Fred’s Weekly Note Archive

Election Deniers Could Throw Our Democracy Into Chaos

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | October 6, 2022 With less than five weeks to go, we are heading into dangerous and uncharted waters for the midterm elections. Former President Trump’s continuous false claim, without a shred of evidence, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him was only the beginning of a nationwide effort […]

Progress On Electoral Count Act Reform In Congress; SCOTUS To Consider “Independent State Legislature Theory”

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | September 29, 2022 Two critical issues that go to the heart of the integrity of our elections will play out this fall – one in Congress and one in the Supreme Court. Electoral Count Act Reform Moves Forward In Congress In the past two weeks, Congress has made major progress […]

Trump’s Dog Whistle For QAnon

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | September 22, 2022 As former President Donald Trump’s legal problems multiply and intensify, we need to be clear-eyed about what he is up to with his latest moves to embrace QAnon. The core belief of this right-wing fringe conspiracy movement is the off-the-charts position that Trump is “waging a secret war […]

Trump & His Election Deniers Are Setting The Stage To Steal 2024

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | September 15, 2022 The damage former President Donald Trump has done to our democracy is catastrophic. The further damage he would do if ever returned to the presidency is incalculable. Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election being stolen, the culmination of more than 30,000 false and misleading statements during his […]

Judge’s Special Master Decision Is Dead Wrong; Raises Serious Concerns About Future Role Of Trump-Appointed Judges

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | September 8, 2022 In 2018, Chief Justice John Roberts said, “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” This proved to be true following the 2020 presidential election, when judges appointed by Democratic and Republican Presidents, including Trump appointees, acted at a historic moment to […]

The Billionaires’ And Millionaires’ Democracy

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | August 25, 2022 Our nation’s capital today floats on an ocean of influence money provided to elect favored candidates and/or to seek results in Washington. Case in point: Peter Thiel is a multibillionaire venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal and was Facebook’s first outside investor. Peter Thiel symbolizes today’s campaign finance […]

The Anatomy Of A Bald-Faced Liar

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | August 18, 2022 Truth is an alien concept to former President Donald Trump. As the old saying goes, “He lies when the truth will serve.” During Trump’s presidency, he made 30,573 false or misleading claims – a stunning average of 21 per day – according to The Washington Post. Trump is a bald-faced […]

Trump’s “Big Lie” Continues To Damage Our Democracy

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | August 11, 2022 We don’t know if former President Donald Trump ever studied Joseph Goebbels, but he certainly does practice Goebbels’ methods. Goebbels was Germany’s Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945. The concept of “The Big Lie” has been attributed to him as has this definition of it: […]

The Need To Repair The Electoral Count Act To Protect Future Presidential Elections

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | August 4, 2022 In the fall of 2020, Walter Dellinger, the late and widely admired former acting U.S. Solicitor General, was focused on defending Joe Biden against any moves that then-President Donald Trump might make to overturn the 2020 presidential election if Trump lost. Dellinger had joined with two other […]

Collins-Manchin Bill Repairs Flawed 19th-Century Presidential Election Laws, But Important Changes In Bill Are Needed

“This is the beginning of the legislative process, not the end.”  Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | July 28, 2022 Last week, a bipartisan group of Senators, led by Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), proposed legislation to repair two antiquated 19th-century laws that govern how presidential elections work. Both laws are seriously flawed […]