The Plan To Steal The Election

Posted: July 15, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

This “Iran War Participation Trophy” appeared on the National Mall near the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. The ten foot statue dedicated to Donald J. Trump was created by the satirical art group “Secret Handshake.” (Picture by Christine Kao for The Washington Post)

As usual, there is a lot going on in the world and in the United States. It is hard to keep up with it all as Trump tries to keep us all off balance with a long list of crazy shenanigans. He is ill. Unfortunately, people’s lives are at stake and real people are getting killed and injured. The Iran War is back with a frenzy as both sides carry out massive attacks and the Strait of Hormuz is closed for all practical purposes. It turns out that, as expected, a poorly worded Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) does not end wars. The U.S. has two choices. Invade Iran (a terribly foolish thing to do) or sit down for serious discussions with serious people involved (not two real estate investors that are more interested in their own gain).

Last week two innocent people were killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. One was in Texas, one was in Maine, and they were both hard-working fathers and husbands. It turns out that ICE had the wrong migrants, they were not the men that ICE thought they were. OOPS. That is about as much care as the administration has for killing two innocent men and then lying about it. We still do not have anyone held accountable for the killing of two American citizens in Minnesota earlier this year.

For Trump and his tech bros and other members of the Epstein Class, things go on as before. They continue to enrich themselves at our expense without giving it a second thought. The next project for them to make money from by using public land for private purposes is the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington DC on 22 and 23 August. It will be a motor car race on the streets of DC around the mall. The race is free for peons, but once again, there will be VIP areas for those willing to pay up. The Champions Club seats cost five thousand dollars and “sponsorships” can reach into the millions.

But wait! There’s more! And I think it will be the beginning of the end of our democratic republic.

On Thursday night 16 July, probably on every major television network, Trump will give an address to the nation. It is expected to be wide-ranging and reminiscent of his typical campaign style speeches. Trump’s greatest hits coming to you live from the White House. It would be easy to ignore or to laugh off. Very easy. We have heard it all countless times before. However, I worry that there will be a message hidden, or maybe in our face, that threatens our upcoming elections. News reports indicate that he will “declassify” information about the 2020 election that allegedly proves that the election was “rigged” or at least interfered with by outside entities. Nearly six years later it is suddenly found. Amazing. Here is the background.

As we know, the individual states, rather than the federal government, are responsible for elections. That alone makes it very difficult to rig or hijack an election. History shows that, especially in recent decades, the states take that responsibility very seriously and work hard to ensure that all eligible voters get to vote, that their ballot is secret, and that every valid ballot is counted. They keep the process transparent while ensuring the safety and security of the voters and the ballots. It works. Trump does not like it. Or at least he does not like it when he loses. (I find it ironic that the 2016 and 2024 elections were run under Democrat administrations and Trump won so they were free and fair. But the 2020 election, run under the Trump administration, was rigged so that Trump lost. How does that work?) Again, as ridiculous as all of this sounds, it is a serious threat. Some opine that Trump cannot tolerate losing and so he continues to whine about an election from six years ago. I think he is laying the ground work for something bigger.

Looking at the sequence of events, I find it disturbing that a plan is being executed step by step to interfere with elections, if indeed they take place as expected. Trump has long been pushing for passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act which would keep an estimated 20 million eligible voters from voting by among other things, requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote using birth certificates or passports and such registration would have to be done in person. (There are already laws prohibiting non-citizens from voting. The instances of illegal voting are infinitesimally small.) Expect Trump to push it hard in his speech. For info, thirty-six states require some form of identification at the polling place. Usually, a REAL ID suffices. Those cards would not be sufficient under Trump’s proposal.

Earlier in his administration, Trump gutted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The agency was specifically chartered to ensure that there was no foreign or domestic election interference. It is now essentially unable to do its job.

Trump recently fired, or forced the resignation, of all four of the commissioners that run the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), This is a bipartisan agency created by Congress specifically to help states run free and fair elections. It aids in training poll workers, certifying voting machines, and other functions to ensure that state and local officials maintain the safety and security of our elections. They are now effectively neutered.

At the same time, Trump appointed William “Bill” Pulte as the Acting Director of National Intelligence. Pulte has no intelligence experience whatsoever, despite the fact that the law requires it. You may recognize the name. He is the thirty-eight year old heir to Pulte Homes, the construction company founded by his grandfather — you may have seen their adds on television. He was doing such a great job, he was fired by the company’s Board of Directors. He is currently the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, a job he still holds while also the acting Director of Intelligence. As head of the FHFA, he is the guy who is trying to dig up dirt on people on Trump’s enemies list and pushing for their convictions on fraud — where most experienced attorneys see no case. A good guy. But he does whatever dirty job Trump gives him. He is the one that “discovered” new evidence of election fraud that Trump will expose Thursday night.

Do you see a pattern here? The actions above are only a partial list of election developments.

Trump is especially attacking mail-in voting (although he always votes that way) and voting machines. According to the Encyclopedia of American Politics, all states allow for some form of absentee or mail-in voting. Thirteen states require voters to provide a valid excuse to vote absentee or by mail. Twenty-nine states allow any eligible voter to cast an absentee or mail-in ballot. Eight states have automatic mail-in ballot systems, also known as all-mail voting systems. Eliminating mail-in voting would create hardships for many voters and create long lines at polling stations (especially if they also eliminate early voting). The intent is to suppress the vote. Although both parties would be impacted by such measures, statistics show that Democrats tend to use these methods more than Republicans. Voting machines also vary in type and use, although every state uses them in some capacity. Trump wants only paper ballots to be used. The logistics and time delays by going to only paper ballots would be complicated. Especially so, since Trump tries to prevent ballots from being counted on any day except Election Day.

Never forget that Trump sent a mob to try and overthrow the 2020 election. He pardoned about 1500 people that defaced the capitol, threatened lawmakers and attacked law enforcement officers. He pardoned them all and is trying to set up a fund to pay them off. Last week the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a letter to the top election official in each state threatening to criminally prosecute them if any non-citizen casts a vote, among other things. He pardons those that do his bidding and threatens those that try to uphold the law.

So, what is Trump up to on Thursday? Hard to know. The best guess is that he will reveal that a foreign government — China and/or Venezuela (!) — interfered with voting machines or some other hairbrained scheme to throw the election to President Biden. It is part of his “shock and awe” campaign to confuse and discourage voters in order to suppress the vote. However, I doubt it stops there. It is possible that in order to defend the nation from foreign intervention, he will declare some sort of national emergency, nationalize the conduct of the election (under his rules) and otherwise prevent a free and fair election.

PBS reported on an existing draft Executive Order (E.O.) that would allow Trump to dictate how the election would be run. It matches fairly closely with proposals in the Project 2025 playbook which is the roadmap for this administration’s actions over the last eighteen months. The E.O. matches with the requirement for proof of citizenship, paper ballots, in person voting and hand counting of ballots. The justification would be a national emergency because of foreign interference.

Be ready. Although such an E.O. would be immediately challenged in court, its real purpose may be to create an actual national emergency. Certainly it would confuse and confound many voters and probably lead to a lower turnout than what is currently expected. A low turnout favors Trump.

Trump may be using the same old worn out script he uses year after year. It may be laughable, but it is dangerous. Whining is one thing. Action is another. Expect some kind of interference in the mid-terms. Trump is a crook, a liar, a grifter and cares only about himself. He knows that if the Democrats take control of Congress in the next election he and his grifting family will be held accountable. He cannot allow that to happen. A cornered animal fights back. Anything is possible with this administration.

I hope that I am wrong.

The Filibuster Rules Must Be Changed

Posted: March 18, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Senate tactic known as the filibuster is designed to prolong debate on a bill in order to delay or to prevent voting on the bill. It came into the Senate Rules in 1806 and, importantly, is nowhere to be found in the Constitution or other founding documents. It is an administrative rule for the Senate alone. Rules can change. This one is steeped in over two hundred years of usage and custom and is ingrained in the heart of the Senate. In 1917, with Senate Rule 22, for the first time the Senate adopted a change allowing a filibuster to end if there was a two-thirds majority vote to override it, a term known as cloture. In 1975, the Senate voted to reduce the two-thirds majority (currently 67 votes) needed for cloture to a three-fifths majority (60 votes). The 60 vote threshold is significant because it also changed the requirement for that number from those Senators present and voting to an absolute number of votes required, making it possible to filibuster without ever entering the Senate chamber. In recent years, the filibuster was abolished for judicial and other nominees, most famously allowing Cabinet nominees, federal judges, and Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed with a simple majority. The filibuster now is only used for legislation, although there are other arcane Senate rules that allow for passage of some budget bills with a simple majority. Notably, under the Senate rules, a piece of legislation can pass with a simple majority, it is the move for cloture that requires a 60 vote threshold. This allows for Senators to say that they would have been “for” a particular bill, but that procedurally, they were “against” moving forward without debate. In other words, many times the rule can be used to provide a given Senator or group of Senators political cover by not forcing them to vote up or down on a particular bill. It just never comes to the floor, leaving the Senator to be able to claim almost anything about what he or she might have done.

The filibuster was rarely used in the long history of the Senate, until the latter part of the twentieth century. Now, especially in a fiercely divided political atmosphere, it is being used with regularity. One person can stop a bill from coming to a vote if his or her party refuses to supply sufficient votes for cloture. This is extremely frustrating to the majority party, and is a major reason that little significant legislation gets passed.

There is no penalty for a single Senator to threaten a filibuster. They do not have to go to the floor anymore to actually hold the floor and talk — think Jimmy Stewart in the 1939 film “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.” The last time a similar scene occurred was in September 2013 when Senator Ted Cruz (TX) held the floor for 21 hours 18 minutes in an attempt to shut down the government by opposing an appropriations bill. In August 1957 Senator Strom Thurmond (SC) talked for 24 hours and 18 minutes to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the longest single-person filibuster in U.S. history. The bill passed. (Senator Thurmond was part of a group of Senators that used the filibuster to hold up The Civil Rights Act of 1964 for 60 days.) Originally, no other legislation or business could be conducted in the Senate during a filibuster. In 1970, as a reaction to Senator Thurmond’s and other southern Senators’ filibusters of civil rights legislation, the Senate adopted the “two track rule.” This allows for other bills and business to come to the floor while the filibuster is on. This allowed the Senate to become more efficient, but opened the door to ever increasing threats of a filibuster because there were no real consequences to saying that a particular Senator will filibuster. They can sit in their office and play solitaire if they so desire, while their threat holds up a bill that may not reach cloture.

Why the history lesson? I am no Parliamentarian and I am not trying to make anyone else one either, but it is helpful to try and understand where we are in our Republic today.

The filibuster is considered to be the one rule that makes the Senate what it is (or was) — the world’s greatest deliberative body. The idea is that the majority cannot cram through any whim of the moment piece of legislation. The minority party can block it. In theory, this is supposed to lead to negotiation and compromise, steering a steady course for the nation as the Senate provides a firm hand on the tiller to keep the wind and currents driving the People’s House from putting our country on the rocks. Unfortunately, in today’s environment, compromise and negotiation are dirty words to the extreme fringes of the political parties. It is easier to go on Fox News or other cable networks and make a name for oneself among the “base” as “fighting” to save Mr. Potato Head or whatever, than it is to actually do their jobs.

To be honest, why would President Biden or any Democrat in Congress want to compromise or negotiate with the other side when 147 of them in the House and Senate, nearly two-thirds, voted to overturn a free and fair election? And after an insurrection at that. Most of those 147 still will not acknowledge that President Biden won. The president held out an olive branch, but he rightly moved ahead with the COVID Relief Bill without a single Republican vote. Not one Republican in the House or Senate, despite the fact that every poll shows that 75% of the public — Democrats, Republicans and Independents — support it. Try for bipartisanship, but move on with the people’s business if all the opposition wants to do is obstruct.

I used to agree with the need for the filibuster. It was what made the Senate the Senate and not the whimsical House of Representatives. Now, I have changed my mind. The filibuster as currently interpreted must be changed. If no one can agree on how to change it, get rid of it. The counter-argument to keep it basically amounts to “pay backs are hell” — just wait until Republicans regain control of the Senate and watch them undo everything on a straight party line vote. After reading about the filibuster and listening to various pros and cons, I still think it should go. First, I have no doubt that if Senator Mitch McConnell (KY) regains his place as Majority Leader he will get rid of it in some form. Second, elections have consequences. Whichever party is in control will pass legislation to fulfill their agenda. The voters sent them there to do that. Right now the Senate accomplishes very little. If the controlling party passes legislation the voters do not like, they will vote them out of office. As it stands now, Senators have very little accountability. Modifying the filibuster or doing away with it will bring the spotlight on to those that would sabotage legislation and force them to defend their position.

Here is the point of this discussion. There are 253 bills proposed in 43 states, almost all by Republicans, to change voting laws. Most are meant to inhibit voters from going to the polls and are geared towards disenfranchising minorities. For example, in Georgia the legislature, among other things, is prohibiting Sunday voting. This is directly aimed at eliminating the successful efforts to mobilize black voters through “Souls to the Polls.” This is where many working class African-Americans go from Sunday church services to their polling places as a group. Many of them are people who may not be able to get off of work to vote on Election Day. Other provisions limit early voting, severely restricts voting by mail, and for some reason makes it illegal to provide food or water to people waiting in line to vote. There are other draconian measures in the legislation that is clearly aimed at decreasing turnout by making it as difficult as possible for people to vote, mostly aimed directly at minority populations in large cities. Jim Crow is alive and well.

The House passed H.R. 1 the “For The People Act” without a single Republican vote. The bill provides a uniform baseline within the U.S. for voting. It includes provisions for voter registration, early voting, voting by mail (it is worth noting that Oregon holds its elections entirely by mail and has done so for years without any problems), military and other overseas voters, election integrity, nonpartisan commissions for drawing up House districts, election security, the use of paper ballots as back up to electronic voting and a host of other common sense requirements.

Traditionally, the rules and methods for voting are left up to the states. H.R. 1 does not preclude states from adding additional features, as long as it does not restrict the baseline requirements proposed in the bill. In essence, it would make it easier for all Americans to vote. Voting can be done with full integrity with large numbers of participants, and we demonstrated that in the 2020 election. The ex-president’s own Administration called it the most free and fair election in our history with an historic turnout.

But the Big Lie continues to underpin Republican arguments that the voting process must be changed. As recently as this past Tuesday, the ex-president went on his favorite cable news channel to continue to complain that the election was rigged and that he actually won by “millions” of votes. Republican members of the House and Senate continue to do the same. Their entire premise for changing states’ voting laws is a lie.

The Senate version of H.R. 1 will not pass if the Republicans filibuster it, which they plan to do. This is where the rubber meets the road and could create the conditions to end the filibuster. Many people, me included, think that restricting the vote and disenfranchising Americans must be stopped and is alone sufficient cause to end the filibuster in order to save our Republic.

Try modifying the filibuster first. Perhaps going back to the time that a Senator or group of Senators actually have to hold the floor, talk, and be present for the entire filibuster. Perhaps by invoking a rule that three-fifths of the Senators present in the chamber can vote for cloture. I am sure that a good Parliamentarian can come up with a number of ways to preserve the filibuster but still make Senators put some sweat equity into the process and make them defend their position in public.

I would love for Republican Senators to have to publicly defend their disenfranchisement of African-Americans and other minorities. I would be truly interested in having them explain and defend restrictions on early voting, vote by mail, polls closed on Sunday and other restrictive measures. It would be fascinating to learn why a Senator thinks that it should be illegal to provide food and water to people waiting in line to vote.

Change the filibuster rule to make Senators accountable to the voters. Do not let them continue to hide behind arcane rules that hide their true values and intentions. If it can’t be changed, then get rid of it.