Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Tree. I'm happy that you're listening, and I'm going to start off today by talking about my podcast. Amazingly enough, I am about two and a half months into this venture. And in some cases, it seems like more, in other cases, it seems like what it is, which is I'm a baby barely crawling here. But those of you who are already listening know that you can find me on Apple Podcasts, I'm on Spotify, Google, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, a dozen or so other lesser-known platforms. But nevertheless, I would ask that you subscribe to whatever your favorite podcast platform is. And if it's again not too much trouble, write me a review or write a review for the podcast. Give me a rating and you know, say what you think and don't uh sugarcoat it. If you love it, say so. If you don't, say so. But give me some feedback, and the only way I can really improve the show is by receiving feedback from listeners, and I value that. So thank you very much. I'm talking about voting today, and I think most of us who vote and who exercise that right consider it to be a sacred right, one in which we don't take for granted that we want our vote to count, that we want to be able to exercise that fundamental right that is given to citizens of the country, even those who are citizens of other countries, but perhaps come here and become a citizen of our country, that right is given to them as well. So it is a sacred right and something we should take seriously, and we should fight for those rights for everyone to vote, at least those who are of age to vote. Personally, I wouldn't mind if the voting age was raised to 21, but that's me. I don't know how other people feel about that, but that's kind of what I think about it. Some of you may already be aware of a piece of legislation that would change the way that we vote in this country. And as I understand it, the Congress will be voting on this in the latter part of June, so next month. Of course, the United States Senate is essentially divided 50-50, where there are a couple of independents that typically vote Democrat. In any case, there are, you know, essentially 50 Republicans, 50 Democrats. Uh a tie vote is obviously goes to the vice president. However, passing a bill in the Senate does require 60 votes. So it's kind of a moot point that they would be discussing this right now. I think they're bringing it up and debating it, and eventually there'll be a vote on it. But as I said, I don't know that there'll be enough Republicans to swing it towards the Democrats and have this vote pass. But with members of the United States Congress, we never know. I want to cite an article. It's called Schumer to Force Senate Vote on Sweeping Election Reform Bill. The piece of legislation is S1 or Senate one, but it's also known as For the People Act. The Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the bill, quote, legislation that is essential to defending our democracy, reducing the influence of dark money and powerful special interests, and stopping the wave of Republican voter suppression happening in states across the country, close quote. Clearly, the majority leader had a lot to say there, so let me just unpack this, if I may. We already have a For the People Act. It's called the Constitution. In fact, the preamble to the Constitution says this, quote, we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. I've said this before, and if this is your first time listening, I'll say it again for your benefit. The preamble as well as the Constitution and our founding documents were not applied to all people at first, but I believe we're getting it right now, irrespective of what some of our elected leaders have to say about it. We have the framework for free and fair elections already. We simply need to uphold it and teach it, and that should start with members of Congress. We don't live in simple times like they once did. Therefore, we must safeguard our elections. Requiring an ID is not a suppressive action. Elections don't happen every day. It's every two years or four years generally. So whatever people need to do to prepare themselves for the elections that they know are coming, they have plenty of time to do it. Reading from the article, it says this quote, the act would federalize components of the election system, eliminating nearly all qualifications such as photo identification. It would also require states to implement a system of automatic voter registration and to allow same-day registration on any day voting is allowed. The down and dirty truth, I think, about this legislation is the fact that it is an example of the massive power grab displayed by the federal government. It's plain and simple. Some people in Washington, D.C. just don't have enough power and they want more. What better way to get it than to revamp the whole voting system? Putting it under complete control of elected officials in Washington, D.C. And forget about states' rights at this point. Speaking of states' rights, let's refer to that for the People Act that I like to call the Constitution. In Article II, Clause II, it says this quote Each state shall appoint in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the state may be entitled in the Congress. Close quote. Naturally, this is the U.S. Constitution, so therefore it is something that is a federal law. Naturally, the control over statewide elections are going to be governed by the individual states. Senator James Langford said this, quote, in Oklahoma, we have great voting engagement. We want to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. S1 takes away a state's ability to hold people accountable for cheating, close quote. I think the tech age in which we live makes voting more open to nefarious activity. There are different ways that numbers can be manipulated, and it's difficult for me anyway to trust the outcome of any election. And I'm not just talking about the election for president in 2020. I'm talking about elections going back decades. It was much more difficult in the pre-tech age to manipulate numbers and to falsify numbers even to change the outcome of an election. And it's interesting that today, if you bring up something like that, people look at you like you have the plague and they look at you like you must be insane. How could you think that our elections could be manipulated and the results changed? Well, I think if you don't think that way, then there's something wrong with you. But I mean no disrespect, of course. Again, every eligible person who is by age able to vote should not have that right taken away from them. Requiring someone to show an identification as to who they are is not a legitimate form of suppressing the vote. It's just not. How many times and in how many places are we in on a regular basis where we have to present identification? No matter where it is, no matter what it's for, if we are unable to provide that identification, guess what? We don't get to do whatever that privilege is that we get to do, whether that's drink, open up a checking account, apply for a loan, get a mortgage. There's dozens of reasons why we have to prove who we are. And the way we do that is by showing an identification card that tells the other person, okay, this person is who they say they are, they live at such and such a place, and here we go. Simple. The false narrative that's put forth by some people to include members of Congress is to make this look like there are demons among us because, heaven forbid, there are people who want to require as a right to vote for the person who is getting that right to show an ID card that substantiates who they are. That's demonic if people want that to happen in the United States of America. Wow. It cracks me up how some members of Congress like to phrase things. And what I mean by that is here's something that Senator Amy Klobichar said, quote, the For the People Act is about setting basic national standards to make sure all Americans can vote safely in the way that works best for them. Regardless of what state or zip code they live in. The For the People Act is about reducing the power of big money in our elections by ending secret spending by billionaires and special interests. And the For the People Act is about making anti-corruption reforms to ensure all politicians work for the people, not themselves. Now, it's very possible that you may be wondering how I was able to read that quote without actually laughing. This senator actually believes that we need national standards to make sure that Americans can vote safely and the way that works best for them? What? No. We used to have something in America called election day, meaning that's the day you voted. Now, of course, provisions are made to allow people who are in the service and who are overseas to be able to vote, people who work overseas who are American citizens to be able to vote. Those provisions should be made and people should be allowed to vote. And we now have early voting, which to me is a can of worms that when opened up smells really, really bad. Again, it just seems to me that it opens up the door, or the can of worms in this case, for corruption and for voting that takes place that is not legitimate. Which takes me back to the name of the legislation, the For the People Act. It's named in such a way that sounds so wonderful, so inviting, as pure as the driven snow. Once we pass this piece of legislation, why we won't have any problems with any elections ever again. Please. I sincerely believe that many of these politicians take the American people for fools and idiots, and that we're just too dumb to figure out how to read between the lines with the nonsense that they feed us on a regular basis. It's sickening to me. And quite frankly, it should sicken you too. It should make you angry. It should make you realize that, you know what? I am going to hold my representative, my senator accountable for what they say and do. I'm convinced that not enough of us do this, ladies and gentlemen. And just so you know, I'm looking in the mirror, pointing the finger right at myself, because I don't do it enough either. We should do it more often than we do to let the people who are supposed to be representing us know how we feel about pieces of legislation. That is really our duty living in a representative republic. We have to do that. That seems like a really good place to end this episode for today. I encourage you to study on your own, to research legislation that is potentially going to impact your life and my life. Because once a piece of legislation is passed and goes through Congress and gets to the president's desk and gets signed, well, we all know that once a law is made, it, pun intended here, will take an act of Congress to get it off the books. And when does that happen? It doesn't. There's a reason why I end every episode with a positive, upbeat thought or quote, particularly in episodes like today. I can't end on a foul note regarding what I just discussed. So I have a couple of quotes today. They're both kind of short, so that's why I've picked them. One is from John F. Kennedy, who said this quote, the efforts of the government alone will never be enough. In the end, the people must choose, and the people must help themselves. Close quote. I love that. This next quote is straightforward and to the point. It comes from Thomas Sowell, who said this quote, the fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy. End of quote.