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 ...

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 cul...

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...

But It's NO Thanksgiving for the Kurds Trump gives Kurds the bird The Kurds in Syria, recently abandoned by the United States, are getting attacked by Turkish military forces and Turkish allied militias. The Kurds are literally getting murdered as well as having their military forces attacked and bearing substantial casualties. This is a major foreign policy failure of the Trump Administration. This is true on several levels. Abandoning allies on the battlefield is dishonorable and makes the world think the United States in unreliable and unwilling to stand with its friends. Turkey is now an unreliable ally and should be thrown out of NATO. The President blinked when Erdogen of Turkey threatened to invade Syria whether the US withdrew 50 special forces from the border or not. President Trump threatened economic sanctions against Turkey if it misbehaved in Syria – apparently, murdering Kurds in the streets doesn't count. American military forces have come under a...

One of the big problems with the budget process for the US Government is that it encourages expansion of government to get agreements on a budget. It is easier to have everyone agree to spend more taxpayer money than to make hard decisions to cut government spending to benefit all taxpayers. The essential problem is that it is just as easy - or even easier - to hold out on reaching an agreement to get more spending rather than less. Proposals that have been put forward such as a balanced budget amendment do not sufficiently focus on reducing government spending or can be bypassed with government accounting procedures designed to understate deficit spending. A balanced budget requirement would be more likely to result in tax increases than spending cuts given the current political climate even if it could be passed. There is a need to focus on creating pressure to reduce spending. There have to be procedural changes implemented in the Constitution to make it more difficult to spend ...

This article posted by WBEZ news in Chicago illustrates how the city government is worse than criminals when it comes to financially exploiting people. The city imposed strict ordinances to add more fees and more automated speed camera; the city then let tow truck companies loose on violators. How do you think Chicago city officials would respond to a private company doing similar things in a business context in Chicago without city backing? The article shows an example of how $360 in civil violations increases to $820 in just one day and becomes $1595 in 21 days.  Plus, you will lose your vehicle after 21 days. Keep in mind that the proceeds of the vehicle sale just go to the city and are NOT applied to fines, the auto loan, or anything else except the city treasury. Typically, the towing companies buy the cars for a very low "scrap" price that is well below market value. This compounds the evil by taking what could be city money gotten by evil means and putting it in t...

The government shutdown has caused TSA employees to not get paid. Considering that they provide negative overall value to the nation and travelers, they are still technically getting over paid. However, getting them to pay travelers is not feasible. They generally provide very little protection for the inconvenience and humiliation they inflict on travelers. The real security in an airplane cabin is a secure cockpit and passengers who will fight hijackers to the death now that we know what they are up to. I'm also still waiting to hear a good explanation of why banning pocket knives from aircraft and other great TSA ideas enhances our security. Basic TSA-Pre screening without those ridiculously expensive scanners (also known as what was done before 9-11) is also perfectly adequate. The Huffington Post has a whiny article about the TSA employees not getting paid. Of course, all government employees including those not actually showing up for work will get back pay once the approp...

This Huffington Post article  makes a hysterical case that the government shutdown is causing deaths in national parks to be reported one week after they occur. First, the article itself says that the response time in Yosemite National Park was about one hour which, for a wilderness area, is fairly good. That means the shutdown didn't actually impact the National Park Service response to the emergency in any substantial way; it may have impacted only reporting that an emergency occurred and that the person recovered after suffering an injury ultimately died from the injury. That is not something justifying the dramatic headline that the government shutdown caused a death to be reported one week after it happened. Those involved in the incident were handling it immediately and there was no indication that next of kin had any delay in receiving information about the injury and passing away of their family member. Second, if individual parks were privately owned and operated, a go...

I took a break from political blogging because I was concerned that my Information Technology career would be adversely affected by my conservative and often politically incorrect views. Now that I'm retired, I'm back!

While trying to get to my airplane for a flight from Minneapolis back to Phoenix, I had an encounter with a TSA agent that proves what many of us thought about the TSA mentality. When I told her that conducting searches like they do is unconstitutional and that they are violating the 4th amendment to the constitution, she said that it was government policy, she is just following orders, and that we all report to the same boss . I reminded her that her bosses in the government are either elected or appointed government officials, so, unless citizens are actually subjects of the government, they are NOT my bosses. In fact, I am one of their bosses. She quickly back pedalled away from her "report to the same boss" remark, but it seems obvious that TSA officials regard Americans as subjects rather than citizens. This attitude undoubtedly flows downward from the top - Obama and Napolitano. In fact, Napolitano was once overheard saying how Americans should be grateful because no ot...