By Ravi Batra
Eminent Attorney & Chair, National Advisory Council South Asian Affairs
An Election like none other – Fine Americans Voted.
Over 144,000,000 of our fellow Americans voted – over 100,000,000 by mail or in-person early – to elect Donald Trump or Joe Biden to be the POTUS starting January 20, 2021. One of them won. Most of us know it to be Joe. Indeed, George W. Bush, and Trump’s closest friends Bibi Netanyahu and Narendra Modi have called Joe; so have leaders of Canada, England, France and, inter alia, Germany; but not Russia, as expected, and China, as not expected. But POTUS says, “Hold the Presses & Fox’s Decision Desk.” And Georgia holds the Senate’s majority in limbo until the January 5, 2021 Run-Offs, and then we will have either a united government of one-party, or a divided government of two-parties. Just remember, our Founders wanted divided government for American Exceptionalism to truly shine at our collective best.
Thank you.
I write to thank President Trump, and President-Elect Biden. Indeed, I welcome the legal challenges candidate Trump unleashes upon us, as it is his parting gift to remove one of the lingering cobwebs that cloud our cherished Constitution. Bush v Gore in 2000, with a 7-2 Vote, mandated that the Fifth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause had been offended with ballots for the same federal office – POTUS – was different in the 50 states. Since then, it’s the same ballot. This time around, the issue is not “hanging chads” or “dimpled chad” for voter-intent determinations, given the strength of geriatric voters in Florida, but the different timings each state has imposed on when it can receive a mailed-in ballot for the office of POTUS.
But let me pause, and acknowledge the achievements of “45,” President Trump: strengthening our military; creating our Space Force; there are fine people on both sides (and every Founder, by being a Founder, as a fine person – even as each of us today are imperfect, yet arrogant enough to issue mandates on decided history); Middle East Peace; Criminal Justice Reform; three Justices – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – to the SCOTUS; standing up to our Allies; sending Javelins to Ukraine; strengthening NATO with overdue Dues-payments by many; keeping our conflict with Russia behind closed doors; standing up to China pre-China Virus, more than any POTUS before him; launching a Preliminary Investigation of China the day after receiving my April 14, 2020 Open Letter; making Tony Fauci beloved by most Americans; and inter alia, causing over 144 million voters to the polls.
The Enemy is Visible; Appeasement Leads to Abdication.
Trump’s singular mistake – over any other – is to say: “[w]e are fighting an invisible enemy [referring to the crime-against-humanity, biowarfare agent much more lethal than Russia’s famous nerve-agent Novichok: the Wuhan Virus, aka China Virus aka Covid-19 aka Coronavirus aka SARS-Cov-2]. No, Mr. President; we are not!
The enemy who unleashed it and deliberately exported it the world over is CCP’s China, plainly visible on every Map. Yes, the Virus is invisible. Worse, China has “Pearl Harbored” us over 100 times.
Q: We Hated Japan, But Love CCP’s China?
On December 7, 1941, “a day that will live in infamy” less than 2400 Americans died and caused FDR to order the dropping of our two nuclear bombs, “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. Now, we have 240,000 Americans dead; and many more are falling daily. Our economy is in tatters – the condition of which is being masked by Washington DC artificially propping it up by borrowing over $10 Trillion (and counting) from our grandkids; itself, a generational theft we ought to be ashamed of.
But no one, individually or collectively, in Washington DC dares – in the finest tradition of History’s Loser #1, Neville Chamberlain – to send a bill to CCP’s China, remove their sovereign immunity, or seize their assets the world over for loss-indemnification, let alone get War Reparations for China’s starting an Undeclared War, seeking global domination, and using an invisible tsunami of self-perpetuating lab engineered Virus that has the Bats’ “Spike Glycoprotein (S)” – the master key to get past everyone’s auto-immune system – something I identified in my April 14, 2020 Open Letter to POTUS, and what every vaccine now is seeking to declaw and disarm. Meanwhile, Denmark’s Minks have given us a mutation – Cluster5 – that is drug resistant Wuhan Virus, and the specter of Armageddon is upon us.
CCP’s Mischief Reef, Jaws of War.
For months, I have pushed unsuccessfully to have Mischief Reef in South China Sea destroyed and returned to the ocean’s depth by the Commander-in-Chief of our nation, duty bound to protect us. Instead, ineffectively, we fight the Virus as our enemy. On December 7th, we didn’t fight the bombs and bullets, but Imperial Japan. Today, our Leaders – Trump and Biden–wish to fight the Virus alone. Appeasement, I remind them with exasperation, leads to Abdication.
I recall that in 2017 UNGA – when there was no China Virus, but just the artificial Islands China was building un-checked by Barack Obama all over the SCS to fraudulently claim its borders had expanded – I, always speaking as an un-conflicted proud American patriot, said to China’s distinguished and lovable Foreign Minister Wang Yi, “[China has] created a situation where we either have a Little War now, or a Big War later, and I prefer a Little War.” He responded, “No war; no war!” and quickly exited the Green Room ending our conversation. Sadly, neither Barack Obama nor Donald Trump went to war to stop China’s creation of its Jaws of War, Djibouti Naval Base to SCS Islands, and OBOR/BRI network of Roads and Ports, to create a North-South and East-West Cross-Fire in the Indian Ocean. Indeed, not even after China attacked us with its Frankenstein Virus and killed 240,000 Americans did Trump strike back. All we have done is – created what Mark Green used to call – a circular firing squad; Americans shooting at fellow Americans, while letting China off the hook of responsibility or history.
Constitutional Issue as to “Timing”- Which Controls: 10A “States Rights Reservation” or 5A “Equal Protection Clause”?
As for Trump’s electoral challenges and Rudy’s follies, there is a serious Constitutional issue that remains submerged and un-resolved from Bush v Gore 2000. Different States, pursuant to 10A, can set their own electoral deadlines. But Voters across the country – voting for the same federal office – end up with different voting times. This is unequal, and smacks of unfairness.
So does States’ right to set its own electoral deadlines trump Voters’ right to a federal election with uniform timelines across these United States – that is the question.
The answer by our Supreme Court – in time – of course will be: States are free, pursuant to 10A’s Rights Reservation, to set their own deadlines for offices elected solely by that State’s voters, but when it comes to a federal office that is being elected across the 50 states – POTUS – then, those deadlines must be uniform to comport with the 5A’s Equal Protection of the law. There are additional cobwebs that are embedded in the Electoral College that have the same 10A-5A tension. So, while the Trumpian charges of widespread fraud are hollow and hurtful to Ben Franklin’s and our cherished Republic, America benefits nevertheless from this exercise. As a nation of laws, as the Torah teaches us, it’s great to “daven” and find each precious incrementally elusive nuance and make it visible in the disinfectant sunshine.
May God bless these united States of America – with “united” – in lower case, to have the power of an adjective, rather than the useless pride of a noun, and from which we may enjoy in full measure of an activated citizenry: E Pluribus Unum.
Twitter: @RaviBatra
