Tag Archives: Elections

Election Fraud Is Different Than Voter Fraud

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The program listed below is archived at cctaxpayers.com.

 

Sunday at 11 am and 8 pm, Wake-up Call is broadcast on WTKF 107.1. This week’sl broadcast will feature a discussion with Major David Goetze (Ret.).  Major Dave served in the Military Police of the U.S. Army as an investigator dealing with computer data. Major Dave has closely examined the public records of the 2016 and 2018 elections in North Carolina and found some very interesting anomalies. He will be discussing his findings on Wake-up Call this Sunday. I can promise you that the show will be eye-opening.

The Case For Voter ID

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The Washington Free Beacon posted an article yesterday with the following headline, “Study: Voter ID Laws Don’t Stop People Voting.”

The article reports:

Strict voter ID laws do not suppress turnout, a new paper finds, regardless of sex, race, Hispanic identity, or party affiliation.

Requiring photo ID to vote is a hotly contested subject in American political discourse. Proponents argue that it is necessary to insure against fraud and preserve the integrity of the American electoral system. Opponents argue that it will disenfranchise otherwise eligible voters—many of whom would be poor and of color—who are unable to easily obtain ID.

In total, 10 states, ranging from Georgia to Wisconsin, require voters to show ID in order to vote. Seven of those states require a photo ID, and three do not. An additional 25 states “request” that voters display ID, but may still permit them to vote on a provision ballot if they cannot. The remaining states “use other methods to verify the identity of voters,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The new research, from an economics professor at the University of Bologna and another at Harvard Business School, indicates that “strict” voting laws of the type implemented in those ten states do not have a statistically significant effect on voter turnout.

A few years ago, North Carolina tested a voter ID system during a primary election. Turnout was higher than in previous primary elections. The voter ID requirement did not suppress the vote. The system allowed the poll workers to scan the voter’s driver’s license in order to print the correct ballot. Implementing that system allowed the lines to move quickly and resulted in more efficient voting for everyone. The idea that voter ID limits voters is a myth. You need an ID to do a lot of everyday things, so most people have an acceptable form of ID.

The article concludes:

At the same time, the study’s authors use the same data to examine the actual effect of strict voter ID laws on voter fraud itself, and similarly find no statistically significant effect. Using two datasets of voter fraud cases (which represent a cumulative 2,000 proven or hypothesized events over eight years), the study examines the relationship between laws and frequency of measured voter fraud, finding no evidence of a change after implementation.

This finding is naturally limited by the extremely small number of voter fraud cases actually identified: fewer than one per million people per year. It is possible that voter ID laws would be more effective suppressing fraud in a context where it was more evidently prevalent; as is, the authors estimate that the laws themselves only cover about 0.3 to 0.1 offenses per million people per year.

In total, then, the paper suggests that voter ID laws are not suppressive, but also that they do not have much of an impact on elections overall.

“Our results suggest that efforts both to safeguard electoral integrity and enfranchise more voters may be better served through other reforms,” it concludes.

Voter ID will not end voter fraud. It will, however, make it more difficult.

Exactly What Does ‘Expanding Voter Rights’ Mean?

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The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about a group called “Priorities USA” which seeks to expand voter rights. Kamala Harris’ top campaign lawyer is one of their board members. The group is planning a massive $30 million effort to “expand voter rights” leading up to the 2020 elections.

The article reports:

Priorities USA Action, a Washington, D.C.-based group that threw its weight behind Hillary Clinton throughout the 2016 presidential cycle, announced that it will put tens of millions of dollars behind an effort to “fight Republican-backed laws that restrict ballot access,” the Associated Press reports.

Guy Cecil, chairman of Priorities USA, told the AP that most of the money will go towards litigation and that the group will begin its efforts by focusing on Texas and Georgia. “We will look at where is the biggest harm being done and where our work can have the most impact,” Cecil said.

Marc Elias, a partner at the D.C. office of the Perkins Coie law firm who acted as Clinton’s top campaign lawyer, and who is now the top lawyer for the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, quietly joined the board of Priorities USA’s nonprofit arm in early 2017 to help the group lead its voter-related efforts. Elias was brought in as the group began to shift its focus to fighting state-level voter identification laws.

It is interesting to note that one of the main people behind this effort is George Soros.

The article reports:

“We hope to see these unfair laws, which often disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in our society, repealed,” Soros told the New York Times in 2015.

Soros had identified expanding the electorate by 10 million voters at a top priority, according to hacked documents released the next year. Soros was also the first funder of a large voter mobilization effort for the 2016 elections led by a coalition of progressive organizations.

Soros was one of the top donors to Priorities USA Action throughout the presidential cycle, giving $10.5 million to the group. Soros added $5 million to Priorities during the 2018 election cycle.

Priorities USA and Elias did not respond to inquiries on Elias’s potential upcoming involvement with the multi-million-dollar campaign by press time.

Why are they fighting voter ID laws? An article I posted back in 2011 might provide a clue.

In 2011 I reported on some of the findings of True the Vote in Houston, Texas:

“Vacant lots had several voters registered on them. An eight-bed halfway house had more than 40 voters registered at its address,” Engelbrecht said. “We then decided to look at who was registering the voters.”

“Their work paid off. Two weeks ago the Harris County voter registrar took their work and the findings of his own investigation and handed them over to both the Texas secretary of state’s office and the Harris County district attorney.

“Most of the findings focused on a group called Houston Votes, a voter registration group headed by Sean Caddle, who formerly worked for the Service Employees International Union. Among the findings were that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations the group submitted appeared to be valid. The other registrations included one of a woman who registered six times in the same day; registrations of non-citizens; so many applications from one Houston Voters collector in one day that it was deemed to be beyond human capability; and 1,597 registrations that named the same person multiple times, often with different signatures.”

This illustrates why we need voter ID (and why the Democrats are fighting it). Every fraudulent vote cancels out the vote of a legal voter. Eliminating voter fraud is the best way to expand voter rights.

 

Undermining Elections One State At A Time

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I think most people understand that the Democrats look at people entering America illegally as future Democrat voters. However, it seems as if some of those expected votes are not happening in the future–they are happening now.

On Friday, Hot Air reported that the Texas Secretary of State has reported that as many as 58,000 non-citizens voted in elections in Texas between 1996 and 2018.

The Houston Chronicle reported that there has been some pushback on this statement:

“There is no credible data that indicates illegal voting is happening in any significant numbers, and the Secretary’s statement does not change that fact,” said Beth Stevens, Voting Rights Legal Director with the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Stevens said she is concerned about how the state is identifying the suspected non-citizen voters.

The Secretary of State’s office insists the data is accurate and relies on documents that the voters themselves submitted to DPS when they were trying to obtain drivers licenses. Non-citizens are eligible to get a Texas drivers license, but they are not allowed to register to vote.

“It is important to note that we are not using information self-reported by the person regarding citizenship status; rather, we are using documents provided by the person to show they are lawfully present in the United States,” the state’s director of elections, Keith Ingram, wrote in a notice to registrars in all 254 counties in Texas.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

Also, it’s not as if the Texas Secretary of State makes this announcement and suddenly the names on his list are removed. The Secretary of State in Texas doesn’t have the power to remove anyone from the voter rolls, so that will be done by county-level registrars. Those officials will check the names and give each identified person 30 days to demonstrate proof of citizenship. Only if they fail to do that or don’t respond at all will they be removed from the rolls.

It seems to me what’s really at stake here is the presumption that large-scale voter fraud doesn’t happen. If Texas can substantiate even a fraction of this list it would change the dynamic of future conversations about non-citizen voting. We’ll have to wait and see if that happens.

We need to remember that every vote by a non-citizen cancels out the legal vote of a citizen. For those claiming that cleaning up the voter rolls disenfranchises people, what about the citizens disenfranchised by non-citizen votes?

 

How Outside Money In Politics Can Impact Future Elections

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The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about a barrage of outside spending by a 527 group led by billionaire activists George Soros and Tom Steyer which impacted governor and legislative races in several targeted states. The ultimate goal of the targeting was to redistrict specific states in order to make it easier for Democrats to be elected to the House of Representatives.

The article reports:

The National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) believes one of the reasons Republicans have enjoyed a lengthy majority in the House of Representatives is because of gerrymandered house districts. Because state legislative bodies usually draw house districts, the NRDC was trying to elevate some of these elections by putting a national veneer on races that usually come down strictly to local politics.

Drawing new house districts will begin again after the completion of the 2020 census, which is why the NDRC is making such a strident push now in what they call a “fight to shift the balance of power away from Republicans before redistricting occurs in 2021.”

After the election the NDRC’s website boasted, “We won governors’ races in 8 states: Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Virginia (in 2017.).”

The website further claimed, “We flipped 6 legislative chambers: Colorado Senate, Maine Senate, Minnesota House, New Hampshire House and Senate, and the New York Senate.”

Nearly all of the states mentioned were the select spending targets of State Victory Action, a 527 fund established just this year, and which was overwhelmingly funded by Soros, Steyer, and to a lesser extent, Donald Sussman.

Representatives with Steyer, Soros, as well as the NDRC did not return requests for comment, including questions about whether there was coordination between State Victory Action and the NDRC.

For an example from the list on the NDRC’s site, Democrats (technically members of the Democrat Farmer-Labor Party) won a majority in Minnesota’s state house of representatives.

Using a pass through committee, State Victory Action donated millions to Alliance for a Better Minnesota.

Although I don’t like to see that kind of money from outside a state poured into state races, there is something we all need to remember here–every American is responsible for his own vote. We have the option of doing our own research and not being swayed by an abundance of campaign ads for a particular candidate. Money is important in elections, but as Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush proved in 2016, all the money in the world will not elect a candidate who is not supported by the electorate. George Soros and Tom Steyer do not represent me, but they do have the right to donate to any candidate they choose, just as I do.

Further Shenanigans In Arizona

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Red State Observer recently reported that Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch, is investigating illegal aliens voting in Arizona.

The President of Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton said Over 1,400 voters attempted to register with their alien number.

“Of the 143,542 new voter registrations in Maricopa County, AZ between Jan 1-Sep 25, 2018, 1,470 registrants provided Alien Registration Numbers, meaning they were aliens not eligible to vote: @JudicialWatch investigation,” Fitton tweeted.

Non-citizens should not be voting in our elections. That represents foreign interference in our elections. It needs to be stopped.

Seriously?

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported the following:

The Georgia Democrat Party announced on SATURDAY that a handful of Georgia counties have suddenly discovered THOUSANDS of new votes that need to be counted. The Georgia Democrats say the new stash included absentee, early and election day votes.

…Democrats in Georgia have now mysteriously discovered another 5,569 votes of which 4,804 were for Stacey Adams.

Meanwhile in Florida, according to another article at The Gateway Pundit posted yesterday:

One day after un-conceding the election, defeated Democrat candidate for Florida governor Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum will hold a rally at a Broward County church Sunday evening sponsored by leftist political groups in support of the recount efforts that could upend the election day victory of Republican candidate Ron DeSantis. The rally is being called, “Count Every Vote: A Faith Response to the Florida Recount”.

I also want every vote counted–every legal vote, but it seems odd to me that thousands of Democrat votes were discovered after the deadline for counting votes. There are also some questions about custody of ballots–people driving ballots around with only one person in the car–documenting the chain of custody seems to be a lost art in Florida.

Hopefully this mess can be sorted out in the next few days. I believe that the Republicans won both in Florida and Georgia. If corruption can be proven in these states, those responsible for the corruption need to go to jail. We need to make sure that those who seek to cheat during elections are punished severely enough to discourage the practice.

 

 

Shenanigans In Arizona

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Arizona Public Media is reporting today that there are some problems with some of the mailed-in ballots in the recent election–the signatures do not match the signatures on file.

The article reports:

As county workers across the state continue to process hundreds of thousands of unopened ballots, Republican party officials have sued to stop several counties, including Pima and Maricopa, from calling voters to verify that the ballot they mailed or dropped off on election day is actually theirs.

Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez says the signature on some ballot envelopes doesn’t match the signature on file, especially for voters who used their finger to sign an electronic pad at the DMV.

“Sometimes the signatures do not match, they don’t look anywhere near it. So that’s why we call to attest and verify that that is in fact the voter,” Rodriguez said.

But Republican officials say county recorders only have the authority to do that up through election day, not after. If a judge agrees, that would mean recorders have to stop checking signatures of people whose ballots remain unopened after election day.

Hanging in the balance is the outcome of the US Senate race, where Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema are separated by a margin that is far smaller than the number of unopened ballots.

We need honest elections. All signatures need to be checked. It seems to me that the goal should be to make sure legal voters had their votes counted and illegal votes were not counted.

More Businesses Leaving California And Heading For Texas?

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CNBC is reporting today that San Francisco’s Proposition C, which will tax the city’s biggest businesses to raise funds to combat homelessness, passed Tuesday.

The article reports:

Proposition C will increase gross receipts taxes for companies with more than $50 million in annual revenue by an average of 0.5 percent, generating up to $300 million a year to combat the city’s homelessness crisis through initiatives like new beds in shelters and increased mental health services.

…Critics of the proposition argued that it lacked proper accountability and oversight, and would unfairly affect financial services companies like Square. Outside the tech industry, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and state Sen. Scott Wiener opposed the measure as well.

In the weeks leading up to the election, the measure became a point of tension in a city where tech-fueled wealth stands in stark contrast with the human suffering on display on its sidewalks.

Overall, more than 7,000 people experience homelessness in San Francisco. The median house price hit $1.6 million earlier this year and one-bedroom apartments rent for an average of $3,300.

Although I agree with the idea of helping the homeless, has it occurred to the residents of San Francisco that if you increase taxes on companies, some of those companies will relocate? When those companies relocate, you will have fewer jobs, less tax revenue, more unemployment, and possibly more homelessness–exactly the opposite of your intention. The only good news is that as people leave the area, you might have a housing glut that causes the price of housing to go down. No one will want to live there because of the scarcity of jobs, but housing might become more available.

It Only Matters When It Can Be Weaponized

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The political left loves to scream that President Trump has a bad attitude toward women or that Judge Kavanaugh was guilty of sexual assault and should therefore be disqualified as a judge, but how good are they at policing their own. If last night’s election results are any indication, not very good.

Fox News posted an article today reminding us that four of the Democrat candidates who won their elections last night are facing sexual misconduct controversies.

The article reports:

House Reps. Keith Ellison, Tony Cárdenas and Bobby Scott, and Sen. Bob Menendez, all came out victorious on Tuesday, despite being accused of misconduct.

Their election raises questions whether the Democratic Party, which went all-out to stop now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the face of assault claims and stressed the importance of believing women’s allegations, is selectively tapping into the #MeToo movement.

I guess #MeToo only matters if you are a Republican.

The article includes the names of the candidates and the charges:

Ellison, the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), was one of the highest-profile candidates who won the election. He became the state attorney general in Minnesota despite allegations of domestic violence.

Karen Monahan, the Democrat’s former girlfriend, alleged that he once dragged her off a bed while shouting profanities and sent multiple abusive text messages. She also published a 2017 medical document that identified Ellison as the abuser who caused “emotional and physical abuse.”

…Cárdenas, a California Democrat, meanwhile, easily cruised to victory in the state’s 29th Congressional District, receiving nearly 80 percent of the vote, while being the subject of a lawsuit claiming he drugged and sexually assaulted a 16-year-old teenager in 2007.

A Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that “a reasonable and meritorious basis” existed for the case to proceed and Cárdenas was publicly identified as the accused person. He denied the accusations.

…Old allegations of misconduct also came back to haunt Menendez, the incumbent New Jersey senator, who won the closer-than-expected race as well.

Republican candidate Bob Hugin revived salacious allegations that Menendez had sex with underage prostitutes during past trips to the Dominican Republic.

…Virginia Democrat Bobby Scott won Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District thanks to nobody challenging him, even after he was accused of sexual misconduct in 2017.

A former Congressional Black Caucus Foundation fellow. M. Reese Everson, claimed that the congressman sexually harassed her in 2013, and that she was fired and blacklisted from further work on Capitol Hill after she refused his advances.

One standard for me, and one standard for thee.

Some Relevant Thoughts On Voter Fraud

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On Friday, Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial titled, “Why Do Democrats Pretend Voter Fraud Doesn’t Exist?”

The editorial begins by providing examples showing that voter fraud does exist:

In August, the Justice Department announced the prosecution of 19 foreign nationals for illegally voting in North Carolina. Some of them voted in multiple elections.

Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton decided to crack down on voter fraud before the midterm elections. So far, he’s prosecuted 33 people for 97 counts of voter fraud this year alone. Among the discoveries was a voter fraud ring that had received financial support from the former head of the Texas Democratic Party.

Pennsylvania let thousands of noncitizens register to vote, many of whom have since voted, according to reporter John Fund, who has been following this issue for years.

The Heritage Foundation has a database that now includes 1,165 cases of election fraud across 47 states. More than 1,000 of them resulted in criminal convictions.

One case of voter fraud is too many. Any fraudulent vote cancels out the vote of a legal voter. This is an issue all of us should be concerned about. One of the foundations of a healthy republic is honest elections. Without honest elections, we could easily become a banana republic.

The editorial concludes:

The fact is that committing voter fraud isn’t all that difficult, but minimizing it is easy. Cleaning up registration rolls, enacting voter ID requirements, using paper ballots, and implementing better controls on early and absentee voting would make non-citizen voting and other forms of fraud virtually impossible.

Critics of such efforts say that they will only serve to suppress the vote of minorities and the poor — that is, voters who tend to vote Democratic. They want to make it easier and easier to register and vote.

But there’s no evidence that voter ID laws suppress turnout. In fact, of 11 states that adopted strict voter ID laws, nine either saw increased turnout in 2016, or had turnout rates higher than the national average, the Heritage Foundation notes.

Nor does cleaning up registration rolls, aggressively pursuing voter fraud cases, using paper ballots, or other measures to ensure the integrity of the ballot suppress legitimate voters.

Those who say voter fraud is no big deal should realize something. Every single vote cast fraudulently cancels out one legitimate vote. They need to ask themselves how they’d feel if it was their vote being canceled.

It is long past time to fix this.

Making The Election Process More Confusing Than It Already Is

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On August 31, The Washington Post posted an article about redistricting in the State of North Carolina. Before I go into detail, here is a picture of what is being discussed:

I don’t know about you, but the bottom map looks much more logical than the top map.

This is what true gerrymandering looks like:

I am sure I could have found many other examples, but this is one I know. Note the lavender that meanders from the Rhode Island border up to near Boston. I suppose it is simply an incredible coincidence that the lower part of that lavender is less populated than the area approaching Boston. Also, much of the lower part of that lavender tends to be Republican. What better way to dilute those votes than combine them with the more densely populated Democrat areas approaching Boston. Massachusetts is a one-party state, and its Congressional districts have never been challenged in court. Hmmm.

At any rate, the courts threw a monkey wrench into North Carolina’s November election. It is too late to change the districts, undo the primary elections, and print the ballots. It appears that saner heads have prevailed and the districts will remain in place at least until November.

The article reports:

The plaintiffs who persuaded federal judges to declare unconstitutional North Carolina’s Republican-drawn congressional maps have “reluctantly concluded” that there is not enough time to draw new maps in time for the November elections.

A three-judge panel ruled this week that the maps were an “invidious” plan to favor Republicans over Democrats and had resulted in the GOP capturing 10 of the state’s 13 congressional districts in 2016, even though its share of the statewide vote was just over 53 percent.

There is a reason we live in a representative republic and not a democracy. I think the redrawn districts appear to be much more logical than the previous districts.

First They Came For…

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As we approach the mid-term election, there are a number of things to consider. One of the things to look at is the Right-Direction or Wrong Track poll done by Rasmussen. Right now 43 percent of Americans think we are headed in the right direction; 52 percent think we are headed in the wrong direction. In contrast, on October 30, 2016, 30 percent of Americans thought we were headed in the right direction, and 63 percent thought we were headed in the wrong direction. In early January 2016, 28 percent of Americans thought we were headed in the right direction, and 67 percent thought we were headed in the wrong direction. So where am I going with this? As Bill Clinton said, “It’s the economy, stupid!” Hopefully most Americans understand that if the Democrats are able to take control of Congress this year, the economic progress made by the Trump administration will end. Impeachment proceedings against President Trump will begin (it won’t matter whether or not there are any valid charges, the trial will begin). Any investigations into Uranium One, spying on political opponents, or politicizing the justice system will also end. That will mean the institution of a two-tiered justice system in America. If you are connected to the right people, you can pretty much get away with anything. That is what a Democrat victory in the mid-terms will bring us. The Democrats fear that the public will begin to realize this and will attempt to shut down conservative news.

I say all that to predict the actions of the political left in the coming two months. The American Thinker posted an article today spotlighting a situation that should concern all of us. It is about the censorship of Alex Jones. I need to say up front that I am not a huge fan of Alex Jones, but whether you like him or not is not the point. The fact that he can be banned from certain areas of the Internet because of his views should give us all pause. As we approach the mid-term elections, I expect to see more of this. A lot of it is already happening. Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It reminds us of some of the abuses by the media that we have seen in recent years. The Internet has ended the liberal monopoly of the media– it was wounded with the advent of popular talk shows, but the Internet allows everyone to do their own research. Expect to have to look a little harder for your favorite conservative news source in the next few months. I believe PragerU is back on Facebook, but I am not sure for how long. That is only the tip of the iceberg.

When Judges Don’t Read The Law

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According to the Legal Information Institute, 18 U.S. Code § 611 – Voting by aliens states:

(a) It shall be unlawful for any alien to vote in any election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing a candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner, unless—

(1) the election is held partly for some other purpose;

(2) aliens are authorized to vote for such other purpose under a State constitution or statute or a local ordinance; and

(3) voting for such other purpose is conducted independently of voting for a candidate for such Federal offices, in such a manner that an alien has the opportunity to vote for such other purpose, but not an opportunity to vote for a candidate for any one or more of such Federal offices.

(b) Any person who violates this section shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

(c) Subsection (a) does not apply to an alien if—

(1) each natural parent of the alien (or, in the case of an adopted alien, each adoptive parent of the alien) is or was a citizen (whether by birth or naturalization);

(2) the alien permanently resided in the United States prior to attaining the age of 16; and

(3) the alien reasonably believed at the time of voting in violation of such subsection that he or she was a citizen of the United States.

That is the law. Judges are supposed to uphold the law. However, that does not always seem to be the case.

Last Monday The New York Times posted an article about a ruling by U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson.

The article reports:

A federal judge ruled Monday that Kansas cannot require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, finding such laws violate the constitutional right to vote in a ruling with national implications.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson is the latest setback for Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has championed such laws and led President Donald Trump’s now-defunct voter fraud commission. The 118-page decision came in two consolidated cases challenging a Kansas voter registration law requiring people to provide documents such as a birth certificate, U.S. passport or naturalization papers.

The decision strikes down the Kansas proof-of-citizenship registration law and makes permanent an earlier injunction that had temporarily blocked it.

The article explains the history of non-citizens attempting to register to vote in Kansas:

But the decision drew criticism from Steve Watkins, the Republican candidate for Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District, who called it “the latest example of unelected judges replacing their wisdom for that of voters.”

“There is nothing controversial about requiring United States citizens to show identification when they register to vote; it protects American citizen’s right to free and fair elections. Instead of mocking or playing politics with the integrity of our electoral process — the judiciary should be protecting it,” Watkins said.

Kansas has about 1.8 million registered voters. Kobach has told the court he has been able to document a total of 127 noncitizens who at least tried to register to vote. Forty-three of them were successful in registering, he says, and 11 have voted since 2000. Five of those people registered at motor vehicle offices, according to Kobach.

In the first three years after the Kansas law went into effect in 2013, about one in seven voter registration applications in Kansas were blocked for lack of proof of citizenship — with nearly half of them under the age of 30, according to court documents. Between 2013 and 2016, more than 35,000 Kansas residents were unable to register to vote.

I have a question. If the law says non-citizens cannot vote in national elections, doesn’t it make sense to ask people who are registering to vote to prove they are citizens? This is another really bad example of a judge making a ruling that goes against established law. When this occurs, judges who do this need to be impeached and removed from the bench.

The Economic Impact Of Tax Cuts

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First of all, let’s take a short walk down memory lane to a Washington Post article from November 20, 2017.

The article explains how the Democrats plan to use the tax cut plan in the 2018 mid-term elections:

The goal of the ads will be to hit two messages. The first is that the GOP changes to the tax code themselves would be enormously regressive, showering most of their benefits on the wealthy while giving crumbs to working- and middle-class Americans or even raising their taxes. The second is that these tax cuts would necessitate big cuts to the safety net later — the ad references $25 billion in Medicare cuts that could be triggered by the GOP plan’s deficit busting — further compounding the GOP agenda’s regressiveness down the line.

Geoff Garin, a pollster for the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA, tells me that his polling shows that this combination alienates working-class whites, particularly Obama-Trump voters. “They are fundamentally populist in their economic views, and they find big breaks to corporations and the wealthy especially heinous when the flip side of that means cutting Medicare and Medicaid,” Garin said.

That was the original plan. Now lets look at an article posted yesterday in The New York Post about the results of the tax cut plan.

The New York Post reports:

We are already starting to see a fiscal dividend from Trump’s pro-business tax, energy and regulatory policies. The Congressional Budget Office reports that tax revenues in April — which is by far the biggest month of the year for tax collections because of the April 15 filing deadline — totaled $515 billion. That was good for a robust 13 percent rise in receipts over last year. ‎

…But there’s another lesson, and it’s about how wrong the bean counters were in Congress who said this tax bill would “cost” the Treasury $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in most revenues over the next decade. If the higher growth rate Trump has already accomplished remains in place, then the impact will be well over $3 trillion of more revenue and thus lower debt levels over the decade.

Putting people back to work is the best way to balance the budget. Period.

The article concludes:

No one thought that Trump could ramp up the growth rate to 3 percent or that his policies would boost federal revenues. But he is doing just that — which is why all that the Democrats and the media want to talk about these days is Russia and Stormy Daniels.

I want to go back to the original Democrat statements about the damage the tax cuts would do to the economy. Did they really believe that or do they simply want more of our money under their control? Either way, it doesn’t say good things about them–either they don’t understand economics (see the Laffer Curve) or they lied. Obviously they have to continue lying if they want to use the tax cuts as part of their mid-term election campaign–they have already stated that they want to rescind many of the tax breaks that have resulted in the recent economic growth.

If you are inclined to vote on pocketbook issues, the only choice in November is to vote for Republican candidates for Congress.

The Political Right Is Also Capable Of Using The Popular Culture To Its Advantage!

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Yesterday the Washington Examiner reported that Vance McAllister won a special election for Louisiana‘s 5th District seat yesterday. Representative-elect McAllister is new to politics–he has never even visited Washington, D.C. However, Representative-elect McAllister is a friend of the patriarch of TV’s “Duck Dynasty,” Phil Robertson, who endorsed his congressional bid.

The article reports:

Vance McAllister beat establishment candidate Neil Riser, a state senator, in Saturday’s runoff election created when former Rep. Rodney Alexander resigned on Sept. 26 to become secretary of the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs under Republican Governor Bobby Jindal.

…A handful of Washington GOP operatives tried to get one of the members of the Duck Dynasty family to run for the seat, but failed.

But the race showed just how powerful the Duck Dynasty trademark is in the area, said an election observer.

Wow. Just wow.

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This Is A True Story

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There is a special election in Massachusetts today to fill the Senate seat John Kerry vacated when he became Secretary of State. Someone I know took her children with her when she went to vote. They are very young children, and the poll worker said to them, “You’ll be able to vote when you are 21.” Think about that for a minute–that was a poll worker–shouldn’t she be aware of the voting age? It’s not only the voters who are unaware of what is going on–it’s the poll workers!

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Why You Should Not Believe Anything You See On Television

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We are in the last days of the silly season for this election. We will be seeing news stories and pictures designed to change your mind. Some of them will be real, and some of them will be totally false. To illustrate the fact that things are not always what they seem, I am posting a YouTube video below:

Keep this video in mind as you watch the political ads making the closing arguments.

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What I Learned On The Radio This Morning

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First of all, I would like to thank DaTechGuy for inviting me on his radio show. He blogs at DaTechGuyBlog.com and has been one of the few people who has been investigating the numbers behind the numbers in the Presidential polls.

Second of all, I would like to apologize for my Emily Latella moment (if you don’t understand that, google the name and you will find numerous video clips). I asked a candidate running for the U. S. House of Representatives about a state issue. Just for the record, the issue was forced unionization of family run daycare centers. This was on my mind because I had blogged about it earlier in the week (rightwinggranny.com).

Now to my point. One of the guests on DaTechGuyOnDaRadio this morning (if you missed the show, it will be up on DaTechGuy’s blog sometime this week) was Doctor Andrew Smith. Dr. Smith is the Director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, which specializes in election polling. Dr. Smith has been involved in polling since the mid 1980’s.

Dr. Smith pointed out that a poll is simply a specialized conversation. His organization randomly selects the people that they poll. There are two main aspects to taking a poll. First, will people talk to you? This can depend on the political situation at the time. If the candidate a person supports is not doing well, that person may be reluctant to talk to a pollster. Second, is the person you are polling being completely honest? Are they simply giving the pollster answers in order to make themselves look good? In many cases if a person is asked if they are likely to vote, they will answer yes because voting is considered a good thing–not because they actually intend to vote.

In polling the public, a pollster needs to ask questions people might actually have the answers to. If a pollster is asking very specific questions about a piece of legislation, the person answering may simply give an answer in order to avoid appearing ignorant.

The key to a successful poll is a random sample and interviewers that exactly follow the script they are given. The wording of questions and the order of questions can determine the answers that will be given.

When evaluating a poll, find out who is doing it and why. It is probably not a good idea to take polls conducted by candidates too seriously.

Most of the time a random sample will be accurate. One reason polls get more accurate as the election nears is that people begin to pay attention. In some cases, voters are not focused on the election until the week before and will give an answer to a pollster a month before that may change when the voter starts paying attention.

Dr. Smith described polling as an art with a scientific method behind it. I think that is a very accurate description.

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A Surprisingly Fair Article About Newt Gingrich

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Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House. November ...

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As of right now, I am not willing to handicap the Republican race for the White House. However, I do think Newt Gingrich is one of the smartest candidates we have had in a while in terms of understanding American history and what America is. I think he has some interesting ideas, but I think he is extremely vulnerable to attacks from the left on many aspects of his personal life.

National Public Radio posted an article today called, “5 Things You May Not Know About Newt Gingrich.” It is not an earth-shattering article, but it is actually reasonably fair. The article is slightly skewed to relate things that some Republicans may have problems with–for instance, the fact that he was not the main force between the impeachment of Bill Clinton–but many Republicans will view that as the result of being politically astute. Please follow the link and read the entire article–there was actually some new information in it!

 

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