We need a Federal election law (and preferably a constitutional amendment) to require in-person voting with government-issued photo ID (with limited exceptions for those serving in the military or those physically incapacitated)and mandatory hand tabulation audits of every ballot after election day.
All must take place in the presence of partisan poll watchers representing every candidate on the ballot. The poll watchers must be able see the voter verification process and the chain of custody of the ballots.
In NC, we have paper ballots and optical scan tabulators. It works well; election results come quickly and the results are auditable either by machine or by hand. A few years ago, in an election for a statewide office, the difference was ~440 votes out of a total of 5 million cast. Statewide machine recounts and randomly selected precinct recounts (each county, all one hundred of them, had to randomly select five precincts and hand-count them) did not change the result.
Unfortunately, they are useless. They will refuse to make necessary changes, even if they could, because they hope to use similar tactics in their own favor. Sad to say, they are incompetent even at creating effective shenanigans.
I recommend each member of the cabal spend a weekend with the lads from MS-13 who have poured across the border like ants rushing a ripe pice of fruit.
Get rid of vote-by-mail! It was only supposed to be a COVID emergency measure, right? Well, COVID is over, right? Or is my suggestion "anti-democratic"?
Goodness Glenn, what a timely post. And fraught with complications...
When I am talking to my wife, I call Washington DC and the surrounding counties a deviant subculture. They marry each other, their children go to the same schools, they help the same friends. The ones that count are just a few degrees of separation from each other.
They don't want remarkable competent men in the positions of power, what they want is the one of them whose turn has come.
The DC clerisy have a good thing going, they will fight to protect their good thing, and they fight using all the force of federal power.
A number of things have to happen, but it is important that the unelected bureaucracy be broken.
Perhaps a return to the "spoils system" would be beneficial. Washington would be a better place if the help were temporary.
I’m not sure I have an answer for what should be done, but I do have an observation to share that might shed more light so that a good answer might emerge.
Outstanding comment. It's becoming clearer every day that the 2020 election was stolen. The thieves were the FBI, CIA, the mono-culture corporate media, Zuckerman (via Zuckerbucks), and social media (Facebook & Twitter under previous management). As you point out, they are so proud of what they did that they wrote an article about it in Time.
What’s interesting is that Trump kept focusing on it when virtually everyone who wanted to appear “respectable” was desperate to let it go. Today, people from all parts of the political spectrum are asking how we got saddled with a corrupt, irrational man with an advanced state of dementia as the American President.
Since then, NR has disappeared, and many of its leading lights have exposed themselves as either Democrats or hucksters.
As Democrats wriggle like worms on a fishhook trying to figure out how to handle a problem like Joe Biden, we have to find a way to hold the Fifth Column on the Right and the Left responsible for their part in what is an existential crisis for this country and the world.
Yes, there is a need for consequences for the behavior of our oh-so-smug elites for not only what happened in the 2020 election but for the way they have mismanaged this country for decades. But those consequences won't take the form of firing a bunch of federal bureaucrats, moving cabinet offices to fly-over country, or even the prosecution of the most blatant of the ruling class' sock-puppets. No, there will be consequences but we're not going to like them.
Glenn's piece for today and his previous one on the possibility of Hamas-style attack on the US are linked whether he meant it or not. I fear the consequences for our elites aren't going to come until some external force causes the current system to fail in a fashion that outrages people enough to overthrow that system.
Okay, it doesn't have to be a bunch jihadis murdering citizens in the heartland; maybe it's a massive Seattle or New Madrid earthquake. Maybe it's a Carrington event where large portions of the grid go down (we had a small taste of what that's like in Texas a few years back - it's not fun). Maybe a real pandemic, not a faux one. Who knows what it will be; come up with your own black swan event.
We all know when something massive and awful strikes Washington will fumble the ball. Washington will actually likely make it worse by taking steps designed to show it is in control as opposed to actually helping. When that happens, people will get pissed. Really pissed. Then, and only then, will there be consequences. I'll leave it up to your imagination as to what those consequences will be; my thought is they involve lampposts.
I'm guilty as the next guy for daydreaming about various changes to the Constitution or statutes that would fix things (after a couple of Old Fashioneds I'll be happy to tell you about them as my wife can testify to). But the reality is we already have a perfectly good governmental system - on paper. The problem is that we don't follow it. We've let the DC professional political class abuse that system to the point it's almost unrecognizable. The "de facto" rules over the "de jure". And the people who benefit from the de facto system aren't going give up their power and perks until it is ripped from their hands. And I think it's going to take something terrible to make that happen.
The de facto power people are those who, in accordance to the Iron Law*, have been amassing org power (for the good of the org so that the important mission can be done) rather doing the mission work to reduce the problem.
8 year term limits help.
Explicit org mission statements, tied to measurable outcomes, might also help.
*two types of people in every org, those working towards the mission, & those working for the org. Over time, the org folk win, take power in the org.
Move the Capital. No Constitution change needed. All we should need is a majority of states legislatures say it is time. Of course, it would end up in the Supreme Court. So Be It.
My favorite loaction would be Butte, Mt. Congress is in session Jan-Feb.
He will go the distance. His wife Jill doesn't want to give it up. I don't think Michelle will do it. Too cozy where she is at. Watch JB Pritzker. He has an ego bigger than his waistline
Where does one start when cleaning the Augean stables? How do we eliminate the mountains of dung from our self-appointed masters? Who can attack that level of corruption and remain clean or for that matter alive? I have no answers except, to begin, maybe one should just stop feeding the beast, and vote, just not for the incumbents.
Glenn: I hope your next Substack piece delves into the recent MARK STEYN v MICHAEL MANN verdict which went against the defendants Steyn and Simberg.
I followed the trial closely through the reenactments put together by the Phelim and Ann “unreported story” duo. I was flabbergasted by the outcome.
I’m old enough to have seen The Beatles debut on the Ed Sullivan show, and so I don’t consider myself particularly naive. But what that DC Jury came up with surprised me to the core.
At this point, I’m not sure what Free Speech means. Am I still allowed to question Mann’s climate statements without fear of penalty, harassment, or lawsuit?
In my dreams, honest courts convict the guilty of crimes, with non-partisan FBI investigations and DoJ prosecutions. When I wake … poof!
Criminal justice ain’t gonna happen.
We need honest partisans investigating both Republicans and Democrats. Add a new group of Republican FBI investigators whose job is to investigate Democrats, and create from current agents a Democrat group to go after Republicans. Similarly prosecutors in DoJ.
Hillary should have been prosecuted for her illegal emails, and bribery, and the decision to do so should have been an open, honest, partisan decision. Same with allegations against Trump, from partisan Dems.
The biggest destruction is to replace rule of law with the current selective prosecutions. Pelosi was right in her words “none is above the law”, but she and her illegal insider trading husband need to be prosecuted based on that.
Because there are so many DC crooks in the deep state, a more realistic 80% solution is to get 8 year term limits for all Fed bureaucrats. Vivek’s most important good idea.
We need a Federal election law (and preferably a constitutional amendment) to require in-person voting with government-issued photo ID (with limited exceptions for those serving in the military or those physically incapacitated)and mandatory hand tabulation audits of every ballot after election day.
All must take place in the presence of partisan poll watchers representing every candidate on the ballot. The poll watchers must be able see the voter verification process and the chain of custody of the ballots.
In NC, we have paper ballots and optical scan tabulators. It works well; election results come quickly and the results are auditable either by machine or by hand. A few years ago, in an election for a statewide office, the difference was ~440 votes out of a total of 5 million cast. Statewide machine recounts and randomly selected precinct recounts (each county, all one hundred of them, had to randomly select five precincts and hand-count them) did not change the result.
I'd make that "the presence of partisan poll watchers and anybody in the interested public".
Maybe we can have international poll watchers, say, from El Salvador or Argentina, monitor our elections.
The GOP must sue or legislate for this. Or they are useless.
Unfortunately, they are useless. They will refuse to make necessary changes, even if they could, because they hope to use similar tactics in their own favor. Sad to say, they are incompetent even at creating effective shenanigans.
I recommend each member of the cabal spend a weekend with the lads from MS-13 who have poured across the border like ants rushing a ripe pice of fruit.
Get rid of vote-by-mail! It was only supposed to be a COVID emergency measure, right? Well, COVID is over, right? Or is my suggestion "anti-democratic"?
Goodness Glenn, what a timely post. And fraught with complications...
When I am talking to my wife, I call Washington DC and the surrounding counties a deviant subculture. They marry each other, their children go to the same schools, they help the same friends. The ones that count are just a few degrees of separation from each other.
They don't want remarkable competent men in the positions of power, what they want is the one of them whose turn has come.
The DC clerisy have a good thing going, they will fight to protect their good thing, and they fight using all the force of federal power.
A number of things have to happen, but it is important that the unelected bureaucracy be broken.
Perhaps a return to the "spoils system" would be beneficial. Washington would be a better place if the help were temporary.
I’m not sure I have an answer for what should be done, but I do have an observation to share that might shed more light so that a good answer might emerge.
Here is my observation:
Chicago Democrat Barack Obama
Cook County Democrat Hillary Clinton
Chicago Democrat John Podesta
Cook County Democrat Merrick Garland
This is not a coincidence.
Outstanding comment. It's becoming clearer every day that the 2020 election was stolen. The thieves were the FBI, CIA, the mono-culture corporate media, Zuckerman (via Zuckerbucks), and social media (Facebook & Twitter under previous management). As you point out, they are so proud of what they did that they wrote an article about it in Time.
What’s interesting is that Trump kept focusing on it when virtually everyone who wanted to appear “respectable” was desperate to let it go. Today, people from all parts of the political spectrum are asking how we got saddled with a corrupt, irrational man with an advanced state of dementia as the American President.
We can go back to that Time article by Molly Ball https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ and identify the culprits.
And let’s not let the gang at National Review off the hook. At that point, NR was still influential on the Right, and we had Dan McLaughlin writing Irresponsible Hype from Molly Ball and Time Magazine https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/02/irresponsible-hype-from-molly-ball-and-time-magazine/.
Since then, NR has disappeared, and many of its leading lights have exposed themselves as either Democrats or hucksters.
As Democrats wriggle like worms on a fishhook trying to figure out how to handle a problem like Joe Biden, we have to find a way to hold the Fifth Column on the Right and the Left responsible for their part in what is an existential crisis for this country and the world.
Yes, there is a need for consequences for the behavior of our oh-so-smug elites for not only what happened in the 2020 election but for the way they have mismanaged this country for decades. But those consequences won't take the form of firing a bunch of federal bureaucrats, moving cabinet offices to fly-over country, or even the prosecution of the most blatant of the ruling class' sock-puppets. No, there will be consequences but we're not going to like them.
Glenn's piece for today and his previous one on the possibility of Hamas-style attack on the US are linked whether he meant it or not. I fear the consequences for our elites aren't going to come until some external force causes the current system to fail in a fashion that outrages people enough to overthrow that system.
Okay, it doesn't have to be a bunch jihadis murdering citizens in the heartland; maybe it's a massive Seattle or New Madrid earthquake. Maybe it's a Carrington event where large portions of the grid go down (we had a small taste of what that's like in Texas a few years back - it's not fun). Maybe a real pandemic, not a faux one. Who knows what it will be; come up with your own black swan event.
We all know when something massive and awful strikes Washington will fumble the ball. Washington will actually likely make it worse by taking steps designed to show it is in control as opposed to actually helping. When that happens, people will get pissed. Really pissed. Then, and only then, will there be consequences. I'll leave it up to your imagination as to what those consequences will be; my thought is they involve lampposts.
I'm guilty as the next guy for daydreaming about various changes to the Constitution or statutes that would fix things (after a couple of Old Fashioneds I'll be happy to tell you about them as my wife can testify to). But the reality is we already have a perfectly good governmental system - on paper. The problem is that we don't follow it. We've let the DC professional political class abuse that system to the point it's almost unrecognizable. The "de facto" rules over the "de jure". And the people who benefit from the de facto system aren't going give up their power and perks until it is ripped from their hands. And I think it's going to take something terrible to make that happen.
The de facto power people are those who, in accordance to the Iron Law*, have been amassing org power (for the good of the org so that the important mission can be done) rather doing the mission work to reduce the problem.
8 year term limits help.
Explicit org mission statements, tied to measurable outcomes, might also help.
*two types of people in every org, those working towards the mission, & those working for the org. Over time, the org folk win, take power in the org.
1. Paper ballots
2. President Trump
3. Fire all SES appointees top three levels at
4. Natl Security agencies inc FBI, CIA, State, DOJ
5. Disestablish FBI
6. Parcel Special Agents to various LEO agencies
Oh yeah: Tear down the CIA to find the traitors and moles there.
See Taibbi, Shellenberger and Gutentag on "Public" on Substack dtd Feb14
https://open.substack.com/pub/public/p/us-government-is-hiding-documents?r=gpjda&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Move the Capital. No Constitution change needed. All we should need is a majority of states legislatures say it is time. Of course, it would end up in the Supreme Court. So Be It.
My favorite loaction would be Butte, Mt. Congress is in session Jan-Feb.
He will go the distance. His wife Jill doesn't want to give it up. I don't think Michelle will do it. Too cozy where she is at. Watch JB Pritzker. He has an ego bigger than his waistline
There can be no consequences as long as the American citizens are more aligned with partisan outcomes than what is right for the Republic.
Where does one start when cleaning the Augean stables? How do we eliminate the mountains of dung from our self-appointed masters? Who can attack that level of corruption and remain clean or for that matter alive? I have no answers except, to begin, maybe one should just stop feeding the beast, and vote, just not for the incumbents.
OFF TOPIC.
Glenn: I hope your next Substack piece delves into the recent MARK STEYN v MICHAEL MANN verdict which went against the defendants Steyn and Simberg.
I followed the trial closely through the reenactments put together by the Phelim and Ann “unreported story” duo. I was flabbergasted by the outcome.
I’m old enough to have seen The Beatles debut on the Ed Sullivan show, and so I don’t consider myself particularly naive. But what that DC Jury came up with surprised me to the core.
At this point, I’m not sure what Free Speech means. Am I still allowed to question Mann’s climate statements without fear of penalty, harassment, or lawsuit?
In my dreams, honest courts convict the guilty of crimes, with non-partisan FBI investigations and DoJ prosecutions. When I wake … poof!
Criminal justice ain’t gonna happen.
We need honest partisans investigating both Republicans and Democrats. Add a new group of Republican FBI investigators whose job is to investigate Democrats, and create from current agents a Democrat group to go after Republicans. Similarly prosecutors in DoJ.
Hillary should have been prosecuted for her illegal emails, and bribery, and the decision to do so should have been an open, honest, partisan decision. Same with allegations against Trump, from partisan Dems.
The biggest destruction is to replace rule of law with the current selective prosecutions. Pelosi was right in her words “none is above the law”, but she and her illegal insider trading husband need to be prosecuted based on that.
Because there are so many DC crooks in the deep state, a more realistic 80% solution is to get 8 year term limits for all Fed bureaucrats. Vivek’s most important good idea.
Bring back horsewhipping. These people aren't my social equals, so dueling is out.
There must be some lawfare options we can employ. The process is the best punishment, as they say.
Like your idea, but they make sure their friends get speedy justice. They are lawless men.