The January 6 Capitol riot is being used as a tool to hurt conservatives and brand them as domestic terrorists, while the facts regarding what happened that day remain far from clear. The Capitol Police and the D.C. Government were woefully unprepared; prior intelligence and other warning signs were apparently ignored by law enforcement. Following their oft-used strategy of not letting a crisis go to waste, leftists (Democrats and media propagandists) define the event as an insurrection like the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution. In reality, it is more akin to the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany used by the newly formed Nazi government to turn public opinion against its opponents and justify emergency powers – evidenced by the installation of barriers, barbed wire, and checkpoints along with deployment of National Guard troops whose presence was initially indefinite.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi proposed a $100 million plan to increase Capitol security by adding more fencing and 1,000 Capitol Police officers. Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman claimed that militias tied to the January 6 riot desired to “blow up the Capitol and kill as many members as possible with a direct nexus to the State of the Union” without any details about how credible this and other threats might be. Numerous Senators from both parties have expressed concerns about the justification for the “excessive” security and when it would end.
Left-leaning Politico published an article on January 6, 2023 claiming “The Capitol attack was a massive failure by law enforcement and intelligence” and further stated “It is also the story of the greatest security failure in Washington, D.C., since policeman John Frederick Parker abandoned his post near Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865.” The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack, whose credibility was always in question due to the partisan nature of its members and the biased made-for-TV hearings and final report, was criticized for ignoring the security issues and associated failures. “And with that, a mere 11 pages into an 845-page report, the committee looks away from those who should have prevented Jan. 6.”
Election Integrity
There are many things about the 2020 Presidential election that defy reason, yet whoever questions anything that happened, especially in tightly contested swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, or Michigan will be shouted down and accused of claiming that the election was stolen. Enter Time Magazine writer Molly Ball and an article titled “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election” that claims the election was not rigged but “fortified” in order to defeat President Trump. Effected by an odd grouping of “…left-wing activists and business titans,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, and social media platforms. The article is predictably slanted – the assumption is the behind-the-scenes effort was virtuous. “Democracy won in the end. The will of the people prevailed.” Beyond the celebratory nature of the article, the intent may have been to distract from election integrity or reform efforts, or in support of Democrat efforts to put Washington in charge of running elections nationwide via the “For the People Act.”
There are a great many reasons to question the integrity of the 2020 Presidential election. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, if election laws are to be changed, the state constitution must be amended – a complex process. Until October 2019 mail-in voting, ballots without signatures, ballots with signatures not matching the one on file, ballots sent in after election day, and ballots with missing or indiscernible postmarks would not be counted and if they were, would constitute fraud. The only option for mail-in voting was by requesting an absentee ballot, a multi-step process. In October 2019, the state legislature passed a law allowing universal mail-in voting. The Governor decided that wasn’t enough – he instructed them to revoke the signature, postmark, and deadline requirements – they refused. The dispute wound up in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, an elected body that is five-to-two Democrat, who ruled in favor of the changes despite having no legal or constitutional basis. They violated Article II Section 1 Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution that gives the power to change election laws exclusively to the state legislature. Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA), no fan of President Trump who voted to convict in the impeachment trial, considers all these points to be true and factual.
In 2005, a report by President Jimmy Carter stated “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” Prior to the 2020 election, a court allowed Michigan’s top election official to mail unsolicited absentee ballots to registered voters statewide. In Georgia a “Consent Decree” was signed by the Secretary of State that changed how signatures were matched on absentee ballots, invoking an onerous process that made ballot rejection highly unlikely. In Wisconsin, the law requires that absentee ballots be signed by a witness who must provide their address. In August of 2020, the Wisconsin Elections Commission reminded voters that if any required information is missing, the ballot will not be counted. However, in October the WEC directed election clerks to resolve missing witness information themselves. In all three cases, either state officials or the judicial branch and not the legislature effectively changed election laws in violation of the Article II of the U.S. Constitution. In February and March 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear any state election cases, a failure to defend the Constitution and a further undermining of voter confidence in the legitimacy of elections.
A constant meme among media outlets – including the typically conservative National Review – is that “…allies of the former president failed to prove the allegations in court…” That is misleading – if a Court refuses to hear a case then there is no chance to prove the allegation. All three dissenting Supreme Court Justices (Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch) took the unusual step of writing opinions as to why the Court should have taken at least two of the cases.
Future Reforms Still Needed
The right to vote is considered sacred and should be treated as such. Every citizen must be able to believe that their vote counts and election integrity is beyond reproach. A December 2020 Rasmussen poll reported that while a majority of Republicans think the 2020 election was neither free nor fair, so did a significant number of Democrats. State legislatures must put in place rules that can’t be changed within weeks of an election, emphasizing security and transparency. Florida has done this under the leadership of Governor DeSantis. The need to provide verifiable ID should be a given considering all the aspects of daily life that require it. The reasons behind REAL ID requirements that went into effect in October 2021 are applicable.
Last edited: January 26, 2023