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Think of it like farming. Planting the seeds is like establishing a democracy. But for democracy to function you have to till and fertilize the soil, erect fences, pull up weeds, prune the early growth. The founders knew that democracy is not natural. It takes a lot of cultivation to make democracy work.

American foreign policy had a second founding after World War II. For much of our history Americans were content to prosper behind the safety of the oceans. But after having been dragged into two world wars, a generation of Americans realized the old attitude wasnt working any more and America, following the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, would have to help build a liberal world order if it was to remain secure.

The postwar generation was a bit like the founding generation. Its leaders from Truman to George F. Kennan to Reinhold Niebuhr championed democracy, but they had no illusions about the depravity of human beings. Theyd read their history and understood that stretching back thousands of years, war, authoritarianism, exploitation, great powers crushing little ones these were just the natural state of human societies.

If America was to be secure, Americans would have to plant the seeds of democracy, but also do all the work of cultivation so those seeds could flourish. Americans oversaw the creation of peaceful democracies from the ruins of military dictatorships in Germany and Japan. They funded the Marshall Plan. They helped build multinational institutions like NATO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund. American military might stood ready to push back against the wolves who threatened the world order sometimes effectively, as in Europe, oftentimes, as in Vietnam and Iraq, recklessly and self-destructively. America championed democracy and human rights, at least when the Communists were violating them (not so much when our dictator allies across, say, Latin America were).

Just as Americas founders understood that democracy is not natural, the postwar generation understood that peace is not natural it has to be tended and cultivated from the frailties of human passion and greed.

Over the past few generations that hopeful but sober view of human nature has faded. Whats been called the Culture of Narcissism took hold, with the view that human beings should be unshackled from restraint. You can trust yourself to be unselfish! Democracy and world peace were taken for granted. As Robert Kagan put it in his book The Jungle Grows Back: We have lived so long inside the bubble of the liberal order that we can imagine no other kind of world. We think it is natural and normal, even inevitable.

If people are naturally good we no longer have to do the hard agricultural work of cultivating virtuous citizens or fighting against human frailty. The Western advisers I covered in Russia in the early 1990s thought a lot about privatization and market reforms and very little about how to prevent greedy monsters from stealing the whole country. They had a nave view of human nature.

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Opinion | The Dark Century: Why Is Liberalism in Decline? - The New York Times

Imagine my surprise when on Jan. 6, 2017, I found out that I had received one electoral vote to be vice president of the United States an office for which I was not a candidate from a faithless elector from the state of Washington.

Four years later, on Jan. 6, 2021, when a violent mob overran the Capitol, I realized that my unearned vote in the Electoral College was not amusing. This seemingly innocuous vote was an indication that our system of counting and certifying votes for president and vice president had deep and serious structural problems.

These unfortunate flaws are codified in the Electoral Count Act, which guides the implementation of part of the presidential election process included in the Constitution. This 1887 law, vaguely written in the inaccessible language of a different era, was intended to restrain Congress, but in practice it has had the unintended effect of creating ambiguities that could potentially be used to expand the role of Congress and the vice president in ways that are contrary to the Constitution.

Despite its defects, the law was not an issue for more than a century because of the restraint of the people who exercised the serious, but limited, constitutional responsibility of counting the votes. Vice presidents and Congresses sustained the will of the people even when they did not like the result.

For example, we saw this in 1961 and again in 2001, when Vice Presidents Richard Nixon and Al Gore presided in a fair and dignified manner over the counting of the electoral votes despite having lost close elections for president. Vice President Gore even refused to hear Democratic objectors who were trying to make him president.

Then came the election of 2020. President Donald Trump and his allies both exploited the weaknesses of the law and ignored the language of the Constitution. Mr. Trump argued that the vice president could overturn the election results. A violent mob temporarily halted the electoral count that would confirm President Bidens victory.

Vice President Mike Pences courage and integrity on that day cannot be overstated. He stood up to a determined president who relentlessly pressured him to swing the election his way. And he refused to be intimidated by rioters who assaulted police officers, swarmed the Capitol and chanted Hang Mike Pence! As the dangerous mob neared the Senate chambers, the vice president and senators had to be whisked away.

The House, too, was forced to evacuate, bringing the electoral count to a halt. How well I remember a sparse group of Capitol Police officers urging us to Run! Run! as we made our way to a secure location, while other members of the overwhelmed Capitol Police battled the mob. For hours, we watched on television as rioters broke into the Senate chamber and rummaged through our desks.

Finally, senators were told it was safe enough for us to proceed back to the chamber, which all of us were determined to do so that we could resume the counting of the votes. The walk back that evening was very different. In contrast to the small number of police officers guiding our evacuation, F.B.I. tactical teams with riot gear, National Guard members and police officers lined our route. Vice President Pence and the Congress returned to the Capitol that night and completed the final, constitutionally mandated step before the inauguration of a new president we counted the votes.

That day reminded us that there is nothing more essential to the survival of a democracy than the orderly transfer of power, and there is nothing more essential to the orderly transfer of power than clear rules for effecting it. We should not depend on the fidelity and resolve of vice presidents to follow the intent of these rules; the law should be crystal clear on the parameters of the vice presidents powers and consistent with the very limited role set forth in the Constitution. Vice President Pences actions on Jan. 6 were heroic. But the peaceful transfer of power shouldnt require heroes.

Much debate has focused recently on the casting of ballots. Much more attention must be paid to the counting and certifying of votes. Our democracy depends on it. To prevent the subversion of the electoral process, Congress must reform the Electoral Count Act. A bipartisan group of 16 senators is working to do that.

The ambiguously phrased Electoral Count Act must be amended to make absolutely clear that a vice president cannot manipulate or ignore electoral votes as he or she presides over this joint session of Congress. But other flaws in the law must also be remedied. For instance, the laws threshold for triggering a challenge to the results of a state is far too low: Only one representative and one senator are required to object to a states electors. In the past, members on both sides of the aisle have challenged the vote without any real evidence of wrongdoing.

Our group of senators shares a vision of drafting legislation to ensure the integrity of our elections and public confidence in the results. We want a bill that will be considered by committees, debated on the Senate floor, garner the support of the Senates two leaders and pass the Senate with 60 or more votes.

The broader we cast our net, however, the more difficult it will be to achieve consensus. We have to be careful about expanding a reform bill to include provisions that go well beyond correcting the current law, strengthening election security and protecting poll workers from threats of violence. Relitigating bills that have already been rejected wont get us to the finish line. Our primary focus must be on avoiding another Jan. 6 by reforming the Electoral Count Act. That is the vital goal in itself, our duty to perform and a worthy mission that should not be derailed by good-faith but ultimately partisan provisions.

We do not know if we will succeed, but we are trying to fix a serious problem. The senators working on this legislation have philosophical, regional and political differences. When we disagree, we attempt to persuade one another we cajole, haggle and even argue but we do so with an eye on a common goal. That is the way it is supposed to work in a democracy. Maybe we could refer to the process as legitimate political discourse.

Susan Collins is a Republican senator from Maine. She is leading a bipartisan group of senators who are committed to reforming the Electoral Count Act.

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Opinion | Susan Collins: Reform the Electoral Count Act to Avoid Another January 6 - The New York Times

In weighing threats to our democracy, its hard to imagine one greater than political operatives spying on a sitting president and feeding the information to a compliant Justice Department with the goal of destroying him.

Subversion at such a high level is at least as dangerous as a poorly plotted insurrection to the foundation of our nation.

John Durham, the special counsel appointed to investigate the origins of the Russian collusion hoax, says in a court filing that a technology executive working with a lawyer associated with the Hillary Clinton campaign exploited his access to White House and Trump Tower computers before and after the 2016 election.

The sources, the filing says, enlisted the assistance of researchers at a U.S.-based university who were receiving and analyzing large amounts of internet data in connection with a pending federal government cybersecurity research contract.

The objective, the filing says, was to create an inference and narrative tying then-candidate Trump to Russia. In doing so, Tech Executive-1 indicated that he was seeking to please certain VIPs, referring to individuals at Law Firm-1 and the Clinton campaign.

That narrative ultimately took root thanks to efforts by the Clinton campaign, including the Steele Dossier, which it funded and directed to the FBI. That information was used to launch an unwarranted investigation into the Trump campaign.

The Russian collusion taint followed Trump into the White House and led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, whose investigation ultimately cleared Trump, but placed a cloud over his presidency.

Durham has already indicted former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman for fudging the source of information he funneled to the FBI. More indictments are anticipated as his deliberate probe continues.

Dirty tricks have always been part of political campaigns. The most notable was the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon.

Watergate involved a GOP-orchestrated break-in of the Democratic Party headquarters, and to compare it to what Durham is uncovering is not hyperbole. Mining information from computer systems is todays equivalent to picking the locks of an office to rummage through file cabinets.

Durhams latest filing builds on the earlier indictment of Sussman and the exposure of the shockingly careless use of the Steele Dossier. Just because Trump was the target doesnt excuse shrugging off what it means, that Clinton operatives and Justice Department officials worked together in an attempt to derail the former presidents campaign and then his presidency.

If true, its an assault on the integrity of the democratic process that will smash public confidence in future elections.

Trump, as always, is distracting from the seriousness of Durhams charges. The former president is calling for the death penalty for anyone convicted of spying on his campaign.

Trumps craziness aside, the issue is the foundational damage done by the efforts of the Clinton campaign and its allies.

Their end-justifies-the-means mentality had a direct impact on the refusal of so many Trump supporters to accept the results of the 2020 election.

Those involved in the alleged espionage plot were doing exactly what Trump is accused of trying to short-circuit the results of a legitimate election. Their Russian collusion fraud didnt keep Trump out of the White House, but it did limit his effectiveness and erode trust in his presidency.

Democrats and the commentariat class profess shock that so many Trump supporters believe his unsupported claims about the 2020 election.

Why wouldnt they, having seen the extent to which Trumps enemies both inside and outside government went to topple the president they elected?

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John Durham is exposing the real threat to democracy - Kingsport Times News

Like many other major websites used by the far right, the self-described Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo, which was used by Canadas Freedom Convoy protest movement against public health measures to raise millions of dollars, has been hacked very badly, exposing a massive amount of data about the movements donors. The data shows that this movement is supported by a broad-based international network of far-right activists, as well as wealthy donors, who are also involved in activism against Covid-19 vaccines, American democracy, and the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.

On February 10, the Ontario Superior Court ofJusticeordered GiveSendGo to freeze access to the money raised in both of these campaigns. Know this! Canada has absolutely ZERO jurisdiction over how we manage our funds here at GiveSendGo, the company tweeted in response. Shortly afterward, the hacker broke into the crowdfunding companys website and stole the donation records and a whole lot more.

Activists on the right are not happy about this.

The Intercept obtained the hacked donor data including records of roughly 104,000 donors who gave $9.6 million to two separate GiveSendGo crowdfunding campaigns, Freedom Convoy 2022 and Adopt a Trucker from the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets, which is releasing it to journalists and researchers who request access. (For the record, Im an adviser to DDoSecrets.)

After analyzing the dataset, The Intercept discovered that the majority of donors to the Freedom Convoy included in the data are Americans, including U.S. billionaire Thomas Siebel, who is listed as donating $90,000, the largest individual donation. Hundreds of donors are members of the Oath Keepers, an American far-right paramilitary organization. Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder, was the first January 6 insurrectionist to be charged with seditious conspiracy.

On Wednesday, a Washington Post analysis of U.S.ZIP codes in the data concluded that the richer an American community was, the more likely residents there were to donate, and the biggest number of contributions often came from communities where registered Republicans made up solid majorities.

Freedom Convoy donors also contributed $7.6 million to other fundraising campaigns on GiveSendGos platform.

Thousands of donors gave money to various anti-vaccine causes promoted by Project Veritas, a far-right group known for deceptively editing videos of its undercover operations. On Monday, The Intercept reported that Project Veritas has collaborated on a video project with Americas Frontline Doctors, a major anti-vaccine propaganda group that works with telehealth companies to rake in millions of dollars selling bogus treatments for Covid-19. After that article was published, Project Veritas and AFLDS both denied that they were working together despite the fact that the video trailer lists a Project Veritas staffer as a consulting producer and promotional materials prominently mention ProjectVeritas.

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And thousands more helped fund efforts to overturn President Joe Bidens 2020 electoral victory over Donald Trump. Many had also previously given in support of Kyle Rittenhouse, the far-right teenage vigilante who in 2020 shot three Black Lives Matter protesters, killing two of them, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all counts.

Several donors used government email addresses from agencies like the Transportation Security Administration, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and NASA. The Intercept found one donor who used an email address from the Correctional Service of Canada, the Canadian prison system.

Jacob Wells, co-founder of GiveSendGo, verified the authenticity of the hack to the Washington Post. The Globe and Mailconfirmed that at least one donor listed in the hacked data donated to the campaign. Brad Howard, the president of a Canadian pressure washer company who donated $75,000 to the fund, issued a statement in support of the Freedom Convoy. Gizmodo reached out to several top donors listed in the data, but only a single donor had respondedonly to say Gizmodo should investigate Black Lives Matter instead.

Of the 104,180 donations, 59 percent came from Americans, while only 39 percent came from Canadians. However, Canadians gave just over 50 percent, $4.8 million, of the total money raised, while American donations made up 44 percent, or $4.2 million.

The Intercept

The largest donation record in the hacked data is for $215,000 but does not include data about the donor or which countrythe money came from. The only information included is the note Processed but not recorded. Wells told the Washington Post that this isnt a single donation at all but rather an attempt by GiveSendGo to make the public-facing total amount raised accurate, lumping together many donations that came in offline or before its Freedom Convoy campaign page went live.

The second-largest donation record is $90,000 from Siebel,a Silicon Valley billionaire who founded the enterprise software company Siebel Systems. The email address associated with his donation is hosted on the domain siebel.org. Siebel has supported right-wing causes in the past: In 2008 he hosted a fundraiser for then-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

The third-largest donation record is $75,000 from Brad Howland, president of the Canadian pressure cleaner company Easy Kleen Pressure Systems. The hacked data marks Howlands donation as anonymous, though he confirmed to the Globe and Mail that he made this donation and supports the Freedom Convoy. His donation included the comment HOLD THE LINE!!!

By cross-referencing data from this hack with last years hack of the Oath Keepers, which included membership and donor records, The Intercept discovered 355 matches.

The Oath Keepers were key players in the deadly January 6 Capitol attack that was aimed at overturning Bidens victory in the 2020 presidential election. Prosecutors allege that Oath Keepers stashed weapons at a nearby hotel as part of quick reaction forces that could activate if violence escalated.

Oath Keepers left comments with their donations such as: NWO Tyrants need to be crushed by the fist of Liberty and Freedom. God bless these truckers and their supporters! Thank you!; Make Canada Great Again helps Make America Great Again; and The communist pigs in uniform are going to try and steal fuel and food. The Biden Junta is afraid of this happening here. this may be why DHS issued a domestic terrorist threat against americans exercising their first amendment rights. They want to silence free speech and separate people from forming groups to fight the communist coup.

The hacked data includes the history of every donation ever made through the GiveSendGo platform. Freedom Convoy donorsgave a total of $7.6 million to other GiveSendGo campaigns as well as the $9.6 million to the Freedom Convoy campaigns.

By comparing the email addresses of Freedom Convoy donors with donations from other GiveSendGo campaigns, The Intercept discovered that many of the same donors alsogave money to other anti-vaccine causes championed by Project Veritas.

The Intercept also discovered that many donors gave to anti-democracy efforts in the U.S., legal defense funds for January 6 prisoners, the legal defense fund for Rittenhouse, and various funds supporting the Proud Boys, an American hate group that also played a role in the January 6 Capitol attack.

A handful of small donations were made using government email addresses.

Someone donated using an email address from the Correctional Service of Canada, the Canadian agency responsible for running prisons. Whilethe user listed his real first and last name in the donation, he put George Soros as his display name.

Another persondonated multiple times with their U.S. Department of Justice email address. Two people donated using Federal Bureau of Prisons email addresses, and two others donated using NASA email addresses. One donor used their delaware.gov email address. Someone with a U.S. Navy email address donated $50 and listed their display name as Lets Go Brandon, and someone with a U.S. Army email address donated $25.

One person used his TSA email address to donate $50 to the anti-vaccine mandate Freedom Convoy.The transportation agencyhas enforced mandates, like requiring passengers to remove their shoes when going through airport checkpoints, in the name of security since September 11, 2001.

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Oath Keepers, Anti-Democracy Activists, and Others on the Far Right Are Funding Canada's Freedom Convoy - The Intercept

DANVILLE Washingtons nasty political fights between Democrats and Republicans dominate the daily news, making many people turn away and tune out.

Active involvement is needed now, more than ever, according to local committee chairs.

Democracy works only with participation, said Betsy Finn, chair of the Montour County Democratic Committee. That is why, to serve the common good, people need to step forward.

Janet Comrey, who heads the Montour County Republican Committee, took on her position because of a strong feeling of civic responsibility. She is hoping that more people feel that responsibility to get involved and help bring order to government.

She said she also feels, its important to understand your values and find and promote those candidates with like values.

Petitioning in Pennsylvania is temporarily halted due to disputes over redistricted voting maps.

The state Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments on the case Friday and likely make a ruling shortly after. The three-week petitioning period is likely to start soon after that.

Most people are unaware that it takes just 10 signatures to get on their precincts ballot in May and be elected as representative to their partys committee. County committees work mainly to promote candidates and to get out the vote.

Since local geography includes two counties, with Danville and surrounding townships in Montour County and Riverside and Rush Township in Northumberland County, it is a bit complicated. Each county is allowed two representatives from each precinct on each partys county committee. Montour County has 15 precincts, while much larger Northumberland County has 74. All of these committees are in need of more members.

At present, Montours Republicans have just ten (out of 30 possible) and the Democrats even fewer.

Le Paliulis, chair of the Democratic Committee in Northumberland County, has a group of about 35 elected members but could have 148.

We especially need people from Riverside, Rush Township, and Ralpho Townships, she said. Being part of politics is the most important form of activism, and its exciting to get involved.

She began as a volunteer in 2017, was elected to the committee in 2018, and became chair in 2021.

Deb Betz, Republican chair in Northumberland County, is equally enthusiastic, and has made a pact that there be no confrontation between parties. Her goal is for people to inform themselves about what is true and what is not and to help educate others. When she became head of the Republican committee a year and a half ago, there were 30 members. By latest count, she now has 89. But she, too, has a need for people from Riverside and Rush Township.

Finn said she understands why people may be hesitant to volunteer.

Its hard to ask people to step up and serve their community in a public way, she said, but thats what democracy requires. Everything is so contentious nationally, but thats not true locally.

The first step, according to Darlis Dyer, assistant director of elections in Montour County, is for candidates to pick up an official petition and gather signatures from neighbors and friends who are registered voters in their party once the Supreme Court allows it.

For Republican committee persons, signatures can come from throughout the county, even though they will represent a particular precinct. Democrats add a few more rules. Each precinct elects one man and one woman to the committee, and all signatures must come from the precinct where the candidate resides. For both parties, Dyer recommends getting a few extra signatures beyond the 10 required.

Those who wish to run must bring the petition and signatures in to be certified by the countys notary. Their name will then be put on the May ballot. No fee is required to file. Committee members are elected during the primary, and the committees reorganized in June. Terms last four years.

To run for governor or senator requires 2,000 signatures statewide. Other state offices, like attorney general or treasurer or representative to the U.S. Congress, require 1,000 signatures distributed among counties throughout the state or district. Local party committees do their best to help in collecting those.

All four chairs agree that the committee workload is light to moderate, depending on the season. All hold a monthly meeting where they discuss candidates and issues and plan future outreach events.

We provide information to voters, but dont endorse anyone, said Paliulis. The decision is left to the voters.

The week before an election is the busiest time, as committee members and volunteers walk around their neighborhoods placing door hangers that give information on candidates and encourage everyone to vote. They also help place candidates signs and staff party headquarters to get the word out. In 2020, both the Montour Dems and GOP had offices in place on Mill Street in Danville during the month of October. The Montour GOP also sets up regularly at the Lewisburg Market House to reach voters.

All the current chairs have held their positions mostly during the time of COVID, which makes everything harder, according to Finn. People are hesitant to get together in person, and yet not all are comfortable enough with computers to meet remotely.

The Montour Republicans always had a spring dinner, a summer picnic, and a fall banquet, Comrey said, but these have been on hold since COVID began.

She is pleased at the return of the Lincoln Day Gala this year, at the Montour Delong Fairgrounds on March 5. The theme of this years dinner is to support law enforcement, and keynote speaker is David Sunday, who will address the opioid epidemic. Candidates for office are invited, too, and proceeds go toward the Montour County Republican Committee. To attend this event, people should contact Janet Comrey at 570-490-0821.

Before COVID, county committees also staged petition nights, to collect signatures not only for local candidates but also statewide offices. COVID put a damper on that, said Dyer.

Montour and Northumberland counties party chairs are particularly proud of how well their groups work together. In Danville, the Democrats and Republicans joined to organize a debate night for school board candidates in Fall 2021. Finn and Marlene Gunther, of the Montour Republicans, hope to put together an information session in the near future about why and how to run for local offices.

Betz laments that people think politics are who we are, but we are more than that. She said she has made it a priority to work closely with Paliulis on common goals.

Democrats and Republicans get along very well now in this area, she said. Whats most important is to be both involved and respectful of each other.

Most people in this area are in the middle, even though politics plays to the extremes, Finn said.

The great danger, all agree, is for voters to cede their responsibility to other people.

If we dont get involved with elections they will happen without us, said Paliulis.

She said she hopes to get a lot of people to join the party committees this year.

If you want to be heard, you need to support candidates and help to get people out to vote, Paliulis said.

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Election officials: Step up to save democracy - Sunbury Daily Item