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LONG-RANGE STRATEGIC PLANNING AND THE GREEN MOVEMENT

The ability to conduct long-range strategic planning is a critical component for the success of any large organization.  The US government is a large, very large, organization with almost zero demonstrated ability to build and execute a long-range strategic plan, (hereafter, LRSP).  What does that have to do with the Biden administrations Green movement?  Everything.

Aside from the Defense Department, politicians and government bureaucrats generally have little or no training or experience in strategic planning.  Here is how government “planning” too often works: a politician gets the ball rolling with an idea which morphs into a political movement and may take on a life of its own.  Then, it may become a House/Senate bill consisting of a several hundred-page to-do list.  After becoming law, it is passed on to government bureaucrats who implement with perhaps thousands of pages of instructions, regulations and new organizations.  All of this without a clue as to whether the original idea is doable because they missed the first step in LRSP which consists of executing a very deliberate up-front process to determine the viability of the idea, the art of the possible. 

Let’s begin with a short tutorial to describe what LRSP is all about.  In its simplest form it is just the answers to the following questions: who, what, when, where, why and how.

Strategic planning must always begin at the end with a coherent vision of the end-state; one that can be clearly articulated in a sentence or two.  This first step is a must-do because of the truth in the old saying, “if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

The very next step is to conduct an exhaustive review of limiting factors.  For example, does the science exist to make it happen?  Can we find and hire the necessary expertise?  Do the raw materials exist in the quantities we will need now and for decades ahead?  Will the price of our product be reasonable enough for success?  What will the competition do?  What is the viability of the market for our product? And on and on and on until leaders get to the point where they can determine if the idea is a viable vision or hallucination. It is all about the art of the possible. 

To illustrate the above brief comments on the subject of LRSP, let’s look at President Biden’s declaration that we will, “Achieve 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035″, “Net-zero emissions by 2050” and “Cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030”.  Along with those goals, Democrats are pushing to have a majority of US-manufactured cars be electric by 2030 and every car on the road to be electric by 2040.  In total that says to we-the-people, shut down the coal/oil/gas-fired electric producing plants and drive electric cars.  Are we to believe those statements/directives in any way represent the results of an all-inclusive LRSP?  No; not only no but hell no, not even close.

Let’s say that instead of making the above announcement to everyone, President Biden said to his Secretary of Energy, Granholm, “ put together a LRSP for those issues”.  If the president had set in motion a comprehensive LRSP on energy, what follows is some of what the planners would be considering with their questions, discussions, research and findings. 

 In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Mark Mills brought to light the fact that the International Energy Agency (IEA), generally regarded as the world’s most important source for energy information, recently released a 287-page report entitled, The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions.   

Here are some highlights and lowlights from that IEA report. 

• Transitioning from today’s energy production (coal, oil, gas, nuclear) to clean energy (wind, solar, batteries) requires minerals, lots of minerals such as lithium, graphite, nickel and what are called, “rare-earth metals”.  Demand will explode by an estimated 4,200% (lithium), 2,500% (graphite), 1,900% (nickel) and 700% (rare-earth metals).  Supply and demand drive pricing. When these dramatic increases occur and with greater competition for the metals, what will happen to the price of these minerals, and hence the price of a battery-powered car? Raw material costs already account for some 50-70% of total battery costs. 

• All of this mining requires a mining industry, massive transportation, refinement facilities and infrastructure to support them that does not exist and there are no plans to build them.  And to do so will cost a least hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars.

• Production of an electric car requires six times more minerals than a conventional car.  An on-shore wind plant requires nine times more minerals than a natural gas fired plant and a wind turban will need to be replaced in an estimated 20 years.  In just the past ten years, as the transition to wind and solar has begun, the minerals needed to produce a unit of energy has increased by 50%.  And that effort only increased the wind and solar share of energy production by 10%.

• With greater demand for minerals there is another long-range consideration, declining resource quality.  Already we are experiencing mineral quality falling across a range of commodities. For example, the average copper ore grade in Chile declined by 30% in just the past 15 years. 

• The IEA reported that on average it takes over sixteen years to move a mining operation from discovery to production. 

• Environmental consequences:  The new demand for minerals creates a global mining boom that will produce an enormous environmental footprint.  First, it demands huge quantities of water and, coincidently, about half the known global lithium and copper sources are in water-shortage areas.  Additionally, there will be extensive contamination from acid mining, contaminated drainage and wastewater.

• The IEA points out that the mining of “energy transition minerals” will occur mainly in countries with “low governance scores”.  That is, where corruption and bribery pose high-risk operations.

• Viability of access to “energy-transition-minerals”, ETM:  While the top three global oil and gas producers account for less than 50% of oil and gas supply, the top three producers of key ETMs control more that 80% of global supply.  But, most importantly, China controls most of that 80% and today the US isn’t even in the game.

• To contrast our position today with China, America is now 100% dependent on imports for some 17 key minerals, and, for another 29, over half of our needs are imported thereby creating tremendous vulnerability.

• The IEA report also poses a critical question on future net carbon savings. Mining, transporting, chemical processing and refining of billions of tons of earth materials will create a new and massive carbon footprint which could conceivably create new carbon emissions in greater volume than that which is saved by driving electric cars.

• What do we do when we run out of one or more of the essential minerals to support battery energy?

• What if the cost of producing batteries for vehicles increases the cost of a vehicle out of the range of lower- and middle-class families?

• The planners would look at the Paris Global Climate Accords and conclude that the accords do nothing to address the IEA revealed shortcomings.  Nations set their own goals, nothing is enforceable and there are no penalties for noncompliance. The accords also state that the 139 “developing countries” (which, according to The World Bank, includes China and India) would need assistance from “developed” countries. Wherein India promptly estimated that it would need “at least US $2.5 trillion” in aid by 2030 to achieve its emissions reduction targets.” And then there is China’s “pledge”; they will build hundreds of new coal-fired plants and continue to increase emissions of carbon dioxide at least until 2030.

• Vehicles currently account for about 30% of US carbon emissions.  A single electric car battery weighing 1,000 pounds requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of materials creating a huge carbon footprint.  Averaged over a battery’s 7–10-year life, each mile of driving an electric car “consumes” five pounds of earth and, Americans alone, drive some 3 trillion road-miles a year. 

• Replacing the energy output from a single 100-MW natural gas-fired turbine, itself about the size of a residential house (producing enough electricity for 75,000 homes), requires at least 20 wind turbines, each one about the size of the Washington Monument, occupying some 10 square miles of land, requires some 30,000 tons of iron ore and 50,000 tons of concrete, as well as 900 tons of nonrecyclable plastics for the huge blades. With solar hardware, the tonnage in cement, steel, and glass is 150% greater than for wind, for the same energy output.  

• Could we learn some long-range strategic planning lessons from China?  In two generations, China has built 500 entire cities from scratch; moved the majority of their1.4 billion population from poverty to the middle class; initiated a global Silk Road infrastructure initiative in underdeveloped countries.  By comparison China has 40,000 kilometers of high-speed rail, the US has none; it took ten years for a bus line in San Francisco to pass its environmental review; and it took us 16 years to build the Big Dig tunnel in Boston. China’s emergence as a world leader in commerce and military preparedness is all about long-range strategic planning on a global scale.

Long-range strategic planning begins by answering a long list of questions.  This International Energy Agency study goes a long way towards surfacing the critical issues that must be considered to determine a way ahead for any Green movement without just borrowing trillions of dollars to throw at the problem.

This LRSP will demand that we take a close look at the electric vehicle issue. 

• One electric car battery, weighs in at about 1000 pounds.  To produce one battery requires digging up and processing about 500,000 pounds of raw materials such as cadmium, cobalt, lead, lithium, and nickel. For example, for some of these type materials, the end product is about one half of one percent of the weight of the material dug out of the ground.

• Numbers of vehicles:  US has about 290 million, there are over 1 billion world-wide.

• There is some mind-numbing math associated with electric vehicles: Vehicles in the US travel about 3 trillion miles per year.  Divide that by 290 million vehicles and we have 10,344 miles per vehicle per year.  The average elective vehicle can travel about 200-300 miles and then must be recharged.  That means each vehicle battery must be charged about 40 times per year. Forty charges per year for 290 million US vehicles equals 11.6 billion charging actions.

• CO2 emissions from vehicles is not just a U.S. problem.  To achieve success all nations need to be involved. To that point, there are about one billion vehicles in the world today. It would take 250 billion tons of materials to build a battery for every car, once. Currently, electric car battery life is seven to ten years and then we need to dig another 250 billion tons, and again and again.  Is that feasible? By the way, replacing one vehicle battery-pack currently costs anywhere from $1000 to $6000.  In years ahead when the demand for raw materials increases exponentially, will battery costs be prohibitive for lower and middle-class income families?

Where does the electricity come from to achieve the total annual charging requirements as well as all the other electrical needs?  in the Green movement world, it comes from solar and wind production which leads us to more mind-numbing numbers about the tons of minerals to build wind and solar produced electricity.

• The American Wind Energy Association says it takes somewhere in the range of 200 to 230 tons of steel to make a single wind turbine. The steel tower is anchored in a platform of more than a thousand tons of concrete and steel rebar, 30 to 50 feet across and anywhere from 6 to 30 feet deep. Add to that 45 tons of nonrecyclable plastic blades and 2 tons of rare-earth elements. Then after a life-cycle of around 20 years, start over.

• If we want wind to produce half the world’s electricity, we will need to build about 3 million more turbines. Three million turbines at 230 tons of steel each equals about 690 million tons of steel.  To produce steel for one turbine requires about 150 tons of coking coal and about 300 tons of iron ore, all mined, transported thereby producing hydrocarbons.  Will battery-powered vehicles actually give us net zero carbon emissions? Probably not.

• More bad news.  Cement is the second most-consumed resource in the world, with more than 4 billion tons produced globally every year which generates about 8% of global carbon emissions. Then there are the emissions from all the trucks, trains, ships, bulldozers, cranes, and other equipment involved in turbine construction. Again, what will be the net carbon reduction?

• Another downside to wind is that the turbines are so preposterously expensive that no one would dream of building one unless they were guaranteed a huge government subsidy, also known as tax dollars.   

• Another disturbing question; what do we do for power when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine?  The most obvious answer is that we must maintain, at all times, a fully operational backup power source. Or do we just heat half the houses, run half the manufacturing plants, recharge half the vehicles and cell phones?  Because of the requirement for near 100% backup, some experts predict a wind farm’s power will actually cost around $25,000 for every home it powers.

• The discussion of cement/steel requirement for energy from wind are sobering.  I’m sorry to report that energy from solar power requires even more cement and steel than wind turbines to produce the same amount of electricity.  Additionally, production of solar panels requires large amounts of silver and indium.  Mining of these metals is expected to increase by 250% and 1200% respectively over the next twenty years and some day we will likely run out of both. 

• Solar panels require other “rare-earth” elements which are not currently mined in the US.  Demand for these elements is expected to rise 250-1000% by 2050.  Access to these metals is questionable.  For example, the Republic of the Congo produces 70% of the world’s raw cobalt and China controls 90% of cobalt refining. 

And then there are the geopolitical issues associated with global mining of essential minerals to support the gas emission goals issued by the Paris Accords and the Biden administration. What leverage do we have over China to cause them to give us access to the rare metals they control in Africa?  Probably none. Will future wars be fought over control of essential mineral deposits?  Could be.

The carbon gas issue is a global problem; If the US goes to zero carbon it will not solve the problem unless the other 194 countries become major contributors.  So, what if the answer to the math problem tells us there is only enough required minerals on earth to provide a battery to the world’s vehicle fleet only once or twice or ten times.  If that is true, and it could be, by the end of this century hundreds of millions of electric vehicles will be in the scrap heap and we will be desperately trying to rebuild the gas and oil industry and cars to again run on gas. 

The point being, we must have those answers and empty political sound bites will not provide them. 

What will our electric bill look like in a carbon free society?  For example, last year about 400,000 natural gas workers produced about 35% of U.S. electric power.  The same size labor force, 400,000, accounted for solar’s miniscule 0.9% share. When it comes to solar energy, the outrageous production-to-labor-force ratio is a glaring and expensive.

There are nations that are actively studying the electric vehicle issue; according to a British Professor Kelly, if all of the UK vehicle fleet is replaced with electronic vehicles, they would need the following materials: about twice the annual global production of cobalt; three quarters of the world’s production of lithium carbonate; nearly the entire world’s production of neodymium; and more than half the world’s production of copper.  And this is just for the UK’s 32 million vehicles.

OK, you get the picture, there is a tremendous amount of research that must go into the up-front part of LRSP before the leader begins making promises he/she cannot possibly deliver. 

The above questions, discussions and discovery is just a small fraction of what the planners would look at for weeks or months just to determine the answer to one question, is this a viable vision or is it hallucination?

All of this data leads us back to the question, can we spend trillions of dollars in support of a political-motivated soundbite that may or may not produce a net loss of carbon emissions and/or may not be feasible given the known quantities of minerals needed?

Recall up front I described the LRSP process as simply answering the questions: who, what, when, where, why, and how.  Vision is WHERE the leader is taking the organization. If the vision statement is viable, here is a quick look at how the remainder of the LRSP process will unfold. The next step is mission.  

Mission answers WHAT.  Mission is a declaration to everyone in the organization, in this case that would be we-the-people, of WHAT it is we are all collectively going to do. Mission is not a paragraph, it is a single, clear, understandable statement.

One of the most memorable and important mission statements in our history was delivered on 25 May,1961 by President Kennedy before a joint session of congress; “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon.” Brief, clear, concise, memorable, repeatable, inspirational and, most importantly, believed to be within the art of the possible. 

Next is the leader’s statement of intent.  Intent is the most powerful tool available to a leader.  A leader who uses intent in strategic planning is letting everyone in the organization inside his or her head.  Intent answers WHO, WHEN and WHY.  Intent is a few short paragraphs, preferably less than one page.  Brevity and clarity are paramount.  Who is going to be in charge?  What is the timeline from vision to execution?  Why are we doing this?  During World War II, General Eisenhower famously said, “American soldiers will do anything you ask of them as long as you tell them why.” 

The hardest part of any LRST is the strategy piece, determining HOW we are going to proceed from vision to execution; how, in general terms, we are going to get to the end state.  Strategy is the long pole in the tent. Without a solid strategy, all we have is empty rhetoric.  Unfortunately, many times (particularly in Washington) the strategy is left out of the planning process and without the “how” the process just flounders and ultimately fails, having wasted billions or in this case perhaps trillions of dollars in a failed project.

A LRSP will be a phased operation.  It’s a little bit like getting on an airliner; you can’t get a boarding pass until you make a reservation.  You can’t go through security until you get a boarding pass. You can’t get on the airplane until you go through security.  Phases are absolutely essential and they will be based on objectives achieved, or time-phased or both. 

A second reason for phasing is that on day-one of plan execution there is a lot you may not yet know, but more importantly, especially early in the game, you may not know what you don’t know.  

In every phase there will be a deliberate process orchestrated by the leader to determine centers of gravity for each new approaching phase.  Centers of gravity are persons, places, things or circumstances that are central to success.  That is, they can significantly assist in success or can cause failure.  Once determined, the centers of gravity become must-watched issues. 

LRSP is not rocket science but it can be the key to success for any long-range significant undertaking.  In organizations where LRSP is not routinely used (the federal government), that organization will flounder and waste unimaginable amounts of time, energy and money.   

THREE FINAL THOUGHTS:

It is a certainty that the scope of increased mining to satisfy mineral requirements will create an enormous, new carbon footprint.  The question is, from the totality of the Green movement, will there be a net overall reduction in carbon gases? This must be determined by scientists and engineers, not politicians.  We-the-people need to know the answer.  And we need to know now.

Secondly, generally speaking the Green movement is based on a false premise and false promises.  A principle underpinning of the pro-green argument is that the energy source is “renewable.”  Technically, yes wind and sun are renewable.  But, in the larger sense, in order to harness that renewable wind and sun it will be necessary to mine, transport and refine literally billions of tons of minerals, many of which are already classified as “rare.”  For example, the world needs about 3 million more wind turbines in order to produce 50% of the world’s electric needs.  To build 3 million turbines will require mining of about 1 billion tons of iron ore and not one ounce of that iron ore is “renewable.”  Then, in about 20 years we replace all 3 million worn out wind turbines with another billion tons of iron ore. 

Finally, the vast majority of the 195 countries cannot afford any of the Green movement.  Do we print a few extra trillion dollars to bankroll them into Green compliance?

We-the-people need an in-progress-review briefing from our leaders on the status of the long-range strategic plan for the Green movement.  Don’t hold your breath. 

P.S. For anyone looking for a detailed discussion of how to lead an organization and conduct long-range strategic planning, try reading Vision to Execution, a book for leader.  Available on Amazon books. 

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of Vision to Execution a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com

SYSTEMIC RACISM.

Background:  There has been systemic racism, at least on a regional level, in the United States.  A nation that tolerates slavery is undeniably racists. 1865/post-Civil War; denying liberties for freed slaves in the former Confederate states was systemic racism. 1864/post-Civil War; Democrat-led proliferation of KKK organizations in nearly every county in the deep south was systemic racism. 1865-1964, for 99 years an underpinning of the Democrat party platform was segregation.  That was pure, unadulterated, unambiguous, in-your-face systemic racism.

In 2016 Hillary Clinton set the stage for a new way to define racism with these prepared remarks: “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”  In two sentences she defamed tens of millions of Americans with zero facts to back up her assertions and it stuck to the Democrat party. Since 2016 the Democrat party has expanded on what Hillary started to where we are today; that is, if you disagree with my platform or you are in agreement with President Trump’s policies you are a racist. That’s where the Democrats came up with their claim that systemic racism is rampant across the nation.

With that background let’s get to today’s issue, systemic racism.  First, define systemic.  It is “a practice, or set of beliefs that has been established as normative or customary throughout a political, social, or economic system; relating to or affecting the body as a whole.”  The body as a whole; that’s us, you and me. 

President Biden says over and over “The fact is, systemic racism touches every facet of American life.”

In order for Biden’s systemic racism theory, “touching every facet of American life”, to be true, how many of us have to be actively involved in being a racist?  100 million, 200 million?  Stop reading right now.  Stop.  Before you go on take a few minutes to mentally cycle through your personal list of extended family members, neighbors, associates at work and friends.  While doing this keep a tally of those who you believe are racist. For this exercise let’s further simplify racism as those white people who hate Black Americans and Black Americans who hate White Americans.  This may take you awhile.  Keep going.

Ok, how many did you come up with.  I’m guessing, maybe two or three.  Maybe only your weird Uncle Fred.  I came up with exactly zero and I spent thirty-two years of my professional life interacting with Black Americans on a daily basis.  I honestly believe if we asked all Americans to take this personal survey we would come up with similar results.  So, who are the tens or hundreds of millions of racists touching “every facet of American life” day-in and day-out that Biden and the remainder of the Democrat party leaders are talking about?

I am seriously ashamed of this nation’s Democrat leaders who have made an intellectual choice to casually throw around the word racist as they go about their daily duties. I am enraged at those Democrats who work tirelessly to politicize racism for political party gain.  I have absolute disrespect for those who seek to destroy the gains in integration and are so intellectually dishonest about Black achievements over the past fifty years. 

Not to be underestimated, the Democrat leadership, aka the president, has taken the final step and allowed systemic racism to be morphed into an equally ugly and unfounded description of tens of millions of us, we are now also white supremacists.

Conclusion: the charge of systemic racism in America is a crock of crap.

CRITICAL RACE THEORY.

CRT, is based on the assumption that throughout US history, since the first slaves arrived in 1619, all American institutions and laws have been intentionally crafted so that white people can put up social, economic, and legal barriers between the races in order to maintain their elite status. From these assumptions the CRT folks have concluded that the source of poverty and criminal behavior in minority communities is due exclusively to these barriers.

But what if the assumptions that led us to the theory are not valid?  I recently watched on TV a nationally recognized civil rights lawyer and spokesperson.  When asked to define CRT he responded, “CRT is a pack of lies.”

Here are some thoughts I gleaned from work by John Horvat II, a brilliant scholar, researcher, educator, speaker and author.  His bottom line is that CRT must be rejected if this country is to survive.  Here are some CRT underpinnings to ponder:

CRT seeks to divide our society into two groups, the oppressors (white people) and the oppressed (black people) followed by constant struggle between the two.  Result, a deep-seated national culture of blame and hatred.

CRT sees race as the preeminent prism through which all things are considered; history, economics, sociology, science, virtually all aspects of life. All current governing and cultural structures are tainted with racism, systemic racism.

CRT teaches that those who are oppressors are incapable of ridding themselves of their biases. They are irredeemable (as Hillary told us in 2016) and incapable of exercising free will to change.

CRT sees reform of race relations as impossible.  Because racism is systemic, the present institutions cannot be redeemed or modified.

Given that CRT tells us all things must be seen through the prism of race, including the sciences, its promoters declare falsely that science, reason and logic are “white” ways of knowing things. 

CRT weakens the bonds that create trust of individuals, of institutions and of government.

CRT is irreconcilable with traditional Christian teachings.

CRT is totalitarian and allows for no opposing theories.

CRT holds that America and white Americans are irredeemably racist. The solution is reverse racism which is called equity. “Equity”, not to be confused with equality, further transforms all elements of America from merit-based to equity based.  Under equity, mediocracy will reign supreme. 

Irrespective of this clear and present danger to our country, Critical Race Theory, Project 1619, and ethnic studies are being incorporated in public schools all over America. It’s part of an anti-racist mission that is anything but.

Imagine a couple of youngsters, one black, one white, from the same neighborhood; they are best friends, walk to school together, play ball after school and are in and out of each other’s homes frequently.  Then, while getting their required weekly dose of CRT instruction, they suddenly look across the classroom at one another and think, wow I thought he was my friend but he is actually my enemy. Indoctrination.

CRT is potentially the most dangerous initiative ever undertaken in our history with almost unimaginable ramifications. For example, Damon Young, a senior editor of The Root and an occasional New York Times contributor, adds, “Whiteness is a public health crisis. It shortens life expediencies, it pollutes air, it constricts equilibrium, it devastates forests, it melts ice caps, it sparks (and funds) wars, it flattens dialects, it infests consciousnesses, and it kills people”.  

In line with the woke revolution, President Biden’s Department of Education has signaled its intent to impose the most radical forms of Critical Race Theory on America’s schools.

CRT, in the process of being included in educational curriculum at all levels, is purely and simply indoctrination.  It will guarantee the perpetuation of systemic racism and white supremacy in this country for generations.

Culture is a powerful and pervasive force in any organization.  If we think of the US and an organization, over the past 20 years we have seen a culture of blame cultivated in Washington politics and spread across the nation.  A culture of blame is so powerful and debilitating it has rendered our Congress ineffective. Then in 2016 Hillary started the hate culture movement.  CRT has the potential to take both the cultures of blame and hate to new levels with devastating consequences for generations to come.

CAMPAIGN HOME ROOM.

Is CRT the solution to our pathetic failed education standards in elementary, secondary and higher educational institutions?  Are we to be satisfied with an ever-increasingly racially divided nation?  Are we to knuckle under to the Democrat leaders claims of systemic racism and white supremacy being taught to all of our youngsters? Is there no alternative solution?

The above, in this article, are what I call BGOs, blinding glimpses of the obvious.  None of the above will fix racism or education and will probably make them worse.  So where do we go from here with this discussion?  I have for the past few years been advocating a race relation/education reform solution. 

By comparison with Biden’s Department of Education, which is planning to continue to throw tens of billions of dollars at education to fix our pathetic system, what I am proposing is free.  While the Department of Education will increase regulations and control of education from the top down, what I propose is completely run at the local level by County Boards of Education, superintendents and school principals.  While the federal government mandates more failed curriculum changes, to include CRT, my solution is a proven concept and will fix education and race relations for generations to come. I call it Campaign Home Room.

It is always a good idea to begin long-range strategic planning with a statement of the problems to be solved.  

Problem # 1: Race relations and education are not what they should be and we are moving in exactly the wrong direction. We need to change direction quickly or it will be too late.

Problem # 2: We are suffering from a culture of blame in both race relations and education.  Blame is a powerful and pervasive force that is polarizing and provides no hope of moving forward.  Blame must be supplanted with something positive.

Problem # 3: Kids are not born bigoted and hateful.  They learn it.  We have to change what they learn.

Problem # 4: Federal education programs costing hundreds of billions of dollars and utilizing thousands of bureaucrats have not worked.  We have to decentralize decision making and execution.

Problem # 5: Every day thousands of U S students drop out of school and every year thousands more graduate from high school functionally illiterate. They do so because they got behind.  We have to figure out why and fix it.

There is no quick fix for what has brought us to this impasse.  The solution will only come if we change what our youngsters learn, how they think, what they believe in and how they behave.

All of these problems can be solved through a comprehensive Character Education program involving every school and every student in America.  It will take a well thought out strategic campaign plan to reach all 60 million students.

This Concept of Operations, called Campaign Home Room, is not a guessing game.  The strength of this concept is that there are existing successful models to lean on and learn from.

Strategic planning becomes easier if we can put a frame around the organization to gain focus on all the involved parties. The organization in question will consist of the following: 

• 142,000 schools
• 180 million adults with children under age 18
• 60 million K-12 students
• 4.5 million teachers
• 2.4 million Home Room volunteers
• Over 200,000 Superintendents, Principals and Education Board members

That is about 250 million, three of every four Americans, will, in some way, be involved in Campaign Homeroom.

The concept is simple:  The first twenty minutes of every school day will be devoted to Home Room period in which volunteers will teach a Character Curriculum every school day in every school to every student, grades K-12.  Doing so will reset the value base in this country and establish a culture of accountability, respect and trust. 

There was not and never will be a quick fix to the deep-seated five problems outlined above. It will take a generation to accomplish.   It will transform America.

Here is the curriculum: accountability, citizenship, commitment, compassion, courage of convictions, courtesy, confidence, healthy habits, honesty, honor, humility, integrity, judgment, leadership, morality, perseverance, punctuality, respect, responsibility, self-respect, selfless service, sportsmanship and trust. That is, teach and talk about values.  Call it the Character Curriculum. There will need to be three versions of the curriculum; elementary k-5, middle school 6-8 and high school 9-12.  Out of this will come an overpowering culture of accountability, respect and trust across America.

This curriculum is transformational and this is what it will do:

• ACCOUNTABLE students do not resort to blame.
• Students who are steeped in COMMITMENT, CONFIDENCE, PERSEVERANCE, PUNCTUALITY and RESPONSIBILITY do not skip school, fall behind or drop out.
• Students who are deeply rooted in TRUST and RESPECT will strike down bullying and are unlikely to become racially bigoted adults. 
• Students who are COMPASSIONATE, COURTEOUS, HONORABLE, GOOD CITIZENS and demonstrate the COURAGE OF THEIR CONVICTIONS do not join street gangs.
• Students who have accepted HONESTY, MORALITY AND INTEGRITY as their guiding light will likely be life-long upstanding citizens.
• Students who understand, live and accept a life of SELFLESS SERVICE are unlikely to become self-serving adults.
• Students who have an understanding that there is a lot they don’t yet know and even part of what they believe they know might be incorrect, have the quality of HUMILITY. 
• Students who understand SELF-RESPECT recognize that they are now better than they used to be and can be counted on in times of temptation because they are morally dependable. 
• With this value base, students across the nation are more likely to exercise good JUDGMENT and become great LEADERS.

The concept of using character education to “indoctrinate” youngsters has been effectively used by a national organization called The First Tee.  It uses golf as the medium to bring kids together.  The outcome is almost immediately transformational. I was involved with a First Tee chapter which provided character education to all of the 4^th graders in a North Carolina county.  The teachers very reluctantly observed the process until after about two months they all had an OMG moment.  “What have you done to my students, they were asking, they are more attentive, more engaged in learning, more polite and understanding.”  Studies of The First Tee program have shown that 100% of character education translates directly into the classroom and 80% into the students’ homes.  A mother said to me, “what have you done to my teenage daughter, she now acts like a real human being?”

To be completely up front here, I have spent the last few years attempting to market this concept to include sending the Campaign Home Room document to President Trump, the VP, COS, White House principal deputies, Secretary DeVos and North Carolina political leaders, all to no avail. My conclusion is that it rarely, if ever, makes it through the mail room.  All of the details for a national campaign of character education are contained in a 25-page White Paper.  If any of you are interested, I will forward a digital copy to you upon request; my email, MandDcovault@yahoo.com

BOTTOM LINE.  Our country is in trouble, serious trouble and moving in exactly the wrong direction. The kids are our future and what they learn today will define the future of America.

Just for a moment imagine, across this country, 60 million K-12 youngsters in 2.4 million Home Room classes at 8 o’clock every morning in every school in America being taught and mentored by 2.4 million volunteers on the subject of character.  Campaign Home Room is within the art of the possible and “we the people”, not we the government, can make it happen and transform America.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com

I’m bothered by a lot that is going on in America today.  Here are some of them. 

We are to believe there was no such thing as voter fraud anywhere during the 2020 election. Now fixing the actual voter fraud problem is considered racist.

Three days after the 2020 election Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a prominent Democrat Party spokesperson, called for a blacklist, entitled The Trump Accountability Project, with the objective of archiving the names of individuals who “elected, served, funded, supported, and represented President Trump.” Where was the national outcry against this?

H.R.1391 – American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, aka Covid Rescue Plan.  It bothers me that only 9% of the $1.9 trillion was related to actual covid relief.    

President Biden was selling infrastructure legislation to improve roads and bridges.  But only 5% of the $2 trillion, misnamed, “American Jobs Plan” is actually for roads and bridges.  It is a reasonable public policy objective to expand medical care for the elderly and disabled, but it bothers me that $400 billion for that is called infrastructure.

I’m bothered that U.S. debt has now passed the value of our GDP and no Democrats seem concerned. We are printing money at a rate never envisioned.  When does inflation kick in and how hard will the blow be?  Most Americans cannot remember how debilitating for everyone the President Carter economy was with 14.8% inflation and interest rates at 18%. 

By Executive Order, President Biden has authorized US taxpayers to pay for abortions overseas, while consistent polling shows that 77% of Americans are opposed to it.

We have a generation of “educated” Americans who know almost nothing of our nation’s history.  But it is getting worse.  Now they are learning revisionist history about what horrible people Americans have always been and are today. 

Workers’ rights are being demolished. The House passed the miss-named bill, “Protecting the Right to Organize Act”.  Wall Street Journal said, the bill “brazenly opposes workers choices.”  It would effectively repeal right-to-work laws on the books in most states which allow employees to decline union membership. 

The Iran-backed terrorist group Houthis took control of Yemen in 2014. With U.S. assistance, Saudi Arabia has led a coalition of nine nations against the terrorist network in Yemen. Without the Saudi effort, it is quite possible that the Houthis would have successfully transformed Yemen into a terrorist operational and training safe haven with deadly consequences for the United States and the international community.  In another knee-jerk I’ll-show-you-Trump action, President Biden is removing the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists from the Global Terrorist list.

To add insult to injury, Biden has put a hold on Trump-negotiated arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates worth billions of dollars. 

Under the guise of the $1.9 trillion Covid relief package, Biden included hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out financially mis-managed democrat-led cities and states without demanding those governors and mayors take the steps necessary to become fiscally responsible.

It bothers me that the alleged offenses against Hillary Clinton, the FBI Director, intelligence leaders, et al have been swept under the rug; perhaps the most egregious actions by trusted government officials against an existing administration in the history of this nation.  

Pelosi’s House passed H.R. 1 which is the most sweeping change in our election laws in history. It federalizes and micromanages the election process administered by the states, imposing unconstitutional mandates and reverses decentralization of the election process.

States and cities are defunding police while crime rates are rising at alarming rates. 

Whenever there is a “mass shooting” the Democrat leadership ramps up their arguments for massive gun control.  But where is the debate about mental health screening in the US? Reality is that if you suffer from a mental illness, as most mass-shooters do, you may find a confusing and often contradictory system of doctors, clinics, institutions, home care, and drug regimens that is hardly a system at all.

Biden will follow the lead of Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama who all gutted our military forces reducing combat readiness to dangerously low levels. It’s easy to cut but it is a long hard road to get readiness back to acceptable levels when we need it.  Our allies and enemies alike, carefully watch our combat readiness and act/react accordingly.  Nothing deters enemy intent to do harm more than fully combat-ready U.S. forces.

FBI Director Wray has testified before Congress saying, “Antifa is a real thing.”  He went on to say, “We have any number of properly predicated investigations into what we would describe as violent anarchist extremists and some of those individuals self-identify with Antifa.” Contradicting that, our head-in the-sand leader calls Antifa, “an idea

The Biden corporate tax rate increase from 21 to 28% is what the Wall Street Journal calls “political fakery”; implying it is a tax against CEOs and rich share-holders. WSJ goes on to say, “Everyone knows corporations don’t really pay taxes, they are ultimately paid by some combination of customers in higher prices, workers in lower wages and shareholders in lower returns on investment.  In other words, Biden’s corporate tax increases will hit he middle class hard in the value of their 401k, the size of their pay packets and what they pay for goods and services.” What make the corporate tax hike more onerous is that most large economies in the world are in the process of lowering their corporate tax rates thereby making it even more difficult for US corporation to compete price-wise in a global market thereby forcing more US manufacturing overseas. 

I’m bothered that the minimum $15 wage will probably become the law of the land, negatively impacting small businesses and putting another 1.5 million out of work.  Cost of living varies significantly from state to state.  This is more big-government one-size-fits-all democrat thinking.   

The Black Lives Matter anti-police underpinnings are explained by totally false data with respect to police killing Black Americans.

It is OK to have an abortion in the final tri-mister of a pregnancy (aka premeditated murder) conducted by taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood.

Open borders bother me a lot.  What is happening on our Mexican border is inhumane, out of control, getting worse every day, expensive, expanding the covid pandemic, filled with undesirables, increasing drug tracking to new levels with no end in sight and it was all predictable with an instant return to the Obama/Biden catch-and-release policy.  The Biden solution seems to be, find more beds rather than to stop incentivizing the illegals to come.   

North Korea has ramped up its weapons and missile testing.  September, 2017, the NK foreign minister, speaking before the UN said a North Korean nuclear strike against a US city is “inevitable.” President Trump promptly set up the first one-on-one meeting with Kim Jong-un. I suspect at that meeting President Trump would have casually showed Kim a clear 8×10 close-up color photo on Kim riding his big white horse at his vacation retreat.  And Mr. Trump would have said something like this, Kim, we know where you are and how to reach out to you 24/7, now let’s chat about all this testing and your plan to nuc one of my cities.  Predictably, since the election, Kim has renewed a full-court-press on testing.  Asked if President Biden would sit down with Mr. Kim, a White House spokesperson said, “that is not his intention.”  

I’m bothered a lot that Biden will abandon the most successful Middle East developments in decades; that is, after 70 years Middle East nations, led by Saud Arabia, have concluded that Israel is not their enemy.  They now realize their real and imminent danger is Iran and its intent for Middle East dominance and control. 

Biden tells us he spent his first few days in office reaching out to our allies and other world leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping.  But it took 30 days for him to call Netanyahu.  The signal is clear, the US/Israeli relations will return to the Obama/Biden/Clinton/Kerry cold-shoulder policy.

The Biden cabal will completely ignore these underlying economic facts: Prior to the Covid outbreak, there were 750,000 more jobs to fill than there were unemployed, and the lowest 20% of income earners were gaining income in percentage terms more quickly than the top ten percent. The United States became the first serious jurisdiction in the world that had begun to address the almost universal problem of income disparity. Obama/Biden “wealty redistribution” is and will always be an economic disaster.

Six corporations control 90% of the media in America and we wonder why 93% of all reporting on the Trump administration was negative.

While Biden and all democrat leaders continue preaching falsely that the Trump tax cuts only benefited the wealthy; the fact is they reduced the taxes of every American corporation and the taxes of 83% of individual American taxpayers.

I’m bothered that Major league sports have gone political.

We “graduate” thousands of functionally illiterate high school seniors every year and 7000 youngsters drop out of school every day.  And the democrats believe we can solve the problem by throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at it. 

We don’t do enough to solve the homeless problem.  

On a highly advertised and rare appearance by the President to explain his $2 trillion infrastructure plan, he launched into a tirade over the Georgia Legislature’s voting rights law.  Not only did he totally misrepresent every facet of the new law, he then emphatically played the race card. He and his writers had obviously not read the law or just decided we are too stupid to not understand what a mess the president made of the whole subject.

We could fill this page with a list of circumstances that require US citizens to show a personal ID.  Voter ID is absolutely necessary to protect the sanctity of the right to cast a legal vote. Democrat arguments against Voter ID are without factual underpinnings and essentially play a false race card.  A recent Gallop poll found that 80% of Americans believe voter ID is necessary.  If a voter ID system would include a personal voter ID number (similar to a SSN) then every know voter fraud system could be defeated.

The word “sanctuary” bothers me a lot.  The Democrats, by action rather than words, have evolved a new definition.  “Sanctuary cities” today are Democrat led, soft on crime, anti-ICE, degraded police force, pro-criminal prosecutors, deportation-blocking, low-to-no bail policies, out of control homelessness, drug infested and fiscally incompetent.  But if you are a drug-dealing, machete-wielding, homeless, MS13, illegal alien, this is your home sweet home.  And some governors want to declare a sanctuary state.

Democrat mayors have been running many of our largest cities for decades. Some stats from Robert Charles, Association of Mature American Citizens.

The top-ten American cities for homelessness are sanctuary cities. In this group are Los Angeles (55,000 homeless), Seattle (12,000), San Diego (9,000), San Jose (7,000), San Francisco (6,000), and Las Vegas (6,000).  

Of the top-ten “most dangerous cities” in America all have Democratic mayors.  Those cities are Detroit, St. Louis, Oakland, Memphis, Birmingham, Atlanta, Baltimore, Stockton, Cleveland and Buffalo.  These cities that are too deep in poverty, have a weak tax base and lack sufficient infrastructure to attract corporate investment.  They lead the nation in murder, manslaughter, robbery and aggravated assault.

For the mayors to fix this is, of course, difficult but it’s not rocket science.  First, stop, just stop what the hell you have been doing for years or even decades and do things like: lower taxes, less regulation, incentives for business investment, stronger law enforcement, cooperation with federal immigration officials, comprehensive anti-drug policies and attack gang violence. These actions are right out of the Trump playbook which means these mayors will likely continue with a failed system.   Or why not take Trump’s ten-point plan, The New Deal for Black America With A Plan for Urban Renewal, and just use it?

The $2 trillion infrastructure bill, “The American Jobs Act”, contains hundreds of billions for “green” projects.  Have we forgotten that in the 2009 Obama/Biden stimulus bill, only 15 jobs were created for every $1 million spent on green jobs? 

I have been bothered for a long time about Democrat economics.  The Obama/Biden economy formula was TAX AND SPEND, which in modern day economics has never successfully brought any nation quickly out of a recession or caused the GDP to grow at an acceptable rate.  That formula has now morphed into SPEND AND TAX and they believe it will work better?  Obama/Biden economists believed cutting taxes would blow a hole in the deficit.  Just the opposite is true.  The Trump tax cuts caused the overall economy to grow, taxpayers and corporations made more money and as a result federal revenue hit all-time highs.  Tax increases must occasionally occur, but there has never been a tax increase in American history that did not have a negative effect on the economy.

Is it right that people who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees of real or questionable value?

Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars is being earmarked in non-related bills in Congress to pay off democrat-controlled city and state debt without demanding they fix the processes that got them over their heads in debt in the first place.

Consider the fact that private schools have remained open covid-free while government schools closed doing possibly irreparable damage to millions of youngsters.

I am obsessively bothered that education in the United States is an unmitigated disaster. School closures during the pandemic have revealed teachers’ unions for what there are; that is, a greater part of the problem than the solution.  The “demands” issued by the teacher’s unions as a condition of reopening schools tell us all we need to know about their priorities.  Their demands included Medicare for all, institute an national wealth tax and a millionaire tax, defund police, housing security, paid sick leave for parents of school children, charter school moratorium and financial support for undocumented students and families.

The left wing keeps telling us that “free health care is free” and they believe we are dumb enough to believe it.

Earmarking in Congress was costing us millions of dollars in pork, then billions and now trillions (see covid relief and infrastructure bills). Earmarks are legislation that cannot stand scrutiny of the normal legislative process; that is, expert witness testimony during committee hearings.

It bothers me a lot that our president will never be capable of holding an extemporaneous news conference. 

The fact that VP Harris, as the new border crisis czar, has failed to visit the border for a first-hand understanding of the problems, speaks volumes about her approach to dealing with a crisis, her leadership skills in general and her overall qualifications to be VP/president. 

National legalized marijuana is coming; which means it will too-easily be available to youngsters resulting in reduced mental development. Follow the science. 

The Keystone pipeline, when completed could have transported 800,000 barrels of oil a day with no carbon footprint.  Now that oil will be carried by a combination of 500 rail tankers and 950 tanker trucks all belching carbon pollutants. We are to believe that is a “green” solution to anything?

The Biden knee-jerk reduction in public land and off-shore drilling will lead us back into dependence on foreign oil, carrying with it unimaginable negative geo-political ramifications. 

It bothers me that I no longer hear the National Anthem played at sporting events.

This summer could be more violent than last if the Floyd trial verdict does not suit BLM and Antifa.  Last summer’s “mostly peaceful” burning/looting/murder were for the most part acceptable to Biden/Harris.  In an interview Harris said about the riots, “This is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not gonna stop.  And everyone beware because they’re not gonna stop. They’re not gonna stop before election day and they’re not going to stop after election day.  And everyone should take a note of that. They’re not gonna let up and they should not”

It bothers me a lot that the Democrat leadership believes it is OK to be crude, ugly, distasteful, disrespectful and downright ignorant to openly and publicly call someone or some group racists simply because they disagree with their thinking, policies, conclusions, or theories.

Part of the new liberal mantra is that equity is synonymous with equality.

In some states gas has gone up over $1 a gallon since the election and there is no end in sight; an unintended consequential “tax” on every business and family in America. 

Pelosi’s House also passed an anti-police bill that will deny “qualified immunity” to police men and women thereby placing them in jeopardy of civil liability for doing their jobs. It will be nearly impossible to recruit a quality force.

I am especially bothered that the Democrat leadership continues to preach the existence of systemic racism across the nation. Their accusations are unfounded.  Background:

Segregation is systemic racism.  To understand segregation, we need to understand how it came about. The commander of Union forces in the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant was a champion of African Americans throughout the war. President Lincoln advocated for abolition of slavery and signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1^st, 1863.

During the final days of the Civil War, in 1865, Grant and Lincoln met frequently to discuss what “freedom” should mean for those enslaved. Their plan included the right to own property, to vote, hold office and have access to all schools, public transportation and commercial activities. 

Five days after Lee surrendered to Grant, President Lincoln was assassinated. The Lincoln/Grant vision for the freed slaves died with the President. 

During the post-war period, President Andrew Johnson, sided with the former Confederate states’ Democrats to restrict equality for freed slaves.  This, and other factors, led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, threatening the lives and livelihood of all freed slaves. One of the darkest periods in American history, the Ku Klux Klan functioned as a loosely organized group of political and social terrorists. The Klan’s goals included the political defeat of the Republican Party and the maintenance of absolute white supremacy over Black Americans.  That is systemic racism.

For 100 years following the Civil War segregation was a principle pillar of the Democratic party platform; segregation was pure, unadulterated, unambiguous, in-your-face systemic racism. During presidential elections in the 1960s, Democratic candidate Governor George Wallace is best remembered for his segregationist views, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made segregation illegal in all states and over the last 50 years there has been systemic progress against systemic racism.

I believe we can credit Hillary Clinton for the current Democrat practice of branding large groups of Americans as racist.  On September 9^th, 2016 during a presidential campaign speech, Hillary stood behind a tele-prompter and read these prepared remarks, “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”  In two short sentences she defamed tens of millions of Americans.  

The lasting impact of that insane Clinton speech was to make it OK to throw around the word “racist” with complete disregard for facts to the contrary. For example, if you supported President Trump’s policies, you are a racist.  But that was not enough.  Now we are being additionally lumped together as white supremacists.

Outside the racist rhetoric from the Democrat leadership and their main-stream media lackies, you can hear Black American leaders from all over this country articulating the absurdity of group-racism and systemic racism.

Conclusions: 

All of the above collectively tell a story.  The rational, respected, patriotic Democrat Party we have known for decades no longer exists.

The radical left thinking outlined above will not be reported on objectively by the main-stream-media.  There was an era when journalists believed they could dramatically improve the world by exposing evil and corruption through the craft of writing. That profession is dead and gone, today’s Democrats are protected from evil and corruption.

To my Democrat friends who voted against Republican candidates in the 2020 election, what you are getting is big government, centralized power, centralized control, identity group segregation to divide and conquer, wealth transfer leading to an intrenched welfare state with a disincentivized work force. Non-merit-based hierarchy will become the norm in business, education and government.

President Trump, love him, hate him or anywhere in between, in retrospect, every policy he set forth had one overarching intent, is this what is best for the American people.  By contrast, every decision, declaration, executive order, in President Biden’s first couple months, has been a low blow to John Q. Public.  

And by the way, the president’s impassioned 20 January pledge to us all to unify the nation, went from number one on Biden’s hit parade to nonexistent. 

Whatever you thought you were voting for in the 2020 elections, my “botherings” above is what you are getting.  You need to give your party a new name, whatever is appropriate, but don’t call it the Democrat Party, that party is dead and gone.  If you are having trouble, here is a suggestion, call it The New Regressive Party, not of the people, not by the people nor for the people, so help me God. 

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

Within a very few hours after being sworn in as our president, Biden was at his desk in the oval office singing 17 executive orders. This was the beginning of a 50-day series of events in which he clearly has demonstrated the he may be, for the most part, unaware of what he was doing. 

During the executive order signing on 20 January (17 orders) and the additional 20 signed during the first week, there was no fanfare, no gathering of sponsors as he signed each order, no holding the folder up so all could see his signature.  But most importantly, there was no verbalizing of what the executive orders are to accomplish, why it is important to give the orders immediately.  Nothing, zip.  Some have even suggested he was, in fact, just signing blank pieces of paper.  

After watching the so-called campaign over the summer and fall months, we all became aware of the extent to which Biden’s handlers were calling all the shots.  Pre-selected questions at fake “press conferences” by pre-selected loyal main-stream media was the norm.  Following the inauguration, it became immediately obvious to the casual observer that he was being controlled to the maximum extent possible. 

But eventually his handlers knew the president had to make a “public” appearance.  The choice was with Anderson Cooper at a CNN carefully orchestrated town hall.  What could have possibly been less threatening? The main topic of discussion was, of course, Covid; the one subject on which the president had been totally immersed for months.  What could possibly go wrong? 

The questions were, of course, carefully scripted and presumably rehearsed.  Ready, set, go.

Things were going along OK until the president got off-script in an unehearsed moment and said, “It’s one thing to have the vaccine which we didn’t have when we came into office.  But a vaccinator, how do you get the vaccine into someone’s arm?”

Stop reading for a moment and just think about the last 12 months we all spent with some level of pent-up anxiety, inability to be with loved ones, cancelled trips, praying for the next medical breakthrough and, for many, a complete life-style change.  Who among us could possibly forget that we have or have not received a vaccination? 

Vaccinations under Operation Warp Speed began across the country on 14 December.  Biden got his first shot on 21 December and the second on 11 January. 

Back to the CNN townhall:  Biden went on to say, “We came into office there were only 50 million doses that were available.”  In minutes he went from thinking zero to 50 million doses available. 

It is not as if Biden was not involved in the planning for vaccinations during the two months preceding the CNN townhall session; on 8 December the president elect rolled out his program to administer 1 million vaccine doses per day in his first 100 days in office.  Maybe Biden is not the only one with his head in a dark place.  By 8 December President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed was already planning to administer a lot more that 1 million a day during the winter and spring of 2021.  Actually, on 20 January the average was 1.7 million shots being administered per day across the country. 

The townhall debacle immediately presented Biden’s staff with a stark reality; we cannot trust him to speak extemporaneously.  Should any of us be surprised that he is yet to hold an open press conference?  And when it does happen will it be completely open as in Trump-open?  Don’t hold your breath.

On 26 February Biden visited Texas following the power grid shutdown.  Closing out the visit, at the microphone, he was attempting to thank the governor and a number of Texas elected officials.  He struggled with the names, halting, “no that’s not right, (long pause) what am I doing here?  (pause) “I’m going to lose track here.” 

Jesse Waters, Fox News a couple weeks ago: During his opening monologue, Waters showed three brief tapes of President Biden in action.  If you get your news from the main-street-media, you will not have seen these clips.  I found them difficult to watch and found myself feeling sorry for him.  The subject in all three is Covid numbers. 

In the first clip he is seated with a Black History Month logo behind him, I do not know the venue.  When the tape begins, he is commenting on a Covid fatality number that he cannot recall.  “Over 500 I think, it”….. He is patting all his pockets furiously looking for a card, he says, “I have a card, I carry a card with me every day” ….. continuing to seek out the card, looking around helplessly, then says, “folks affected by” ….. he finds and shows the card, it looks to be a folded 5×7 card.  He has the card but appears dazed and cannot remember which number he is looking for.  Cut.

Second:  He is standing behind a microphone and says, “I carry a card with me”…..again searching his pockets and cannot find it….. looking around obviously seeking help. “I don’t have it with me, I must have given it to my staff.” A hopeless look on his face, long pause then goes on saying, “Do I have that around”…….long pause……”anyone”…..looking around……”where is my staff?”

Final clip:  Seated at his desk in the Oval Office looking down at notes, “I carry a card”, again searching pockets, looking around for help, hopeless, dazed look on his face “I carry a card…… left it on my desk.”  He was at his desk. 

Like I said previously, difficult to watch even though the whole sequence was only about a minute long. 

On 8 March Biden made some comments on International Women’s Day while attending the promotion of two female generals.  At the end of the speech, Biden thanked his Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as follows, “I want to thank Sec ……. the former general ….. I keep calling him ‘General.’ My …… the guy who runs that outfit over there.”  “That outfit over there” being the Department of Defense in the Pentagon. 

Conclusions:  Since we see very little of our president, period, and even less of him in an unscripted situation, we find ourselves thinking, hoping perhaps that his health isn’t as bad as some make it out to be.  But what if it is actually worse?

Why did he even run for president?  I place the blame clearly on his family and closest advisors.  They, more than any of us, have been fully aware of his inabilities.  They have to have known that he lacks the energy and mental acuity to think through and work long-range strategic domestic and foreign policy issues. 

He simply cannot handle the toughest job in the world. He cannot lead this once-great nation in his current state.   

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

As I begin this, President Biden has completed 50 days in office.  Time for an assessment.

Keystone Pipeline: Within the first few hours he shut down the keystone pipeline construction, put thousands of workers and their families without a paycheck and, without warning, enraged Canada, our most trusted ally, neighbor and largest trading partner.  Instead of “transporting” 800,000 barrels of petroleum a day by carbon-free pipeline, we will be using carbon-belching trucks and trains. BTW, an 84-car train will carry 60,000 barrels of oil; one tanker truck hauls 210 barrels.  Who is doing the math in the oval office? The important thing is, it negates a Trump win.

Suspension of new oil and gas leasing and drilling permits on public land:  Just on “public land?” That doesn’t sound so bad until you consider that in eight western states, 97% of the oil and gas extraction is from public lands. Secondly, it has taken over 60 years for the U.S. to regain oil independence.  The geopolitical ramifications of returning to imported foreign oil are too mind-blowing to comprehend. 

Final point: the impact of Keystone and public land drilling prohibition has had an immediate impact; The price of crude oil and gasoline at the pump in the US have risen sharply.  Winners and losers.  Winners are Russia and Iran; both were suffering economically with oil their principle export; rising crude prices has given them a reprieve.  Losers; every person and business in the US suffers economically when gas prices go up.  This is a colossal failure of reasoned thinking but it negates a couple more Trump wins.

Border Wall immediate shut down:  Another 5000 jobs immediately lost.  Additionally, Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said the shutdown will cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Also consider that 270,000 tons of unused steel bollards are on hand. Wouldn’t it make sense to just finish out the existing, funded contract?  No, they needed to wipe out another Trump win.

Immigration “reform”:  The on-going humanitarian and national security crisis on the Mexican border was absolutely predictable with the advent of democrat catch-and-release policy, AKA open borders.   There were nearly 100,000 illegal immigrants in February, up a whopping 97% over February 2020 and predictions from border control officials is that it will get “much worse.”

Drugs crossing from Mexico to the US:  Drug seizures from January to February, 2021:  cocaine increased 13%, methamphetamine up 40% and heroin up 48%.  Fentanyl seizures are up 360% from a year ago. Good work by the border folks, but, undoubtedly, unknown quantities successfully crossed the border and have been distributed across the nation.  Cartel-produced cocaine heavily laced with China-produced fentanyl will kill many Americans.  Open-border fallout.

I have said this before but it is worth repeating; all of these illegal immigrants can be categorized as follows:  All are unemployed and additionally many are also criminals, drug dealers, gang members, cartel operatives, Covid-19 carriers, sick, in need of major medical care, children who need free education in Spanish and those previously deported.

Open borders wipe out another Trump win, and that’s good for America?  Another view of the problem:  look out your window and watch the buses go by.  As Pem Schaeffer recently pointed out, 2000 bus loads of illegal immigrants dispatched across the U.S. arriving in your town to be greeted, fed and housed. And for how long?  And that’s just the February arrivals.  There are more to come, millions more. Why?  Because the border is open. 

Thank you, President Biden or Chief of Staff Klain, or Kamala or Susan Rice or whomever the hell in in charge.  And, BTW, when the bus arrives in East Overshoe, Montana, the Covid carrier on the bus has probably infected most of the other 49 passengers. Just deal with it America, open borders is just what we need now, right Mr. President?

Stop all ICE operations for 100 days: Of the 85,958 illegal aliens removed from the U.S. interior in 2019, more than 75 percent, 64,991, had criminal convictions. Another 13,498 had pending criminal charges. Using this database, on average, ICE deported 215 criminals per day.  Biden’s 100 -day shut-down will keep 21,500 criminals in our communities who could have been/should have been deported.  What is the purpose?  Net gain for America, zero.

“Preventing and combating discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation”: Of course, transgender individuals need and deserve society’s full support and understanding.  But, does that include destroying women’s sports as we have known it forever? Consider this:  Olympic, World, and U.S. Champion Allyson Felix’s 400 meters lifetime best of 49.26 seconds was bettered in 2017, more than 15,000 times by men and boys around the world.  In swimming 13–14-year-old boys are faster in races of 200 meters or less than the womens’ world records.   There is no longer a level playing field in women’s sports thanks to our president’s pandering to a democrat identity political group.  

Defunding Police: HR 1280, “The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act”, a seemingly innocent title, passed the House a couple weeks ago without a single Republican vote.  The wording buried in its 66 pages would cost police departments hundreds of millions of dollars.  But perhaps even worse is the provision that limits “qualified immunity”; that is, a long-standing policy that protects government officials from civil lawsuits for their conduct on the job. Now how are cities going to recruit the best and brightest? When Republicans tried to add an amendment to HR 1280, saying “……. condemns calls to ‘defund,’ ‘disband,’ ‘dismantle,’ or ‘abolish’ the police”, 219 Democrats voted against it. If it passes the Senate, Biden will sign it; and this will make America safer while current violent crime stats are going off the charts?

To further put this ridiculous law into context, while in 2019 the U.S. violent crime rate fell for the fourth straight year, and property crime fell for the 18th straight year, the National Commission on Criminal Justice reported a “steep increase in rates of violent crimes in the early summer of 2020 has continued through August across a broad range of American cities.”

Homicide rates between June and August increased by 53 percent over the same period in 2019.  The 2020, crime wave began with the George Floyd riots and police defunding actions in major cities. Led by BLM and Antifa thugs, the killing, burning and looting of thousands of small businesses raged across America.  Recall Kamala Harris’ reaction to the rioting, “They’re not gonna let up, and they should not.”

Election “reform”: H.R. 1, For The People Act of 2021 recently passed by the House of Representatives is a complete disaster. It certainly is not an act that is “for the People”; it is a bill especially designed to prescribe, from the federal level, detailed implementation of the worst of the states’ 2020 election rules, procedures and results. Many agree that passage of HR1 strikes such a serious blow to one of our most sacred rights, free and honest elections, that it threatens the very existence of our Constitutional Republic.

Some of the requirements:  Automatic voter registration, ban witness signature requirements, states must allow mail-in ballots and ballot-harvesting, prevents removal of ineligible voters from voter rolls, forces states to allow voting without an ID.

Here is what will happen if this law is passed.  Poorly maintained voter registration rolls in most states is the launch point for many types of voter fraud.  For example, Judicial Watch won a federal lawsuit requiring Los Angeles County to remove an estimated 1.5 million ineligible voters from its voter rolls.  In 2020, all of those 1.5 million ineligible voters would have received a mail-in ballot.  HR 1 will require ineligible voters to receive a mail-in ballot.

With HR1 and now S1, if passed, states’ rights on elections procedures will all be superseded by federal law.  All the pieces will be in place so that results of future elections will be determined by which party can out-fraud the other.  House and Senate democrats are calling this the most significant legislation in decades. 

Workers’ rights demolished: The House just passed the miss-named bill, “Protecting the Right to Organize Act”.  Despite the name its provisions are, quoting the Wall Street Journal, “brazenly opposed to giving workers choices.”  WSJ continued, “The legislation, which President Biden has promised to sign if passed by the Senate, would be the most significant overhaul of private sector collective bargaining laws since the 1940s. It would effectively repeal right-to-work laws on the books in most states which allow employees to decline union membership and not pay union fees.” This is blatant democrat pandering to an identity group.  Mr. President, where does individual liberty fall in this scenario?

Middle East misguided policies:  Former Secretary of State John Kerry (perhaps the worst in history) has been and still is obsessed with Middle East Policy.  His/Obama’s/Biden’s view is that nothing positive can happen in the Middle East until the Palestinians are satisfied.  FYI Kerry/Biden/Obama, Hamas is a terrorist organization and since 2006 has been the de facto governing authority of the Gaza Strip, the current-day Palestine. 

Hamas is a Palestinian Islamist political organization and militant group that has waged war on Israel since 1987 and is committed to Israel’s destruction.  In 2019 Iran agreed to pay Hamas $30 million monthly in exchange for intelligence on Israeli missile capabilities.

The Obama/Biden/Clinton/Kerry approach to Middle East policy clearly explains their openly non-support of Israel. 

Four years of hard, imaginative work by the Trump administration changed everything. Post -Trump, most Middle East nations (Iran and Iran-supported terrorist nations excluded) now, for the first time since the 1948 creation of modern-day Israel, no longer view Israel as their enemy.  Quite the contrary, many Middle East countries, led by Saudi Arabia, have seen the light that Iran’s goal is Middle East hegemony and they, Iran, are the greatest threat to Middle East peace.    

Saudi Arabia’s very cool view of Obama/Biden/Clinton/Kerry morphed into great respect for Trump’s America and its view of Middle East issues.  From that transition, the Saudis took on critical efforts in their area, namely military action against the Houthi terrorist organization which waged a successful coup in Yemen in 2014.  Yemen remains one of the primary fronts in the global fight against terrorism and extremism. With U.S. assistance, Saudi Arabia has led a coalition of nine nations against the terrorist network in Yemen. Without the Saudi effort, it is quite possible that the Houthis would have successfully transformed Yemen into a terrorist operational and training safe haven with deadly consequences for the United States and the international community.  

So, where is President Joe Biden on all this?  In another knee-jerk I’ll-show-you-Trump action, he is planning to remove the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists from the Global Terrorist list. Unbelievable.

To add insult to injury, Biden has put a hold on Trump-negotiated arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates worth billions of dollars.  Have they lost their minds?

Bail out cities and states:  Under the guise of Covid relief, Biden pushed through a $1.9 trillion package that included hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out financially mis-managed democrat-led cities and states. While at least two thirds of the states are financially stable and have substantial rainy-day reserve funds, tax payers will now be paying the bills for those governors and mayors who will not take the steps necessary to become fiscally responsible. Is there some sense of Biden unity in all that?

Disincentivized unemployed:  Biden claims the $1.9 trillion giveaway will lift people out of poverty.  His view of value added defies human nature.  Once the government is willing to give you a living income, where is the incentive to work?  

What’s coming next? 

$15 minimum wage:  Biden will not give up on a $15 minimum wage irrespective of the facts:  First, a one-size-fits-all approach makes no sense with the cost of living drastically different from state to state.  Secondly, tens of thousands of small businesses across the country are barely hanging on because of Covid.  Kicking them in the gut while they are down only adds insult to injury.  Experts expect at least 1.4 million low-wage workers will become unemployed; a Biden view of putting working families first.

Cut defense spending:  Biden will follow the lead of Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama who all gutted the forces reducing combat readiness to dangerously low levels. It’s easy to cut but it is a long hard road to get readiness back to acceptable levels when we need it.  Our allies and enemies alike, carefully watch our combat readiness and act/react accordingly.  Nothing deters enemy intent to do harm more than fully combat-ready U.S. forces.

Gun control:  I’m fine with some changes; no one needs a weapon in three days.  Extending background-check timing to 10 days or a couple weeks is OK as long as the system is designed to effectively identify those who absolutely should not have a weapon. Also, no one needs a 30-round magazine.  The problem with gun control, as the democrats see it, is that “control” is synonymous with “no guns”, period.

Increased taxes:  Biden and the democrats continuously use this easy sound bite; “the very wealthy should pay their fair share.” That thought, soak the rich, is appealing to many.  What Biden will not do, even with a teleprompter, is define “fair share” and discuss the details/potential negative ramifications.  For example, in 2017, the top 1% of taxpayers paid more income taxes than the bottom 90% combined. Included in the bottom 90% are the 44% who paid zero federal income tax.  Is that not a “fair share” by the rich?

Biden hypocrisy: Next to Covid, “white supremacy” seems to be his new favorite topic.  He never seems to pass up an opportunity to inject “those domestic terrorist white supremacists” whenever possible.  Yes, there are white supremacists in America.  Yes, they are a threat.  Yes, they need to be dealt with.  But, consider that on the other end of the radical political spectrum is Antifa.  It is these violent anarchists who led the murder, looting, burning rampage across America for months on end last summer.  Biden will not mention Antifa; he will not even acknowledge that they exist.  His definitive exclamation during a presidential debate last fall was, “Antifa is an idea, not an organization.”

FBI Director Wray has testified before Congress saying, “Antifa is a real thing.”  He went on to say, “we have any number of properly predicated investigations into what we would describe as violent anarchist extremists and some of those individuals self-identify with Antifa.” 

The trial concerning the death of George Floyd is ongoing.  The defense will present two meaningful arguments.  One, the knee-on-the-neck was an acknowledged and accepted method of constraint taught by the Minneapolis Police Academy.  Secondly, the defense will show that Floyd had a fatal level of fentanyl in his system and died of an overdose.  If the jury believes that, cities across the country will burn and Antifa will be at the forefront of the murder and mayhem.  What then will Biden and Kamala say and do?

Bottom line:

President Trump threw a giant monkey-wrench in the Obama/Biden machine that was designed to, “transform America.”  That democrat 2009-2016 transition included federal domination of policies and procedures affecting every American, thereby stomping on States’ and individuals’ rights. Big government was their answer to every issue. Nothing in Biden’s first 50 days has been made clearer than his belief that it is OK for big government, big bureaucracies, and a regulation-nation to dominate we-the-people.  Hang on to your hat America, there is a lot more of the nonsense suggested above to come. 

What happened to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”?

What has happened to Bidens inauguration-day impassioned plea to trust him to be president, “for all the people”?

Do President Biden and his handlers have no clue that all those Trump policy reversals have infuriated 75 million Trump supporters?  Do they actually believe they can unite America with a soft voice, teleprompter statements and recriminating remarks about President Trump every time he gets behind a microphone?  Has the president already forgotten about uniting America or did he never really mean it in the first place?

Actions always speak louder than words especially when they are the actions of the president of the United States.

And that is just the first 50 days of the Biden Administration.  God help us.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

4 March, 2021

Memorandum for:  We The People.

Subject:  A Line in the Sand

BACKGROUND: H.R.1, FOR THE PEOPLE ACT OF 2021 recently passed by the house of representatives is a complete disaster waiting to happen.  It certainly is not an act that is “for the people”; it is a bill especially designed to prescribe, from the federal level, implementation of the worst of the states’ 2020 election rules, procedures and results.

INENT:  My intent is to present an alternative to the entire concept laid out in this 800-page monstrosity.  Why an alternative?

Many agree that passage of HR1 strikes such a serious blow to one of our most sacred rights, free and honest elections, that it threatens the very existence of our Constitutional Republic.  Democrats will say that is a gross overstatement by a bunch of Trump supporters.  My response to them would be, are you willing to take that chance?  Once the foundation of the Republic is breached, it is unlikely we can revive it to its original form and intent. 

SUMMARY OF SOME OF THE PROVISIONS OF HR1:

• Automatic voter registration, same-day registration and online voter registration; whereby election officials would have insufficient time to verify the accuracy of either voter information or eligibility.
• State Voter Registration Rolls: HR1 would require states to automatically register all individuals (as opposed to “citizens”) from an array of state and federal databases.
• It would ban witness signature or notarization requirements for absentee ballots.
• Restricts states from banning mail-in ballots and ballot harvesting. 
• Prevents election officials from checking the eligibility and qualifications of voters and removing ineligible voters.
• Ban state voter ID laws by forcing states to allow individuals to vote without an ID.
• Requires states to restore the eligibility of felons to vote. 
• Limits access to federal courts for anyone challenging HR1.

There is more in those 800 pages in HR1 but that gives you a sense of the greatly enhanced opportunities for voter fraud.  It is not election reform.

STATES’ RIGHTS:  It is important to remember that States’ Rights is a foundational element of our Republic.  HR1 places every meaningful element of the election process in the hands of the federal government.  While States’ Rights is important, we also have to consider that many of the states got a “D” or an “F” in November, 2020 preceding the election.  We need to find some meaningful middle ground between Federal and State oversight of the election process.

THE ALTERNATIVE:  Here is the beginning of a solution:

Large organizations (for purposes of this discussion, look at national election players as a “large organization”) have a greater chance for success if they do two things: One is to have in-place an over-arching operational precept of Maximum Centralized Planning, Maximum Decentralized Execution. Secondly, operate from an established set of standards; an organization without standards is a failed organization. 

From the “maximum centralized planning” aspect, Congress should pass into law the following standards that must be adhered to by every state.

ELECTION STANDARDS:

• Information from a Voter ID Card will be the sole source of data for Stare Voter Registration rolls.
• The primary method of voting in all national elections is in-person voting.   The only alternative is individually requested absentee ballots.  
• Eligibility to vote is granted to every U.S. citizen eighteen years of age or older.
• No one can vote unless they are in possession of a State-issued Voter ID Card.
• The ballot for those persons running for president and vice president of the United States will be printed as a stand-alone ballot.
• Each presidential/vice presidential ballot will be both hand-counted and “read” by a voting machine.
• States will scrupulously provide for multiple-person teams charged with the responsibility of establishing a clear and rapid (minutes, not hours) chain-of-custody for every presidential ballot.  An example set of procedural rules are provided herein.
• National elections will be held beginning on the first Saturday in November with hours of operation as follows:  Saturday, 7a.m through 7p.m. Sunday, 12-noon through 7p.m. Monday, a national election-day holiday with minimum-essential personal working across the country, 7a.m. through 7p.m.

• Election results will be released Tuesday after the Monday Election Holiday 12 hours after the polls close, beginning with 7a.m. eastern standard time.
• For those unable to travel to a DMV, states will provide for submission of a notarized application along with a photo and required documentation to a DMV to receive a Voter ID Card.

COMMENT ON VOTING DAYS:  In accordance with the Constitution, The Congress shall prescribe the day(s) for national elections.  Since 1846 that date has been the first Tuesday in November. Our citizens are notoriously apathetic when it comes to voting with the turnout normally around 60% of eligible voters going to the polls.  In the 2020 election a record number of Americans voted but still an estimated 80 million did not.  Having the election take place on a single mid-week, working-day is just plain stupid. Long voting lines and inability to get off work limits the number of voters. 

DEFINING THE PROBLEMS: If I was tasked to write the rules and regulations at either the federal or state level to solve the following six fraud issues, it would probably be hundreds of pages long and ultimately relatively ineffective.  But, a Voter ID Card in use by every eligible voter will PREVENT ALL OF THESE POTENTIAL FRAUDULENT PRACTICES.

ONE, VOTER REGISTRATION ROLLS:  Across America the states’ voter registration rolls are terribly maintained, highly inaccurate and provide multiple opportunities for fraudulent activities. For example, Judicial Watch won a federal lawsuit requiring Los Angeles county to remove an estimated 1.5 million ineligible voters from its rolls. The Voter ID Card system will solve those problems and be self-policing. 

Every state will retool its Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to also produce Voter ID Cards.  They will produce three products; a driver’s license for the new driver who is too young to vote, a stand-alone Voter ID Card for any eligible voter who cannot drive and a combination drivers license/voter ID. 

Think of the Voter ID Card as a picture ID (like your driver’s license) with a “swipe” capability (like your credit card) that will display on a screen all of the voter’s personal data as well as the dates the Voter ID Card has been “used” during the current election cycle. The intent of the Voter ID Card Law is to positively identify a voter at a voting site with a current photo, a valid state Voter ID number, current address and a history of voter activity.  Everyone who desires to vote must have a Voter ID Card in order to perform in-person voting or to apply for an absentee ballot.  

Every DMV issued card will have a 5-year expiration date.

All cards issued by state DMV will contain a photo, full name, date of birth, address, sex, eye color, height, hair color, a 5-year expiration date and, most importantly, an individual driver’s license number and a Voter ID number.  Voter ID numbers will be a 10-digit number beginning with the two-letter state abbreviation such as TX-456-789-3322.

In order to obtain a Voter ID Card, you must be 18 years of age and present, as a minimum, a birth certificate or naturalization papers, a valid Social Security Card and two documents with a current physical address proving state’s residency.

The State DMV will immediately provide the State Election Headquarters with all Voter ID Card data. This will become the sole source for State Voter Registration Rolls.  Upon the expiration date, that person’s name and data will automatically fall off the Registration Rolls and return to the rolls when the card is renewed.  This routine will ensure the State Registration Rolls remain current at all times, are correct and are self-policing.  Under this Voter ID Card system there will no longer be dead people voting.

TWO, BALLOT STUFFING: Casting illegal votes or submitting more than one ballot per voter.  That cannot be done with this system because every ballot must have a Voter ID number on it and that number can only be used once during an election cycle.

THREE, VOTER IMPERSONATION: A person claims to be someone else when casting a vote. Every voter must produce a picture-Voter ID Card before they can get a ballot.

FOUR, VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD:  Filling out and submitting a voter registration card for a fictional person, or filling out a voter registration card with the name of a real person but without that person’s consent and forging his or her signature on the card. Voter ID Cards prevent this from ever happening.

FIVE, FRAUD BY ELECTION OFFICIALS:  Manipulation of ballots by officials administering the election, such as tossing out ballots or casting ballots in voters’ names. Every ballot will contain an individual’s Voter ID Card number that can only be used one time during a voting cycle.

SIX, ABVSENTEE BALLOT VOTE FRAUD: A person attempts to fill out and turn in an absentee ballot containing false information. The Voter ID Card will not allow this because an absentee ballot application must contain a valid Voter ID Card number.  The only way absentee ballot fraud can exist is if a registered voter has their Voter ID Card stolen; an insignificant number.

ACHIEVING FEDEALLY MANDATED CHAIN-OF-CUSTODY STANDARDS:  From the above list of election standards, “States will scrupulously provide for multiple-person teams charged with the responsibility of establishing a clear and rapid (minutes, not hours) chain-of-custody for every presidential ballot.”

Personnel working the in-person voting sites will be organized as follows. All of the work will be accomplished by teams. Each team will consist of a person affiliated with each of the major political parties plus an observer.

The executive team will over-see all operations from opening through 7 p.m. each voting day and ensure that every procedure prescribed in the federal law is being adhered to. 

The counting teams will manually count all in-person and absentee presidential/vice presidential ballots. 

The accounting team will verify the count of each box of counted ballots, secure the ballot storage room and maintain the total presidential vote count.

Sequence of voting events:

• When a voter presents their Voter ID Card at the voting site, the voter administrative assistant will swipe the Voter ID Card and ascertain if that particular Voter ID Card number has already been used during the current election period.  If not, the assistant will print out an individual ballot which has the voter’s full name, address and Voter ID Card number printed on the ballot.  In the presence of the voting assistant, the voter will sign the ballot acknowledging that the data is correct.  That signature must match the one on the ID Card.
• Each voter will receive a ballot consisting of two pieces of paper.  Page one contains only the names of the president/vice president candidates and, if appropriate, a national referendum issue.  The second paper is for all state and local candidates.    
• The voter completes filling out the two-page ballot and presents the ballots to the person operating the electronic tabulating machine. Both paper ballots are entered into the machine; any subsequent ballots presented with that Voter ID number will be automatically rejected.
• The tabulating machine is the primary method of counting votes for the state/local candidates.  The primary counting method for the president/vice president ballot is hand-counting. The tabulating machine becomes a back-up count in the event of a catastrophic loss of paper ballots by fire, flood, theft, etc.
• The presidential paper ballot will be retrieved from the tabulating machine and presented to the counting team.  The counting team will consist of two people of differing political party affiliation plus a counting monitor. The counting team process will proceed as follows: 
• Number the ballot in the upper right-hand corner. if, for example, the ballot storage boxes hold 200 ballots, the numbering will continue from #1 through # 200.
• Each counter and the monitor will initial under the page number of every ballot and record the date and time, thereby establishing chain-of -custody during the counting process. Each counter will be associated with a particular candidate throughout the counting process and will keep a tally of the ballots for their candidate. 
• After each 100 counted ballots the counters and the monitor will confirm that the combined tallies account for 100, 200, etc. for example, 53 for candidate “a” and 47 for candidate “b”; 97 for candidate “a” and 103 for candidate “b”, etc.  if the tallies do not total an even century number, the ballots will be immediately recounted. 

• The counting process is simple and quick; number the ballot, initial the ballot, record the date and time and enter the winning candidate on a counter-team tally sheet.  All that can be completed in 10-15 seconds.  Therefore, one counting team can process ballots from many voting booths and never jeopardize the security of the ballots.
• Upon completion of counting the ballots to fill a storage box, the accounting team will be called in.  They will perform five chain-of-custody functions.

One:  Instruct the counters to sign and record the date and time on their individual tally sheets and place them inside the storage box with the numbered ballots.

Two: Seal the ballot box with permanent adhesive tape. 

Three: Place a permanent-adhesive ballot box accounting sheet on to the outside of the box.  All members of the counting and accounting teams for that box will sign the sheet indicating also the date and time. The box will be numbered and the total votes for each candidate will be entered on that exterior box accounting sheet.

Four: The box number and its associated votes for each candidate will be entered onto the accounting team’s official presidential vote tally document.

Five: The box will be immediately moved to a secured storage room and logged in with accounting team signatures and date and time.  That room must be off limits to all except the executive and accounting team members.  At no time can a single individual from any team enter the storage room alone or with an individual of the same political affiliation.

If, for some precise reason, a box must be removed from secure storage, it must be done so by an executive team and they must maintain chain-of-custody until they log the box back into secure storage. 

This same process will be used for counting absentee ballots.

ARE THE VOTING MACHINES WORKING?  How do we know?  Every morning run a ballot with a fake ID Card number through the system; did it reject it?  Send a valid ID Card numbered ballot through twice; did it reject the second one? At the end of each voting day in every precinct the Executive Team can run a tally of the votes from the presidential/vice presidential ballot as recorded by the voting machines.  Then compare the machine-tally with the hand-count tally as recorded by the Counting and Accounting Teams.  If they do not match, go full-stop immediately and fix the problem. 

CONCLUSIONS:

One: This nation desperately needs election reform. 

Two: HR1 is not reform in any sense of the word.  It is classic Washington partisan political piece of crap.

Three:  Voter ID Cards are easy, safe, reliable and as close to tamper-proof as we can get.

Four:  States have proven that they cannot assure We The People that they can produce a fair election process.  Therefore, we must have some “maximum centralized planning” in order for the “maximum decentralized execution” to function properly.

Five:  An organization without standards is a failed organization.  The federal government must set the standards for national elections.  Go back and review the ten standards above.

Six:  We don’t need 800 pages of congressional crap to “solve” our election problems.  We can/must do it with an 8-page (or less) document produced from the above 2900 words. 

Seven:  The federal government passed a law which becomes effective 1 October, 2021 requiring any person at least 18 years old to have a “Real ID” in order to get on a commercial air liner.  The requirements for a Real ID are the same as those specified above for a Voter ID Card, proof of citizenship, social security card, etc.  Have we heard the Democrat Party cry foul?  Are democrats uniformly against Real IDs?  No.  Then why are they so outspoken and firmly against any requirement for a voter to present and ID? 

BOTTOM LINE:  This is a Line in the Sand for this great country.  There is a crisis of confidence across America over many states’ election standards or the lack thereof. It’s time to get mad as hell at the mental midgets in Washington and do something. Now!

H.R. 1, FOR THE PEOPLE ACT OF 2021 has already passed the House.  S 1, THE FOR THE PEOPLE ACT OF 2021, is under consideration in the Senate. If you agree with this alternative to election reform, please do two things immediately.  Forward this to your email list of friends and family. Secondly, contact the members of your Congressional Delegation. 

By the way I was recently introduced to an easy way to contact my reps in Washington.  There is a smartphone app called KwikLetter which streamlines the task of writing and mailing a letter that will actually reach the office of any/all elected representative(s) in your home district.  While it is unlikely your elected officials will personally read your letter, in all probability their staff will catalog your opinion on the matter addressed.

Very Respectfully,

Marv Covault

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

At some point K-8^th grade in my one-room school house in rural Iowa, my only classmate and I learned about the glaciers that crept south and covered our homeland about 300 million years ago.  Conclusion:  yes, there is climate change. The climate has been changing, is changing and will continue to change on its own.

But it begs the question, is the human race causing climate to change too fast for us to survive?  For purposes of discussion, assume what all the dooms-day folks are saying is true, we the people are killing our planet with too much greenhouse gas emissions. How then, do we reduce the amount of carbon released and what will we substitute to produce the power we need to survive? The last part of that question is the issue because we cannot survive with massive, continuous electrical power.  We have put ourselves in that box and it won’t go away.

My intent is not to suggest a surefire solution.  Impossible at this time.  However, it is not too soon to begin turning over some rocks and see what crawls out.  We need to take off our rose-colored glasses right now because the “green” propaganda has too many folks believing this is easy because, for example, “wind and sunshine are free”.   

This is long, way long, but it is a very big subject so please bear with me.

THE BIDEN NEW GREEN DEAL:  Let’s begin with his vision statement, “100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions no later than 2050.” In my mind, at this time, it raises more questions than answers. Is “net zero” just a sound bite or even within the art of the possible? If not, it would be good to know that now.  If it is achievable it would be nice to know how many trillions of dollars it will cost and can we borrow that many trillions of dollars? If the collective nations of the world fail to buy in, what then?  Is it better to go ahead now and work on half a loaf irrespective of the feasibility of ever doing the second half or does that just prolong the enviable dooms day?  

PARIS GLOBAL CLIMATE ACCORDS: The Paris Accords entered into force on November 4, 2016, and has been signed by 195 countries and ratified by 190 as of January 2021.  The objective is to limit greenhouse gas emissions by 50 % by 2030 and ultimately to levels that would prevent global temperatures from increasing more than 3.6 °F before the end of this century.             

Each signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement was asked to submit a plan.  The “plan” was to specify their year-by-year program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So, what happens if a nation does not submit a plan or does not achieve their objectives?  Nothing, absolutely nothing. The plans are not enforceable and there are no penalties for failure. The Paris Climate Agreement is a glorified global PR effort.  No teeth. No funding.  No sanctions for failure.  But the story gets worse.

Under the Paris agreement, “developed countries” such as the United States pledge to provide funding and technical support to “developing countries”, such as India, to assist with emissions reductions; wherein India promptly estimated that it would need “at least US $2.5 trillion” in aid by 2030 to achieve its emissions reduction targets.

To date, almost 75% of the nations’ pledges are insufficient to achieve the 2030 target.

And then there is China’s “pledge”.  They will continue to increase emissions of carbon dioxide at least until 2030; i.e., zero reduction planning.

And the democrats could not say enough bad things about President Trump for pulling out of this Paris Accords charade.  By the way, a year after pulling out, the US led the world in reducing carbon emissions primarily because of fracking and natural gas production.  U.S. coal production has been declining since 2007 primarily because we have been able to pump enough natural gas out of the ground to replace the coal in energy producing plants.

QUESTION FOR PRESIDENT BIDEN:  The World Bank officially categorizes 139 nations as “developing”.  China is one of them!  How many of the 139 will want a handout from the U.S. taxpayers to achieve their environmental goals.

Aren’t we thankful that one of Biden’s first official acts was to rejoin the Paris Climate Accords?

COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS, WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE US?

In 2019 there were still 241 coal powered units across the US which generated 23% of the United States electricity. Between 2010 and 2019, 290 coal-fired power plants were closed which represented 40% of the US coal-generating capacity. Additionally, more than half of U.S. coal mines have closed since 2008. Bottom line, years before the Paris Accords came into existence and before AOC’s bartending career took off, we have been ahead of the world in planning for greenhouse gas reductions. 

The US Energy Information Administration reports that between 2005 and 2019, “total US electricity generation increased by almost 2% while related CO2 emissions fell by 33%”

QUESTION FOR PRESIDENT BIDEN:  Now that, in a knee-jerk I’ll-show-you-trump-supporters order to shut down fracking and leasing on public lands, will there be sufficient quantities of natural gas to continue the transition from coal?

COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS, WHAT’S HAPPENING IN CHINA AND INDIA?

The world has about 10,210 coal-fired power plants; the US has less than 300. China and India combined have about 40% of the world’s population and about 50% (5,100) coal-fired power plants.  That’s the bad news; the worse news is that between the two of them China and India are in the process of building 634 new coal-fired power plants by 2030.  That means standing up a new coal-fired plant about every 6 days, 2020-2030. 

China is also building and financing hundreds of other coal-fired power plants in countries such as Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Egypt, and Bangladesh.  China accounts for roughly half the world’s coal consumption.

If we are to believe the green folks, they are focused on global change in order to save the planet which raises the following question:

QUESTION FOR PRESIDENT BIDEN:  Do you have any leverage to use to get the likes of China and India on board with greenhouse gas reductions?   

WIND AND SOLAR GENERATED ENERGY AND BATTERY-POWERED VEHICLES:  Yes, our portfolio of non-carbon power generation needs to include wind and solar and yes, we need to drastically reduce carbon emissions from transportation.  The problem is, there is no free lunch and the green folks never seem to get to a discussion of the down-side and unintended consequences such as, tangentially added carbon footprints, added environmental mine-fields, potential vast cost increases for increasingly scarce essential natural resources.

Here are some issues that need to be included in the equation getting to Biden’s end-state of, “100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions no later than 2050.”

WIND:  First of all, the green folks would have us all believe that wind and sunshine are free.  Well, technically yes, but to harness them certainly is not. 

There are about 240,000 operating wind turbines in the world, producing about 4% of the required electricity.  When it comes to wind turbine construction, there are a lot of numbers out there. I believe this set fairly captures the story.  

The American Wind Energy Association says it takes somewhere in the range of 200 to 230 tons of steel to make a single wind turbine. The steel tower is anchored in a platform of more than a thousand tons of concrete and steel rebar, 30 to 50 feet across and anywhere from 6 to 30 feet deep. Add to that 45 tons of nonrecyclable plastic blades and 2 tons of rare-earth elements. Then after a life-cycle of around 20 years, start over. 

If we want wind to produce half the world’s electricity, we will need to build about 3 million more turbines. Three million turbines at 230 tons of steel each equals about 690 million tons of steel.  To produce steel for one turbine requires about 150 tons of coking coal and about 300 tons of iron ore, all mined, transported and probably producing hydrocarbons. 

More bad news.  It should be pointed out that cement is the number one carbon contributor in the world.  The production of one pound of cement also produces one pound of CO2.  Then there are the emissions from all the trucks, trains, ships, bulldozers, cranes, and other equipment involved in turbine construction.

We are constantly being fed unattainable projections about power production from wind turbines. Wind proponents describe capability in terms of “capacity.”  That is, if the turbine was fully active 24/7 it would produce X amount of power.  The truth is that because of varying weather conditions, a turbine’s output averages barely a quarter of its “capacity.” 

That fact brings us to another disturbing question; what do we do for power when the wind doesn’t blow?  The most obvious answer is that we must maintain, at all times, a fully operational backup power source. Or do we just heat half the houses, run half the manufacturing plants, recharge half the cell phones?  Because of the requirement for near 100% backup, some experts predict a wind farm’s power will actually cost around $25,000 for every home it powers.

Another downside to wind is that the turbines are so preposterously expensive that no one would dream of building one unless they were guaranteed a huge government subsidy, also known as tax dollars.   

After we dig out of the earth millions of tons of raw materials, transport it, manufacture and construct the turbines all of which will likely cause huge carbon emissions, what is the net carbon reduction?  Researchers believe the actual CO2 reduction is so insignificant that one large windfarm saves less in a year than is given off over the same period by a single jumbo jet flying daily between the U.S. and England.

QUESTION FOR PRESIDENT BIDEN:  When are you going to have a reality check and tell the American people all of this?

SOLAR ENERGY:  Good news, China already has more solar capacity than any other country in the world and is looking to increase the proportion of renewable energy in its power mix. However, the picture of power production in China is still grim, solar covers only about 5% of their needs and coal 60%.  China remains the world’s leader in carbon gas emissions. 

The discussion of cement/steel requirement for energy from wind are sobering.  I’m sorry to report that energy from solar power requires even more cement and steel than wind turbines to produce the same amount of electricity.  Additionally, production of solar panels requires large amounts of silver and indium.  Mining of these metals is expected to increase by 250% and 1200% respectively over the next twenty years and some day we will likely run out of both. 

Solar panels require other “rare-earth” elements which are not currently mined in the US.  Demand for these elements is expected to rise 250-1000% by 2050.  Access to these metals is questionable.  For example, the Republic of the Congo produces 70% of the world’s raw cobalt and China controls 90% of cobalt refining. 

As recently as 1990, the U.S. was the world’s number-one producer of minerals. Today, it is in seventh place. Even though we have vast mineral reserves worth trillions of dollars, America is now 100% dependent on imports for some 17 key minerals, and, for another 29, over half of our needs are imported.  Tremendous vulnerability.

Also, alarming is the fact that about 90% of the world’s solar panels are built in Asia on coal-heavy electric grids.

The Netherlands government recently sponsored a “Green Study” and concluded that their country’s green objectives would consume a major share of the global metals required.  The Netherlands population is about 17 million.  The world population is about 7.5 billion.

By the way, estimates are that by 2050, with current plans, the quantity of worn-out solar panels, much of it nonrecyclable, will constitute double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste, along with over 3 million tons per year of unrecyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades.

POWER GENERATION LABOR FORCE:  Another interesting factoid not spoken about by the green folks is workers required to produce the same amount of electrical power. That is, X amount of power generated by just one coal worker requires two workers from natural gas and 79 from solar. In the words of President Biden, “clean energy will produce millions of new jobs” is true as a stand-alone statement. But we know there is a labor cost associated with production of any product and that cost is always passed on to the consumer.

For example, last year about 400,000 natural gas workers produced more than one-third of U.S. electric power.  The same size labor force, 400,000, accounted for solar’s minuscule share of 0.9 percent.

Bottom line: The goal of America’s energy sector should not be to create as many renewable energy jobs as possible, but rather, the economic goal should be to produce as much clean electric power as possible with the fewest number of energy workers.

When it comes to solar energy, the outrageous production-to-labor-force ratio is a sure sign of economic inefficiency.

QUESTION FOR PRESIDENT BIDEN:  Does it make sense to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to artificially support an energy source that is so labor-intensive that it requires a workforce 40 times greater than that for natural gas?

BATTERY POWERED VEHICLES:  The Green New Deal seeks to replace gas guzzling vehicles with battery power to reduce hydro carbon buildup.  This is not a simple matter. Some factors impacting on this green issue:

Transportation (cars, trucks, planes, boats, trains) account for about 23% of greenhouse gas emissions. Switching to electric can make a big difference.  There are about 1 billion vehicles in the world and only about 4.8 million (less than half of one per cent) are electric.  There are about 280 million vehicles in the U.S. also with only about half of one percent electric.  Point being, we have a long way to go to reach the Paris Agreement goal of, “limiting greenhouse gas emissions by 50 % by 2030”.  How are we doing?  To meet the Paris Agreement, we would need to swap out 25 million combustion vehicles for electric powered ones each year 2010-2030.  In 2019 about 1.5 million new electric vehicles were added to the worldwide fleet. 

What about coal-fired power plant emission reductions?  With China and India bringing on a new coal-fired power plant every 6^th day, 2010-2030, the Paris goal of 50% reduction will not be feasible. 

One electric car battery, weighs in at about 1000 pounds.  To produce one battery requires digging up and processing about 500,000 pounds of raw materials such as cadmium, cobalt, lead, lithium, and nickel. For example, for some of these type materials, the end product is about one half of one percent of the weight of the material dug out of the ground.

CO2 emissions from vehicles is not just a U.S. problem.  To achieve success all nations need to be involved. To that point, there are about one billion vehicles in the world today. It would take 250 billion tons of materials to build a battery for every car, once. Currently, electric car battery life is seven to ten years and then we need to dig another 250 billion tons, and again and again.  Is that feasible? By the way, replacing one vehicle battery-pack costs anywhere from $1000 to $6000.  In years ahead when the demand for raw materials increases exponentially, who knows what the cost might be.

This means that any significant expansion of today’s modest level of green energy will create an unprecedented increase in global mining for needed minerals and dramatically increase U.S. imports and the vulnerability of America’s energy supply chain.  How long will the supply of raw materials to make vehicle batteries last?  Another piece of bad news; China dominates the world’s supply of rare metals.  

Producing an electric vehicle contributes, on average, twice as much to global warming and uses double the amount of energy than producing a combustion engine car. This is mainly because of its lithium-ion battery. Given all that, it takes about nine years for an electric car to be “greener” than a diesel car, assuming an annual average mileage of 8100 miles.

Supply and demand:  Increasingly high demand for vehicle batteries (90% of the lithium-ion battery market by 2025) and perhaps the diminishing supply of raw materials to make them, may drive up the price of electric vehicles to untenable levels.

An estimated 11 million tons of spent lithium-ion batteries will flood U.S. markets by 2025, without systems in place to handle them.  Recycling lithium costs five times as much as extracting virgin material.  Therefore, currently only 5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled in Europe. 

To get an idea of the scale of mining for raw materials involved in replacing the world’s gasoline and diesel-fueled cars with electric vehicles we can take the example provided by Michael Kelly, Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge. According to Professor Kelly, if all of the UK vehicle fleet is replaced with electronic vehicles, they would need the following materials: about twice the annual global production of cobalt; three quarters of the world’s production of lithium carbonate; nearly the entire world production of neodymium; and more than half the world’s production of copper in 2018.  And this is just for the UK.

Professor Kelly estimates that if we want the whole world to be transported by electric vehicles, the vast increases in the demand the raw materials listed above would go far beyond known reserves. The environmental and social impact of vastly-expanded mining for these materials, some of which are highly toxic when mined, transported and processed, are inestimable. Will we be fighting wars over mining rights for raw materials?

Another question: how much power does it take, on a continuous basis, to recharge the batteries in 1 billion vehicles?

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS:

Disclaimer:  There are a lot of numbers in this piece and I’m certain they are not all absolutely correct.  There is a load of conflicting information to draw from on this subject. My intent was not to ensure every number would fact-check but to build the best possible picture of where we are, where we say we want to go and the likely of that being within the art of the possible.  There is also some personal math at arriving at some of the numbers.  My apologies if I miscounted all the zeros. 

How many of the 195 signatories to the Paris Accords have the resources to do wind/solar/electric vehicles.  I’m saying very few and the answer could be none of them.  How many trillions of dollars can we continue to borrow?   Will we always be able to borrow another trillion? No.  When will that day occur?  Perhaps it is long before we can achieve our CO2 reduction goals. 

No matter how many wind turbines and solar panels we build for the world, there will always be the need for substantial on-call backup around the world for when the sun doesn’t shine and/or the wind doesn’t blow.  Right now, battery backup would fall woefully short and may never be a feasible alternative.  The U.S. is successfully converting coal-fired production to clean burning natural gas because we have the greatest supply of natural gas in the world which makes our backup doable, albeit very expensive.  What do the nations that have zero natural gas do?  

I am a proponent for wind, solar, electric vehicles and whatever science can come up with to produce power.  What I am not for is false hope.  I get frustrated with the “well, let’s get on with it and just hope for the best” crowd.  Hope is not a process.  False hope is demoralizing and destructive.  Our environment and the future of this planet is too important to be toyed with by political sound bites and unfathomable green fantasies. Viable long-range strategic planning begins at the end, that is, with a definition of the end-state.  In planning jargon, end-state is the “where” of the who-what-when-where-why-and how questions; “Where” we want to go to prosper or must go to survive.  Having done that, there must be a quiet period of contemplation when the powers that be look seriously at the problem, do some back-of-the-envelope work and come to some conclusions about viability of the end-state vs hallucination.   

Nuclear power plants:  France, generates over 70% of their electricity from nuclear reactors, the highest percentage in the world. By contrast the U.S. generates only about 20% of our electricity from 94 nuclear reactors. Why should we do more? A nuclear plant’s total operating expenses are a third less than that of gas turbine and fossil fuel plants and it is clean energy.  The U.S. has not brought a new nuclear plant on line for over 30 years.  Two new nuclear units in Georgia are due to begin operating in 2021 and 2022; their approval process began in 2004.  Snail-paced government bureaucracies and environmentalists-generated delays in the courts are the overriding reasons why we don’t have more.  The environmentalists tie up nuclear construction in the courts for years and years. The environmentalists can’t have it both ways, if they don’t want millions of tons of CO2 clogging up the atmosphere then they need to give a little on alternate power production capabilities.

Waste management has over 6000 of its 18,000 garbage collection trucks running on natural gas.  The gas they use comes from the decomposition of trash in landfills and which has been turned into pipeline-quality natural gas.  Great work by WM.  There are about 130 million trucks in the U.S. and around 400 million world-wide.  Why isn’t there an initiative to transition truck power over a period of years to natural gas which has a much lower carbon footprint?  President Biden pleasestop, damnit, just stop messing with U.S. energy independence.  Until Biden shut down drilling on public lands, the U.S. has been the world’s largest producer of natural gas.

Prediction: The Paris Climate Accord’s goals will not be met for two reasons.  Most of the countries can neither afford the infrastructure nor the importation of the minerals necessary to make it happen.  That leaves it up to the U.S. to bankroll saving the planet and we do not now have, nor will we have in the future,- the wherewithal to do that.

I will leave you with this thought.  As an outspoken cynics when it comes to politicians, I believe we should not be captured by the one-liner political solutions. Remember that old saying, “For every complex problem there is a simple solution, and it is usually wrong”.  The devil is in the details; see above.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

Assertion: If you watch/listen to/read the main-stream media following the mob assault on Congress on 6 January, it is unlikely that your impression of what President Trump actually said is correct.

I have read the verbatim transcript of the entire speech; It’s 11,400 words long. There are three subjects.  1) His positive achievement over four years on behalf of all Americans. 2) Election results. And 3) the march from the White House to Capitol Hill.  I will not belabor his achievements here.

My intent is to amplify what we have heard about election fraud and to clarify President Trump’s alleged “insurrection.”

ELECTION FRAUD: First, an assumption.  The President used a lot of rounded-off numbers in describing election fraud.  Many of you have probably already seen some of those numbers but my assumption is that they were assembled primarily from hundreds of sworn affidavits provided by the patriots who observed the fraudulent activity and had the fortitude to speak out under risk of being charged with perjury if they lied. In the interest of brevity, I plucked them out of some long, rambling sentences and short paragraphs, hopefully, without losing the context. 

The president said to several thousand supporters at the rally: “In every single swing state, local officials, state officials, almost all Democrats, made illegal and unconstitutional changes to election procedures without the mandated approvals by the state legislatures, that these changes paved the way for fraud on a scale never seen before.”

PENNSYLVANIA:  President Trump went on to point out the following….

• Over 8,000 ballots were cast by people whose names and dates of birth match individuals who died in 2020 prior to the election.
• Over 14,000 ballots were cast by out-of-state voters.
• More than 10,000 votes were counted, even though they were received after Election Day. 
• 25,000 ballots were requested by nursing home residents, all in a single giant batch, indicating an enormous illegal ballot-harvesting operation.
• The day before the election, the State of Pennsylvania reported the number of absentee ballots that had been sent out. Yet this number was suddenly and drastically increased by 400,000 people.

WISCONSIN: President Trump said……

• Over 170,000 absentee votes were counted in Wisconsin without a valid absentee ballot application.
• In Madison, 17,000 votes were deposited in so-called human drop boxes in complete defiance of cease-and-desist letters from the state legislature. They came in duffle bags.
• According to eyewitness testimony, postal service workers in Wisconsin were also instructed to illegally backdate approximately 100,000 ballots.
• The margin of difference in Biden’s win in Wisconsin was less than 20,000 votes.

GEORGIA: President Trump pointed out…..

• The absentee/mail-in ballot rejection rate was more than 10 times lower than previous levels. In other words, in a year in which more people were voting by mail for the first time, the rejection rate was drastically lower than it had ever been before. If Georgia had merely rejected the same number of unlawful ballots, as in other years, there should have been approximately 45,000 ballots rejected.
• In Fulton County, republican poll Watchers were rejected from the room under the false pretense of a burst water main, which we now know was a total lie. Then election officials, when not being monitored, pulled boxes and suitcases of ballots out from under a table. (many of you saw this on television) and illegally scanned them for nearly two hours totally unsupervised. That coincided with a mysterious vote dump of up to 100,000 votes for Joe Biden, almost none for Trump. That was at 1:34am.
• Over 10,300 ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match Georgia residents who died in 2020 prior to the election.
• More than 2,500 ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match incarcerated felons in Georgia prison.
• More than 4,500 illegal ballots were cast by individuals who do not appear on the state’s own voter rolls.
• Over 18,000 illegal ballots were cast by individuals who registered to vote using an address listed as vacant, according to the postal service.
• At least 88,000 ballots were cast by people whose registrations were illegally backdated.
• 66,000 votes were cast by individuals under the legal voting age.
• At least 15,000 ballots were cast by individuals who moved out of the state prior to November 3rd election.
• Senator William Ligon, chairman of the Georgia Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, and highly respected on elections, has written a letter describing his concerns with Dominion in Georgia. He wrote, and I quote, “The Dominion voting machines employed in Fulton County had an astronomical and astounding 93.67% error rate.  In the scanning of ballots requiring a review panel to adjudicate or determine the voter’s interest, in over 106,000 ballots out of a total of 113,000. The source of this astronomical error rate must be identified to determine if these machines were set up or destroyed to allow for a third party to disregard the actual ballot cast by the registered voter.”  Trump commented that the national average for such an error rate is far less than 1 percent.  The letter continues, “There is clear evidence that tens of thousands of votes were switched from President Trump to former Vice President Biden in several counties in Georgia. For example, in Bibb County, President Trump was reported to have 29, 391 votes at 9:11 PM Eastern time. While simultaneously Vice President Joe Biden was reported to have 17,213. Minutes later, just minutes, at the next update, these vote numbers switched with President Trump going way down to 17,000 and Biden going way up to 29,391. ‘And that was very quick, a 12,000-vote switch, all in Mr. Biden’s favor.’
• Despite all of this, the margin in Georgia was only 11,779 votes.

ARIZONA: President Trump said….

• Over 36,000 ballots were illegally cast by non-citizens.
• 2,000 ballots were returned with no address.
• More than 22,000 ballots were received back by election officials before they were supposedly mailed out.
• 11,600 more ballots and votes were counted than there were actual voters.
• 150,000 people registered in Maya Copa County after the registration deadline.

NEVADA:  President trump continued….

• The accuracy settings on signature verification machines were purposely lowered before they were used to count over 130,000 ballots. 
• There were more than 42,000 double votes in Nevada. 
• 1,500 ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match Nevada residents who died in 2020, prior to November 3rd election.
• More than 8,000 votes were cast by individuals who had no address.
• 17,000 ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth matched people who were deceased.

MICHIGAN: President Trump pointed out….

• In Wayne County (Detroit), 174,000 ballots were counted without being tied to an actual registered voter. 
• Also, in Wayne County, poll watches observed canvassers re-scanning batches of ballots multiple times.
• In Detroit, turnout was 139 percent of registered voters.
• Four witnesses testified, under penalty of perjury, that after officials in Detroit announced the last votes had been counted, tens of thousands of additional ballots arrived without required envelopes. Every single one was for a Democrat.
• At 6:31am, after voting had ended, Michigan suddenly reported 147,000 votes. An astounding 94 percent went to Joe Biden.

COMMENT:  Following the election, President Trump’s lawyers filed approximately 60 lawsuits alleging massive election fraud. Most were based on sworn affidavits from election workers. All of the lawsuits were thrown out by judges.  Why? 

In our country, when there is reason to believe a crime has been committed, the following sequence of events follows:

• There is an investigation by law enforcement officers; police, sheriff, State Bureaus of Investigation, FBI, Special Councils, etc. 
• Evidence would be gathered and presented to a prosecutor.  
• If the prosecutor was convinced of a crime it would go to a grand jury. If upheld, individuals would be indicted.
• A trial would be convened, and for the first time a judge would become involved.  

Two things happened in this election fraud scenario; 1) There is little information to indicate that any of the governors seriously set out to conduct an investigation.  2) Three weeks after the election US Attorney General Barr stated, “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” 

Because the Trump legal team had no authority to conduct interviews or request warrants to view ballots, the only alternative was for Trump lawyers to take lawsuits directly to the appropriate judge, where they were generally denied because the individuals’ sworn affidavits were considered to be “uncorroborated hearsay”.  No thorough investigation. 

There was another factor in play, time.  It was impossible, between 3 November and 20 January to conclude investigations in suspect states and complete a speedy trial.  Is that a sufficient excuse to do nothing?  I think not.  But it begs the question, if we cannot successfully prosecute election fraud in a timely manner, how can we expect to ever have a free and honest election? 

CONCLUSIONS concerning election fraud:  

• There will not be an investigation emanating from the Biden administration.

Even if there was an investigation, it would take at least a year and a few folks might go to jail, but would it solve the problem?  Probably not. So, what to do?

• Justice resulting from a long investigation might be satisfying but will it solve the problem?  Probably not, and if only10% of President Trump’s above assertions are correct, we need to bring these injustices to an end, forever.
• In fact, we neither need an investigation of the last election, that train left the station, nor do we need to recount votes. 

There is a simple solution.  Voter ID Cards (not voter ID, but a special card); name, photo, expiration date, and an individual voter ID number.  When your card is swiped for in-person voting, a ballot will be printed with all of your data on it.  Absentee ballot applications must include your voter ID number.  Having done that, it is a simple software command that only ballots that have an ID number can be “read” and ballots will be rejected if that ID number has been used during the voting cycle. 

All Congress has to do is be proactive and pass a simple Voter ID Card law. With Voter ID Cards, every alleged voter fraud activity cited by President Trump during his 6 January rally would have been impossible to execute. For a more extensive discussion of Voter ID Cards, see WeThePeopleSpeaking.com, EVERY CITIZEN SHOULD HAVE A VOTER ID CARD, dated 10 December, 2020.

Given the alleged magnitude of fraud in this past election, without Voter ID Cards, not just voter ID, it is unlikely that we will ever have a legal election again.  Next time it will be the Republican’s turn and then it will become a contest to see which political party can out-fraud the other.  You can stick a fork in this country, we will be done.  A cornerstone of our republic, free and honest elections, will be ripped out of the foundation. 

If you agree with this, please send it along to your Representative and Senators.

Break, Break (Army speak for “new subject”):  back to WHAT PRESIDENT TRUMP REALLY SAID AT THE 6 JANUARY RALLY IN WASHINGTON DC.

If your primary source for current events is the main-stream media, you would believe that on 6 January President Trump riled thousands of supporters into a rabid frenzy and said, grab your M-15 and follow me, we are taking down Congress.

Not quite:  I plucked every reference to Capitol Hill out of his speech.  Here is what he actually said….

• “We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and we’re going to the Capitol,”

• “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women.”

• “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

• “So, let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I want to thank you all. God bless you and God bless America.”

• Later, after the rioting began, he tweeted, “I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, we are the Party of Law & Order, respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you.”  

• A second tweet, “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful.”

CONCLUSIONS concerning 6 January riots and follow-on impeachment.

It is obvious from 20/20 hindsight that the rally was a monumental mistake.  The president’s intent to administratively change the outcome of a formal affirmation of the Electoral College victory, was ill-conceived and doomed to failure. 

Since descending on the escalator at Trump Tower five and a half years ago, candidate/President Trump has led hundreds of rallies without a hint of violence by right-wing radicals. My theory is that, with that track-record, the domestic violence intel folks and Capitol Police believed the likelihood of an attack on the Capitol Building was low to none.  Had they been better prepared, perhaps the outcome would have been less tragic. 

One week later, without investigations by House committees and without the opportunity to mount a defense, President Trump was impeached by a House up-or-down vote for “incitement of insurrection.”

Whether or not President Trump should have been impeached by the House goes to the question of intent.  What did he mean by “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”?  I believe it is abundantly clear the president’s words spoken to the thousands of supporters were not intended to promote violence by radical thugs, a very small percentage of the total rally participants.

The impeachment has to do with one thing, Pelosi’s intent.  She is without a doubt the most vengeful, hate filled senior elected official in my long lifetime of following politics.

 As Victor Davis Hanson to eloquently pointed out a few days ago, “From now on, House impeachment will be used by the out-party as a periodic club to wound a first-term president”. 

Bottom line:  While listening to President Biden’s single-subject inauguration speech, I was hopeful that his words would be followed with commensurate actions.  For example, a simple private phone call to Pelosi could have eliminated impeachment and sent a positive message to 74 million Trump supporters.  Instead, the Biden administration’s intent is very clear, they will continue to foster a culture of hate for everything President Trump did for this country. 

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

Looking four years ahead my sincere hope is that the Biden Administration is successful.  Having said that, I need to define “success”. In the larger context I define success as that which is best for the American people, not some of us, all of us. More specifically, I believe success would be a secure nation, safe communities, a strong military deterrence and sustained economic growth; that is, every sector of the economy grows.

Am I optimistic?  Not yet.  Let’s look at a few of the policies that are likely to be implemented, some of them very soon, and see what we come up with.  Remember the measure is success, i.e., what is best for all Americans. 

IMMIGRATION REFORM:  Biden said, “ I will send an immigration bill to the United States Senate with a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people in America,”  Four things are bothering me.

Eleven million is a number that has been around for years.  Experts tell us the real number is a lot closer to 22 million.  Facts: we don’t know who they are, where they live or how long they have been here.  So, if the number is really over 20 million and Biden says 11 million will become citizens. How does he deal with the number’s discrepancy?

Two, how does he sort out the hard working, law abiding illegals from the gang members, drug dealers criminals and those who have become totally dependent on US social services? 

Three, precedent is a powerful force, especially when it comes to government policy.  It is highly likely that amnesty will become a green light for millions more illegals from around the world to overpower the border and get in line for the second round of amnesty. 

Four, this immigration reform policy shift is not some big humanitarian gesture by the democrats.  It is the finishing touch to a long-standing plan to establish a new identity voting block consisting of tens of millions of newly natualized citizens. 

Is this what is best for America?  If you want to see a different immigration reform plan that will voluntarily identify and locate every illegal immigrant in America, sort out the good ones and deport the criminals, stop the flow of illegals coming here for work, provide a path to citizenship, have the illegals pay taxes and do it all without new federal or state funding or the establishment of a massive/forever bureaucracy; if that appeals to you look at an article entitled IMMIGRATION REFORM PLAN, published August 2020 on WeThePeopleSpeaking.com. 

OPEN BORDERS:  Biden will not call it open borders but there is every reason to believe he will at least revert to the Obama/Biden policy of catch-and-release. Under this policy illegals crossing the border would actually seek out border patrol agents so they could get “processed” and be on their way. 

As I write this, there is a caravan of about 5000 Guatemalans on the way. Why?  They want to be here when amnesty is announced.  Border patrol is anticipating wave after wave of illegals in the coming months.

What do we know about those 5000 who are on the way to our southern border and the tens of thousands who will follow?  We know they will all fall into one or more of the following categories:  Criminals, drug dealers, gang members, Covid-19 carriers, sick, unemployed or children who need free education in Spanish.  And this is good for America?

“SHUT DOWN DEPORTATION FOR THE FIRST 100 DAYS”, Biden says.  Why?  Because the democrats have long campaigned to shut down ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Of the 85,958 illegal aliens removed from the U.S. interior in 2019, more than 75 percent – 64,991 – had criminal convictions. Another 13,498 had pending criminal charges. Using this data, on average, ICE deported 215 criminals per day.  Biden’s 100 -day shut-down will keep 21,500 criminals in our communities who could have been/should have been deported. 

In all likelihood, the 100-day shutdown is just the prelude. Is eliminating ICE, and leaving tens of thousands of criminals off our streets, the best course of action for safety in our communities?

“I WILL INCREASE MINIMUM WAGED TO $15 PER HOUR ACROSS THE COUNTRY.” Biden promises.  I see two down-side issues here. 

One is timing.  Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of COVID-19-impacted small businesses hanging on be a thread.  Increased minimum right now could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and put them off the cliff.

The second issue is the math. The democrat sound-bite is the $15 minimum wage will lift 1 million Americans out of poverty; an admirable goal.  However, many small businesses operate with slim profit margins and cannot tolerate increased wage costs.  Solution, they will cut back on employees and experts predict 1.3 million will lose their jobs.

Additionally, why $15 increase in every state? The highest cost of living state is Hawaii and the lowest is Mississippi. Does it make sense to dictate the same minimum wage for every state? 

So, with this program we help 1 million low-income employees and start paying unemployment to 1.3 million who just got fired.  Is that what is best for America?

CORPORATE TAX RATES:  Biden told CNN “I’d make the changes on the corporate taxes on day one. The reason I’d make the change on corporate taxes is it could raise $1.3 trillion if they just start paying at 28 percent instead of 21 percent.”

Couple points, corporations don’t pay taxes, people do.  A corporate tax is an added cost of producing a product that gets passed on to the consumer.  When the product price goes up the corporation can no longer compete in a global market.  So, they find another way to cut costs; the usual result is less payroll.

That is exactly the formula that sent millions of US manufacturing jobs overseas.  Do we really want to go through that Obama/Biden scenario again?  Is a higher corporate tax rate really what is best for Americans?

“I WILL NOT FUND ONE MORE FOOT OF BORDER WALL,” Biden said last week. Two points:

One, security walls have proven effective for thousands of years.  They work today in Israel.  They work in affluent neighborhoods across this country.  They are working on our southern border today and every foot that is built allow scarce Border Patrol efforts to be focused elsewhere to their greatest advantage. 

Secondly, billions of dollars will reportedly be spent to cancel contracts, rework land leases, deal with 270,000 tons of fencing materials already produced, etc.  Is this the best use of American tax dollars?  Would it make more sense to finish the fencing that is already funded and then, if Biden still believes walls don’t work, cancel future construction?    

OIL INDEPENDENCE:  For decades US Middle East policy has been complicated, delicate and difficult. the proposed solution to every Middle East issue was predicated on consideration of our need for oil imports from the Middle East.

President Trump’s oil independence has allowed us to interact in the Middle East without fear and trepidation that our oil supplies could be cut off or cause gas prices to surge adversely affecting everyone and every business.  Additionally, without oil independence, we were at the mercy of OPEC when it came to pricing oil and gas on the world’s market.

Biden flip-flopped on the issue of fracking to appease Pennsylvania voters so we do not know where he will end up on the subject of fracking.   But we do know he has not waivered on banning “new oil and gas on public lands and waters”.  A couple issues here.

First, in eight western states, 97% of the oil and gas extraction is from federal lands. So, nearly every oil and gas drilling lease comes into play. 

Second, since the federal government owns nearly a half of the land in the eleven Western states, the economic possibilities of Bidens plans “are devastating“, according to Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon.

 A third point, Biden’s pronouncements on oil and gas production are likely pandering to global warming proponents. But the fact is that reducing production from federal lands, does not reduce consumption, and consequently, does not reduce emissions.

MILITARY READINESS: Under Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama the military took huge hits in readiness; for example, after eight years of Obama/Biden the US Army had exactly one, yes one, fully combat ready warfighting brigade and scarcely 50% of Air Force/Navy aircraft could get off the ground. 

Here we go again; Biden pledged during the campaign to, “maintain our military superiority,” which they all say, but added “we must do so affordably.” Which is Washington code for huge budget cuts.

Why is US military readiness a big deal? Around the world our friends and enemies are in a constant state of assessing our military readiness for confidence (friends) and to look for vulnerabilities (enemies).  In the world we live in, US military readiness is a barometer for foreign policy development and decision making.

CONCLUSIONS:  My intent was to come to some early conclusions about which way the wind is blowing on early key issues for the Biden Administration and whether they will be “successful”; success being that which is best for the American people and, more specifically, success would be a secure nation, safe communities, a strong military deterrence and sustained economic growth. 

I wish for the best, but at this juncture I am not optimistic.  Stay tuned. 

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com

The moral high-ground: That is what people around the world used to think of when the subject of the United States came up.  It is where we want our leaders to reside but unfortunately it is not the first thing that comes to mind when we think about our politicians.

The moral high-ground is not a place you are just entitled to be; you have to earn your way to that lofty spot through words and deeds.  Additionally, there is a pathway to the moral high-ground and at the bottom of the hill the street sign says, Intellectual Honesty Lane. 

It is also important to point out that residing on the moral high-ground is not limited to we-the-people.  Every organization and institution, no matter how large or small, has a culture associated with it. Stated another way, culture is an organization’s personality.  It could be positive…..selfless, trustworthy, honest, morally stable……, you get the picture.  Or, unfortunately it could be a culture of blame, hate, self-serving, vengeful.  The one thing that is common to all cultures is, “culture is a powerful and pervasive force”.  If that definition is correct and I believe it is because it is mine, then it is a force to be reckoned with.

For the past four years we have been subjected to our organization’s (the United States of America) culture of blame and hate.  That is an ugly place to be.  

The culture of blame has been growing for the past 25 years, is now deeply entrenched in our political structure and has rendered our Congress hopelessly dysfunctional. The culture of hate is a relatively new-comer.

Background: President Obama set out in 2009 to, his words, “transform America.”  Everything seemed to be moving toward the goal, big government with government control, and then Donald Trump happened. 

In the lead-up to the 2016 election Trump told us what he was going to do…..fix immigration, fix the economy (every piece of it}, rebuild the military, make our NATO allies more responsible, stop nuclear development in North Korea, challenge China’s move toward world economic domination,  challenge Iran’s goal of Middle East hegemony, get tough on Russia, cut taxes for everyone, energy independence, Middle East peace, not start any new wars, shut down ISIS, free up small business expansion through deregulation, the list goes on.  And then after elected, he had the audacity to accomplish all of it. 

The political left was shocked when Donald Trump shredded their transformation plans. They hate him for it; not just a little bit but deep seated, blind, illogical hatred. Hatred so intense that if you supported what he was accomplishing for every citizen then their hatred expanded to include you. They denigrated every one of his accomplishments and attacked his character by proclaiming him to be an active racist. The Trump haters moved to a place so dark they could not even see the moral high-ground let alone understand the importance of it.

The hatred was so strong they openly spoke of and planned for his impeachment.  It started immediately after the 2016 election; Vanity Fair headline November14, 2016: “Will Trump Be Impeached?” Vanity Fair December 15, 2016: “Democrats Are Paving the Way to Impeach Donald Trump.” In a Washington Post article, inauguration day, January 20, 2017 “The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun.” A recent TV montage showed a lineup of main-stream media journalists and/or leading democrat spokespersons every single month from January 2017 through January 2021 make reference to the imperative to impeach President Trump. 

A culture of hate quickly swept across the nation and was embedded in the minds of possibly 75 -100 million citizens.  The principle enabler for this rapid spread of hate was the main-stream media.  Journalists quickly became the extended arm of the democrat party and its leaders.

With that background, let’s turn to the subject at hand, intellectual honesty and the moral high-ground.  When a president has successfully taken on decades-old domestic and world-wide problems and solved them, is it feasible that daily media reporting of the Trump Administration’s actions should be 93% negative continuously for four years?  Can there be any intellectual honesty associated with 93% negativism?  How is it even feasible that 75-100 million people would believe and foster 93% negative reporting?  It can happen and did happen because of a powerful and pervasive culture of hatred.

Beyond my definition,” Culture is a powerful and pervasive force”, I believe that, “In order for it to endure, culture needs to be nourished and reinforced.”  Knowing they can rely on the media to carry their dirty laundry, Trump-haters have bombarded us with their intellectual dishonesty and immorality.  Examples:

Maxine Watters, June 2018, screams to her supporters, “If you see anybody from this Cabinet in a restaurant, in a Department Store, in a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd! You push back on them! You tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!” And what did the democrat party and democrat leaders have to say about all that?  Of course, nothing. In many instances like this one, it is good to remember that silence can be construed as consent.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently tweeted that lists of Trump supporters should be, “archived so they could be held accountable for their behavior.” Could anything be more unamerican? Has she no knowledge of Germany in the 1930s or the USSR during the cold war? Without knowledge there is little hope of seeing her on the moral high-ground.

Kamala Harris:  In the wake of deadly fires and looting last summer, Harris asked her five million plus Twitter followers to donate money to bail out the protesters and then commenting in June 2020 that the protesters “should not let up.”  There is a long list of those who received cash for bail including, Jaleel who shot at members of a SWAT Team during the riots in May. He received $75,000 in cash to get out of jail.  Darnika, charged with second degree murder received $100,000 for her release. The list is long.  What was the push-back from her party for this outrageous behavior?  Zero.

 The American people are not impressed by this kind of intellectual flimflam.  Where is the moral high-ground?  And, by the way, did these ladies get their Twitter accounts suspended or even commented on?  Nope!

Biden campaigned on a pledge to reunify the nation and I fully expect him to go on and on about it during his inauguration address.  Any discussion of reunification should begin by defining the existing division but he won’t do that so his arguments may well ring hollow.

Here is what Joe will not say during his speech.  Prior to 2016 conservatives and liberals disagreed about many aspects of US foreign and domestic policy.  Nothing new about that; we have always had the majority of our population slightly left and right of an imaginary center line as well as a few relatively small lunatic fringe elements to the far left and right.

But what immediately emerged in 2016 was an enormous bulge on the left-of-center line consisting of many tens of millions of Trump haters.  They are the “divide” that all liberal politicians talk about but will never admit they are the cause of the divide. The left’s leaders cannot see it because they are the divide; akin to “unable to see the forest for the trees.”  By contrast, where did the conservatives go?  Nowhere, we are still just to the right side of the center line on policy issues. The culture of hatred towards Trump has nothing to do with policy, is it just pure unadulterated, stand-alone hatred. 

So, Mr. Biden how do you go about reuniting the country?  You and your party are all about identity politics.  Democrats know how to divide Americans into identifiable groups and pander to them.  I suggest you use some of that know-how.

President Trump is going away in a few days.  You won.  Forget about Trump; let the historians worry about him.  Without Trump to kick around, the hate culture might begin to dissolve as an up-front-in-your-face daily issue.  Additionally, journalists will hopefully find something more constructive to deal with. You have been saying for months that you want to be the president for all Americans. Unless that is just another campaign sound bite, you need to actually do something about it. 

Seventy-five million Americans voted for President Trump.  Look at them as your newest and most challenging identity group and do the following:

One, keep your antagonistic mouth shut about Trump. You hate every positive, successful policy he championed on behalf of all Americans.  Stop running all the good accomplishments down.  And watch what you say.  Your sound bites are too often wrong and inflammatory.  For example, on the Capitol Hill riot, 6 January, your knee-jerk reaction was to openly charge the president with insurrection.  The immediate follow-on was that “insurrection” became the operative word description for use by the main-stream media.  What happened on that day was tragic, poor judgement on the president’s part but it most certainly was not, “open revolt against a constituted government”, insurrection.

As an aside, calling the Capitol Police racist was not a smart move.  You might want to remove that too-often-used word from your vocabulary going forward or perhaps get some new writers. 

Two, pick up the phone and have a come-to-Jesus conversation with the single most vindictive person in government; Nancy Pelosi.  What is to be gained by a presidential impeachment in his last few days in office?  The answer is a resounding nothing, but there is a lot you can lose.  Her actions on impeachment makes you look weak.  It makes her look like the leader of your party. Everyone knows, even the democrats, you are supposed to be leading and her actions are simply all about revenge. The leading constitutional authorities I have seen on TV since 6 January have been unanimous that the president’s words were not intended to result in a riot on Capitol Hill.   

On impeachment, you have three choices; 1) support it, 2) not say anything or 3) emphatically and clearly tell we-the-people that impeachment is neither necessary nor appropriate. Choices 1 and 2 will be an enormous impediment to gaining the trust and respect of the 75 million Trump supporters.

Three, announce immediately (preferably at your inauguration) that you understand that about 90 million voters, republican, democrat and independents, want answers concerning potential fraud during the election.  Tell us that you understand the importance of honest elections and if there was fraud anywhere it must be rooted out and the system fixed. 

Doing those three things immediately, will send a powerful and positive message to 75 million Trump supports.  Your failure to do so will run the risk of shifting the left’s entire hate-bulge to the right side of the median. 

Mr. President-elect Biden, you are about to ascend to the most challenging and prominent leadership position in the world.  I ask that you keep intellectual honesty and the value of being on the moral high-ground upper-most in your mind and the in the minds of senior leaders who surround you. 

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com