Smoke Screens

For the past two plus years there have been some six thousand investigations into whether or not President Trump colluded with “Vladimir Baby” vis à vis the 2016 Presidential election. Now that the Mueller investigation appears to have ended there are several members of the House calling for additional hearings and new investigations. It may go on forever.

This has been serious business. The proceedings were costly, time consuming and continued to hold our attention. They also divided the nation. After all, we were talking about democracy, the right to vote, honest elections and on and on. Small wonder we all were so concerned.

But let’s stop and think for a moment. Should we really be so concerned? Or are we concerned with the wrong issues? Perhaps some politicians of BOTH PARTIES want our attention focused on this issue and not on other voting concerns which are not only real … but clearly provable.

The state of California has just lost a very lengthy and costly legal battle defending their voter registrations and rolls. They lost in the State Supreme Court and have been compelled to remove as many as 1.5 million potentially invalid names from their voter registration rolls …. repeat over one million names from their rolls! This still leaves, according to other ongoing suits, more voters registered in Los Angeles than the city has voters of voting age. Fifty-eight counties statewide exceed 100 percent of the rolls! Only one out of every five counties has removed a name from their rolls in over twenty years. Who says the dead can’t vote?!

California is not the only state that is in court over its voter registration rolls. As I write, Ohio and Kentucky are battling over their voter rolls under the Federal National Voting Rights Act. Georgia also has a rafter of problems. Other states are about to be sued under the same federal act.

And while this corruption continues, we have members of Congress demanding we lower the voting age to sixteen and others insisting we allow illegal aliens the right to vote. Still others want all forms of voter registration dropped and voter requirements lowered even further. No pictures, no proof of citizenship or residency, they claim, should be required. Let’s change the Constitution. Let’s steal some elections.

And with all this self righteous concern no one seems concerned with the fact that Hillary Clinton was provided with the questions for her debates with Trump by a CNN employee, Donna Brazile (Now a Fox contributor!). Nor has been there much noise about the huge sums of money poured into BOTH PARTIES by those who might seek political favor.

Another smoke screen worth mentioning is “The Wall.” There is a huge debate going on in regard to a wall on our southern border. I am not talking morality, I am talking money… what it will cost. Many are horrified that we would spend soooooooooo much money on this proposed wall. But before you make a decision, let me point out that the nation spends more every year on sound barriers on our interstate highways than the total estimated cost of this barrier! President Trump could easily cancel the order for one of the two new Air Force Ones, use the savings to pay for “The Wall” and still have money to spare. And Congress could stop wasting millions on unfounded investigations and entitlement programs. A little economy in government would also help.

I don’t want to get into politics but enough is enough We are being manipulated. I have written about it (Sound the Alarm, September 2018) before. There are many in our government who have never respected the will of the people nor their votes. Campaigns occur and elections occur and, when they are all over, this Management Team remains only to continue on as it pleases doing business as usual.

For better or worse, this changed with the election of Donald Trump. As I stated, the Management Team was horrified and angry with both the results and the people who voted for him. Love the man, or despise him … he won under the ground rules established by our forefathers.

So, the “Team” went to war with the voters and the results even before Trump took office. Members of government in both the FBI, the Justice Department, members of Congress, and MOST IMPORTANT, much of the PRESS have spent over two years lying and misrepresenting to the American public, all along attempting to distort reality. But the real tragedy is that they were willing to destroy the Office of the Presidency as well as the President himself. They almost succeeded.

I will say no more about this because you either accept or reject my entire premise. Many who didn’t may be rethinking their opinion now that the Mueller Report has been released. The real issue isn’t Donald Trump. The real issue is our very democracy. As I said, love him or hate him, the nation will survive.

This brings me to my final issue. The Press is meant to report, not make up, create or control, the news. When my daughter was in college, in Boston, working on a degree in Journalism, she was told that the press is meant to be “adversarial.” That’s what made this nation so special. The press, all branches, were our bastion for keeping us on the straight and narrow.

Our papers, many talk shows, and our cable news stations have forgotten their role. And the worst offender of all, in my opinion, is CNN. They continue, even as I write, to bring on malcontents and haters to their various round tables of distorted information daily. The more hateful, bizarre, distorted or biased, the better. Stormy Daniels and her lawyer appeared almost one hundred times! (Her lawyer, Mr. Avenatti and his co-conspirator, Mark Garagos, a CNN legal analyst, are now facing federal arrest.) This is a free country. If they are not breaking the law with their high jinks so be it. If they are, prosecute the offenders.

But, and THIS is my message, I DON’T want to hear this crap. While I can turn it off at home I am still being bombarded in airports, restaurants, bowling alleys, doctor offices, motels, etc., etc. So I have launched my own crusade. Whenever I go into any public place or business establishment where they are playing this crap I politely ask they change channels. I don’t suggest an alternative, I just request they get CNN out of my face. Most of the time management is stunned and will do so. If they refuse, I leave. So simple, so polite, so non-confrontational. So effective. Yeh, it seems to work.

I have recently been in four Burger Kings and one pizza spot that no longer show CNN. And I have just asked Southwest to take the station off their monitors in airports. I have a lot of stamps and plenty of paper, my crusade has just begun.

As an aside, I am creating a website for others to visit should they share, or oppose, my views. It will be separate and distinct from our printed products. So stay tuned, more details next month. It may get interesting.

Allen Herman
Your opinions are always welcomed.
uptightsuburban@aol.com