It seems to be my day to cite Power Line. This time it’s a comment on the implications of the election.
Win, lose, or draw regarding the President portion of the election, this does seem to be the case:
In spades….
One Outcome
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Category Archives: culture
Misdirected
…as opposed to misdirection. Gerald Seib, in his Monday piece for The Wall Street Journal, wrote about the need to restore confidence in America’s democracy.
His need is misplaced, however. We Americans have a deep and abiding confidence in our republican form of democracy right along with our faith in voting (another of Seib’s misplaced concerns) as the means of executing our republican democracy.
this year’s election can be seen as the culmination of a two-decade period of decline in faith in the basic building blocks of democracy. That period began with the controversial Florida recount in the 2000 election, then expanded four years ago to charges of foreign interference in an election.
No, this year’s election has demonstrated our faith in our republican democracy and our voting: 150 million voters—easily a record number in his words—voted. That’s no lack of faith.
On the other hand, this year’s election can be seen as the culmination of a two-decade decline in faith in what is increasingly recognized as an intrinsically mendacious system of media, of news reporting and opinion providing. Our media have increasingly mixed news and opinion, masquerading the latter as the former while the former is increasingly unsupported by identifiable sources. Our media have increasingly provided “opinion” unsupported by fact, identifiable sources, even logic.
Our media culminated its descent (so far culminated, the descent isn’t slowing) with its open spiking of stories detrimental to Progressive-Democrats like Joe Biden or favorable to Republicans like Donald Trump. That culmination includes printing outright lies, for instance about what Trump said about our soldiers, while openly refusing to retract their stories when those lies, for instance about what Trump said about our soldiers, are disproven.
And this:
Now President Trump and his allies head to court with charges of widespread vote fraud, charges so far unsubstantiated, raising doubts about the integrity of voting in states across the map.
Leave aside the fact that no one is going to prosecute a fraud case—or a widespread error case, or a case involving State Executive Branch officials violating State Election laws, even if for the Very Best of reasons—in the press. Such cases will be prosecuted in court, and that includes providing evidence to support the allegations.
No, contrary to Seib’s assertion, what Trump and his allies are doing is seeking to preserve confidence in the integrity of voting by holding to account the personnel responsible for overseeing and protecting the several voting systems. Personnel who, by coincidence, have created doubt through their mishandling of their responsibilities primarily in Progressive-Democrat-controlled jurisdictions.
A Misapprehension
John Yoo, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY), and others, are suggesting that, given the apparent irregularities (because I’m being polite) in several States’ ballot acceptance and counting procedures, “the courts may decide the election.”
McConnell, et al., misunderstand the situation. The courts won’t decide anything. This election has been decided by American voters. It may take the courts to enforce our decision, though.
There would seem to be strong cases, too, for reversing those…irregularities. Our Constitution’s Article I, Section 4 says pretty explicitly that State legislatures set the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections… and that Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations. There’s no wiggle room there.
State non-legislative officials—elections board commissioners, Secretaries of State, governors, et al.—do not have the legal capacity to alter States’ laws, for instance, deadlines for receiving ballots, requirements regarding signature comparison and witness signatures on absentee ballots and mail-in ballots. They do not have that capacity even under the guise of emergencies like the Wuhan Virus situation.
In particular, the virus situation was in full bore by last spring, and both Congress and the States’ legislatures have had months in which to adjust election laws to account for the virus’ impact—and they universally chose to make no adjustments.
Those non-legislative officials’ adjustments are not merely illegal, they’re unconstitutional.
Full stop.
“Journalism”
There is much bodice-ripping and manufactured angst among what passes for journalism and journalists as the still in progress election counting has exposed their “expertise” as just so much holier-than-thou lecturing of us unwashed and that “expertise” shown to be wholly non-existent.
Here, for example, is self-styled news journalism “critic,” Howard Kurtz discussing his fellows’ bad misses regarding this election and journalists’ claimed voter concerns in this election. Notice that: a journalist commenting on journalists. A truly objective bit of commentary. Sure.
Why were the media so utterly convinced that President Trump would be trounced in the election?
They never were convinced—they were making it up from the jump.
Why were all the expectations for a substantial Joe Biden victory, to the point that many news outlets were running lists of his possible Cabinet members…?
They never had such expectations—they were making it up from the jump.
They were convinced that Trump’s handling of the pandemic, with 230,000 Americans having died from the virus, would sink him.
No, they weren’t. They were making both of those up from the start.
Kurtz is operating from the false premise that the press is honest. He’s not that naive, but he is operating in his own bubble. When has he talked to or read anything written by anyone other than a journalist?
When has Kurtz gone into the wilds of flyover country and talked to folks in Dinky Town, IA, Cornfield, KS, Smalltown, MT, Ranchland, TX, Wheatsilo, OK, or the middle of our southeastern States—the little towns, not the cities?
Defunding by Another Name
Shoplifting has been decriminalized in California. Store management teams that take it on themselves to grab shoplifters can be sued for the effrontery of protecting store property.
Police stopped apprehending shoplifters because it wasn’t worth their time as thieves were released.
It’s broader than that.
Some large retailers including Goodwill, Walmart and Bloomingdale’s sought to punish shoplifters by requiring them to take a class in “life skills” to avoid a criminal complaint. The San Francisco city attorney then sued the educational company that provided the classes for extortion and false imprisonment.
This sort of larceny has exploded since the decriminalization, and the thefts have cost businesses in the state billions of dollars.
This is “defunding” law enforcement at the fount.
Here’s the start, from that, of an economic trend that could get very uncomfortable for Californians if the decriminalization isn’t reversed:
A[] Walgreens store in San Francisco, the seventh this year, is closing after its shelves were cleared by looters.
“Defund” law enforcement at the source.