Victor Davis Hanson: Mar-A-Lago Raid and the Rule of Law

 

The interview took place on August 9, but I only just now came across it.  Michael W. Chapman at CNS News reports on Victor Davis Hanson take on the Mar-a-Lago raid:

When asked about the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump's home in Palm Beach, Fla., professor, author, and political commentator Victor David Hanson said, "right now, we don't have the rule of law in Washington," and added that, "The FBI is beyond redemption."

Hanson, who was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush, made his remarks on the Aug. 9 edition of FNC's Tucker Carlson Tonight, guest-hosted by Will Cain.  

Cain asked Hanson why the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago and why were they targeting Trump.

"Well, they're afraid in the short term," he said, in reference to the Democrats and the left, "but in the long term they believe they're morally superior to America, and therefore any means necessary or justifiable for their morally superior ends."

"And right now, we don't have the rule of law in Washington," said Hanson. "Whether you're targeted or exempt depends on your ideology."

. . .

As for the FBI, Hanson remarked, "I never thought I would say this: The FBI is beyond redemption. It is -- all of its bureaus and its institutions that have to be farmed out and broken up. If you have a warrant, an FBI warrant, there is no guarantee that that has not been altered. If you subpoena and you want FBI records on phones ... they will be wiped clean."

"We just saw [FBI Director] Christopher Wray and he just stonewalled every question and then he flew on an FBI plane, our plane, a luxury jet because he had to go to his own vacation spot. He took over, remember, from Andrew McCabe -- what did he do? He lied four times to federal investigators, and his wife was running for an office with Clinton-related PAC money while he was investigating Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal."

. . .

Read the rest here.

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Reducing voter fraud

Hans von Spakovsky is The Heritage Foundation’s manager of its Election Law Reform Initiative. He has some proposals to reduce voter fraud:

. . .

Fraudsters can steal votes and change election outcomes in several ways, including: voting in someone else’s name, registering in multiple locations to vote multiple times in the same election, voting even though they’re not eligible because they’re felons or noncitizens, or paying or intimidating people to vote for certain candidates.

Unfortunately, many on the left are attempting to make election fraud easier by fighting laws that require an ID to vote. They’ve pushed to get noncitizens and jailed inmates to vote. And they’ve sued states that have tried to purge their voter rolls of people registered in multiple states.

How can we fix the problem?

Since states control much of the electoral process, they must pass laws requiring government-issued IDs to vote. That ensures people aren’t stealing others’ identities and their right to vote.

States should join voter registration cross-check programs to identify voters registered in multiple places. One cross-check program has identified hundreds of thousands of potential duplicate registrations across 30 states as well as evidence of illegal double voting.

States should also compare voter rolls with government records to identify convicted felons and noncitizens who should be removed from the rolls. And the federal government should cooperate with these efforts and make Department of Homeland Security and other databases available to state officials.

. . .

His article is here.  Note: In June 2018, the Supreme Court Upheld a controversial Ohio voter purge law. 

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Ken Blackwell: another look at Ohio Issue #1

image credit: sunrisehouse.com

A week or so ago, Cleveland Tea Party posted a blog examining some pros and cons of Issue #1, which will be on the ballot in November.

Today, Ken Blackwell, former Ohio Secretary of State, leads off his article “Ohio’s ‘Issue 1’: A Dangerous and Deadly Proposition” with:

They are at it again!  Liberal billionaires George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg and Nicholas Pritzker are attempting to force their left leaning ideology on Ohioans.

This time it’s by spending millions of dollars to weaken Ohio’s drug laws. Soros, Zuckerberg and Pritzker are the lead funders of state Issue 1, a dangerous state constitutional amendment that gives drug dealers a get out of jail free card.

They want you to believe their proposal is in line with marijuana reforms in other states. It’s not. They will say it’s in the interest of public safety, and will lead to better treatment options for addicted Ohioans. It won’t.

. . .

Drug abuse has had a disproportionate effect on Ohio families, and tragically, our state is ground zero in the fight against overdoses. Law enforcement officials are overwhelmed by the overdose crisis and we cannot afford, in terms of treasure and human suffering, more of these drugs on the streets. But that will be the legacy of Issue 1.

Read the rest here.

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Happy President’s Day

image credit: smvdiscoverymuseum.org

Thoughts from Melissa Emery at CNS News:

I recently received an email from an old friend who lives in a very blue state exclaiming that Trump was “not his president.” 

. . .

I tried not to respond in anger, but merely with regret to learn that Trump was not “his” president, since wages were up, taxes were down, the stock market was up, and over 2 million new jobs had been created. Black and Latino unemployment were at new all-time lows. Were these not things that liberals cared about anymore? But, perhaps, I suggested a bit snarkily, these bits of news had not appeared in the New York Times. I doubt that I’ll ever hear from him again.

As the days went by, his comment that Trump was not his president kept rolling around in my head. I wanted to ask him, who IS your president? Are you operating now without a president? Is your state no longer part of the Union? And how does not having the United States’ president as your president work for you? Do you still get all your Social Security payments and Medicare benefits? Can you still sit in your lovely cabin by a lake and pontificate about how much smarter you are than people who voted for Mr. Trump?

. . .

I didn’t like Obama. I wanted him and his crew out of there as soon as possible. But it never occurred to me to say he was not my president. He was president of the United States, for better or for worse. We cannot continue to be united if we decide which laws to obey and which presidents to acknowledge. If you don’t like Trump, work to elect someone you do like next time.  . . .

Mark Steyn posted a musical medley in honor of President’s Day starting with this introduction:

Happy Presidents Day to all our American readers - and yes, I know it's grotesque to have to put Jimmy Carter and Franklin Pierce up there with Washington and Lincoln, but don't blame me . . . 

From a history.com link on President’s Day:

Presidents’ Day is an American holiday celebrated on the third Monday in February. Originally established in 1885 in recognition of President George Washington, it is still officially called “Washington’s Birthday” by the federal government. Traditionally celebrated on February 22—Washington’s actual day of birth—the holiday became popularly known as Presidents’ Day after it was moved as part of 1971’s Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an attempt to create more three-day weekends for the nation’s workers. While several states still have individual holidays honoring the birthdays of Washington, Abraham Lincoln and other figures, Presidents’ Day is now popularly viewed as a day to celebrate all U.S. presidents past and present.

Cleveland Tea Party salutes George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Donald J. Trump.

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