The Vote: It Is What It Is....

As my regular readers know, I had something to say last week about some recent Congressional voting results, and I might add, I did not pull any punches and was in a word, harsh.  Most of my readers agreed with my thoughts and as always, there were some who didn’t like them.  Some of those who didn’t like what I said took to telling me that I was "wrong" and should issue some sort of a “correction;” and if I was wrong, I would do just that.

However, on Saturday afternoon, I attended a very private meeting with Congressman Brian Mast and four other patriots at a private residence in Palm Beach County, and I decided to bring my readers up to date.

Among other things, we discussed his “NO” vote on the bill that was to stop paying for “reassignment surgery” of transgendered individuals in the military.  On July 13, 2017, he and the House were indeed busy with a very large number of items being voted on very quickly, and with next to no time in between and notes shuffled, he accidentally voted “No” when he meant to vote “Aye” on that very huge piece of legislation.  Once he recognized his mistake, he did have it noted on the official record that it was a mistake because they aren’t geared up to actually change them when they are voting machine gun style like that; however, there was and is no correction as his name remains in the “No” column where it will sadly remain and stand as one of the twenty-four “No” votes cast by Republicans.  

That it was a mistake and noted as such is irrelevant because the fact is, it was cast as a “No” and given the gravity of that bill, this vote will likely come back and haunt him for a long time.  As far as those other Republicans who intended to side with the Democrats and vote “No;” well, I’ll just leave them to their constituencies.

Since the group didn’t bring it up, I asked the Congressman for clarification concerning the pathway to citizenship for military service.  My original article referred to it as a vote and it was in fact a proposal; however, while I still adamantly disagree, Congressman Mast does indeed support the proposal and will certainly vote for it when it does come up for a vote.

The last issue I mentioned originally was the accumulation of fines.  I do have to say that while I don’t agree with this being necessary, I understand what is being attempted by it.  Essentially, just being here illegally is not sufficient reason to deport anyone these days; it should be, but it isn’t. Therefore, criminal cases need to be built upon to raise them to the level of a felony, because only then will an illegal be deported; and fines levied for over staying visas and the like become felonies after reaching a certain dollar threshold.

So there you have it.  Some still won’t like it, but there is no real difference from my first discussion, except that I removed the sting.  

And for the record, this is not and never would be about personalities or anything of the sort; I have always and do believe that Brian Mast is a very good man, however the Congressman and I differ in opinions on more issues than I might have imagined