This is what election interference could look like in future

Wall Street Journal piece says Stefanik should be disqualified from VP slot

Beware of what happened in Africa in 2021.

It was there in Uganda that Bobi Wine, a young pop star who starred in a reality television show as “The Ghetto President,” challenged authoritarian 76-year-old President Yoweri Museveni, who had been in power since 1986.

Yeah, I know you have no interest in this story.

You don’t think a story about a third-world strongman has any relevance here in the land of the free.

You are wrong.

It’s why I love documentary films like the Oscar-nominated documentary “Bobi Wine: The People’s President.”

They open new worlds to us. Make us think.

They demand you pay attention to far away places, issues and sometimes introduce you to extraordinary people like Bobi Wine.

When President Museveni reached term limits in 2005, he had the Constitution amended.

When he reached retirement age in 2016, he had the Constitution amended again.

The media is controlled by the government.

And not one election since 1986 has been found to be free or transparent.

In my gut, I felt I was viewing the future.

Along came musician Bobi Wine singing his messages of social causes for the poor in the Kampala ghetto.

He won a seat in Parliament and got others like himself elected.

President Museveni took notice of the young man’s popularity and his growing following and then took action.

After the president’s motorcade was attacked in 2018, Wine was arrested. The people responded with protests across the country demanding Wine’s release. When he was finally released by a military tribunal, he was charged with treason and incarcerated again.

Amnesty International demands Wine’s release and urges the government to “stop misusing the law in a shameless attempt to silence him for criticizing the government.”

We get a front row seat to an Ugandan Martin Luther King over the next five years as Wine fights for the rights of the oppressed and give the people a voice in their government.

Professing non-violence as a voice of the people, Wine’s journey reminded me of the Civil Rights movement here in the 1960s and a warning of what autocratic power could do to our own future elections.

While running for president in 2020, Wine travels the country going town to town with his National Unity Party to meet the people while putting his own life on the line.

Wine is beaten.

He is incarcerated.

His bodyguard is murdered.

As the presidential election approached, Wine is arrested by the military, then released.

Two weeks later, he is arrested again by the military and held for three days.

Thousands of his supporters hold public demonstrations all across the country.

One-hundred of Wine’s supporters are murdered by the Ugandan police in those demonstrations. Another 2,000 are incarcerated.

And I couldn’t help but think of Donald Trump’s promise to deal with his enemies if he is elected again.

On the eve of the presidential election in January 2021, internet access was cut off across Uganda.

Museveni said he shut down access to social media because Facebook removed posts linked to his re-election campaign. Facebook said it removed Ugandan accounts because they engaged in alleged coordinated inauthentic behavior.

In the days before the election, Wine and his wife were placed under house arrest. His house was encircled by military troops.

Finally, on January 16, it was announced Museveni won the election with 58.6 percent of the vote despite reports of widespread ballot box stuffing. Over 400 polling stations reported 100 percent voter turnout. There was little observation of the voting process by independent sources.

President Museveni’s actions are frightening and could be the roadmap for the future in our own country.

I know you don’t believe it could happen, but Donald Trump is promising it will.

“Bobi Wine: The People’s President” is a cautionary tale.

Yeah, I believe it could happen here too.

Disqualify Stefanik

Gregory F. Jacob wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal last week that Rep. Elise Stefanik should be disqualified from consideration as Donald Trump’s vice president because she has endorsed a coup.

Jacob has a pretty good perch to make that call.

He knew the young Elise Stefanik.

“Ms. Stefanik worked for me in 2006-07 as executive assistant for the Domestic Policy Council in George W. Bush’s White House,” Jacob wrote. “When she first ran for Congress, in 2014, she was a thoughtful, principled conservative determined to champion the interests of her left-behind upstate New York district. I enthusiastically contributed to her campaign.”

Jacob later served as Vice President Mike Pence’s legal counsel during the Trump administration. Jacob was there when Trump pressured Pence not to count the electoral votes on January 6.

When Jacob learned of attempts to overturn the 2020 election by Trump’s attorney John Eastman, he worked to refute Eastman’s theory that Pence had unilateral authority to overturn states’ electors.

“But now (Stefanik) says she would have done something no vice president has ever done or claimed the authority to do,” Jacob continued in the Wall Street Journal. “She would have attempted to exercise a power the Constitution doesn’t grant to swing a presidential election to her preferred candidate. No one who espouses such lawless views should hold a position of authority.”

That is who our congresswoman has become.

She is promising not to uphold her oath to the Constitution in the future.

Climate bills in state

Lisa Adamson supplied me with some highlights this week about some of the important climate bills that are being considered by Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature.

Among them is “The Better Bottle Bill” which would raise deposits on bottles to a dime. It would also expand the deposits to include wine, spirits, hard cider and most non-carbonated beverages while requiring minimum amounts of recycled plastic, aluminum and glass in containers as a lasting commitment to recycling.

Another bill would require the New York pension fund and the NYS Teachers Retirement System to divest from fossil fuel investments such as Exxon, Shell, Chevron and other oil and gas companies.

There is also a proposal for a Climate Education Bill to establish a course of instruction and learning expectations in climate education in all public elementary and secondary schools.

Northern border

The New York Times did a story about the uptick of illegal immigrants on the northern border this Sunday called “Migrants face cold, perilous crossing from Canada to New York.”

It’s an important story considering how much energy Rep. Elise Stefanik spends talking about the northern border in crisis.

The Times reported that the northern border recorded 191,603 encounters with people crossing into the United States in 2023. That was a 41 percent increase from 2022 and to give it context, the Times pointed out it is “…still a small number in comparison with the more than two million people apprehended on the southern border last year.”

The Times also pointed out that a 295-mile area from New Hampshire into New York is where 70 percent of the illegal crossings happened and that many of those apprehended were Mexicans who can fly to Canada without a visa and preferred taking their chances on the northern border to avoid cartels that exploit migrants.

What stood out for me was the interviews with local residents and dairy farmers along the border in Champlain who said they were not afraid of the migrants and often felt guilty when they called the authorities.

“I understand where they’re coming from and how horrible it has to be to make that kind of venture to get here, to try to find a place where you can find a good life,” said Dale Tetreault, a dairy farmer. “But on the other side, it’s like, I’m not going to accidentally house the wrong people either, you know what I mean? It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

It’s a reminder of the complexity of the immigration situation.

The Play

It is always a little strange to be part of a news story. But Adirondack Theater Festival’s decision to commission the adaption of The Last American Newspaper to the stage is exciting.

The Post-Star played it on the front page on its Sunday digital newspaper and Mark Mulholland did a segment on Monday on WNYT-TV in Albany.