John

Happy Easter and welcome to our Weekend Update.

Before we begin our update, I want to extend my thoughts and prayers with the family, friends and fellow officers of U.S. Capitol Police Officer William Evans, who tragically lost his life in defense of our nation. Yesterday's attack on the Capitol was tragic and a stark reminder that our men and women in blue put their lives on the line to protect our democracy every single day. We can never thank them enough.

This week, my latest appearance on the Volpe Report aired. I discussed the ongoing crisis at the border. What is occurring at the border is an absolute tragedy and the blame largely rests with President Joe Biden and his administration. Click here or below to watch.

I appeared on Fox Business with Neil Cavuto to discuss President Joe Biden’s latest trillion-dollar spending bill that will require massive tax increases. Click here or below to watch.

Biden and Congressional Democrat's plan is billed as a $2.3 trillion transportation and infrastructure investment plan. However, when you pull back the curtain on this plan, only $157 billion of the bill's funding would go towards roads, bridges, highways and airports. The rest of the plan is focused on Green New Deal initiatives that are not related to infrastructure and revitalization. These Green New Deal initiatives are about pacifying the wants of the extreme left-wing of the Democratic Party while also increasing burdens in our coal and natural gas industries. Worse yet, Biden and Congressional allies plan to raise $2 trillion in taxes to fund it. That will damage our nation’s economy and hurt hardworking families.

Transportation and infrastructure spending is important and we need to work together to find a bipartisan solution. One way to fund these critical projects would be to utilize some of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan funding. I offered an amendment to do just that during the bill's passage, which the Democrats defeated. However, there is still time and I remain confident spending some of that funding on critical infrastructure projects would be a far wiser use of those funds.

In Pennsylvania, diverting these funds would also help eliminate the need for a horrible proposal being advanced by the Wolf Administration to toll major bridges across the Commonwealth. The Governor’s plan amounts to double taxation on Pennsylvania families. Click here to read more about a meeting I participated in on Thursday with federal and state lawmakers with the Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation on their bridge tolling plan.

Transportation and infrastructure spending was the subject of a video that I recorded and was shared by The Hill. Click here to view. 

IN NEWS YOU WON’T HEAR IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: As we move into Spring, it was great for a moment to welcome back Major League Baseball… until they decided to play politics with a deeply flawed and hypocritical position to move the All-Star Game from Georgia. Why? Here are some of the falsehoods that are being spread and the truth.

• Lie: The election law discourages voting
• Truth: The bill actually preserves or expands ballot access in several important ways: It requires that large precincts with lines more than an hour-long to take steps like adding voting machines and election personnel for the next election to reduce wait times. It does not change the number of total early voting days, and actually increases the mandatory days of early weekend voting. The law reduces the days to request a ballot from 180 to 78 days out. Ballots are mailed 29 days before the election, regardless of when you apply.
  
  
• Lie: The law eliminates voting on Sunday to suppress African-American votes 
• Truth: In 2020, only 16 of 159 counties offered early voting on Sundays. The new law explicitly provides the option of holding early voting on two Sundays for all localities. It actually increases the mandatory days of early weekend voting across the state.
  
  
• Lie: The law suppresses the vote with onerous voter ID requirements
• Truth: The law requires a driver’s license or free state ID number, which 97% of registered voters already have. Anyone without a valid ID can easily obtain one for free. The voter ID requirement replaces the state’s controversial signature match program that led to the disqualification of thousands of votes in 2020. There are four additional means available for identity verification that are all highly accessible. It's absurd to think that there is no need to prove that a citizen voter is a citizen voter. 

• Meanwhile, Major League Baseball requires ID to pick up tickets at Will Call. I wonder if they will remove that rule?

• Lie: The law lets Republicans throw out any county votes they disagree with
• Truth: The bipartisan State Election Board can do performance reviews of local election supervisors who fail their area’s voters with things like long lines and unfulfilled absentee ballot requests. The board will not overturn election results; the law simply provides a process to review and ensure officials are technically competent and complying with state laws and regulations.
  
  
• Lie: The law bans drinking water for voters while waiting in line
• Truth: Like the countless other states with precise laws against electioneering near polling places, Georgia has codified rules preventing political groups from handing out food or water to voters in line as an incentive to vote but specifically allows poll workers to make water available to anyone who wants it. The law will also directly cut down wait times, meaning refreshment for people waiting in line will be less necessary.

Click here to read an article from The Washington Post that further details what the law actually does. 

It's also disgraceful and shameless that there is a continued media drumbeat that voter integrity is equivalent to voter suppression. Any attempt at voter suppression is an attack on democracy, which I and all Americans should find totally unacceptable. But we feel the same way about voter integrity. Because without it, there are no fair elections. Minimal efforts to protect this while maintaining maximum access to all legitimate voters must be the goal.

For example, we want everyone to read, but you still need a library card to take out a book. If you didn't have that rule, you wouldn't have any libraries. Additionally, many states have more strict rules in place to protect the sanctity of their elections, including blue states like Connecticut and Delaware. Yet, Georgia is being targeted by the media, Major League Baseball and other corporations. The idea that Coca-Cola is stating that very reasonable voter integrity laws in Georgia... laws that exist in many other states are unacceptable to them is so hypocritical and wrongheaded. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola invests far more in communist China than it has in the United States. Communist China where genocide is taking place and the worst of human rights violations occur... and yet, Coca-Cola has never mentioned a word about these issues. Not a peep and they remain a major sponsor of the Olympics in China. We are always going to speak the truth on this hypocrisy and this woke anti-America madness.

The woke culture police strike again and they are using Fake News. I am deeply discouraged by the actions of Major League Baseball. Remember when sports weren’t about politics and were there to provide entertainment? Yes. I miss those days too. Meanwhile, the mainstream media and proponents have expressed no issues with H.R. 1, the Corrupt Politicians Act. That bill initiates the federal takeover of elections and would even use taxpayer money to fund elections. It is amazing that the mainstream media are outraged with Georgia’s recent voting reforms but remain silent, or likely complicit, with H.R. 1.

Many major corporations are getting in on the act of dictating public policy. See the tweet below from The Weather Channel stating that your Covid-19 vaccine card is your ticket to freedom and the great response from Larry the Cable Guy.

Thank you, Happy Easter and I look forward to seeing you soon,

Dan Meuser
http://www.meuserforcongress.com/