Joey here.

But for the pandemic, we now would be 773 miles from Seattle, in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Instead we’re looking at Park Avenue.

We had in mind to write about the Constitution and the fallacies of “originalism” and “textualism”.  (Jeffrey’s Constitutional Law professor at The University of Chicago, the late Antonin Scalia, would be disappointed in Jeffrey.  Oh well.)

The Constitution can wait.

We write with a pre-election urgency that many readers will share.

If you are American, we do not say for whom you should vote.

We ask you, as God or your conscience gives you understanding, to vote to stop our country from doing evil.

Let’s focus for the moment on evil done to strangers.  They are people whom our laws, our history, and the Bible tell us deserve our welcome, our protection, and our love.

Evil is breaking American law to separate hundreds of innocent children from their innocent parents, perhaps forever.

Evil is sending helicopters, armored vehicles, and combat-ready officers, to raid private property being used to rescue people from death in an American desert. Every year, many times more innocent migrants die in that desert than the total killed by East German Communist troops at the Berlin Wall from 1961-89.

Raid against drug dealers or ISIS?  Nope.  The target is No More Deaths, a faith-based Arizona nonprofit.

Evil is denying putative refugees their right under United States law to request asylum here, and to remain safely in the United States to have their cases heard.

Evil is barring immigration to the United States—a nation of immigrants, a nation that belongs to its inhabitants of whatever background so long as they support the Declaration and the Constitution—and to reducing refugee resettlement, in a world of over 80 million refugees, to zero.

Evil is slandering asylum applicants.  A recently published piece by Professor Geoffrey Hoffman of the University of Houston demolishes one of the president’s most recent lies.  In sum:

The President during the [October 29, 2020] debate . . . said [only a “stupid” 1% of immigrants] “show up” to immigration court hearings after being released from detention. Not only do the statistics contradict this made-up “1 percent” figure [despite government impediments, 81%-96% show up, depending on the population subset], but the misrepresentation . . . encapsulates a jaundiced view of American justice, as well as a cynical and bankrupt view of the rule of law writ large. . . .  The assumption that only dumb people pay taxes, serve in the military, [or] attend court hearings should be repudiated.  Such a bankrupt worldview assumes that we live in a rigged, corrupt country.  The President’s assumption tells us all we need to know about his view of the American polity.  It reveals nothing about the integrity of immigrant families.

We could go on.

The current and/or future president—whoever it is—has the power to stop what is being done now, today, to hurt others with our money and in our names.

Whomever you support for election to Congress and the White House, hold the winners’ feet to the fire.

No matter their party, insist that the president and members of Congress stand up for American values.

M A G A.

Make America Generous Again.