Tag Archives: Electoral College

AMERICA – Article II

The second-most important “branch” of our Republic’s government is the Executive. To most people, this means the President, or “The White House.” It is much, much larger than that – grievously so. There is no accurate count of the number of Departments, Agencies, Offices and Titles that are funded, almost without question or oversight, in the sloppy budgeting process that Congress standardly fails to control. The total is well over a thousand; how close to two thousand, no one can tell. If Congress were forced to oversee every line-item in the budget, we’d probably see a quick reduction, consolidation or elimination of hundreds of these tax-consuming, practically parasitic entities. But Article II is about the powers of the Executive, how he (or she) is elected, and to what actions the President and his/her appointees are sworn.

Mostly, voters and other citizens (we hope, citizens) are concerned about and are told about how well the President is fulfilling his promises in office. The President is NOT the most powerful person in his “administration.” Who is, varies.

Among the “big” Departments – “Cabinet-level Departments” – are Defense, Treasury, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Labor, State, Transportation and Veterans Affairs. Originally, there were just 4 men who comprised Washington’s “cabinet,” a relatively informal group of advisors: Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War, Henry Knox and Attorney General, Edmund Randolph. Each was a “founder” of the new nation and involved in the creation of the Constitution. Each had his views of how the government should be administered and what the Federal Government’s interactions with “the people” and with the States, should be. We are still deciding.

Washington’s status was such that no one was prepared to attack him directly, but political parties soon developed as politically powerful leaders like Hamilton and Jefferson, Madison, Adams and Monroe, among others, and Jackson, later, sought followers to their views. These were the “factions” that were feared by Madison and others writing in the “Federalist Papers.” Washington sought statesmanship from his advisors… like his own. But it became rarer and rarer as party factionalism took hold. The framers of the Constitution expected loyalty to States to be the competing interests that would, in effect, strengthen the new Union of States. Party factionalism, as we can see today, has nearly obliterated those sovereign concerns, as Federal power has become the big prize… and source of wealth both licit and illicit.

The election of a President is done by the Electoral College, one of the earliest topics in Article II, to which 376 words are devoted. The framers, fairly fresh from the Revolutionary War, were very concerned about the creation of an executive officer, having lately fought against executive excess. They did not want the selection process to be “democracy” without severe restrictions that protected the rights of States. The model Republic they hoped to create would have “checks” and “balances” on executive power and even on legislative power. As much as was workable – if not practical – they wanted a chance for statesmanship and reflection to filter out “faction” and emotion in the selection of a President. Their wisdom resulted in the Electoral College. Today we can see the Constitutional mechanisms that are most worth defending by the nature of the heated emotions that wish to sidestep them, altogether. Every Presidential “election” is blanketed with statistics about the “popular vote,” especially when the Electoral winner received fewer votes in gross total than the person who did not win in the Electoral college. That he or she did or didn’t is immaterial; but the “popular vote” is announced by all media as if it mattered.

The Constitution does not provide for National elections; we have State elections, now 50 of them, by law on the same day. Every 4 years, citizens of the 50 states elect slates of Electors who will later vote in the “Electoral College” for the President / Vice-President “ticket” to which they are committed, having gained a majority or a plurality of the popular vote in their respective States. Every State’s election stands on its own, irrespective of the size of the majority or plurality of the popular vote in other states. We employ democratic process to elect people whose Constitutional function strengthens the REPUBLIC. The REPUBLIC is strengthened by the federation of its sovereign States; the rights and sovereignty of those States must be protected and defended by the powers ceded to the federal government. It was the citizens of States – States that pre-existed the federal government and the federation, itself – who ratified the Constitution and the Bill of Rights: the first ten amendments without which ratification would have been impossible.

The two keys to our Republic’s success and endurance include an EXECUTIVE who is checked by the power of the people – expressed in Congress – and, as John Adams incisively stated (one might say, predicted), “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We have embarked on a course of denying government responsibility for promoting morality. Indeed, we are rushing to make legal immoral actions in order for governments at every level to share in their illicit proceeds. What a foul recalculation of the meaning of liberty.

Presidents after Washington have pressed for greater freedom of action without the slow action of Congress, almost continuously. Abraham Lincoln was the first to suspend basic rights due to the emergencies of the Civil War. The relationship of the federal government to individual citizens changed dramatically in the years following, and even before the end of Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation applied Executive power to the problems of black individuals in multiple states. Following the war a federal agency, the “Pension Office” under the authority of the “Commissioner of Pensions” organized to evaluate claims due to both physical and mental injuries incurred during the Civil War. Today there are, as noted above, well over 1,000 federal agencies and departments. Ostensibly, the President directs their work and function but, in fact, most of the Executive “branch” runs on its own, including lobbying Congress for never-ending funding and support.

The President is charged with being the “Commander in Chief” of the Army and Navy (and added military branches, now) AND OF THE “Militias” of the several states when called into service of the United States. Who those “Militias” are is not well-defined, although referenced in the Constitution and in the Second Amendment. Pre-existing the Army, the “National Guard” grew from colonial militias who defended against “Indian” attack, especially as the “frontier” encroached on Native lands, and later against the French and their native allies.

The “Army” was created from the Militias and State “Guards” during the Revolutionary War. Had it not been for General George Washington’s personal leadership, the Revolution would have failed as soldiers completed their periods of voluntary service, but who stayed to complete Washington’s mission of independence. It is difficult to grasp the privation and sacrifice required to pursue the war with Britain; few in today’s America are capable of what Revolutionary soldiers endured.

The Minutemen of Massachusetts grew, purposefully, out of the regiments of Militia. They were trained by veterans of the Indian and French-Indian wars and were the defenders against the British at Lexington and Concord, as the British sought to disarm the colonists. More regiments from Massachusetts served in the “Continental Army” than from any other colony/State, and formed the basis of the United States Army. The President is charged, ultimately, with command – and DEPLOYMENT – of all of the military forces, including calling up Reserve troops and the National Guard(s) of the several States, WITHOUT a declaration of a state of War, which only the Congress can effect. The “War Powers Act” in 1973, changed the basic relationship dictated by the Constitution.

In response to President Nixon’s secret bombing campaign in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, Congress attempted to reign in the creeping expansion of Presidential powers as Commander in Chief. Still, it recognized the perceived need for swift response to armed actions almost anywhere in the world where the PRESIDENT can articulate (within 48 hours of taking military action for up to 60 days without further Congressional approval) a “national interest” of the United States. This is a codification of the U. S.’s perceived role as “the world’s policeman,” and a dangerous relinquishing of Congressional, and, therefore, States’ authority over the commitment of their citizens to actions of deadly threat. All in all it is a stark example of how the Executive has become the super-representative of “the American people,” basically in opposition to Congress’ Constitutional power of representing the will of the citizens of the several States.

Since the end of World War II, and most particularly following the assassination of President Kennedy, the “federal” government has rushed to become a “National” government, directly undercutting the design of the Constitution for a Republic of united, somewhat sovereign States. Every heated declaration of “threat to our democracy” or “protecting our democracy” is premised on the desire for pure “majority rule” in the wielding of “national” power, no matter how temporarily a majority might be created for any cause or idea, rather than a republic-like careful deliberation and application of wisdom before action is taken or changes to governance made.

Constant reference to the Constitution and its amendments, is necessary to measure how far we have drifted from, and how much further some wish for us to drift from, the ideals and responsibilities of the American experiment and the “limited” Executive thereof.

Constitutionally Speaking

…A Republic if you can keep it.

Wise humans generally have tried to select their leaders from among those who think logically relative to the traditions and cultural mores of the society.  Those who would be leaders, but who tend to propose completely opposite ideas and beliefs at proximate times, are generally rejected for positions of leadership, and denied power over the “people” who have sought leaders who will protect their families and partner in achieving greater safety, comfort and wealth.  Along the way, their leaders are expected to protect and strengthen the children so that society will grow, be strong and continue.

In earlier times, especially when education was not widespread – mainly reserved to self-selected religious leaders and somewhat self-selected royal families – populations accepted their statuses as serfs and peasants for whom reverence of their “leaders” was how safety for themselves and their families was increased, including food security.  Things changed as education became “public.”  Wisdom and philosophies from the “ancient” past spread among millions of thoughtful humans, some of whom refined and expanded on the “pure” ideas of the Greeks, Hebrews, Romans, Persians and many others, interpreting human interactions amidst the “new” realities of economics, civic participation and independence.

Great minds eventually proscribed the foundational ideas of the United States, and they are quite simple!

Underlying the simplicity of the Constitution are principles of preventing or avoiding the proven tendencies of the worst of human nature to gain power and wealth at the expense of others: tyranny of one form or another.  Let’s consider the simple ideas and the assumptions on which they are dependent.  Our founders designed “self-government” against the backdrop of tyrannies they had seen and fought, both religious and monarchical, as well as militaristic.  They could not include tools designed to thwart the new tyrannies defined and refined by Marxism in the middle of the 19th century. That is our job, today.

The first simple idea, upon which our survival depended then and does, now: religious freedom.  Education in the late 18th century was based largely upon religious philosophies and structures of good and evil as spread by and through churches and prelates of all kinds, mostly Christian, and by locally hired teachers.  The vast majority of Americans shared basic beliefs in right and wrong as they ratified the Constitution; they never imagined that within a few generations the vast majority of Americans – AND THEIR CHURCHES – would no longer agree upon the principles of right and wrong and self-discipline.  The functioning of Constitutional republicanism depends upon “the people” being a moral, self-disciplined body politic.  To participate in and manage a republic, requires that its members – citizens – be educated in its principles and practices.  Sadly, this is no longer the case.

The second simple idea is representation.  A people who have learned to choose their representatives such that those so chosen will guard the people from the worst excesses of executive rulers, will, if properly educated, keep a civic eye on those representatives, in our case, on members of the House of Representatives.  Our Founders believed, based on a social compact within which nearly everyone shared common rights and wrongs, that representing people in the many states, would remain a mission of honor and fealty to their constituents.  They never imagined that election to Congress would become such a lucrative opportunity for personal gain, that re-election, and the many corruptions that facilitate re-election, would replace the proper role of service and honor.  “The People’s House” is no longer a place of honor but for a few.  Americans must educate themselves about the original purpose and model for representation, and MAKE THE CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES required to restore representation to the primary purpose – and effect – of election to “The House.”

The third simple idea is states’ rights.  That is, that the Federal government is limited to those functions that states cannot do for themselves, and that the powers not granted to the Federal Government, or prohibited to it, are reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people.  Senators are supposed to represent the interests of the States; they are not supposed to be longer-serving, at-large representatives of the people.  They are supposed to be selected by the state legislatures to represent the STATES, guarding their rights and powers in a federal, not NATIONAL system of governance.  Because of the failures of some state legislatures during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, leaving Senate seats unfilled, Congress proposed the 17th Amendment and it was ratified with little delay.  Since then, 6-year-term Senators have been elected similarly to 2-year-term Representatives.  Thus were the constituencies of Senators changed from their state governments to the general populations of states, which changed the responsibilities of Senators.  Being elected “at large” means that Senate candidates have, ever since, been able to lie at varying levels of effectiveness, twisting truth and news, particularly for incumbents, to gain popular vote victories. 

If the Senator in question had to answer to members of his or her state’s legislature, men and women who, to some greater degree, know what is going on and what they instructed their Senator to do, then the re-election/appointment landscape would be far, far different than the amorphous, dishonest campaigning that works with popular-vote elections.  Prior to the 17th Amendment, states’ senators had to answer for what they did in Washington.  It would be very good to repeal the 17th and make Senators responsible to SOMEBODY.  The chance of senators being re-elected for 24, 30 or 36 years, would be much reduced: a good thing.

The fourth simple idea is equal application of the laws.  The fundament of individual sovereignty and freedom is equal STATUS under the laws.  Our Bill of Rights, without which the Constitution would have never been ratified, or even considered for ratification by some states, codifies the assumptions that underlay the debates that developed the Constitution.  Madison and others believed that having won independence from a powerful monarchy, under which laws and persecutions were applied differently to citizens deemed by the monarch to be favored or unfavored, had cemented the concepts of equal application of law into the American people.  In fact, the ability of governments of any type: elected or hereditary, to become tyrannical, was bound to color the debates.  The likelihood that executive authority will garner power not specifically granted to it, is historically likely.  Government can NEVER be trusted to control itself on behalf of even the highest principles.  The rules limiting the power of government and protecting the unalienable rights of every person, had to be part of the proposed Constitution.  Ratification was effected by legislative agreement of three-fourths of the states; the formation of a FEDERAL government was a function of the STATES and not even of popular vote.

Let’s repeat that concept: the Federal Government is a creation of the states.  The power and rights of, now, 50 STATES, are SUPERIOR to the powers of the Federal Government.  How foreign this truth sounds.  It means that criminal laws as well as civil laws, are primarily the business of states, and that federal laws should be few in number and limited in scope to matters of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and other amendments, and matters of military justice and treason.  It also means that federal police powers and the so-called “F.B.I.” should be severely limited in terms of interactions with individual citizens.  Things have changed, to say the least.

The fifth simple idea is the ELECTORAL COLLEGE, which provides a mechanism of election of the Chief Executive Officer / Commander-in-Chief, free of undue influence from Congress or from direct democracy.  Our Founders understood the inherent dangers of pure democracy and that democracy, alone, would quickly yield tyranny of shifting majorities.  This is why so many mechanisms dividing power between states and the federal system, between states and pure democracy, and between citizens and their representatives, are built into the Constitution.  Lately, many on the Left have complained about the Electoral College, always touting the “popular vote” as having favored a losing Presidential ticket.  Needless to say, the popular vote is meaningless in presidential politics.  The Electoral college makes sure that presidents are elected by the States, not by popular vote.  The U. S. holds 50 state elections for 50 slates of electors who are committed to a presidential ticket.  While electors are related to representative numbers: 2 senators per state plus the number of representatives per state, presidential tickets must win the majority of presidential electors, state by state.  Both large and small states are important to the final total.  Presidents are elected by the states, not through direct democracy.

Those who want to get rid of the Electoral College are those who want government to be empowered through pure democracy, and they are not to be trusted with real power.

Another simple idea, relative to the Executive authority, is that Congress must declare war, not the President.  Under monarchies, the monarch can dictate foreign policy and declare war when he or she doesn’t get what he or she desires.  Again, to limit the concentration of power in the executive branch, our founders anticipated that Congress’ interests would be closer to the people and rarely in complete agreement with the Chief Executive.  What was never anticipated was that both the House and Senate would be so willing to avoid responsibility for much of anything, and so willing to relinquish powers to the executive bureaucracies of unelected rule-makers, as is attractive to communists.  Like all contracts and covenants, they are only as good as the quality and integrity of the parties to them.

Our founders, likewise, never anticipated that Congress would devise a means of creating perpetually growing public debt (in the form of the extra-constitutional “Federal Reserve” Check out: http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2020/09/27/knife-edge-election/).  In 1789 people – and governments – had to pay their debts before more loans would be offered; today we raise the “debt ceiling” so that we might borrow enough to pay only the interest on previous debts, let alone pay down the principals.  This results in our “representatives” failing utterly to represent the interests of the people each is paid handsomely to represent… adding annually to the peoples’ debt burden and being re-elected despite having done so.

The SUPREME COURT is a simple idea, although modern beliefs complicate it beyond reason.  The Constitution provides federal judges, including Supreme Court Justices, with lifetime appointments.  The purpose is to insulate justices from political whims and winds of change, and, presumably, allow them to hold firmly to the meaning of the Constitution’s words as ever newer, unanticipated legal problems emerge.  Politics has caused never anticipated complications to the balancing work of the Supreme Court.  Elected men and women have added to the responsibilities of the Federal government beyond anything the Founders could have imagined.  The lines between Constitutional powers and protections of individual rights, have become broader and diffuse as politicians have found political power in the invention of new “rights,” many based on falsehoods.  The Left’s penchant for changing the definitions of words has made “equal protection under the law” nearly impossible; foolish politicians have passed laws to accommodate false definitions and whimsical “realities.”  The supreme court is tested to find narrow truths amidst broadened political fantasies.

Yet, the concept of a final arbiter of our Constitutional protections is both wise and essential.  That the U. S. was founded in the presence of printing and publications, forms of mail service and book-binding, kept our founders mindful of the spread of new ideas and opinions.  Launching the new nation on a “ship” of ideals required that some mechanism of preserving and reinforcing those ideas and ideals was essential.  The Supreme Court, almost inadvertently, became that mechanism, thanks to the innovative application of its limited powers by Chief Justice John Marshall.

Finally, the NINTH and TENTH amendments are a combined, simple idea.  Hardly any of our student youth are taught about the Constitution, and few of them, or even of their parents, have knowledge or opinions about the last two amendments of the Bill of Rights.

Amendment 9 admonishes the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT that the rights named and listed in the Constitution – rights of individuals – cannot be construed to “deny or disparage” others (rights) retained by the people.  This is worth contemplating every day and upon every election:  The rights that are inherent in every citizen (unalienable rights), ARE NOT LIMITED to only those “enumerated” in the text of the Constitution, NOR can the constitution be employed to limit any of them!  These few words are quite possibly the most important and far-reaching in our Constitutional system.  EVERY piece of legislation and every surreptitious new regulation that spews forth from the tens of thousands of unelected bureaucrats, should be evaluated BY OUR (ostensible) REPRESENTATIVES as to its neutrality toward or protection of our inherent rights as individual citizens.  What a different “official” status we are each entitled to, than what we are now saddled with.

The 10th Amendment, in effect, reserves to the STATES, much as the 9th reserves to the people, all powers not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution.  It then goes beyond the power of states and reserves the rest to the people, again.  This remarkable Constitution is unique in world history, and exceptional.  The rights secured to the citizens of the United States are exceptional among all the nations.  How is it that we have elected so many to Congress and even to the White House, who do not agree with what the Constitution says and promises to us as citizens?

Dear readers and fellow citizens, the simplest, most Prudent idea of all is to learn, teach, discuss, and study the Constitution and the thinking that supported its ultimate design.  Our students are deprived of the ONLY knowledge that will keep us and them, free.  If you have the ability to communicate to whomever is educating your children, insist that they, and all other teachers, produce high-school graduates who understand our rights and powers as U. S. citizens.

RATIONAL ENDS

Antifa thugs with weapons and masks claim to right the wrongs of "fascists", mistakenly named as far-rightists.

One can understand why liberals and other proto-socialists feared George W. Bush.  He had developed himself into a patriotic, empathetic and religious man, shucking the follies of his youth and the excesses of inherited power… for the most part.  Growing up in the shadow of powerful and successful (read: wealthy) people, going back several generations, creates a different mindset and outward view from those of most of us.  The Bush dynasty developed from good fortune and good genes, and, perhaps, some good luck, but no family with the political impact of the Bushes could have had its hand on the levers of wealth and power for so long without ruthless application of power and influence.

But “W” is/was a little different, more empathetic, stemming from his “kinder, gentler” father, George H. W. Bush, and from his newfound humility.  Unfortunately, after the 9-11 attacks, “W” also wanted to change the world, exporting and delivering democratic republicanism to other peoples who were not, in themselves, prepared to believe in it.  Still, more than most who ascend to the presidency, “W” remained fairly honest, believing in what he was doing, however wrong-headed.  Not a bad guy, all things considered, but not a particularly successful leader of the free world, let alone of the United States.  The hatred of him was just as wrong-headed, but some of the fears were rational.

The left was more than ready for a change and with some ruthless interventions, able to ride a wave of window dressing and socialism into the White House with Barack Obama.  Republicans in general didn’t trust him or ANY of his ideas, while those in congress tended to give him what he wanted for appointments and budgets, despite uniform hostility to the mis-named Affordable Care Act.  They couldn’t even make hay from his wild failures internationally and the mis-feasance / malfeasance of his Secretary of State… not even from his demilitarization of the armed forces, socially and financially.  He completed two terms, by the end of which he had virtually decimated the Democrat Party.

Still, Obama accomplished much of what he promised to do, starting with the destruction of compromise with Republicans.  “We won,” he would say.  Policy discussions with Republicans were few and fruitless, if not more derogation than debate.  The liberal press learned that access came from right-thinking (left-thinking), not honesty and, indeed, many government types were finding jobs with networks and relatives of powerful network types were finding jobs in the administration – altogether too cozy a relationship and bearing no relationship to the term: Free Press.  From 8 years of besmirching “W” Bush at every turn, the left-leaning, Obama-approving press learned that fawning coverage of Obama was a ticket to better ratings.

For the average listener/reader/watcher, the Obama administration was the opportunity to espouse socialism and so-called “multi-culturalism.”  Suddenly, finally, it became okay to proclaim alternatives to and opposition towards… umm, actually, more like hatred  towards the institutions and standards of “American” culture.  Everything that was influenced by the Bible, Christianity and English common law, was fair game for leftist, communists, socialists, atheists and anti-U.S. activists of every stripe, many of whom had been lurking in public education for years.  College campuses are full of their weak-kneed and malleable products, now.

Oddly, crony capitalism expanded under Obama, that erstwhile social warrior, as have monopolies, due in large part to the digitization of information and the intellectual laziness of large swaths of the population, particularly educators.  Given free rein to proselytize leftward, weaker teachers at all levels literally graded on right-thinking (left-thinking) rather than on true intellectual curiosity, balanced inquiry, research and expansion of knowledge.  Indebted graduates and drop-outs emerge committed to ideas untested and unchallenged.  Some professors, reduced to tears and seclusion after Hillary’s electoral loss, have never recovered, except to hate the current president and to entertain ways to undo some parts of the Constitution so that such defeat may never recur.

The “politics of personal destruction” first named during the early Clinton era, has become just “politics.”  Since The Loss, the only path to power appears to be one that climbs over destruction of opponents, at least for Democrats, and not one paved with better ideas, policies and uplift.  As with all socialist movements, uninvolved people are also destroyed, at least in spirit, in order to create a more perfect world, free of merit and everything else that works for the majority of people.  Inevitably, the controlling elite minority (also very wealthy) will self-identify and new rules will prevent anyone else from gaining “unfair” advantage in society.  Those who “cling” to quaint ideas of individual sovereignty, self-protection, private property, unlicensed enterprise and the Electoral College, will be clearly spotlighted as the reason for others’ failure to achieve, and further restricted to make things even more fair.  A final solution for their uppity independence will pass both houses.

Now, too, politics includes the Orwellian “Antifa” gangs.  Somehow, and for obscure political reasons never explained, various municipal governments tolerate lawlessness as if it were actually “anti-fascist” in its purposes.  Who wants “fascism” in their warmly welcoming and inclusive cities?  The thing of it is that “antifa” employs the tactics of classical fascism!  Huh.  The terrible “fascists” whose heads they try to crack consist of people who believe, basically, in the U. S. Constitution, and there is the crux of modern politics: Constitutionalism and the enumerated and implied rights guaranteed thereunder, is being vilified as “fascism,” an extraordinary twist of language and logic.  Our “free press” supports this dichotomous hatred of the country whose Constitution protects them.

The other “new” element of politics in 2019 is a mix-up of anti-legality and anti-Americanism, if not anti-Americans.  The hot words are “illegal alien” or, more accurately: “illegal entrant.”  One party has invested political capital, much heat, anger and historic blindness on behalf of open borders, unrestricted illegal entry and loose, extra-legal asylum/refugee processes.  The net effect of it all is to flood the nation with aliens who are neither committed to earn citizenship or even to learn English, rather to steal from Americans – through government agencies who willingly participate in lawlessness – in order to “share the American Dream” or other phrases of equally opposite meaning.  That there is a political party gaining support on this basis ought to trouble all of us.

It seems within the realm of Prudence to doubt the true motives of the Democrat party and its best-known leaders.  This is no testament to the righteousness of Republicans, but the rapid leftward skid of Democrats is unparalleled in American history.  Since Roe v. Wade the defense of abortion has become more than a mere knife in the heart of Life, itself, morphing into a virtual sacrament that Democrats must receive to stay in the party.  Death to unborn children, unborn Americans.  It has served its second purpose well, the delegitimizing of religion, most specifically Christianity: the death of America, itself.  In leftist hands abortion has been the sharp wedge for breaking the bonds of our federation of states and to break the bonds of freedom, as well.

Some 61 Million Americans have been denied the Right to Life, mainly for convenience.  Some millions of them would have grown up to love this nation and its exceptional purposes.  They’d have grown and loved and learned and married and taught their children to take care of themselves and their families and their country.  Perhaps that is the threat those babies represented – a threat so grievous that they had to be eliminated before they threatened the final solution for our aberrant Constitutionally limited  democratic republic, Land of the Free.

Simple abortion has itself morphed into infanticide while illegal entrants are encouraged to sneak in to the country in order to have their babies become U. S. citizens as if by magic.  There is magic afoot in abortion on demand: black magic that makes murder the day before birth a right; and for babies who insist on living through abortion procedures, quiet termination in HOSPITALS at the hands of doctors and proto-parents who simply don’t want to take the baby home.  Are these children not U. S. citizens by virtue of birthright?  How is it that these citizens have not been murdered by willful neglect?  Magic most foul, and the hallmark of Democrats – the Party of Death.

FREE, PRESS

Without an active, frequently reinforced grasp of American history, current and recent events appear to be unique, and justification for implanting new policies for the guidance and “transformation” of the United States.  This is a dangerous circumstance, readily corrected by wise, educated and honest media.  Sadly, we no longer are served by wise, educated and honest journalists, or by equally qualified managers and owners of “the press.”  If we were, political bull-crap would be challenged without fail by members of the 4th estate who recognize lies about government and about history, on the spot!

Instead we see complete capitulation to partisan politics and, worse, ownership of the largest media conglomerates by multi-billionaires whose own partisanship distorts their news as much as their editorials, and whose financial power is used extra-constitutionally to direct public policy against legal activities they don’t approve of.  This is no longer capitalism in a constitutional republic, it is fascism outside of and regardless of, elected representation, on which our society depends.

Financial institutions and even specific retailers have joined in to set “public” policy with regards to guns, for glaring example.  Banks, although tightly “regulated” and subject to hundreds of laws and rules, have begun to deny legal services to businesses they disapprove of: firearm manufacturers, gun ranges, ammunition manufacturers, firearm retailers, large and small.  They are responding by either changing their businesses or offerings, if retailers, or moving or, for smaller retailers, giving up their small business.  Those on the left (exclusively) cheer this as “woke” capitalism.  To Hell with democracy, or even with representation, when something is “evil,” “the people” must act.  It is all too simple.

Some of the neo-fascists believe that guns are “racist” because so many blacks are killed by “gun violence,” occasionally when a white person is wielding the weapon.  The more than 90% of black shootings performed by black weapon wielders do not count.  Some wise and educated journalist could immediately question their view on many grounds, not least of which the fact that many gun laws on the books today were part of “Jim Crow” laws aimed at keeping blacks from owning guns.

The 35 Million black babies vacuumed from their mothers’ wombs do not constitute a racist action: that statistic is living proof (odd phrase, that) that blacks are enjoying their full array of “civil rights.”  No one whose Constitutional protections guarantee his or her RIGHT to question such dubious views, seems available to actually raise the question.

Lately – mostly since the democrat-socialists regained a majority in the House of “Representatives” – there are put forth daily radical ideas for subverting democracy, if not ignoring it altogether.  The greatest of these is nearly 3 years old, now: the subversion of Donald Trump and others who helped him gain the presidency.  Once the Electoral votes were tallied in his favor the heavy machinery of a virtual coup d’etat was rolled into place.  Democracy be damned.

This has yielded the hottest complaint against the constitution: it’s time to replace the Electoral College with “the popular vote.”  A number of states have accepted simple subversion of the U. S. Constitution by resolving to unseat their own Electors who are committed to a candidate who did not win the imaginary “popular vote.”  And it is imaginary since the presidential election is not a “national” election: it is 50 state elections held on the same day.  Choosing Electors who are empowered to cast votes for President is a function of EACH STATE’S VOTERS.  How callous can elected officials be to declare in advance that they – not their voters – will determine if their votes will actually count on election day.  That’s an odd mind-set for people who won election in the United States of America.  Let’s hope cases are making their way to the Supreme Court to put this unconstitutional plan out of our misery.

Interestingly, however, not a single “journalist” questions these weird declarations and resolutions.  No one has been smart enough to point out to reckless and/or ignorant state election officials that theirs are state elections, not national ones.  The United States does not hold a national election at any level.

Another proof of the idiocy of these efforts can be found in the execution of congressional elections that are held on the same day as the election of Electors in each state.  States run their own elections for federal representatives, for example, according to the congressional districts into which the states have divided themselves.  Each district’s voters make their choices and the winner takes the seat.  Using the precise “logic” of the Electoral subverting states, if the number of one party’s voters in one group of districts – or even a single district – were greater than all of the votes cast for a different party’s candidate in the other districts, every winner in the lower-count districts would have to relinquish his or her seat to the candidate of the opposing party.  Only that undemocratic shift would fulfill the “principle” of the statewide “popular” vote.  “Hey,” the winners’ supporters might justifiably say, “we voted for the guy who won IN OUR DISTRICT.  We don’t care how many votes the gal in the other district received.  This is our district and OUR VOTES COUNT!”

Is there not a single champion of a free press intelligent enough to point out the obvious fallacy of the “national” popular vote?  Were they all so poorly educated and left to graduate with only the merest ability to think for themselves, that none can question partisan stupidity?  How is it that district results are less sacred – or more sacred – than states’ results?  Don’t the votes that elected the winning slate of Electors count, also?  When did any state, or any district, for that matter, gain authority to discard legitimate votes?

The essential nature of a free and skeptical press is enshrined in the first Amendment.  The founders could not conceive of a craven, dishonest and partisan press as the single source of information for a majority of voters; nor could they imagine the alternative sources being simultaneously converted to corporate censors in favor of a single party.

Our Republic is hanging by a thread, my friends.