Howard's Political Commentary

 The Presidential election will officially be over when the January 6, 2021 session of Congress to count electoral votes is concluded. Many key Republican elected officials have been a major disappointment in this election cycle. This includes legislators, governors, and secretaries of state. Republican legislatures in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin failed to take strong action to appoint the Trump/Pence slate of electors and negate the appointment of Biden/Harris electors on the grounds of unlawfully implemented voting regulations or outright election fraud. Any honest count of the legitimate votes in those states would have given the election to Trump in every one of them. Other elected officials such as Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona, Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of Georgia presided over, tolerated, and certified Democrats stealing the presidential election right under their noses. President Trump failed to h

There has been a lot of talk about people moving to Georgia to vote in the run-off election for the two US Senate races. Leftists are urging people to move to Georgia, register to vote there, cast votes for the Democrats, and then move back home. Republicans have been wringingtheir hands over this and contemplating whether they should fight fire with fire and consider doing the same thing even though it is illegal. While I am pleased that some Republicans are willing to fight hard against Democrat election stealing, most are simply wringing their hands in ignorance. The Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, has already suspended voter registration until after the run-off election for people moving into the state. I learned this by calling the Election Department of the Georgia Secretary of State Office. This should mostly take care of the problem of out of state voters moving in to affect the results of the run-off election. However, Georgia law only allows people register

These Republican legislators in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia hold the power to push the Trump/Pence ticket over the top. These states have Republican majorities in both houses of their legislatures. Their election procedures and integrity of their elections are in question. It appears that substantial Democrat corruption has provided enough illegal votes or suppressed enough Trump votes to give the appearance of a Biden victory. Legislatures have the power to choose the electors and should do so in these cases. If courts require evidence that was destroyed by the Democrats in order to correct the results, they might not act. Legislatures do not need that standard of evidence. Even if they just think there was corruption based on their experience as legislators and citizens, they are empowered to act. This is a safeguard against clever criminals who cover their tracks well. It will require almost all of the Republican legislators in these states to convene the

No objective observer can believe that the presidential election was conducted honestly or with integrity in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, or Nevada. This included late changes in election procedures, counting late votes, and counting harvested and other illegal votes. In many cases, Republican poll watchers were prevented from observing the vote counting process which, alone, sufficiently taints the integrity of the election process enough to invalidate the results. The vote results in these states should be challenged. Democrats and their allies in the main stream media and big tech are claiming Biden won even though the recounts and court challenges have not fully resolved the election. They prevented Republicans from making victory claims about Trump through their censorship, and even announced in advance that they would block premature claims of victory. Of course, their censorship only applies to Trump and his supporters. Some court challenges may be successful,

 In the Presidential Debate tonight, President Trump should turn the tables on Joe Biden.  Do you remember the ridiculous question in the first debate asking Trump to denounce White Supremacy groups as if there were any doubt on his position? Trump has denounced them consistently and clearly. In fact, the question should have been directed at Joe Biden who has worked closely with KKK leader Robert Byrd in the Senate as well as other White Supremacists and regularly uses bigoted language. Trump, when he inevitably gets a question like that should not even answer it. Instead, he should point to his consistent record against racism, admonish the moderator for being sloppy by not referencing those statements, and tell the moderator he should be asking Joe Biden that question. Mention Joe Biden’s friendships with KKK and other racist senators. Reference Joe’s language such as “whether you are poor or white” and “there is little diversity in the black community” with respect to culture and

The fundamental problem is that there is a pretense of moderator neutrality while at least one side thinks the moderator is biased or incompetent. When there is a presumption of unfairness by the moderator whether caused by bias or incompetence, there is no stability with respect to the rules being observed. The person who feels disadvantaged will attempt to resolve the injustice inflicted on him by responding in self defense whether strictly following the rules or not. The other person will then be doing the same thing. Chris Wallace was primarily responsible for the problems of the first presidential debate of the 2020 election. His questions were asked from the perspective of the Biden campaign rather than open ended. Chris Wallace often challenged President Trump, but rarely called out Biden for lies or evasions. One problem is having a supposedly neutral moderator in the first place. It is unlikely both parties will trust a moderator to be neutral. The questions should be posed

Plus: The Difference Between Mail In and Absentee Ballots Does the Presidential Voting Date Act of 1845 require that only votes submitted to election officials by election day be used in election tabulations? It appears so. In that case, the Justice Department should be notifying states that ballots received after election day should be discarded. There could be specific exceptions for ballots distributed later than required by Federal law which would mainly apply to citizens overseas – mostly military and their families. The Trump campaign should take legal action to ensure that ballots collected after election day are not counted in any state. This will help prevent a disaster like what occurred in the latest New York State primary election . Already, the Trump Campaign is challenging the mail in voting law recently enacted in Nevada that introduces mail in ballots to the state. Many people think mail in ballots and absentee ballots are the same. They have many similarities

Bypass the Bureaucracy The key to getting our society and economy back to normal is to bypass bureaucrats and politicians standing in the way and stop enabling those who want to keep the country shut down. First, President Trump should use his emergency powers to make hydroxycloroquine an over the counter (OTC) drug instead of available by prescription only. Many countries already do this. Since the drug is fairly harmless when used according to directions – probably less dangerous than aspirin – it should already have been designated as OTC. This order will bypass the FDA’s policies as well as state medical and pharmacy boards. This must be accompanied by assuring a stable, plentiful supply from Indian companies which are the largest producers of this drug. Building some domestic production capacity is something to consider as well under the War Production Act. Wide availability of hydroxycloroquine will allow people to use it to protect against and treat COVID-19. This sho

The medical industry is highly regulated by government at both the Federal and state level. The justification of the extensive regulations is to protect the public from abuse at the hands of bad doctors, pharmacists, and other medical providers as well as from drug companies selling dangerous drugs. There are cases when health industry regulators help people, prevent suffering, and save lives. However, there are also cases when people are hurt , forced to endure unnecessary suffering, and needlessly die because of regulators. Balancing the costs and benefits can sometimes be challenging, but government regulation almost certainly creates more costs in economic, human suffering, and human life. The primary reason for this is that regulators tend to be more risk averse than the average medical consumer (patient) and want to avoid blame for people being hurt by bad drugs or bad medical practitioners. They are also more interested in building bureaucratic empires than delivering value