On February 5, 2020, New York state-certified its election results in the state’s 22nd Congressional District, with Republican Claudia Tenney declared the winner, defeating incumbent Congressman Anthony Brindsi by 109 votes.

This process took 94 days.

If you thought that this was the final race of 2020, you would be wrong.

The last contested Congressional race of 2020 is Iowa’s second congressional district. On November 3, 2020, the race was too close to call between Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks, and her Democratic opponent, Rita Hart. After recounts, Iowa’s bipartisan elections board certified the Republican the winner by six votes out of nearly 400,000.

With this certification, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi provisionally seated the Republican Meeks.

Hart formally contested the election results — but not with the state of Iowa, but with the House of Representatives under the Federal Contested Elections Act, which allows the House jurisdiction to settle election disputes for elections to the U.S. House.

On Friday, February 19, the House Administration Committee met to develop its procedures to review Hart’s claim.

What is the procedure? The Committee will set up a task force to oversee an investigation or recount. After the Committee completes its examination of the election, they will issue a report to the full House in a resolution with recommendations. The House then adopts or rejects this resolution by a majority vote. The precedents of the House state that the resolution can:

• dismiss the challenge
• declare which candidate is entitled to the seat
• assert that no one should be seated pending the completion of an investigation
• call for a new election to be held
• refute the challenger as not qualified to contest the election
• provide reimbursement for the contestants from the House’s contingency fund for costs incurred in the contested election process.

Every election cycle has its closest race and has its upset wins, but this process of involving the Federal Contested Elections Act is rare. In the few instances, it has been, the results have been contentious.

In 1996, California Republican Bob Dornan was challenged by Democratic candidate Loretta Sanchez. On election night, Sanchez won by 984 votes and was certified by the California Board of Elections. Dornan then contested the election, alleging that many votes were cast fraudulently by illegal immigrants. Sanchez was seated provisionally, and a 16-month congressional investigation ensued, finding some evidence that 624 votes were cast illegally. California officials also threw out an additional 124 flawed absentee votes. Ultimately, Sanchez was declared the winner (by an albeit) smaller margin.

In 1984, Indiana Democratic Incumbent Frank McCloskey faced Republican Richard McIntyre. McIntyre led on election night and, after a recount, was certified the winner by the Indiana Secretary of State, winning by 34 votes. McCloskey contested the results and brought his case to the House of Representatives. The House Majority (Democratic) refused to seat the Republican. After conducting a recount, the House determined that McCloskey won by four votes. When the House Democrats voted to seat McCloskey, Republicans walked out of the chamber in protest.

Earlier this month, the Democrats took the unusual step of voting to strip a member of the minority party of their committee assignments, removing Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene of her posts. Do the Democrats want to escalate things and now vote to remove a sitting member of the House of Representatives in such partisan and contentious times?

I hope that the committee votes to dismiss Ms. Hart’s suit. We need to put the 2020 election cycle behind us. Like many politicians who have lost a previous race, she can run again in the next election. But if she (and the House Democrats) move forward and ultimately seat her, she will not be deemed a legitimate Congressperson. If Congress overturns these election results, people will lose even more faith in our government, which many already believe is rigged.

America has stood out from the world as a special place of wealth and opportunity. With only two neighbors and two giant oceans on either side, we’ve known America to be a special place in the world and have boasted about it for a century. Then why do we tear ourselves apart?

America has a great flaw. Great athletes, artists, musicians all know what it is (even if they claim not to). It is success that can tempt a person or a people into complacency, risk aversion, and an over-abundance of resources. A lack of resources is the breeding ground for resourcefulness and innovation. The concept of unearned success is one of the main driving force of left-wing criticism (or at least it was until fat shaming and slut shaming became the next moral crusade for upper class white liberals). Our obsession with “privilege” is a symptom of this way of thinking.

Growing up in the 90s, the message delivered to young people a world struggling outside our borders, especially in places like Asia and Africa (but not exclusively). This may have been true in a lot of ways, but if the intended result was to instill humility and gratitude for what we had, it was a complete and total failure. We take almost everything we have today for granted. At some point, the social benefit of denouncing your own country, and not valuing what you have, became the standard for righteous living in the greatest land on earth.

Our culture is completely self-loathing and self-destructive. As a people, we no longer grapple with the kinds of problems humanity dealt with hundreds of thousands of years.  Over one generation (the hippie generation) the Western World managed to escape the terrors of the natural world through great success. Only a fool would think we were ready to handle such a change in so short a time. It’s seemingly driven us mad as we burn cities for 6 months over one bad cop and a man high on fentanyl, as we celebrate all things ugly like morbidly obese women in Calvin Klein ads, and as we play god with racial and sexual power games. Where is this all headed? Is there hope?

America, like the individual, is in need of competition. Without it, we will continue to self destruct. We have been peerless in our endeavors for too long. If we can not teach ourselves to adopt gratitude and drop the shame, it seems like the only cure left is for the rest of the world to catch up. If America can get over itself and realize the world is a competitive place, that is the day America can start injecting rocket fuel into its veins again.

 

 

My 8 year old girl just now:
"Dad, if being white is a choice – why did you make me choose to be white?"

I told her I didn't know I was making that choice and hoped she could one day forgive me.

She said:
"That will depend on how you behave going forward."

I sobbed softly

— Michael (@misterj880) February 20, 2021

A long time reader and commenter sent this email to me on Wednesday.

Dear Bruce,

Thought of you seeing all the Rush hate on Facebook today.

If it weren’t for all the Reagan hate, there’d be no Rush.   When Reagan was in office, there was no Rush. 

Rush’s rise began after Reagan left the White House.

Attacks on Reagan continued.  Reagan was a gentleman.  He knew history would vindicate.

He didn’t think it was his place to fight back.  A former president should avoid the limelight.

Then-President Bush didn’t defend him either.  Some of 41’s team even leaked criticism to the media.

Rush filled the void.  No hatred of Reagan.  No attacks on conservative ideas.  No Rush Limbaugh.

You want to see fewer Rush Limbaughs?  Stop hating on conservatives.  Less media bias = fewer Rushes.

–A Reaganite reader

Amidst a flurry of news this week, one odd story has gone woefully underreported. According to federal court documents, NBC and CNN paid $35,000 each for the footage of a Trump-supporting Air Force veteran being shot and killed by a still-unidentified man during the Capitol riot in January.

John Sullivan, the founder of a group called Insurgence USA, has admitted to a federal court that the news networks paid him handsomely for his recording. Prosecutors also allege that Sullivan “infiltrates protests to cause chaos and record video footage.”

I’m no conspiracy theorist, but something here doesn’t add up. A self-proclaimed anti-Trump activist who incites violence at protests profits from a supposedly pro-trump “insurrection.” And the people who pay him have an incentive to push the “insurrection” narrative for a variety of reasons. That narrative is currently being used to label Republicans and Trump supporters as terrorists and fueling calls for a new “War on Terror” within the United States.

Such rhetoric isn’t new. Back in August of 2020, Nancy Pelosi accused Republicans of being “domestic enemies” and “enemies of the state.” The difference now is that there’s been an incident that far too many people with power are using as “proof” of an enemy within.

What the hell is going on? I’m not sure, but a picture is emerging that, ominously, suggests that there is an enemy within, and it may not be Trump supporters.

Consider:

• The Chief of the Capitol Police on the day of the riot said that they made six requests for National Guard troops in the days leading up to the demonstration, but were denied by both House and Senate Sergeants-at-Arms.
• The story that Officer Brian Sicknick was beaten to death by a bloodthirsty mob has fallen apart, even as it’s been used to pummel Trump supporters.
• We’ve been told over and over that the mob was armed, but Capitol Police have never said how many weapons were confiscated or if any weapons were discharged by their officers or rioters.
• The mysterious pipe bombs found at the DNC and RNC were placed the night before the riots, and even with a massive manhunt and video footage no one has been arrested. It’s also odd that no one noticed suspicious packages outside of such secure buildings anytime during January 6th until after the riot began.
• The man appointed to lead the “9/11-Style commission” looking into the breach at the Capitol called Sen. Josh Hawley a “little piece of shit” and has criticized republicans for years on MSNBC.
• Members of Congress falsely accusing colleagues of offering “reconnaissance tours” prior to the riots

There’s more than this, of course. Like the weird tale of panic buttons being removed from Congressional offices with no proof or follow-up by an oddly incurious media, and AOC’s hallucination of being in danger from rioters who never came near her.

The media has parroted the most outlandish of these stories while refusing to do basic follow-up reporting to get to the truth. And now they’ve paid an anti-Trump agitator a startling sum of money for video he took while he was rioting.

The question we need to ask is Cui Bono? Who benefits? It sure looks and feels like the media, Nancy Pelosi, and the surveillance state demagogues are — to our detriment.

There is some humor to be found in the fact that this latest (hypocritical) charge of racism from China is an ACTUAL cartoon and not just one in its essence. Take a long hard look Democrats, own it – this is your monster.

America is the guy at a bar drowning his suspicions of wife’s infidelity in booze. China is the guy shtooping America’s wife, completely sober, refilling Americas cup. Drunkenly, America tells China EVERYTHING China needs to know to break up the marriage and continue shtooping the wife. We are a joke of a country for allowing this to happen time and time again and it’s because we refuse to take our enemies and adversaries seriously. This should be a wake-up call.

When Democrats and the media rip their own country apart for political gain/ratings using narratives of systemic racism, it takes serious arrogance to not acknowledge our living in a competitive global marketplace.

“Our propaganda is better than YOUR propaganda”. – The World

Yes Democrats, there are countries that exist outside of the US and yes they are playing for keeps (stop giving away the game!). This same mindset extends to our coverage and politics surrounding COVID. We may be the ONLY country to do everything we can to inflate our own numbers and even BRAG about how terrible we are at handling the efforts to stop it. Aside from our President who was roundly mocked and subverted out of office, we did everything BESIDES point out the failures and faults of other countries. Does anyone remember the WHO?

Democrats – when our greatest geopolitical adversary (you know, the one with the ACTUAL concentration camps) is using your own propaganda against the American people and government, it’s time to stop writing their propaganda for them and take a good hard hard look in the mirror.