The World According to Gail (Again)

What we need is a president in office who will issue an executive order to put some boundaries around elections.  This process must have some “teeth” to ensure fair elections in the future.  These are my suggestions.  Curious to hear yours.

Rules:

  • State legislators must come up with uniform rules to vet voters across the country.   
  • Only U.S. citizens, not residents, will be allowed to vote.
  • All polling sites must open at the same time and close at the same time in their respective time zones.
  • All ballots must be watermarked and barcoded with the state, county, prescient, and voting site.
  • No ballots will be accepted via public ballot boxes which must be removed. 
  • There is to be no manual handling of completed ballots.

Polling Sites:

  • Optical scanners/processing machines at voter sites must be standalone with no ability to connect to an outside system. 
  • A guard must be placed by the system(s) before staff arrives and stay after staff has left and the voting site is closed.
  • A team of auditors (1 Business, 1 IT) will be selected via a lottery of qualified candidates across states.  They will perform random inspections at one or more voting sites one week prior to an election.  Inspections will take place in all four corners of the United States.  If a problem is found that looks malicious, the governor of that state will be put under house arrest until the problem is resolved to the team’s satisfaction. After the team signs off on a site, that site will be locked until election day and be continually monitored by cameras throughout the voting process.  Other sites will be locked and monitored, as well.
  • Another guard must be placed where ballots are being handed out to voters.
  • Staff at voting sites will only disseminate new ballots, collect signatures, and pass out markers for voting.
  • No staff is allowed to come in excessively early or leave excessively late after voting hours. 
  • No staff at a voting site is to handle completed ballots.

Mail-in Ballots/Third-Party Platform:

  • Mail-in ballots will be restricted to X number of ballots per county, per capita.  After that threshold is met, mail-in ballots will no longer be issued to voters upon request.
  • Cut off dates for receipt of completed mail-in ballots must be consistent across states.  
  • The return address on mail-in ballots will be the location of a third-party platform set up for processing ballots in a given county.  Ballots that cannot go through the third-party system cleanly, e.g. duplicates, no watermarks, blanks, etc., will be set aside and not processed.
  • Mail-in ballot envelopes must be date stamped by the postal service.
  • Signatures on the envelope or on the ballot itself will be captured for further auditing, post election.  
  • At the close of voting hours, one file of voting records will be manually created at the voting site, certified by notary or some other process, and delivered to a third-party platform for the county via an armored cash transport car. 
  • The third-party vendor will combine the totals from the walk-ins with the totals from the processed mail-in ballots, by county, and announce the results to the state and county no later than 8:00 pm election day.
  • Results are to be withheld from the media until all counties and states are ready to announce their results across the board. 

Post Election

  • Following the election, processed and unprocessed mail-in ballots will be forwarded to the county within 3 business days.
  • The county will have 7 business days to audit rejected, unprocessed mail-in ballots.  If mistakes were made that impact the totals (which is unlikely, given they were rejected), the totals will be recalculated.
  • Anyone who is convicted of voter fraud, will receive a mandatory prison sentence of 10 years.  If it’s an elected official, they will be barred from running for any public office again. –  No exceptions.
  • If any of these rules and processes are not followed, the offending state will be fined $X per processed ballot for their state and the money will be given to this program to ensure fair elections in the future.

Comments

  1. Paper ballots.
    Counted on the day.

    • Gail Sheppard says

      If we required people to go to the polls this could be done.

      • You mean like was always done in past decades except for duly applied for absentee ballots? You mean like the Election day (not days) prescribed by the constitution?

        My heavens! How did democracy survive?

        • Gail Sheppard says

          Exactly. Too much uneeded “ballot handling” on the part of people who come from heavily funded NGOs that have lied, cheated and stolen elections in the past.

          Ballots are ballots. If the majority of people come to the polls on election day and the results are immediately available, why does it take people so long to feed the mail-in ballots into a machine?

          And because they can enter mail-in ballots ahead of the election, why do they need so many days to “count” something. Exactly, what are they counting?

          Our country is a huge investment and I don’t want some anonymous volunteers sifting through my records calculating my dividends. But that’s what we’re doing in these elections.

          As citizens, voting is our only currency and yet we depend on volunteers, about whom we know nothing, to make decisions about how our dividends will be dispersed.

          A data entry operator just enters data in into a machine. That’s what they should be doing. They can start opening mail-in ballots and entering them long before an election in front of a guard. I’d trust high school students over some of those people at a voting site.

          Who are these people who are doing all the “counting”? And why can’t they enter ballots into a machine that is programmed to spit out incomplete ballots and even read and compare signatures, which can be stored in a system?

          If a signature determines whether or not a ballot is clean, why aren’t automated signatures required for walks-ins? The person can enter their signature into a machine instead of writing it in a book just like you sign your name or enter a pen to authorize a credit/debit transaction.

          This isn’t rocket science. It’s technology that exists in your local grocery store.

          • It is technology that exists on my home state, along with voter ID, and no one complains. No one.

            Sometimes Democrats win, sometimes Republicans. It’s free, fair, simple, and there’s no waiting for results.

  2. looks pretty good – couple of minor additions: 1) every voter is required to show valid government issued ID. 2) 1 election monitor from each nationally registered political party will be allowed to observe (but not participate in) the election process at any time in any voting location.

    • Re #1: I had this very conversation with my spouse on Election Day. It makes absolutely zero sense to me that people don’t need to show some form of ID. How does the person who asks for my signature know I am who I say I am? They don’t!

      He disagreed saying, “Not all citizens have an ID.”

      Why not? If you drive, you have a driver’s license. Etc. Etc.

      We agreed to disagree.

      Sometimes I wonder if I’m nuts or losing my mind.

      • Gail Sheppard says

        If they required all states to implement Enhanced Drivers Licenses (EDLs), it would provide proof of identity and U.S. citizenship.

        Athanasia, if you did not wonder if you were losing your mind you would be in the minority! Everything is in such a state of flux.

      • “Not all citizens have an ID.”

        What a silly argument. Not all citizens are registered to vote either, but registration is required nevertheless. Curious. Does your husband also claim that voter registration is voter suppression/disenfranchisement? And if not, why not?

    • James Perkins says

      Wait a minute. You don’t want RealID and other government records, or background checks for guns, but you want VOTER ID? Back when absentee voters were more likely to be Repuglican, you didn’t mind absentee ballots where Repuglicans harvested elderly votes. Jesus would call you all out as the hypocrites you are! And after all, Pio Nino banned voting!

  3. Antiochene Son says

    All ballots should be on paper, counted by hand in the open. The UK does this, with news cameras milling around, and has results in 1-2 hours.

    I think we are the only country that has ballots fed into machines. I’ve never seen this elsewhere.

  4. Everyone knows what to do. DeSantis clamped down on it in Florida. The problem is overcoming the status quo balance of power. Word today is that they may have successfully stolen the Senate. House still in play but the simple fact that they’re delaying so long is indicating to ever more people that all they’re doing is manufacturing ballots until they have enough to prevail. Kiyosaki has recognized it, as has the guy who runs People’s Pundit, one of the best polling outlets, Barris.

    This should lay all fake doubt to rest that the Dems are stealing these elections and stole 2020 as well. It’s too obvious to escape widespread attention. They’re not even trying to hide it anymore. They are fascists, totalitarians. They need to be defeated by any means necessary, bar none.

  5. What we need is “conservatives” to accept when they loose elections instead of blaming everyone else but themselves for their own failures.

    • Gail Sheppard says

      Yeah, and include the Democrats because they continue to call Trump an illegitimate president. Black meet Kettle

      • Illegitimate and ilegal are two different things. You post articles telling people that Trump is still somewhat president. You should read less from the experts of the internet.

        • Gail Sheppard says

          Who said illegitimate and legal were the same thing???

          I have said Biden is the president of a corporation called the UNITED STATES. I also said Trump could still be Commander and Chief, not because of anything anyone said on the Internet, but because I looked it up. I even posted the executive order numbers so YOU could look it up, but apparently didn’t.

          Argue the point, Mike. Telling people what they ought to do is against the rules.

    • That’s right, p*ss down my back and tell me it’s raining.

    • Like…accept this?

      Mystery: Independent Candidate Sees
      20,000 Votes VANISH Overnight

      https://www.newswars.com/mystery-independent-candidate-sees-20000-votes-vanish-overnight/

      ‘ An independent candidate running for US Senate in New York mysteriously saw thousands of votes vanish from her vote tally overnight.

      Posting screenshots taken from Google’s election widget, LaRouche candidate Diane Sare, who was challenging Democrat incumbent Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), noticed she lost over 20,000 votes between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

      Diane Sare for U.S. Senate:
      Last night I had over 55k [50k] votes and by this morning, less than 30k. ‘

  6. partial correction to #6. All precincts will have real time monitoring consisting of at least three electronic monitors publicly visible that counts the voters that successfully cast their vote when exiting the precinct.

    • Gail,

      Here are my two cent solutions:

      1. Election Day made a Federal Holiday

      2.Only eligible U.S. citizens providing proof of citizenship (photo I.D.) may vote.

      3.In person same day voting with one exception (see below)

      4.All polls must open at 6:00am and close by 7:00pm. Election Day, no exceptions.

      5. Absentee ballots only by request of eligible U.S. citizen that will only be available 1 month before elections.

      6. All absentee ballots must be validated by requiring an attached copy of utility bill within the last month that matches your name and address and copy of valid driver’s license or State ID and must be dropped off at the county clerk’s office no later than two days before the general election. These vote counts must be completed and made public no earlier than 12:00 am and later than 6:00am election day.

      7. All precincts will have real time monitoring consisting of at least three electronic monitors publicly visible that counts the voters that successfully cast their vote when exiting the precinct. Each monitor is to be observed by one member of each of the two the majority parties–at present in the U.S. Democrat and Republican– to ensure both monitors are showing the same counts. The third is a redundant safeguard in case one of the other monitors fails.

      8. All vote counts must be aligned with the electronic monitor counts mentioned above.

      9. All votes must be counted and verified by each member of majority parties for accuracy and made public no later than 11:00pm election day.

      10. Any election worker caught violating election laws or tampering and manipulating with the processes in place will be arrested on the spot and prosecuted to fullest extent of the law.

  7. Peter A. Papoutsis says

    Gail,

    What’s the matter with you? Do you actually want a functioning government and country?

    Land Sakes!

    Peter A. Papoutsis

    • Gail Sheppard says

      I know! What was I thinking?! That this project could easily be done by 2024? Seriously. It’s not that hard to fix the holes. I’ve rented platforms before where you just pay for the processing.

      They don’t want to fix this. Neither side. But they made us skittish with the last election, and I don’t think anyone is going to trust the process going forward. Think of all those young people who came out to vote because they thought Biden meant it when he said he would pay off their student loans. Until the courts rule that there was a bad election it will continue to be a problem no one wants to fix.

  8. Get rid of voting; anoint a monarch. Problem solved.

    • Gail Sheppard says

      Unless you get Ivan the Terrible. I think as a people, we’re way beyond being able to submit to a monarch. We’re too unruly.

    • “Get rid of voting; anoint a monarch. Problem solved.”
      Haha — nice. Agree!!

      Or get rid of faux-compassion and have real men run the Republic. “Requiring voter ID is racist” is such baloney.

      Those who should be running our country have been hoodwinked for decades by faux compassion, being told that they are bad people for trying to enforce rules and standards. And they stupidly listen to this garbage!

      Usually it’s manipulative leftist women who do the hoodwinking into trying to get you to think you’re an evil racist or something, when you’re not.

      Manipulative leftists women are often good at manipulating men who have some bizarre, weak “need to be liked.”

      So either get rid of the Republic and anoint a monarch, or be real leaders with cojones and run the Republic without listening to manipulative leftist women. Let them find someone else to whine to.

    • Amen.

      • Mark Bellows says

        On Reddit Orthodox Politics, Sept 24, 2022, Monarchist_Weeb1917 confirmed
        Islamic governance comes from Byzantium “prefer the style of government Iran
        has except replace the Ayatollah & mullahs with Patriarch & bishops”

        • I don’t think this is quite right Personally I have nothing against Iran’s current regime. I know Persians and they are great people and I love watching YouTube videos of tourists and visitors to Iran. Most of their problems stem from sanctions I would prefer to live in Iran than in Israel to be honest with you In fact Iran seems to be a cleaner version of Greece and regardless of how poor they are their standard of living is on par with Greeks which all stats point Greece has a better quality of life ( yeah sure). In Byzantium there was always a demarcation between church and state as seen in the double headed eagle Emperor’s never had a problem going against the church and when churchmen wanted to push for something those patriarchs had to beg and grovel at the emperors feet.

          • George Michalopulos says

            I too, believe that we should be friends with Iran. Although I was never in favor of the Ayatollah’s overthrow of the Shah of Iran, the Iranian people are a gracious people.

  9. Really, this is just a confirmation to a wider – harder to persuade – audience that the whole thing is rigged. It is so obvious and in your face this time that no one can miss it.

    I was in the Cigar Shop here in town the day after the election. I don’t smoke, but I go in there to buy pop and snacks sometimes. The old man who owns the place was talking to the guy ahead of me in line. He said, “Did you smell that smoke this morning?”. The guy said, “Yes!, I did. What was that?” The owner replied, “They were burning ballots.”

    The man he was talking to didn’t get it right off but I laughed out loud. It’s as obvious as the Paul Pelosi thing now, rather than just a quirk of Trump and Trumpistas. That doesn’t solve the problem. but wider recognition helps.

  10. (My apologies if this posted twice, I am not for certain that this went through the first try. It has been slightly revised from the first post).
    Gail,
    Here are my two cent solutions:

    1.Only eligible U.S. citizens providing proof of citizenship (photo I.D.) may vote.

    2.In person same day voting with one exception (see below)

    3.All polls must open at 6:00am and close by 7:00pm. Election Day, no exceptions.

    4. Absentee ballots only by request of eligible U.S. citizen that will only be available 1 month before elections.

    5. All absentee ballots must be validated by requiring an attached copy of utility bill within the last month that matches your name and address and copy of valid driver’s license or State ID and must be dropped off at the county clerk’s office no later than two days before the general election. These vote counts must be completed and made public no earlier than 12:00 am and later than 6:00am election day.

    6. All precincts will have real time monitoring consisting of at least three electronic monitors publicly visible that counts the voters that successfully cast their vote when exiting the precinct. Each monitor is to be observed by one member of each of the two the majority parties–at present in the U.S. Democrat and Republican– to ensure both monitors are showing the same counts. The third is a redundant safeguard in case one of the other monitors fails.

    7.All vote counts must be aligned with the electronic monitor counts mentioned above.

    8. All votes must be counted and verified by each member of majority parties for accuracy and made public no later than 11:00pm election day.

    9. Any election worker caught violating election laws or tampering and manipulating with the processes in place will be arrested on the spot and prosecuted to fullest extent of the law.

  11. From Wayne Allen Root.

    He gets it.

  12. The criminal classes are in control
    and they are bleeding you dry;
    just like they did in Sicily
    before Mussolini threw them all in jail
    until the Americans set them up again
    through the good offices of Lucky Luciano
    “…and there is no new thing under the sun.”

  13. Having had a few days to let the dust settle and think about it, my initial gut reaction – I have to say – was probably accurate. However, it should be divorced from the pessimism that surrounded it.

    They may let us take the House, but it’s still in question five days after election day. It appears as though they are trying as hard as they can to steal it. The Senate is apparently gone, absent defections.

    I am optimistic about the world wave of rightist progress. And there seems to be some incremental progress here too in America. However, the system is so unspeakably corrupt that I do not see how Republicans regain control of any of the levers of power beside the Court.

    I want to say a word about character. The only politician that I have seen, in my lifetime, with the solid character that could drive the revolution to victory is Pat Buchanan. And Pat peaked before his time. Were he a middle aged man now, his pit bull attitude would be perfect for the occasion.

    DeSantis is formidable, but a bit too soft and nice IMHO. Trump, though I am far from done with him, is too erratic and . . . frankly, . . . fickle, to inspire unbridled confidence. At this point, I just don’t see our David, our Constantine, our Alexander Nevsky yet.

    But the time is ripe for such a figure to rise.

  14. It was a message from the Establishment to Trump: “If you try it, we will shut you down. You can’t have it.”

    If Trump thinks he can destroy them, midterms notwithstanding, he will run. If not, he won’t. He doesn’t like to lose.

  15. On voting day all schools and businesses should be closed to allow voters to go to the polls.
    Great lists, by the way.

    • Gail Sheppard says

      Good idea!

      • George Michalopulos says

        Great ideas all.

        I would add ONLY same-day voting only. Only those who are in the military should be given absentee ballots.

        I also suggest (1) repeal of the 17th Amendment and (2) election to the House should be by sortition. (I plan to write about that soon.)

  16. This is what we need, not vis a vis the Russians, but against the Demofascists.

  17. How’s that been working for you? Did you get your pony?
    Put a new saddle on a old horse won’t make it run faster.
    The definition of repeating the same action expecting a different result – – –
    Voting gives the illusion that you have a choice between evils.
    Tell me again what the difference is between a Republicrat and a Democan?

    I suggest that instead of “voting” we have selection by lot for offices – sortition.
    We start from bottom to top – town – county – state. Everyone’s name is placed in a selection box and selections for offices made at random. (with the option to opt-out)

    No political parties. Maximum two year term limit. No mail-in or eballot, and your identification as well as having a pulse must be verified.

  18. 1)There is no political solution.

    2)There’s never been an honest election (https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/11/no_author/852390-2/)

    3) A monarch? Have you read the old testament?

    Prepare for the eschaton, repent, and raise families in the fear of God and prepared for martyrdom. That’s the way forward.

    • 1) Agreed.

      2) Agreed,

      3) A monarch? Have you read church history?

    • 1. It depends upon what the question is. There is no political solution to fallen man. For other matters, there may be. Defeatism and pessimism are not a plan. God helps those who help themselves.

      2. It is a matter of degree. Democrats are openly engaging in fraud to the point of destroying any faith in the process and becoming the permanent dominant party by force. That is unacceptable.

      3. The protestant/”Enlightenment” canard about Samuel and Saul shouldn’t get any traction in the Church. Orthodox Christian Church history is a history of monarchy. The Church Fathers were clear on their preferred method of governance.

  19. There is no political solution because it’s a mathematical problem not a political one. So voting means nothing especially when every buffoon bought and sold can attain the right to vote.
    The smart thing is to seek out additional passports as security and simply grab popcorn and enjoy the decline

  20. At this stage it is self evident that the country – and the West for that matter – is ruled by evil criminals, fascist oligarchs. And they have no intention of relinquishing their power, nor can anyone pry it from their fingers.

    And so, as Lenin queried, “What is to be done?”

    a. Let Trump do whatever he wants. He means well. But assume they will steal 2024 just as they did 2020 and 2022.

    b. Pursue individual, family, personal power, primarily economic. As it says in Proverbs “Money answers everything.”. Greed is one thing, accumulating wealth for political purposes is something else.

    c. Start brotherhoods (братства); i.e. gangs. Our fallen world is run by gangsters. That’s the ante. We’re behind in that regard. Think of them as politico-economic unions. The purpose should be to create subcultures insulated from the dominant society controlled by the Demofascists and their Uniparty enablers. Our own economies, our own codes (laws and law enforcement).

    d. Reject the “American Project” and constitutional restraints, even the “rule of law” except to the extent that it happens to coincide with Orthodox morality as expressed in the Tradition. We owe allegiance only to legitimate governments – ideally only Orthodox monarchs – but we’ve played nice with other systems that had some claim to legitimacy. This government has none. Assume it is like the government of Julian the Apostate. The executive was stolen and they largely stole the legislative as well, though perhaps we will get the House.

    Regardless, it is not enough and unacceptable and we should withdraw our blessing from the United States government at all levels and operate as if there were no government but rather simply organized gangs with varying degrees of power – because that is the reality of the situation. Police, FBI, CIA, NSA, Crips, Bloods, Dems, Repubs, Vory v zakonye – just different teams in the game.

    This mindset is not at all foreign to me having grown up in rural northeastern Kentucky. It is the basic feudal mindset that most people who understood the world in our little corner of it took for reality since it most closely approximated objective truth, given the imperatives of our condition.

  21. See, they didn’t let Kari Lake win in Arizona. Despite how much she was loved, the “system” could not allow her to win. Her highly effective, honest, up-front approach is way more of a threat to them than Trump ever has been. People love her.

    Instead, they put yet another has-been, old white feminist leftist in there who refuses to talk to her constituents. Pretty soon, they’ll run out of old, white feminist leftists. Then what?

    Kari Lake no more lost this election than Joe Biden got more votes than Trump or Obama or any presidential candidate ever. It’s so ludicrous. Yet this is the “approved result.” Soviet Union, here we are. Biden is definitely our Leonid Brezhnev.

    • Gail Sheppard says

      She is one of the casualties that really hurts.

      • Anonymous II says

        Establishment Republicans Consider Working with Democrats to Pick House Speaker:

        https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/11/15/establishment-republicans-consider-working-democrats-pick-house-speaker/

        The charade is up.

        And if you expect the FBI or some other foreign-led organization to help, think again. This is their current FBI director:

        My thanks to the entire ADL for inviting me here today.

        I’ve been in this line of work for a long time now, starting out as a prosecutor in the ‘90s and then in various roles in the Justice Department, which included time overseeing what was then the Office of Special Investigations—or as they were more commonly known, the Nazi hunters—whose particularly rewarding work demonstrated to the world—and anyone who might contemplate heinous crimes against the Jewish people—that we’ll hunt murderers right to their dying days.

        I’m proud to say we helped the U.S. track down, denaturalize, and deport more Nazis than all other countries combined. And much like the work we’re doing together today, that effort both required and benefitted from a close partnership with the Jewish community.

        The main reason I took this job was my belief in the FBI’s core values and mission – to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. And I think our mission gels very well with yours: “To stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”

        That’s one of the reasons we’ve been such great partners in fighting to stamp out the recent uptick in hate crimes in the U.S., I think, because both of our organizations understand what can happen when hate is allowed to fester and grow.

        At the Bureau, we confront that reality from the moment we bring someone new onboard. And I want to thank the ADL today for your support in conducting the training that all of our new special agents and intelligence analysts participate in at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

        Because of your work, our new agents and analysts confront the reality of just how widespread antisemitism, and the willingness to turn hate to action, really are. Your work reminds them what’s at stake; why we all—particularly those of us in law enforcement—must aggressively counter antisemitic violence everywhere it appears.

        Our FBI historian recently pulled the course evaluations written by the first new agent class to visit the Holocaust Museum, more than 20 years ago. I found one of them particularly striking. That new agent wrote:

        “The part that lingers in my memory is the photo of the police officer and the German SS officer standing side by side, and the police officer was failing to protect his own citizens.”

        That observation gets to the heart of why standing up to hate is an active pursuit. And it applies now every bit as much as it did back then. It reflects what we stand for and the values we aspire to at the FBI – to protect Americans from harm with unwavering resolve.

        Hate Crimes and Extremism

        Unfortunately, as Jonathan outlined, antisemitism remains a pervasive and present fact. And we at the FBI see—up close, day in and day out—the actions that hatred drives. Jewish people continue to face repeated violence and very real threats, from all kinds of actors, simply for being who they are.

        A full 63% of religious hate crimes are motivated by antisemitism—targeting a group that makes up just 2.4% of our population. Foreign terrorist organizations like ISIS have promoted antisemitic violent extremism for decades. They continue to target Jewish Americans in their attack plots. But we also confront the threat of people here, on our soil, whose hateful views—often paraded online—boil over into acts of violence.

        There are too many grim examples to choose from, but consider the members of the Jewish community in Poway, California, whose synagogue was the target of domestic terrorism in 2019. The gunman in that attack, in a vile act driven by hatred, murdered one member of the congregation and wounded three others, including a rabbi.

        Thanks to the investigative work of our San Diego Field Office, he’s now serving a life sentence without parole, plus an additional 30 years. But his victims, their loved ones, and their communities have to live with the trauma of what he did for the rest of their lives, too.

        The attack at the synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, earlier this year was another tragic example. It happened almost three years later and over a thousand miles away from Poway by a perpetrator who cloaked himself in a different motivation—he referenced violent Jihad. But it demonstrates the tragic reality that the Jewish community uniquely ends up on the receiving end of hate-fueled attacks from all sides. And I’d venture to say no community feels more threatened by that boiling over into violence than yours.

        FBI Efforts

        The threats may be coming from all sides, but we’re hitting back at them full-force. And from multiple FBI programs—our Criminal and Counterterrorism Divisions—that right now are laser-focused on the problem.

        On the criminal side, we’ve designated civil rights, specifically including hate crimes, as a national threat priority. That means we’ve surged more agents and analysts to work those cases across the country. And on the counterterrorism front, with the Joint Terrorism Task Forces we run out of all 56 of our field offices, we have nearly 4,500 agents and state and local law enforcement partners working counterterrorism.

        And in 2019, we established the Domestic Terrorism-Hate Crimes Fusion Cell, bringing together experts on both. That team addresses the intersection of domestic terrorism and hate crimes, and they share information and resources with our partners in real time. And the fusion cell’s efforts are bearing fruit.

        Just last year, in 2021, Richard Holzer was convicted on both hate crime and explosives charges for plotting to bomb the Temple Emanuel Synagogue in Pueblo, Colorado. Holzer told undercover agents he wanted to do something that would tell Jewish people in the community they weren’t welcome in the town.

        But thanks to the work of our fusion cell, instead, we disrupted his plot before it occurred, and for the first time in recent history made a proactive arrest on a hate crimes charge.

        So whether we’re confronting the threat through a hate crime or counterterrorism lens—or both—our focus is on preventing violent attacks. And within the bounds of the law, we’re creative in how we do that.

        When tragedy does strike, we move heaven and earth to find those responsible and to help heal the victims, their families, and their community, much like we did four years ago this October, after the horrific attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. We raced our SWAT team, Lab, explosives experts, crisis negotiators, and more to the scene.

        We also remain a fixture for those affected afterward. In the way our Victim Services Response Team provided food and clothing, grief counseling, financial assistance, and one-stop shopping for federal resources, but also in our continued engagement with the Pittsburgh Jewish community.

        When I visited Tree of Life and saw the scene firsthand, I was struck not just by the evil done to individuals that day but by the depth of the wound to that community. It made me angry. It left me feeling the steel in our commitment to battle hate-fueled violence everywhere it touches Jewish Americans. And it once again left me grateful for your help in bringing our new folks to the Holocaust Museum. Because there just can’t be enough reminders of what we’re up against.

        Those are some of the things we in the FBI are doing to address the violence.

        But these threats increasingly require a whole-of-society approach

        So we’re raising awareness through our National Anti-Hate Crimes Campaign, which aims to educate witnesses and victims on how to identify and report hate crimes. And we’ve been engaging the public’s help, too. That includes community leaders, mental health and social services professionals, faith communities, and civil rights and minority groups.

        Now, I mentioned that our mission is both to protect Americans and to uphold the Constitution, and both aspects are equally important. We can’t stop people from thinking or saying hateful things. But there is a right way, under our Constitution and within the rule of law, for someone to express their beliefs, whatever they may be. And violence ain’t it.

        So what we can do—and will always do—is bring the full force of the FBI and our partners to bear across the country, and in every community, when someone threatens or commits violence, we don’t let up, and—like the Nazi Hunters in OSI—our memory is long. We never forget.

        Conclusion

        I’d like to leave off with a famous quote from Hillel, the ancient Jewish scholar. Many of you will be familiar with this, but he wrote, quote, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now—when?”

        This teaching goes hand in hand with that photo from the Holocaust Museum I mentioned earlier, of the police officer standing next to the SS officer and failing to protect people from harm.

        I love the FBI because it’s a collection of men and women who answered Hillel’s question for themselves and underlined their answer by offering their careers, even at the risk of their lives, in service of their purpose. We are for others. For those under threat who need protecting from the violence and destruction of Kristallnacht in Germany 84 years ago this week, to the threats and violence targeting Jewish communities here in the US just across the river last week, we at the FBI recognize that the threat of violent extremism is real, and it’s urgent.

        We devote ourselves every day to protecting the Jewish community—and all American people—from these heinous acts. And I assure you, we’ll remain relentless.

        Thank you very much.

        See:

        https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/director-wray-addresses-adl-never-is-now-summit-111022

      • I agree. I really wanted her to win. She’s spunky. There will be a recount but her opponent is counting the votes so I doubt it will matter.

      • Yeah, that one smarted. No major candidate is worthy of office if she is not willing to debate her opponent before the election. Furthermore, it was unethical of Hobbs to retain control of state elections when her own name was on the ballot for the highest office in the state. There ought to be a law to avoid such a gross conflict of interest if common decency is no deterrent to it.

        Pres. Donald Trump has just thrown his hat into the ring again. Maybe he’ll make Kari Lake his press secretary or our ambassador to the United Nations if he is re-elected. Subsequently, she might serve well as vice-president under Ron DeSantis. Just dreaming here……

        • Gail Sheppard says

          One can hope.

        • George Michalopulos says

          I want Kari Lake for Trump’s VP. She’d bring AZ into the win column, right where it belongs.

          • “She’d bring AZ into the win column, right where it belongs.”

            Wish I could agree with you, George. I love Kari Lake and what she brings to the table as much as the next real American.

            But without election integrity and a secure election process, there’s no way in hell that those who run the election process will ever allow anyone besides the approved leftist machine candidate to win states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, etc.

            Florida saw a “red wave,” but Florida has a secure election process. Pretty much the same thing in the statewide Texas elections. Red waves occurred this cycle where the election process is secure.

            I’m just being realistic… it’s a fool’s errand to expect different results the next time around without securing the process. As long as the corrupt Left controls the process, only “approved” candidates will win.

            President hair-gel Gavin Newsome, good leftist mouthpiece that he is and supposedly “attractive” in the plastic, gay-guy, Hollywood style, here we come.

  22. Μολων Λαβε says

    Why are you looking for solutions within the framework of what caused the problems in the first place ?

    Use The Word of Our Lord first and then, the original unadulterated, Constitution and Bill of Rights……to start Our New Order from scratch.
    It’s difficult to throw out the baby with the bath water, but in this case, we need a new baby as well.

    Without Christ in the Center, we will have no progress and no peace.

    But how do you remove the evils from men’s hearts ?

    It is very likely that our fate is written that we try to destroy ourselves, until Christ returns to reclaim His Own.

    To try to change, improve, wash, rinse, repeat hasn’t changed much or made colors brighter or whites whiter (racist words there?) If anything, IMO matters get worse daily.

    So. I’ll bide my time on this earth and get right with God, while the planet goes to hell in a handbasket.