio shows this past year. Don Smith, John Matthews “Right and Wrong Radio,” Alexandria Merrell, Matt Buff “Rapture Ready Radio,” Jo Anne Moretti and others…You folks are fantastic and we thank you for all YOU do to spread the conservative voice!!
Friends and Patriots…It’s been quite a year and I believe we’re just getting started!
In the coming year, we have plans to grow and expand our reach. Part of that might include a subscription service where we’ll have articles, information and interviews and newsletters that won’t appear on our regular site!!!
That’s pretty much because those 4 hours or so I spend sleeping every night are wasted hours.
1 year ago, we had an idea and we started something. The National Patriot…And we’ve watched it grow.
Now, we KNOW that WE didn’t build that…
YOU, our Patriot readers did.
And we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
SERIOUSLY??? NOTHING IN GREENLAND????
Happy Birthday!!!!!!! May God bless you with many more.
Congratulations Craig! I thoroughly enjoy your articles and I often pass along your Friday Fumes to my friends. They are so funny as well as factual! Don’t let anyone tell you that you didn’t build “The National Patriot” yourself and that SOMEONE ELSE did that for you!
Craig,congratulations, it has been a fantastic year. I agree with Dennis Hoppe and Karen Goetz on all points. Have a great weekend, God bless you and Patti and others who contribute to this work.
No, thank YOU! Brilliant! I share your articles more than any others on my Facebook page. I just explained to my 7 year old grandson what Obamanation means (the word, the play of words). He has decided he likes Mitt Romney better! My first convert! Keep up the good work. You fully have my support and praise! But you know that already, don’t you!
I AM INSULTED (you didnt mention MY name Craiggums) 😀
Just kidding. PLEASE keep us reading. We need all the sanity we can get 😛
I love reading your articles. I find them well written, articulate and informative. And I will admit, that I have found that I can use some of your points to more clearly define my arguments when I am debating with liberals on many of the issues.
I first found you through one of the Friday Fimes posted on another site, and have been fuming with you ever since. I regularly post your blogs to a group I belong to, as well as tweet them on Twitter. You are extremely prolific in your writing, so you seem to be on the path that you set out on. Keep up the great work, Craig and Company! And by the way…..You DID build that! God bless you!