By Gary L. Wickert

One day the left will run out of silly things to claim are racist. But then again, maybe not. Last week Major League Baseball joined the ranks of the NBA and the NFL as sports I and millions of others will never again watch. Commissioner Robert Manfred embarrassed himself and the game itself by bowing to the cancel culture movement and pulling the All-Star Game out of Atlanta due to the Georgia election reform laws that simply brought Georgia in line with how many other states handle their elections. The move is the latest in a long and tiresome line of corporate and organizational virtue signaling. As Commissioner Manfred pats himself on the back for caving to those who do not even understand the recent Georgia legislation, Major League Baseball continues to cozy up to the despicable communist regimes in China and Cuba. The hypocrisy is deafening, as evidence by Commissioner Manfred's longtime membership at the Augusta National Golf Club.

What the woke cancel culture does not seem to recognize is that facts do not cease to exist simply because they are ignored. Social media have been flooded with inaccurate lies and distortions from Leftists and anti-America crusaders who have been told that the new Georgia law—known as the "Election Integrity Act of 2021" is "restrictive" and "racist" and that if you are against voter suppression you must be against this new "Jim Crow" law as it was referred to by a President Biden who did not even bother to understand what the law actually did. In fact, what it did was actually expand voter access for most Georgians, including African-Americans. What it did was enact restrictions on handing out food, drink, and other goodies to potential voters near polling places—making it identical to the restrictions that are currently in place in New York and Biden's home state of Connecticut.

“Among the outrageous parts of this new state law, it ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over,” our uninformed president maintained. But that is absolutely false. Contrary to our president's lies, the new Georgia legislation does not mandate that polls close by 5 p.m. Voting in Georgia continues to last from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and anybody in line to vote by 7 p.m. is allowed to vote no matter how long it takes. The new law did not change that. In fact, the new law actually expands weekend voting before election day.

Biden and most of social media unleashed a torrent of criticism at how the new law "adds rigid restrictions" on casting absentee ballots. All it does is require voter identification for individuals casting absentee ballots and brings Georgia in line with voter ID requirement laws passed in Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin since 2012. In light of the widespread fraud which cheapened the entire election process during the 2020 presidential election, Georgia's new law also requires voters to request absentee ballots 11 days before the election. In its previous form, the law allowed voters to request ballots by the Friday before Election Day. The deadline has not changed—it is still before Election Day. But the Georgia law provides that voters can return applications for absentee ballots online, through the Secretary of State’s Office. Over 96% of Georgia voters already have identification, but the new law also says that alternative identification would be provided at no charge to those who need it. Even the civil rights leader Andrew Young famously said, "I am against voter fraud in any form and I have long supported a national voter ID card."

Major League Baseball must believe that the new Georgia law "makes it a crime to provide water" to voters standing in line, because that is what our president said. But it would be wrong. The new legislation clearly and specifically permits official poll workers, as opposed to campaign workers, to provide water to voters. The law works to keep voting integrity by cutting down on the practice of using "line warming" as a convenient loophole to conduct political activity in violation of state law.

Contrary to what Stacey Abrams has been claiming, the new law—also known as Senate Bill 2002—does not "render drop boxes useless." That is just mindless ignorance, plain and simple. Even a New York Times article on March 30 described the legislation as a "GOPbacked bill that prohibits the use of drop boxes." But it does not. At all. I wonder if Commissioner Manfred knows that the new Georgia law actually codifies the use of drop boxes. Each county now has to provide at least one drop box—a practice which was widespread during the fraud-plagued 2020 election due to Covid.

The inflammatory and inaccurate rhetoric continued as liberal organizations and Elizabeth Warren belittled real racism by referring to the new law as "Jim Crow 2.0." The term Jim Crow referred to Democratsponsored racist laws in the South following the Civil War which restricted employment and educational opportunities for African-Americans. To refer to the new legislation in this fashion is insulting and an outright lie.

Stacey Abrams, the most famous state legislator in history simply because she lost an election to higher office, has said that the new law would "allow legislative takeovers of local boards of elections, and much more." While the new law does give the Georgia legislature a broader role to play in the State Election Board, the Secretary of State will no longer chair the Board. It prohibits the chair from having been a candidate or having participated in a political party organization or campaign for two years prior. Clearly this does not amount to "voter suppression."

Major League Baseball and its commissioner failed to do their homework. Most of America—on both sides of the political aisle—have seemingly resorted to getting their news and information from biased sources and then flatly believing what they hear. The reactionary and ignorant pulling of the All-Star Game not only begs the question of what baseball has to do with politics but is clearly the product of believing wildly unsubstantiated and feckless lies and exaggerations about a common-sense effort to curb voter fraud, which is the real enemy.

Now there is one more sport I cannot and will not watch. And it is a sad day when a silly sport—which has absolutely nothing to do with politics—bends to bullies and endorses lies about a law which simply brings Georgia in line with the laws in many other states, including President Biden's own home state of Connecticut. A law which actually expands voting opportunities is condemned by those who are either unwilling or unable to look at the facts before they parrot the lies. Major League Baseball has joined the ranks of liberals who are either historically ignorant or deliberately dishonest.