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Jack Cashman was in business in Bangor for many years and also served in public office.
There was a time in our great nation when a losing candidate called the winner and congratulated them on their victory. Not so today as losing candidates make wild claims of corruption while offering absolutely no evidence to support the claim. There has never been a legitimate investigation either at the national or the state of Maine level that has found any evidence of “massive fraud” in our electoral process. Indeed, our system has been recognized the world over as among the fairest, most secure election processes on the planet.
In spite of dozens of studies indicating how secure our elections have always been, in spite of Fox News paying a massive settlement for lying about fraud in the 2020 election, in spite of Rudy Giuliani admitting under oath that he lied about the same election, and in spite of Donald Trump’s admission that he knew he lost the election, there are still people who believe, without any proof, that the 2020 election was stolen.
The false claims did not stop with the 2020 election. In announcing his candidacy for Congress recently, Paul LePage claimed that he would have won the 2022 election for governor, which he lost by more than 13 percentage points to Gov. Janet Mills, if not for the number of illegal voters. He offers this absurd claim without backing it with any proof.
These types of unsubstantiated claims, that cast doubts on our electoral process, are wrong.
It seems that as a nation we have lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong. Recently on the floor of the Maine House, a state representative referred to the mob that trashed our U.S. Capitol building causing millions of dollars in damages while defecating and urinating in the halls as “patriots.”
What that mob did was wrong and giving them pardons for what they did was even more wrong. The idea that this deviant behavior is not recognized as wrong is a sad commentary on today’s America.
Unfortunately there exists a long list of deviant behavior we now accept as normal.
Mocking a disabled reporter for cheap laughs was wrong.
Taking classified documents that are government property and storing them in an unsecured bathroom was wrong.
Calling the secretary of state for the State of Georgia and asking him to find enough votes to change the results of a fair election was wrong.
Sexually abusing a woman was wrong.
Ignoring court orders is wrong.
Breaking down our 250-year-old constitutional system of checks and balances is wrong.
In establishing our system of checks and balances with three co-equal branches of government, our founding fathers granted Congress the “power of the purse” as well as the authority to establish tariffs. All 535 members of Congress swore an oath to support the Constitution, yet they have abdicated their constitutional authority by granting the control they should exercise to a foreign national and a president who seemingly wants to be a dictator. Rather than being a co-equal branch of government, Congress has chosen to render itself irrelevant while not providing the check the Constitution requires.
What is happening in this country is not normal and it is very wrong. A foreign billionaire who makes billions on U.S. government contracts, spending nearly $300 million to buy access to our government is wrong.
Americans who are today trying to raise their children to understand right from wrong face a difficult task. How can you teach young people right from wrong when as a nation we have become unable to make that same distinction?
