Refuting Claims of Election Fraud

 

Group of prominent conservatives refute Trump election fraud claims in report

A group of eight prominent conservatives has reviewed all 64 of the court cases by former President Donald Trump and his allies in their effort to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election and found all of them to be without merit.

The group, which was comprised of former Republican senators Gordon Smith and John Danforth, several former federal judges, and other high-ranking Republican officials, released a 72-page report stating that the 2020 election was “administered by trained professionals who reaffirmed their established track record for fairness” and urged their fellow conservatives to move on.

Group of conservatives release report refuting Trump claims of election fraud

The group reviewed all 64 legal cases filed by the former president and his allies and found their fraud claims baseless.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-rally-jan-6-hearing-ivana-funeral-live-b2124724.html

President - One and Done

We should limit Presidents and Vice Presidents to one term.  At present it is difficult to lead the country. The opposition political party constantly denigrates the President and Vice President - partly because they want the office at the next election. 


Some of this distasteful political rhetoric would stop if neither the President or Vice President could ever run again for either office in the future. They would serve one term only - one and done. 


They should be more able to focus on important issues without the calculus about whether a given action will hurt their future prospects. For example, changes to social security and medicare must be made - but no President dares to take the lead for fear of losing the next election. No next election - our leadership is more likely to make the politically difficult changes required.


Most of what a President achieves is in his first term. That is when he has the most energy and usually the most support from his party. In general his party loses seats in subsequent elections. President Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Nizon, and Eisenhower achieved the most in their first terms - the second term often involved scandals or problems which diminished their reputations.


Can you imagine trying to lead a major corporation if half of your employees were constantly running you down, calling you incompetent, and demanding that you resign? That is pretty much what we do with our nation. This is stupid. We should change the paradigm.


The Vice President must also be kept from running for President.  Otherwise the opposition would continue to denigrate him or her to diminish him or her for the next election.


The President and Vice President get the same retirement benefits whether they serve four years or eight. The logical decision for them is to serve one term and they go on to something else useful.

I would advocate that this become law, but some time in the distance so it does not affect the current President. And if President Obama was listening, I suggest to him that serving one term would be in his own self interest and that of the country.  He has achieved some notable things in his first term. He is unlikely to achieve much else whether he serves two or six more years. And he could get on with the rest of his life and career in two years, rather than in six years.
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My friend and media celebrity H. Wayne Wilson suggests the same approach for Governors and Lieutenant Governors. I agree with his suggestion. As a native of Illinois, if we had such an arrangement we would have only had to suffer one term of Governor Blago.

Congressmen and State Legislators, are you listening?

Probably not. But it is not impossible.

Federal Government Problems and Solutions

 

Our National Government is not working well.  Our country has become very polarized, with both sides constantly demeaning each other.

 

    "A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand" Abraham Lincoln

    "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."Benjamin Franklin

    "United we stand, divided we fall" Aesop

This division is due in part to the proliferation of TV channels where the stations align themselves with one faction. Their commentators incessantly villify the opposition. This drives up their ratings and profits. It is an unpatriotic thing to do and destroys our country from within.

This is also due in part to modern social media, where everyone can express an opinion and a great deal of intemperate and untrue allegations are made.  Stoke the fires wherever possible.

Our enemies love this, and help stoke the fires with more disinformation.  You can see their comments on blogs, where they scream at both sides, increasing the contempt for the "other". 

What To Do About It?

We as citizens must become more intelligent.  We must make sure we don't just view sites we agree with.  Get some fair and balanced information for ourselves by reading some of our news and opinion from networks we do not agree with.  And don't always discuss politics only with your own "choir". Talk to the other side with an open mind. And develop some tolerance for our government leaders. It is not an easy task.

STRUCTURAL CHANGES

The President and Vice President should be limited to one term only.  This should help to limit the vitriol against serving officials.  At present the opposition party does everything to demean the serving administration to damage them for the next election. 

In our new setup both the President and Vice President become officially non partisan on election - not Democrats or Republicans, once they are elected.  No more flying around on Air Force One campaigning - they are our civil servants and work for us - not their party or political friends. No more screeching at the other political party - they are leading our country and should focus on uniting our country.

The Vice President cannon run again for either office.  If a sitting Vice President could run for President then the vitriolic attacks will continue.  The Vice Presidency will become a job for older seasoned leaders who will understand that they will serve one term and can never again run for President or Vice President.

Primaries

Most of the people who vote in our primaries are strong partisans.  So the right nominates far right candidates and the left nominates far left candidates. And they punish those elected officials who work well with the opposition. So we have created a Congress that does not compromise or work well together.

Open primaries help this situation.  Anyone can vote in any primary without party registration.  This helps weed out the specially angry and divisive candidates who won't compromise.

MEDIA

The networks should be made to see that hiring "red meat" screamers is damaging the country.  How to reduce that?  Schedule more shows where you have a commentators from both sides.  The Beltway Boys, Hannity and Combes, and the Firing Line were good examples. In those cases we saw people who had major disagreements but who could intelligently discuss their positions without screaming.

It would be interesting and a service to our country if competing networks would schedule discussion debates among their chief commentators.  Say Hannity from Fox and Rachel Maddow from MSNBC. Air it on both networks. I think this might be good for ratings and good for the country.

SOCIAL MEDIA

I cannot tell you how many idiotic social media postings people send me.  They are usual written by multiple people with no sources alledging outrageous charges without proof or references.

People need to be trained to disbelieve most of what they read on social media.

Remember, honest Abe Lincoln told us not to believe everything we read, even if we read it on the computer.