 Approximately one-third of Americans, including 70% of Republicans, believe that Joe Biden won the presidency due to voter fraud. I didn’t vote for Donald Trump, so I have little credibility telling someone who did what to think. But a group of Republican staffers and officials with staunch conservative credentials has just published the report “Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election”, https://lostnotstolen.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Lost-Not-Stolen-The-Conservative-Case-that-Trump-Lost-and-Biden-Won-the-2020-Presidential-Election-July-2022.pdf.  The authors of the report examined every claim of fraud and misconduct claimed by former President Donald Trump and his advocates. They examined the 64 legal challenges alleging 187 counts of voter fraud, irregularities and procedural deficiencies in the battle ground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. According to the report, the Trump team failed to provide substantive evidence to win any of the legal challenges. The report also concluded that the post-election audits and reviews in each state failed to show any irregularities or fraud that would overturn the election results. There was no evidence of fraud in the 2020 Presidential election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result of the election in any state, let alone the entire nation. The report concluded that “there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct. It is wrong, and bad for our country, for people to propagate baseless claims that President Biden’s election was not legitimate.”  Why is this report important? For the same reason that the January 6 committee investigations are important. To get at the truth. If the American people don’t believe that our elections are free and fair, we will lose our democracy. I am under no illusions that the “Lost, Not Stolen” report or the January 6 committee investigations will change the minds of many Trump loyalists. This would take an unequivocal repudiation of Trump by the Republican Party, and perhaps abandonment by the right-wing media which propped him up. I don’t think that the Republican Party has the moral courage to take on Donald Trump, but some of his right-wing media friends are beginning to turn on him.  In recent days, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post wrote an editorial calling Donald Trump “unworthy to be the country’s chief executive again.” The conservative editorial board of the Wall Street Journal has also turned harshly critical of Donald Trump, calling his actions on January 6, 2021 an utter failure, and a violation of his oath of office. Now if Fox News, another Rupert Murdoch property, were to sour on Trump, I think that his political future would be over. For the Republican Party to remain viable, it needs to move beyond Donald Trump. It discredits the party when a majority of its members lack faith in the 2020 election results based on unsubstantiated claims of a stolen election. It also undermines democracy and the Constitution, which the Republicans claim to be defenders of. To restore its credibility, the Republican Party needs more Liz Cheneys and fewer Jim Jordans.  As Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels was claimed to have said, “If you tell a big enough lie and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American
4 Comments
 Congressional leaders are patting themselves on the back for passing a bipartisan bill on new gun regulations. But even before the President signed the bill into law, the Supreme Court overruled a New York law which will make it easier for Americans to own and carry a gun in public. The Republicans view the epidemic of gun violence as a mental illness problem, not as a gun problem. The Democrats’ hopes for meaningful gun reform have been vanquished for the foreseeable future by the Supreme Court’s rigid interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Let’s take a look at recent developments.
Bipartisan Safer Communities Act: (https://www.murphy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/bipartisan_safer_communities_act_one_pager.pdf) This bill was signed into law by President Biden on June 25, 2022. Here are the highlights of the new law:
The compromise bill (it is actually more of a capitulation) is seen as a victory by the Democrats who have been working for decades on gun safety legislation. I see the new law as another failure of the Congress to enact meaningful gun reforms. It is little more than a tiny band-aid on a gaping wound that won’t be healed until the 2nd Amendment is repealed or replaced.  Supreme Court Strikes Down New York Gun Law: On June 23, 2022 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf. The Court’s decision overrules a New York law that required adults seeking a permit to carry a concealed weapon in public to demonstrate a need to do so. The Court ruled that the 2nd Amendment provides a broad right of the individual to arm themselves in public, and New York (or any other state) cannot place restrictions on that right. According to the Court’s majority opinion, written by Clarence Thomas, the 2nd Amendment protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” He went on to write that “The government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulations.” This decision has ramifications throughout the country, and will bring legal challenges to any current or future gun control measures enacted by the states. The direction of the Supreme Court on gun regulations is now clear. The 2nd Amendment right of the individual to own and bear arms is chiseled in stone, and states have limited authority to restrict that right.  America’s Gun Problem: As much as the Republican Party would like you to believe, the mental health system cannot stop mass shootings in America. Only a small fraction of mass shootings are conducted by people with mental illness. It is very difficult to determine who will commit gun violence, and to focus too much on mental health is a mistake. There are volumes of good research on gun violence conducted by the Rand Corporation, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and many others, if you care to look. David Brooks wrote an interesting article recently, titled “Why Mass Shooters Do the Evil They Do”. I found it very interesting, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/07/opinion/mass-shooters-motive.html.  The only thing that connects all perpetrators of gun violence is access to guns, and America is awash in them. All of the guns used in the high-profile mass shootings this summer were purchased legally. The mental health system cannot solve this problem. If the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” is the best that Congress can deliver, we might as well add “gun violence” to the other certainties of American life, “death and taxes”. Don’t let your member of Congress use this new law as an excuse to rest on their laurels. Americans deserve to be safe when they go to school, walk down the street, shop at a grocery store, or attend a 4th of July parade.
Teenager Drinking BeerOne of these two activities is illegal. Which do you think poses the biggest threat to your family? If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American |
AuthorThe Armchair American. 
Archives
November 2024
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed