As you know, Georgia Republicans are getting hammered by the left-wing media and corporate America for recently passing an election reform law. It is absolutely not a “Jim Crow throwback” as the left has labeled it.

But Donald Trump noted what I have been thinking for several days now: In many ways, it doesn’t go far enough. For example:

• The law does not require signature matching. In fact, it eliminates the signature matching requirement entirely. Instead, voters are now required to provide their driver’s license ID number when requesting and returning an absentee ballot.

• The new law does not eliminate or limit no-excuse absentee/mail-in voting. Georgia is now joining the ranks of dozens of states that have adopted no-excuse mail-in voting.

• Drop boxes are limited under the new law, but they were never used at all before 2020. Why are they being allowed now?

• I believe we need to get back to an Election Day, not an election month. But the new Georgia law actually expands early voting, giving big city Democrat machines even more time to drive turnout.

So why all the outrage over this particular reform bill? It basically boils down to the enhanced voter ID requirement for absentee ballots. That’s it. And yet Georgia Republicans are getting the snot kicked out of them.

As one columnist put it, if the left is going to scream “RACISM!” all the time, conservatives may as well pass stricter laws. But why would the left stop kicking us when it sees how effective its attacks are?

As is too often the case, Republicans are traumatized by the left, by its media allies and woke corporate CEOs, and they compromised too much out of fear. And look what it got them.

This gets us back to what Donald Trump was trying to teach Republicans for the last four years. I thought he was making some progress, but apparently surrender is ingrained in the GOP’s DNA.

And don’t even get me started on Gov. Asa Hutchinson!

Georgia vs. HR 1

Compare the Georgia experience to HR 1. There is nothing in HR 1 intended to make elections fair in America. There are no bipartisan compromises at all in that outrageous legislation. It is a left-wing wish list intended to guarantee that no conservative ever wins the White House again.

But Democrats are not worried about appearing too heavy-handed. There was no debate in the Democrat Party about how far HR 1 should go. It went for the jugular!

No one on the left was worried about potential blowback for nationalizing all elections. Ironically, some on the left are arguing that Georgia’s new election reform law takes power away from local officials. Well, that’s exactly what HR 1 does, but on a national scale!

It takes power away from your local elections offices, from your state legislators, and from your governors, and it concentrates all election authority in Washington, DC. Such a drastic assault on federalism is clearly intended to benefit the big government left.

What’s in a Name

Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted is in a heap of trouble for a recent tweet. After days of negative press, he’s agreed to meet with activists from the Asian American community later this week. Did he post something racist or bigoted toward Asians? Not at all.

Husted posted a link to an article about former CDC Director Robert Redfield expressing his belief that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab. Husted added, “So it appears it was the Wuhan virus after all?”

Lt. Gov. Husted has done nothing wrong, and under no circumstances should he apologize. He should take the opportunity of this week’s meeting to assure Ohio’s Asian American community that he has their best interests at heart, and that includes finding the true origin of the virus that so ravaged our country.

We have a long history of naming viruses by their origin, and we know that the COVID-19 virus originated in Wuhan, China. There’s no dispute about that.

No one is offended by “British variant” or “Brazilian variant” or “South African variant.” Nor is anyone offended by MERS, an acronym for another coronavirus known as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.

Conservatives have got to stop cowering over this nonsense! Here is what Lt. Gov. Husted and everyone else on our side should say:

“Why are you more angry at me for referring to the ‘Wuhan virus’ than you are at communist China for lying to us and the rest of world? They are responsible for hundreds of thousands of American deaths. And you want to argue over a name? I think you should apologize for not having the courage to confront the Chinese communists!”

Stop the Panic

I recently reported that American media’s coverage of the pandemic was overwhelmingly negative compared to the rest of the world. I suspect it was deliberately negative in order to damage Donald Trump. But the nonstop fearmongering has damaged many Americans, turning them into “COVID psychotics.”

For example, one recent survey found that nearly three-quarters of Americans plan to continue wearing masks in public even after the pandemic is over. Another survey found that 17% of Americans are “uncomfortable” attending an outdoor sporting event.

There’s no science to justify these fears.

Speaking of science, it was relatively clear from the beginning that this was an airborne virus. But a year later, the CDC has finally gotten around to letting us know that it was totally unnecessary to sanitize our groceries and let the mail sit untouched for days.

And while the CDC has deemed it safe for vaccinated people to travel (well, duh!), the airline industry is still demanding that toddlers wear masks even though the science shows that its air ventilation systems are far superior to most hospital operating rooms!

A return to normalcy would be nice. But what I really want is a return to sanity!

Bibi Tries Again

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has assigned the arduous task of forming a new government to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Likud Party emerged from the recent fourth national election with the largest bloc of votes in the Knesset, but the path to a coalition government looks difficult to say the least.

President Rivlin acknowledged as much, saying, “The results of the consultations … led me to believe that no candidate has a realistic chance of forming a government that will have the confidence of the Knesset.”

Nevertheless, Rivlin was obligated to let Netanyahu begin the process as he received the most support from members of Knesset. Netanyahu now has 28 days to cobble together 61 votes for a new government. But a fifth election later this year remains a real possibility.

Day of Remembrance

Last night, Israelis began to observe Yom HaShoah, a national day of remembrance for the heroes and martyrs of the Holocaust.

Fighting the evil of anti-Semitism has always been a major priority of my work, including at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. At my urging, the commission held a seminar and a hearing on Capitol Hill about the growing threat of anti-Semitism and how to combat it.

While we remember the first Holocaust, we must never forget that the Islamic Republic of Iran is insisting on another one. Iran’s leaders have repeatedly called for a second Holocaust through the “annihilation” of Israel and its eight million Jewish citizens.