The Right Stuff: Should America serve as the world’s cop?

By Earl Heal : published November 27, 2022

The conflict in Ukraine has again illuminated the historic American debate favoring isolation or military action when diplomacy fails, and war potential arises.

A strong isolationist group has opposed entering each major American war – the Revolutionary War against England, the Civil War over slavery, World War I and World War II. History confirms America’s entry in each produced admirable solutions although our delayed entry into both world wars significantly increased suffering and financial loss for all participants. With world peace restored after World War II, America implemented the Marshall Plan to hasten rebuilding the decimated European nations. The free world looked to America for leadership, so the United Nations accepted America as the defacto world cop. When the USSR – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – appeared anxious for conflict soon after World War II, American and European leaders strengthened allied support through organization of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and America promptly developed a strong deterrence named Fortress America. Hundreds of B-47 jet bombers were built for a one-way mission to bomb Russia.

In the 1960s Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara developed a new concept named Mutual Assured Destruction. The belief was that maintaining an equal force with the enemy would cancel their fear of invasion and they would terminate their aggression. This only extended the Cold War indefinitely. Fortunately, President Ronald Reagan in 1981 proclaimed MAD as suicidal and promoted a winning concept, “We win, You Lose.” Russia’s economy could not match America’s and the USSR collapsed.[...read more]

The Right Stuff: Newsom’s Clean Energy Act doesn’t add up

By Roger Oberbeck: published November 21, 2022 California’s Clean Energy, Jobs and Affordability Act of 2022, with a commitment of $54 billion to establish 90% clean energy by 2035 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, has these goals:

• Cut air pollution by 60%. • Reduce state oil consumption by 91%. • Reduce fossil fuel use in buildings and transportation by 92%. • Cut refinery pollution by 94%, Are these goals attainable? No. Here are the data. Senate Bill 1020 establishes clean electricity targets of 90% by 2035, 95% by 2040 and 100% by 2045. California used 277.7 gigawatt hours (GWH) of electricity in 2021. (One GWH would power 1.15 million California houses annually). Of that total, 35% was non-carbon producing energy, (i.e., nuclear, hydroelectric, wind and solar), but one-third (11% of the total) of that quantity was imported from neighbor states. California must increase its non-carbon emitting electricity production by 181.8 GWH by 2045.

Gov. Gavin Newsom plans on having 20 gigawatt rated capacity of offshore wind turbines by 2045. This will require 6,667 3 megawatt wind turbines which will produce 52,209 gigawatt hours of electricity. Assuming California’s energy use will remain constant, California must increase zero carbon-emission electricity production by 129,591 GWH, which will require an additional 50 GWH of annual electricity generation, i.e., an additional 16,667 3-megawatt, or 5,000 10-megawatt wind turbines.[...read more]

The Right Stuff: Election integrity imperative to preserve liberty

By Colleen Britton: Published November 14, 2022

The Constitution Literacy Advocates presented awards Thursday to Solano County 10th- through 12th-grade students who competed in the 11th annual Constitution Essay Constitution. The assigned topic this year was to define election integrity and why it is imperative if “We the People” are to “secure the Blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our Posterity”? Since 2012, this committee has received 1,700 student essays and awarded a total of $12,700 to competing Solano students.

Stephanie Choi, a senior from Rodriguez Early College High School and consecutive year winner, will receive the Best of School and the Grand Prize awards, totaling an $800 mini-grant. Her winning essay is below. ••• Election integrity is the right to confidently vote in a free and fair election, safeguarded from voter fraud or interference of any kind. The three words which head the Constitution, “We the People,” encapsulate and underscore the fact that the document derives its power from none other than the very people of the United States who are governed by it: a concept upon which the entire Constitution is built. Elections empower “We the People” to control the government because they allow for “We the People” to participate in determining who will represent and “exercise the powers of government” (Article IV Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution) upon us. As a constitutional federal republic, it is in the peoples’ interest to ensure their government is the outcome of an honest election concluded with their benefit and the national good in mind. Voter fraud, which puts fair, honest, and transparent elections at risk today, takes many forms: bribing or intimidating people to vote for a certain candidate, impersonation and false registration, voting while ineligible, etc. A recent instance of voter fraud can be seen in the case of the June 2021 Compton City Council race whose results, decided by a mere one vote difference, were overturned succeeding criminal charges against its victor: Isaac Galvan. A judge ruled that four votes were casted by non-residents of the district and Galvan was accused of attempting to bribe an elections official with concert tickets. Relatedly, Elizabeth Gale from San Diego was sentenced to two years of felony probation after pleading guilty to voting in place of her deceased mother in the 2021 gubernatorial recall election earlier this year. Gale claimed to have witnessed her mother signing the ballot, but in reality, she had forged her signature. When elections are compromised, Americans are robbed of their voice in government and constitutional right to vote. Evident in the case of Isaac Galvan mentioned prior, voter fraud can completely change the outcomes of elections and make way for intentional misrepresentation and deceit.

Election integrity flourishes under the active involvement of citizens devoted enough to watch over it. Given much of the electoral process depends on the states, legislators and election officials, they can implement measures which will make ensuring election integrity that much more possible. States can pass laws that make it mandatory to provide an ID to vote; verify their voter registration lists through government records and databases; and forbid people like party representatives from collecting absentee ballots from voters.

When election integrity is abandoned, the peoples’ right to a free, fair election is no more: votes are tainted and people lose their faith in the process. Elections not only call attention to ensuring all eligible individuals are able to vote, but that each individual vote is accurately accounted for. They empower us to secure our and our posterity’s ability to have a voice in government and society, protecting our rights from fraudsters. If we can offer our participation, we can keep our republic.