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Glenn Youngkin, as leader of the only state in the nation that doesnt allow governors to run for consecutive terms, is the rare politician who doesnt have to worry about the next election. Unfortunately, hes behaving as though the democratic process isnt important to him at all.

Recently, Youngkin and his administration have come under fire for a number of moves and revelations around voting and democracy, including this past month reversing the trend set by Virginias previous three governors two Democrats and a Republican in restoring voting rights to the formerly incarcerated.

Virginia is one of just a couple of states where the governor controls whether someone with a felony conviction can regain their right to vote (a felony conviction in the commonwealth results in the automatic loss of certain civil rights, including the right to vote). The restriction has its roots in white supremacy and a concerted push to disenfranchise Black voters, and reversing well over a century of unequal access to the ballot box has been a bipartisan undertaking by the commonwealths executives for more than a decade.

Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell began streamlining the voting rights restoration process during his term, and Democratic Govs. Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam ramped up this effort even further, resulting in a system of automatically restoring the franchise to at least some people convicted of felonies who have completed their terms.

Youngkin has undermined the progress of his predecessors by ending this partially automatic rights restoration process and slowing the process for other Virginians convicted of felonies. Youngkin has also failed to specify what criteria hes using to decide who does and doesnt regain the right to vote, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month.

The suit follows the Youngkin administrations response to inquiries made by Democratic state Sen. Lionel Spruill late last month, who raised concerns about the drop in the number of voting rights restored under the current governor. Youngkins secretary of the commonwealth, whose office oversees the rights restoration process, confirmed to Spruill that the administration has ended the partial-automatic restoration process and said that re-enfranchisement requests are considered individually.

But blocking people from regaining their voting rights isnt the only way Youngkin has undermined democracy in Virginia. Just a month ago, Youngkins and Attorney General Jason Miyares alleged efforts to meddle in a GOP nomination contest came to light when a local Republican Party committee filed a lawsuit claiming that their offices pushed to overturn the committees decision to hold a primary to nominate the GOP candidate in Senate District 17.

In Virginia, local party committees determine how a candidate for office is nominated generally via primary, firehouse primary (essentially a sort of day-long caucus), or convention. In SD-17, where Del. Emily Brewer is vying with former NASCAR driver Hermie Sadler for the GOP nomination. The local committee opted for a primary, a move thought to benefit the former racing star because of his wealth and high name recognition.

Just days after accepting and posting the method of nomination publicly, the posting disappeared, and the suit claims that Youngkins chief of staff and the attorney general pressured Youngkin-appointed Elections Commissioner Susan Beals into forcing a convention on the local committee a move thought to benefit Brewer because of the party insider connections she enjoys as an elected official.

The judge in the case agreed that Youngkins elections commissioner violated her duty by canceling the primary, which is back on and will be held on June 20. Youngkin is withholding records that could indicate his level of involvement in the primary-to-convention dispute, though his offices response to a Smithfield Times Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request did acknowledge the existence of correspondence relating to the controversy.

Meanwhile, Youngkins hand-picked elections commissioner recently provided further evidence of his administrations lack of commitment to democratic principles and practices.

In February, state taxpayers footed the bill for Beals two-night hotel stay as she attended the conservative Heritage Foundations elections conference. Only GOP elections officials attended the event, and a top Heritage Foundation official urged attendees to not publicly disclose their presence. Among the panels held at the conference were sessions on Auditing Expertise, Mapping the Opposition: Funding Streams, and Election Integrity Updates from the States. The Heritage Foundation has long been at the forefront of efforts to restrict voting rights, and its officials promoted the claims about voting fraud and rigged elections that were central to Donald Trumps efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Several weeks after she attended the conference, a staffer in Beals office improperly sent the Fairfax County Republican Committee the states voter file. Via a subsequent press release, Beals Department of Elections claims it has retrained employees and implemented sturdier safeguards to prevent similar future errors.

Democratic Del. Candi Mundon King is disappointed in the Youngkin administrations focus on the boogeyman of alleged voter fraud, and she feels the Department of Elections problems are impeding progress on restoring voting rights.

When it comes to voting rights, when it comes to access, the governor and Commissioner Beals have shown that they are not serious about keeping the access to the ballot that Virginians have, Mundon King told VPM News recently.

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Three Ways Youngkin Has Undermined Democracy In Virginia (Just ... - Dogwood

Mayday! Mayday! Secular democracy is capsizing!

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is gravely concerned about the state of state/church separation and individual freedoms in the United States.

As this is written, were readying a lawsuit against the expected passage of a law requiring large Ten Commandments posters to be placed in every Texas classroom. Were ready to sue if the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City succeeds in being approved to establish the nations first publicly funded sectarian charter school. Were also eyeing a possible challenge over a Texas bill to place a monument to the unborn on statehouse grounds that is a replica of a devotional statue of an enrobed Virgin Mary incubating a fetal Jesus.

Were seeing religiously inspired state legislative battles over abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, book bans and more.

The good news is the growth and influence of the Nones (religiously unaffiliated, including FFRF members) and our ability to counter the religious zealots. Please see the attached FFRF Spring/Summer 2023 appeal with more about your vital role as a None and how our secular movement can rescue our democracy.

If you've already donated recently, thank you so much consider this for your information.

Forward!

Co-PresidentsFreedom From Religion Foundation

P.S. Donate directly at ffrf.us/donate.

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Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Democracy needs you and so does FFRF! - Freedom From Religion Foundation

(April 30, 2023 / JNS) Those of us who were among the hundreds of thousands of participants in the right-wing rally in Jerusalem on Thursday evening werent surprised when the resistance bloc pulled a two-fer: downplaying the significance of and attendance at the event, on the one hand; and treating the happening as evidence that Israeli democracy is in danger of annihilation at the hands of fanatics, on the other.

Nor did we imagine that coverage from most media outlets would be accurate, let alone fair, since theyve been acting all along like a branch of the protest movement. Instead, we drew encouragement from the throngs of fellow members of the national camp who turned up to bolster the government and urge it not to be bullied into backtracking on its mandate.

Both were necessary under the circumstances, with the Orwellian doublespeak of the opposition having become so blatant that its putting regular propaganda to shame. Indeed, the projection on the part of the protest instigators isnt merely jaw-dropping (calling the government, rather than those trying to topple it, a coup, for instance); its actually been successful at sowing self-doubt in coalition circles.

Ahead of the opening of the Knessets summer session on Sunday, then, it was particularly crucial for lawmakers to be reminded of the populace that isnt drinking the Kool-Aidthose still expecting and demanding judicial reform, with or without a broad consensus. It was also important to highlight that compromise on this or any other issue isnt on the agenda of the forces spearheading the weekly demonstrations.

The points were made amid much good cheer and lots of applause for the speakers. Justice Minister Yariv Levin was given an especially warm welcome, in addition to cautionary chants of Dont be afraid!

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The message was that he shouldnt cave on the judicial-reform process that the government had put on hold. This was done to allow for negotiations to bring about an agreement and prevent civil war.

Levins speech was aimed at reassuring his base that he hadnt abandoned the mission, and assuaging the fears of opponents.

We are told that the reform is intended to take over the Supreme Court, but the truth is the opposite, he said. We want a court for everyone: liberals, conservatives, right and left. Everyone.

He went on: They say that the reform is intended to impose the lifestyle of one public on another. The truth, of course, is the opposite. There is nothing in the reform that involves coercion or an infringement on the individual rights that are important to all of us. We are told that if the reform passes, there will be a dictatorship. There is no bigger lie than that.

He also addressed Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli and the many feminists whove been wearing costumes from the Netflix series, The Handmaids Tale, based on the dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood.

Join us so that we have a court that punishes rapists and doesnt seek ways to make it easier for them; a court that cares for an elderly woman in south Tel Aviv and not for infiltrators who harm her; a court that protects the lives of IDF soldiers not terrorists.

All well and good. But his words were far less noteworthy than the reaction they elicited from protest leader Moshe Bogie Yaalon. The former defense minister, who used to be politically and ideologically aligned with Levin, is now a key promoter of the above-mentioned slurs.

The fact that he who bears the title of justice minister has not yet been fired and arrested, after the mendacious incitement speech that spilled the blood of Israeli judges, is a normalization of the insanity, Yaalon tweeted on Friday. The fact that at the head of the Israeli government, which is trying to carry out a coup dtat, is under indictment for serious crimes and prohibited from dealing with the judiciary due to a clear conflict of interest, is a normalization of the insanity; the fact that the heads of the opposition are conducting negotiations under the auspices of the president of the country on the coup dtat proposal (the Levin-[Simcha] Rothman legislation) is a normalization of the insanity squared.

So, in Yaalons view, Levin deserves to be sacked and hauled off to jail. Talk about lunacy.

As if any of these statements werent sufficient to warrant a psychological examination for their author, he proceeded to demand of the representatives engaged in talks at the Presidents Residence that they get out of there and let the criminal government, which has caused and is causing unprecedented damage to the country and its citizens, deal with [its own mess] so that its days will be numbered.

His next cynical feat was to invoke and appropriate Zeev Jabotinskythe father of Revisionist Zionism, precursor of the Likud Party heading the current governmentby using the title of the latters famous 1923 essay.

Join the Iron Wall of the mighty protest, which will not allow a dictatorship! Democracy will win, he wrote, before going on in his lengthy thread to describe the scenes from Thursdays extremist messianic incitement demonstration as shocking, and accusing Levin of inciting blood-curdling libels against Israeli judges, as if they support rapists and terrorists!

Never mind that Yaalon is fully cognizant of the specific cases in question, each of which actually did favor the perpetrators. On a roll, he told his friends in the opposition that they are the messengers of the vast majority that supports democracy and independent judges. The inciters wont get their way. Israel will not become a messianic dictatorship with an inciting regime. The huge democratic majoritythe democratic iron wallwill defeat this craziness! Democracy will win.

What he and his ilk have been trying to obfuscate, however, is that democracy never lost; the left did, at the ballot box in November. The 600,000 Israelis who arrived in the capital on Thursday from around the country were simply reasserting this reality. Let the government not forget it.

Ruthie Blum is a Tel Aviv-based columnist and commentator. She writes and lectures on Israeli politics and culture, as well as on U.S.-Israel relations. The winner of the Louis Rappaport award for excellence in commentary, she is the author of the book To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the Arab Spring.

Continued here:
The Jerusalem rally was a reminder that democracy didn't lose; the ... - JNS.org

OTTAWA The serenity shown by one senior Liberal official in late March over the Chinese foreign interference saga was at odds with the fever that was gripping Ottawa.

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At the time, it seemed the government was in real trouble. There was compelling testimony that suggested the Liberal party was warned by the security services that some of its candidates were helped by the Chinese government in successive elections.

Yet, as it was explained to me by the senior Liberal, the issue was considered overblown; the process of appointing a special rapporteur to look into allegations Beijing had sought to ensure a Liberal government would take time to come to a conclusion; and, that, absent new revelations, the story would die down.

The plan was cynical but proven. The problem with it is that the Globe and Mails security agency sources appear intent on ensuring there are new revelations.

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Mondays paper included details of a 2021 intelligence assessment that said China is using incentives and punishments as part of an influence network that included interrogating relatives of a Canadian MP. Sources told the Globe that the MP is Conservative Michael Chong and that the diplomat in Canada handling the file, Zhao Wei, is still accredited to work in this country.

Chong said in a statement Monday he is disappointed that he was not told his family in Hong Kong had been identified. The government did not inform me that a diplomat was targeting my family, nor did the government take any action to expel the diplomat responsible for orchestrating this intimidation campaign.

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He said he has been briefed by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service but was not told about the risk of sanction against his family. My conclusion is that the PMO did not authorize CSIS to inform me of this specific threat. The fact that the government neither informed me, nor took any action is indicative of its ongoing laissez-faire attitude toward the PRCs (Peoples Republic of China) intimidation tactics.

During question period, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pointed out that the Chinese consider Canada uniquely vulnerable to foreign influence efforts because there are no protections such as the foreign influence registry that exist in countries like the U.S. and Australia.

Poilievre said that Trudeau knew about the threats for two years and did exactly nothing.

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Will the prime minister finally stand up for this country and its people against a foreign dictatorship that has been interfering in our land for far too long?

The prime minister engaged in a lengthy damage limitation exercise, saying he has asked officials to follow up on the Globe report. It is absolutely unacceptable to see anyone being intimidated, especially a member of Parliament in this House, he said.

But he rebuffed calls for a full public inquiry by pointing to the special rapporteur process.

Former governor general David Johnston has been asked to look into foreign influence allegations, with a mandate to recommend any additional mechanisms such as a public inquiry by May 23, and to release his first conclusions by the end of October.

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Even if you believe, as I do, that Johnston will not be cowed by fear or favour, such an extended timeline inevitably reduces the threat to a government that can use the process like a shield to stonewall the opposition.

The intensity has passed, the media have moved on and too many voters were confused about the details to get too angry.

But stories such as the targeting of Chongs family, the existence of Chinese police stations in Canada and the donation to the Trudeau Foundation orchestrated by Beijing and leading to the entire board resigning keep the issue of foreign interference bubbling away. The three stories dominated question period in the House of Commons on Monday.

Doubts about the Liberal partys role in all of this linger in the publics mind. Polls suggest voters are skeptical, not only of the Trudeau governments relationship with China, but also about the prime ministers ability to tell voters the truth about any given issue.

The continuing drip of news that presents the government as soft on a country intent on undermining our democracy will lead more people to reach the same conclusion as certain members of the security services that the Liberals were co-conspirators with Beijing, as one source put it to me.

Judgment may have been delayed, but it has not yet been denied.

The rest is here:
John Ivison: Interference news has Liberals looking soft on a country intent on undermining our democracy - National Post

The unprecedented and sustained Israeli protests against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus proposed judicial overhaul that threatened to substantially weaken the judiciary have captured news headlines worldwide. They have also coincided with a spike in violence in the occupied Palestinian territories. Although the protests have largely ignored Israels military rule over millions of Palestinians, they drew attention to threats to democracy even within Israels pre-1967 borders. It is hard to know if these protests have had any impact on the way Americans perceive Israel, and if they did, in what direction. While these protests may have drawn attention to the right-wing governments autocratic ambitions, they may have also highlighted the existence of a free environment, at least for hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens, to protest freely and reject the governments plans. Do Americans see Israel as a vibrant democracy or as something far less?

To find out, we fielded a few questions in our University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll with Ipsos, which I direct with my colleague Stella Rouse. The poll was conducted March 27-April 5, 2023, among 1,203 respondents by Ipsos probabilistic KnowledgePanel (margin of error 3.2%).

We asked: You may have been following recent developments in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. In your opinion which of the following is closer to describing the way Israel looks to you. We provided the following four options: a vibrant democracy; a flawed democracy; a state with restricted minority rights; a state with segregation similar to apartheid. The results were surprising on many levels.

First, the number of respondents who said they didnt know was very high for this kind of question: more than half of respondents overall and nearly two-thirds of Republicans. This number of people saying they didnt know is usually reserved for questions about which one would expect a lack of familiarity (questions about the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement (BDS), for example). Typically, on matters of opinion, respondents often answer even when they dont fully know the issue. All this suggests that there is a level of discomfort among respondents in answering this question. This is also born out in the fact that the percentage of those who said they didnt know was very high even among those with a college education and above; among Republicans, most of those with college degrees and higher said: I dont know.

Second, in this case, one may expect far more public exposure to the issue. Israel has been an important topic in the American discourse for decades, especially among Republicans in recent years. It is typical to hear Israel referred to as the only democracy in the Middle East or with reference to its shared values with the United States. Yet, even among all those who responded, the highest percentage, 31%, was equally shared by those who described Israel as a flawed democracy and those who described it as a state with segregation similar to apartheid. Among Republicans, a 41% plurality said it is a vibrant democracy while 20% said it is a state with segregation similar to apartheid.

Among Democrats, the story was strikingly different: A plurality of those expressing an opinion, 44%, said it is a state with segregation similar to apartheid, followed by 34% who said its a flawed democracy. This is remarkable because the use of the term apartheid, in the American mainstream discourse, while increasingly heard, is still highly uncommon and even taboo in many circles.

Do these results reflect the impact of recent events in Israel/Palestine and the rise of the far-right government in Israel? It is difficult to tell, as this is the first time that we have asked this question in our polling.

It is notable, however, that in one of our tracking questions about U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine, we found little change in attitudes from our October poll. In probing whether respondents want the United States to lean toward Israel, toward the Palestinians, or toward neither side, we found only a small decrease in the number who want the United States to lean toward Israel, mostly within the margin of error.

Finally, we asked respondents about their view of the BDS movement. In this case, we added the choice unfamiliar in addition to the choice dont know to try to further understand the meaning of the responses. Not surprisingly, a large number, 39%, said they were unfamiliar, while 26% said they dont know which is still a high percentage, possibly indicating they had some discomfort expressing an opinion on this issue as well.

When examining the results among those who offered an opinion, there was an unsurprisingly large difference between Democrats and Republicans. Among Republicans, 65% said they opposed BDS. Among Democrats, the picture was different: a plurality of those who expressed an opinion, 41%, said they supported it, while only 20% said they opposed it.

It is clear that public attitudes about Israel are shifting. The term apartheid appears to have become a common term among many Americans, especially Democrats, and even the BDS movement, which has faced considerable obstacles in the American mainstream, seems to have sizable support among Democrats who expressed their opinion. A recent Gallup poll found that, for the first time in their years of polling on Israeli-Palestinian issues, more Democrats sympathize with the Palestinians than with Israelis by a margin of 11 percentage points. And while about half of Republicans continue to say they want the United States to lean toward Israel, that support is diminishing among young Republicans 32% in the current poll and, as other research has shown, support for Israel is declining even among young evangelical Christians.

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Is Israel a democracy? Heres what Americans think - Brookings Institution