"How to pass Laws for Guns and Voting" for Dummies and Congress.

The rights to vote and to bear arms are two of our most precious and fundamental rights, and they must be protected.  Many people have concerns that laws put into place to ensure that the mentally ill and felons (whose civil rights have not been restored) are imposing unreasonable burdens on law-abiding citizens who want to exercise their rights to vote and/or buy a firearm.

Republicans are concerned that the Democrats want to take away our guns, and fight every effort to impose any restrictions. But they are very concerned with preventing voter fraud.

Democrats, on the other hand, are afraid that the Republicans’ requirements for voter registration are really designed to disenfranchise minority voters. The Democrats also want to do something about the gun violence in our country.

Nether side is willing to work with the other.

HERE’S AN IDEA:

Let’s make the requirements to vote and the requirements to purchase a firearm EXACTLY THE SAME.  

Let Congress setup whatever waiting periods, registration procedures, background checks, and/or identity verification requirements that they feel is necessary.  But whatever requirements they pass apply equally to the right to vote and the right to buy a gun.   If they cannot pass a law within 90 days, all current restrictions on both go away.

Maybe then the members of Congress can start to work together and DO THEIR JOB and pass a reasonable law.

Hint:  THIS IS NOT HARD.   Start with a simple background check, 15 day waiting period, a valid birth certificate, and an annual renewal.  

Doing the right thing: Brett Kavanaugh

“Do what is right, not what is easy nor what is popular.”
                                          - Roy T. Bennett

Our Sunday school teacher put this quote up on the board yesterday.   It’s sad that so many people fail to follow this simple principle.   That includes many of my fellow Republicans that are still backing Kavanaugh’s nomination.   It’s time they stepped back and DID THE RIGHT THING, even if it’s not the popular thing.

KAVANAUGH’S OWN TESTIMONY AND BEHAVIOR ON THE STAND ILLUSTRATES THAT HE IS NOT QUALIFIED TO BE ON THE SUPREME COURT.  Christine Ford’s testimony was not needed at all in order to reach this conclusion.

Let me start be saying how disgusted I am that certain Democrats sat on these allegations and released them at the last moment.  They knew about them from the start.  If they were not willing to release them back in July, they should have never released them now.

But, regardless of how they were released, once out in the open, they needed to be investigated. 

I watched, but mostly listened, to almost all of Christine Ford’s testimony.  She came across as sincere and believable.  She was obviously not a professional activist nor witness, and it was apparent she was very nervous throughout the hearing.  Yet, her story was consistent, despite the attempts to nit-pick it apart.  I have no doubt that she was sexually assaulted as she described, and believe her attacker probably was Kavanaugh.  An incident such as this would be a life-altering one, and it would be one of those times that is indelibly pressed into your memory.  It would be one of those events where you always remember where you were and what you were doing when it happened.

I believe Brett Kavanaugh was in a drunken stupor, and probably does not remember the incident.  Ford herself said that this particular party was not anything special, and she stated that Kavanaugh was falling-down drunk and was bouncing off the walls in the hallway and staircase.  Ford did not report the incident to the police or even tell a single person about it.  That would mean that nobody else at the party except for the three people in the room would have any reason to remember that party as out of the ordinary.  It is likely that Kavanagh was not even aware that she was resisting. He was a varsity football player, and was so drunk he was unable to remove or even rip any of her clothes.  That does not excuse his behavior.  He chose to drink alcohol, and is responsible for his actions. 

As horrible as his actions were, and, while he should have been punished at that time, almost forty years have passed.  He grew up, and, by all accounts, has been an pillar of the community for all of his adult life.  That must be taken into consideration.

After hearing Ford’s testimony, my heart went out to her for all of the suffering she has gone through, including the last few weeks.  But, when compared against almost forty years of exemplary behavior, I could not punish the man now.  As a Christian, I believe in Forgiveness and redemption.   (This is the same reason I am so adamantly opposed to deporting illegal aliens who have lived here in the U.S. for many years and have led upstanding lives.)

I do support a delay, however long is reasonably needed, for the FBI to re-open its background investigation to ensure that this incident was indeed a one-time, out-of-character, drunken act of stupidity by a 17 year-old kid.  If the investigation were to reveal other similar incidents or a pattern of behavior, that would, of course, be immediately disqualifying.

I watched most of Kavanaugh’s testimony live, and I watched it all again over the weekend.

BUT IT WAS KAVANAUGH’S OWN TESTIMONY AND BEHAVIOR ON THE STAND HAS CAUSED TO CHANGE MY MIND.  I would have reached this same conclusion had I not seen or heard ANY of the testimony from Christine Ford.  I stated above that my support for Kavanaugh was not changed by her testimony; my opinion was changed by his.

I completely understand his anger and frustration at these charges, especially since I believe that he really does not remember it and that he believes he really is innocent.  I would be angry as well.   But his statement clearly showed political bias, and judges are supposed to be above that.

As a judge, he should be able to control his anger and emotions, and let reason prevail.  I am not referring to his emotions when he was describing the effect it had on his family; I am talking about the anger he was directing at the Democrats by invoking conspiracy theories and claims that it was all made up as revenge for the Clintons.   As I said earlier, I am disgusted that the Democrats waited so long to present the allegations, but their failure to act timely does not diminish the veracity of the claim.

I am especially disturbed that, during cross-examination, he seemed to be less than truthful when answering questions about his past drinking, behavior, and language used. I graduated the same year as he, and my memories of my own high-school during that time echoes his own school.  While I cannot say he outright lied, he was less than truthful with at least three statements: 

When asked if he passed out, He claimed he just “went to sleep”.  Since passing out IS going to sleep, that statement would have been correct.  But “going to sleep” has a connotation that it was an conscious action take because one was tired, as opposed to an involuntary action over which he had no control.

Second, he stated that he had no connections to Yale, when he was a legacy student.  Again, while it’s possible he did not use his grandfather’s connection to Yale to get in, it does not change the fact that he did indeed have connections to Yale.  I find it highly unlikely that he would have been unaware that his grandfather had attended that school.

Third, he made it a point to state that drinking was legal at age 18 when he was in high school, implying that he was legally drinking, when, in fact, he was only 17.  While not technically a lie, it was misleading, and a failure to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”. 

His demeanor in court was not appropriate.  He repeatedly evaded direct questions, and questioned his questioners.  “I don’t know.  Did you?”   That kind of behavior would not fly in any courtroom, and, as a sitting judge, he knows that.

But the turning point for me came when he refused to support a proper FBI investigation.  He intentionally attempted to deflect the question several times when asked, and finally simply refused to answer.  Now, the Democrats will claim that is because he knows he is guilty and has something to hide.  I won’t go that far.  To me, it means that he worries, and rightfully so, that any delay can only harm his chances for confirmation.  An FBI investigation cannot clear him since there were only three people in the room and all physical evidence is long since gone.  The best he could hope for is for the FBI to state that they could find no corroborating evidence and no evidence of similar behavior and incidents. 

What he was doing was putting his ambitions and desire to be on the Supreme Court over the good of the country, and over the need to seek the truth.  In my mind, that alone is a disqualifying act for a candidate for Supreme Court Justice.

I believe that Brett Kavanaugh is a good person who has led an exemplary life throughout his adulthood.  He appears today to be a man of high morals and good character  a great citizen.   

But we require more than that for our top Justices.  We already hold law enforcement officers, lawyers and judges to a higher standard than the average citizen.   We must always hold our highest leaders to the highest of standards. 

Sadly, Brett Kavanaugh is not one of those leaders.  It was not his alleged behavior from forty years ago, but, rather, his own testimony and behavior on the stand this week that demonstrates to me why he does not reach those highest of standards.

George W. Bush withdraw Harriet Myers from consideration for reasons far less serious than Kavanaugh is facing today.  Kavanaugh still has a life-time appointment to the D.C. Federal Court, arguably the second-highest court in the land.   President Trump should withdraw his nomination and choose another candidate.   There is no shame in that; it would be the right thing to do.  We are not in a race against time; we waited almost a year before replacing Scalia. 

Surely, we can take some more time and find the next truly great Supreme Court Justice.