In a democracy, Congressmen and women are supposed to be public servants, drawn from the body politic, not career politicians. That's why the Representatives have to stand for re-election every two years. The Founders figured that was about how long they could serve without getting corrupted-- and they were RIGHT. Senators, who have to be at least 35 years old, they presumed would be wiser and better able to resist temptation, so they gave them a term of six years. That may have been too long, judging from the results. Example: Orin Hatch ran originally on a platform of TERM LIMITS! His campaign slogan for his first campaign was, "24 years is long enough". That's how long his opponent had served. I think he was sincere. Hatch retired as one of the longest-serving Senators in history. Power corrupts.

Without incumbency, wouldn't our government be unstable? It's SUPPOSED to be. It is supposed to be able to quickly adapt to the changing needs of the people. Can't do that with career politicians in charge. We weren't supposed to have political parties, either...

I like the way incumbency is handled in Chile: Their president can serve two terms, like ours, but in Chile, the two terms cannot be consecutive. I'd go for a similar rule for ALL elected Federal offices. Send No One Back!

Just a thought: If Trump had known he could not run again in 2020, would he have pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden?  Two whole Impeachment circuses could have been avoided. Without incumbency, there would have been no Gulf War, no Watergate, no Kennedy assassination. Truman would never have been president. Hiroshima would not have happened. Russia might never have even heard of the atomic bomb. The Cold War might have been avoided. Lincoln would not have been assassinated, Reconstruction would not have happened, maybe even Sherman's march through the South, leaving a swath of death and destruction, might have been avoided. These are all terrible things that did happen, BECAUSE AN INCUMBENT PRESIDENT WAS RE-ELECTED. Read history. 

The best part is, such a change does not require term limits, a Constitutional amendment, or even the agreement of a single politician--just determination from the voters. We, the People, can effect this change ourselves! And it's simple and easy: just don't vote for any incumbents. That's all. SEND NO ONE BACK! 

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Liberal Magazine Calls Out the CDC Over School Mask Mandate Study

The Atlantic, known as a liberal-leaning journal, has published a piece titled, “The CDC’s Flawed Case for Wearing Masks in School.” For details I found extremely interesting, see: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/mask-guidelines-cdc-walensky/621035/.

Briefly, the article states that the CDC’s case is based on an extremely flawed research study that CDC says demonstrates a more than triple risk of Covid outbreaks at schools without mask mandates in Arizona, compared to schools there with mask mandates in place. While other, similar studies from around the world do show some such correllation, the increased risks in the other studies are in the 21% to 35% range, not 350% as in the Arizona study. There seem to be MANY major flaws in the study’s methodology, it has not been peer reviewed, and it’s an extreme outlier. Many of the study’s target schools were not actually open during the testing period, for example, and several are not even actual schools, but simply academic programs listed by the Arizona Department of Education.  Both the CDC and the study authors refused to provide any of their actual data for the Atlantic’s experts to check. 

To be perfectly clear, there is ample evidence that masks, especially surgical masks, can help prevent the spread of disease. That’s why surgeons wear them. But the lack of rigor, transparency, and common sense render this study completely useless as a basis for national policy-making. It does, however, align closely with the Biden administration’s previously announced policies. It seems that Biden, like Trump, is not averse to using junk science to support his agendas. Both administrations have greatly undermined public confidence in the supposedly non-political CDC, and in medical science as well.

The "War" on Abortion

In a recent New York Times editorial about the status of abortion titled, “We’re Edging Closer to Civil War.” opinion writer Charles M. Blow admits, after more than 500 words of ranting about the evils of slavery, “The civil war I see is not the kind that would leave hundreds of thousands of young men dead in combat. That is not to say that we aren’t seeing spates of violence but rather that this new war will be fought in courts, statehouses and ballot boxes, rather than in the fields.”

Mr. Blow has excellent credentials as a writer, commentator, and graphic artist, but I have been unable to discover where he obtained his expertise in warfare. He doesn’t seem to have served in the military, or to have studied military history. It shows. It shows especially when he compares disputes settled “in courts, statehouses and ballot boxes” to war. Anyone who has ever been in a war knows that in war, disputes are settled with bullets, not ballots. By force of violence, not by force of law.

Comparing legal maneuvering in courts and legislatures to the most deadly and violent war in the entire history of the United States is simply obscene. More American soldiers died in the Civil War than in both world wars together. More American non-combatants died in the Civil War than in all other US wars in history, combined. How many of the legislators, lawyers, or their clients in Mr. Blow’s “abortion civil war” have been killed, disabled, or maimed for life in the conflict? How many cities have been destroyed? It’s a dispute, but it’s not a war.

Charles M. Blow is well-known as a writer, especially about LGBTQ+ politics. As an experienced political commentator, he may have great expertise about politics. I wouldn’t know; I’m not a politician. Being an openly avowed bisexual, Mr. Blow obviously knows lots more about LGBTQ+ issues than I do. But I am a combat veteran. In equating courtroom drama to the Civil War, Mr. Blow insults everyone who has ever worn a uniform. In publishing his nonsense, the New York Times is giving us all, what I cannot resist calling, “a real Blow job.” 

How to Be a LOSER in Twelve Steps

 1. Lose the 2020 presidential election by a margin you called “a landslide” when that same margin was in your favor in 2016.

2. Sue to overturn the election results in sixty court cases. Lose fifty-nine of them by failing to provide any evidence in your favor. Win one on a technicality, still with no evidence.

3. Claim you won the election anyway, due to “massive voter fraud” for which no one can find any evidence, despite multiple recounts and investigations by your own supporters.

4. Pressure state officials, governors, and legislators to overturn the election results in their states, although there is no legal way for them to do that. Threaten their lives, positions, and families.

5. Claim that voting machines, the US Postal Service, and a dead, foreign dictator conspired to interfere with the election, based on no evidence whatsoever.

6. Send slates of unelected “electors” to enter the Electoral College by force and cast illegal votes for you. When police repulse them, claim the Electoral College is partisan.

7. Appeal the election results to the Supreme Court, twice. Lose both appeals, even though six of the nine Justices are of your party, and three are your own appointees.

8. When challenged on national tv to order your paramilitary followers to “stand down,” tell them instead to “stand by,” a military term meaning, “remain ready for action”. Urge them to come to Washington on January 6, 2021 to stop Congress from certifying the election.

9. Accuse the winner of stealing the election. Accuse your own Vice President of treason and call for his lynching when he refuses to throw out legitimate Electoral College votes. Claim it was his refusal, not your attempted coup, that caused the January 6 Capitol riot, which you did nothing to stop for six hours.

10. When a fourth recount, funded by your party and unabashedly partisan, officially reports that you lost the election in Maricopa County, Arizona, and that there was no fraud, swear the report actually said the opposite. Accuse every news media on earth of misreporting the results.

11: Cost your party their Senate majority by boycotting two special elections. Threaten to boycott the next two general elections unless your party supports all your lies, claims, and accusations.

12: Drive away your most powerful supporters in your own administration, the House and Senate, the US Supreme Court, the military, and the governors and legislatures of all fifty states, for being “inadequately supportive” of your outrageous, autocratic tactics. Because. You’re. A. LOSER!

Security agent or terrorist? You decide.

On Friday, police stopped Wesley Alan Beeler at a US Capitol checkpoint, because he had a pro-gun bumper sticker on his truck. When asked, he admitted he was carrying a loaded Glock and five hundred rounds of ammunition. He was arrested for carrying a firearm without a DC license, even though he is registered in neighboring Virginia as a private security agent licensed to carry firearms on the job. Washington, DC does not permit “open carry” of firearms.

Stopping suspicious characters who may be plotting further insurrections during a presidential inauguration is good. But arresting bona fide security agents doing their job, for what amounts to a legal technicality, does nothing to enhance Capitol security, and only contributes to a further alienation of the people from their government. They could have simply confiscated the “contraband” weapons and ammunition, which would have defused the entire situation, without making what is literally a federal case out of it. It is exactly this sort of over-reaction that has half the country so angry at their national government. 

Richard Barnett is getting off lightly

 Richard Barnett, the guy with his feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk during the storming of the Capitol, has been charged with minor offenses. He claimed he took an envelope from her desk as a souvenir, but that it wasn’t theft, because he left a quarter on her desk. Taking something that doesn't belong to you without permission is still theft, despite its lack of value. As a souvenir of the historic storming of the Capitol, it may even be valuable to a collector. Perhaps valuable enough to count as grand theft. I wonder if he knows how lightly he’s getting off.

He could be charged with grand theft, criminal trespass, burglary, and insurrection. I looked up their definitions and penalties in the District of Columbia. If a prosecutor wanted to make an example of Mr. Barnett, he could be facing sentences totaling more than sixty years in federal prison. Parole is not allowed in federal cases.

Even then, he’d be lucky. Taking part in an attack on Congress, causing Congressional leaders and the Vice President to flee for their lives, might be construed as treason. The Constitutional penalty for treason is death. In the past, even those barely associated with treason have hanged.