Biden and Harris win election in the wild and crazy year of 2020

 

Prior to this year only nine incumbent presidents had lost re-election bids. Given that record, a win against an incumbent isn’t really unusual. Donald Trump, President 45, may be the tenth one, and if so, this one is unusual.

Highlighting the list of oddities of the November 3rd election is pollster Patrick Basham. He is the founding director of the Democracy Institute, a think tank based in Washington, DC and London, UK.

“First, consider some facts. President Trump received more votes than any previous incumbent seeking reelection,” Basham wrote in the American edition of The Spectator. “He got 11 million more votes than in 2016, the third largest rise in support ever for an incumbent. By way of comparison, President Obama was comfortably reelected in 2012 with 3.5 million fewer votes than he received in 2008.”

“Trump’s vote increased so much because, according to exit polls, he performed far better with many key demographic groups. Ninety-five percent of Republicans voted for him,” he continued. 

“We are told that Biden won more votes nationally than any presidential candidate in history. But he won a record low of 17 percent of counties; he only won 524 counties, as opposed to the 873 counties Obama won in 2008. Yet, Biden somehow outdid Obama in total votes.”

Basham goes on to note that winners in presidential races, particularly if they are challengers, usually have candidates riding their coattails down ballot.

But Biden did not. “The Republicans held the Senate and enjoyed a ‘red wave’ in the House, where they gained a large number of seats while winning all 27 toss-up contests. Trump’s party did not lose a single state legislature and actually made gains at the state level,” he explained.

“Another anomaly is found in the comparison between the polls and non-polling metrics,” Basham wrote. “The latter include: party registrations trends; the candidates’ respective primary votes; candidate enthusiasm; social media followings; broadcast and digital media ratings; online searches; the number of (especially small) donors; and the number of individuals betting on each candidate.”

“Despite poor recent performances, media and academic polls have an impressive 80 percent record predicting the winner during the modern era,” he wrote. “But, when the polls err, non-polling metrics do not; the latter have a 100 percent record.” 

So, in terms of predicting the winner of the presidential election, the non-polling metrics have never been wrong.

“Every non-polling metric forecast Trump’s reelection. For Trump to lose this election, the mainstream polls needed to be correct, which they were not,” he said. “Furthermore, for Trump to lose, not only did one or more of these metrics have to be wrong for the first time ever, but every single one had to be wrong, and at the very same time.”

Basham told Mark Levin on Fox News’ “Life, Liberty and Levin” that such an outcome is "not statistically impossible, but it's statistically implausible."

Quoting from the Spectator article, Basham lists nine peculiarities that lack compelling explanations:

1. Late on election night, with Trump comfortably ahead, many swing states stopped counting ballots. In most cases, observers were removed from the counting facilities. Counting generally continued without the observers.

2. Statistically abnormal vote counts were the new normal when counting resumed. They were unusually large in size (hundreds of thousands) and had an unusually high (90 percent and above) Biden-to-Trump ratio.

3. Late arriving ballots were counted. In Pennsylvania, 23,000 absentee ballots have impossible postal return dates and another 86,000 have such extraordinary return dates they raise serious questions.

4. The failure to match signatures on mail-in ballots. The destruction of mail-in ballot envelopes, which must contain signatures.

5. Historically low absentee ballot rejection rates despite the massive expansion of mail voting. Such is Biden’s narrow margin that, as political analyst Robert Barnes observes, ‘If the states simply imposed the same absentee ballot rejection rate as recent cycles, then Trump wins the election.’

6. Missing votes. In Delaware County, Pennsylvania, 50,000 votes held on 47 USB cards are missing.

7. Non-resident voters. Matt Braynard’s Voter Integrity Project estimates that 20,312 people who no longer met residency requirements cast ballots in Georgia. Biden’s margin is 12,670 votes.

8. Serious ‘chain of custody’ breakdowns. Invalid residential addresses. Record numbers of dead people voting. Ballots in pristine condition without creases, that is, they had not been mailed in envelopes as required by law.

9. Statistical anomalies. In Georgia, Biden overtook Trump with 89 percent of the votes counted. For the next 53 batches of votes counted, Biden led Trump by the same exact 50.05 to 49.95 percent margin in every single batch. It is particularly perplexing that all statistical anomalies and tabulation abnormalities were in Biden’s favor. Whether the cause was simple human error or nefarious activity, or a combination, clearly something peculiar happened.

It is stunning that these many irregularities — some that are crimes — do not bother so many people. The breaches of federal and state constitutional mandates in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin — where state officials, not legislatures, changed voting processes — don’t seem to matter.

Will votes cast illegally be allowed to stand? We may never know how many illegal votes there actually were, or what the totals really were.

The 2020 election demonstrates the strong need for election reform

Whether you voted for Joe Biden or Donald Trump for President of the United States, or whether you believe that Trump was defeated by a more popular candidate or by election errors and dishonesty, you should want sensible and secure election systems in place to assure the results reflect the decision of the American people.

Few things are more deserving of absolute security than elections, especially when we are electing the president. And elections are a prime area for problems, as we have seen this year.

The pandemic of 2020 threw everything into chaos, including the election. Efforts to protect people led to a movement to send unrequested ballots — universal ballots — to every voter in several states, some of which had never done this before. That led to more chaos.

As a result of the craziness of the 2000 Bush v Gore controversy, the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform — known informally as the Carter-Baker Commission, named after former Democratic President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker — was formed.

The Daily Signal explained that the commission “was created to address voting and election integrity issues raised by the tumultuous 36-day postelection battle of 2000, which was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court decision that resulted in awarding Florida’s 25 electoral votes and the presidency to Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore.” 

The commission studied the election processes, and in 2005 released a report with 87 recommendations. The Daily Signal reported on this study and noted that “had Congress and state governments adopted many of the panel’s recommendations, the 2020 post-election mess between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden might have been avoided, said Carter-Baker Commission member Kay C. James, now the president of The Heritage Foundation.”

James said that “simple protections against fraud, like voter ID and updated voter registration lists, make perfect sense if we truly believe that every vote must count. Election officials should take another look at the commission’s recommendations and make sure they’re doing everything possible to protect the integrity of our elections.”

While several state legislatures did respond to the commission’s recommendations, Congress was reportedly unenthusiastic about them.

The Commission offered seven recommendations that are relevant to the 2020 election. They include:

* Voter ID - “To ensure that persons presenting themselves at the polling place are the ones on the registration list, the Commission recommends that states require voters to use the REAL ID card, which was mandated in a law signed by the President in May 2005. The card includes a person’s full legal name, date of birth, a signature (captured as a digital image), a photograph, and the person’s Social Security number. 

“This card should be modestly adapted for voting purposes to indicate on the front or back whether the individual is a U.S. citizen. States should provide an [Election Assistance Commission]-template ID with a photo to non-drivers free of charge.”

* Mail-in and Absentee Voting Risks - “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud. State and local jurisdictions should prohibit a person from handling absentee ballots other than the voter, an acknowledged family member, the U.S. Postal Service, or other legitimate shipper, or election officials. The practice in some states of allowing candidates or party workers to pick up and deliver absentee ballots should be eliminated.”

* Election Observers for Integrity - In Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada, Republicans have complained that qualified election observers have been prohibited from watching the counting. The Carter-Baker Commission report stressed the need for election observers to maintain the integrity of the ballots. 

“All legitimate domestic and international election observers should be granted unrestricted access to the election process, provided that they accept election rules, do not interfere with the electoral process, and respect the secrecy of the ballot,” the 2005 report said. 

* Reliable Voting Machines - Voting machines have also been a significant issue in 2020, particularly in Michigan, as one county there flipped from Biden to Trump after a hand recount showed the machine count to be inaccurate. 

The Carter-Baker Commission suggested that machines print out paper receipts for voters to verify their vote was accurately counted. “States should adopt unambiguous procedures to reconcile any disparity between the electronic ballot tally and the paper ballot tally,” the 2005 report says. “The Commission strongly recommends that states determine well in advance of elections which will be the ballot of record.”

* Media Calling Elections - “News organizations should voluntarily refrain from projecting any presidential election results in any state until all of the polls have closed in the 48 contiguous states,” the report states. “News organizations should voluntarily agree to delay the release of any exit-poll data until the election has been decided.”

The other two recommendations were to avoid duplicate registration across state lines, and to prosecute voter fraud. Both, particularly the latter, should be required.

The Carter-Baker recommendations are sensible ones. It’s too bad that Congress and more states did not have the good judgement to implement some or all of them.

Today, the country is paying a high price for their failure to do so.

Is Election 2020 the most unusual presidential election in history?

If nothing else, the election saga is certainly interesting. It has created great misery and hand-wringing across the political spectrum. 

Based on the projections of news outlets relying on state voting totals, former Vice President Joe Biden, D-Pa., and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Cal., were declared the winners. That, however, does not make them the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect.

The process has not yet reached the stage where any candidates are officially declared to have won.

Every election has problems, like human error and fraud. The question always is, how much of an effect do the errors and fraud really have?

This election was doomed to be controversial from the beginning, with the potential for more problems than usual due to the fear of the coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions it created. More people wanted to vote early or by absentee or mail-in ballot than usual to avoid the crowds at polling places. 

And then there were potential problems from the tens of millions of universal mail-in ballots sent out, many/most from states that were ill-prepared to handle that situation.

The dangers of mail-in voting are well known. We were warned about problems by such important voices as former President Jimmy Carter and The Carter Center, Former Supreme Court Justice David Souter, and The New York Times.

And now that the voting is done, there are claims that confirm those warnings: Lost ballots, ballots found in trash cans, more votes in some precincts than registered voters, vote count observers prevented from observing the process, among them.

The Constitution gives the sole power to establish election procedures to the state legislatures. Yet in several states these procedures were recently changed by judges, secretaries of state and others who do not have that authority. 

Since changes were made by unauthorized persons, how many ballots were counted that were received after the previous -- legal -- deadline, or under previous requirements for signatures and such? Those ballots are not valid!

There are many charges of mistakes and fraud being looked into. President Donald Trump’s lawyers have filed multiple lawsuits challenging various aspects of the election process in several states. 

This has greatly angered Trump’s enemies; lots of people are urging Trump to concede, severely chastising him for not having already done so. This, despite that what he is doing is both legal and not uncommon. In the 2000 race, for example, Democrat candidate Al Gore challenged things for more than a month; Trump has done so for only three weeks, as of today.

And, given the array of false charges and hoaxes Trump was tortured with for the last four years, starting when he first declared himself a candidate, perhaps he has good reason to hold off conceding until challenges are resolved. Note: his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, still has not acknowledged Trump won, and she advised candidate Biden not to concede “under any circumstances.”

Democrats felt confident that a blue wave was coming, expecting that they would win the presidency, expand their House majority and perhaps win control of the Senate.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, Republicans increased their numbers in the House, flipping possibly a dozen seats from blue to red, and leaving the Democrats with a very slim majority. 

While the Democrats gained a seat in the Senate, Republicans may possibly retain their majority, depending upon the run-off elections for two Georgia seats.

Despite the losses in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., claimed victory, touting the popular vote tally showing House Democrats collected more votes than Republicans. Apparently, the number of votes for Democrats is more important than the number of Democrats that will be in the House.

Perhaps the most interesting, or the strangest, issue is the alleged massive fraud by voting machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems based in Canada. The Dominion machines are alleged to have actually thrown the election to Biden/Harris through manipulative software.

It is a complicated scenario that many people have discounted because of a lack of evidence having been revealed to support it. However, supporters say there is plenty of evidence, adding that evidence is critical and necessary for legal proceedings, but is not needed merely to assuage doubting reporters and Trump opponents. The Trump legal team cites dozens of sworn affidavits, filed under the threat of perjury, alleging vote fraud in some states.

Dominion has denied all charges, and its officials had agreed to testify before a Pennsylvania legislative committee. Then, Dominion strangely cancelled out the night before the hearing. 

These days computers are capable of doing fantastic things. But can they control the votes of tens of millions of voters in hundreds of different voting locations?

Georgia’s experience with Dominion computers used in the state’s primary raised questions and concerns over the company’s voting system. But Georgia stuck with them.

And the head of another computer voting system, Smartmatic, admitted in 2017 that his company’s computers and software created at least one million additional votes in the Venezuelan election.

Most view Trump’s efforts to prove he won as improbable. But with the vast array of problems and potential fraud, taking a few weeks to investigate them is not asking too much.

Is the trashing of Donald Trump becoming the new national pastime?

One of Donald Trump’s most disliked traits is how he responds to criticism, and how he fires back at his critics. You cross Trump, and you become a target.

Whether Trump’s penchant for name-calling is the main cause, or just a complicating factor, the people he has offended directly and indirectly have called him virtually every bad thing that anyone can think of. 

Bigot, racist, clown, bully, Hitler. These are among the insults hurled at President 45. About the only thing he hasn’t been labeled as equal to, so far, is the Devil. This could be due to the fact that many or most of Trump’s critics simply don’t believe in the Devil, and calling him a non-entity, would be silly.

Most recently Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor, pushed back the boundaries of good judgement and common sense, comparing Trump’s four years as President to the Nazis' Kristallnacht attacks in Germany and Austria in 1938. 

Referred to as the “Night of Broken Glass,” Kristallnacht saw the Nazis attack Jewish individuals and communities. This time of terror, considered one of the darkest periods in history, reportedly resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people, and many more being put in concentration camps. Some 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses were attacked, and more than 1,400 synagogues were set on fire during the attacks.

Who remembers such atrocities during the Trump administration? Did Trump actually terrorize Jews? Or any group?

Of course not. In fact, he has supported Israel by moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, as some past presidents also promised, but did not do. He also has negotiated an historic peace agreement between Israel and countries in the Middle East. And his daughter is married to a Jewish man.

Amanpour effectively demonstrates the dramatic failure of today’s news and information media, diving head-first into the trash pile to find material she believes is necessary to convince her audience — which expects responsible, thoughtful commentary that will help them understand the world around them — that Trump is evil incarnate.

Is Amanpour saying this idiotic stuff because she actually does not know better? Or is she just playing on the tendency of her viewers to automatically believe her, and not look into her silly accusations to find the truth? Do they — Amanpour and the other main stream media folks that are constantly bad-mouthing Trump — really believe what they are saying and accusing him of? 

Due to Trump haters in the media, academia and elsewhere, and Trump himself, a substantial number of voters did not support his re-election. 

Trump has done some very good things, in addition to moving the embassy in Israel, in his four years. The economy strengthened during his tenure with tax cuts and deregulation, until the China virus came along. 

He has improved employment figures for the nation, and especially for blacks and Hispanics. He has appointed justices and judges who believe in changing laws and the Constitution through existing lawful procedures, not improperly doing so while on the bench.

He has strengthened the military, and opposed the magnificently foolish idea of defunding and reimagining the police. NATO countries have started to pay their fair share of defense costs, thanks to Trump, and some NATO countries have responded by increasing their defense budgets.

New trade deals have been made with Mexico, Canada, and China to the benefit of the United States. And Trump has caused the construction of hundreds of miles of border wall to lessen illegal alien entry into the country, and make trafficking of children and drugs more difficult.

He has taken a much firmer approach to Russia and China than any president in recent memory, or perhaps ever, increasing the U.S. Naval presence in the South China Sea, closing the Chinese consulate in Houston and several Russian consulates in the U.S. He also issued sanctions against several Russian agents who were up to no good.

Trump withdrew the U.S from the Iran nuclear deal that would have allowed Iran to build a nuclear bomb within the next few years.

And then there’s COVID-19, a topic rife with political posturing and point-gathering against Trump’s response to it. This novel coronavirus has even baffled the experts. But Trump quickly imposed restrictions on travel from China, mobilized military solutions due to the fear of too few hospital beds in New York and California, got American industries to fast-track the production of ventilators, as well as developing a vaccine, which is almost ready for distribution well ahead of normal vaccine production schedules. He wisely left decisions on closing down activities to local officials.

Demonstrating that the experts still don’t have all the answers months into the pandemic, comes this from Elon Musk. He took a test four times in one day and got two different results.

“Something extremely bogus is going on,” Musk tweeted. “Was tested for covid four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD.”

Is Trump really the “existential threat” that we are repeatedly told that he is? It would be a shame, and somewhat of a national embarrassment if he is not re-elected because so many voted against his personality instead of for his policies.

Election 2020: another crazy event in a year full of crazy events

 

As the end of 2020 blessedly draws nearer, the text of a meme gives hope: “This too shall pass. It might pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.” 

Adding to the suffering was the campaign for president. The election is now over, but the decision is not yet final. When news organizations call a victor in a state, or project the winner of a race, that is not an official decision. It means little. Last weekend votes were still being counted.

The president and vice president will be officially selected when the electors of the Electoral College vote on December 14.

Remember 2000? That’s when Democrat candidate Al Gore was thought to be president-elect for more than a month before the process proved otherwise. 

To make matters worse, sometimes recounts are in order, for various reasons. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced on Friday that because of the closeness of the vote, there will be a recount. He pledged to maintain election integrity.

And as is common, there are questions about various aspects of the election that need to be looked into. There are issues cited and questions raised in every presidential election, and every candidate has the right to question them. 

And with the fear from the coronavirus pandemic, the issues and questions this year have been multiplied. Some are, in reality, not going to be significant. Some, perhaps most, are merely mistakes, or just “normal” sorts of problems. 

Other things, however, may well be significant. Sometimes things just happen. Other times, things are made to happen.

There are legitimate questions about the way universal/mass mail-in ballots — not absentee ballots, which are fairly secure — have been handled, and about the concept itself. 

Because of the fear of people being exposed to the virus at polling places, both early voting and universal mail-in ballot voting were very popular this year. As a consequence, tens of millions of ballots were mailed out to people on state voter rolls. Not all state voter rolls are up to date, meaning thousands of ballots were sent to people who were deceased or no longer lived at the address on the voter roll.

Every ballot mailed to a person who is not living, or is living elsewhere offers the potential for vote fraud.

After cross-referencing Nevada voter rolls with the National Change of Address database, more than 3,000 mail-in ballots in Nevada were found to have been improperly cast. Attorneys for the state GOP have sent a criminal referral to the U.S. Attorney General, seeking an investigation.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), which focuses on election integrity, filed a lawsuit last week that charges Pennsylvania with failing to maintain voter registration records. This is a violation of both federal and state law, the suit alleges.

There are tens of thousands of deceased people on the state’s voter rolls, PILF alleges, and there is evidence of ballots submitted in the names of deceased persons. The organization further alleges that an October analysis found at least 21,000 apparently deceased citizens on the state’s voter rolls.

There are allegations that local officials in some states arbitrarily changed election laws improperly. There are other allegations of election laws not being followed. 

Former judge and Whitewater independent counsel Ken Starr had some strong criticisms of the way Pennsylvania has behaved, post-election. Starr noted that state officials made changes to election rules and regulations that only the legislature can make. He also said that election observers, or poll watchers, who are present by law to help insure the integrity of the election system, were illegally excluded from observing ballot counting.

Starr also noted that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has allowed ballots to be counted that arrived after Election Day, even if they were not postmarked by Nov. 3. The U.S. Supreme Court in October split 4-4 on the question, allowing the state Supreme Court decision to stand, for now.

  

On Friday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ordered that ballots that were received after 8 p.m. on Nov. 3 in Pennsylvania are to be “segregated and secured,” pending potential action by the U.S. Supreme Court.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley thinks questions of irregularities or ballot issues should be investigated to determine whether they are episodic or systemic. “What is the harm in allowing courts to review such claims,” he asked, particularly when witnesses have submitted sworn affidavits concerning such incidents?

Maybe, when all is said and done, and all the errors, technical glitches and any actual election fraud that is found will not change the projected outcome, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will take office on January 20, 2021.

But while the Democrats may have won the White House, the American people have been handed an election process that is horribly in need of repair.

The people need and deserve the most secure election process possible, and making voting easy must not be a prime consideration. If, in order to have a secure system of electing public servants, people have to endure some inconvenience and spend some time going to the polls, it will be an investment well made.

It’s Election Day. And it’s true: elections have consequences

 

The idea that America is dead, or dying, has been on my mind for quite a while. It is a steadily emerging reality.

And recently, that same idea was expressed by none other than Joe Biden. The former vice president and current Democrat presidential nominee announced last Friday in Iowa that the country is dying, at one of his few, and brief, campaign appearances.

“More than 200 [thousand] -- and now I think it’s up to 30,000 -- people have died. America’s dead! Because of COVID-19,” he railed.

No, America isn’t dead because of the virus. It’s just another desperate attempt by Biden to try to build on negative sentiment against President Donald Trump, whose early moves against the virus Biden criticized. And now his “plan” to control the virus is a rehash of what the administration has already done. More plagiarism by Biden.

Yes, millions have been affected by it: millions of positive tests; many getting sick and many dying; others not being able to work or go to school, or to open their businesses in a reasonable way. 

But the virus is just one factor in America’s downfall. The death rattle is mostly from other things. Things that Americans themselves have wrought. 

We have allowed our education system to fail to properly assist the younger generations in learning about their country, and explaining why it was designed as it was. And why it was so much better than other designs.

Those in control of our schools, especially at the college level, have allowed teaching to devolve into indoctrination in many instances, teaching “what you should think” instead of teaching “how to think.” Political correctness is now the reigning philosophy, rather than education.

Likewise, the solemn duty of journalists to report the news -- all the news -- objectively and fairly has been abandoned by many news organizations at the highest levels. 

One political party has some members that want to reverse recent tax cuts to raise trillions of dollars to make government even larger. But Biden says he will increase taxes only on those making $400,000 or more a year. A fairy tale. Everyone’s taxes will have to rise to reach that goal.

They want to do away with fossil fuels in only a few years. These fuels account for 84 percent of the world’s energy, and 80 percent of US energy. And they intend to go ahead with this plan without reliable replacement fuels or storage capabilities that can furnish energy when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. This will affect jobs and the US economy substantially, without making any significant reduction in world-wide CO2 emissions.

They want to open borders to make it easier for illegals to enter the country, and also to give them taxpayer money in welfare payments and for free college.

The list goes on.

And then there are our courts. Our laws and the US Constitution should be interpreted to mean what they meant when they were written. If desired, they can be changed through appropriate legal processes. But this group prefers to make those changes using judges who think they can change these meanings at their whim, and make law from the bench.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del, wants to revamp the court system. “We’ve got to have a wide-open conversation about how do we rebalance our courts,” he said. 

He then made a completely foolish statement: “Yes, the two Supreme Court cases that have been stolen, where these processes that are just wildly hypocritical have been used to jam through partisan nominees.” 

Perhaps a lesson in the US Constitution is in order. Both Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett were confirmed as specified by the Constitution, despite the dreams of Democrats. And neither of them has been shown to be partisan. Both follow the laws and the Constitution, as written.

“But we’ve got to look at our federal courts as a whole,” he continued. “In many cases, [judges are] too young, too unqualified and too far right to be allowed to sit peaceably [emphasis added] without our reexamining the process, the results and the consequences.”

Another lesson is in order: A judge or justice that follows laws and the Constitution as written and understood when they were approved is not a partisan. It is the correct way to interpret the laws and the Constitution.

Some Democrats want to pack the Supreme Court with additional judges who are liberals, transforming the only non-political branch of our government into an un-elected political law-making body. 

They also want to eliminate the Senate’s 60-vote rule, perhaps make DC and Puerto Rico new states, and do away with the Electoral College system.

These acts are both dangerous and irrational.

They would transform the United States from a unique and superior form of government to just one more majority-rule country that tramples on the rights of the minority. The Electoral College and other Constitutional provisions were designed specifically to prevent that. 

If the Democrats sweep the election and control Congress and the administration, and implement the changes to which many of them subscribe, it will kill the United States of America.

How to hold elections during the age of the coronavirus pandemic?

Every true American understands the importance of her/his right to vote and the importance of secure national, state and local election systems that allow us to express our preferences for elected officials.

Elections must be conducted in a secure, fair and sensible manner. Only eligible voters — which, in most every case, involves only citizens — must cast ballots in our elections. And measures are required to assure, to the greatest possible extent, that only eligible voters vote.

Conveniences have been made a part of the election system to make voting easier. But elections are far too important to allow measures to weaken the systems for no better reason than for a little voter convenience. Having to endure a little inconvenience in order to secure this vital process is a small price to pay.

In certain circumstances, absentee ballots may be allowed. Military personnel and others who must be away from their voting district on Election Day, as well as seniors and others who are unable to get to the polls, are legitimate candidates for mail-in ballots. But we must recognize that voting by mail is an insecure process — one with great opportunity for fraud.

And can you guess which voting convenience has the most support among those who wish to transform the country?

Absentee voter fraud — voting by mail — was so great a problem in Florida, Missouri, New York and North Carolina that some elections in those states were overturned.

The case in North Carolina involved the 9^th Congressional District race, which the state election board overturned due to illegal vote harvesting, including forging and altering absentee ballots.

Under present circumstances, tens of millions of eligible American voters are under restrictions, including no gatherings of more than 10 at a time, social distancing, masks, gloves, stay-at-home orders or recommendations, etc. The primary elections are upon us and Election Day, 2020 is a bit more than six months away.

Some opportunists want existing election system weaknesses to remain in place into the future, and for the upcoming elections to be carried out by mail. All in the name of safety, they say. As genuine as these concerns may be for some of them, this suggestion is a prescription for voter fraud at a previously unimagined level.

And with the help of absentee voting the evil orange man, if he has his way, will easily win reelection.

Or, perhaps the other side will do the better job of “getting out the vote,” particularly since it is the liberals/Democrats that are campaigning for voting by mail.

Currently, millions of those whose names are on voter rolls are deceased, have moved, or are ineligible for various reasons. Automatically mailing ballots to these people does not merely allow for the ballots to be stolen, marked, and returned, it invites that result.

If you are still not convinced that voting by mail is fertile ground for fraud, consider this: a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch against the city of Los Angeles and the state of California alleging failure to maintain accurate voter registration rolls has been settled.

California and Los Angeles agreed to remove 1.5 million individuals who were not removed when they became ineligible to vote. It is fair to wonder what might happen to 1.5 million ballots mailed to people who are ineligible to vote, many of whom no longer reside at the address on their registration.

Naysayers contend that there is no real voter fraud threat. And those in the “nothing to see here; just move along” faction prefer a system that can be manipulated for political gain.

But even if the contention is true that no real threat exists, what harm is there in continually examining election systems, and strengthening them to prevent fraud?

However, voter fraud is a true threat. More than 1,200 instances of proven fraud can be found in The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database. These cases include absentee ballot fraud.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter ID law, saying, “flagrant examples of such fraud … have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists [including] Indiana’s own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago Mayor … [and] demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real, but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.”

The most secure voting procedure is when poll workers are presented required evidence by potential voters proving they are who they say they are, and that the person is properly documented as being an eligible voter. That evidence is a valid photo ID.

Accurate voter rolls, and eligible voters with a photo ID appearing at the appropriate polling place, staffed by people dedicated to allowing only eligible voters to vote are essential elements in a secure system.

Even if the COVID-19 virus has not completely run its course before Election Day, or if it reappears during flu season, as has been suggested, polling places can be operated safely. Voters and poll workers must conduct themselves appropriately.

Under such circumstances voting in person at polling places is safe, and is also the most secure method of holding elections.

Is it desperation that pushes the left to promote such crazy ideas?

Democrat Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City and one of a dozen candidates for the Democrat nomination for president, offered his thoughts following the West Freeway Church shooting in Texas recently. 

“It’s the job of law enforcement to have guns and to decide when to shoot. You just do not want the average citizen carrying a gun in a crowded place.” Bloomberg said.

You could fill several large sports venues with what Bloomberg doesn't know. But as ignorant as he appears to be on this issue, you might expect him to understand that because several non-law enforcement persons had weapons at the Texas church that Sunday, rather than perhaps dozens of parishioners being killed or injured, the murderer only killed one parishioner and injured another one.

Can things go wrong in situations such as this one? Of course. But two things must not be forgotten: First, there aren't enough law enforcement officers to provide protection in every place where groups gather, and it takes valuable minutes for them to respond to calls, and second, as demonstrated by the armed parishioners of West Freeway Church, there are many law-abiding citizens who are trained and skilled enough to effectively act to end a shooting, saving many lives.

As President Donald Trump indicated in a tweet following the incident, “It was over in 6 seconds thanks to the brave parishioners who acted to protect 242 fellow worshippers,” “Lives were saved by these heroes, and Texas laws allowing them to carry guns!”

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On the day the impeachment process got under way in the House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., dressed in black for the occasion, and declared, “I solemnly and sadly open the debate on the impeachment of the President of the United States.”

The House then rushed through its phase of the impeachment process, where the case against the president is to be built through testimony of witnesses with knowledge of the wrongs under investigation. The House was in such a hurry to save the country from Donald Trump that they couldn’t spare the time to have the third arm of the federal government — the judiciary — to resolve the stand-off blocking some witnesses the Democrat majority wanted to call. 

Pelosi, curiously, then put the two Articles of Impeachment the House felt rushed to create in a drawer for a couple of weeks. The House finally voted last week to transmit the Articles to the Senate where the second phase — the trial — is to take place, based upon the case developed by the House during the initial phase.

Prior to delivering the Articles to the Senate, Pelosi passed out commemorative pens made specifically to celebrate the solemn occasion that she had previously described. They completed the ceremony by singing, “We’ve Been Working On A Railroad.”

Then the group sang “We Love A Parade” as they walked across the Capital building to the Senate chamber. 

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Democrat hopefuls seem to take it as a challenge to see which of them can develop the craziest idea. Wild ideas that are both unworkable and ridiculously expensive, like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, both of which have the added element of increasing the federal government’s control over our lives, now have a new partner.

At last Wednesday’s town hall, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., unveiled another grandiose plan to decarbonize the U.S. She said that her administration will decree that any new buildings built from 2028 onwards must be carbon neutral.

Appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe, she declared, “What scares me is every time you go back to the scientists, they tell you two things. It's worse than we thought and we have less time. That means we've got to be willing to do things, for example, like regulation. By 2028, no new buildings, no new houses, without a zero-carbon footprint."

Back in September she described her plan to stop using fossil fuels to produce electricity. 

“I think the way we get there,” is to say, “sorry, guys but by 2035, you’re done. You’re not going to be using any more carbon-based fuels,” she said. “That gets us to the right place.”

Warren added, “In my administration, we’re not going to build any new nuclear power plants, and we are going to start weaning ourselves off nuclear energy and replacing it with renewable fuels. We’re going to get it all done by 2035, but I hope we’re getting it done faster than that. That’s the plan.”

The Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) tells us that in June 2019, energy plants around the country produced a total of 352 million megawatt-hours of electricity, as follows:  Natural gas-powered plants accounted for 39% of it, coal 22%, nuclear 20%.

The preferred so-called “clean” energy sources, including hydroelectric power, provided less than 18 percent: wind less than 7 percent, solar 3.3 percent, hydro about 8 percent.

If current trends continue, the EIA projects that by 2035 renewables will generate only 24 percent of electric power, and by 2050 only 29 percent.

Warren did not explain where the rest of the needed electricity will come from.

Vote buying is alive and well in Democrat campaign positions

If a campaign worker slips you a ten or a fifty as you head into a polling place, or promises you a week at the beach, that is a crime; election fraud.

Another way, a legal way, of encouraging folks to vote the right way is through campaign promises to deliver free stuff to people through government programs, if that candidate wins the election.

As it turns out, such techniques fit neatly into the goals of far-left Democrats who openly advocate socialist ideals. 

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to cancel the student debt of most of those who still owe money. She proposes cancelling up to $50,000 each for some 42 million former students. And then, make two- and four-year college tuition free.

Along with a cadre of other Democrat hopefuls, Warren supports Medicare for All. This would cancel out private health insurance and provide free healthcare to all U.S. residents, courtesy of the federal government, which would control prices, and everything else related to healthcare.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont wants to provide a living wage to everyone, regardless of whether they have any skills, or whether they have ever had a paying job before, by mandating that employers must pay all workers $15 an hour, or $31,200 in gross pay for a year of 40-hour workweeks. 

Free health care for all is, he believes, necessary, as is a tuition-free college education. And for those who have student debt, ol’ Bernie would cut their debt in half and slash interest rates on refinanced loans on what’s left to pay.

Other candidates – Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York – have co-sponsored the Debt-Free College Act. 

And Harris has an even better idea:just give away cash. She proposes that families making less than $100,000 a year receive up to $6,000 a year ($500 a month), or individuals making less than $50,000 a year could get up to $3,000 a year ($250 a month).

Warren also wants to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves. Slavery has not existed in the U.S. since 1865, roughly five generations ago.

With a bevy of candidates who want to give out lots of free stuff, even cash, some also want to give away things to immigrants, legal and illegal alike, all paid for by higher taxes.

 

Democrats are notorious for their dangerous degree of compassion for immigrants in general. And the more free stuff we offer, the more appealing is the idea of coming to America, legally or not.

While the actual number of illegals in the country is debated, a conservative estimate is between 10 and 12 million, and by far the largest group comes from Mexico, about 55 percent of the illegal population.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimated the cost of illegal immigration on the country in 2017 was $116 billion. That figure is likely higher this year than in 2017.

FAIR estimates that $59.8 billion goes to educate children of illegal immigrants, the vast majority of which is paid for from property taxes at the local and state level.

Another $18.5 billion goes to healthcare, according to Chris Conover of the American Enterprise Institute. It includes: “about $4.6 billion in health services paid for by federal taxes, $2.8 billion in health services financed by state and local taxpayers, and another $3 billion bankrolled through ‘cost-shifting,’ i.e. higher payments by insured patients to cover hospital uncompensated care losses, and roughly $1.5 billion in physician charity care.”

Some cities and states even allow illegals to vote in elections, which devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of United States citizens. So far, illegals are forbidden from voting in federal elections.

Under the best of circumstances, which is that these candidates actually believe these ideas will work as advertised, history and present-day reality show us that socialism and socialist ideas like these most often fail miserably. And the evidence is there for all who care to see it.

The increasingly socialistic left points with pride to various countries that have instituted government control over systems that are privately controlled in the U.S. The healthcare system in countries like Canada, Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries is often held up as an example.

These are not true socialist countries, of course. They just dabble in select aspects of socialism and charge the necessary sky-high taxes to fund them. For all the supposed wonders of government healthcare, however, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, three of the most frequently cited countries, are moving toward private health insurance. 

America was designed to allow great freedom for its citizens with a small and restricted government that would guarantee individual freedom, not interfere with it. After all, the truth is that the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. 

Our federal government has grown to dangerous proportions, and the idea of imposing socialist methods on the people will further destroy what was and is the most unique and successful government system ever conceived.

We should not forget Margaret Thatcher’s brilliant point: “The great problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”