The House Select Committee on the January 6th riots held a professionally produced TV event, the result of which, to no one’s surprise, placed the blame for the attack on the capitol building on Donald Trump. This result was a foregone conclusion from the outset of the hearings. The committee was designed to come to this conclusion from and by packing the so called “bipartisan” committee. The committee and the mass media have continued to call this event an attack on the foundation of democracy. They proceeded through the night to present evidence to back up their claim. The problem is that most of what they called evidence would likely not be allowed in a court of law in any democratic country.
Evidence implies facts and the facts are well known. On January 6th of 2021 a riot broke out in front of the Capitol building and proceeded into the building itself. No one denies this. The riot and subsequent assaults were and are criminal. There have been several arrests and convictions related to this. The problem now comes as we leave the world of evidence and enter the world of fantasy. While fantasy may be a harsh word, we could use assumption or conspiracy. Regardless of what you wish to call it, the intent is to prove Trump was responsible and controlled events. To this end there is no evidence, no facts to point to.
There have been civilian attacks on the government since the very beginning of the country. Shay’s Rebellion, The Whiskey Rebellion, John Brown at Harpers Ferry, The anti-war riots and race riots of the 1960’s. The list goes on and on. In 2011 union activist attacked and occupied the Wisconsin Capitol Building, which Nancy Pelosi called true democracy in action. Most recently we have seen a number of race riots directed by the Black Lives Matter movement, which have resulted in death and the destruction of businesses and other personal property. The congress has done nothing about those criminal acts and DOJ did nothing but try to blame whole police departments.
As I said what happened on Jan 6th 2021 was criminal and an insult to America. The reaction of congress however is far beyound what should have been done. The fact is that what the majority in congress has done has taken a criminal act of a few and turned it into a political drum beat. The way in which the Jan 6th committee has acted is so transparently partisan that it is insulting. From the beginning the majority attempted to ignore the facts and went after Trump through an impeachment that was doomed to fail and whose only reason was to keep Trump from running again. The special select committee is also an attempt to stop Trump and anyone who thinks of following him from regaining any power. In fact the actions of the left and this committee have done just the opposite by keeping Trump in the news. It is time to return to the age of reason were reason and reality are objective. The way that the truth has been ignored by the left indicates that they consider reason and reality to be subjective. They twist and turn every fact or rumor into what ever they what it to be and hope that the people will be fooled. This committee has been seated for over a year and has in fact come up with nothing, however their report will be issued sometime in September, just in time to impact the midterm elections.
The true attack on Democracy is a representative government that has stopped representing the people and is only concerned with partisan politics. Lets spend time and money on addressing the problems that currently face all Americans.
I want to give you my thoughts on the current crisis gripping Washington. It is not the fact that a war in Europe is raging and could potentially expand into a nuclear conflict, but a purported seven-hour gap in phone logs of President Trump on Jan 6th. These logs have been turned over to the House JAN 6TH committee and were reported by none other than Bob Woodward. This revelation comes soon after President Biden called for the removal of Russian Putin, suggested the 82d Airborne would be in Ukraine soon and suggests a possible US chemical weapons attack in response to Russia using chemicals in Ukraine, all which Biden denies but is on tape saying.
We are also in the midst of learning that Hunter Biden’s lap top is in fact real and the information that has been reported is in fact correct. All of this despite the fact that a number of Intelligence Professionals had claimed to be Russian misinformation.
But the big news is that a federal judge said Trump “probably” committed a crime. Not to forget that a Supreme Court Justices wife exchanged tweets with the WH CoS. This last has been followed by calls for his impeachment or at the least his resignation.
We are also recipients of reports from the confirmation hearings for a new Supreme Court Justise, that has not discussed her qualifications but centers on the “fact” that all the white republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are nothing more than racist for actually asking questions. As an aside I do not like the politics of this nominee but see no reason to deny confirmation.
In the end it would be remiss of me not to mention the biggest national news story, Will Smith Slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars. Which has people talking about violence and racial stereotypes. Oh, and in case you missed it the Federal Election Commission has fined both Hilary Clintons campaign and the DNC for its part in the Steele Dossier. You remember the t.hing that started the whole Trump-Russia collusion hoax.
The news industry keeps asking why they are losing readers/viewers? Perhaps if they went back to reporting the new instead of pushing a narrative people would begin to trust them again. My blog is PleaseThink1.com and all I ask of people id to please think. Look at the facts and see if it meets the criteria of news. News organizations are always going to take a side and have an opinion but leave that on the OpEd page. Opinions and personal agendas have no place in a front-page news story
Today the world faces a dilemma it had always hoped to avoid, morality going up against ideology. How do we handle the situation in Ukraine without understanding our moral obligation to the world? What is happening in Ukraine is a moral outrage with leadership acknowledging the fact. President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken as well as many of our NATO allies have called Putin a war criminal and say there is evidence that the Russians are committing war crimes in Ukraine. The crimes being committed are a daily occurrence. Economic sanctions will take time to become effective, if ever. The legal process that could be used is dysfunctional at best. The ICC in the Hauge has already opened an investigation, but it has no true power to charge Russia or Russians with any crime. The evidence to support the charges are inside a war zone.
The West has hidden behind the legalities of international treaties and law. I am not suggesting that we ignore laws or abrogate treaties, just that we need to remember who and what we are. Ukraine is not a NATO member so Russian actions do not trigger a NATO response. Russia is a nuclear power which means we must proceed carefully, but at what cost? President Biden likes to whisper into microphones that if we engage Russia its WWIII. This goes back to the claim President Obama made while negotiating the Iran deal, “Its this deal or war.” Is this the mentality we need to follow, let Ukraine be crushed or it’s WWIII? Does the West have a moral obligation that overrides the arguments of diplomacy?
We have been faced with these questions before. Our founding fathers needed the moral courage to stand up the greatest military force in fighting for independence. Then there came a time to fight to remove the stain of slavery from the country. The greatest generation then had to face off against the Axis powers. Let it be known there was much objection to this last in the US even through our leadership knew about the holocaust, but we found a way. Yes, Russia is a nuclear power but we faced off with them during the Cuban missile crisis. We found the moral courage to face down the bigots of the Jim Crow era. Can we find the courage now to understand our moral obligation before it is too late? If we cannot find the moral courage to do what is right now, what becomes of us in the future.
The United States today appears to be divided between left and right polls. If the news media is to be believed there is no middle ground. I personally believe there is a large middle ground, but they are being beaten into submission by the extremes. What is driving this may be understood using the old adage “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” We have seen this philosophy used countless times, not only in war but politics as well. Many are unaware that one of the reasons the founding fathers put freedom of speech in the constitution was to insure that people with opposing thoughts had the right to express them. This also kept opposing forces from joining together to oppose the government. As long as they could express their beliefs and opinions freely there was no need to join with their enemies. This could be a lesson for some social media groups who impose their “community standards” on their sites giving rise to competition. This was seen in the 2d World War with resistance movements such as the French maquis. The maquis included such groups as the French Communist party and the Young Catholic League. Two sworn enemy who joined together to fight the evil occupation. This did not end well, at the end of the war these groups turned on each other.
How does this reflect in today’s America? A recent example of how far we have fallen is a report from Yale University that around 100 Yale law students: “…disrupted a bipartisan panel on civil liberties by trying to shout down and intimidate the speakers — who had to be escorted out of the building by police, according to reports.
The panel “hosted by the Federalist Society featured Kristen Waggoner, a controversial anti-LGBTQ speaker with the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, and Monica Miller, an associate at the progressive American Humanist Association,” when reminded of Yales policy of free speech and free expression the students could only understand that they had a right to protest and that the panel did not have a right to express their views.
On the other side we have some right-wing extremist in Congress calling the president of Ukraine a thug and saying we should not support him. The congress approved a measure designed to help pressure Russia with eight republicans voting against it, Of the two, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, have repeatedly pushed propaganda that mirrors that of the Putin. Why, because if Biden or the Dems say it, it must be wrong.
We have been subjected to the concept of “Cancel Culture” which both sides use. Also called call out culture, it can be an effective way to pull back the curtain on things that otherwise would be left in the dark. The MeToo movement was a start to correcting the process that had kept survivors of sexual assault from speaking out. It was instrumental in bringing down people like Harvey Weinstein, but then it became a political tool. One of the most famous political uses of this was during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Kavanaugh, a distinctly conservative jurist, was about to be confirmed as a justice of the Supreme Court. Toward the end of the hearings a professor from Palo Alto CA, Christine Blasey Ford, claimed that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when the two were in High School. The cry rang out that victims must be believed. The problem with this is that there was no proof. Even after Ford named a friend at the party who could confirm the attack. This witness, Leland Ingham Keyser, stated she had no memory of the party and did not know who Kavanaugh was, regardless some of the public accepted Fords claim and would not be dissuaded by the facts. Similarly the public has been told that Trump is the personification of evil and regardless of facts continue to cancel him, with no direct or supportable evidence.
Today we see in the same type of cancel culture attacks on the current Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. To be honest she is much too liberal for my taste, but I cannot find a reason to deny her the nomination. Calls that she was too lenient on child pornographers are a subjective argument. She sentenced within the guidelines, which themselves may be too lenient, but the sentencing was legitimate. Worse are calls of how she defended clients when she was a public defender. While some of her clients may be the scum of the earth, it is a lawyer’s job to provide a defense.
What does this all mean? Are we all becoming extremist or is the way we get our information failing? Information that the public gets has always been skewed by those reporting. A prime example was back when the US and Spain were almost at war. As the story goes William Randolph Hearst, a powerful news paper publisher, sent one of his illustrators, Frederick Remington, to cover the insurrection in Cuba. Remington cabled Hearst that there was no war to which the reply was “You furnish the pictures. I’ll furnish the war.” Today open any news paper or watch any news station and count the times the reporters attack a person or political party rather then just give us the news. Look at how many times you will see FOX News or CNN attacked by rivel networks. There was a time that those of us of a certain age remember watching a news show because of the popularity of the person giving the news, rarely did you have any idea of their political affiliation. Even worse is the proliferation of online sites that don’t even pretend to be news reporters but attempt to play into a certain segment of society while pretending the opinions or “news” they are giving are facts.
What to do? Remember there are no GOOD news sources, suspect story. If it is important to you do your own investigation. Accept that those with opposing views not only have the right to express them but that they may be right. In the end PLEASEThink for yourself.
In August of last year, I wrote about the failure of US foreign policy in Afghanistan. In general, I wrote about the failure of US foreign policy. I think it time to revisit that article and expand. Lets start with the beginning of what I wrote;
“Now that lives have been lost and we have withdrawn, this ill-conceived operation once again highlights the lack of US Foreign policy capabilities or our understanding of what is needed to protect American interests. Since the end of the Korean War the US has slowly lost the will to build influence and continue to lead the world. The Cold War was the last hoorah for what was left of US influence mostly based on the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union. Much of the problem stems from the United States inability to adjust to a different world.…In 1648 the Treaty of Westphalia helped establish the countries we know today that make up Europe. There were tweaks along the way, but it established the customs of international relations as we know them. It was established within the bounds of European customs and cultures and of course held little sway as countries pushed out of Europe to colonize the world. At the end of the First World War the victorious nations sliced and diced the world up to their economic and political advantage. Ignoring the wants and desires of the indigenous population they put in motion decades of violence. Many countries put together by colonial powers were countries in name only. Following the Second World War and then the Cold War many of these countries broke apart or fell under ruthless regimes that held them together at gun point.” Following the breakup of the Soviet Union the countries that were subjected to Soviet domination or were directly under Moscow as “Soviet Republics” began to return to their traditional status. This of course led to violence and a continuing restabling of borders.
What is happening today in Ukraine is a continuation of foreign policy failure that have been happening for decades. Our major adversary after the 2d World War was the Soviet Union. During that time a policy/belief was something called Mutual Assured Destruction or “MAD.” In the 1960s a book was published titled “Arms and Influence” by Thomas Schelling. Schelling was an American economist and professor of foreign policy. He won a Nobel Memorial Prize for “having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis.”
The first chapter in this book is titled “The Diplomacy of Violence.” This is not a review of the book but get it and read it if you want to understand. The first lines of the book are “The usual distinction between diplomacy and force is not merely in the instruments, words or bullets, but in the relation between adversaries—in the interplay of motives and the role of communication, understandings, compromise, and restraint. Diplomacy is bargaining; it seeks outcomes that, though not ideal for either party, are better for both than some of the alternatives.” sometimes this entails threats as well as offers. This is the part the US has forgotten, threats. By this I do not mean economic sanctions, though they can be part of the package, I mean the threat of physical violence. The use of this type of threat is known as coercion. Schelling continues “To be coercive, violence has to be anticipated. And it has to be avoidable by accommodation. The power to hurt is bargaining power. To exploit it is diplomacy—vicious diplomacy, but diplomacy.”
This last part is what Russia was using when it parked 150000 troops on the Ukrainian border. Once coercion does not work then the next act is to initiate violence. There is a difference in making someone give you what you want and forcing them to give it to you. On the one hand it must be believed you will initiate violence for coercion to succeed, on the other it must be believed you can take by force what you want.
The mistake Russia has made so far is the belief they could coerce Ukraine and if that failed they could take what they wanted. The mistake the West made is not believing Russia would attack or only move to take the Donbas region. To compound that mistake the west took the military out of the equation. It is not as if we have not faced expansionist moves and threats of nuclear attack before. Khrushchev did threaten nukes over Berlin but it was likely at the time he did not have any. And in 1962 we again faced the threat in Cuba. The response at the time came from President Kennedy “it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.” During the Cuban crisis we also used unofficial back channels to communicate. This type of unofficial communications is now looked down upon by the public as not being transparent.
We have lost our way in the world and need to return to some of what kept us strong and helped us lead. I am sorry if this comes as a shock but to remove the threat of military action from diplomatic activity is to render the entire endeavor useless. I applaud President Biden for his efforts to cut off Russia economically, but these efforts became ineffective when he announced, and continues to announce, that no US forces will not be deployed against Russia since that will mean World War Three. Yesterday China announced severe consequences for any nation helping Taiwan militarily. I do not want to see US troops killed in Ukraine nor the start of WWIII. Perhaps the west can relearn the lesions on the past and present a credible threat to Russia. I fear this may be to late but could be effective if all of Europe joined in, NATO and non-aligned countries as well.
Currently there is a lot of talk about #US, #NATO, #Russia, and #Ukraine. It is interesting to see the divergence of opinions and in some cases the reversal of Democrat and Republican views. Most show political ideology and others show a serious lack of understanding history. Is it prudent to ignore the Russian attempt to coerce Ukraine and the west rather than go to war? What is then the reaction when Russia attacks in order to compel the world to accepts it demands? Why are we facing a situation that could affect the world in a most dangerous manner?
One side sees it as a way to prove the current administration is willing to face up to a bully and protect democracy while the other side sees it as pay back for all the attacks on the past administration over Russia. The Obama administration presented the Iran deal as “This or War.” In her book “The March to Folly” writer and historian Barbra Tuchman pointed out the many times in history nations went to war for all the wrong reasons. In a follow-on book “The Guns of August” Tuchman recounted how Europe fell into WWI for the most transient of reasons. What Tuchman did not talk about was the reasons nations go to war when it becomes necessary to protect itself and its political system.
Today the west is faced with the question of diplomacy vs war. All of course wish to see diplomacy win out but at what cost. The Trump administration took a lot of criticism for being nationalistic. We heard how he was destroying the liberal world order. Does Russia need to bargain with the west? The threat of sanctions is real and could impact Russia in the long term. In the short term however using force can achieve all of Russia’s aims.
Russia does not fear any repercussions since it has done much the same thing in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Again, following the annexation of Crimea and the Russian supported breakaway of the Donbas region of Ukraine we see no real action by the west. The fighting in Ukraine only slowed down when the Trump administration began to supply Ukraine with military with equipment. Where have we seen this before, Germany and the Sudetenland, Italy and Ethiopia and Japan and Manchuria.
Diplomacy was tried in all three instances and failed in the end, resulting in war. Could a different type of diplomacy have worked, more robust, more threatening? Carl von Clausewitz told us “War is a continuation of Politics by other means.” In his book “Arms and Influence” Thomas Schelling tells us of the two types of use of the military in diplomacy, to coerce an outcome by threat, which is what Russia is doing right now, or to compel with the use of force. How to avoid either without going to war is to have a military option that is sufficient and believed that will make traditional diplomacy a viable option. The concept of mutually assured destruction kept the world safe during the cold war. The closest the world came to nuclear war was the Cuban missile crisis when cooler more mature heads prevailed.
Like the 1930’s many are saying this is not our concern, it’s a European problem. Just as in the 1930’s allowing the problem to fester and explode it will eventually return to us. Also, to those who say we should take care of our own problems like the southern border, we can do both if we act as a united country and leave the politics behind.
Not being a fan of Joe Biden, this is difficult to say but, he has made the correct call on sending 5000 troops to Ukraine if he really does it. Can 5000 troops stop a Russian invasion, of course not. During the cold war the Berlin brigade could not have stopped a Soviet invasion, but US troops would have been engaged so it would be war with the US. The problem is at that time our leadership was perceived by our enemies as strong enough to go to war. After the Afghanistan debacle and decades in government that showed he was a dove will Russia take him seriously. Seeing his weakness will our allies be willing to follow. Time will tell.
Another area we need to discuss is #voting rights. Recently this is where the liberals cry out that many of the new laws are an attack on democracy, we will discuss below. The right of every American over the age of 18 to vote is a matter of law. It is in the constitution and various federal and state laws. Over the years there have been modifications and attempts to thwart the law. In the beginning the right to vote was restricted to white male property owners, which was the standard for the day. Ultimately the right was extended to black males then native American males then to woman. As stated, there were attempts to subvert these rights such as the Jim Crow laws in the south. Ultimately universal suffrage was established.
Like so many things today, technology has allowed the process of voting to change and like so many other changes in society, technology have brought, along with progress, problems. While in the old days there were major problems with #ballot box stuffing and other forms of fraud, today we face the problems of cybercrimes used to alter results. This along with remnants of more traditional physical forms of cheating, such as ballot harvesting and straight out exchanging legitimate ballots with fake ones leads to the need for new laws and processes.
Today we have an argument over how to keep up with voting rights and what to call the new process. Some call the new laws #voter #suppression others call the new laws #voting# integrity. Much is being made over the laws being voter suppression and throw backs to Jim Crow. The claim is that the Democrats assume than the more blacks are registered the greater likelihood of a Democrat victory. It is feared also by the Republicans. Yet the bigger fear from the right, is registering people who are not eligible to vote. This last becomes easier when there is no requirement to prove who you are or there is no identification requirement for mail-in Ballots.
The lefts concerns seem to be unfounded since better than 90% of blacks vote for Democrats and this has not changed in the last several election cycles. There has been a recent movement known as Blexit that is designed to move more black votes to the republican column. While there has been some indication that the strangle hold the democrats have on the black vote has weakened, it is far from a major change in voting patterns. This holds true for another major democratic voting bloc, Jewish voters. Regardless of an increasing anti-Semitism with-in the Democrat party, Jewish voter still cling to the belief that the left is the only movement that represents their needs.
Let’s look at the numbers to decide if voter registration is being suppressed. According to the Census Bureau (Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, November 2020.) survey of a total population of voting age at 231 million, 168 million are registered or 72.7%. In total 155 million reported voting which is 66.8% of the population. Of this 182 million are white comprising 74.2 percent of the white population registered and 124 million (68.3%) voted. Of African Americans, 30 million are of voting age with 20 million (69%) registered. From this population 19 million reported to have voted, which is 62.6% of the total African American population of voting age. With 70% of eligible white voters registered and 69% of eligible blacks registered the delta is statistically insignificant. A caveat is the numbers come from US Census Bureau survey and are subject to error. Most survey have a standard deviation of +/-3%.
The reason many on the right think there is a need for laws to increase voting integrity is the concern that a large number of people who are not eligible to vote are being registered and voting, or someone using their identity is voting for them. The question to be asked is, do the numbers support this assertion? The question is very difficult to answer. Depending on which poll you read or what is declared, changes from day to day. To see the problem Judicial Watch claims there are 1.8 million excess or ghost voters spread across 29 states. With the most being in Colorado, Maine, Alaska, New Jersey, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Vermont. While 1.8 million will do little to change the popular vote it could change a States outcome that would affect the electoral college. While this is not the only time in US history that voting outcomes have been questioned, laws have always been enacted to blunt the impact of cheating. Some states are enacting laws to do just that based on the claims of how the cheating is done. This then raises the question of, is it voter suppression or integrity?
Much has been made of the new Georgia law, so let’s look at what that law does and why there is so much discussion. Wikipedia puts it as:
The Election Integrity Act of 2021, originally known as Georgia Senate Bill 202, is a Georgia law overhauling elections in the state. It requires voter identification requirements on absentee ballots, limits the use of ballot drop boxes, expands early in-person voting, bars officials from sending out unsolicited absentee ballot request forms, reduces the amount of time people have to request an absentee ballot, increases voting stations or staff and equipment where there have been long lines, makes it a crime for outside groups to give free food or water to voters waiting in line, gives the state legislature greater control over election administration, and shortens runoff elections, among other provisions.
From the aspect of what the law does and how the left sees the law we have a very clear view of the problem. Anyone who deals in disinformation knows that there must be an element of truth in the beginning. In this case let’s take the first of the NYT points “Voters will now have less time to request absentee ballots.” This is true, it goes from six months to three months. Or 180 days to 90 days. The question now is does leaving a person only three months to request an absentee ballot disenfranchise them. Another example of misdirection is “Early voting is expanded in a lot of small counties, but probably not in more populous ones.” Note the phrase “…but probably not in more populous ones.” This is true throughout the argument from the left, not factual problems but perceived worst-case scenarios put forth as fact. This is true for many arguments the right issues as well. Conservatives must learn to exclude emotions from discussions and deal with facts.
The left has made much over the Supreme Court’s ruling on the 1965 Voting rights act declaring that the court has reversed the law and we are moving backward into a time of literacy tests and other voter suppression laws, the fact is that the SCOTUS did no such thing. In fact, according to the DOJ:
“On June 25, 2013, the United States Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional to use the coverage formula in Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act to determine which jurisdictions are subject to the preclearance requirement of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Shelby County v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 2612 (2013). The Supreme Court did not rule on the constitutionality of Section 5 itself. The effect of the Shelby County decision is that the jurisdictions identified by the coverage formula in Section 4(b) no longer need to seek preclearance for the new voting changes, unless they are covered by a separate court order entered under Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act.”
“Section 5 was enacted to freeze changes in election practices or procedures in covered jurisdictions until the new procedures have been determined, either after administrative review by the Attorney General, or after a lawsuit before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, to have neither discriminatory purpose or effect. Section 5 was designed to ensure that voting changes in covered jurisdictions could not be implemented until a favorable determination has been obtained.
The requirement was enacted in 1965 as temporary legislation, to expire in five years, and applicable only to certain states. The specially covered jurisdictions were identified in Section 4 by a formula. The first element in the formula was that the state or political subdivision of the state maintained on November 1, 1964, a “test or device,” restricting the opportunity to register and vote. The second element of the formula would be satisfied if the Director of the Census determined that less than 50 percent of persons of voting age were registered to vote on November 1, 1964, or that less than 50 percent of persons of voting age voted in the presidential election of November 1964. Application of this formula resulted in the following states becoming, in their entirety, “covered jurisdictions”: Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia, in addition, certain political subdivisions (usually counties) in four other states (Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, and North Carolina were covered. It also provided a procedure to terminate this coverage”
In short what the decision said was the data being used was 50 years old and if congress wanted to continue to enforce this section, they would need to update the data, which they did not. The House did pass, along partisan lines, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act known as HR 4 in August 24, 2021. As stated above the original Voting Rights Act of 1965 was intended to be temporary and expire in five years. Let’s see what would trigger federal interference in the new law.
Any state that has had 15 or more voting rights violations within the last 25 years.
Any state that has had 10 or more voting rights violations and at least 1 of those violations were committed by the state itself (as opposed to a jurisdiction within the state) within the last 25 years.
Any subdivision in a state that has had 3 or more voting rights violations within the last 25 years would also be subject to the requirement.
We now go from a prescriptive law that was intended to last five years to a punitive law that lets the federal government look back 25 years.
The conservative view if this is that it is an intrusion of the Federal Government into what is inherently and constitutionally a power that is reserved for the States. What many fail to understand is that other then Presidential, all elections are State based and controlled. Yes, all members of the House and Senate reside in Washington and make federal law. They still however represent their States or Districts not the nation as a whole. There is an escape clause for the Federal government to step in as needed. This is found in Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the constitution:
‘The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.’
This does not give the congress unlimited powers over State election laws. The voting rights act of 1965 was an example of Congress acting for the good of the nation against State laws that were without a doubt in violation of the Constitution as well as an insult to the values of the United States. Most of the time when a state election law is taken to task it is done by the Supreme Court. A case in point is its 2015 decision in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. The State legislature objected to the validity of the Commission and its redistricting. The commission was established by ballot initiative and the court held that the Arizona constitution allowed the people to make laws as if they were the legislature and therefore did not violate Article 1.
So, what is the difference with the new law and past laws. For one it allows the Feds to look back 25 years to determine if any laws had been broken. This means had a law been broken but corrected, the Feds still have the authority to use that violation to bring the entire state election process under federal control. In rejecting sections of the 1965 law the Court found that the data being used was 50 years old and instructed the legislature to correct that. The correction is to use 25-year-old data. If this law is ever passed, we will see how the court handles it.
As we begin the third year of the #Covid-19 pandemic we continue to face the problem of getting consistent and believable information to the public. To start, I’m fully vaccinated and wear a mask when in a crowd. I do not do this because the government says so, but because it is the prudent thing to do. How do I react to those who choose not to? I don’t. It is, in my opinion, personal preference. Wearing a mask does not protect others, it will only protect you from becoming infected, same for the #vaccination. I’m not sure how effective the vaccine is but at the least it should be considered chicken soup, couldn’t hurt.
Getting to the root cause of those who do not wish to wear masks or get vaccinated is a little difficult. Coming as no surprise to anyone the American people are becoming more divided, and it would appear the middle is shrinking as the extremes get further apart. How this is manifesting itself is that on the one side we see a belief that the central government should be in control of all things and everybody. It is this collectivist concept that see the need for mandates. On the other side we see a hatred of the central government and suspicion of any regulations that come out of it.
The first, driven by a recent philosophy that, for lack of a better term, has sprung from the concept of socialism. This belief has been inculcated into the system by academics and mass media. The second goes back to enlightenment philosophy of the individual as the center of power. The United States was founded on the second.
The desire to force the population to bend to one way of thinking is opposed by the desire to resist a central control. While both sides have legitimate arguments, both sides have staked out extreme positions and have dug in. On the extremes we have “Do as your told our we are all going to die,” vs “Statistically, I have little chance of dyeing so why chance what I think is a dangerous alternative.”
There was a time that there could be discussion and compromise. Today however all we have is emotion and anger. Let’s try and return to a time of logic and reason. PleaseTHINK how your actions affect others and use facts to make critical decisions.
In today’s Washington Post are front page headlines exalting President Biden for finally getting the infrastructure bill passed. In the stories it rarely mention that it was only passed with Republican Party support. When the news media does mention the 13 Republican members, who did cross over, it about other Republicans attacked them as RINOs, helping to expand socialist agendas. Infrastructure support is a legitimate role for government, both State and Federal. I do not agree with everything in the bill, such as funding electric charging stations. Things such as this are best left to private industries. This can be handled better though tax incentives for say existing gas stations to put in charging stations. The original bill sailed through the Senate as a bipartisan action with both parties backing it.
The true story here, and one that should be at the center of any discussion, is that Biden did not win. Pelosi did not win, the Democrats did not win, this was a win for both the people and the Republicans. How is this a win for the Republicans? Ignoring the rhetoric from the extreme right Biden and Pelosi have lost control of their party and will need to deal with the Republicans for future legislation. What should be pointed out to the people is that the extreme right, the so-called Progressive wing, was willing to let the country suffer in order to get their side a victory for social programs few in the population want.
Infrastructure is not a Biden cause, but a national one. President Trump and others have all tried. The Biden initiative was his build back better debacle, which the left tried to pass and could not even get it to a vote. The blockage to that bill is the Progressives not the Republicans. By ensuring that the two bill are not joined the Republicans got the needed legislation passed knowing that the other will never make it passed the Senate.
Using true conservative values we declare this as a win for the individual over big government.
pleasethink1 