Monday, August 17, 2020
Postal Collusion
Well, it seems we've gone from Trump/Russia collusion to Trump/Post Office collusion. I don't know if this is progress or evidence of the left sinking deeper into insanity.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has cut short her August recess and called the House back into session so members of Congress can vote on legislation aimed at rolling back recent cost-saving measures enacted by the Post Office, which she now considers to be "Election Central."
There is a huge difference between mail-in voting and absentee voting. Absentee voting has been going on for decades. It works well, and it has a paper trial. You request the ballot. It is matched to the voter rolls. When the coded envelope is returned, it can be matched to the voter who requested it.
Mail-in balloting has no paper trail. State officials automatically send ballots to every name on the voter registration list. Those lists are poorly maintained in many states. (Here, here, here and here.)
One reason for that is that the left aggressively fights every effort to clean up the voter rolls as "voter suppression." There are thousands of dead people on the registration lists, and many voters move to other states every year.
A major 2008 study by CalTech and MIT recommended that "on-demand absentee voting" or mail-in voting be abolished or severely restricted. Not surprisingly, liberal politicians have relentlessly pushed to expand mail-in voting.
Meanwhile, the Post Office is warning that a mishmash of state laws regarding various deadlines to return mailed ballots is unworkable. The Washington Postadds that there are "More than 60 lawsuits in at least two dozen states over the mechanics of mail-in voting," which will undoubtedly add to the confusion.
How committed are the progressives to making mail-in cheating as easy as possible? Only a handful of states currently rely on mail-in voting, and they have been doing it for several years. They have a functioning system in place.
But now liberal politicians are using the pandemic to demand radical election changes nationwide. Many liberal governors are using executive orders to force this change.
For example, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced last week that everyone in New Jersey will be mailed a ballot. If you show up to vote in person, you will be allowed to cast a "provisional ballot," meaning it will only be counted after the state has determined you did not vote by mail or if the in-person votes could change the results of the mail-in votes.
New Jersey officials have decided that any mail-in vote postmarked before Election Day will be counted. Every mail-in vote whose postmark cannot be read will be counted. Every mail-in vote that does not have a postmark will be counted. What could possibly go wrong?
This is very simple. Anybody who believes in fairness and good government wants to make sure that the person who votes is who they claim to be. That's why some states have enacted voter ID laws. You want to ensure that the voter is a U.S. citizen. You want to ensure that the voter actually lives in the state he's voting in. And that they only vote once.
But the left is committed to making sure that it is almost impossible to determine these things.
The War On Cops Continues
In Seattle, Washington, an anti-police demonstration turned into a riot last night that injured three officers.
In Portland, Oregon, the woke crowd marched through the streets chanting, "Kill A Cop, Save A Life!" Rocks as large as 10 pounds were hurled at officers. As a result of the night's violence, at least 60 emergency calls to 911 had to be put on hold.
In Chicago, dozens of officers were surrounded by hundreds of rioters in a pitch battle. A video shows a cop being hit over the head by a fine upstanding citizen wielding a skateboard.
Meanwhile, there were no statements defending the police from the mayor of Seattle, the mayor of Portland or the mayor of Chicago. Presumably, they don't want to offend the rioters.
Left-wing Depravity
As you know, President Trump's younger brother, Robert, passed away this weekend. It didn't take long before the left-wing activists, reporters and Hollywood celebrities got a viral hashtag trending that simply said "#wrongtrump." A black pastor and local president of a Massachusetts NAACP chapter appears to be responsible for creating this vile message.
I know many people long for the day when we could have another affable leader in the White House, someone like Ronald Reagan. I worked for Reagan for eight years and he was a wonderful man. But the left despised Reagan too.
When news broke of his attempted assassination and rumors spread that he might be dead, there were cheers in some big city schools.
Don't forget that the left tried to blame George W. Bush for the horrible murder of a black man. The left did the same thing to Mitt Romney. And the left smeared John McCain by comparing him to segregationist George Wallace.
The left hates anyone who stands up for conservative ideas and values.
2020 Update
The Democrat National Convention begins today. The political conventions this year will be unrecognizable due to the coronavirus. Large in-door gatherings featuring thousands of people have been banned. But the conventions are taking place virtually.
The key speakers tonight include Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, former Ohio Governor John Kasich and former First Lady Michelle Obama.
Meanwhile, according to the latest CNN poll, President Trump is essentially tied with Joe Biden. That's a significant change from June when the CNN poll showed Biden leading Trump by 14 points.