Do Not Trust What You Cannot Verify

 

Take a good look around. It would be hard to miss the obvious – we will have to replace many people who are in politics today with much more respectable new blood as we take our country back. Electing Donald Trump was a very heavy lift and it’s going to get even harder as we are forced to choose from the disappointing pool of people who are attracted to political parties and political careers.  No one should be surprised that more than 40% percent (and growing) of American voters reject both major political parties to identify as Independents; or that in a recent survey by Change Research, fewer than 5% of those surveyed agreed they are “usually satisfied with my candidate options.”

 

An Ugly Snapshot of Our Government on Display

 

The Federal government is in week 4 of a “shut down”, which for most Americans elicits little more than a yawn.  Those who will be directly hurt by this congressional abdication of responsibility are little more than pawns on a chess board to politicians who lust for power and control above all else. It will be over soon and serve as little more than a reminder of how useless our legislators are.

 

 New York City is poised to elect a 34-year-old communist as its next Mayor in just a few weeks. He’s promising free stuff for everyone with an “affordability” agenda that is neither affordable nor deliverable.  Those who know better in what used to be the Democratic Party are afraid to defy him. They want to keep their seats more than they want to tell the truth.

 

The Democratic candidate for Governor in New Jersey, currently a Congresswoman, forgot to tell the voters while touting her military service that she was not allowed to participate in her US Naval Academy graduation because she covered up for classmates who were involved in a huge cheating scandal. It would be interesting to hear her take on the meaning of dishonorable.

 

The Democratic candidate for Virginia’s Attorney General was exposed for sending vicious text messages about his desire to put 2 bullets in the head of the Virginia House Speaker.  Party officials remain unwavering in their support of him. After all, he’s apologized and winning is everything. 

 

State legislators in both parties across the country are spending their time and money gerrymandering their voting districts to give them maximum advantage rather than presenting candidates the voters can enthusiastically support because they are men and women of character and responsive to the will of the people.

 

One Short Week in Wisconsin Politics

 

Residents of Milwaukee County recently learned that the Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS), which operates the County bus service, has a budget deficit of close to $11 million. County Executive David Crowley is administratively responsible for MCTS operations.  The late coming news on the shortfall is a result of a political coverup of the mismanagement.  Officials from the County Executive’s budget office were involved in discussions of MCTS finances as early as January and essentially told to butt out by MCTS officials. They were complicit in the decision to keep the County Board in the dark until mid-June, even though the Board must be notified of any deficit of $100,000 or more immediately.  The deficit is being attributed to low-productivity, overbilling from a third-party provider, excessive overtime, and a stunning loss of $4 million from “bus fare evasion”. Does anyone believe this is the only instance of fiscal mismanagement within the county’s $1.4 billion budget? David Crowley has shown no indication that he understands it’s his job to make sure the proper financial controls are in place; and the MCTS deficit is a management failure that rests squarely on his shoulders.  To the contrary, he is asking Wisconsin voters to reward his performance by making him the next Democratic Governor of Wisconsin.

 

Waukesha Alderman Rico Camacho blasted a warning on social media last week. “Everyone please, please stay alert, stay inside, ICE is in Waukesha in the corner of (People’s Park). They are undercover.”  It turns out the employees of an emergency management consulting firm were doing executive and dignitary protection training in the area that day and were on their way to lunch.  The police department confirmed that ICE was not in Waukesha but, if they had been, apparently Alderman Camacho believes that his oath of office, which requires him to uphold the Constitution and faithfully execute the duties of alderman, permits him to assist residents of his district in breaking the law.

 

The Democratic Party of Winnebago County was just booted from the Oshkosh Farmers Market for the rest of the season and perhaps longer for distributing bracelets inscribed with “Is he dead yet?” from their booth.  There were other anti-Trump tokens distributed including some that said, “blank Trump”, and some inscribed with “8647” which is understood to mean “Kill Trump” ever since former FBI Director James Comey claimed he found shells arranged in these numbers on a beach.  “86” is an FBI term for Kill and “47” is the number of Trump’s current presidency.

 

True to form, the Republican Party of Wisconsin immediately pounced on this as an opportunity to fundraise.  They were beside themselves with fabricated outrage: “This is Sick!” “This is the modern left: hateful, shameless, and totally out of control”. “We can’t let them get away with this.  We won’t.”  “We need your money to fight back”.  They want money from the hard-working people of Wisconsin to fund the endless, dishonest attack ads they will bury us with to try to win elections with emotion that they cannot win with solid candidates and strong policy arguments.

 

This sickening political potpourri, sampled from just a few short weeks, reinforces what we already know. The political parties and many career politicians have been corrupted by their lust for power and control. They will do whatever it takes to win, including cheating when possible. Voters are increasingly presented with candidates with so little to offer, it becomes harder and harder to believe they could ever legitimately win an election.

 

The Republican Party doesn’t need our money.  We need them to do their jobs. 

 

The efforts of Wisconsin voters to secure verifiable elections have fallen on deaf ears for many months. The Republican legislators led by Robin Vos in the Assembly and Devin LeMahieu in the Senate, along with Brian Schimming, the Chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, have ignored the demands of countless Wisconsin voters to purge the names of more than 4 million ineligible voters from the Registered Voter List and to clearly label the 250,000 driver’s licenses that have been issued by Wisconsin to non-citizens as “not for voting.”  Wisconsin voters will not, and should not, accept that election results that defy believability represent the will of the people unless they can be verified.  Let’s turn up the pressure on the legislators and the Republican Party. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, do not trust what you cannot verify.