Why Do We Have Two Standards of Justice in America?

             The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the double standard of justice in the United States. This double standard has been obvious for numerous years. One notable example is the exemption given to Hillary Clinton for leaking classified information on the internet server in her closet. There are high standards for protecting classified information as well as grave consequences for not protecting it. Yet, Clinton was exempt for doing the same thing that has put other people in prison. Why?

            Another glaring example happened this week.  Daunte Wright was killed by an apparent accident in Minnesota, and the shooter was arrested, charged, and booked with second-degree manslaughter. During the same time period, the Justice Department announced that the books had been closed in the death of Ashli Babbitt. Both Wright and Babbitt were killed by police officers. Yet, one officer’s life has been ruined, and the other officer’s name is not even known. Again, the question is why?

            The answer seems to be about political agendas. Babbitt was white and a Trump supporter. She was shot while climbing through a winder in the so-called insurrection that took place in the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. Wright was black, had a warrant out for violent assault, and was killed while resisting arrest. Monica Showalter wrote about the Wright and Babbitt cases and the obvious double standard in the treatment of the two officers. 

In the first case, no charges were filed and the officer's name, like that of any professional executioner, was withheld from the public. We don't know if it was an experienced or inexperienced officer, if race played a factor, if the officer had other problems with his record, or if he was reaching for a taser maybe, which would have been appropriate with an unruly crowd, but accidentally pulled a gun. Nope, no info. Books closed, family notified, no more to be heard about it….

In the second case, the officer's name and address and picture and family pictures were instantly splattered all over the media and Internet as mobs raged. Fencing went up at her home, her family was forced to flee, and amid rioting over the death of Daunte Wright who was resisting arrest, she instantly resigned the force. Then she was arrested, charged, and booked with second-degree manslaughter, the only possible charge in this case that disregards intent, and city officials fell all over themselves to declare her guilty anyway, with the dead man's family declaring the charges not enough. A city official who stated that the officer, a 26-year veteran named Kim Potter, was entitled to due process was forced to resign. Meanwhile, Joe Biden joined the rabid leftist crowd on Twitter and pretty well declared her guilty. Anyone think she's in for a fair trial?

            Showalter is not the only person who noticed the double standard being used for the two officers. Numerous other people have commented on the two tiers of justice, including Tucker Carlson in his monologue yesterday.

We have a right to know who shot Ashli Babbitt and why," Carlson said. "No one will tell us. The Biden administration says the man who killed Babbitt is a Capitol Hill police officer and he did the right thing... If you shoot people without warning because they're in the wrong place, that's not allowed. But apparently now it is allowed.

            Why is the Justice Department withholding information about the officer who shot Ashli Babbitt? She was trespassing by climbing through the window, but she was hardly a threat to the officer. She was a small, unarmed woman – about five foot two inches and barely over one hundred pounds. She was surrounded by officers, but was hardly a threat to them. Showalter made some good points in her article.

The failure to tell who shot Ashli Babbitt, with unprecedented force not justified by her act of unarmed trespassing into a Capitol area, but smells of crony protectionism. It also has a whiff of politics: The Bidenite Justice department is hardly disinterested here -- they benefit from excusing the officer after all in order to paint all the trespassing unruly protestors as actual insurrectionists. While the officer involved shouldn't ever get the treatment that Potter got, with doxxing and fleeing and jailing and all that, what the Bidenite DoJ is doing to excuse the officer comes off as politically partial, not fair-minded. Someone is benefiting here, someone cronyish, in the claim that no one should know who he is. Yet, he took someone's life -- without consequences, all because, as the DoJ report claimed, he was supposedly scared, which might not be the best quality in a police officer if the man could not master it. Does not matter, he's unnamed -- and no one can ask.

There should be one standard for handling such incidents. If one police officer has the right to remained unnamed and protected from public scrutiny, then all officers have the right to remain unnamed. If one officer is arrested, booked, and charged with manslaughter, then all officers should be arrested, booked, and charged according to the case. In my view, both officers should be treated with leniency because they were both acting to protect the public. However, the public has the right to know the names of both officers.

           

What Is Being Found in Wisconsin about the 2020 Election?

             Truth is a strange thing. It may be hidden for a time, but it eventually comes out. Information about the 2020 presidential election continues to leak out. Virginia Allen at The Daily Signal interviewed Matt Kittle concerning some “disturbing facts about presidential election in Wisconsin.” 

Kittle is the executive director of Empower Wisconsin, a “conservative information hub.” He recently “obtained emails that reveal questionable activity” during the 220 election in Wisconsin. In particular, it seems that a Democratic operative had unusual access to the conference center in Green Bay, Wisconsin, while ballots were being counted on election night. Allen and Kittle discussed the situation after Kittle shared information about Empower Wisconsin and its mission.

Empower Wisconsin is a conservative news organization based in Madison, Wisconsin – the heart of liberalism. Kittle is also the executive direction of Wisconsin Spotlight, the investigative arm of Empower Wisconsin. He claimed to have “a lot of records” from “good sources” that involve “what clearly has become an election scandal in Green Bay, and it looks like across the state of Wisconsin.”

Allen noted that Wisconsin went for Donald Trump in 2016 and then went to Joe Biden in 2020 in a close election – “Biden won 49.6% of the vote and Trump won 48.9% of the vote.” Allen wanted to know why Kittle chose to take a closer look at the election results. Kittle explained that it actually started before the election with “vote harvesting, community drives sorts of things in Madison.” Then Wisconsin experienced “a huge, massive uptick in voting at home and absentee ballots” like other parts of the nation. That all raised a bunch of questions.

“Many more questions surfaced” on Election Day when Wisconsin, particularly Madison and Milwaukee, were targeted in recounts. There were “a lot of questions” from observers on election night and during the recounts “about how things were handled in places like Milwaukee and Madison.”

But it wasn’t until, I would say early March, that we started to get an indication from sources that things were worse than thought at first, particularly in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where there had been some real concerns about these third-party groups that were funded by Facebook’s CEO and founder, Mark Zuckerberg, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, and what those third-party groups indeed were doing in places like Green Bay.

            Allen wanted to know what happened in Green Bay since Kittle had “recently published a piece in the Wisconsin Spotlight” about “a Democratic operative was ‘given access to “hidden” identifiers for the internet network at the hotel convention center where ballots were counted.’” She wanted to know who the Democratic operative was and what access he was given.

            Kittle gave the name of Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein for “the long-time Democratic operative” and voting activist – “particularly on the tech ends of these things.” Spitzer-Rubenstein was “the Wisconsin lead for the National Vote at Home Institute” – “one of many left-leaning groups” in the Center [for]Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) network. This same group received $350 million from Mark Zuckerberg, beginning in June 2020. The money was intended for the largest cities in battleground states. In Wisconsin, $8 million plus went to the “Wisconsin 5” – Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Racine.

Well, Spitzer-Rubenstein was basically a partner in CTCL’s network. And the funding, I think it’s important to note the grant funding came with clawback provisions. Basically, a lot of strings attacked that said, “If you don’t follow the terms of this contract, we can take this money back from you.”

For cash-strapped election agencies and city clerks in Wisconsin, it was very enticing. This money, in some cases, like in Green Bay, it more than quadrupled their amount of election funding that they received in taxpayer funds. So this was a lot of money and it made a huge impact.

            Kittle explained that Spitzer-Rubenstein was “integrally involved.” He suggested there is evidence that indicates that “he infiltrated a lot of the election administration that went on. He was doing everything in other groups that he was working with, doing everything from communications and get out the vote to PSAs and promos, to actually curing the ballots. We have emails showing him offering to do this in Green Bay.”

            Kris Teske, the clerk but now the former Green Bay clerk, kept saying, “There is a problem here. This doesn’t seem to be within the confines of the law.” She was so frustrated and concerned about what was happening that she resigned. However, the emails show that the frustrations and concerns came from how the liberal mayor and his office handled the election. In addition, there were “the liberal organizations, outside groups funded by Mark Zuckerberg” that were doing things that “they should not have been doing.”

            Allen asked Kittle what he was doing to “follow the money,” what he had learned as he investigated the Zuckerberg funds, and how the money potentially influenced the election in Wisconsin. Kittle explained that the “Wisconsin 5” received “a massive amount of money to do everything from buy election equipment to hire poll workers.

What we found as well is that these groups, these outside groups, were responsible for helping locate poll workers for places like Milwaukee and Green Bay. We know in Milwaukee that they were using this funding to pay for hazard pay, if you will, significantly higher for poll workers.

But they were using poll workers recruited form the [Service Employees International Union] and other local unions, and the League of Women Voters, and these left-leaning groups that create some serious questions about the handling of absentee ballots and the administration of the election in the state’s largest city in general.

Allen read an email from Trent Jameson, director of event technology at Green Bay’s Hyatt Regency and KI Convention Center (where the ballots were to be counted) to Spitzer-Rubenstein shortly before the election. The email “refers to an SSID. Essentially, a Wi-Fi network, more or less.” The email said: “One SSID will be hidden and it’s 2020vote. There will be no password or splash page for this one and it should only be used for the sensitive machines that need to be connected to the internet.”

Allen wanted to know why a Wi-Fi network or SSID would need to be hidden and only available to Spitzer-Rubenstein. She also wanted to know what was meant by “sensitive machines.”

Kittle acknowledged that Allen had some good questions. He then said that those questions had been “put to the Green Bay Mayor’s Office and to officials who should have knowledge of that. They have not returned any of our requests for comments.”

Now, in talking with tech people and experts on this subject, really what you have here is, it’s the SSIDs are basically when you hit your laptop and all of those area networks pop up that you can click into and be a part of. Well, in this case, you would obviously want some security on that ….

The question is, why does an outside individual from a left-leaning group have access to these things? And the sensitive machines, a lot of folks are concerned about, were the sensitive machines that involve voting.

We know that Spitzer-Rubenstein had access to live-time vote numbers. And again, the question keeps coming up, why? This is also a gentleman who was given the keys to the KI center room where the absentee ballots were kept. The question again is, why?

And state lawmakers are asking those questions related to his access to technology on election night, as well as his access to absentee ballots in the days leading up to and on election night.

            According to Kittle, he has emails showing that Spitzer-Rubenstein was in the rooms at the convention center where the ballots were being counted on election night. “We have contracts that say he received four of the five keys to these areas that had the ballots and the equipment and all of this stuff. And he’s in there by himself, talking to a Green Bay official in this email, trying to get information on where ballot boxes should be placed and all of these sorts of things.”

            Election observers saw Spitzer-Rubenstein and began asking questions about him and about why he was “at Central Count, where all of the ballots were counted on election night.” He was eventually asked to leave “by the city.” This was “curious” because he was put there by the mayor’s chief of staff and city officials, and he was the guy developing “the program about how things would run on election night.”

            Allen then asked Kittle how he had obtained all the emails – the “critical information that’s now coming out to the public.” Kittle said that he could not talk about the sources, but he thanked two members of the Wisconsin Assembly election committee. State Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Green Bay) “had filed an open records request along with state Rep. Ron Tusler.” Kittle also had emails from several concerned citizens “about what took place on election night.” These people made it possible “to obtain some very key information surrounding what happened in Green Bay.”

We also filed a number of open records requests, and we have many out as well. We filed an open records request to get the information from the Wisconsin Elections Commission, for instance, which shows the administrator of that regulator not only enthusiastic about the work of Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, but promoting it to cities in Wisconsin, which raised some serious questions, as was noted this week in a complaint that was filed with the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

            Allen questioned if there was “any sort of precedent for a non-election official having the kind of involvement that Spitzer-Rubenstein did?” Kittle admitted that it was unprecedented and “problematic … for a couple of reasons.”

It’s problematic because, do we want third-party groups, whether they’re conservative or liberal, involved in the administration of our elections? But more so, it’s problematic because there really aren’t any laws in this area.

And that’s what we see now, after the investigative reporting, after the emails have been released. We’re seeing the state Legislature now saying, “We need to address this because we cannot have this sort of thing continue to happen.”

It is a huge voter integrity question. It puts the integrity, it puts transparency, just the concept of election fairness in doubt. And that’s the last thing that we need, especially after what happened in November of 2020.

            Allen and Kittle discussed the Green Bay City Clerk Kris Teske, who resigned at the end of 2020. “On August 26, 2020, she sent an email to her boss and she wrote this: ‘There is one more thing I want to say: If I am ever asked to do anything against the law, the answer will be NO,’ in all caps.” She eventually resigns. Allen asks, “What do we know about her and what she was being asked to do that made her uncomfortable?”

            Kittle explained that the municipal clerks run the elections under the broad oversight of the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Teske’s emails show that she was “growing increasingly frustrated by the constant meddling and the bullying of the mayor, his chief of staff, Celestine Jeffreys, who is in many of these emails.” Kittle said that “the point of real concern is about, not only her involvement, the mayor’s involvement, the city’s involvement with these third-party groups, Spitzer-Rubenstein.”

            In one email, Teske wrote concerning “the third-party groups, particularly this individual, in the clerk’s office, counting or looking over ballots.” She was particularly concerned about COVID, but she also mentioned that she was hearing from “folks outside” about this “left-leaning group and that’s making us look bad.” She repeatedly raised concerns and finally said, “Enough is enough.” She went on family medical leave on October 22, 2020, and resigned at the end of the year. However, she filed a complaint in October alleging “workplace harassment, a hostile work environment” likely caused by the situation with the third-party groups.

            Going back to the investigation, Allen mentioned that the Wisconsin Assembly Campaigns and Elections Committee are “taking action to investigate what happened.” Kittle explained that two hearings have been held. “One of the hearings included the administrator for [the] Wisconsin Elections Commission having to explain some of these very concerning things we saw from the top at the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

… Also, the Republican-controlled Legislature in Wisconsin has now taken the step that they haven’t taken in decades. I think this actually is something they haven’t done since the ‘50s or ‘60s. They’ve given this committee subpoena power to go after documents and to compel witnesses to testify under oath.

Just as we see so often in the halls of Congress, we’re seeing that now for the first time in a long time in Wisconsin. And I think that is a very crucial tool to get to the bottom of this mess in Green Bay. And quite frankly, in Milwaukee, and Madison, Racine, Kenosha, and wherever else CTCL has left its footprints.

            Allen asked Kittle if he and Empower Wisconsin will continue their investigation and keep calling for transparency. Kittle replied “absolutely” and then added the following.

We never allege in any of our reporting that there was voter fraud or election fraud. What we are saying is, “Look at the emails, look at the documents.” And what those emails and documents are showing, really, is a pattern of concern. That if there wasn’t voter fraud, if there was no election fraud, there certainly was the opportunity presented.

And there certainly is a bad smell coming out of all of this. It just does not pass the smell test. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Like I said, we have numerous open records requests into these municipalities in Wisconsin….

You know how it goes with investigations. I know The Daily Signal has the same experience. Once you start exposing some of these areas, then other people step forward and say, “Hey, I have some information.” So we’re vetting through that information. We’re going through that. And then we will indeed continue to follow this story.

            I personally believe that there was enough election fraud to change the results of the 2020 election. However, I am open to change my mind when the investigations are complete. I am grateful that numerous states are investigating questionable happenings during the election. Like Kittle said, if election fraud and/or voter fraud did not happen, there were plenty of opportunities for it to happen. The 2020 election may have been a practice run to see if it could be done. States must be sure that their elections are secure and honest. The integrity of our elections is essential to maintaining our liberties.

How Can Corporate Tyranny Be Stopped?

            It has been happening for a while without receiving much notice. Now it is difficult to miss. Virginia Allen described it like this: “The radical left has infiltrated corporate America and is using big business to promote a political agenda.” The situation was recently discussed on “The Daily Signal Podcast” with Justin Danhof, general counsel for the National Center for Public Policy Research, director of the Free Enterprise Project, AND a member of a new coalition called Stop Corporate Tyranny. 

            After Allen and Danhof had exchanged pleasantries, Allen introduced the topic – How “Stop Corporate Tyranny is working to end the left’s influence on American companies, and how you can be a part of the movement for change” – and asked Danhof explain the website and its mission. 

… So first, a little background is probably helpful for the audience. Directing the Free Enterprise Project for the last 10-plus years, we’ve been screaming from the rooftops to conservatives largely that: Pay attention, big business is no longer with us. Big business is advocating against traditional values, conservative values at a record pace.

Well, fast forward to last year for the very first time in the Gallup polling, Gallup does polling on cultural lanes every year, for the very first time ever big business was underwater with conservatives.

So we’ve been working for about a year-plus to try and build a coalition of conservatives that are willing to engage with big business and fight back against woke capital, fight back against companies that are taking actions that are anathema to conservative and traditional values. So, that’s how we’ve gotten to the point that conservatives are awake now.

I like to say we’re awakened to the woke and we want to do something about it. So, that’s what stopcorporatetyranny.org is all about. It’s a one-stop shop for a couple [of] things.

First, it’s for education on [environmental, social, and governance] and woke because there’s a reason we got here. There’s a reason we got to a place where corporate America is the mouthpiece for the political left, where corporate America is the political muscle, in many instances, and the ones that are carrying the water for the political left.

And so first we let folks know how the heck we got here. And part of it is conservatives were asleep at the switch. Let’s be honest.

But we’re not just going to grouse about the problems, we are an engagement coalition and we want to engage the grassroots of America, the citizens out there who feel helpless to do anything about the cancel culture. They feel helpless against the woke mob, because it’s like trying to drink out of a water hose.

So we’re giving you tools that will allow you to directly engage with business leaders that are taking actions that offend your values. So that’s what the website’s for.

            Danhof continued by discussing the type of people who are part of the coalition: academics, authors, conservative movement thought leaders, former business folks. “It’s a large and growing coalition and look, it’s desperately needed.” He explained that we can “Open up any newspaper” or “turn on the news for five seconds,” “The lead everywhere seems to be big business joining with the left to do X, Y, Z, L, M, N, O, P, right?” He said that the coalition could not be “more timely,” but he also prayed that they are “not too late.” He reminded Allen and the listeners that the left marched through all the institutions – mainstream media, academia, Hollywood, many churches. “Business is the most recent….” “And let’s just hope that the closing gambit hasn’t closed.”

            Allen wanted to know what changed over the past ten years for corporations – like Facebook or Coca-Cola – “to take a policy position on different pieces of legislation.” Danhof called it the “tri-part takeover of corporate America” and said that the Left used the same exact paradigm as they used to take over college campuses: “it was a top-down, bottom-up, and outside-in takeover.” He then started with the top.

On American colleges, what did they do? They set up this thing called tenure. Well, tenure was supposed to be about academic freedom. Well, tenure turned into left’s blackball [of] conservative and traditional-minded professors from getting lifetime tenureship. And that’s how we’ve gotten to the point where there’s dozens of college campuses with zero Republican professors.

            Danhof explained that it was the same thing with corporations. “the left realized, ‘Well, wait a minute, if we want to change corporate direction, let’s change out the leadership. Let’s change out the boards.” The left started “co-opting, and, in some instances, straight up buying the search firms that large companies use to identify board members.”

It’s gotten to the point that one year I was talking with the general counsel of one of the largest companies in America, because I filed a shareholder resolution, and I said, “Hey, my resolution was calling for diversity on their board of directors, but not diversity of skin surface, characteristic, diversity of viewpoint.”

And the general council called me – and I never give away his name or the company that he works for – but he said, “Justin, you’re … over the target on a problem that you may not realize how big it is.”

“Well, how big is it?”

He said, “The search firms that companies my size use have all be co-opted by the left.” He said to me, “They’ll bring us 13 dyed-in-the-wool liberals for an open board seat before we’ll get somebody that we would even consider a moderate.”

            Danhof said that left acted “very intentional[ly],” and that we are now “at the point where the top part of corporate America leans very much to the political left.” He then moved to the bottom-up takeover of corporations, which again was much like it happened on college campuses – particularly toward graduate schools.

… if you’re a conservative student and you know your grade is beholden to a professor that hates your worldview, why would you speak up? Why would you speak your truth? You don’t want to get canceled by your professor. You’re beholden to your professor for your grades. And so many conservatives on college campuses self-sensor.

We’ve reached that point in corporate America. If you’re working at Coca-Cola these days, and you don’t want to go to the training that demands that you be less white if you’re a white person, you can’t speak up for fear of being canceled.

When I engage with the C-suite folks all across industries … I ask them, why do you take liberal position X, Y, and Z? It doesn’t matter [what I ask]…. They all say the same thing. It’s like it buzzes in my ear. They say, “Justin, that’s what our employees want us to do.”

            Danhof knows that the statement is “not true of the broad subset of their employees, but what’s happened is the woke employees, the ones who feel emboldened on college campuses, they feel emboldened at the workplace as well. They’ll demand the critical race theory trainings, they’ll demand the LGBT trainings, and things like this. He added, “conservatives are self-censoring all across business campuses, just like they are on college campuses.” Danhof then moved to the outside-in – “the world that I live in.”

… So we file things called shareholder resolutions because we saw a little over a decade ago … that any resolution on any social or policy issue that was being filed with the company was being filed by a left-wing organization.

And to this day, we’re still the only organization on the right that engages companies by buying up shares of their stock and offering shareholder resolutions….

Liberal groups also rate companies. And these companies then get beholden to these ratings to the point now that Fortune 500 companies … have entire staffs, not just one or two people, but entire staffs at most Fortune 500 companies that their only job is to reply to [environmental, social, and governance] survey questions.

            Danhof continued by explaining that the right is not sending in any questions, “So they’re only responding to and then changing corporate behavior from surveys and questionnaires by the left, and then the left uses those to rate companies. So again, they’re moving the needle and we’re not even playing the game.”

            Allen suggested that moderate corporate heads are moving left out of fear and putting the blame for doing so on his employees. He does not feel comfortable moving left but feels like he has to bend to the left’s demands. Danhof explained that “the left uses business so well, because it recognizes a couple of things.”

First, businesses are more amenable to pressure than most politicians. Most politicians on the Hill, they live in a gerrymandered district. And so it’s very hard to get them to move off of issues. But companies, they literally have a fiduciary legal responsibility to their shareholders first of all. And they’ve all now announced that they’re going to have responsibilities to all sorts of stakeholders.

            Danhof continued by explaining that this is how we got to the point that we are with the state of Georgia. This is why “we have 1,119 companies that are somehow out opposing things like voter ID, … they’re opposing voter integrity…. They are literally working to corrupt American elections, and that’s the stance we find corporate America in right now.”

            Allen wanted to how the debates about the Equality Act connect with the current discussion about corporations and businesses. Danhof explained that “400 of the leading companies in the United States of America are pressing the leadership in Congress to pass the Equality Act…. Four hundred leading American companies want to end women’s sports as we know it and cancel religious freedom for Americans. Danhof had an answer for those Americans who say that the free market will bring balance.

Well, we don’t live in an Ayn Rand novel. We live in more of a corporatocracy than a free market, where big business and big government [are] together teaming up. That’s the scariest proposition of all because [of] the elite power with which that would wield to change the lives of everyday Americans.

So, yeah, I think that there’s a second problem with conservative instinct that has led us down this path. And that is, take any action that we don’t like – we can stick with Coca-Cola and their “be less white” training or their opposition to voter integrity in Georgia.

Conservatives instinctively say, “Well, I’m just going to boycott. I’m done with that company.” And they go on Facebook and they put up a post that their friends and their family all see that all agree with them anyway. And then three days later, they’re driving and they stop at a 7-Eleven, and they pick up a Diet Coke because the history of the conservative boycott of business that offends our value is a history of epic failures.

            Danhof explained that boycotts do not work. They never have, and they never will. The big problem in Danhof’s view is that the list of companies – nearly 1200 – are too many to keep track of all their products and brands. Sifting through them at the grocery store needs “an entire team to help you with that boycott if you want it to be successful…. We can’t boycott our way out of the problem.”

            Allen wanted to know what ordinary people are supposed to do if we cannot vote with our dollars in boycotts. Danhof replied that “the dirty little secret” is that “the left doesn’t boycott either. The left engages. The answer in a single word is engagement.” He explained that “thousands of votes” take place every year “at corporate annual shareholder meetings” for “boards of directors and shareholder proposals.” He explained that it is like Democrats winning every election because no Republicans can “be bothered to vote.”

So at any given annual meeting, 30% to 40% of the vote, people don’t vote. And the evidence is very clear that those individuals and those broker non-votes, those are conservatives. Because if you look at the results of the elections for corporate leaders, for corporate shareholder proposals, there’s an outsized amount of liberal [environmental, social, and governance] proposals that receive record support.

            After giving an example of an oil company where 53% of shareholders voted for the Paris climate accord – and put the company out of business, Danhof said, “So there’s one great example of what we need to do. We need to take back the corporate ballot box. We need to engage that franchise. Because again, politics is downstream from culture.”

We all get engaged in politics, but it’s downstream from culture. That’s why the left worked so hard to change the culture, because you don’t always need to change a politician to have real change and real impact.

And the other things are simple. So if you’re not an investor, what do you do? Well, guess what? There’s not just investor relations offices at all these companies, there’s this thing called customer relations.

If you’re truly going to individually boycott, OK if that’s your values. I’m not going to tell anyone to go against their values, but call the company and let them know why you’re no longer engaging with their products or services.

Call customer relations and say, “Hey, by the way, I’m done with you and here’s why.” Email them. If you’re going to post on Facebook and … Twitter and that you still really want to do that, well, post on Coca-Cola’s Facebook page, tweet at them, don’t do it in silence because it’s not going to have any impact or any effect.

            Danhof assured Allen that conservatives have succeeded in changing the direction of a company. By using “shareholder resolutions and negotiations of those resolutions, I’ve got more than a dozen major companies that have changed their corporate policy.” These changes were specifically in companies that stopped discriminating against “employees based on their viewpoint.” That change protects conservative employees who wish to speak their values. About 5.5 million American employees enjoy that protection based on his filing shareholder resolutions.

            So, investors can contact corporations using shareholder resolutions. Stop Corporate Tyranny provides ways that individuals can push back by posting a new action each week that an individual can take to push back against corporate tyranny. “The latest action was to tell Facebook and Twitter to stay out of politics.” The time commitment is small, according to Danhof. 

A couple of clicks. If you have time to go to Stop Corporate Tyranny, right in the middle of our website, you just click through and we’ve done all the work for you. There’s just literally a button that says, “Take action now,” and you click twice. And guess what? It populates an email to Mark Zuckerberg, to Joel Kaplan, to Jennifer Newstead – these are big leaders at Facebook – Sheryl Sandberg, the boards members of these companies.

We already tracked down, we already got all of their contact information. You don’t have to do anything. All you have to do is click through that you want to communicate with them, you’re outraged over the politicization of their platforms…. You can take action.

            Allen and Danhof agreed that “avoiding despair is really the key.” Danhof stated that he is “very optimistic that companies can get back to neutral.” All we have to do is follow the pattern laid down by the left to engage the corporations and to let them know that we do not like their policies. Stop Corporate Tyranny makes it easy to engage! 

Who Are Andrés Guilarte and Jorge Andrés Galicia Rodriguez?

             I have two VIPs this week: Andrés Guilarte and Jorge Andrés Galicia Rodriguez. They are two students who grew up in Venezuela and know personally what happens when a nation embraces socialism. They spoke last week in a Heritage Foundation webinar and shared their experiences. Venezuela became impoverished as a nation, but the middle class took a deep drop in prosperity. 

            Guilarte is a university student and an outreach fellow at The Fund for American Studies. He stated that his nation was once prosperous, and that he was reared in a stable home without want. He said that life began to change when Hugo Chavez won the presidential election in 1999.

However, 2013 saw the quality of life decline swiftly – “we didn’t even know if we’d have three meals a day.”

The government in Venezuela, they didn’t care if people didn’t like that, they didn’t care if their liberties were going to be taken or their lives were going to be left out of options. [He said that conditions got so bad that middle-class families began eating garbage.]

            Rodriguez is also a university student and outreach fellow at The Fund for American studies. His experience was similar to that of Guilarte.

When I was a child, I used to have great birthday parties. I used to have the latest versions of my favorite video games. My life was really, really great for me and my whole family.

But then since at least the year 2013, 2014, that situation changed almost completely to the point that where in my house, for example, we didn’t even have constant water supply. Electricity was constantly failing, food was really hard to come by.

            Rodriguez shared a story of when his family attempted to assist a homeless man. The man said that he was more worried about them than he was about himself. He knew how to live off the street, and the Rodriguez did not but would soon have to learn. “I know that you people that are from the middle class are going to be in the same situation as me at some point in the future, and you’re not going to be able to eat from the trash can.”

            According to Guilarte, there are still many Venezuelans who embrace socialism despite its failures. They were indoctrinated with socialism as children and still believe it is wonderful. He used to call himself a socialist because of the indoctrination in the school system. “They tell you that Chavez was the biggest guy in the world, that he led the revolution, he was like Jesus on earth.”

            Guilarte said that the indoctrination works, and some members of his family thought that life would be better under the Chavez regime than the previous corrupt governments. He said that “his eyes were opened” and he saw that he was on the wrong side when college friends began to protest the government. Guilarte did had the desire to help people but understood that the only way to help them is to fight for liberty. He realized that some people have to hit “rock bottom” before they can be helped.

            Additional comments were made by Lee Edwards, distinguished fellow in conservative thought at The Heritage Foundation. He said that some proponents of socialism make excuses for its failures and cause misconceptions. “Socialism has never failed because it’s never been tried” is one misconception.

This isn’t true, Edwards said, because socialism has been tried in many places and failed. He pointed to three countries in particular – Israel, India, and the United Kingdom – that attempted to implement socialist policies after World War II.

Israel experienced catastrophic inflation, half of India’s population was stuck in poverty, and the U.K. became the “sick man of Europe.” …

            Edwards, Rodriguez, and Guilarte agreed that there is a difference between socialism in Venezuela and the pro-market economies of the Nordic countries, such as Denmark. Guilarte described it as follows:

I don’t see the governments of Denmark and Sweden taking the means of production … from the business owners. I don’t see them attacking the freedom of the press, attacking freedom of movement, attacking freedom of speech. I don’t see their people being so oppressed that they have to go to the streets and expect to literally be killed by their own government officers, by the police, by the military.

            I have not visited a socialist nation, such as Venezuela, but I have visited Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. One bus driver in Norway told us that the nation provided free college and other free things, but their tax rate was more than fifty percent. The people are hard working and respectful. I did not see any graffiti in any of the areas I visited. I did not see even one piece of garbage on the ground except the morning after a big concert in a park in Sweden.

The homes and outer buildings looked like they had been freshly painted for our visit, and there were no broken-down cars or other pieces of junk lying around. Every area was picture perfect made even more so by the beautiful scenery all around. The people were friendly, happy, and helpful. I did not see any homeless people in the streets. The system of government in the Nordic countries is not socialism even though they may have some socialist practices that are paid by high taxes from citizens.

Should Biden Expand the Supreme Court?

             The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the United States Supreme Court. The U.S. Constitution assigns the President to nominate people to the Supreme Court with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. According to this history site, it is Congress and not the Constitution that determines the number of justices on the Supreme Court. Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, and President George Washington signed the Act into law – setting the number of justices on the Supreme Court at six. 

            According to the history site, President John Adams was the first president to use the Supreme Court for political purposes. When he lost the 1800 presidential election to Thomas Jefferson, he and his Federalists allies in Congress worked to deny Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, a pick for the Supreme Court.

            When Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth resigned from the Supreme Court for illness, Adams nominated, and Congress confirmed a successor, John Marshall, on February 4, 1801, before Adams left office the following month. Adams and the Federalists went one step further and passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, decreasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court from six to five. This further lowered the odds that Jefferson would appoint a justice.

            As often happens, President Jefferson and the new Congress repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801, returning the official number of justices from five to six. During the interim, there were no changes on the Supreme Court, so the number of seated justices never dropped to five.

            Other Presidents and Congresses added and subtracted justices for political reasons. The history site continued with this information.

By the start of the Civil War, the number of Supreme Court justices had increased to nine in order to cover additional circuit courts in the expanding American West. But Abraham Lincoln, upset over the Supreme Court’s 1857 decision in Dred Scott and wanting to cement an anti-slavery majority on the Court, added a 10^th justice in 1863.

After the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination, Congress clashed with Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, who was rapidly undoing the “Radical Republicans’” plan for Reconstruction. To limit Johnson’s power, Congress passed legislation in 1866 that cut the number of Supreme Court justices back to seven, all but assuring that Johnson wouldn’t have the opportunity to fill a vacant seat.

The last time Congress changed the number of Supreme Court justices was in 1869, again to meet a political end. Ulysses S. Grant was elected president in 1868 with the backing of the congressional Republicans who had hated Johnson. As a gift to Grant, Congress increased the number of justices from seven back to nine, and Grant gamely used those picks.

The Supreme Court had just ruled that paper money was unconstitutional, which would have “wreaked havoc” with the U.S. Treasury, says Marcus. But Grant and Congress quickly confirmed two new justices who reversed the Court’s decision in the earlier case, saving the Republicans from having to undo the nation’s entire system of legal tender.

            The number of justices remained at nine until the 1930s when Franklin D. Roosevelt was in office. The Supreme Court made some rulings that “undercut” some of FDR’s New Deal legislation. In response, FDR and his Justice Department proposed a bill that would allow FDR to appoint six new justices, bringing the total of justices on the Supreme Court to fifteen. The legislation proposed that “all sitting justices older than 70 would be asked to resign.” For each justice that refused to resign, FDR would appoint an additional justice to the bench. There were six justices age 70 or older at the time, which meant that FDR could appoint up to six new justices. FDR was accused of “packing the court,” and his plan was rejected by a vote of 70-20 in the Senate.

            The number of Supreme Court justices has remained at nine since 1869 despite FDR’s attempt. However, Democrats are upset with the Republican majority justices currently on the Court. There are five conservatives and three liberals on the Supreme Court with Chief Justice John Roberts being the swing vote. The Republican majority, particularly the number of justices who rule according to the Constitution, makes it difficult for liberals to win court cases. Therefore, President Joe Biden is seeking to make a change to the Supreme Court.

            Biden wants to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court to overcome the conservative majority. Last week Biden signed the “Executive Order on the Establishment of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. This commission is “a working group of federal judicial experts” who will determine if “reforming” the Supreme Court is a feasible idea and if such a change would have public support. The commission will study the matter for six months to make their determination.

            Several powerful Democrats have already weighed in on the matter. Ilya Somin wrote a recent virtual speech that Justice Stephen G. Breyer gave at Harvard Law School. He told liberals to “think long and hard” about expanding the Supreme Court to eliminate the current 6-3 conservative majority. He said that such a move would “risk making justices appear more political and eroding public confidence in the court.” He stressed the independence of the Court by pointing to the resistance of the Court to listen to Donald Trump’s attempts to have the Court rule on the election. 

            Somin wrote that Breyer echoed the words of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who said the following in 2019:

Nine seems to be a good number. It’s been that way for a long time…. I think it was a bad idea when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the court….

If anything would make the court look partisan, … it would be that – one side saying, “When we’re in power, we’re going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.”

That impairs the idea of an independent judiciary….

            Harry Reid, former Senate Majority Leader, told Democrats to be “very, very careful” in threatening to expand the Court. “I have no problem with the commission, but I think that the commission is going to come back and disappoint a lot of people because I think they’re going to come back and say, ‘We should just kind of leave it alone.’ I think it would be inappropriate at this time after that long history we’ve had in the country to have term limits for judges.”

            Personally, I would not be surprised if Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats wrote and passed a bill expanding the Court. Pelosi seems to think that she can do whatever she wants, and she has the votes to get such a bill passed. It is questionable if such a bill would pass the Senate. However, Biden would not hesitate to sign such a bill into law.

Why Do Latter-day Saints Share the Gospel?

             My Come, Follow Me studies for this week were about missionary work. Missionary work is growing in my family. My husband, both our sons, and three of our four sons by marriage have served missions. Our oldest grandson will be home from his mission in less than two months, and our oldest granddaughter will be opening her mission call tomorrow. Several of our children are planning to serve missions with their spouses after retirement.

            The lesson discussed the mission calls of four men who had been members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a month or less. In the fall of 1830, there were no long-term members of the Church of Jesus Christ because the Church itself was organized only six months previously in April 1830. However, there was a pattern in those mission calls that remains today: When you know enough to accept the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, you know enough to share it with others.

            Of course, the Church of Jesus Christ does not call people on missions who have been members for a month or less. In fact, missionaries are required to obtain their temple endowments before entering the mission field, and converts must be members for at least a year to be endowed. This is true under most conditions, but there were some adjustments made during the current pandemic. Some missionaries were allowed to enter the mission field without their endowment because the temples were all closed. However, they were expected to go to the nearest temple to receive their endowment as soon as a temple was available.

            One of the principles taught in this lesson is “I am called to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Many of the words given to the early missionaries in Doctrine and Covenants 30-36 apply to members today. We do not need a formal missionary calling to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. We just need a desire to serve and a willingness to open our mouths. Doctrine and Covenants 30:5-8 issues a missionary call to all members even though the message was directed to Peter Whitmer.

5 Behold, I say unto you, Peter, that you shall take your journey with your brother

Oliver; for the time has come that it is expedient in me that you shall open your mouth to declare my gospel; therefore, fear not, but give heed unto the words and advice of your brother, which he shall give you.

6 And be you afflicted in all his afflictions, ever lifting up your heart unto me in prayer and faith, for his and your deliverance; for I have given unto him power to build up my church among the Lamanites;

7 And none have I appointed to be his counselor over him in the church, concerning church matters, except it is his brother, Joseph Smith, Jun.

8 Wherefore, give heed unto these things and be diligent in keeping my commandments, and you shall be blessed unto eternal life. Amen.

            Missionaries are called to teach the people in a certain area, but members of the Church of Jesus Christ are to open our mouths and teach whoever is available. Missionaries are required to pay attention to their senior companion, district leader, zone leader, and mission president – who answers to the prophet. Members are assisted by local missionaries, mission leader, and bishop. Since we never know who will accept the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are to open our mouths to declare the gospel wherever and whenever possible.

            Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke about the importance of missionary work and why we always focus on declaring the gospel to others.

Missionary work isn’t the only thing we need to do in this big, wide, wonderful Church. But almost everything else we need to do depends on people first hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ and coming into the faith. Surely that is why Jesus’s final charge to the Twelve was just that basic – to “go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” [Matthew 28:19]. Then, and only then, can the rest of the blessings of the gospel fully come – family solidarity, youth programs, priesthood promises, and ordinances flowing right up to the temple. But as Nephi testified, none of that can come until one has “enter[ed] into the … gate” [2 Nephi 33:9]. With all that there is to do along the path to eternal life, we need a lot more missionaries opening that gate and helping people through it” (“We Are All Enlisted,” Ensign, Nov. 2011, 46-47).

            Elder Holland was not the only Apostle asking members to be missionaries. Elder L. Tom Perry (1922-2015) gave members some reasons why they should be missionaries.

It should be “with great earnestness” (Doctrine and Covenants 123:14) that we bring the light of the gospel to those who are searching for answers the plan of salvation has to offer. Many are concerned for their families. Some are looking for security in a world of changing values. Our opportunity is to give them hope and courage and to invite them to come with us and join those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lord’s gospel is on earth and will bless their lives here and in the eternities to come (“Bring Souls unto Me,” Ensign, May 2009, 110).

            This brings us to a second principle in this lesson: “As we faithfully serve the Lord, our families are blessed. The words given to Thomas B. Marsh as he was called to serve a mission have brought comfort to many modern-day missionaries. Doctrine and Covenants 31:1-6 states the following.

1 Thomas, my son, blessed are you because of your faith in my work.

2 Behold, you have had many afflictions because of your family; nevertheless, I will bless you and your family, yea, your little ones; and the day cometh that they will believe and know the truth and be one with you in my church.

3 Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission is come; and hour tongue shall be loosed, and you shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto this generation.

4 You shall declare the things which have been revealed to my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun. You shall begin to preach from this time forth, yea, to reap in the field which is white already to be burned.

5 Therefore, thrust in your sickle with all your soul, and your sins are forgiven you, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your back, for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Wherefore, your family shall live.

6 Behold, verily I say unto you, go from them only for a little time, and declare my word, and I will prepare a place for them.

            Thomas Marsh and his wife, Elizabeth, had three sons, ages nine, seven, and three. Elizabeth was converted the next year and fulfilled the promise that his family would “be one” with him in the Church. The Lord’s promise to bless his family would have given Thomas the strength to leave them. Similar promises are available to missionaries today. Elder Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shared the following experience.

One [full-time missionary] couple worried about leaving their youngest daughter who was no longer active in the Church. Her faithful father wrote: “We prayed for her continually and fasted regularly. Then, during general conference, the Spirit whispered to me, ‘If you will serve, you will not have to worry about your daughter anymore.’ So we met with our bishop. The week after we received our call, she and her boyfriend announced they were engaged. Before we left for Africa, we had a wedding in our home. [Then we gathered our family together and] held a family council…. I bore testimony of the Lord and Joseph Smith … and told them I would like to give each of them a father’s blessing. I started with the oldest son and then his wife and proceeded to the youngest … [including our new son-in-law].” …

… As the faithful father in this story blessed his family members, his son-in-law felt the influence of the Holy Ghost. The father wrote: “By the end of our first year [the] heart [of our son-in-law] began to soften toward the Church. Just before we returned home from our mission, he and our daughter came to visit us. In his suitcase was the first set of Sunday clothes he had ever owned. They came to Church with us, and after we returned home he was baptized. A year later, they were sealed in the temple” (“Couple Missionaries: Blessings from Sacrifice and Service,” Ensign, May 2005, 40).

            When a missionary enters the mission field, the Lord opens the windows of heaven and blesses their family. The blessings may be financial, or they may come in other ways. My husband’s parents always struggled with finances, except while my husband was in the mission field. Somehow, they always had the $100-$150 to pay for his mission. His mother told me, “We always had the money to send to him, but we did not have any extra money after he returned.” The Lord blessed them by helping their money to stretch enough for the mission.

            Other missionaries have the blessing of converting one or both of their parents. Every missionary family that I know has been blessed. When our boys were serving their missions, we never struggled to pay the $350-$400 for their missions. Things always worked out for us financially. Besides, there was an increase of love between siblings and a special spirit in our home. When a missionary sacrifices his time and money to serve the Lord, the Lord in turn opens the windows of heaven to bless the missionary’s family.