Tales from the Uni-Potty: The Morning Constitutional - Cartoon by Ed Newmann

Our February issue provides stories, information, data, and timelines, in the spirit of traditional journalism. Thanks goes to the authors' commitment to rational dissemination of facts instead of emotion-triggering, unproductive opining sans relative details necessary to actually inform the articles, let alone reliable sources for what little factual information might be sprinkled here and there.

Roby Smith Iowa State Senator District 47 and Bobby Kaufmann Iowa Representative District 73

Throughout America, state legislatures are engaged in election reform to secure their states' election integrity by codifying policies, including the prohibition of certain toxic practices that prevailed under an umbrella response to COVID-19, but undermined election processes in varying degrees. Ten states are including the elimination of private funding of public elections, as well as other measures regarding voter identification, signature approval, securing gaps in counting ballots, mostly common-sense measures that would return voter confidence to elections.

Donald Trump. Photo by Michael Vadon.

“In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide,” U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump tweeted in late November, “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Kind of a sore winner. And now that he’s no longer just president-elect but actually president, he’s doubling down and says he “will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD ... .”

That’s dumb. And dangerous.

How meaningful is the media-fueled binary battle between the deplorables and the corruptibles when the very election systems used to count the votes are susceptible to manipulation and fraud? It’s a topic very few wish to engage with. For, if true, all the spent energy and resources and the lost or frayed friendships over such a contentious national election would be for naught.

You might want to try an enlightening experiment as we get closer to election day. Put your normal preconceived notions about politics aside for a few days and open your mind to the possibility that nearly everything you’re being told via broadcast and radio news is entirely scripted, and specifically designed via behavior-modification techniques to “nudge” your choices in a predetermined direction.