Too many Chicken Littles

It is amazing how many pieces of the sky are falling and each and every member of Chicken Little’s family reports them as news.

Is it possible something will show up in a news feed that isn’t hyperbolic, partisan, and negative?

There are negative articles about the future, about the present, and even negative articles about the past. Science was once the bastion of neutral and informational news. But now it isn’t even a former eclipse of itself.

If you want positive news, you better write it yourself.

Hmmm…oops…Looks like I’m guilty of it, too! Hehehe…

Can a very rich man defeat American democracy?

It appears there is no stopping ex-President Donald Trump in his efforts to secure POWER over American democracy.

First, he planned to simply not leave the White House. He purged a slew of generals and Defense appointees to put his own puppets in place. He tried to get the Attorney General and the Vice President to declare the election was fraudulent. They resisted. He met with people who would attack Congress and take over the Electoral College. Without Electoral College certification, he would claim the election fraudulent and assert himself as President until the Supreme Court ruled on who would be President.

Second, ex-President Trump withheld and stymied efforts for the military to quell the takeover of Congress. Some he did himself and some he did through acolytes.

Third, ex-President Trump used the Republican Party and its state-level adherents to attack the legitimacy and certification of state election boards. The purpose was to throw out a valid vote count and then use the Courts to reinstate him as President. He has failed in multiple attempts; however, he is using the state legislatures to draft new election laws that permit their legislatures to usurp vote results. The end game is to avoid Republican and Democrat Party lawsuits in favor of legislation that can simply declare the winner of a state’s electoral vote count.

The Fourth Wave of ex-President Trump’s efforts is about to unfold. The creation of a personal propaganda machine to promote Trump across the nation. Congressman Devin Nunes has been chosen to run Trump’s propaganda machine.

American democracy is at stake. Not just who will be President but who will control the country and choose its leaders at all levels of civic government.

Can American democracy win the war that ex-President Trump is bringing to America?

Can multi-culturalism be defeated by a single billionaire who intends to revert America to a single white corporate culture that existed in the 1950s?

There is no reason for ex-President Trump to cease efforts to control American democracy. Like most old men, he doesn’t like the changes that have occurred in America in his lifetime. BUT unlike most old men, ex-President Trump has the money to afford his civilian campaign to overthrow American democracy for a different type of government.

Remember Bolivarianism?

Prepare for the right-wing version known as Trumpism. One state at a time. One election at a time. Misery for people who don’t fit the mold.

There’s chaos ahead, my friends. Not control. Chaos in all of its faces.

Congressional Reform

Those who break it can never fix it. Is that a given?

I’m going to point you to this opinion piece by the CATO organization. It makes the case, far better than I can, about the need for a paradigm shift in returning Congress to its roots.

Congressional reformation cannot be accomplished by the Republican Party or the Democrat Party. They are embedded in the process and they are enablers of putting power into the Presidency, not curtailing it.

They are enablers of Judicial power, too. By failing to perform their role in crafting legislation and interpretation, they gift the power of interpretation to the Supreme Court.

Take a moment to read this and reflect on the boundaries each branch of the government should have. Then reflect on how the US government should evolve beyond the partisanship that exists and how more control is needed over the power of the federal government.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/its-time-make-congress-great-again#

Lock Him Up!

Democrats don’t chant like MAGA supporters do. More’s the shame, I guess.

In the 2016 campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump agreed with his MAGA crowd that Hillary Clinton should be locked up. Candidate Trump began a series of unfounded allegations that Hillary Clinton gained millions of dollars because she used her influence to steer a uranium deal to the Russians. The chant became a staple of his campaign as candidate Trump began calling her “Crooked Hillary”. NONE of those allegations were proven to be true. President Trump is a veteran liar. It’s likely he has awarded himself medals to his villainy.

The mountain of evidence continues to grow that President Trump was an actor in the events of January 6, 2021. The evidence shows that President Trump was unsuccessful in coercing state government officials to overthrow the election results of 2020. Knowing that his Attorney General Bill Barr refused to lie, knowing that the Trump campaign efforts to overthrow election results in 6 states were failing, President Trump applied pressure to VP Mike Pence to simply declare the vote count fraudulent during the Electoral College process.

Meetings in December 2020 and testimony from government officials demonstrate that President Trump was more knowledgeable about the attack on Capitol Hill than President Nixon was about the Watergate break-in. The failure of the Senate to convict President Trump for his role in the Capitol Hill attack is all about the Republican Party’s failure to hold one of their own accountable.

Will Democrats begin to chant “Lock him up?” Probably not.

But they should.

Reparation Silliness

I once called for an amendment to the Constitution. We would avoid silliness

https://wordpress.com/post/reasonablecitizen.wordpress.com/5980

Amendment 33: The people of the United States hereby declare that the seeking of reparations shall not be approved for events or conditions that were not illegal in the time period in which they occurred, when a period of 100 years has passed since that event or condition.

If only the government was under my control.

Here’s the next piece of Democrat silliness to hit us.: revoking medals from a hundred years ago.

https://www.businessinsider.com/lawmakers-ask-biden-revoke-medals-wounded-knee-massacre-warren-sanders-2021-11

Denouncing President Trump

Back in February, I posted on my blog that I had a personal conspiracy theory that the mess on January 6th was an attempted coup in America and now it appears I was correct.

https://reasonablecitizen.wordpress.com/…/wh-plan-to…/

I cited an article in the Washington Times that suddenly disappeared in its electronic format. Fortunately, there was an electronic link kept by PressReader. You can read the original item here:https://www.pressreader.com/…/20201228/281526523665558

In the article, the very first paragraph quotes Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia describing how President Trump planned to overthrow the election results. Go read it for yourself.

Marjorie Taylor Greene said she attended a meeting AT THE WHITE HOUSE the week before and they planned what would happen on January 6th. It is no surprise to me that Prez Trump is attempting to hide these facts by claiming Executive Privilege over historical documents that will show who attended these meetings.

I know many Americans wish he had been successful. And some of you reading this are among them.

It’s time to denounce President Trump and his efforts to overthrow the election results. It’s even a better time to condemn the lies he has told and the lies he has caused others to tell.

President Trump is a shameful liar. President Trump is a shameful deceiver. President Trump aided and abetted the mob that attacked Capitol Hill while thousands of MAGA supporters milled about in peaceful protest. President Trump shamefully delayed efforts to stop the mob that attacked the Congress of the United States.

Let’s call a spade a spade and denounce President Trump for his efforts to undermine the election process in America. And let’s denounce those who seek to whitewash President Trump’s record.

The Battle for Sovereignty

Republicans and Democrats alike are locked in a battle for sovereignty: a) supreme power especially over a body politic, b)freedom from external control : autonomy and c) controlling influence1.

For Democrats, the battle is for sovereignty over their bodies as in abortion, birth control, transgender modification, and over government interference. Why are politicians and governments asserting they have power over a person’s choices?

For Republicans, the battle is about sovereignty over face masks, vaccination, and over government interference. Why are politicians and governments asserting they have power over a person’s choices?

While the battle for federal, state, and local sovereignty has been on the front pages for decades, and has earned its legitimacy, the battle for individual sovereignty, although just as large an issue, has been relegated to the internet and is not covered by the MSM.

Police forces have asserted, or been granted, sovereignty over individuals in investigations, in keeping the peace, and in the enforcement of laws. They have been granted an element of immunity that has been breached many times over and has resulted in harm to citizens it is charged to protect.

This causes me to wonder:

a) Has the sovereignty of individuals been eroded over time?

b) Who is the arbiter of sovereignty issues in society?

c) Is it time for a discussion on the soveriegnty of individuals and a reclamation of personal powers lost?

The Cyber Ninja Claim on Maricopa County’s “extra” ballots

The Cyber Ninja Arizona Claim:

https://thenewamerican.com/arizona-audit-74000-unaccounted-for-ballots-is-decertification-coming/

“As preliminary findings of the historic Maricopa County audit reveal substantial evidence of fraud during the 2020 presidential election, potentially altering the state’s certified results from a Joe Biden to Donald Trump victory, Americans may finally be getting answers to what really happened in November 2020, gaining information that cannot be decried a “conspiracy theory.”

“On Thursday, Arizona Senate president Karen Fann held a Senate hearing — which not one mainstream media outlet covered — to provide an update on the months-long review of the roughly 2.1 million ballots cast in the state’s largest county.

“Accompanied by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen, Fann was issued reports during the nearly two-hour, live-streamed meeting by Ken Bennett, former Arizona secretary of state and Senate liaison for the audit, cybersecurity expert and CyFIR founder Ben Cotton, and Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan.

“ Evidence presented outlined widespread discrepancies in ballot batch counts, as well as the mislabeling and mismanagement of ballot storage, including cut seals that were intended to ensure the validity of ballot batches. In addition, hundreds of mail-in ballots lack a chain of custody, images of envelopes with verifiable signatures are missing, and more than 74,000 counted mail-in ballots have “no evidence of ever being sent.”

There is no evidence of fraud in the Cyber Ninja review of the Arizona “Forensic Analysis. The fourth paragraph makes it very clear.   

*****

In regards to the claim that “…and more than 74,000 counted mail-in ballots have “no evidence of ever being sent” , this website says https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/07/fact-check-there-were-not-over-74000-more-mail-in-ballots.html  :” “Maricopa County addressed this claim on its Twitter page, stating that Cyber Ninjas appears to be looking at all early votes in making this claim. The Maricopa County Twitter statement says early voting can happen in two ways: People can either vote by mail or vote in person. People who vote at centers are given ballots there, meaning that the total of early votes could be greater than the number of ballots mailed out.“The county wrote: “This is not a new practice, so it’s not unusual that we would have more early votes than mail-in ballots sent.”

Later Maricopa County provided the actual results:

“FACTS: @maricopavote calculated the true number of requests and returns:
REQUESTS = 2,364,426
RETURNS = 1,918,024

So where is this alleged 74,000 vote gap given these results?

 There are other websites that make this same point: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/18/politics/fact-check-maricopa-audit-arizona-cyber-ninjas-74000/index.html

A more definitive explanation is provided by an ABC New Analyst:

“ Logan’s suggestion of some sort of unsolved mystery was definitively debunked by Garrett Archer, an election analyst at ABC15 television in Phoenix and a former official in the Arizona secretary of state’s office, who is known locally and on Twitter for his mastery of the state’s elections data.

“Archer explained that the county stops updating the requested-ballots list, known as “EV32,” after the last day people can request a mail ballot, October 23. So ballots cast in person after October 23, Archer said, were included on the submitted-ballots list, known as “EV33,” but did not have a corresponding item on the “EV32” requested-ballots list.

Archer analyzed the files and found that there were 74,241 ballots on the submitted-ballots list without a corresponding entry on the requested-ballots list — nearly identical to the figure Logan cited, “74,243.” But Archer found that more than 99.9% of the ballots in question were recorded in the submitted-ballots list on October 26 or later.

That is in line with the October 23 cut-off date Archer had previously noted for the requested-ballots list. “

There were other false claims made by Cyber Ninjas:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/arizona-auditors-walk-back-claim-that-election-data-was-deleted/ar-BB1gSOym

Perhaps the best all-around information can be found on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Maricopa_County_presidential_ballot_audit#Origins

Conclusion: There are two things that are clear to me: a) there should be more enforcement controls over the chain of custody on paper ballots but lack of enforcement does not imply there was cheating, and b) Cyber Ninjas do not know nor understand the Arizona election and ballot counting process.

There is no evidence of fraud in the count and re-count of Maricopa County ballots and there is no evidence of ballot forgery.

I also want to make this point:

In 2016, Donald Trump won Maricopa County with 747,301 votes to Hilary Clinton’s 702,907 votes.

In 2020, Donald Trump lost Maricopa County with 1,661,686 votes to Joe Biden’s 1.672,142 votes.

The Get-Out-The-Vote campaigns of both parties AND the lawful election processes put in place during the pandemic caused both parties to benefit from the adapted election process.

Maricopa County is also establishing a website to explain and, if necessary, refute the claims made by Cyber Ninjas from their forensic analysis of the election process in Maricopa County. Here’s the website if you want to learn what you do not know.

https://recorder.maricopa.gov/justthefacts/

Critical Race Theory?

I don’t know what people are talking about when they use this term. So I went to Britannica and read this:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-race-theory

I still don’t get it. How does this work in China., Malaysia, Africa, and Europe?

Which people of color are oppressed in China by their dominant culture? Oh? There are no people of color in China? Well, I’m guessing that one can propose a social, human, theory that does not apply to the whole world but only to former European colonies.

Sheesh.

When the Irish were sent as slaves to the New World in the 1600s, how does Critical Race Theory apply to them?

Sheesh.

Can we set this straight? All this crap one reads about today is about twisted segregationism. It was once believed that it was a natural human condition to fear or hate or disapprove of other races and cultures. The solution was the separation of races through law, culture, and life. It was largely the result of Europe’s colonial adventures and the exploitation of local labor and resources for capital gain. The separation of races was considered “natural” because of the cultural differences and the obvious skin color differences. The forced migration of slave peoples to America to enable its economic growth started all of this.

Of course, now we see fewer cultural differences and more similarities between races. The Great Society was the cultural solution to segregationism in American society and marked the beginning of the end for America’s exploitaion of labor (white and black) and the cultural segregationism that was in place. That is the way it was IN AMERICA. Not China. Not Europe. Not Malaysia. And NOT Australia.

AND in the US, the Indian population was never enslaved. They were confined and segregated and given their own land to live on. Forced upon them by people who didn’t want to kill all the Indians. More forced migration. The Indians were abused and subjugated by America but they were not slaves and Critical Race Theory can’t explain them nor the Irish Slave Trade.

So when you hear all this nonsense that frames the black experience and calls itself Critical Race Theory , it is a fabrication in my opinion. Documenting cutural changes in America as a Critical Race Theory is balderdash.

I said before that looking through Black-Colored Glasses is wrong. It still is.

Reparations: My perspective

I support reparations for any person who was a slave and is still alive today. Otherwise I don’t.

If you grew up with food stamps, housing subsidies, welfare, and a public education, you have been paid your reparations by President Johnson and The Great Society for the past 57 years.

If you are black and your parents never benefitted from local and federal programs and they were successful anyway, then you are already thankful for the freedom and opportunity to be an American and thankful for having great parents.

If you have personally suffered from segregationist policies, then sue your local government. You are allowed to do that

You have equal opportunity but not equal outcome. If you don’t have equal opportunity, then sue your government.