Right Wing Granny

News behind the news. This picture is me (white spot) standing on the bridge connecting European and North American tectonic plates. It is located in the Reykjanes area of Iceland. By-the-way, this is a color picture.

Right Wing Granny

Questions, Questions, Questions

On Thursday Monster Hunter Nation posted the following:

I noticed yesterday that I was having lots of strangers show up to scream at me whenever I posted any information about election fraud, but they were all low information types just barfing up “fact checks” which was basically whatever the news had just told them, but none of them had the basic knowledge of how fraud works to even sorta discuss any of the actual data. So I got curious and posted the following on facebook:

One quick question, only answer if you have worked in auditing/stats/fraud/investigations/or other data analysis type fields. In your entire career, have you ever seen a case that threw up this many flags that DID NOT turn out to be fraud?

Again, flags are not proof. They are merely anomalies which would cause an auditor to check. Nor am I claiming this is a scientific poll (though I’d bet I’m still more accurate than Nate Silver!). There is of course a sampling bias as I know many of these people in meat space (and their resumes on this topic are killer) but it was also open to the public so anyone could comment and it got shared a hundred times.

The consensus thus far is overwhelming. No. Not only no but hell no. There have been a few hedging their bets (but they are still suspicious) and zero saying that there is nothing wrong (like in every single other thread, where I get screamed at by Dunning-Krugerands). I’m not claiming this is an accurate sampling of every professional of this type in America, but it is pretty telling.

These are some of the comments posted in the article:

#

Big Six accounting for four years. #4 global investment bank, running the antifraud unit, also for 4 years.

No.

#

Worked in immigration fraud for many years and currently an Intel analyst at a different agency. Just the sheer number of statistical anomalies covered here and elsewhere raises so many red flags, it’s like all the coaches in the NFL started frantically tossing their challenge flags. Then there’s the poll worker shenanigans in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania that tells me the Democratic city machines in those states were going “Fuuuck, he’s behind! Quick, find more Biden only ballots!”…..

#

No. 25 yrs investigating financial fraud and money laundering. Where there is smoke there is fire. When you have this many unconnected witnesses saying the same/similar things, that is very strong corroboration. Not evidence of made up stories.

#

I was a CPA for 45 years and never saw anything as suspicious as this election.

#

25 years of investigating white collar crime, primarily complex DoD contracting fraud. Something with this many allegations would absolutely deserve a very thorough preliminary investigation. The Hunter Biden situation would have already gotten an accepted referral to an AUSA for gj subpoenas for records.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. There is something very fishy going on here. Unfortunately, I suspect that when the truth is revealed, it will not unite the nation.

We Need Much More Of This

CBN News is reporting the following today:

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and their international counterparts arrested 113 alleged child predators across the US and South America from Nov. 2 – 6 in what is described by the Department of Homeland Security as phase seven of Operation Protected Childhood. (OPCVII)

Working in cooperation with Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and the Public Security and the Public Security Secretariat for Integrated Operation Cyber Laboratory, the agency’s operation simultaneously targeted the distributors and producers of child sexual abuse material throughout the Americas.

Law enforcement agencies in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Panama coordinated with Homeland Security field offices in their respective countries during the sweep.

Here in the US, Homeland Security field offices working with local law enforcement officials in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Tennessee, California, Colorado, and Florida executed a combined 13 child exploitation-related search warrants and made nine arrests for child exploitation offenses. 

Simultaneously, international law enforcement partners in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Panama also executed search warrants in their respective countries, totaling the following arrests: 

    • Brazil – 137 child exploitation related search warrants and 74 arrests
    • Argentina – 37 child exploitation related search warrants and 23 arrests
    • Paraguay – 2 child exploitation related search warrants and 2 arrests
    • Panama – 7 child exploitation related search warrants and 5 arrests

ICE officials especially praised Brazil for its efforts in the ongoing Operation Protected Childhood.

Thank God for law enforcement officers who are willing to search out and find the people exploiting innocent children. Please follow the link to read the entire article for further details.

Have The Democrats Invented A Time Machine?

The Epoch Times reported yesterday that many of the absentee ballots sent out in Pennsylvania were returned with postmarks earlier than the date they were sent out. Wow.

The article reports:

More than 20,000 absentee ballots in Pennsylvania have impossible return dates and another more than 80,000 have return dates that raise questions, according to a researcher’s analysis of the state’s voter database.

Over 51,000 ballots were marked as returned just a day after they were sent out—an extraordinary speed, given U.S. Postal Service (USPS) delivery times, while nearly 35,000 were returned on the same day they were mailed out. Another more than 23,000 have a return date earlier than the sent date. More than 9,000 have no sent date.

The state’s voter records are being scrutinized as President Donald Trump is challenging the results of the presidential election in Pennsylvania and other states where his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, holds a tight lead. The Trump campaign is alleging that invalid ballots have been counted for Democrats and valid ballots for Republicans were thrown away.

The analysis of the publicly available data was conducted by a data researcher who submitted it first to the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times. The researcher, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he consulted about the matter with several USPS field engineers, who said the return dates shown in the database are “impossible.”

Please follow the link above to the article as it includes a number of screenshots illustrating the problem.

The article also notes:

According to the data analyzed by the researcher, at least 31 people who appear to be older than the oldest known person in the state returned ballots. They were all born between 1900 and 1907, based on the state’s data. The oldest known person in the state is 113-year-old Ardith Grose.

About 20 of the voters shared the birth date of Jan. 1, 1900. The date corresponds to an allegation in Michigan, where a poll watcher said he saw operators adding people to the poll book while they were counting their mail-in ballots, raising concern that these voters weren’t properly registered and thus were ineligible to vote. The operators input the names with fabricated birth dates, such as Jan. 1, 1900, according to a sworn affidavit by the poll watcher.

Another analysis of the Pennsylvania data showed that the extremely old voters were mostly registered Democrats.

Stay tuned.

Strange Events In Michigan And Pennsylvania

One America News posted an article yesterday about some shenanigans in the vote counting in Michigan. The article includes a video about vote counting in Michigan.

Project Veritas posted the following video on youtube:

Project Veritas posted a similar video on youtube about shenanigans in Pennsylvania:

 

There are some states that need to vote again–their vote counting has not been reliable.

This Shouldn’t Even Be A Question

The Epoch Times is reporting the following today:

A Pennsylvania appellate court on Thursday ruled in favor of guaranteeing Republican observers the right to watch ballot counts from no more than six feet away.

Commonwealth Judge Christine Fizzano Cannon, a Democrat, said that effective immediately “all candidates, watchers, or candidate representatives be permitted to be present for the canvassing process pursuant to 25 P.S. § 2650 and/or 25 P.S. § 3146.8 and be permitted to observe all aspects of the canvassing process within 6 feet, while adhering to all COVID-19 protocols, including, wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.”

“I can’t stress how big a victory this is,” President Donald Trump deputy campaign manager Justin Clark told reporters on a phone call.

Campaign officials said that observers had been forced to watch ballots being counted from as far away as 100 feet.

Election officials used a barricade and some type of security guard to keep observers from getting closer, Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, told reporters in Philadelphia, outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where absentee ballots are being tabulated.

I don’t mean to be cynical here, but people who are doing things honestly generally don’t mind being watched. Unfortunately there is a reasonable chance that the Biden campaign will steal this election. There are too many irregularities in key states for those irregularities to be a coincidence.

The Need To Count All Of The Votes

Just the News posted an article today about one aspect of ballot counting in this election that I have not yet seen mentioned–the absentee military ballots.

The article reports:

Military ballots for the 2020 presidential election remain uncounted in a number of key swing states, a spokesperson for a voter advocacy group told Just the News.

One state that could make a difference is Georgia, said a spokesperson for Count Every Hero, a group that advocates to make sure that ballots from overseas military personnel are counted.

In 2016, overseas military voters cast 5,203 votes in Georgia, according to the organization.

…Other states also have significant numbers of uncounted military ballots, the group said. They include the following:

    • Nevada, which counts service members’ ballots that arrive by Nov. 10. In 2016, overseas military members and their families cast 2,677 votes.
    • North Carolina, which counts military ballots that arrive by Nov. 12. As of Wednesday night, 4,200 of those ballots had not been tallied.
    • Pennsylvania, which counts military ballots that arrive by Nov. 10. As of Wednesday morning, 10,478 of those ballots remained uncounted.

The article concludes:

Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin counts overseas military ballots that arrive by Election Day. The group did not provide numbers on un-tallied ballots from those states.

Stay tuned.

 

About That Mail-in Voting Idea

The Daily Wire posted an article yesterday listing some of the problems already encountered with mail-in and absentee ballots during this election.

The article reports:

The U.S. Postal Service has reportedly launched an investigation after mail—including absentee ballots—were discovered this week along a road in the swing state of Wisconsin.

“According to the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office, three trays of mail were discovered shortly before 8 a.m. Monday in a ditch along State 96 at Outagamie county CB in Greenville,” the Post Crescent reported. “The mail was on its way to the post office and the sheriff’s office turned it over to the postal inspector. The mail was mixed and did contain ‘several’ absentee ballots.”

In another instance:

The news comes after federal law enforcement officials discovered that some military ballots had been discarded in the swing state of Pennsylvania and that out of all the discarded ballots that had been opened, they all had voted for President Donald Trump.

“The FBI has recovered a number of documents relating to military ballots that had been improperly opened by your elections staff, and had the ballots removed and discarded, or removed and placed separately from the envelope containing confidential voter information and attestation,” U.S. Attorney David J. Freed said in a letter to Shelby Watchilla, Director of Elections of Luzerne County Bureau of Elections.

“Specifically, a total of nine (9) military ballots were discovered to have been discarded,” the letter continued. “Seven (7) of those ballots when discovered by investigators were outside of any envelope. Those ballots were all cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump. One (1) of those seven (7) ballots was able to be identified to an envelope that was recovered, and thereby potentially tied to a specific voter. Two (2) military ballots that had been discarded were previously recovered by elections staff, reinserted into what appeared to be their appropriate envelopes, and then resealed. Therefore, the votes cast on those two (2) ballots are unknown. Thus, is appears that three (3) of the nine (9) recovered ballots can be potentially attributed to specific voters. Six (6) of the ballots were simply removed and discarded, and cannot be attributed to a specific voter at this time.”

Yet another instance:

Also on Thursday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced more than 100 felony charges in an illegal ballot harvesting scheme in a Democrat Primary.

“It is an unfortunate reality that elections can be stolen outright by mail ballot fraud. Election fraud, particularly an organized mail ballot fraud scheme orchestrated by political operatives, is an affront to democracy and results in voter disenfranchisement and corruption at the highest level,” Attorney General Paxton said in a statement. “Mail ballots are vulnerable to diversion, coercion, and influence by organized vote harvesting schemes. This case demonstrates my commitment to ensuring Texas has the most secure elections in the country, and I thank the Gregg County Sheriff and District Attorney for their continued partnership. Those who try to manipulate the outcome of elections in Texas must be held accountable.”

We need in-person voting with voter id. Note that Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are both considered swing states.

American Ingenuity At Work!

The Daily Wire posted an article yesterday about a very unique church service.

The article reports:

In footage of two instances that went viral on Thursday and Friday, Christians gathered in the government-approved venues of a Pennsylvania Wal-Mart and a Las Vegas casino to engage in the worship that authorities have deemed non-essential.

In a Thursday tweet that was retweeted by Vice President Mike Pence, Faith and Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed posted footage of a worship service in a Vegas casino, writing, “Packed house at #EvangelicalsForTrump prayer & praise event in Las Vegas. NV Governor banned church services but casinos can operate at 50% capacity. So we are praying in a casino.”

…According to The Post Millennial, a similar event also took place recently in the grocery section of a Wal-Mart in North Versailles, Pennsylvania, a town near Pittsburgh. In April, Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolfe urged churchgoers to find different ways to practice their religion than gathering in churches. “Religious leaders are encouraged to find alternatives to in-person gatherings and to avoid endangering their congregants,” he advised. “Individuals should not gather in religious buildings or homes for services or celebrations until the stay-at-home order is lifted.”

Wolf took flak when he broke his own state’s coronavirus lockdown restrictions in June by marching in solidarity with hundreds of protesters in Harrisburg following the death of George Floyd. In Harrisburg’s Dauphin County, gatherings were restricted to 25 people or fewer at the time, according to Pennsylvania’s color-coded reopening plan.

The article concludes:

The coronavirus pandemic has increased the tension between civil and ecclesiastical authorities nearly to the breaking point in states such as California, where many congregations are defying Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s July 13 order that re-instated lockdowns for churches and other establishments deemed non-essential by state authorities.

This week, Ventura County sued Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Thousand Oaks, California, for holding no-mask, no-distance indoor services. Rob McCoy, its senior pastor, said, “We would be the first to be masked and distanced, and willingly so, if this were meriting it, and it doesn’t. This isn’t a health issue, it’s an ideological issue.”

Grace Community Church, a congregation in Los Angeles pastored by prominent author and theologian John McArthur, also made headlines last month when he and the church elders penned an extensive statement explaining why they believe the secular government did not have legitimate authority to forbid in-person assembly indefinitely.

Explaining how they complied with state mandates at first, the church leaders justified their civil disobedience in part by claiming that the lockdowns done in the name of public health were causing spiritual damage to their parishioners. “Opportunities for believers to serve and minister to one another have been missed,” they wrote. “And the suffering of Christians who are troubled, fearful, distressed, infirm, or otherwise in urgent need of fellowship and encouragement has been magnified beyond anything that could reasonably be considered just or necessary.”

We need to be very careful not to give up our civil liberties in the name of preventing the spread of a virus. We know a lot more about the coronavirus now than we did at the beginning. We have developed a few successful protocols for treating the virus, and we have a fairly good idea of who is at risk from the virus. It is time to reclaim our civil liberties before we lose them for good.

Is Voter Fraud Real?

One of the objections to voting by mail is the possibility of increased voter fraud. There are some politicians and media people that claim that voter fraud does not exist and that voting by mail would not be a problem. I would like to share a few articles that call that idea into question.

The first article was posted today at The Gateway Pundit.

The article reports:

In a Gateway Pundit exclusive a non-citizen in Oregon recently came forward and explained how the Oregon government automatically registered her to vote.

“I just want to highlight to American citizens this does happen. I don’t know why there’s this blind belief that it cannot happen. It does happen, it happened to me,” says a woman who has come forward to tell the story about how she, as a non citizen, ended up getting registered to vote without even knowing it, and had ballots sent to her.

Ever since the advent of vote-by-mail, elections integrity activists have pointed out all the different ways that such a system could be compromised.

While rumors have circulated for years that illegal aliens and non citizens were voting, most of the evidence pointing to such has been circumstantial, with few traces of actual hard evidence.

…Ballots started arriving in her mailbox in 2016, and continued through 2018, for a total of five elections. She says she likely would have received a sixth ballot had she not taken the steps to cancel her voter registration.

Thank God for her honesty.

The next article comes from WHSV Channel 3 in West Virginia.

The article reports:

West Virginia’s secretary of state says they’re investigating an absentee ballot fraud scheme in the state that was connected to the state’s mass effort for absentee voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the start of April, West Virginia county clerk’s offices began an effort to mail absentee ballots to every registered voter in the state.

West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner announced the plan at the end of March.

Essentially, every voter registered in the state was sent ab absentee ballot application to their registered address.

State leaders encouraged all voters to fill out the applications and submit them to their county clerk in order to receive an absentee ballot for the election, and then mark the ballot according to state instructions by election day. And voters responded, with about 18% of West Virginia’s registered voters requesting absentee ballots for the June 9 primary election.

Now, on May 21, Secretary of State Mac Warner announced that his office had investigated a ballot fraud scheme and referred their findings to the United States Attorney for prosecution.

According to Warner, allegations of the scheme were referred to and investigated by the WV Election Fraud Task Force, which is a multi-agency law enforcement effort that was formed in April as a way to deter potential voter and election fraud with upcoming elections. Investigators responded to a complaint quickly, and Warner said the absentee ballot fraud scheme was uncovered early and will have no impact on the outcomes of any elections.

However, West Virginia law prevents Warner from disclosing any facts or details of the investigation.

The third article was posted at Front Page Magazine on Friday.

The article reports:

A former Judge of Elections has been convicted for his role in accepting bribes to cast fraudulent ballots and certifying false voting results during the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primary elections in Philadelphia. 

“Demuro fraudulently stuffed the ballot box by literally standing in a voting booth and voting over and over, as fast as he could, while he thought the coast was clear. This is utterly reprehensible conduct. The charges announced today do not erase what he did, but they do ensure that he is held to account for those actions,” said U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

…Domenick J. Demuro pled guilty in March to the charges in a filing that was unsealed Thursday, the DOJ said. He admitted to being directed by an unnamed political consultant to inflate votes for “clients and preferred candidates” in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primaries in exchange for “money and other things of value.” While he only cast 27 fraudulent ballots in the 2014 election, 40 votes in May 2015, and 46 in 2016, election results showed that the numbers accounted for over 22 percent of the total votes cast from Demuro’s voting location in 2014, over 15 percent in 2015, and over 17 percent in 2016.

You get the picture. Voter fraud does exist. If voting by mail is put in place, we will have voter fraud on steroids. If you value the republic and honest elections, you will not support voting by mail.

When Law And Order Are Out Of Order

Yesterday Todd Starnes posted an article at Townhall about an incident near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The article reports:

Mrs. Smith’s 7-year-old son had just completed a zoom class from the den of their home when she received an urgent email from her son’s first grade teacher.

It just so happened that the little boy had recently been gifted a toy gun and the child had placed his “new favorite thing” on the table next to the computer.

“Another parent had been very uncomfortable by the fact that the gun had been in view of the zoom call,” Mrs. Smith said on my radio show. “It’s such an innocent thing that someone used to make a judgment and an accusation.”

A few hours after they received the email, there was a knock at the front door. It was the police.

“The police officer came to our door right after breakfast and asked us to step outside of our home as a result of the zoom call,” she told me.

Mrs. Smith’s husband tried to explain to the officer that there were no guns in the house – other than the toy gun that their son had received. 

“He essentially lectured us on child safety and the fact that our children are too young to interact with any guns and weapons,” she said.

The officer said it did not matter that it was a toy gun and he continued to lecture the couple. 

“I said, this is a toy. No one is unsafe in our home. Everyone is safe and well and healthy,” she said. “They took it very seriously as if there was some sort of chance we had weapons in the home.”

The article concludes:

Mrs. Smith said her children were terrified by the police visit.

“They were scared their parents were going to go to jail that day for something that was completely untrue,” she said.

The family was not cited and there were no follow up visits from authorities, but they were definitely shaken by the ordeal.

“What really troubled me was the fact that someone made a claim, an accusation with zero facts,” she said. “It was completely bogus and it left our kids really scared.”

Life is returning to normal for the Smith family, but they have made one important decision regarding education.

“We opted out of zoom calls,” she said.

The German government perfected the process of snitching on neighbors during the 1920s and 1930s – leading up to World World II. It’s horrifying to imagine that such tendencies might exist in modern day America.

There are a lot of disturbing things here. Why didn’t the ‘concerned’ parent just call the parents without getting the police involved? Why were the police concerned about a toy gun–haven’t they got better things to worry about? Has it occurred to anyone that when children grew up playing cops and robbers with guns that there were fewer mass shootings?

 

Calling His Bluff

Jim Acosta has been very vocal during the President’s briefings on the coronavirus. At one point when President Trump stated that he thought that voting by mail is an invitation to fraud, Jim Acosta demanded evidence. Well, the President obliged.

Breitbart posted an article yesterday with some examples.

The article reports:

Trump replied, “I think there’s a lot of evidence, but we’ll provide you with some, okay?”

The president’s re-election campaign responded quickly to Acosta’s request, noting there were nine people charged in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas with “vote harvesting” and mail ballots, a political operative in New York stealing and submitting absentee ballots, and a resident in Pennsylvania receiving seven separate ballots in the mail.

The campaign also shared a Heritage Foundation document of over 1,000 proven cases of vote fraud.

“Democrats and the mainstream media always scoff at claims of voter fraud, but then completely ignore evidence from across the country,” Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement. “The obvious reason is that Democrats are just fine with the possibility of voter fraud. And many in the media just see the world their way.”

The Trump campaign also quoted an election expert in the New York Times who said although election fraud was rare, “the most common type of such fraud in the United States involves absentee ballots” through the mail.

President Trump cited ongoing legal action from Judicial Watch forcing states to clear millions of ineligible voter registrations within 90 days as proof of voter fraud.

The White House also shared details of 2005 commission led by President Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush’s secretary of state James A. Baker III that concluded mail-in ballots “remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”

“Outside those in the establishment media who are more interested in attacking the President than the facts, there’s a clear consensus that universal mail-in voting would be vulnerable to fraud,” a White House source told Breitbart News in a statement.

Every fraudulent vote cancels the vote of an American citizen who has the right to vote. The examples above are only one of many reasons why instead of voting by mail, we need voter id laws that require photo identification to vote. That will not entirely solve the voter fraud problem, but it will go a long way in that direction.

The Search Continues…

Yesterday John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about a story The New York Times ran about a disgruntled Trump voter. The article in The New York Times was posted in October. It was about Mark Graham, a real estate appraiser in Erie, Pennsylvania.

The New York Times reported:

Mark Graham, a real estate appraiser in this faded manufacturing hub [Erie, Pennsylvania], sat with friends at a gym named FitnessU on the morning after the Democratic debate in mid-September. He had voted for Barack Obama, but in 2016 he took a gamble on Donald Trump.
***
“Things have changed in the last couple weeks: More stupidity has come out,” Mr. Graham, 69, said in a telephone interview last week. He hopes Democrats nominate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., but he is not particular. “I’d vote for the Democratic nominee no matter who it is at this point,” he said.

Well, voting records are public. It turns out that Mr. Graham did not vote in 2016.

The article at Power Line Blog continues:

Fast forward a month, to November 12. Now the Times reports, excitedly, on a new anti-Trump ad campaign being undertaken by David Brock’s disreputable organization, American Bridge:

A Democratic group unveiled a $3 million advertising campaign Tuesday featuring people who supported President Trump but now regret it, the first wave of a yearlong effort to reclaim some of the voters in the industrial Midwest who helped tip the 2016 election.

The group, American Bridge, will air commercials in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that are first-person testimonials from residents of each state explaining why they backed Mr. Trump in 2016 and why they will not do so again next year.

The Times proudly noted its own role in tracking down anti-Trump converts:

The disaffected Trump voter who appeared in the Pennsylvania spot — Mark Graham of Erie, Pa. — was featured in a New York Times article last month.

It is reasonable to assume that American Bridge found Mr. Graham via the Times article.

Unfortunately, neither American Bridge nor the Times thought to check the Erie, Pennsylvania voting records to confirm Mr. Graham’s claim that he voted for President Trump in 2016. It turns out he didn’t:

An allegedly regretful Trump voter in Pennsylvania, highlighted in videos by a Democratic political action committee and by The New York Times, never actually voted in 2016.

News organization JET 24, an ABC affiliate, found after checking county voting records that Mark Graham of Erie County, Pennsylvania, did not vote in the presidential election three years ago.
***
[T]he Trump campaign noted Friday that American Bridge has yet to take down its ad or apologize.

The New York Times has run a correction:

After this article was published, local news media reported that Mark Graham did not vote in the 2016 election. The Times has confirmed that Mr. Graham did not vote in the election. While Mr. Graham acknowledged misspeaking about his voting record, he said the article accurately reflects his feelings about the 2016 race and President Trump’s performance in office.

I guess that’s sort of an apology for their lack of research. It gives me hope that the mainstream media is having so much trouble finding everyday Americans who regret voting for President Trump.

Once A Community Organizer, Always A Community Organizer

President Obama has reentered the political scene. He is in the process of buying a beautiful waterfront home on Martha’s Vineyard. He is also involved in an organization called “Redistricting U.” The organization’s website is Allontheline.org.

Here is some information from the website:

  • “I’ve always believed that training is at the heart of organizing. It’s why I made it a priority in my 2008 campaign and throughout our larger movement for change in the years since. … The movement for fair maps will determine the course of progress on every issue we care about for the next decade. And we can’t wait to begin organizing when the redistricting process starts in 2021. We need to build this movement from the ground up – right now.” — President Obama
  • As a campaign of the National Redistricting Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) organization, All on the Line’s primary purpose is the advocacy and the promotion of social welfare. However, in limited instances, and only when consistent with our values and mission, All On The Line may engage in grassroots electoral work.
  • All On The Line is a campaign of the National Redistricting Action Fund (NRAF), an affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), which is chaired by Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States.
  • The All On The Line campaign began, in part, when NRAF combined forces with Organizing for Action, an organization founded by Obama aides that grew out of President Obama’s campaign infrastructure. The power of ordinary people coming together to enact change is central to the beliefs of President Obama and Eric Holder, and they are both active in this effort and supportive of this campaign.

The states targeted by this organization for redistrict6ing are Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. It is interesting that all but one of these states voted for President Trump in 2016. President Trump lost in Colorado by less than 5 percent.

So what is this really about? President Obama is watching his legacy being destroyed as President Trump is rebuilding the American economy. President Trump is on track to be reelected despite the efforts of the mainstream media and the hysterics of the Democrat presidential candidates. Redistricting reform is the name President Obama is giving to his efforts to make sure President Trump is not reelected.

 

The Auto Industry Has Lost A True Innovator

CNN is reporting today that auto industry icon Lee Iacocca has died. He was 94. He is credited as having played a major role in the creation of the Ford Mustang and the Chrysler minivan. As someone who has driven Ford Mustangs since the early 2000’s, I am grateful for his inventions.

The article reports:

Born Lido Anthony Iacocca in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 15, 1924, to Italian immigrant parents, he would go on to lead two major American car companies.

Iacocca started working at Ford Motor Company in 1946, and was a major figure in the development of the Ford Mustang — the first vehicle of its kind. He was named president of Ford in 1970, but was fired by Henry Ford Jr. in 1978.

“I began my life as the son of immigrants, and I worked my way up to the presidency of the Ford Motor Company,” Iacocca wrote in his 1984 autobiography. “When I finally got there, I was on top of the world. But then fate said to me: ‘Wait. We’re not finished with you. Now you’re going to find out what it feels like to get kicked off Mt. Everest!'”

He was then hired by Chrysler Corp. in 1978 and became the company’s CEO in 1979. He is credited with saving the company from bankruptcy.

Iacocca urged Congress to authorize the Treasury Department to guarantee $1.5 billion in bank loans for Chrysler. Chrysler needed the bailout to survive back to back recessions in the early 1980s. Chrysler repaid the loans early. Treasury made money on the stock it received as part of bailout packages.

With the help of more fuel efficient and competitive products such as the so-called K-cars — which included the Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant — Chrysler became strong and profitable again.

Iacocca led Chrysler during an era in which Asian and European imports first started to take a significant share of the US automakers’ portion of the American car market.

During the 1980’s and 1990’s, my husband was commuting 50 miles to work each way. We owned a significant number of K-cars during that time. I hope Lee Iacocca is spending his time in heaven designing a new breed of sports cars for angels to take for a spin!

He was truly an American success story.

This Is Good News

CNS News reported on Thursday that Pennsylvania has passed a law making Female Genital Mutilation as a first-degree felony in that state.

The article reports:

Currently, 32 states have laws against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), but women and girls are unprotected in 18 states, including Pennsylvania.

Murt added, “My bill has been endorsed by the AHA Foundation, established by human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali in 2007 to promote freedom from FGM, honor violence and forced marriages.”

He continued, “According to the group, more than 500,000 women in the United States are at risk of this procedure—166,000 women under age 18. The organization ranks Pennsylvania 11th in the nation for this risk, with more than 19,000 women at risk for the procedure, 6,000 of them under the age of 18.”

This is not a benign procedure. The procedure is painful and often done without proper anesthesia. The healing period is long and painful. The procedure can also cause frequent urinary infections in women. It can also cause problems in labor and the delivery of children. This is not an acceptable practice–it is barbaric. It should be outlawed regardless of its acceptance in some cultures. It is not acceptable in America.

Actions Have Consequences

Most Americans strive to preserve the environment, despite how the more radical environmentalists portray them. The problem occurs when there is a small risk to the environment but a benefit to people.  Anything civilization does will probably incur a small risk to the environment, but benefits and risks need to be weighed carefully. New York State is paying a price for the actions of some of its more radical environmentalists.

Yesterday Hot Air posted an article about some consequences of recent environmental activist victories.

The article reports:

If you know anything about New York in the modern era (both the state and the Big Apple), you’re likely aware that it’s not exactly a friendly landscape for the oil and gas industry. The “Keep it in the ground” crowd has a lot of influence with the Democrats who control the government. That why, back in 2013, when the new Constitution Pipeline was proposed to carry natural gas from Pennsylvania’s rich shale oil fields to New York, activists were able to block the construction despite it already having been approved by federal regulators. Similarly, when National Grid (the local energy consortium) requested an extension to the Williams Co. Transco pipeline, they were also tied up because of the outcry from environmental activists.

Here comes the surprise that nobody could have possibly seen coming. The city and its surrounding downstate region are still expanding with new construction projects, but their energy suppliers have told them that they will not be able to supply natural gas to any new customers because they’re already at capacity.

The article concludes with some interesting irony:

The additional ironic twist to all of this is they don’t even need those long pipelines to begin with. Or at least they wouldn’t need them if they were thinking clearly. The southern section of upstate New York is sitting on some of the richest natural gas deposits in the country in the form of the Marcellus Shale deposits. It’s the same formation delivering all of that natural gas over the border in Pennsylvania. But Andrew Cuomo and his Democratic buddies pushed through a moratorium on any and all natural gas drilling and it’s still in place today.

The state could be producing its own natural gas and supplying New York City more cheaply, but they’re refusing to do it out of spite. And now they’ve outstripped their fuel supply. This entire situation would be hilarious if it weren’t creating such a massive SNAFU for the energy grid.

I guess if you live in New York, you’d better make sure you have a working fireplace that you can cook on. The environmentalists put questionable science over the practical needs of people.

More Good Economic News

The following is a Press Release from U.S. Steel:

U. S. STEEL ANNOUNCES STATE-OF-THE-ART STEELMAKING TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT AT MON VALLEY WORKS

PITTSBURGH May 2, 2019–United States Steel Corporation (NYSE: X) announced today it will invest more than $1 billion to construct a new sustainable endless casting and rolling facility at its Edgar Thomson Plant in Braddock, Pa.,and a cogeneration facility at its Clairton Plant in Clairton, Pa., both part of the company’s Mon Valley Works. The cutting-edge endless casting and rolling technology combines thin slab casting and hot rolled band production into one continuous process and will make Mon Valley Works the first facility of this type in the United States, and one of only a handful in the world.

“This is a truly transformational investment for U.S.Steel.We are combining our integrated steelmaking process with industry-leading endless casting and rolling to reinvest in steelmaking and secure the future for a new generation of steelworkers in Western Pennsylvania and the Mon Valley,” said David B. Burritt, President and Chief Executive Officer of U.S.Steel. “U.S.Steel’s investment in leading technology and advanced manufacturing aligns with our vision to be the industry leader in delivering high-quality, value-added products and innovative solutions that address our customers’ most challenging steel needs for the future. We believe that adding sustainable steel technology to our footprint will create long-term value for our employees, our region, our customers and our investors.

The installation of endless casting and rolling technology will give U.S.Steela world-class asset that will improve the quality and attributes of its downstream products for customers in appliance, construction and industrial markets. With this investment, Mon Valley Works will become the principal source of substrate for the production of the company’s industry-leading XG3™ Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS) that assists automotive customers in meeting fuel efficiency standards. This project, in addition to producing sustainable AHSS, will improve environmental performance, energy conservation and reduce our carbon footprint associated with Mon Valley Works. First coil production is expected in 2022,contingent upon permitting and construction.

With this investment, U.S.Steel continues its more than a century-long commitment to innovative steelmaking in Pennsylvania. The technology will allow for optimization of the Mon Valley Works and other U.S.Steel facilities without increasing the company’s overall steelmaking capacity. The new endless casting and rolling facility will replace the existing traditional slab caster and hot strip mill facilities at the Mon Valley Works. Current and future employees will enhance their skills with more advanced manufacturing to operate and maintain the new facility through training programs developed in partnership with local universities.

As part of the project,U.S.Steel will also include construction of a new cogeneration facility, equipped with state-of-the-art emissions control systems at its Clairton Plant,to convert a portion of the coke oven gas generated at its Clairton Plant into electricity to power the steelmaking and finishing facilities throughout U.S.Steel’s Mon Valley operations.

Once completed, the new advanced steelmaking technology and state-of-the-art cogeneration facilities will incorporate the best available control technologies. Based upon current design and engineering data that is accompanying our air permit applications, we expect that the project will result in significant improvements in emissions compared to the existing facilities to be replaced, including reductions in emissions of Particulate Matter (PM) of approximately 60%, PM10 and PM2.5 of approximately 35%,sulfur dioxide of approximately 50%,and nitrogen oxides of approximately 80%. The project exemplifies our continued commitment to conserve resources and improve air quality in the Mon Valley.

Additional details on the investment, including an investor presentation,can be found at http://www.ussteel.com/MonValleyInvestment.

President Trump’s economic policies are working for everyone.

What Were These People Thinking?

Unfortunately politics is a blood sport. That is nothing new. It has been that way since the days of Julius Caesar.  Fortunately, not everyone in our nation who votes sees things that way. Many of us voice our opinions, but have no interest in threatening or promising to embarass people who do not do exactly what we want them to do. But there will always be a few people who say things or act in ways that actually harm their cause rather than help it.

Hot Air posted an article today that makes me wonder about the mentality behind a particular political campaign.

The article reports:

Supporters of Democratic candidate Scott Wallace in Pennsylvania’s First District have been going house to house and leaving some door hangers reminding people to vote. Nothing wrong with that message, of course, but these particular pieces are being described as Orwellian because of the implied threat they contain. Rather than simply saying you should get out and vote, the hangers have a cheerful message reminding the resident that records of whether or not you voted are public.

This is the door hanger:

I strongly believe everyone should vote. However, I wonder if this door hanger is helpful to the cause.

Private Property Rights

According to The American Policy Center:

In a “Fifth Amendment” treatise by Washington State Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Sanders (12/10/97), he writes: Our state, and most other states, define property in an extremely broad sense.” That definition is as follows:

“Property in a thing consists not merely in its ownership and possession, but in the unrestricted right of use, enjoyment, and disposal. Anything which destroys any of the elements of property, to that extent, destroys the property itself. The substantial value of property lies in its use. If the right of use be denied, the value of the property is annihilated and ownership is rendered a barren right.”

The right of use has come under fire in recent years. One instance of property rights being violated occurred recently in Pennsylvania.

Yesterday Todd Starnes posted the following:

The owners of a Pennsylvania farm have been ordered by the Sewickley Heights Borough to cease and desist holding Bible studies on their private property.

Borough leaders accused Scott and Terri Fetterolf of improperly using their 35-acre farm as a place of worship, a place of assembly and as a commercial venue.

They were served a cease-and-desist order in October 2017, the Post-Gazette reported.

The Independence Law Center filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the farmers against the borough alleging an egregious violation of the U.S. Constitution.

According to the lawsuit, the Fetterolfs were threatened with fines of $500 per day plus court costs for having Bible studies at their home, having meetings where religious songs are sung, conducting any religious retreats for church leaders or seminary students or conducting any religious fundraisers.

The article concludes:

The lawsuit accuses the government leaders of violating religious freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and equal protection.

“Government should not target religious activities for punishment, particularly when similar secular activities are permitted,” attorney Jeremy Samek said. “In America, no government can categorically ban people from assembling to worship on one’s property.”

To that point, the lawsuit alleges the borough allows other activities and gatherings – ranging from political rallies to a Harry Potter event.

So if government leaders allow muggles to cavort in Sewickley Heights Borough, they should afford the same rights to Christians gathering for Bible study on private property.

There are situations where it might be appropriate to limit a home Bible study–if parking becomes a problem in the neighborhood or if the noise level was inappropriate. However, this was on a farm–I doubt there was either a noise or a parking problem. This is simply an illegal attempt to limit religious activity, and I suspect the Sewickley Heights Borough will lose the case in court. However, the thing to remember here is that in many cases the people holding the Bible study would not have the resources to fight the case in court. There are a number of legal advocates for Christians under attack that are handling this sort of case. We should all be grateful for these organizations–they are protecting our right to the free exercise of our religious beliefs.

We Might Want To Deal With This Before November

The Washington Times posted an article today stating that The Public Interest Legal Foundation has identified more than 100,000 noncitizens who are registered to vote in Pennsylvania.

The article reports:

More than 100,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in Pennsylvania alone, according to testimony submitted Monday in a lawsuit demanding the state come clean about the extent of its problems.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation, which has identified similar noncitizen voting problems in studies of Virginia and New Jersey, said Pennsylvania officials have admitted noncitizens have been registering and voting in the state “for decades.”

But state officials have stonewalled PILF requests for access to the data that could expose the problem, the group says in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Harrisburg.

“For months, Pennsylvania bureaucrats have concealed facts about noncitizens registering and voting — that ends today,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said.

He said Pennsylvania had already admitted to a “glitch” dating back to the 1990s that had allowed noncitizens applying to renew driver’s licenses to be offered the chance to register to vote. Mr. Adams said he now wants to find out how bad the problem is overall.

Pennsylvania officials wouldn’t respond to the lawsuit, nor to the 100,000 noncitizen number.

The article further reports:

The PILF did manage to obtain some records from county officials and filed some of their findings in the new court case.

One man, Felipe Rojas-Orta, canceled his registration last year, filing a handwritten note saying he was not a citizen. He had, however, registered as a Democrat and voted in three separate elections, including most recently 2016, the year of the presidential race.

Another woman had her registration canceled in 2006 as a noncitizen, yet re-registered to vote twice — and cast ballots in some elections. That woman is still active in the system, the lawsuit says.

The federal “motor-voter” law requires states to make voter registration available at motor vehicle bureaus, but also pushes states to try to keep their voter roles clean. Under the law, private parties can sue to press states to perform the cleansing.

It is time to end “motor-voter.” States need to confirm the citizenship of people who are registering to vote. Noncitizens voting in our elections is a much more serious problem than any interference by foreign governments. It is also time for states to purge their voting records of dead people. There was a situation locally where a person checked the voter rolls and found out that there were three people claiming her home as residence in order to vote that did not live there. It was very difficult to get those people removed from the voting rolls. If we want honest elections, one place to start would be to clean up the voter rolls.

Some Of This Actually Makes Sense

On December 12, a website called Energy in Depth posted an article about some of the negative claims made about shale drilling in Pennsylvania. At this point, it might be a good idea to note that much of the negative information published about fracking has been funded by Saudi Arabia. Might it be that American energy independence is a threat to the middle east monopoly of energy?

At any rate, the article reports:

  • There was no identifiable impact on death rates in the six counties attributable to the introduction of unconventional oil and gas development. In fact, the top Marcellus counties experienced declines in mortality rates in most of the indices.”
  • “The proportion of elderly-to-total population increased significantly in the top Marcellus counties compared to the state. Based on this fact, death rates in these six counties would be expected to increase, but this expected increase did not occur.
  • Unconventional gas development was not associated with an increase in infant mortality in the top Marcellus counties, as the mortality rate significantly declined (improved), even surpassing the improvement of the state.”
  • “Unconventional gas development was not associated with an increase in deaths related to chronic lower respiratory disease (including asthma) in the top Marcellus counties, as the overall chronic lower respiratory disease mortality rate declined (improved) or was variable for the six-county area. The only exception was Greene County where the increased mortality rate was consistent with the increase in the elderly population.”
  • “During the period that unconventional gas development was introduced to these counties, the trends reflected a positive economic change in the area. Therefore, any increases in the death rates in the top Marcellus counties cannot be associated with negative changes to the economic viability of the population.”
  • “Unconventional gas development was not associated with an increase in deaths related to cancer, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, influenza or pneumonia, nephritis or nephrotic syndrome, or septicemia in the top Marcellus counties, as the mortality rates significantly declined (improved).”

The article reminds us that the money brought into the community through the development of natural resources actually increased the longevity of the citizens as the average household income and employment in these counties improved. In a nutshell, people with more disposable income often eat better and get better healthcare. That may not be fair, but that is the way the world works.

The article concludes:

The new report adds to the growing body of research that shale development is protective of public health, and has led to reductions in local air pollution.

The full report is available here. Mickley (Study author Sue Mickley) also recently discussed the report on Shale Gas News. Click here to listen to the interview.

 

When The Government Tries To Control Families

The American Spectator posted a story today that illustrates how twisted the government’s involvement in families can be.

One night on his way home from work, Greg Euston was involved in an auto accident. As a result of the accident, he was partially paralyzed. His parents stepped up to the plate to help with his care.

The story reports:

Today, Greg works from home as a software engineer. Next year, one son will graduate from college, and the other will begin his service in the U.S. Navy. While Greg still needs help with daily care, he has succeeded at the most important task that we parents face. He provides a loving home, education, and parental guidance for his children.

Getting in and out of bed, dressing, meal prep, and almost all other daily tasks require assistance. For 13 years, Greg has had an aide for 40 hours of every week. Tom and I take turns going to Greg’s house in the evenings. We rarely spend the night under the same roof.

This isn’t a job for us. This is caring for our son. This is necessary.

However, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf didn’t see it that way.

The article continues:

Like us, most of Pennsylvania’s 20,000 home care workers care for a family member or close friend. We learned of this scheme by mail when we were asked to elect the United Home Care Workers of Pennsylvania — a partnership of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) to represent us against our “employer.”

To represent us against our son.

Mr. Wolf went out of his way to share our names and contact information, without our consent or request, with those unions. The governor further stacked the deck by lowering the standard participation requirements for union elections. In the end, the union won with just 13 percent of home care workers voting “yes.”

I’m not opposed to unions, but forced representation? How could a union possibly improve our family’s situation? So far, the only “improvement” they propose is to limit when and how we care for our own son.

What’s in it for the union? As much as $8 million in dues annually. It’s a case of political payback, pure and simple.

AFCSME and SEIU were two of the largest contributors to Mr. Wolf’s gubernatorial campaign, donating nearly $1.5 million between them.

This is an example of elected officials working against the interests of those who elected them and for the interests of big donators. This was on the state level, but obviously things are not any different on the federal level. The fact that the unions can make large donations to candidates is the reason I support the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. If unions can buy candidates, corporations should also be able to buy candidates. At least that provides some degree of balance. If the people of Pennsylvania are smart, they will remove Governor Wolf from office when the next election occurs. If they do not remove him, they deserve what they get. In the end, the voters decide what level of corruption they are willing to tolerate.

 

Sometimes You Just Have To Wonder What Motivates People

In the 2016 Presidential Election, the third party candidates received about 4 percent of the votes. That is a combined total. Most estimates say that Jill Stein received about 1 percent of the vote. So why is Jill Stein demanding a recount? What does she have to gain?

Fox News posted an article today pointing out that Jill Stein’s call for a recount in several states has received twelve times more news coverage from ABC, NBC, and CBS than her campaign.

The article reports:

When Jill Stein was the Green Party’s candidate for U.S. president, the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) only gave her 36 seconds of coverage. However, as soon as she launched a campaign to contest the presidential election and demand a recount of ballots in several key states, the evening news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC managed to find 7 minutes and 26 seconds of coverage for her in just four days.

On November 26’s NBC “Nightly News,” anchor Lester Holt began a story on the recount by implying that the election may not be over yet, “if you thought the presidential election was behind us, word came today from the Hillary Clinton campaign that it will back the state-wide election recount effort put on by third party candidate Jill Stein in three key battle ground states.”

So what is going on? We all remember how the media treated Donald Trump. We all remember that the media did not want Donald Trump elected or his policies to be put in place. Why? Because the news media and the Democrats have a working system that pays well and provides access. Donald Trump is a threat to that system. Any doubt that can be thrown into the election results can be used to de-legitimize the Trump Presidency and the Trump Administration. That is part of the story. But there is even more. Jill Stein ended her campaign with serious campaign debt. She has already raised more money for the recount than she did for her campaign. (It would be interesting to know where the recount money is coming from.) The excess money raised for the recount can be used to pay off her campaign debt. Hillary Clinton has signed on to the effort because it keeps her in the spotlight in the hopes of running again in 2020. That is the only way foreign governments will continue paying large amounts of money to hear Bill Clinton speak or donate large amounts to the Clinton Foundation. There is no chance that the election results will be overturned (and a strong possibility that voter fraud on the part of the Democrats in Wisconsin may be discovered–The Gateway Pundit).

Get out the popcorn–this is going to be interesting.

The Definition Of Chutzpah

Chutzpah is a Yiddish word meaning shameless audacity; impudence. Every now and then, I find a really good example of the concept.

Yesterday Fox News posted a story about a group of refugees suing a school district in Pennsylvania because they feel that the district is not providing the quality of education they are entitled to.

The article reports:

“[The] Plaintiffs are refugees who have fled war, violence, and persecution from their native countries,” reads a statement from the lawsuit. “Having finally escaped their turbulent environment to resettle in America, these young immigrants yearn to learn English and get an education so they can make a life for themselves.”

The refugees hoped to enter McCaskey High School, known for its superior academic program, but instead were sent to Phoenix Academy, an alternative high school for “underachieving” students in the district. Phoenix students are subject to pat-downs, banned from bringing personal belongings like watches and jewelry and forced to wear colored shirts that “correspond with behavior.”

I would like to point out that there are also American students who were not permitted to attend McCaskey High School who attend the Phoenix Academy. Why should the refugees get preferential treatment?

The article reports:

Officials for the school district say the six students were sent to Phoenix for a special program geared towards their needs.

“[The District] believes the lawsuit is without merit,” Superintendent Damaris Rau said in a statement. “We are confident we are doing an excellent job supporting our refugee students who often come to school with little or no education.”

A special “acceleration program” at Phoenix was created for under-credited students, both refugee and non-refugee, which gives them the opportunity to earn credits toward a high school diploma by the age of 21, Rau said.  

At Phoenix, the students receive various services including remedial services, English classes for Second Language Learners, after school programs, job and computer skills as well as mentoring services, Rau added.

I wish the refugees well, but I find it rather amazing that a lawsuit would be brought when you consider that these refugees are being given a free education and whatever aid they need to help them settle here. I am sorry that they have been placed in a school that may not be the best in their city, but it seems to me that they need special classes in English and other skills that the school they are attending is providing. I really think that suing the school district is tacky.