Camp of the Dumbbells

posted by Clarice Feldman at American Thinker 

In 1975 a Frenchman, Jean Raspail, wrote a fictional account of how western civilization was destroyed by unrestricted immigration from the Third World. His work, The Camp of the Saints, has been out of print for some time, but it again became popular in 2011 and  Amazon now is offering it on Kindle and you can read it free online. I urge you to do so, because it is probably the most prescient novel you will ever read.

Every day on X (formerly Twitter) I read accounts from around the world of the increased crime, inflation, hatred, and destruction of western civilization by the open borders policies of countries and the European Union. Bringing in hordes of undereducated men who live off the welfare state and hold views incompatible with ours is every bit as destructive of modern western life as Raspail envisioned it would be. Here’s a brief, representative sample of what I am reading every day online. (Online because the legacy media is largely ignoring it.)

The UK: 

Islamist extremists calling for an "Intifada revolution". We are a tolerant country, but this is vile. Every single weekend London is a no-go zone for Jews. I'm fed up of these disgusting, perpetual, hateful, disruptive protests. It has to stop! 

@AJPhillipsEsq

"Britain is visibly declining under the weight of mass immigration, a complete lack of social integration, inflation, high taxes and soaring energy prices. It’s now time for British politicians to prioritise the British people and the country" @GoodwinMJ

Ireland: 

Yesterday the government went all out in an attempt to plant illegal immigrants in Doneraile, Coole and Clonmel. All 3 attempted plantations were stopped. The Irish will never accept mass immigration. This is our island!

Sweden: 

But one EU country traditionally welcoming of immigrants is hatching plans that will make immigration and integration there more challenging moving forward.

In October, Sweden’s new government coalition announced an agreement that includes broad proposals aimed at decreasing the amount of immigrants brought into the country, a dramatic shift in precedent for a country long-known to be welcoming to non-citizens seeking a better life. Experts say while it’s too early to know how the plans will really impact migration, the possibilities are concerning.

“The general approach is to lower the standards in order to make Sweden less attractive as a destination,” says Bernd Parusel, a senior researcher at the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies.

Analysts argue this push began when the Sweden Democrats, a far-right political party, made big gains in the country’s September parliamentary elections and, as a result, gathered more political influence. [snip]

Then came October’s Tidö Agreement, which lays out the policy priorities of the Sweden Democrats and three other governing parties: the Moderate Party, Christian Democrats and Liberals. While just one component of the coalition’s broader plans, the proposals related to modifying migration law are wide-ranging. The coalition hopes to make conditions and requirements for family reunification, labor immigration and Swedish citizenship more strict. Even the country’s asylum reception legislation “will be adapted to ensure that it is not more generous than is required of any member state under EU law.” The package is “very comprehensive,” says Parusel, who notes that about 19 pages of the 62-page agreement document are devoted to asylum, migration and integration.

“Immigration to Sweden has been unsustainable,” reads a statement by new Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of the center-right Moderate Party, delivered in October to the country’s legislative body, the Riksdag. “This government’s message is that this cannot continue. A paradigm shift is now taking place in Swedish migration policy.”

Netherlands: 

Geert Wilders has announced that the 5-month negotiations on forming a coalition government have finally been successful.

His PVV party will rule together with 3 other right-wing parties.

The "Hope, Courage and Pride" coalition platform presented today introduces strict measures on asylum seekers, scraps family reunification for refugees, and will reduce the number of non-EU students coming to the country.

"Deport people without a valid residence permit as much as possible, even forcibly," the agreement says.

The coalition will also strive to get a Dutch opt-out from the EU’s new Migration Pact and its mandatory migrant relocation quotas.” And I think both will regret ignoring it.

Neither this administration nor the EU seems interested in the large and growing antipathy to open borders. And I think both will regret ignoring it. In thr EU:

The tortuous and often explosive undertaking came to an end on Tuesday afternoon, as member states gathered to give the very final green light to the five regulations that make up the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, an all-encompassing overhaul that seeks to ensure all countries, regardless of location, shoulder their fair share.

Among other things, the New Pact envisions stricter rules to expand the screening of applicants, carry out health and security checks, speed up examination procedures and provide counselling free of charge. Its main novelty is a system of "mandatory solidarity" that would give governments three options to manage asylum seekers: relocate a certain number, pay €20,000 for each one they reject, or finance operational support.

The initial goal is to have 30,000 relocations per year.

As expected, Poland and Hungary, the most ardent critics, voted against the entire package of legislation. Since the reform was presented in 2020, the two have consistently resisted the system of "mandatory solidarity," falsely claiming it would force them to accept migrants against their will.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia, two skeptics, chose to abstain in the majority of files, while Austria voted against the Crisis Regulation.

However, the New Pact only needed a qualified majority so it moved forward and was formally ratified, sealing one of the greatest accomplishments of the current mandate. [snip]

Southern member states complained about being overwhelmed and left alone. Western and northern countries demanded stronger accountability and enforcement at the external borders, while eastern states resisted any initiative that resembled a relocation quota. [snip]

Amid the commotion, far-right forces saw their chance and jumped onto the topic as a trampoline to relevance and electoral success. The shockwaves of that political seism are still felt today, with polls ahead of the June elections predicting a sharp turn to the right.

Despite the sense of relief in Brussels, the thumbs down given by Poland and Hungary presaged a rocky start for what comes next: making the reform work.

The European Commission will present an implementation plan in June to outline the legal and operational elements necessary to put the New Pact into practice. Then, member states will have until January to submit their own national plans.

Not sensing the way the wind is blowing, the Biden administration has floated the notion that it may consider admitting refugees from Gaza, a place where the inhabitants have for decades been brainwashed by Hamas propaganda and would be unlikely to provide the kind of immigrants we need or want. 

Maybe a non-fiction version of Raspail’s work, The Camp of the Dumbbells, is due for publication.

X22, On the Fringe, and more- May 21

 

The Disgrace and Fall of the American Elite Campus ~ VDH

These infantile campuses have a rendezvous with adult accountability, both public and governmental. And they won’t like what is coming.

by Victor Davis Hanson for American Greatness

Anti-Israel/pro-Hamas campus protests have engulfed hundreds of college campuses. But the more coastal, blue-state, and supposedly elite the campus was, the more furious the violence that sometimes followed these demonstrations.

Even rowdier and more vicious street analogs shut down key bridges, freeways, and religious services. Protestors often defaced hallowed American monuments, national cemeteries, and iconic buildings. Visa-holders were among the worst perpetrators, adding ingratitude to their criminality.

The vast majority wore masks, not to protect from infection but to hide their identities. It is received wisdom, however, that those who wear masks do so for obvious reasons: so authorities cannot identify and punish those who commit crimes (e.g. the Klan, antifa, bank robbers, criminal gangs), or so that anonymity can help incite mob furor, given that participants feel that their vehemence increases once it cannot be traced.

More mundanely, why don’t the students simply identify themselves, insist they want their “resistance” to be known, and then hope their arrests will be proof of their courage to galvanize like-minded people to join them?

Why? One, because the students are sunshine and careerist revolutionaries. They see no inconsistency between shouting “Death to Israel,” “Global Intifada,” or “River to the Sea” one day and then the next, applying for a top spot at Goldman Sachs, a tony university, or a federal bureaucracy. Jacobin professors protest like it is 1793, but when politely arrested, they collapse into fetal positions and scream hysterically that consequences cannot follow their illegality, given they are privileged, superior intellects and moralists, with titles and degrees no less.

Two, the protestors, deep down, know they are aligning with the murderers and rapists of October 7 and that their chants are Hitlerian. And so few wish for their performance-art antics to become part of their public personas.

Demonstrators claimed they were peacefully acting on behalf of Palestine rather than virulently pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel. But their own bloodthirsty words proved the contrary—to the anguish of embarrassed campus administrators. The latter finally concluded that the overt venom was a bit too much and certainly injurious to their own administrative careers, campus fund-raising, and alumni support.

Note that there was a long hiatus between the slaughter and hostage-taking of October 7 and the entry of the Israeli Defense Forces into Gaza to destroy Hamas. Nonetheless, campuses caught fire immediately after the slaughter. A professor at Cornell characterized the Hamas mass murders as “exhilarating.” Efforts immediately followed to harass and embarrass Jewish students, not to protest the IDF in Gaza.

Black Lives Matter issued a poster glorifying the hang gliders who sailed over the Gaza border to descend, shooting women and children. Many of the campus protestors, in Pavlovian fashion, were pro-death and pro-Hamas the minute they heard Jews were massacred.

At Stanford, on the first news of the mass murder, a giddy lecturer separated Jewish students in his classroom from others. Such unthinkable faculty behavior soon became commonplace nationwide. Again, existentialist chants “From the River to the Sea” and “Global Intifada” were initially not predicated on anything Israelis did except die en masse.

But why did students scream at Jews, “Go back to Poland?” Almost no students were born in Poland and most had probably never even visited there. The point was instead likely that Auschwitz was in Poland. If a Jewish student had more mildly retorted “Go Back to Gaza,” he would likely have been reprimanded, if not suspended, for “hate speech.”

Again, the news alone of the slaughter and hostage-grabbing thrilled many faculty and students with dreams of the complete destruction of the Jewish state. None of them knew or cared that it was illegal for an Israeli or Jew to reside in Gaza, while two million Arabs are content citizens of Israel.

The other slogan, “Global Intifada,” was simply a call to spread anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish violence throughout the Western World. And it soon did, reminding the West that their elite students had now out-Klanned the Klan in their Jewish hatred, with more imaginative masks and hoods, and with the fillip that the victimized crowd could pose as the self-declared oppressed even as they boasted, “October 7 is about to be every day.”

Of course, after the October 7 IDF entry into Gaza, the demonstrations became far bolder and more numerous, but not really different in their aims and rhetoric. More often, Jewish students were chased and assaulted. Few if any protestors asked whether supposedly identifiable Jewish students were pro- or anti-Israel, but simply harassed any who seemed Jewish.

Why did the patently illegal occupation of campus property spread? Why the escalation to medieval anti-Semitic threats to Jews and various takes on the “Final Solution?”

One, throngs of poorly educated American students—many of them part of the diversity/equity/identity movement—saw Gaza as fuel for their Marxist-themed binary of oppressed versus oppressors. So they eagerly plugged Israel into the tired role of a white, interloping, neo-colonialist, and “settler” state—on the correct assumption that they had grown up with the assurance that smearing whites in racist fashion was not only tolerated but encouraged as a blow against white “privilege,” “supremacy,” or “rage.”

These settler and colonialist smears were ahistorical. Jewish “settler” culture and civilization date before 1200 B.C.—some 1800 years prior to the Arab invasions that displaced Byzantine control of the Middle East. But then again, remember, we are dealing with the supposed moral and intellectual elite of America who have no idea what “Palestine” means or where it came from and certainly could not identify Gaza on a map. They often charge America with genocide, but otherwise they were not too bothered by the medieval-style beheadings, rape, and mutilations of October 7.

The students also know little of the “Final Solution” or what their prompters meant by “Go Back to Poland” (again, the ovens of Auschwitz). Instead, clueless, indulged students provide the American-citizen fodder for the protests. They know how campus unrest unfolds and the predictable Munich-like responses of campus administrators and blue-city mayors and governors.

At 11 million, Israel’s population is vastly outnumbered by some 500 million Arab and Muslim neighbors, many of whom are existentially hostile. So the idea of an imperial overdog or colonialist oppressor Israel is absurd. Most of the hatred in the Arab world and its expatriates on Western campuses toward Israel is driven by envy and frustration that Israel is a humane, free, prosperous, and lawful constitutional state in a way most Arab nations are still not. Add that the Arab world has prompted five or six serial wars against Israel, lost them all, and on spec resorted to terrorism to gain what their militaries could not—and yet Israel still prospers while its neighbors do not since that would mean to dismantle autocracy, tribalism, gender apartheid, religious intolerance, anti-Semitism, and inert socialist economies.

Two, the tip of the spear of campus unrest is from the Middle East. Such partisan foreign students and activists organize the rallies, often with planning and money provided by Palestinian front groups. They provide the keffiyeh props and the occasional Hezbollah and Hamas flags and logos.

Student guests in the U.S. are not shy about siding with the Hamas eliminationist agenda. Indeed, their protests were not just anticipated by, but integral to, Hamas’ October 7 strategies. Hamas’ murderous plan was always to retreat back to Gaza with hostages, which, along with their own Gazan civilians, would ensure the killers could murder another day. So they were to descend into a $1 billion, Morlock-like tunnel complex—using thousands of Gazan civilians above in hospitals, schools, and mosques as collateral deaths to protect the terrorists beneath. Note the sick asymmetry: the entire strategy hinges on a humane Israel seeking to avoid killing civilian shields, a fact accepted by Hamas, which tries its best to sacrifice them.

The resulting surety of collateral civilian damage could then be reduced to Israeli-induced “genocide.” From there, useful idiotic American student unrest, along with Middle Eastern voters, would pressure American institutions and politicians to limit Israel’s options and responses. And, presto, Hamas would emerge from the rubble intact and ready to plan its next murder spree.

Middle Eastern students would also airbrush the nihilist agendas of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas as benign efforts of “resistance” and “liberation.” American students nodded, as if they could sanction baby burning, mass rape or an extinct Israel if packaged correctly as anti-Western violence. Moreover, the protests took off because American students assured Middle Eastern activists that in Joe Biden’s America, their lawbreaking would not be punished—no expulsions, no jailing, but instead likely covert support from sympatric officials. Their proof was the summer-long, violent 2020 riots, arson, violence, and assault of police.

Middle Eastern protestors, both students and not, assured that they were exempt from consequences, added contempt to their general dislike of their magnanimous American hosts. All knew that if American students in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank or Egypt, mutatis mutandis, had decided to lead pro-Israeli, anti-Arab protests on their hosts’ campuses, they would be imprisoned or, more likely, “disappeared.”

The students talked grandly of “justice” as they violently rampaged, vandalized, and exuded hate. None felt any would be deported or even suspended from university, much less jailed for criminal offenses. They proved prescient.

A final note: clueless elite universities have scant idea of the enormous damage done to their reputations by the repulsive optics on their campuses—the eliminationist chants, the overt anti-Semitism, the passive-aggressive violence, the unapologetic solidarity with a venomous Hamas, the unconcern with American hostages, the disdain shown to middle-class cops, maintenance and janitorial workers tasked with cleaning up the elite students’ often pigsty-like encampments, vandalism, graffiti, and trash, and, above all, the sheer ignorance of supposedly brilliant students who appear to know nothing of even rudimentary history, geography, or current affairs.

These infantile campuses have a rendezvous with adult accountability, both public and governmental. And they won’t like what is soon coming.

'Sleepy Joe' is 'completely juiced up on something': GOP & Merchan bias

Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz rips ‘hate mail,’ media hit pieces

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'The New Woke Times Is Truly Unreadable' As Paper Declares Photography Is Racist

Bob Hoge reporting for RedState 

You might remember that catchy little song from The Lego Movie called “Everything is Awesome!!!” I feel like the New York Times plays their own version in the newsroom and it’s titled, “Everything Is Racist!!!”

Here’s their latest attempt to take the joy out of every single thing they can: 

The Racial Bias Built Into Photography

Sarah Lewis explores the relationship between racism and the camera.

I mean, you almost don’t even need to read it to get the gist; you can tell just by the headline that white folks are going to be accused of doing something nefarious because that’s the narrative outlets like the NYT are constantly pushing these days. But now, according to the them, the simple act of trying to make a nice photo is racist. Sure. 

X/Twitter owner Elon Musk is sick of this stuff: 

Not surprisingly, the article is written by a professor from Harvard University, an institution that seems to be hell-bent on destroying their centuries-old reputation lately. Her beef? Sometimes people with darker skin have to be lit differently for photographs or film than their lighter counterparts. She gets deeply triggered because a producer notices her jacket color will make lighting her tricky; perhaps she could get a different one?

How dare they?!

“We have a problem. Your jacket is lighter than your face,” the technician said from the back of the one-thousand-person amphitheater-style auditorium. “That’s going to be a problem for lighting.” She was handling the video recording and lighting for the event.

It was an odd comment that reverberated through the auditorium, a statement of the obvious that sounded like an accusation of wrongdoing. Another technician standing next to me stopped adjusting my microphone and jolted in place. The phrase hung in the air, and I laughed to resolve the tension in the room then offered back just the facts:

“Well, everything is lighter than my face. I’m black.”

She continues on at length, describing why this question was so deeply hurtful. What is so moronic about her tantrum is that everyone who sits for a portrait or stands in front of a movie camera needs to be aware of what they’re wearing and how it looks on film. For instance, wearing a bright white shirt can make it difficult to get the exposure right. If you’re in a video, avoid shirts that have small patterns that will strobe. Newscasters—successful ones anyway—are always aware of what colors look good on them, and some even hire consultants to find out their “color temperature.”

Here’s some headshot advice from "Backstage": 

The color of your outfit is super important when it comes to looking your best in your headshot. A good rule of thumb is to avoid any clothes that wash you out or blend with your skin tone.

• Lighter skin: Avoid white, yellow, light pink, and any pastel or soft colors. 
• Darker skin: Avoid brown, black, or colder blues such as navy.

Is that racist? Or maybe they're just trying to be helpful?

The author then goes into a boring history of film technology and how certain brands of film are better at capturing darker faces. All well and good—but it’s not about racism, it’s about advancement in the science. No photographer is trying to make a person look bad; that would obviously be detrimental to their careers and good ones will go to every length to make sure you look your best.

The Times isn’t the only outlet trying to push division: 

The reality these days is that progressives and academics want to accomplish two things: 1) Make everything about race, and 2) take the joy out of every aspect of life.

Now the whole field of photography is racist. Well done, Times. 

I rag on the New York Times quite a bit, and in fact my first published RedState article banged them for gaslighting us on the rampant crime overtaking our cities. Some will say, who cares about them, they’re a shell of their former selves and we don’t care what they have to say. But the reason I and others criticize the mainstream corporate media is because we need to keep track of what we’re up against. We need to fight it, to belittle it, to expose it. When race-baiting garbage like this is printed in a major newspaper, it’s important to call them out. 

Polls Are Popping for Trump

posted by Brian C. Joondeph at American Thinker 

Corporate media is calling it a “tight race.” It probably is, as have been most recent presidential elections, but what do the polls say?

Remember this caveat about polls: They are a snapshot in time, reflecting the views of a tiny fraction of a percent of the population, registered or likely voters, and are fluid depending on the news and issues of the day. Current events rapidly change, as do voter sentients, and voter preferences may shift over the next five months.

That being said, recent polls are popping for former President Donald Trump.

For Trump supporters, Rasmussen Reports's May 3 survey results are encouraging, with this headline, “Trump now +10 over Biden.”

Rasmussen surveys likely U.S. voters, a more reliable sampling compared to simply registered voters, or even residents, meaning whoever answers the pollster’s phone call. In the 2020 presidential election, only two thirds of eligible voters submitted ballots, so likely voters are a more meaningful sample compared to registered voters.

In a three-way contest between Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, 46% of likely voters would choose Trump, 36% Biden, and 9% Kennedy.

In any election, turnout is important, which hinges on voter enthusiasm. Trump has an advantage here too with 59% of his voters saying they are very excited about the upcoming election compared to only 50% of Biden’s voters.

Similarly, 60% of Republicans and only 45% of Democrats are excited about this year’s presidential election. Enthusiasm drives turnout.

Unlike in virtually all past presidential elections, both candidates have a record to run on as presidents. How are they doing at similar points in their respective presidencies? There is a simple way to ask this question.

Are you better off today compared to four years ago? The answer for most Americans is apparent, and Trump needs to make this case loudly and frequently. As do Congressional Republicans, who are mostly afraid of their own shadows.

Lest you think Rasmussen is an outlier, CNN confirms. In their recent pollamong registered voters, Trump’s support sits at 49% compared to Biden at 43%.

Furthermore, 55% of Americans now see Trump’s presidency as a success, while only 39% see Biden’s term as a success in the CNN poll.

What issues are important to voters?

According to CNN, 65% of voters “call the economy extremely important to their vote for president.” This compares to only 40% in 2020 and 46% in 2016 who felt that way.

“It’s the economy, stupid,” as James Carville said during Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

For those voters saying the economy is “deeply important,” Trump has a huge 62% to 30% lead over Biden.

What about likeability? Per the CNN poll, impressions of both current candidates are mostly negative. Some 58% of voters view Biden unfavorably compared to 55% for Trump.

For voters who like neither candidate, in choosing between the two: “They break for Trump, 43% to 31%.”

Rasmussen Reports has another way of comparing favorability between the two candidates, which is their Daily Presidential Tracking Poll. Comparing the exact same point in their respective presidencies, on May 17, 2020, Trump’s total approval was 49% compared to Biden on May 9, 2024, at only 43%.

Let’s look at one more poll to make sure CNN and Rasmussen Reports aren’t one-offs.

Gallup found that Biden’s 13th quarter approval average was the lowest in history, at only 39%, going back as far as President Eisenhower.

By comparison, Trump, at the same point in his presidency, had 47% approval, 8 points higher than Biden.

Last week, the New York Times painfully acknowledged the results of one of their sponsored polls with this headline: “Trump leads in 5 key states, as young and nonwhite voters express discontent with Biden.”

Going further, they noted:

The findings reveal widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the country and serious doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to deliver major improvements to American life. A majority of voters still desire the return to normalcy promised by Mr. Biden in the last campaign, but voters in battleground states remain particularly anxious, unsettled and itching for change. Nearly 70 percent of voters say that the country’s political and economic systems need major changes — or even to be torn down entirely.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden are essentially tied among 18-to-29-year-olds and Hispanic voters, even though each group gave Mr. Biden more than 60 percent of their vote in 2020. Mr. Trump also wins more than 20 percent of Black voters — a tally that would be the highest level of Black support for any Republican presidential candidate since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Biden barely won (if he actually did win) in 2020, with much higher support from Black and young voters. This recent poll must be giving the New York Times and Democrats serious dyspepsia.

Are these numbers surprising? Trump held a rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, last weekend. This city of 5,157 people hosted 100,000 Trump supporters, the largest crowd ever for a political event or concert in the Garden State.

It was bigger than the Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen,  Bon Jovi, or Pope John Paul II.

The last Republican to win this blue state was George H.W. Bush in 1988, almost 40 years ago. I suspect the lines at the porta-potties would be larger than the entire audience at a Biden rally, assuming he would even hold one.

That’s called the enthusiasm gap. A Monmouth University poll from late April found 63% of Republicans very or somewhat enthusiastic about the upcoming presidential election, compared to only 36% of Democrats and 27% of independents.

Remember that a poll is simply a snapshot in time, and much could change. The economy is imploding. We are fighting proxy world wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, perhaps soon in Taiwan. The border remains wide open with who knows how many terrorists already in America, waiting to unleash death and destruction. The culture war is ablaze, as noted recently on college campuses.

Lastly, let’s hear what far-left CNN mouthpiece Fareed Zakaria had to sayrecently:

Polls are not always accurate. But in general, they have tended to underestimate Donald Trump’s support, not overestimate it. I doubt there are many shy Biden voters in the country.

Tom Bevan, founder of Real Clear Politics, agrees. “The final NYT polls in 2020 overestimated Biden's support in every swing state by an average of nearly 5%.” In other words, Trump may have even greater support than the above polls reflect.

At least today there is cause for optimism based on the above-mentioned polls. But don’t be overconfident or take your foot off the electoral gas pedal. There is much at stake in this election and America may not be able to recover from four more years of Biden and his merry band of tyrants and thugs.

Outrage Grows Over ‘Incredible Disaster’ Requiring Absentee Wisconsinites To Commit Fraud Or Not Vote

 ‘There is no trail for requesting a ballot. … This would make the mail-in delivery system untraceable,’ Rep. Brandtjen warned.

Three days after a Wisconsin judge slapped a temporary restraining order on the state’s election regulator, the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) still wasn’t commenting about its latest legal scrape. But state lawmakers were — including the former chairwoman of the Assembly’s Elections Committee, who called WEC’s alleged violation of election law the “absentee ballot scandal of 2024.” 

As The Federalist first reported on Friday, Judge James Morrison issued the restraining order, enjoining WEC from requiring that Wisconsin’s approximately 1,900 local election clerks use legally suspect absentee ballot envelopes while the court deliberates on the merits of the complaint. 

The lawsuit, brought on behalf of a Wisconsin voter by attorneys Kevin Scott and Daniel Eastman, alleges the elections commission leaves Badger State voters in the untenable position of committing election fraud or opting not to cast an absentee ballot. 

The complaint charges that in approving new ballot envelopes recommended by WEC staff, the commission violated Wisconsin election law. If used, the envelopes “would cause voters to falsely certify that the ballot envelope itself is an original or a copy of the ballot request generated through MyVote when it is not in any way.” MyVote is the state’s online portal for voters to request absentee ballots.

“By forcing people to falsely certify that the return envelope itself is a copy of a completely different document, WEC created a situation where people who requested absentee ballots through MyVote were either committing election fraud by making a false statement in conjunction with voting a ballot, or were forced to not vote absentee — a Hobson’s choice,” Scott told The Federalist. 

‘Incredible Disaster’

It seems the six commissioners — three Democrats and three Republicans — again took questionable advice from the agency attorneys. 

State Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, said the latest WEC scandal is an “incredible disaster.” Not only does it put the state in a difficult legal position, WEC’s “fix” to its ballot request problems diminishes election security by weakening the ballot chain of custody for absentee ballots, the lawmaker said. 

“There is no trail for requesting a ballot. … This would make the mail-in delivery system untraceable,” said Brandtjen, who was tapped by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, in 2021 to lead the Assembly’s investigation into the 2020 election. Vos ultimately removed Brandtjen from the position after taking heat from the left and their friends in the accomplice media, who labeled as “election deniers” anyone who questioned the integrity of election administration. 

“Do you just want to hand the election to the Democrats?” Brandtjen said. Swing-state Wisconsin is expected to play a pivotal role in deciding the next president. “There is no downside to cheating in the state of Wisconsin with Republicans who are uneducated or unwilling to understand election law as it stands.” 

A commission spokesman has not returned multiple requests for comment since Friday. Bob Spindell, a Republican-appointed commissioner, declined to comment on the ongoing lawsuit. 

“Rather than carrying out and enforcing election laws as written, WEC administrators are trying to find a way to skirt state statutes,” state Sen. Julian Bradley, a Milwaukee-area Republican, told The Federalist. “Anytime an unelected bureaucrat decides not to follow the letter of the law — or even worse, create new law themselves — it raises concern. We must follow the law and conduct free and fair elections.”

Brandtjen is renewing the call to remove controversial Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe and dissolve an agency that has had trouble following Wisconsin election law over its tumultuous existence. A group of lawmakers in December proposed a bill to dissolve WEC and turn over election administration to the secretary of state’s office. Sarah Godlewski, the current secretary of state, appointed last year by Democrat Gov. Tony Evers, is a far-left political climber, but it’s an elected post, and Republicans believe Godlewski will have difficulty winning the statewide election. 

Efforts to remove Wolfe from office, including a fizzled impeachment campaign, have failed. She’s effectively been squatting in the administrator’s position since last fall when the Republican-controlled legislature tried unsuccessfully to fire the embattled elections chief. 

The litigation involving the ballot envelopes is the latest in a long line of complaints against a dysfunctional elections commission and Wolfe. 

WEC appears to be caught in a problem of its own making. 

‘Foment Election Fraud’

In another Wisconsin election law case earlier this year, a voter challenged the commission’s legal authority to operate MyVote. WEC argued that all requests made through the website are “email” requests, an allowable method of seeking an absentee ballot under Wisconsin election law. 

WEC officials submitted sworn testimony stating that when an elector seeks an absentee ballot through MyVote, the “request” for the ballot is a form generated by the system once the individual completes the online process. The argument is a stretch, but Ozaukee County Judge Steven Cain bought it and held that all requests made through MyVote were “email” requests and allowable under the statute. The plaintiff is appealing that ruling. 

But the allowance seems to have created a snag for WEC. If an applicant requests an absentee ballot by email, Wisconsin statutes require the elector to include “in the envelope” a copy of the “request” for the ballot “bearing an original signature.”  

“This language found in the new EL-122 [form] ran directly contrary to the sworn testimony provided in the [Ozaukee County] case upon which Judge Cain relied,” Scott said. And it opened up the Hobson’s choice to hundreds of thousands of electors who prefer voting by absentee ballot. 

“… WEC has approved the use of new absentee ballot return envelopes that exacerbate and foment election fraud — as defined by Wisconsin Statutes — by coercing a voter returning an absentee ballot requested through MyVote to falsely certify that the envelope itself is a ‘copy’ of the absentee ballot request,” the complaint states. “The new WEC envelope is not a replacement for a signed copy of the ballot request to be included ‘in the envelope’ in which the ballot is returned as required by section 6.87(4).”

Elections Commission ‘Out of Control’

WEC used $600,000 in a nearly $1.2 million U.S. Election Assistance Commission HAVA (Help America Vote Act) grant for the new absentee ballot envelopes. The grant funds were designated for “election security” funding. 

Scott asserts that the federal election funds are being used to “coerce Wisconsin voters into making false statements in regard to voting.” He called it “the height of irony.”

While Democrats routinely accuse Republicans of trying to “suppress” voters, WEC’s new absentee ballot envelopes actually do disenfranchise Wisconsin absentee voters, Eastman said. 

“So at this point in Wisconsin, the only way that you can vote is in-person at a polling place because you can’t use the envelope until WEC fixes the envelope, or, you know, unless the judge pulls the TRO [temporary restraining order],” said the attorney Monday at a press conference in Union Grove. “The point is, we have a state agency that is simply out of control.”

Morrison has scheduled a June 5 hearing on the merits of the lawsuit. The Marinette County judge is expected to ultimately determine whether WEC has once again violated Wisconsin election law and whether the injunction will remain permanently in effect. 

https://thefederalist.com/2024/05/21/outrage-grows-over-incredible-disaster-requiring-absentee-wisconsinites-to-commit-fraud-or-not-vote/