Want to make voting easier? Here are six ways to do it


Want to make voting easier? Here are six ways to do it

jsonline.com December 19, 2018

When they passed limits on early voting in the recent lame duck session, Republican legislators and Gov. Scott Walker claimed it was a matter of simple fairness: Every community should operate under the same two-week limit, they argued.

Buf fair or not, these new rules may limit the number of people who vote, especially in the state’s population centers. Milwaukee and Madison offered six weeks of pre-election day voting this fall, and the number of early voters surged.

Neil Albrecht, executive director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission, believes the new restrictions, which are being challenged in court, will have a greater impact on the city’s poor and marginalized.

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“The loss of voting opportunities, like extended early voting, will have a much greater impact on communities of color than other city residents,” he wrote in an email. In a 2016 decision, a federal judge concluded an earlier limit imposed on early voting in the state did just that.

There also could be longer lines at the polls. After the Florida legislature cut early voting days in 2012, an Orlando Sentinel investigation revealed that more than 200,000 people gave up in frustration because of long lines attributed to curtailing early voting, a complicated ballot and heavy turnout in that year’s presidential election.

What if instead of looking for ways to limit voting, lawmakers at all levels of government did everything possible to make voting easier? What would that look like?

Here are six ways lawmakers could promote this most basic of American rights.

Allow automatic registration
Universal registration of all eligible Americans would add 50 million new voters to the rolls and improve accuracy and security of elections, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University argues.

Here’s how it works:

When eligible votes give information to state agencies (such as the Department of Motor Vehicles), they are automatically signed up to vote unless they ask not to be. That information is then transferred electronically to election officials. Citizens remain registered even if they move within their state, and online registration is allowed. Voters can still register or update their information at their polling places.

Fifteen states (including Illinois and Michigan) and the District of Columbia have adopted this approach. California and Oregon were the first to do so, and the results so far have been encouraging. New registration quadrupled initially in Oregon after that state allowed voters to register through the DMV beginning in early 2016; overall the state's registration rate climbed10 percentage points. In the 2016 election, almost 100,000 of votes cast were by people who registered automatically.


Poll worker Dawn-Marie Metz, checks voters identification at the Hart Park Senior Center in Wauwatosa. Voter ID was required for all those wanting to vote. Citizens cast their vote for the midterm election.
Photo by: (Photo: Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Stop restricting the vote
For years, politicians on the political right, have claimed that voter fraud is such a problem that it needed to be stamped out through tough voter ID laws.

In truth, there has been a microscopically small amount of fraud.

President Donald Trump could provide no evidence for his dubious claim that “millions” voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election. And his Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity could find no evidence of widespread fraud. Trump disbanded the commission earlier this year before it could issue a final report. A comprehensive 2007 study by Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School Los Angeles, found it is more likely that an American “will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls.”

Voter ID laws have been found to disproportionately affect people of color and the elderly, but their impact on turnout is less clear. In his 2017 analysis of a group of studies, researcher Benjamin Highton found that only “a small number of studies have employed suitable research designs and generally find modest, if any, turnout effects of voter identification laws.”

But Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center, believes strict voter ID laws like Wisconsin’s (which she termed an “outlier”) do tamp down voting.

There is little doubt about what politicians think. Republicans tend to support the laws. Democrats resist them.

Another concern is aggressive purging of voter rolls, particularly in the wake of a June Supreme Court decision upholding Ohio’s purge. The arguments are similar to those posed regarding voter ID: Republicans claim widespread fraud and say purges are a solution. Democrats say Republicans want to suppress the vote.

Again: The evidence shows there is almost zero voter fraud of any kind.

Make Election Day a national holiday or move it to the weekend
Although turnout during the recent midterm elections was higher than normal in Wisconsin, that’s not always the case. In fact, nationwide, the U.S. has some of the lowest voter turnout in the industrialized world. So why not follow the lead of other modern democracies and make Election Day a holiday or move it to a weekend so that people aren’t forced to squeeze voting into their busy work-week schedules?


Vice President Al Gore talks with reporters outside of his residence at the United States Naval Observatory Nov. 28, 2000, amid an ongoing recount of votes in Florida. The U.S. Supreme Court would eventually halt that recount, handing the election to George W. Bush.
Photo by: (Photo: RICK BOWMER, Associated Press)
The National Commission on Election Reform, formed in the wake of the divisive 2000 presidential election, recommended this idea to President George W. Bush who had just defeated Sen. Al Gore after the U.S. Supreme Court halted a recount in Florida, handing the election to Bush. The recommendations of the commission, chaired by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, were heartily endorsed by Bush but then abandoned by Congress.

We’ve been voting on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November since it became the law of the land in 1845. The idea then was to help a nation of farmers get to the polls without interfering with either the Sabbath on Sunday or market day, which was traditionally on Wednesdays.

But would making Election Day a national holiday or moving it to the weekend make a difference in turnout? The evidence isn’t clear. A 2012 Government Accountability Office report predicted little effect on turnout. Nations that allow weekend voting do tend to have higher turnout than the U.S., but it’s not necessarily because of weekend voting.

Weiser isn’t a fan. She’d rather see extended hours for early voting, including weekends.

“The flexibility of early voting provides for a range of different life experiences,” she said. “I think it accomplishes the same goal.” She also favors requiring companies to give workers time off to vote.

Make it easier for people convicted of crimes to vote after serving their sentences
In Wisconsin, voting rights are not restored for felons until the sentence is completed — including prison, extended supervision, probation and parole. Other states restore voting rights earlier in the process. In Michigan, for example, people can vote immediately upon release from prison.

Make sure that all polling places have enough poll workers and voting machines
If polling places don’t have enough resources, lines build and people give up, said Jonathan Brater, counsel for Brennan's Democracy Program. This problem tends to occur more often in poorer communities, often communities of color, Weiser said.

Another concern Weiser raised: making sure that election materials are available in the predominant language spoken in a precinct. Based on research she has seen, “It’s one of the single greatest contributors to the increased likelihood of voting."

Take registration to the people
The Milwaukee Election Commission opened voter registration kiosks around town including at Milwaukee Public Library branches and Milwaukee Health Department clinics. It also included registration information in water bills and provided materials to nonpartisan groups such as Safe & Sound and put materials in brochure racks at businesses and nonprofits. The commission also participated in roundtables with nonpartisan groups working to get out the vote.

The result?

“We believe these largely registration-related outreach efforts increased voter participation but also reduced same-day registration,” Albrecht said. He said city voting increased from 208,415 in the 2014 midterms to 216,545 this year and same-day registration fell from 41,389 to 39,758.

David D. Haynes is editor of the Journal Sentinel's Ideas Lab, which examines best practices for solving the region's problems. He has nearly 40 years' experience as a reporter and editor including 25 years at the Journal Sentinel in a variety of roles. He has a special interest in economic development in the region and the role that private-public partnerships can play to solve social problems. Email: david.haynes@jrn.com. Twitter: @DavidDHaynes

How I reported this story
Interviewed:

Wendy Weiser, director, Democracy Program, Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Jonathan Brater, counsel, Democracy Program, Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Neil Albrecht, executive director, City of Milwaukee Election Commission (via email).

Reviewed:

"The Truth About Voter Fraud," 2007, Justin Levitt

"One Person, One Vote: Estimating the Prevalence of Double Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections," 2017.

"Voter Fraud is Not a Persistent Problem," 2016.

"To Assure Pride and Confidence in the Electoral Process" by the National Commission on Election Reform, 2001.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/opinion/columnists/david-haynes/2018/12/19/want-make-voting-easier-here-six-ways-do/2343486002/

Secret Experiment in Alabama Senate Race Imitated Russian Tactics

Selected information from trusted news providers.

Secret Experiment in Alabama Senate Race Imitated Russian Tactics

by Scott Shane and Alan Blinder, nytimes.com, 12-9-18

An Alabama resident waved to passing cars while holding a Doug Jones sign outside the candidates’ headquarters last year.

As Russia’s online election machinations came to light last year, a group of Democratic tech experts decided to try out similarly deceptive tactics in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate race, according to people familiar with the effort and a report on its results.

The secret project, carried out on Facebook and Twitter, was likely too small to have a significant effect on the race, in which the Democratic candidate it was designed to help, Doug Jones, edged out the Republican, Roy S. Moore. But it was a sign that American political operatives of both parties have paid close attention to the Russian methods, which some fear may come to taint elections in the United States.

One participant in the Alabama project, Jonathon Morgan, is the chief executive of New Knowledge, a small cyber security firm that wrote a scathing account of Russia’s social media operations in the 2016 election that was released this week by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

An internal report on the Alabama effort, obtained by The New York Times, says explicitly that it “experimented with many of the tactics now understood to have influenced the 2016 elections.”

The project’s operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention.

“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says.

Mr. Morgan said in an interview that the Russian botnet ruse “does not ring a bell,” adding that others had worked on the effort and had written the report. He said he saw the project as “a small experiment” designed to explore how certain online tactics worked, not to affect the election.

Mr. Morgan said he could not account for the claims in the report that the project sought to “enrage and energize Democrats” and “depress turnout” among Republicans, partly by emphasizing accusations that Mr. Moore had pursued teenage girls when he was a prosecutor in his 30s.

“The research project was intended to help us understand how these kind of campaigns operated,” said Mr. Morgan. “We thought it was useful to work in the context of a real election but design it to have almost no impact.”

The project had a budget of just $100,000, in a race that cost approximately $51 million, including the primaries, according to Federal Election Commission records.

But however modest, the influence effort in Alabama may be a sign of things to come. Campaign veterans in both parties fear the Russian example may set off a race to the bottom, in which candidates choose social media manipulation because they fear their opponents will.

“Some will do whatever it takes to win,” said Dan Bayens, a Kentucky-based Republican consultant. “You’ve got Russia, which showed folks how to do it, you’ve got consultants willing to engage in this type of behavior and political leaders who apparently find it futile to stop it.”

There is no evidence that Mr. Jones sanctioned or was even aware of the social media project. Joe Trippi, a seasoned Democratic operative who served as a top adviser to the Jones campaign, said he had noticed the Russian bot swarm suddenly following Mr. Moore on Twitter. But he said it was impossible that a $100,000 operation had an impact on the race.

Mr. Trippi said he was nonetheless disturbed by the stealth operation. “I think the big danger is somebody in this cycle uses the dark arts of bots and social networks and it works,” he said. “Then we’re in real trouble.”

Despite its small size, the Alabama project brought together some prominent names in the world of political technology. The funding came from Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, who has sought to help Democrats catch up with Republicans in their use of online technology.

The money passed through American Engagement Technologies, run by Mikey Dickerson, the founding director of the United States Digital Service, which was created during the Obama administration to try to upgrade the federal government’s use of technology. Sara K. Hudson, a former Justice Department fellow now with Investing in Us, a tech finance company partly funded by Mr. Hoffman, worked on the project, along with Mr. Morgan.

A close collaborator of Mr. Hoffman, Dmitri Mehlhorn, the founder of Investing in Us, said in a statement that “our purpose in investing in politics and civic engagement is to strengthen American democracy” and that while they do not “micromanage” the projects they fund, they are not aware of having financed projects that have used deception. Mr. Dickerson declined to comment and Ms. Hudson did not respond to queries.

The Alabama project got started as Democrats were coming to grips with the Russians’ weaponizing of social media to undermine the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton and promote Donald J. Trump.

Mr. Morgan reached out at the time to Renée DiResta, who would later join New Knowledge and was lead author of the report on Russian social media operations released this week.

“I know there were people who believed the Democrats needed to fight fire with fire,” Ms. DiResta said, adding that she disagreed. “It was absolutely chatter going around the party.”

But she said Mr. Morgan simply asked her for suggestions of online tactics worth testing. “My understanding was that they were going to investigate to what extent they could grow audiences for Facebook pages using sensational news,” she said.

Mr. Morgan confirmed that the project created a generic page to draw conservative Alabamians — he said he couldn’t remember its name — and that Mac Watson, one of multiple write-in candidates, contacted the page. “But we didn’t do anything on his behalf,” he said.

The report, however, says the Facebook page agreed to “boost” Mr. Watson’s campaign and stayed in regular touch with him, and was “treated as an advisor and the go-to media contact for the write-in candidate.’’ The report claims the page got him interviews with The Montgomery Advertiser and The Washington Post.

Mr. Watson, who runs a patio supply company in Auburn, Ala., confirmed that he got some assistance from a Facebook page whose operators seemed determined to stay in the shadows.

Of dozens of conservative Alabamian-oriented pages on Facebook that he wrote to, only one replied. “You are in a particularly interesting position and from what we have read of your politics, we would be inclined to endorse you,” the unnamed operator of the page wrote. After Mr. Watson answered a single question about abortion rights as a sort of test, the page offered an endorsement, though no money.

“They never spent one red dime as far as I know on anything I did — they just kind of told their 400 followers, ‘Hey, vote for this guy,’” Mr. Watson said.

Mr. Watson never spoke with the page’s author or authors by phone, and they declined a request for meeting. But he did notice something unusual: his Twitter followers suddenly ballooned from about 100 to about 10,000. The Facebook page’s operators asked Mr. Watson whether he trusted anyone to set up a super PAC that could receive funding and offered advice on how to sharpen his appeal to disenchanted Republican voters.

Shortly before the election, the page sent him a message, wishing him luck.

The report does not say whether the project purchased the Russian bot Twitter accounts that suddenly began to follow Mr. Moore. But it takes credit for “radicalizing Democrats with a Russian bot scandal” and points to stories on the phenomenon in the mainstream media. “Roy Moore flooded with fake Russian Twitter followers,” reported The New York Post.

Inside the Moore campaign, officials began to worry about online interference.

“We did have suspicions that something odd was going on,” said Rich Hobson, Mr. Moore’s campaign manager. Mr. Hobson said that although he did not recall any hard evidence of interference, the campaign complained to Facebook about potential chicanery.

“Any and all of these things could make a difference,” Mr. Hobson said. “It’s definitely frustrating, and we still kick ourselves that Judge Moore didn’t win.”

When Election Day came, Mr. Jones became the first Alabama Democrat elected to the Senate in a quarter of a century, defeating Mr. Moore by 21,924 votes in a race that drew more than 22,800 write-in votes. More than 1.3 million ballots were cast over all.

Many of the write-in votes went to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Condoleezza Rice — an Alabama native and former secretary of state — certain popular football coaches and Jesus Christ. Mr. Watson drew just a few hundred votes.

Mr. Watson noticed one other oddity. The day after the vote, the Facebook page that had taken such an interest in him had vanished.

“It was a group that, like, honest to God, next day was gone,” said Mr. Watson.

“It was weird,” he said. “The whole thing was weird.”

...

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Don't Let Blue Wave Think We Will Win - VOTE

For about 6 years I ran elections in school districts across Michigan.  All those elections where for a school district millage.  The people who benefited the most, the parents of the children in school, were expected to bring the issue in on election day.  Any votes that we received from grandparents or other people that knew there was a benefit of a good education system were appreciated.

In advance of the election campaign, we would calculate how many votes we needed to win the election, based on averages from past elections.  Then, add 

10 to 20% additional votes to make sure we had enough.

Next step was to count the number of parents.  In many cases, there were enough votes in the parent head count to win the election.

Occasionally, we would lose.  Do you wonder why?  It was group think.  I learned early that we needed to make everyone think it was going to be close.  That would mean that every vote would count. 

Let me restate: Every vote from every individual in the district was needed.

Winning an election is an “If, Then” matrix statement.  We can win this election if the voters who support the cause get out and vote.  “If, Then” and only then.  To be confident about an election win will almost always be a disaster. 

The problem with being confident about an election win is wrapped in three things. 

First, there does need to be some confidence that it is possible to win.  Voters will not turn out if they think no matter their efforts, nothing will change.  So, the confidence level needs to be balanced.

Second, with a high confidence of win, a “We don’t have to fight so hard” attitude sets in.  In close elections, campaign workers, left to their own, will work hard to make up the possible short fall.  But, if there is a high confidence to win, they may take a day or two off.  Those days could be the days the worker would have reached a voter that may not have been reached.      

Third, when there is high confidence of an election win, on election day, it is not the group that fails, but the individual.  The thinking in the individual’s mind is a matter of priorities.  “I have dinner to get for the kids,” “It was a long day at work and I am tired,” or, “Oh, I forgot and don’t want to go out again to vote.”  All rationalized with a, “We are going to win anyway” thought.

Those elections that were lost, a new call for an election as soon as legally possible was supported.  In the next election, we would remind voters about the loss of the last election.  They were told that the election should have been won but not enough supporters made it to the polls. 

In all cases, the next election we kicked ass.

The 2016 election people didn’t show up to support the Democratic ticket.  We did win the vote count nationwide, no question.  But, in those precincts that were close in just a few states, Democrats didn’t show up to vote (or, when they did, they voted for Trump).  It is rumored that if just 2 more people in each precinct in the state of Michigan supported the Democrats, Michigan would not have been in Trump’s win column.

We are faced with one of the most historic elections in my lifetime.  Could be in the last century.  Under Trump, the nation is changing.  The Democrats and other people on the left are not happy, if not angry.  You would think it would be easy because people in the center and to the left of center make up most voters.  Just get them to the polls and we win.

That’s what we thought in 2016, of course we will win.  And then, at 3:00 am we found out we lost, lost big time.

Now there is talk of a Blue Wave.  This is the election that the Democrats take back the country – our country.  But, if we keep talking about the Blue Wave without conditions, we will lose again.  If we lose again, the right will wreak havoc on the America we know.  There is a chance we may not get it back. 

So be careful when you talk of a Blue Wave.  There is a Blue Wave, only and only IF WE VOTE.

Couldn't Pay Enough

It is difficult to believe that the women who have come forward to accuse Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee, of sexual assault are just actors being played out by the Democrats in a wild game of smear the nominee.

Could you pay someone enough money to go through what they are experiencing?  It would all need to be under the table so that no body knows about it.  Would it be a $1,000, or $10,000?  Would that be enough to endure all the death threats, having to move from your home and place your children in danger?

Tell me Trump supporters, is that something you would do if you thought you could get Kavanaugh through the process for just $10,000? 

No, the amount needs to be a million or two or three.  But then, you would need to hide the money so that no body knows you have it.  Because, as soon as you begin to live beyond you means, someone will take note.

And, they will be taking notes for a long time after this plays out.  They will be watched by crazies and by professionals.  Counting the money, they spend and adding it all up.  Remember, that is how the FBI put Capone in jail.  They counted the money he spent.  It all added up to more than he was declaring on his taxes.

Telling me also, isn’t the right looking into their entire lives right now?  There are people on both sides whose only job is to find dirt.  (That is what the entire Russian Election investigation is all about, Donald Trump thought he could find dirt on Hillary Clinton.)  They are not amateurs that just search the Internet till 2 in the morning.  They are gum shoes that follow the women around, poke into everyone’s life that know the women, dig into to school, work and any kind of file that there is.  If there is anything that would damage the creditability of these women, the right would have it right now.      

But, the reality is, these women and women across America are tired of the way this all goes down.  If you say anything when it happens, you must be lying.  If you bring up anywhere from a few days later to 30 years later, they say it is too late   Why didn’t you say something then?

There is a more important point to all this other than Kavanaugh is presumed innocent until proven guilty.  The point is that the accuser is not presumed guilty before any fair investigation is conducted.

At this point, I don’t believe one will be conducted, and it certainly won’t be fair.    

In Support of Christine Blasey Ford

We have recently heard about the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, the judge that has been nominated to the Supreme Court by Donald Trump.  Christine Blasey Ford has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault.    

It is being asked, mind you after the year of #metoo, why is Ford coming forward now.  Is this politically motivated?  Has she made it up?

I can tell you, it is very understandable that Ford has waited this long.  I am telling you as a man who has not experienced sexual assault, but as someone that has experienced a childhood full of personal degradation from the very people that are supposed to be your biggest protectors, my parents. 

In the 50’s and early 60’s, parents were given all the room they needed to raise their children, even if that meant there were clear signs of abuse.  Some of my abuse from my parents was even witnessed by family members and teachers, yet nothing was said to me or done to stop it.  (I must add, after rereading the blog post, there was one teacher that witnessed the degradation in her classroom after school hours.  It included my father hitting me more than once.  The next day, the teacher did approach me during the school day and asked if I was okay.  I said yes because I didn’t want to make things worse.  Maybe if I just keep my head down, this will pass.)  You take that as being your fault and that this is just normal life.  Everybody must go through this.  Your expression of outrage, pain and in the long run, depression is met with indifference.     

That indifference is the secondary society abuse that you receive.  It may not be direct physical abuse but is just as damaging to the soul.  Here you have been degraded to second class citizen in the family unit and now society (and the extended family) disregard your expressions and walk away from you.  Leaving you alone to deal with the problems on your own.

When overpowered by someone else, as I was by my parents, you believe that you did something to encourage the abuse.  You believe that nobody will believe you.

In Ford’s case, she was over powered by a man in one of the most degrading ways possible.  She was not in control of her own body.  She has also been quoted as saying she was in fear of her own life. 

Ford’s statement about her treatment would have been treated as mine.  Plus, at the time and certainly to this day, her gender makes a big difference. Woman are treated differently.  Their statements about abuse and assault are treated with indifference.  You shouldn’t have been in the room.  You must have done something that encouraged him.  You must have liked the attention. 

Does all that sound familiar?  You need only reread the preceding paragraphs about my own experiences to see there are not only parallels and similarities, but they are the same thing. 

All of this means you bury it.  But, even buried, it causes many problems in your life, even if you not be aware of it.  Afterall, isn’t that the lesson you learned from the society around you when you mentioned it? 

Then something changes.  Life comes down on you.  As a person that has been nurtured correctly by your parents or who has not had to bury deep and harsh trauma, you respond well.  You address the issues that you face, solve the problems and build a happy life.

But, if you have had trouble in your life and you are thinking of yourself as a second-class person, you don’t respond well. 

For me, it was facing all the responsibilities of being on my own.  Since my parents had taught me that I was unable of sustain my own life without them, I begin to fail at some of the most fundamental issues of life.  Yes, it was all the practical ones like managing my everyday life, but more importantly, it was personal relationships and not having a feeling of at least a small measure of happiness.

It sent me into hell.  In therapy, I had to dig into every pile of shit that I had pushed to the backroom of my mind and relive them.  Yes, relive.  Because, by reliving them you are given the opportunity to draw more life affirming conclusions that enable you learn to deal with the pressures of your life. 

For Ford, she went into therapy also.  This was before Kavanaugh.  She wasn’t waiting for him to be nominated to the Supreme Court, as if she knew some day he was going to be.  She went for personal reasons.  She wanted what I wanted and what every single person in this world wants, a small slice of happiness and peace.

Ford needed to relive the experience, as horrifying as that is, and draw a different conclusion.  That new conclusion is that Kavanaugh must be held responsible for his actions.

Now, I am here to tell you, Ford will still be held to some of the same societal indifference and degradation today as she would have been 30 years ago.  I know I am.  I have even given up explaining my childhood abuse to most people today because it is way to difficult to get past the first reaction most come up with, “Oh, every child has those same experiences, get over it.” 

For Ford, it is, why are you bringing it up now?  If you don’t understand the answer to that question, then you must be held as responsible as Kavanaugh.              

Manafort Trial Witness List Provided by the Federal Government

Here is the witness list for the government for the Paul Manafort trial to begin on July 31, 2018

CASE NO. 1:18-CR-83-TSE

Trial Date: July 31, 2018

The Honorable T. S. Ellis, III

GOVERNMENT'S WITNESS LIST

The United States of America, by and through undersigned counsel, hereby submits its

list of potential witnesses.

1. Ali, Hesham

2. Ayliff, Philip

3. Brennan, James

4. Day, John

5. DeLuca, Douglas

6. Devine, Tad

7. Duggan, Donna

8. Evenson, Darin

9. Gates, Richard

10. Holland, Wayne

11. Jacobson, Stephen

12. James, Melinda

13. Katzman, Maximillian

14. Kirimca, Irfan

15. Laporta, Cindy

16. LaPorte, Kevin

17. Liss, Paula

18. Magionos, Morgan

19. Maxwell, Joel

20. Metzler, Amanda

21. Miceli, Peggy

22. Michael, Renee

23. Mikuska, Matthew

24. O’Brien, Conor

25. Opsut, Daniel

26. Rabin, Daniel

27. Raico, Dennis

28. Regolizio, Michael

29. Rodriguez, Taryn

30. Seferian, Gary

31. Sullivan, Stacey

32. Trusko, Alex

33. Wall, Ronald

34. Washkuhn, Heather

35. Welch, Michael

Forget Personalities, Focus on Issues

Trump's poll numbers since January
as compiled by fivethiryeight.com (2)

It has come time when we must turn away from banging away at President Donald Trump’s moral and human shortcomings.

All the short comings are well documented for everyone to examine.  Those that support Trump have the same access as those that do not.  Every lie, every indiscretion, every personal failure, all his business catastrophes – all are part of the social, political and cultural library.

And yet, he maintains his support.  Trump himself even said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” (1)

This may be the one time he told the truth.

If attacks on his character is not turning a single vote away, then it has come time to take another course.  That course is on the issues.  

This doesn't mean that those that have deep personal difference with the way he conducts himself should just stop.  Indeed, as some examples, the way he has mocked the disabled, war heroes and statements that bring his gender bias to the forefront should be kept in the public eye.  These are statements of his position on the issues.    

You see, I have felt a long time that we are in danger of becoming a captive of personality.  Many of us, find commonality with others in a personality.  Many friends of mine were, and still are, strong supporters of President Barack Obama.  Some of us hung on his every action, watching for a clear message that would guide us to a deeper understanding of our culture and in what direction it was headed.  Others, like myself, felt comfortable with his leadership to the point that I paid less attention to his actions because I was sure that he would act in a way that was like the way I would, or would bring us to the same place in the future.

If nothing more, we found our commonality in our love, respect and devotion to the personality of Obama.  We banded together to support his tenure.

But now, many of the same people are bound to another personality, but not for the same reason.  This new group rose out of the Obama years.  But, this time, it is bound by our disdain for the personality of President Donald Trump.  It is as if we were shown an honorable example of leadership that were could rally around, then, in what seemed like some mysterious occurrence that no one expected we passed through a worm hole to find an opposing universe of dishonorable leadership.

Once we were bound by love, now we are bound by hate.

It is that hate that will kill us.  Hate is what will defeat us both personally and at the polls.  Hate is the type of motivation that propelled Trump to the Oval Office.  The hate, that we feel in ourselves right now, is what motivated the Trump supporter during the last presidential election, and, still does.

If we focus on our hate and Trump’s personal failures, the more likely the voters that supported Trump will, like Einstein’s repelling force, repel them farther from the middle ground and move them farther right.

Forget Trump.  Forget Obama.  (Did I just write, forget Obama?  Yes, bear with me before you reject everything that I have said – if indeed you made it this far.) For the love of our community and human kind, drop any attachment you have to personality, in the past, here in the present and in the future.  Personalities, whether for good or evil – are not what we should be focused on.

Let us be bound by problems that need to be solved and their solutions.  While we focus on personalities, we blind ourselves to solutions.  What if, and it is even frightening to ask the question, Trump has a good idea to solve a problem?  Because it came from Trump are we to reject and resist?  When Obama was president, did we just go along with everything he did because, well, because he was Obama?  I certainly didn’t.

There is a big schism between the left and the right.  Most solutions that the left develops is often reject out of hand by the right.  But, it happens the other way around as well.  The left regularly rejects the right’s solutions to even some of the most benign problems that the world faces.  Why would we reject something before even considering it?  You may of course know the answer.  Because it must have evil intent because it came from the other side.

Many times, the left and the right also shift their positions.  As often as not, there can be a complete turnaround in just 1 or 2 election cycles.  Most of the time, that’s because a personality (note, a personality) everyone rallies around has demanded a change in a party platform instead of an actual mia culpa (3) by the party.

By focusing on the issues, people can see how issues affect them.  Then, solutions can be developed from the grass roots level instead of at the personality level.  People will then decide for themselves what will be best for them, and it must be with the good of the community also in mind.

Instead a personality, more times then not, will decide what will keep them in power.

1       https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/24/donald-trump-says-he-could-shoot-somebody-and-still-not-lose-voters

2          https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

3          Mia Culpa

All Families Need to be Reunited

Many children of immigrants stopped at the border have been reunited with their families.  This is 24 hours after the court ordered deadline to reunite the families.  The Department of Homeland Security has failed to meet the deadline for all families.

It would seem to me that when they planned to take children away from their parents they would have also asked, “What happens when they need to be returned?  What happens when we deport the parents, shouldn’t the kids also go with them?”

But, according to an article on ABC on line:

[Asked if deported parents would see their kids again, officials from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Health and Human Services told reporters they are under "no obligation to bring people who have no lawful status in this country back into this country for reunification."] (1)

Department of Homeland Security feels no obligation to reunite the children with their parents.  If the parents were being deported, they should have found the children of those parents and deported all of them together.

Now, Homeland Security thinks that they have no obligation to reunite them. (I know I keep repeating it, but it needs to be repeated:  No obligation to reunite.)

In any policing action, and this is a policing action, once the accused is arrested or detained, the arresting agency takes responsibility for the safety, health and wellbeing of the detained.  In this case, both the parents and the children are being detained.  The rules of arrest should apply to both the parents and the children.

[It doesn’t matter whether you are a police officer transporting a prisoner from a street arrest scene, a police officer picking up a prisoner for court, a police officer transporting a sick inmate, a detective taking a prisoner out of lock up to a remote site for an interview, or an airport police officer holding a person for transport, you are now responsible for that prisoner’s “care and wellbeing.”] (2)

What, I ask, could be more important to the wellbeing of an individual then their children when detained?  And, it follows, what could be more important to the children who are separated from their families then the wellbeing of being reunified with their families?

The excuse of having no obligation is a cop out.

What is to happen to these children?  Are they to languish in detention forever?  Will they be placed in a home with a family that wants to adopt them?

Family adoptions by care givers in the United States, so says the Supreme Court by not reviewing a case of family reunification, is okay. (3) (How can an Immigrant Mother Loose Her Child in Court?) 

This is kidnapping.  (Kid, being the operative word here, and not in jest).

This is also cultural conversion because the Department of Homeland Security thinks the children staying in the United States and being sent, in some cases, to a Christian organization, to watch over them is better then their home country, home culture and their parents. (4)

Here is what needs to change:

• If families are separated from their children, for any reason, the detaining agency must make plans to reunite the families.  This is to be applied no matter what happens to the parents.

• Separation at the borders must stop.  While there is an executive order that says that families are not to be separated, I believe it is still happening and needs to stop.

• ICE needs to be reorganized, not abolished.

• The legal concept that you have no (or limited) rights at the border, as a citizen, as a legal resident, an immigrant, tourist or any other label, needs to be changed.  While ICE does have the responsibility to render an opinion on the status of the individual, they are merely police.  They are not to be the final judgement of an individual’s right to enter the country.  Only a federal court can make that judgement.

The current administration is overreaching its authority on border security.  Since ICE and the Department of Homeland security can stop, question and arrest anyone within 100 miles of the United States border, this overreaching is providing an authoritarian control over millions of peoples lives and breaking families up.

(1) https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/immigration-border-crisis/feds-won-t-say-if-they-will-reunite-kids-deported-n890886

(2) https://www.policeone.com/suspect-transport/articles/1362257--In-your-care-and-custody-When-police-officers-become-corrections-officers/

(3) https://getpocket.com/a/read/2235743716

(4) https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2018/06/michigan_impacted_by_trump_adm.html

How Can an Immigrant Mother Loose Her Child in Court?

I can provide hundreds of links to the Republican Party that states they are the party of families.  We all know the mantra of the party.


So, how is it possible that immigration, the courts and the adopted parents can allow a five year old child to be kept away from his mother?


What you say?  Read this link.

From the article, "A Missouri judge ruled the boy should stay with the Missouri couple, Melinda and Seth Moser, who took him into their home five years ago while his mother was in federal custody, where she attempted in vain to oppose the adoption proceedings."

Full disclosure here, I am an adopted child.  I was forcible taken from my mother at birth and given to another family.  The reason for the removal of my mother's parental rights were all lies provided by people that didn't want my mother to raise me.  (Yes, I have documents about the case.  I now know who my mother was and she was not as they said she was.)

In this woman's case, because she did not have proper representation at hearings, she lost her rights.

Shame on immigration for not keeping families together.

Shame on the courts for allowing such a thing to happen.

Shame on the adopted family for not supporting keeping families together.

Shame on you President Trump for allowing this to happen. 

Every Business Serves Everyone

If the baker down the street doesn’t want to serve the entire community, then I should be able to deduct from my taxes the amount that supports his business.

The baker, like any other business in town, receives a lot of services from the community paid for by everyone’s taxes.  Those taxes are local property taxes, real estate transfer taxes, state income tax, federal income tax and plenty of others.  

Some of that revenue is used to provide the baker with street maintenance, paving the roads, sewer system, water, highway system so trucks can deliver goods and services, police and fire protection and so many more services that none of us really notice.

If the baker, or any other business, is going to refuse services to someone then they should be able to deduct from their taxes the amount that he is not being able to fully benefit from as well.  Everyone should be able to benefit from the full promise that was intended when we approved the taxes.

Every business expects that government services will be shared with them no matter what.  Why should we as customers and taxpayers not expect the same thing in return.

Position:  If you operate a business, you must serve all people.

Ben Carson needs to treat individuals not machines

Ben Carson, the country’s head of Health and Human Services Department, took a tour of a West Virginia drug rehabilitation facility a few days ago.

After touring the facility, he said, “Our citizens are our most precious resource.  We have to treat them like that.  We have to do everything we can to bring them to their maximum potential, because we only have 330 million people in this country.  We have to compete with countries like China and India with four times that many people.”

He is talking about human beings as if they are just machines.  Machines that are needed to compete against countries that have more machines then we do.  

Therefore, that is the reason that these people need help, to become rehabilitated machines that need to get back on line.

Is there a chance that the people in the facility are not machines?  They are people with real emotions.  They have families, communities and lives to lead that have nothing to do with being a machine.

They should also not be treated like one of 330 million.  But as individuals with distinct personalities that are different then all others.  (By the way, that number includes children.  Are our children also just machines?) 

The Republicans are also talking about individual freedoms.  Then, please step up and treat people as individuals and not a bunch of machines that need to be repaired and get back on line. 

Only then can we help them become clean.

Source: https://getpocket.com/a/read/2197006973

New Style, Faster Turn Around

Events are moving much too fast in this administration.

It makes it difficult to complete a well written blog post before 3, 4 or 5 other events happen that need to be commented on.

Not that I was a great writer in the first place, I am not.

It takes me a long time to write, re-write, correct, source and fact check.

While I will maintain the sourcing and fact checking, I will not write “pretty” essays for now. 

This will be the way it is written from now until things slow down.

Perhaps, solid position statements will be different, but short opinions will be bullet pointed, or, “graphic-novel style”.

Never Again members are Citizens

Politicians and everyday people need to hear this message:

We hear and read that the #NeverAgain movement is a bunch of kids. Students from high schools around the country. The children who survived an attack on their school.

But, no matter how well meaning, when we call them kids, students and children we discount their standing. We segregate them from the main body of people living in the country. We create a sub-category of people filled with less experience, less maturity and naïve children.

But, these people are Citizens.

They are Citizens that have experienced the terror of a war going on around them.

They are Citizens that have watched through much of their lives as follow Citizens die in a war they didn’t want .

So the next time you think of them, think of them not as a sub category of our nation, think of them as follow Citizens. Think of them as we all should when there is a cry for help, show your respect by standing with them as follow Citizens.

Citizens standing together can change the world.

No more Home Depot

Here is what Bernard Marcus, founder of Home Depot, said about Democrats on January 29, 2108 during an interview with Fox News…

"Come on, give me a break, you've got to use your brains. I mean, Democrats, use your stupid brains. You have any stupid brains and don't understand what happens."

Since I am a Democrat, I will not shop at Home Depot again. 

This issue first came to my attention with a MEME on line said that Home Depot doesn’t want Democrats shopping at their stores.  After looking into the matter, I found that it wasn’t anyone that is currently “working” at Home Depot.  I found that it was Marcus.  He is a former founder of the company, former CEO and board member that retired a few years ago.  He currently is worth billions of dollars as documented on Forbe’s list. 

Bernard currently has plenty of influence at Home Depot.  He knows people that run the company on an executive level, he knows board members, I have no doubt his advice is often sought, he owns plenty of stock in the company and is still a major influence on the policies of the company.  As a former employee of Home Depot for a brief period of time, on the inside and at the employee level, he still has a major influence on the company.

I say this because when I called and talked with someone at Home Depot, they said he has left the company.  The person on the phone also said that they don’t comment on anything the former CEO says.  Well, he will never not be a part of Home Depot.  Even after his death, his heirs will still have influence.  So to say he has separate from the company is not a believable statement.

Home Depot doesn’t issue comments about what Marcus says or does because Marcus still has plenty of influence in the company. 

Even if they just want to keep distant from Marcus, they could at least issue a statement on national media that says the view of Bernard Marcus doesn’t reflect the views of Home Depot.

But, they have not and tell me they will not issue a statement on Marcus’ statement, as of this writing. 

Today, in response to finding out about Marcus’ comments, I visited two Home Depots in the area.  In a brief meeting with the floor manager at the time I was there, I told them since I was a Democrat, I would not shop at Home Depot.  After our discussion, I handed them a note card restating my position which included my contact information.

It is suggested that others take similar actions, actions that you are comfortable with.  Perhaps it is like I did in a meeting with a store manager.  Perhaps it is a phone call, an email or other form of communication.  Home Depot and other large corporations that think we should all think the same and support their political agenda need to know that this will not be smart for them to do. 

They already have too much influence in Washington, they need to be curtailed.