Some time ago, senate leader mcconnell made a statement that this has been the “ very best year for conservative values”…I firmly believe that the late true conservative Willam F Buckley is turning over in his grave at that. Conservative values then meant governance and responsibility. Today, it means greed, a brutal self serving agenda, disdain for differences and that whole concept of fiscal responsibility has gone the way of respect for any intellectual approach to problem solving.

What we have today is an administration which is driven by ego and which thrives on complete and total chaos. The years of planned and orchestrated obstructionism  paired with widespread fear and ignorance have paid off giving us the most unresponsive administration in history – one which cares naught for anyone other than the gaslighted base which still has not figured out that they have been conned into believing flat out lies. The administration lies about so much on such a frequent basis that they had to some up with the justification that “alternative facts” are an acceptable explanation for their statements. This is an administration which attacks the free press, especially those news bureaus which expose this “emperor with no clothes “ for the fake that he is.This is an administration which will push it’s own clearly authoritarian agenda of hatred regardless of the damage it does to either person or country. It has brought together not the  “ best and the brightest” but rather the most corrupt administration eclipsing  even the Nixon Watergate era. 

We have seen indictments of campaign managers, national security advisors and so called foreign policy advisors. We have seen almost a forty per cent turnover of staff with so few willing to replace them that the oval office is now its own director of communications.  We are seeing unparalleled corruption on the cabinet level , seeing cabinet secretaries flagrantly misuse their office for personal gains and do it with complete immunity, as long as the white house agenda is adhered to. We have seen an occupant of the oval office openly mocking a handicapped reporter and his then campaign manager openly mocking a child with downs syndrome and his parents.

However, with all that and more being said, the worst is now a matter of record and who would ever have thought that the United States would stoop to such depths of inhumanity.What is and has been going on on our Southern border is, by any standard, unimaginable. Children are being taken from their parents and being put in what can only be described as concentration facilities. Parents cannot see them or contact them. Most do not even  know where their children are. In fact, Homeland Security cannot even account for over  fourteen hundred children. These children, raging from aged less than a year to seventeen are being held in facilities fashioned out of abandoned WalMart stores and kept inside for up to twenty-two hours per day. 

When challenged by not only the press – other than fox and friends, of course – but also by churches of all denominations, advocacy groups, corporate CEOs and near anyone with a sense of decency about this horrible policy, the administration line of response is that all the criticisms are fake. They blame a non existent law passed by democrats, stating that it is not policy by rather that law which forces them to separate children from their mothers and fathers. This complete lie is perpetrated by the White House press secretary and the attorney general and the White House chief of staff. It is interesting as, once again, the facts belie the message. This public fabrication continues even in the face of documented proof of it all being the policy of the White House ( policy statement of 2017 ) and the attorney general ( policy memorandum of April 2018).  Joining in this continuing fabrication is the newest cabinet member of the corruption team,  Secretary Kirsten Nielsen, also a second generation immigrant, who strongly espoused the policy,  pulling that old national security rabbit out of the hat.

These senior administration appointees will, with not batting an eyelash, counter any criticism with the fake news line they have resorted to on every occasion of any criticism and add that the public simply cannot believe the reports and actual on the scene accounts, but cannot believe the pictures and sound recordings either. Sadly, a sizable portion of the public – the electorate public –  is accepting of all of this.

The outrage, to date, may be having some effect and perhaps we may see some change. Nevertheless, to thousands of children, the damage – severe damage has been done and there is never, we repeat, never any justification for any of this. It was all a policy formulated to force congress to pay for a Wall between the U S and Mexico – the wall which then candidate trump swore he would build and that Mexico would pay for.  Secretary nielsen says “ it is offensive to suggest that trump administration is purposefully separating children from their parents ”. We know it is purposeful. We know it was and is calculated. Yes, this horrible, barbaric, cruel and inhumane policy was all used to blackmail congress in to satisfying a thin skinned ego and an ignorant supporting electorate in order to secure reelection. 

So, if the “best year for conservative values” means attacking the country and its governing system, constantly and continually lying to the public, disrespecting different cultures and religions, having a deep disdain for the less fortunate and attacking the free press in its quest for the truth- well, it’s all just  criminally insane, nothing less.

In 1965, the Johnson administration enacted the Voting Rights Act, which was passed in 1964 with the express purpose of protecting the rights granted under the 15th Amendment.  A key section was section 4(b)  of Section 5 of the Act which was  designed to protect groups from discrimination based on race or language minority and required pre clearance of changes on voting practices and procedures based on the track record of certain states – nine to be exact – with oversight being from the Department of Justice.                                                                      In 2013, the Roberts Court deemed that section unconstitutional and, in Shelby County v Holder, it struck down that section as being not responsive to current needs. It was almost like the court thought that discrimination in the voting place was not a pressing issue, even in the face of the growing tide of blatant voter suppression in Alabama, North Carolina, Kansas  and Arizona. Other than the Citizens United decision, this may have been the worst decision by the Roberts court to date. Almost immediately, in many red states, including those nine which were under those earlier pre clearance requirements , pending and new voter id laws, scheduling revisions, and other restrictions began to be implemented.

What followed was a widespread, calculated aggressive campaign to limit access to voting in minority and other heavily democratic communities. All during the run up to the 2016 election, we were bombarded with completely unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud. The GOP continually blasted blue states, alleging that they allowed illegal immigrants and other non citizens to vote. When it was all over, the eventual winner whined that he did not win the popular vote because over three million “illegals” voted in California alone, thus adding fuel to the already intense xenophobia fire. In response to that allegation, the administration established the Commission on Election Integrity, headed up by the king of anti-immigrant legislation and policies, Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas and the author of the infamous Arizona SB1070. With all intent of requiring major purges of voter roles in particularly blue states, the Commission met with such backlash from over twenty-six states, that the Commission was disbanded.  In the end, perhaps the Secretary’s adhering to several conspiracy theories came back to haunt him. The idea of voter roles being controlled by Washington instead of by the states simply would not fly and that effort was curtailed.

For now, outright voter suppression from inside the beltway was on hold. However, the fall out from Shelby vs Holder was still simmering and state legislatures were busy formulating subtle ways of denying the right to vote to large segments of the population. By no means is the fight over and now, another force facing the protection of the right to vote has emerged.

At this point, there are two compelling issues facing what is left of our democratic election system. The first revolves around voter registration, the integrity of voter information and of course, voter turn out. The barriers highlighted above notwithstanding, it is imperative that both parties, but particularly the democrats, need to be about voter registration and they need to be all about the integrity of the voting process on the state level. Too often there have been numerous issues with things like switching of polling places at the last possible hour, confusion regarding provisional ballots and absentee ballots along with  the actual loss of signature pages for ballot initiatives. A prime example might be the curious finding of over nine hundred “misplaced “ ballots in the governor recall election in Wisconsin – a find which allowed the governor to beat the recall and the election stood in spite of the interesting history of a certain county election clerk. In that same light, the democrats need to be about the formulating of a clear and relevant message – something which they did not have in the 2016 election and certainly still do not have – but that’s an issue for another time.

The second of these compelling issues is that of the interference by a foreign government in the 2016 election. Intelligence agencies both here and abroad all agree that our election system was tampered with and while it may or may not have actually caused a change in the eventual outcome, it most certainly did influence it.  This very point has been definitively confirmed by the recently released senate committee report which completely supports the IC assessments. It also shatters the excuse for the totally biased, partisan excuse for a report which came form the House Committee . 

What is astounding are two key points. One is that the current administration is still completely adverse to admitting that there was meddling in the 2016 election and that Russia and Russian hackers were in fact behind it all.  Perhaps there was collusion between the GOP campaign and Russia, perhaps not. However,  there is no question that interference in the election process both by utilizing trolls and hackers and by the manipulation of certain social media  platforms did happen. 

Secondly, there is likewise agreement among the intelligence community that this interference is continuing and the administration has, to date, either failed or consciously decided to not take any action to  either curtail or eliminate this  attack on our election process. While there is some talk about the issue, or more accurately talk around it, neither the executive branch nor the legislative branch has seen fit to formulate a plan of action on this serious matter. It is abundantly clear that the administration has chosen to continue to deny the existence of foreign meddling and that there was any collusion between the GOP and Russia. The message is on going and continual and constant and congress has chosen to either follow that message or to completely ignore the facts of the matter, opting to subscribe to the whole idea of a  “witch hunt” and the whole “deep state” conspiracy theory. It seems that not only does the White House get its message from Fox and Friends, but congress does as well. One has to ask the question – just how much does Russia hold over the oval office and over key members of congress ?

At this point in time, one has to have serious concern about the future – both the immediate mid term election cycle and the upcoming election cycle in 2020. Will future elections be bought and sold even more so than they already are ? Will future elections be swayed or even determined by outside influences, particularly by foreign governments who at least currently have widespread if not sympathizers at least deniers that a problem exists ? We as a nation are at a more than significant crossroad and which path we choose will determine the fate of our very form of government. It is indeed that serious and all need to be seriously concerned.