The True Foreign Influence in Our Elections

Many of our brothers and sisters on the left side of the political spectrum have consistently raised the valid issue of foreign interference by Russia in our election dating back to 2016.  Indeed our various intelligence agencies have provided evidence to support this charge thus giving it fairly irreproachable credibility, notwithstanding President Trump’s misspoken words in the past and his down-playing of this issue for whatever reasons to the contrary. 

Despite this, it appears that Russia’s tampering and interference produced no credible evidence to suggest that they swayed the election’s results regardless.  Yes, this is a grave matter, and President Trump should have been quite forceful with Putin regarding this to prevent it from happening again in the future.  His milquetoast response towards Putin did nothing to negate it from happening again and only serves to provide his political critics with more fodder to claim collusion and thus develop other conspiracy theories against him.  It is readily apparent that Trump missed a huge opportunity at the Helsinki summit to take Putin to task about this matter accordingly.  Because of these reasons, our friends on the left have good reason to be critical of President Trump, despite some of the excesses and more ridiculous conspiracy theories they have fabricated after the fact.

One must wonder though, how much of this outrage is nothing more than a whole lot of light and very little heat over the supposed issue at hand?  Are our leftist friends truly angry at attempted foreign influence in our elections that for all practical purposes had no discernible effect in the election outcome, or are they simply using this as a political issue in which to further excoriate a president whom they loathe?  I am sure that there are some leftists that are indeed truly concerned about the issue, but for most of them I suspect the latter is actually the case.

I point to that bastion of looney leftism known as California to support my assertion.  Many conservatives have long been concerned about illegal immigrants voting in our elections.  Indeed there have been a few cases here and there where this occurred and the illegal alien was caught, charged, and convicted.  Of course we were mocked, scorned, and the focus of derision by our leftist friends for thinking this could ever seriously become a real issue though.

That was soooo last year.

Now, we have the city of San Francisco issuing voter registration cards to illegal aliens residing within the city. 

Yes, all people should be afforded basic human rights and protections regardless of their legal status, but voting rights used to be reserved ONLY for American citizens.  Until now –

The supposed reasoning behind San Francisco supporting this policy is that there are so many illegal immigrants’ children attending public schools there that the city government thought it was only right that they should be given a voice to how things were run.  City Supervisor Norman Yee said: “We want to give immigrants the right to vote,” while conspicuously leaving out the “illegal” prefix.

These “immigrants,” illegal or not, will be allowed to vote in all city elections if they’re at least 18 and are the parents or guardians of children who also live in the city. Local ABC 7 affiliate reports:

"As a parent myself and a former member of the SF Board of Education it is critical that the voices of all parents are at the table, particularly those that have historically been denied a voice in the process,” said Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer who represents District 1. 

School Board member Matt Haney was the co-author of the resolution endorsing the measure. He says the school board was in full support of it.  “I think it’s critical that all of our families have a voice in the governance of our schools,” said Haney.

While San Francisco is the very heart of the leftist beast of California, evidently there still remains one brave Republican living in the city that had the courage to disagree. Harmeet Dhillon is the Republican National Committeewoman from California. She says she voted against the measure in 2016.

“The reason I voted against it is that I think the right to vote is something that goes along with citizenship and should be,” said Dhillon.  She states in a common sense fashion that the SF school board is already obligated to look out for the interests of all the children attending schools in the district.  “I don’t think that people who have otherwise tenuous ties to San Francisco given their lack of legal residence should be making long term decisions about that structure and process,” said Dhillon. 

I would find myself in complete agreement with Ms. Dhillon.

Let’s summarize, shall we?  

Many leftist friends and family are understandably and rightly outraged by the attempts at foreign influence in our elections by Russia, but evidently in the city of San Francisco in the very center of the progressive beast, they evidently see no contradiction or even any issues with allowing foreign nationals to vote in city elections by granting them legal voting privileges.

Of course, I and many of my conservative brothers and sisters can hardly be surprised by this latest nonsense from Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district.  After all, San Francisco really isn’t a city that truly functions well anymore.  There exists no middle class there at all at this point as the average home price exceeds 1.6 million dollars.  The city has become a mecca for the uber-rich and the perpetually poor.  As a "sanctuary city" they continue to attract illegal aliens to their city limits whom are looking for protection from ICE and other law enforcement agencies.  The needle-laden and human excrement infested streets give proof to the brokenness of the city.  San Francisco barely survives currently by massive tax payment transfers from the rich to the myriad homeless street people that live in the city.  It is a perfect example of the abject failure of social and political progressivism.  Enfranchising poor illegal immigrants with voting rights in the city of course makes perfect sense to our leftist brothers and sisters as the next logical step in their progressivism.

It doesn’t, however, give very much credibility to their concerns of illegal foreign influence in our elections.

The Democrats' Hypocrisy on Russia

Some of President Trump's statements at the Helsinki Summit with Vladimir Putin were definitely foolish and cringe-worthy.  He did not help his own created image of being the tough, no-nonsense leader that he would like to portray to the rest of us.  That said, Trump's actions against Russia, particularly as compared to that of President Obama's and his corrupt Secretary of State Clinton's, is orders of magnitude tougher than that of previous Democrats.  Of course, that doesn't fit the leftist narrative and will be summarily dismissed by them accordingly.

I find it ironic that the Left's posturing against Russia is so tough these days now that they are "out of power".  I remember when Russia was still Communist and many on the left adored them and thought their own country, particularly under Ronald Reagan, was the real threat to world peace and prosperity.  I guess their group hallucination regarding the mis-perceived transgression that Russia cost their own corrupt Hillary the presidency has really ruffled their feathers.  I guess to many Leftists slights against their party are more damnable than slights against their country.

Trump: He Meant What He Said

When I was a junior in high school, decades ago, I signed up for Mr. Mueller’s class on oceanography as one of my science class requirements.  Most of my fellow students signed up thinking it would be an easy class.  I signed up for it because the topic of oceanography sounded very interesting to me. 

Mr. Mueller was a very plain spoken, gruff, and politically incorrect teacher.  He was not opposed to ridiculing any student that acted out of line in his class, usually to the class' amusement and to the student's chagrin.  There was always order and discipline in his class.

He would have been a tenured instructor that the teachers’ union would have somehow found a way to fire if he were to teach nowadays. I could see him being the one that refused to join the union or at least made union meetings very contentious, to say the least.  I imagine him pointing out their nonsense and the political over-reach of some folks instead of them focusing on how to be better teachers and demand that they be compensated appropriately for so being. 

I recall his initial “welcome speech” on the first day of class all of these years later because it was terse, to the point, and was obviously lacking in “feel-good” platitudes that many of the other teachers would bloviate upon.  He stated at the beginning of the semester that if you were late for class, his door would be locked and he would not let you in the room, so you had better show up on time.  Respect was a big deal for him.  He said he would be going over geological, biological, and chemistry related aspects of oceanography and as such that there was a tremendous amount of information he would cover and we would be expected to know for the exams.  He further explained that he would do reviews before each exam and that if we took good notes during the reviews and had done our work during the preceding section, we would likely all get “A’s”.  If not, we would likely fail.  

I found that I liked Mr. Mueller because he told you just where you stood, what was expected, and what he was going to do.  There weren’t any surprises.

I was amazed when seemingly half of the class passed with “A’s” while the remaining half failed just exactly as Mr. Mueller had foretold.  I received an A+.  

I find the situation somewhat analogous to President Trump today.  I personally do not care for Trump’s often un-statesmanlike demeanor, his petulant retaliation and conducting of national affairs by tweets, and his over-the-top rudeness at times.  I did not like what I saw as serious character issues with Mr. Trump during his campaign, and hence decided to vote for Darrell Castle with the Constitution Party accordingly.

In spite of his character flaws, many of President Trump’s issues that he campaigned upon seemed to be good ideas and particularly necessary in my opinion.  Some took the form of campaign promises similar to those made by Republican candidates for generations.  As such, not many people, including the Democrats, took them too seriously as actually being addressed in his administration other than just as window-dressing. 

After the better part of two years into President Trump’s administration, I think many people are surprised, or vexed depending on political ideologies, to learn that Trump wasn’t the typical politician just making half-hearted promises in order to get elected.  He actually intended to work to get his agenda enacted.

And this angers the left… to extraordinary degrees.

President Trump promised to nominate constitutionally-minded candidates to the federal courts and Supreme Court instead of appointing judicial activists whom look to every place besides the United States Constitution for informing their opinions on cases.  Justice Gorsuch and Judge Kavanaugh are excellent jurists in that very mold of textualists accordingly, thus the meltdown from the leftists.  Trump provided a list of twenty-five SCOTUS candidates that he would likely pick from for the Supreme Court.  There certainly was no surprises here.  

Trump promised to work with other nations to revise or establish mutually beneficial trade deals, and if the other nations refused to work with us accordingly, he would seek to right such trade imbalances via the instigation of tariffs on their goods.  China has long stolen intellectual property and maintained a dangerous trade imbalance in their favor with us, particularly regarding steel and aluminum.  Trump attempted to right that wrong; China refused to cooperate, and hence punitive tariffs have been enacted in order to prompt China to change its ways...  JUST   AS   PROMISED.

Like previous presidents, Trump also promised to end illegal immigration.  Unlike previous presidents from both parties, Trump actually instructed that the letter of the law be followed with regards to illegal immigrants.  This enrages the left as they see future Democrat voters being denied entry into the U.S.  They further blame Trump for actually following the law written long prior to his administration that separates children of illegal aliens from their parents.  (If I were to break the law in Mexico, I don’t think that the Mexican authorities would throw my children into jail with me.  I know we don’t hold minors in jail here for the legal transgressions of their parents.)  The fact that Trump has asked that this law actually be enforced as a deterrent to illegal immigrants has caused heads to explode on the left.  When he mitigated this law by executive order, the left still screamed and took offense.  Evidently for some of our brothers and sisters on the left, we are to have open borders or they will fight and resist!

President Trump promised significant tax reform to spur the economy to life once again from the sub-2% anemic growth experienced under his predecessor’s eight years.  By doing so he has created business and personal growth not seen in this country for decades by allowing people to keep more of their own hard-earned tax dollars.  Further, this has caused businesses to expand and hire more employees thus bringing unemployment numbers down to remarkably low levels.  Again, Trump did what he said he would do.

Trump has removed myriad economy-killing regulations that were often times unnecessary or useful only to certain special interest groups.  He promised to remove two regulations for every one that was enacted.  He has far surpassed this by a margin of 12 removed to 1 enacted according to some reports.  This cutting of bureaucracy has made government less bloated and more efficient and responsive in many areas… just as promised yet again.

Trump, like previous presidents, has rightfully complained about NATO allies not living up to their commitments to spend 2% of their GDP’s in their defense thus leaving America to heft a greater share of the burden of Europe’s defense.  Unlike his predecessors, President Trump has publicly and spectacularly called out our offending allies for this intentional transgression and has openly pondered the usefulness of NATO if they do not contribute according to their promised obligations. 

These issues and perhaps dozens more where Trump was proven not to just be making meaningless speeches, but was actually telling us what he planned to do has proven refreshing to many of us on the right of center.  He made many promises during his presidential campaign, just like all other politicians before him.  The difference is that President Trump intended to follow through on every one of them despite a very hostile opposition from the Left and denouncement at nearly all corners from the mainstream leftist media.

The fact that much of his enacted agenda has proven to be very effective and quite popular really enrages our leftist brothers and sisters.  They are incensed that Trump actually meant what he said and followed through on his words, just like Mr. Mueller did in my high school class decades ago.  Those folks that didn’t take them seriously are upset that America is being made great again (by most Americans’ definition) or that they got “F’s”.  I guess they didn’t realize that both President Trump and Mr. Mueller truly meant what they said.

In that regard, I have do have respect for the otherwise arrogant and often obnoxious President Trump,  just like I did for the brusque Mr. Mueller decades earlier.  They meant what they said, and that is indeed not only quite refreshing in this day and age, but sorely needed as well.

PS: As a FYI, September 11, 2018 will be the ninth anniversary of Saving Common Sense.  It will also be the last active day of this blog.  I have yet to decide whether I will remove the blog entirely or simply leave it up and no longer administer to it.   Regardless, I have decided to start a new "kinder and gentler" project in the coming months that will be less political and not dealing with malcontents and haters.  More to come on this soon!  Cheers!