Standing for US and not Party

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to say no to one’s own party, not many have the courage. On the day before the United States celebrated its independence for the 241^st time, Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Murray took a courageously independent stand for freedom.

Recently President Trump created a federal agency to bolster his false, self-serving claim that he’d have won the popular vote but for millions of illegal votes cast for Hillary Clinton. The Secretary of State in Kansas, Kris Kobach made a name for himself hunting down voters committing fraud. He found about a dozen out of well over a million votes cast.

Still, Kobach’s Quixotic crusade caught the attention of the President. Trump appointed Kobach Vice Chair of his Orwellian titled Presidential Commission on Election Integrity.

Creation of the commission itself was a slap in the face of every Secretary of State in the nation. Their primary job is to make sure elections are fair. The largest majority are Republicans who care as much as their Democratic colleagues that the electoral system is conducted with integrity. They have done this job diligently.

Nonetheless, the President alleges millions voted illegally in 2016. Those closest to the process are the Secretaries of State, people like Ed Murray. It is their credibility at stake when the President makes such demonstrably false claims.

Their credibility was unfairly challenged when, without statutory authority, Kobach casually sent a letter to state elections officials demanding they produce reams of personal and private information on every voter.

Ed Murray said no. “It’s not sitting well with me,” he declared, giving voice to state’s rights and the privacy of his constituents. Wyoming’s Secretary of State worried aloud whether this request “could lead to some federal overreach.” Indeed, that is where this commission is headed.

Ed Murray was first elected to this job in 2014. Wyoming assigns its Secretary of State a variety of responsibilities. The job description includes registering and monitoring corporations and others doing business in the state. The Secretary of State serves alongside the other four state elected officials on numerous boards and commissions. He also serves as Acting Governor when the Governor is out of state.

Of these duties, none is more important than making certain elections are free and clean. There’s never been a legitimate claim that they are not. The same is true in every other state, which renders the need for this federal commission suspect.

The request for private information, including portions of your social security number and voter history, is not only invasive and in violation of many state laws, but the President’s commission has neither the authority to make the request nor any legitimate need for the information.

Connecticut’s election head made a poignant counter-request of the federal commission, asking it to share “any memos, meeting minutes, or additional information as state officials have not been told precisely what the Commission is looking for. This lack of openness is all the more concerning, considering that the Vice Chair of the Commission, Kris Kobach, has a lengthy record of illegally disenfranchising eligible voters in Kansas.”

Murray’s decision is courageous, deserving of the support and gratitude of Wyoming citizens who understand the importance of the sovereignty of state governments in the context of the American Republic.

Pause for a moment. Consider the abundance of conspiracy theories and the explosion of outrage that would have followed such a letter from the Obama administration. Though a Republican, Trump apparently never read the memo explaining how his Party jealously guards states’ rights and personal privacy.

Attempting to bully states into providing this information, Trump Twittered, “Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL,” he Tweeted. “What are they trying to hide?”

Hiding our private information from the government is not a vice. It’s an American value with which this President may not be familiar. Thanks to Ed Murray, he’s been given a lesson on how much it matters.

Is dialogue w/Trump supporters possible?

People say we should try to understand one another. Then there’s this. Republican campaign consultant Frank Luntz recently assembled a group of Trump voters. He showed them a video from the recent NATO conference.

On camera, the President of the United States is shown shoving the head of state from Montenegro out of his way so that he could stand in front of the group of national leaders. Remember? CBS News described the incident this way:

“In video of the incident, a group of leaders is seen walking together and talking, and as the group comes to a stop, Mr. Trump grasps Markovic's right arm and pushes past him to get to the front of the group. Markovic appears surprised but smiles and pats the president on the back. The president does not acknowledge him.”

During a replay of that video, the assembled Trump voters used an electronic device to register their approval or disapproval. As Trump shoved the Montenegro Prime Minister, they dialed in their approval of his behavior. Here is a link to the focus group and their conversation with Luntz. If you haven’t seen this video, please watch it before reading more of my reaction.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/trump-supporters-react-to-prime-minister-shove-at-nato-summit/

How did that make you feel? I don’t know about you but I have a hard time understanding how these people and I share the same planet, let alone the same nationality. Tell me this. How can we be expected to have a rational dialogue with people who saw what they saw and reacted the way they reacted? Has reality become that ambiguous?
 

Here is the Republican Frank Luntz’s reaction: “What surprised me the most about that segment is when we showed Trump pushing aside the European leaders at that meeting, and they (the members of the focus group) applauded him. They loved it! Because to them it was the White House, it was the president asserting his rightful role as leader of the free world. And I'm thinking, "Oh, my God! (snickers) This is one of the most embarrassing moments." They don't see it that way. They love it and they want him to keep doing it.” 

Frank Luntz doesn’t allow his membership in the Republican Party to mask his reaction to these Trump partisans. “And I'm thinking,” the GOP consultant says, "Oh, my God! (snickers) This is one of the most embarrassing moments."

Presidents like Ronald Reagan and others were capable of making the point that America was strong without being rude. The conduct of the President that day embarrassed me. It was rude, obnoxious, and out of bounds. It didn’t make America any stronger. It made our President look like a junior high school bully. In fact, if a junior high bully acted like that, he or she would be subject to serious discipline. No one would see that behavior as acceptable.

That’s not what his supporters saw. They are looking at the world through decidedly different lenses than others. This is the sort of man they have been waiting for. Shoving another nation’s leader to the sideline is what they want in a President. It made them feel as though America was strong again. It made them proud.

Where is the common ground with people who see things that way? I can identify nothing that I have in common with these kinds of people that would form the basis for even a conversation about the weather, much less healthcare, federal budget priorities, immigration, climate change, or foreign policy.

People believing Trump is justified in treating foreign leaders with contempt, don’t have enough respect for others to make a conversation about their feelings meaningful. These people don’t simply disagree with opinions of others. In their America, it’s acceptable to humiliate others.

When Michelle Obama said, “When they go low, we go high,” she had not anticipated people like this. She was being gracious. As the Lord told Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you,” and the only hope to restore a semblance of civility.

Hurting, homeless, or hungry? You're in the crosshairs of conservatives.

The week we celebrate Independence Day is an opportunity to remember de Tocqueville’s 1831 journey across what was then America. Searching for what made the young nation great, he concluded, “America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!"

What does it mean for a nation to be good? What does it look like when a once good nation ceases to be good?

The goodness of a society is determined by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. Former Vice-President Hubert Humphrey formulated a standard by which societies would be measured. “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.”

By that measure, Wyoming is joining America in ceasing to be good.

In June, the Annie E. Casey Foundation released its annual assessment of child well-being in the 50 states. Wyoming finished dead last in the category of kids’ health. We can credit the state legislature for its near-criminal refusal to expand Medicaid and its mindless slashing of healthcare and safety-net programs in the state’s budget.

Coupled with a Congressional delegation that unanimously supports both bludgeoning Medicaid and the most anti-Gospel budget in history, and it’s not a good time to be “in the dawn of life” in the Cowboy state. Neither is it a good time to be “in the twilight of life” or “in the shadows of life.”

The Gospel teaches we will be judged by what we do to help the least of these. State and national politicians are determined to do the least they can for the least of them, whether they be children, disabled, poor, or elderly. If you’re hurting, homeless, or hungry, you are in the crosshairs of the conservatives.

Under cover of a downturn in coal production, Wyoming legislators turned on poor and low-income families with a vengeance. First, they deprived 6,000 citizens of a refund of sales and use taxes paid by the lowest income families. Low-income families have received this refund annually since 1976. Not even in the darkest days of previous budget crises did anyone attack this meager benefit, which annually averages just $625 per household and is provided to those making less than $17,500. Most of these folks live off little more than a Social Security check.

Legislators didn’t stop there. They slashed a program designed to assist low-income taxpayers with property taxes. They targeted the Low Income Energy Assistance Program.

LIEAP funds have long been available to help low-income families pay high utility bills and the costs of weatherizing their dwellings, usually among the least well-built or maintained.

They eliminated Medicaid funding for dental care for the low-income elderly. The cuts that seemed the most petty and short-sighted were those eliminating the family literacy centers, a program helping those seeking to help themselves.

They did that while refusing Medicaid expansion to provide healthcare for 18,000 low-income working families, a move that would have saved the state enough money that many of the aforementioned budget cuts wouldn’t have been necessary.

Little wonder Wyoming ranks last in meeting the needs of child healthcare. It wasn’t an accident.

Adding to the pain, Wyoming families are under assault from Washington. TrumpCare targets children by ending Medicaid as we know it while depriving 22 million families of needed healthcare. His budget slashes food stamps for working people who are paid so little that they qualify. It slashes Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Insurance. Rental assistance for a quarter of a million Americans is eliminated.

If de Tocqueville returned again with a stopover in Wyoming, he’d see an America on the verge of forfeiting its goodness, a country increasingly determined to leave behind those in the dawn of life, the twilight of life, and in the shadows of life.