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Democrats’ intensify their assault on election integrity.
March 11, 2021
ITEM #1: How bad is H.R. 1, passed last week on a near-party-line vote by House Democrats?
“H.R. 1 is not merely a bad idea,” write the editors of National Review. “[I]t is a scandal.”
A thorough analysis of the measure, which NR’s editors provide here, makes it clear that their words, while strong, are far from hyperbolic.
In what’s got to be the most hilarious misnomer since the so-called “Affordable Care Act,” H.R. 1 is titled the “For the People Act.” And what exactly would it do “For the People”?
For starters, it would upend the long-standing arrangement by which states, rather than the federal government, take the lead in running their own elections.
The editors explain:
“The first target is to wipe out state laws that allow voters to be checked against a preexisting list of registrations. H.R. 1 mandates that states provide same-day registration and allow people to change their name and address on the rolls at the polling place on Election Day, then forbids states from treating their votes as provisional ballots that can be checked later. It mandates online registration without adequate safeguards against hackers. It mandates automated registration of people who apply for unemployment, Medicaid, Obamacare, and college, or who are coming out of prison. The bill’s authors expect this to register noncitizens: They create a safe harbor against prosecution of noncitizens who report that they have been erroneously registered.”
And it only gets worse from there:
“H.R. 1 bars states from checking with other states for duplicate registrations within six months of an election. It bars removing former voters from the rolls for failure to vote or to respond to mailings. Outside election observers are an important check on the system; H.R. 1 bars anyone but an election official from challenging a voter’s eligibility to vote on Election Day — thus insulating Democrat-run precincts from scrutiny.
“State voter-ID laws are banned, replaced simply by a sworn voter statement. The dramatic expansion of mail-in voting during the COVID pandemic is enshrined permanently in federal law. States are banned from the most elementary security methods for mail-in ballots: They must provide a ballot to everyone without asking for identification and may not require notarization or a witness to signatures. States are compelled to permit ballot harvesting so long as the harvesters are not paid per ballot. Curbside voting, ballot drop boxes, and 15 days of early voting are mandated nationwide, and the bill micromanages the location and hours of polling stations, early voting locations, and drop boxes.”
States would also be forced to accept voter registrations from 16-year-olds (though those individuals wouldn’t be allowed to vote until age 18). And H.R. 1 would remove the authority to draw congressional-district boundaries from the purview of the states as well.
For good measure, it also includes crackdowns on political speech as well as lavish public funding for political candidates.
As the editors write, there are “reasonable issues to be taken with the current system of voting and elections, and constructive steps Congress could take.” Indeed, the 2020 elections revealed many flaws with how our system of voting (and counting votes) is conducted, especially here in Nevada.
But far from remedying those problems, H.R. 1 would exacerbate them, and make them permanent features of our elections nationwide going forward. The next stop for H.R. 1 is the U.S. Senate, where it deserves a quick death.
ITEM #2: Future historians — the honest ones at least — will likely look back at governmental responses to the COVID-19 outbreak and note that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stands out for his responsible, measured, effective, and ultimately vindicated handling of the crisis.
Of course, the majority of those writing the narrative in real time have gone to great lengths to tell a different story, and have shown a breathtaking willingness to distort the facts in doing so.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Allysia Finley takes a look at the gap between the reality of DeSantis’ record and the fantasy the “news” media has labored to build, and also contrasts their coverage of the Sunshine State Governor with that of his now-resoundingly discredited counterpart from New York:
"In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo imposed strict lockdown policies — many still in place — and became the media’s golden boy. …
"Gov. Ron DeSantis took a different approach and was pilloried. He was among the first to lift his state lockdown, adopting something resembling Sweden’s strategy of protecting the vulnerable while keeping businesses and schools open. 'Florida Man Leads His State to the Morgue,' read a June headline in the New Republic. 'Ron DeSantis is the latest in a long line of Republicans who made the state a plutocratic dystopia. Now he’s letting its residents die to save the plutocrats.'
"A year after the virus hit the U.S., Mr. Cuomo’s luster has faded, and Mr. DeSantis can claim vindication. The Sunshine State appears to have weathered the pandemic better than others like New York and California, which stayed locked down harder and longer."
The numbers tell a powerful story. Here’s more from Finley:
“The Covid death risk increases enormously with each decade of age. More than 80% of Covid deaths in the U.S. have occurred among seniors over 65. They make up a larger share of Florida’s population than any other state except Maine. Based on demographics, Florida’s per-capita Covid death rate would be expected to be one of the highest in the country.
“Nope. Florida’s death rate is in the middle of the pack and only slightly higher than in California, which has a much younger population. Florida’s death rate among seniors is about 20% lower than California’s and 50% lower than New York’s, based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.”
And while Cuomo’s scandalous bungling involving nursing homes is now the stuff of legend, Finley notes that “Mr. DeSantis took a smarter approach”:
“His administration halted outside visitations to nursing homes and bolstered their stockpile of personal protective equipment. Florida’s government also set up 23 Covid-dedicated nursing centers for elderly patients discharged from hospitals. Nursing-home residents who tested positive and couldn’t be isolated in their facilities were sent to these Covid-only wards. Florida set up field hospitals to handle a surge in cases that models predicted in the spring, although it never materialized.”
Perhaps above all else, it was DeSantis’ ability to withstand the media pressure to implement draconian lockdowns that is most deserving of commendation and admiration.
As the Governor put it, as quoted by Finley: “I’m like, ‘No, we’re not going to lock down. It doesn’t work. It compounds problems.’” … The virus is not “going to be governed by simply closing someone’s business, or not letting people go to work.”
It all adds up to a tremendous story of bold, effective leadership in a crisis … and no amount of spin from our partisan press can render it otherwise.
ITEM #3: Speaking of the supposedly objective “news” media, we’re all painfully aware of how they bent over backwards in the run-up to the 2020 election to portray President Trump as incompetent in his handling of the COVID-19 outbreak.
But as this piece published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune points out, Trump deserves far, far more credit than he’s getting — particularly regarding the current progress we’re seeing on the vaccine front:
“Critics scoffed when President Donald Trump set a target of having a vaccine approved by the end of 2020, and Kamala Harris suggested she might not take a shot recommended by the Trump administration.
“The Biden-Harris administration has now changed to full-throated encouragement — though not before continuing to trash the Trump efforts. White House aides have suggested that they inherited little vaccine supply and no plan for distribution. Both claims are false.
“The supply was ramping up fast, and while there were distribution glitches at first, the real problem has been the last mile of distribution controlled by states. Governors like New York's Andrew Cuomo tried to satisfy political constituencies that wanted early access to vaccines, adding complexity and bureaucracy that confused the public. ...
“The Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed also contracted most of the vaccine supply for production before approval by the FDA: 200 million doses each of Pfizer and Moderna, and 100 million of J&J. No one knew which technology would be approved first, if at all, so the government wisely bet on several. This was the best money the feds spent in the pandemic.
“Biden ought to give the vaccine credit where it is due — to U.S. drug companies and Operation Warp Speed.”
No, we’re not holding our breath, either.
ITEM #4: We know this is going to shock you, but it seems the Biden administration isn’t being entirely honest about what’s going on at our Southern border.
Thomas Homan, former Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), explains in a piece for the American Conservative:
“What is happening right now on the border and within the United States regarding illegal immigration is being misrepresented by the Biden administration and much of the media. ...
“There is currently a surge at the border. Border Patrol is apprehending more than 4,000 people a day. There was one day last week that they arrested over 4,700 people. They are calculating that there is an additional 500-1,000 escaping apprehension daily. Those that are getting away are estimated by sensor traffic and camera traffic that Border Patrol couldn’t quickly respond to.
“It is likely that we will see more than 120,000 a month cross illegally, or 1.4 million in a year at this rate. That is an unprecedented surge, especially from children and family groups. That is not a border under control.”
So why is this happening now? Homan fills us in:
“It is because the Biden administration is tearing down the progress that President Trump made piece by piece. They stopped building the wall. They ended the Remain in Mexico Program. They have stopped 90 percent of interior enforcement by taking U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE) out of play. They are promising free health care for those that enter the country illegally. They are promising mass amnesty along with rewarding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients with citizenship.”
Yet the Biden administration continues to downplay the border crisis, misrepresent the facts about the Trump administration’s prior effectiveness in securing the border, and tell falsehoods about their motive for diminishing the ability of ICE to make arrests (citing limited resources, which Homan calls a “bald-faced lie”).
You can read the full piece here.
The Biden administration invited this crisis, is failing to deal effectively with the crisis, and is doing all it can to bury the facts so as to escape accountability for that failure.
There’s every reason to believe the situation is only going to get much worse.
ITEM #5: The Las Vegas Review-Journal editorialized over the weekend on “The High Cost of Green Energy,” shining the spotlight on — where else? — California.
The editors note that California’s aggressively hostile stance toward fossil fuels has resulted in Golden Staters paying “some of the highest energy prices in the country,” with Northern Californians in particular paying 80 percent more than the national average.
Lower-income residents, of course, are disproportionately harmed as prices soar.
This all offers a warning for Nevada, one that the far-left politicians who currently dominate our policymaking process are certain to disregard. The editors conclude:
“Gov. Steve Sisolak and legislative Democrats also claim to be strong proponents of green energy and low-income households. Yet such trade-offs and contradictions are rarely seriously considered in the rush to demonize fossil fuels. In a sane world, they need to be.”
ITEM #6: As the woke left’s rampage through the giants of history continues, it seems not even Winston Churchill is safe … and not even at Churchill College.
Located in Cambridge, Churchill College was created expressly to honor the great leader’s legacy.
Recently, however, it was the site of a symposium that served as “a free-for-all of unrestrained Churchill-hatred,” as Hoover Institution visiting fellow Andrew Roberts, the definitive one-volume Churchill biographer,described it.
The panelists spent the evening smearing Churchill and distorting his record, including on matters of race — which, given these times, we suppose is not altogether surprising.
But one line of critique really stands out as exemplary of how detached from reality and common sense the left has become.
Here’s Roberts:
“Professor Kehinde Andrews of Birmingham City University sneered that Churchill had not fought personally in the Second World War: ‘I mean, was it Churchill out there fighting the war? Cause I’m pretty sure it wasn’t; I’m pretty sure he was at home.’”
Apparently lost on the professor is the fact that at the time the war broke out, Churchill was … 65 years old. Not to mention that as Prime Minister he led the war effort courageously while providing inspiration to his nation and the rest of the free world.
You really can’t make this stuff up.
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