Quote of the week

“The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.” – Frederick Douglass​

Buddy’s Soap Box

A patriotic Texas howdy from Buddy

H.R.1, a work of the Devil via the Democrats, would be better named the “Make Your Vote Not Count” bill. HR.1 has no other purpose than to institutionalize election fraud.

Rather than H.R.1, which would make us another Mexico with perpetual one-party rule, what we need is a return to the free and fair election rules and standards that served our nation for generations. These free and fair election rules and standards include:

1. Require voting in person, the only exceptions being very limited, as has always been the case. Verify that only eligible voters are allowed to register and require regular audits of voter lists to ensure they only include eligible voters.
2. Make vote-by-mail only available to citizens that are elderly, disabled, away from their primary residence for work or school, or serving in the military.
3. Require voter photo I.D. If no I.D. is required, then no fraudulent voter can be prosecuted because no one will have any idea who actually voted.
4. Require an on-paper signature, not one that is on a touch screen. A touch screen signature bears limited resemblance to one’s actual signature. Thus, all electronic votes are subject to “verification.” Signatures for a favored candidate could be deemed a proper match every time, while votes for the disfavored candidate would be rejected every time because the signatures didn’t “match.” This is one of the ways President Donald Trump was deprived of thousands of votes.
5. Establish a brief early voting period. The longer the early voting period, the greater the opportunity for voter fraud.
6. Maintain up-to-date and accurate voter rolls. Purge deceased voters, those who have moved, etc.
7. Monitoring of elections by representatives of each party.
8. Ability to match electronically counted votes to actual paper ballots, with the voter receiving a copy of the ballot he cast.
9. Ability for vote verification occurring promptly after an election and the willingness of election officials to readily accommodate verification by the public and other interested parties.
10. Changes to election law within in each state should be made in strict accordance with the constitutional requirements enumerated in each state constitution.
11. Prohibit private, out-of-state funds from flooding into local elections administration budgets to manipulate turnout.
12. Leave the governance of elections at the state level. Do not turn it over to a federal government that, at different times, will be subject to one party rule.

While the foregoing list isn’t wholly comprehensive, it also isn’t a racist effort to deny minorities the right to vote, it isn’t voter suppression of any kind, nor is it 800 pages. What we propose to ensure honest elections isn’t anything new. It has been the norm since the nation’s founding. Without such election rules and policies, we will find ourselves on the way to living in a totalitarian state.

Further down, along with more commentary on assuring election integrity via the Gatestone Institute, you can also click a link to the Democrat 800-page proposed election law.

Other Items in the News

President Trump hinted that he’ll run again if Republicans take back the House.  Good thing we are only FIVE seats away from returning the House to Republican control. If we have all hands on deck, we can make that happen. Keep talking to family and friends who have ears to listen!

Proposed legislation would make November 7 “Victims of Communism Day” in Texas. As Joshua Pierce reports, November 7 is the anniversary of when the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia and created the first communist state. Tom Oliverson (R–Cypress) proposes the annual commemoration so as to recognize “the more than 100 million people who died and countless others who suffered under communist regimes.” Adolph Hitler was likely also responsible for 100 million deaths, including more than 6 million Jews. A third runner up in the kill Olympics is our nation’s “progressives,” who have thus far seen to the abortion of 80 million babies.  Compared to the foregoing, the progressive New York governor’s Covid kill count is pretty unimpressive.

You need this in your state.  As the Texas legislative session approaches the mid-point, see how the priorities of the Republican and Democrat parties are progressing using Texas Scorecard’s tracker tool. Michael Quinn Sullivan’s Texas Scorecard provides everything a voter needs to keep up with the politicians in our state capital and then follow up with emails and phone calls. With this tool it is much easier for voters to know where their representatives really stand on issues. That’s why more than a few politicians, including some Republicans, don’t like it at all.

There is plenty of good news in the world. Spring is here. Birds are singing, flowers blooming, trees budding and grass growing. And CNN viewership is down 50% since Trump had the presidency stolen from him.  Oh, sweet irony, that one of the prime movers in the election fraud, to say nothing of the Russia Gate fraud, is now hurting big time because the man they sought to destroy isn’t front and center taking their slings and arrows—well, the whole thing is just so very delicious and delightful.  Maybe, to recover their ratings, such as they were (the ratings have never been great), CNN should give Donald Trump his own show to anchor. Then he could take on one media hack after another, much to the pleasure of all concerned.

Joe Biden says that the newest trillion-dollar Democrat spending spree will, among many wonderful things, cut child poverty in this country by half, something never accomplished since President Lyndon Johnson first tried with his 1960s War on Poverty. But hold on. A question remains. If Biden can so easily end half of all child poverty, why isn’t he spending a bit more to end all child poverty? Who, exactly, are the children NOT being lifted out of poverty? There’s obviously some sort of discrimination going on here and we need to get to the bottom of it!

Highly Recommended

The following are excellent resources for those of us (way more than 75 million strong) who want full and honest news reporting. We’ll be adding to this list as we go along. Those who prefer filtered news—only the news deemed safe for them to know—can stay with the legacy media, such as it is.

Fox News and One America News (OAN) Cable channel

The Epoch Times print newspaper and web site/email updates

Denis Prager  This man will help you find the mainstream conservative hiding inside you.

President Donald Trump’s Great America PAC is now up and running.  Give to this PAC or to individual candidates you know to be truly conservative. Money given to the Republican Party is money down a RINO hole.

https://texasscorecard.com/state/legislative-priorities-tracker/

Columns worth reading

Each week under this heading, I’ll include columns or intros to columns you can read in full elsewhere on the internet. Each of these columns pretty much express my views, else I’d not be sharing them with you.

H.R.1 – Is It Really “For the People”?

by Chris Farrell
March 18, 2021 at 5:00 am

H.R.1 is nearly 800 pages of meritless, militant, social engineering targeting the foundations of the U.S. Constitution, voting rights and political free speech — all dressed-up as being “for the people.”

Here are just a few of the more egregious federal power grabs in H.R.1 concocted against the 50 states that run elections under the U.S. Constitution:

1. Ban voter ID laws and allow ballot harvesting.

2. Expand Election Day to “election season” by mandating mail-in ballots be counted 10 days after the election would normally be over; and…

3. Automatic voter registration of people who apply for unemployment, Medicaid, Obamacare, and college, or who are coming out of prison. There is a lot more, and it gets worse. Substantially worse. There are First Amendment restrictions on political speech.

What better way to design a worker’s paradise? Or — hypothetically, of course — to make sure that a stolen election stays stolen, is never audited, and lays the groundwork for reproducible results for the next century?

Please let everyone influential know, clearly and politely, exactly what you think.

A lot has been written about H.R.1 — the so-called “For the People Act of 2021.” Former Vice President Mike Pence has opined on the bill. The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal sounded the alarm back in January. The editors of National Review come right out and call it a “partisan assault on American democracy.”

H.R.1 purports to, “expand Americans’ access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and implement other anti-corruption measures for the purpose of fortifying our democracy, and for other purposes.” The Bill is 791 pages long.

Here are just a few of the more egregious federal power grabs in H.R.1 concocted against the 50 states that run elections under the U.S. Constitution:

Ban voter ID laws and allow ballot harvesting;

Expand Election Day to “election season” by mandating mail-in ballots be counted 10 days after the election would normally be over;

Automatic voter registration of people who apply for unemployment, Medicaid, Obamacare and college, or who are coming out of prison.

There is a lot more, and it gets worse. Substantially worse. There are First Amendment restrictions on political speech and on the support or opposition of a bill and/or a candidate. Remember: This is supposed to be “fortifying our democracy.”

If you are interested in a “through the looking glass” annotated analysis of H.R.1 — then head over to the Brennan Center for Justice. They are happy to explain how those pesky constitutional rights can be whittled down to something more “fair” for everyone. For example, the Brennan Center analysis confidently assures readers about how H.R.1 “affirms Congress’ power to protect the right to vote, regulate federal elections, and defend the democratic process in the United States.” It seeks to airbrush Article I, Section 4 — The Elections Clause — from history and practice. The Clause directs and empowers states to determine the “Times, Places, and Manner” of congressional elections. H.R.1 would federally strangle the Elections Clause.

In order to find our way out, it is helpful to know how we got into this terrible predicament. The foundation for the madness of H.R.1 is legal positivism, a thesis, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which states “that the existence and content of law depends on social facts and not on its merits.”

H.R.1 is nearly 800 pages of meritless, militant, social engineering targeting the foundations of the U.S. Constitution, voting rights and political free speech — all dressed-up as being “for the people.”

Authoritarians — socialists and communists of different stripes, geography and eras — like to use legal positivism because it allows enormous latitude to design, implement and (especially) enforce whatever they dream up as the way things ought to be. What better way to design a worker’s paradise? Or — hypothetically, of course — to make sure that a stolen election stays stolen, is never audited, and lays the groundwork for reproducible results for the next century?

It’s neat and easy under legal positivism. Draft up a one-sided, detailed plan (loaded with outrageous schemes) of nearly 800 pages that NO ONE will read or understand. Ram it through the one-party legislature and have the same party’s president sign it into law. Presto! — cheating has become nice and “legal.”

For readers who find this technique troubling, or wonder why it does not sound like the great tradition of debate and compromise described in our founding documents and political history, there is good reason. The United States was founded on a theory of Natural Law, which adheres to universal moral principles for ethical and legal norms of human conduct whether a particular government recognizes them or not — that is, essentially, the antithesis of legal positivism. There are now generations of Americans who have never been exposed to these ideas.

The “mind wipe” of Americans for all that is authentic and real about the foundation of our country as a constitutional republic began through the education system. We allowed people like Howard Zinn to dictate the historical framework for understanding who and what we are as Americans for millions of high schoolers and undergraduates. An intellectual diet of relativism, critical theory, deconstruction and subjectivity. That delegation of our educational standards was reckless, lazy and stupid. When you do not know any better, how can you act any better?

The co-opting and hollowing out of our education system is the main explanation for why and how we are wrestling with the loss of the Republic by legislative militancy, topped off with the Executive pen stroke.

This is terribly serious stuff and no one is telling you WHY you are losing. There is a lot of hand-wringing and outrage, and rightly so. But that nagging feeling tormenting you about why America seems to be slipping away — and why everything you believed in is now being turned into a crime or a shaming social media joke — well, no one is explaining that to you. Until now.

Now is the time to snap out of our Covid-induced somnolence and passivity. If President Joe Biden’s election “victory” wasn’t enough to get your attention — then H.R.1 must be. Please let everyone influential know, clearly and politely, exactly what you think.

Chris Farrell is a former counterintelligence case officer. For the past 20 years, he has served as the Director of Investigations & Research for Judicial Watch. The views expressed are the author’s alone, and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.

© 2021 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.