Monthly Archives: November 2018

Where In The World Does This Appear In The U.S. Constitution?

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The Gateway Pundit reported today that the State of Maryland has filed a legal objection to President Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting Attorney General. When did state courts have any say over presidential appointments?

The article notes:

The state seeks a preliminary injunction that prevents the federal government from responding to the suit while Whitaker appears as acting attorney general. Instead, Maryland requests a declaration that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is the acting attorney general.

Jonathan Turley posted an article about the apointment of Matthew Whitaker.

The article states:

However, this morning some members and commentators have declared that Whitaker cannot serve as an Acting Attorney General under federal law.  I have to disagree.  While not getting into the merits of the selection, it seems clear to me that, under 5 U.S.C. 3345, that Whitaker does indeed qualify.  (This of course does not address the long-standing debate over the constitutionality of such laws.  A challenge can be made under the Appointment Clause of the Constitution, mandating that a “principal officer” in the federal government may not be appointed without Senate confirmation).

…I fail to see the compelling argument to disqualify Whitaker. Any challenge would face added challenge of finding someone with standing, though Mueller could contest an order on the basis of the legal status of Whitaker. That would make for an interesting challenge but the odds would be against Mueller over the long course of appeals.

The motive behind the lawsuit evidently has to do with fear that Matthew Whitaker will shut down the Mueller Investigation. That may be a valid fear, but I think a more valid fear would be that under Matthew Whitaker the Justice Department might actually take another look at how some people handled classified information during the Obama administration. Hillary Clinton was not the only person with classified information on a non-government secured device. An investigation into mishandling of classified information under President Obama would be a serious threat to many people who were in the Obama administration.

 

 

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.

Irregularities Continue

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported:

Avis Employee Finds Provisional Ballot Box and Election Signs in Back of Returned Broward County Car

An Avis employee at Ft. Lauderdale airport found a box labeled with the SOE (Supervisor of Elections) and the word “Provisional” in the back of the returned car on Sunday night. According to the Avis employee the last person to drive the car was a Broward County employee.

There is a protocol called “chain of custody” regarding moving election ballots. Obviously that protocol was not followed.

Today The Gateway Pundit posted an article with the following headline:

WTH?… Brenda Snipes Reveals Broward Elections Official Was Driving Around with Blank Provisional Ballots in Rental Car

…Brenda Snipes said she notified the Broward County police after finding out about the boxes; the officer who investigated, wrote a report concerning the contents of the box.

…“He [police officer] identified that there were..there’s a grey storage box that was labeled ‘provisional ballot box’ containing elections supplies and blank provisional ballots,” Snipes said.

Another orange box contained campaign signs and orange cones used for parking, according to the police report.

In a stunning display of arrogance, Snipes also rejected the notion that her elections office failed too act in accordance with the law; she even snubbed President Trump.

No one with any experience in election procedures would tolerate this behavior under any circumstances. There is no way that I believe there is not an attempt to steal an election in Florida. I will be amazed if the Republicans who had the majority of the votes on election night are still winners when the shenanigans are over.

 

Learning From History

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On October 31, Breitbart reported that after the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue on October 27, Jewish Americans are taking firearms training in record numbers. It is unfortunate that Jewish Americans feel the need for weapons training, but considering the lessons of history, it is perfectly understandable.

The article reports:

And while there are some members of the Jewish community pushing back against the idea of using guns to keep synagogues safe, Stern notes, “To wait for law enforcement to arrive simply is not the answer.”

Zev Guttman was afraid of guns until Saturday’s attack, but now he chooses to be armed. He said, “Everybody has to find a way to react; this is my way.”

Brooklyn borough president Eric L. Abrams reacted to the Pittsburgh attack by making clear he will be armed when he goes to a synagogue. He said, “It’s not popular, but it’s right.” He added, “We have to live in the real universe that we’re in.”

NY State Assemblyman Dov Hikind said, “I applaud and agree with Eric L. Adams and I am registering immediately for a gun license. And I encourage other Jews to do so to protect their institutions and synagogues. If we are targets, we need to be prepared.”

The following is from a National Review article from 2013:

In 1931, Weimar authorities discovered plans for a Nazi takeover in which Jews would be denied food and persons refusing to surrender their guns within 24 hours would be executed. They were written by Werner Best, a future Gestapo official. In reaction to such threats, the government authorized the registration of all firearms and the confiscation thereof, if required for “public safety.” The interior minister warned that the records must not fall into the hands of any extremist group.

In 1933, the ultimate extremist group, led by Adolf Hitler, seized power and used the records to identify, disarm, and attack political opponents and Jews. Constitutional rights were suspended, and mass searches for and seizures of guns and dissident publications ensued. Police revoked gun licenses of Social Democrats and others who were not “politically reliable.”

Our Second Amendment is important. Gun registration has too much opportunity to be abused to be a realistic policy. Are you willing to allow a government that in the past has spied on Americans and used government agencies to fight political opponents have access to information regarding gun ownership?

America would be a safer place if all law-abiding citizens took firearms training.

Why Immigration Matters

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Immigration with assimilation is a wonderful thing. Immigration without assimilation is a threat to the national sovereignty of the country involved. Massive immigration without assimilation will eventually change the public policies of the country involved. We are currently seeing that change in Britain.

National Review posted an article today about the case of Asia Bibi. The article was written by Douglas Murray.

The article reports:

When I wrote The Strange Death of Europe, I wanted to highlight the sheer scale of change that immigration brings. Some people might be happy with it, others unhappy: but to pretend that the change doesn’t occur, or won’t occur, or isn’t very interesting so please move along has always seemed an error to me. For instance, as I noted then, an internal document from the Ministry of Defence that leaked a few years back said that Britain would no longer be able to engage militarily in a range of foreign countries because of “domestic” factors. It takes a moment to absorb this. We’re used to wondering about how immigration changes domestic politics. But foreign policy as well?

All of this is to say that the latest news from the U.K. is both thoroughly predictable and deeply disturbing. Readers of National Review will be familiar with the case of Asia Bibi. She is the Christian woman from Pakistan who has been in prison on death row for the last eight years. Her “crime” is that a neighbor accused her of “blasphemy.”

Because it is not safe for Ms. Bibi to remain in Pakistan because of her Christian faith, she is seeking asylum in various western countries. Britain has stated that it will deny Ms. Bibi asylum.

The article reports:

But today there are reports that the British government has said that it will not offer asylum to Asia Bibi. The reason being “security concerns” — that weasel term now used by all officialdom whenever it needs one last reason to avoid doing the right thing. According to this report, the government is concerned that if the U.K. offered asylum to Bibi it could cause “unrest among certain sections of the community.” And which sections would that be? Would it be Anglicans or atheists who would be furious that an impoverished and severely traumatized woman should be given shelter in their country? Of course not. The “community” that the British government will be scared of is the community that comes from the same country that has tortured Asia Bibi for the last eight years.

The article concludes:

In any case, if it is true that the British government has declined to offer Asia Bibi asylum for this reason, then it should lead to a huge national and international outcry. Among other things, it suggests that the British government has got its priorities exactly the wrong way around. For it is not Asia Bibi who should not be in Britain. It is anyone from the “communities” who would not accept Asia Bibi being in Britain who should not be in the country. Though I wouldn’t expect any British politician to express that simple truth any time soon.

Immigration without assimilation is not a good thing for any country.

 

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.

 

 

The Problem With Taxes In America

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Walter Williams, a professor of economics at George Mason University, posted an article at The Daily Wire today about taxes.

Professor Williams noted a few things about taxes in America:

The argument that tax cuts reduce federal revenues can be disposed of quite easily. According to the Congressional Budget Office, revenues from federal income taxes were $76 billion higher in the first half of this year than they were in the first half of 2017. The Treasury Department says it expects that federal revenues will continue to exceed last year’s for the rest of 2018. Despite record federal revenues, 2018 will see a massive deficit, perhaps topping $1 trillion. Our massive deficit is a result not of tax cuts but of profligate congressional spending that outruns rising tax revenues. Grossly false statements about tax cuts’ reducing revenue should be put to rest in the wake of federal revenue increases seen with tax cuts during the Kennedy, Reagan and Trump administrations.

A very disturbing and mostly ignored issue is how absence of skin in the game negatively impacts the political arena. It turns out that 45 percent of American households, nearly 78 million individuals, have no federal income tax obligation. That poses a serious political problem. Americans with no federal income tax obligation become natural constituencies for big-spending politicians. After all, if one doesn’t pay federal income taxes, what does he care about big spending? Also, if one doesn’t pay federal taxes, why should he be happy about a tax cut? What’s in it for him? In fact, those with no skin in the game might see tax cuts as a threat to their handout programs.  (The underline is mine.)

The above information might explain why Democrats keep getting elected despite their overtaxation and reckless spending (yes, I know the Republicans also overspend).

The article concludes:

Another part of the Trump tax cuts was with corporate income — lowering the rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. That, too, has been condemned by the left as a tax cut for the rich. But corporations do not pay taxes. Why? Corporations are legal fictions. Only people pay taxes. If a tax is levied on a corporation, it will have one or more of the following responses in order to remain in business. It will raise the price of its product, lower its dividends to shareholders and/or lay off workers. Thus, only flesh-and-blood people pay taxes. We can think of corporations as tax collectors. Politicians love our ignorance about this. They suggest that corporations, not people, will be taxed. Here’s how to see through this charade: Suppose a politician told you, as a homeowner, “I’m not going to tax you. I’m going to tax your land.” I hope you wouldn’t fall for that jive. Land doesn’t pay taxes.

Getting back to skin in the game, sometimes I wonder whether one should be allowed in the game if he doesn’t have any skin in it.

It’s time to insure that everyone has some tax burden so that they will consider that burden when they vote.

Voter Fraud In Florida

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Below is an affidavit regarding the current ballot count in Broward County.

11 03 2016 Chelsey Smith SO… by on Scribd

The affidavit is posted at various places on the intehe rnet. The Gateway Pundit is one of those places.

The Gateway Pundit reports:

Former Florida Lieutenant Governor Jeff Kottkamp tweeted that there is an affidavit from a Florida campaign worker who states that he/she saw Broward County Elections staff filling out blank ballots!

In a previous article, The Gateway Pundit reported:

Matt Caldwell has followed Gov. Rick Scott’s lead in filing a lawsuit Friday against the Broward County Supervisor of Elections in one of the state’s closest races.

The campaign of the Republican candidate for agricultural commissioner sent a news release Friday afternoon announcing that his attorneys filed a lawsuit in the 17th judicial circuit “asking the court to protect the integrity of all ballots and all public records relating to the election for Commissioner of Agriculture.”

Caldwell thought he had edged out a victory in the agricultural commissioner race Tuesday night when he had about a 40,000 vote lead over Democratic candidate Nikki Fried.

But the latest vote count shows Caldwell losing by 3,120 votes to Fried. The difference between the candidates is .04 percent, signaling an automatic recount, and a likely manual recount.

This whole thing should be shut down immediately and those involved arrested and put in jail.  This impacts the entire nation, not just the crooks running Broward County elections.

The election results from Broward County need to be declared invalid. They should not be counted in any Florida race. If anyone complains about their vote not being counted, they should be reminded to choose honest election officials if they want their vote counted. The other solution is to fire everyone involved, charge them with voter fraud, appoint honest people to count the votes, and hold another election.

In Remembrance

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This was posted on my Facebook page today by a Facebook group:

Today we remember the awful night known as Kristallnacht. During the night of November 9-10, 1938 there were a series of attacks against Jews and Jewish businesses throughout Germany.

Kristallnacht, meaning the Night of Broken Glass, refers to the streets of Germany which were covered in broken glass belonging to the shops and windows of Jewish-owned buildings and synagogues.

During the night, 91 Jews were murdered and 30,000 were arrested and later deported to the concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Dachau. 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed.

Today we remember antisemitism suffered by Jews in Germany and do not forget that even today there are acts of antisemitism worldwide.

Never again!

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.

Respecting The Wishes Of Pro-Life Americans

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On Wednesday, Life News posted an article about some changes the Trump administration has made to ObamaCare health plans.

The article reports:

Today the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a new rule directing insurers selling Obamacare plans that cover elective abortion to collect a separate payment from enrollees for that coverage, as required by law. Under the Obama administration, insurers were allowed to collect these payments together in violation of clear statutory language.

In 2018, taxpayer-funded Obamacare insurance plans in 24 states and the District of Columbia are allowed to cover elective abortion with an embedded abortion surcharge. In 10 of those states more than 85 percent of Obamacare plans cover abortion on demand, including seven states where every single Obamacare plan for individuals and families covers elective abortion.

I don’t want to make abortion illegal–I want it available on the rare occasions it is medically necessary. However, I don’t want to be forced to pay for abortions that take place simply because a child is an inconvenience.

Because the Senate Republicans broke faith with the American people, we still have ObamaCare. Hopefully that will change in the near future.

The article concludes:

National Right to Life President Carol Tobias added, “We applaud President Trump and his administration for enforcing the law and seeking to uphold the principles of the Hyde Amendment to prevent the use of tax dollars to pay for abortion coverage.”

Another leading pro-life group praised the Trump administration for issuing the new rule.

“We thank President Trump and HHS Secretary Azar for enforcing the law and providing much-needed transparency about Obamacare’s abortion coverage,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser, in remarks to LifeNews.

She added: “Obamacare was the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion on demand since Roe. Then, the Obama administration went even further by allowing insurers to ignore the plain language of the law that said an abortion surcharge had to be collected separately. Instead, the Obama administration allowed the “separate” abortion surcharge to be collected along with regular premiums, effectively defining ‘separate’ to mean ‘together.’ Thanks to this trickery, millions of Americans have unwittingly purchased plans without knowing about the hidden abortion surcharge. Consumers deserve to know how Obamacare pays for abortion so they can avoid having their hard-earned dollars used to fund the destruction of innocent lives. Congress must still act to eliminate abortion funding from Obamacare, but until then, the rule issued today is an important step in the right direction.”

The law preventing taxpayers from paying for abortion has been in place for years. Those in Washington need to follow that law.

I’m Grateful We Didn’t Know About This When It Happened

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On Tuesday The Daily Telegraph posted a story about some events in the White House during the Clinton presidency.

The article reports:

For several months during Bill Clinton’s administration, a former top military officer says the White House lost the card with a set of numbers for opening the briefcase containing the codes for a nuclear attack.

Gen Hugh Shelton, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, said in his new memoir, “Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior” that “the codes were actually missing for months. That’s a big deal – a gargantuan deal.”

…A similar claim was made by Lt Col Robert Patterson, a former aide, in a book published seven years ago. He was one of the men who carried the briefcase, known as the “football”, and he said that the morning after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke that he made a routine request of the president to present the card so that he could provide an updated version.

“He thought he just placed them upstairs,” Lt Col Patterson recalled.

“We called upstairs, we started a search around the White House for the codes, and he finally confessed that he in fact misplaced them. He couldn’t recall when he had last seen them.”

The article also notes:

Former president Jimmy Carter was rumoured to have once left the “biscuit” in a suit that was sent to the dry cleaners.

Please follow the link above to the article–there are some very interesting quotes at the end. Meanwhile, it seems as if the people concerned about Donald Trump having the nuclear codes might want to check the skeletons in their own closets.

If You Voted Democrat, Was This What You Voted For?

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Yesterday The Federalist posted an article about some of the plans the Democrats have now that they will be the majority party in the House of Representatives. The dominant aspect of their plans has been obvious for a while–do anything they can to derail the Trump Agenda. That is rather logical considering that they are the opposition party, but I think some voters will be surprised at how far they are willing to go with this.

The article reports:

Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., revealed plans for House Democrats to investigate and impeach Justice Brett Kavanaugh for alleged perjury and investigate and impeach President Donald Trump for alleged treasonous collusion with Russia.

In post-election chats with various callers while riding the Acela train from New York to Washington, Nadler gave advice to a newly elected representative and discussed potential 2020 Democratic presidential nominees with another. He also lamented identity politics and the thriving economy and worried about Democrats losing working-class voters while gaining elite former Republicans and suburban women.

Although I hesitate to give the Democrats good advice, I would like to remind them what happened when the Republicans impeached President Clinton–the American people did not view the efforts favorably and the Republicans lost Congress. If the Democrats want to take that chance, they are welcome to, but it is a fool’s errand. The House of Representatives needs a simple majority to impeach, but the Senate needs a two-thirds vote–67 votes. That is highly unlikely. A very wise man once said, “Do not strike the king unless you kill him.” The political repercussions of attempting to impeach a Supreme Court Judge and a President would be overwhelmingly negative.

There is one other aspect of this I would like to mention. In recent years, more government policy has been set by the courts than by Congress. The political left is well aware of that fact. The biggest danger to the left from President Trump is the fact that he is naming judges who will follow the Constitution. That is the reason for the attack on both President Trump and Justice Kavanaugh. Congress has given over so much of its power to the courts that Congress is very close to irrelevant.

Ending An Illegal Practice

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Heritage.org posted an article today about the ending of Operation Choke Point. Operation Choke Point was the brainchild of the Obama Administration that was used to isolate financially businesses the administration did not approve of.

The article reports:

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.), who helped lead a multi-year effort to shut the program down, highlighted some of theses newest findings and pointed out that stopping Operation Choke Point is not a partisan issue.

Luetkemeyer’s legislation to prevent a redo of Choke Point – The Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2017 – overwhelmingly passed the House, with only two nay votes. Operation Choke Point was an egregious affront to the rule of law, so it is good to see that so many lawmakers want to prevent a repeat.

For those unfamiliar, Choke Point consisted of bureaucrats in several independent federal agencies taking it upon themselves to shut legal businesses – such as payday lenders and firearms dealers – out of the banking system. Given the nature of the U.S. regulatory framework, this operation was easy to pull off.

The Operation was carried out by the people in the F.D.I.C. who are supposed to be engaged in insuring that Americans who have placed money in American banks will not be bankrupted by a financial crisis.

The article explains:

Officials at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), for instance, simply had to inform the banks they were overseeing that the government considered certain types of their customers “high risk.” The mere implication of a threat was enough to pressure banks into closing accounts, because no U.S. bank wants anything to do with extra audits or investigations from their regulator, much less additional operating restrictions or civil and criminal charges.

Banks are incredibly sensitive to any type of pressure from federal regulators, and they know that the regulators have enormous discretion.

The article concludes:

It is now clear that these unelected government officials set out to harm law-abiding citizens. Yet many of the government officials named in these documents are still employed by the same government agency. Most of these folks work at the FDIC, and one has even moved up from a regional director position to FDIC Ombudsman.

At the very least, the Trump administration owes the public a full investigation into Operation Choke Point and an explanation for why many of the people involved in this abuse of power are still working for the government.

Operation Choke Point was mainly directed at banks dealing with payday lenders or any business related to gun sales. It was obviously a government shakedown of banks doing business with legal businesses. Hopefully the legislation passed to prevent this from happening again will be successful. Meanwhile, there are people in government who need to be held accountable.

 

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.

This Is A Problem Voter ID Will Not Solve

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about non-citizens voting in Texas.

The article reports:

Project Veritas dropped an undercover video earlier Tuesday showing election officials admitting “tons” of non-citizens are voting in Texas.

O’Keefe’s undercover video caught the attention of Texas Governor Gregg Abbott. “This will be investigated,” Abbott said of the non-citizens being encouraged to vote by election officials.

In the video, a Project Veritas undercover journalist asked a Texas election official if her “DREAMer” boyfriend can vote as long as he is registered to vote and has a driver’s license.

“Yeah okay” the election official responded.

“If he has his ID that’s all he needs. If he’s registered,” the election official said of a potential DACA voter.

“Right. It doesn’t matter that he’s not a citizen?” the PV journalist asked, adding, “I saw some mess on the internet that it’s not legal for him to vote because…”

“No. Don’t pay any attention to that. Bring him up here,” the Texas election official said.

When the Project Veritas journalist pressed the election official about her ‘DREAMer’ boyfriend and asked if there is an “issue with DACA people voting,” the election official responded, “No, you tell him no, we got a lot of ’em.”

Texas Governor Abbott said not only will he be launching an investigation into the elections officials, the illegal votes will be tossed out and lawbreakers will be prosecuted.

Unfortunately voter identification laws will not solve this problem–the young man had an ID and was registered to vote despite the fact that he was not a citizen. I am not sure if Texas has a way to track individual voters, but all votes from non-citizens should be disqualified.

Thank you, Project Veritas, for the work that you do.

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.

A Few Observations From The Polls

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I have visited my local voting place twice today. Don’t worry–I didn’t vote twice–my husband was handing out information, and I went to provide food and moral support. While I was there, I picked up some literature from the Democrats and investigated the talking points on their local website.

This is what I learned.

Their website states:

Democrats are standing up for the American Dream: an economy and government that works for everyone, not just the few.

Found on their Twitter page:

Hi kids, this is your Mom. Remember to vote on 11/6. If Trump cuts my Social Security and Medicare I’m moving in with you!

Both these statements are totally misleading.

The American Dream is more accessible to everyone under President Trump than it was under President Obama, a Democrat. According to a Western Journal article posted December 18, 2017:

The national unemployment rate for black Americans, ages 16 and over, is the lowest it has been in 17 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In November 2016, the unemployment rate for black people was at 8 percent, and in November 2017 that rate dropped to 7.3 percent — a percentage not seen since the months of September, October and November 2000.

As reported by CNS News, black unemployment rate during the Bush and Obama era’s fluctuated between 7 and 17 percent.

BLS data also shows that labor force participation among African-Americans rose from 61.9 percent in November 2016 to 62.2 percent in November 2017.

Unemployment rate for the Hispanic demographic fell from 5.7 percent to 4.7 percent — the lowest it’s been in 44 years, while the unemployment rate for whites and Asians hovered around 3 percent, roughly the same as one year prior.

About Social Security cuts–none of us can predict the future, but we can draw conclusions based on past behavior. This is the chart showing Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) to Social Security in recent years:

I know that it’s only a coincidence that one of the biggest increases in Social Security occurred in 2011, a year before the 2012 election.

As far as Medicare is concerned, the statements are also misleading. The Republicans are not the ones who have cut Medicare. Medicare funding was cut to fund ObamaCare. On August 13, 2012, Forbes Magazine reported:

You wouldn’t know it from listening to the Obama campaign, but there’s only one Presidential candidate in 2012 who has cut Medicare: Barack Obama, whose Affordable Care Act cuts Medicare by $716 billion from 2013-2022. Today, the Romney campaign reiterated its pledge to repeal Obamacare, and promised to “restore the funding to Medicare [and] ensure that no changes are made to the program for those 55 and older.”

If any of the above is news to you, you need to reconsider where you are getting your news. If you were already aware of the above information and voted Democrat, then it is obvious that facts will not get in the way of your opinion. Facts are such inconvenient things.

Something To Think About

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The confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh was ugly. He was confirmed, but there are those who will ignore the exculpatory evidence that has come out since the hearing and choose to believe he was guilty of the charges. There are two recent articles that detail that exculpatory evidence. Since the mainstream media will probably ignore these stories, I would like to summarize them. However, I also want to remind everyone that it is becoming obvious that an innocent man was almost destroyed for political reasons. That is totally unfortunate and unacceptable.

The Gateway Pundit posted an article yesterday about one of the charges against Justice Kavanaugh.

The article reports:

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released a 414 page report on Brett Kavanaugh over the weekend and confirmed that there is no credible evidence to support the sexual assault allegations.

The Committee interviewed 45 individuals and took 25 written statements relating to the various allegations against Kavanaugh, the Senate Judiciary said.

This is one of the most important facts uncovered in the report:

Grassley’s probe also revealed details behind ‘mistaken identity’ claims from two other witnesses who came forward claiming they were the ones who had the encounter with Christine Ford, not Brett Kavanaugh.

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee revealed in late September that they were talking to two men who thought they had the “encounter” with Christine Ford, not Brett Kavanaugh.

The Federalist posted a summary of the report yesterday.

These are some highlights from the article in The Federalist:

Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee differed in many respects from statements she made to her therapist, the Washington Post reporter who broke the story, and even from her initial letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Ford’s story morphed from a sexual assault by four boys in the mid-1980s, while she was in her late teens, to a sexual assault by one boy at a party attended by five people in 1982, when she was 15.

…In addition to these inconsistencies in Ford’s story, following the Senate hearing the public learned of another problem with her testimony when a former longtime boyfriend came forward. He contradicted Ford’s claim that she had never “had discussions with anyone, besides [her] attorneys, on how to take a polygraph,” and had never given “advice to somebody who was looking to take a polygraph test.”

The ex-boyfriend stated that “contrary to Dr. Ford’s testimony, she had helped prepare her roommate, former FBI agent Monica McLean, for a polygraph examination.” Grassley’s report includes the letter from Ford’s former boyfriend detailing his claim.

…Ford expanded on the effects, stating: “I struggled academically. I struggled very much in Chapel Hill and in college. When I was 17 and went off to college, I had a very hard time, more so than others, forming new friendships and especially friendships with boys, and I had academic problems.”

However, a former college acquaintance told the Judiciary Committee that Ford had “a fairly active and robust social life” in college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His letter added that Chrissy “seemed to have a number of other non-dating male friends, more guy friends perhaps than females,” and that she attended “frat house parties, some crowded and lasting very late in the evening,” as well as “smaller gatherings in male friend’s rooms or apartments.”

…Throughout the entire ordeal, many commentators—myself included—suggested that while Kavanaugh did not assault Ford, someone else may have. After hearing Ford’s Senate testimony, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins similarly concluded that Kavanaugh was not Ford’s assailant but “that she was assaulted.” By whom and when, though, Collins did not know.

It is unlikely the public will ever know what happened to Ford, if anything. But Grassley’s report supports the possibility that the encounter Ford described involved other boys and different facts. Specifically, the report summarized statements made by two men who believed they might have been involved in the encounters Ford described, albeit with it being consensual.

…Grassley’s memorandum discussed Deborah Ramirez’s claim that, in the 1980s while attending Yale University, Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her, thrusting “his penis in her face.” Kavanaugh denied Ramirez’s charge and Ramirez admitted she was intoxicated at the time and wasn’t sure Kavanaugh was the flasher until she spent a week thinking it over and talking with her attorneys. Grassley’s report concluded there was no verifiable evidence supporting Ramirez’s claim that Kavanaugh had exposed himself.

In fact, the committee received evidence indicating that another Yale student had been a known flasher at the time. A witness told the committee investigator that a different classmate, who was a member of the same fraternity as Kavanaugh, “had a reputation for exposing himself publicly.” This witness provided the investigator a yearbook photo showing that individual sans pants.

The article lists more problems with the charges against Justice Kavanaugh. Please follow the link to read further details.

The bottom line here is simple–an innocent man’s career was almost destroyed by false testimony. I don’t know if Dr. Ford actually believed what she testified to, if she was simply confused,  or if she was simply being used for political purposes. I do wonder what the consequences of making false charges against someone during a Congressional hearing should be. My impression of Dr. Ford is that something traumatic did happen to her in high school and that she should be treated gently. However, there do need to be some consequences for the false charges she levied. Behavior that is not dealt with will continue. I think we need to send a message that this sort of circus at a confirmation hearing will not be tolerated. There also need to be some rules about introducing inflammatory charges just before a committee is going to vote.

What Were These People Thinking?

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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.

Ignoring Government Transparency Rules

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The following is a Judicial Watch Press Release dated November 1:

Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed lawsuits regarding the maintenance of text messages as federal records and for records of the audit of communications of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

After the FBI claimed that text messages are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Judicial Watch filed suit to ensure that text messages are being preserved. The new Administrative Procedure Act lawsuit against the FBI challenges the FBI failure to preserve FBI text messages as required by the Federal Records Act. (Judicial Watch v. FBI (No.1:18-cv-02316)).

In its lawsuit Judicial Watch points to a related case in which Michael G. Seidel, the assistant section chief of the Record/Information Dissemination Section in the FBI’s Information Management Division, stated: “text messages on [FBI]-issued devices are not automatically integrated into an FBI records system.” (Danik v. U.S. Department of Justice, (No. 1:17-cv-01792)).

Judicial Watch argued that the FBI “does not have a recordkeeping program in place that provides effective controls over the maintenance of electronic messages, including text messages.” Moreover, “The FBI relies upon its personnel to incorporate their text messages into a recordkeeping system. If FBI personnel do not actively incorporate their text messages into a recordkeeping system, the text messages are not preserved.”

Judicial Watch asked the court to declare the FBI’s failure to have a recordkeeping program for electronic messages to be “not in accordance with law” and that the court order the FBI “to establish and maintain a recordkeeping program that provides effective controls over the maintenance of electronic messages.”

If text messages are not preserved, then they may be deleted and never produced to Congress, criminal investigators, and to the American people under FOIA.

Judicial Watch also filed suit against the Justice Department after the DOJ failed to respond to an August 27, 2018, FOIA request seeking the FBI’s audit records of McCabe’s communications (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-02283)).

In 2015, a political action committee run by Terry McAuliffe, a close friend and political supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, donated nearly $500,000 to Andrew McCabe’s wife Jill, who was then running for the Virginia State Senate. Also, the Virginia Democratic Party, over which McAuliffe had significant influence, donated an additional $207,788 to the Jill McCabe campaign. In July 2015, Andrew McCabe was in charge of the FBI’s Washington, DC, field office, which provided personnel resources to the Clinton email probe.

In July 2017, Judicial Watch filed three FOIA lawsuits seeking communications between the FBI and McCabe concerning “ethical issues” involving his wife’s political campaign; McCabe’s communications with McAuliffe; and McCabe’s travel vouchers.

Following an Inspector General Report, a grand jury reportedly was impaneled recently to investigate McCabe’s possible role in leaks to the media “to advance his personal interests.”

The FBI has told Judicial Watch that it is under no legal obligation to produce any of Andrew McCabe’s text messages under FOIA, which has attracted criticism from President Trump.

“This lawsuit exposes a massive FBI cover-up of its text messages, which are government records and are, by the thousands, likely to have been deleted and lost by FBI employees,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And of course, this cover-up conveniently impacts the production of text messages to Judicial Watch and Congress of disgraced FBI officials Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and James Comey.”

It is time to uncover the corruption in the FBI during the Obama administration. The FBI should be subject to FOIA requests.

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.

Can You Imagine?

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I recently visited the Bigfoot Museum in Felton, California, and my mind is not totally recovered from the experience. I have no idea whether or not Bigfoot is real, but I can tell you that there are an awful lot of very dense forests out there that have not been totally explored. There are also a lot of things in space that remain unexplored. One recent effort to explore space was the launching of Elon Musk’s red Tesla Roadster with a starman mannequin at the wheel.

A website called Time Traveller Wiki recently reported:

The red electric car and its spacesuit-clad mannequin driver, which launched on the maiden mission of SpaceX’s huge Falcon Heavy rocket in February, have made it beyond the orbit of Mars, company representatives said Friday night (Nov. 2).

“Starman’s current location. Next stop, the restaurant at the end of the universe,” SpaceX posted on Twitter Friday, along with an orbit diagram.

The article continues:

Musk has said that he launched the Roadster and Starman because the duo is a lot more fun than the typical inert-mass dummy payload (pun intended; sorry). Launching a satellite or other valuable spacecraft wasn’t an option, given the risks inherent in maiden flights. (Musk also runs Tesla, so publicity was probably a factor as well.)

Starman and his ride — which once belonged to Musk — won’t stay beyond Mars forever. As you can see in the diagram, the pair will loop back on their heliocentric orbit, eventually coming about as close to the sun as Earth does. 

The Roadster and Starman will come within a few hundred thousand kilometers of our planet in 2091, according to an orbit-modeling study. The authors of that study determined that the car will slam into either Venus or Earth, likely within the next few tens of millions of years. They give the space car a 6 percent chance of hitting Earth in the next 1 million years, and a 2.5 percent chance of smacking Venus in that span.

If you follow the link to the website, you can track the journey of the Roadstar and Starman as they traverse the universe.

My final thought on this is to wonder if there is life on Mars, what is the average Martian thinking when he looks up and sees a Tesla and a driver going by  his planet. I have no idea if there is life on Mars, but if there is, can you imagine their surprise when they see a Tesla go by?