Tag Archives: Arizona

Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia Hold The Key

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Yesterday The Epoch Times posted an article (updated today) about some of the research into election fraud being carried out in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia.

The article notes a lot of irregularities in the voting in these states. I will try to highlight a few of them, but I strongly recommend that you follow the link above and read the original article.

The article reports:

Braynard (Matt Braynard, former data and strategy director for President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign) assembled a team just days after the election to look for inconsistencies in six contested states: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada.

The group initially identified 1.25 million voter issues and followed up on them through phone calls and by cross-checking data against other databases.

The team ran several major analyses including of voters who had moved out of state but still voted in the state they had left; voters who registered to vote using a post office box number rather than a residential address as required; voters who requested a mail-in ballot and sent it in, only for it not to be counted; voters who didn’t request a mail-in ballot and didn’t receive one, but discovered a vote had been cast in their name; as well as research on people who voted more than once and on those who are listed in the death index.

One of Braynard’s biggest findings involved voters who had submitted a National Change of Address form to the post office, indicating they had moved out of state, yet appeared to have voted in 2020 in the state they moved from.

In Georgia, the team found 138,221 such people, which represents a much larger number than the state’s current vote differential (12,670) in the presidential race.

In Michigan, there were 51,302 such people; Wisconsin had 26,673, Nevada had 27,271, Arizona had 19,997, and Pennsylvania had 13,671.

…“The number of questionable ballots surpasses the vote margin in at least three states right now—Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin,” Braynard told The Epoch Times on Nov. 25. Those three states have a combined total of 37 electoral votes.

…Again in Georgia, Braynard found a further 1,000 people who registered to vote by using a post office box number, but attempted to disguise the box number as an apartment or suite number.

When registering to vote, by law, individuals must use their actual residential address as their residence. A P.O. box number can only be used as a mailing address. Homeless people can list a shelter, a soup kitchen, or even a parking lot as their residence.

…In Arizona, 44 percent of the people reached by phone said they hadn’t requested a mail-in ballot, despite the state receiving a completed ballot in their name.

In Michigan, that number was 24 percent; in Pennsylvania, 32 percent; and in Wisconsin and Georgia, 18 percent.

The article concludes:

Braynard said he hopes his findings will help bring greater scrutiny to the election process, in particular the verification process of mail-in ballots (he suggests fingerprints instead of signatures), clean voter rolls, and the availability of open-source voting machine data.

“It’s unfortunate, but short of a judge ordering a do-over, another election … short of that, I really don’t see how you fix this,” Braynard said.

“This election, it appears to me, has been decided by ballots that are highly questionable. They’re anomalous.

“I cannot say with confidence who won this election. I don’t think anybody can.”

I agree.

This Is Not Going To End Well

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CBS News is reporting today that Oregon is the first state to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of street drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

The article reports:

The Oregon drug initiative will allow people arrested with small amounts of hard drugs to avoid going to trial, and possible jail time, by paying a $100 fine and attending an addiction recovery program. The treatment centers will be funded by revenues from legalized marijuana, which was approved in Oregon several years ago.

“Today’s victory is a landmark declaration that the time has come to stop criminalizing people for drug use,” said Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which backed the measure.

…Voters in New Jersey and Arizona approved measures legalizing marijuana for adults age 21 and older. In New Jersey, the Legislature now will have to pass another measure setting up the new marijuana marketplace. The Arizona measure also allows people convicted of certain marijuana crimes to seek expungement of their records. The passage of the measure signaled a change of attitudes, after Arizona voters narrowly defeated a legal pot proposal in 2016.

South Dakota on Tuesday became the first state where voters authorized both recreational marijuana and medical marijuana via two separate initiatives in the same election. The legalization of recreational marijuana was approved by voters in Montana, and medical marijuana won approval in Mississippi.

I am not in favor of the legalization of marijuana. There are no guarantees that legal marijuana will be limited to those over 21–how many people under the age of 21 smoke cigarettes illegally? I am not convinced we understand the effect of marijuana on the brain of people under the age of 25. Legalizing marijuana does not improve our society–it simply reduces the productive impact of one sector of that society. Marijuana and other drugs have never been a positive force in any society.

This Is Not A Surprise To Most Of Us

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MRCTV is reporting today on an interesting choice of words by Vice-Presidential candidate Kamala Harris during a broadcast targeting Hispanic voters in Arizona.

The article reports:

Kamala Harris may have just let out a Freudian slip – and if anyone’s upset by it, it won’t be her political opponents.

The California senator, who is running to be Joe Biden’s vice president should the pair win the election in November, seemed to momentarily place herself at the top of the ticket in an odd moment during a virtual round table Monday, encouraging voters to cast their ballot for “A Harris administration, together with Joe Biden.”

“A Harris administration, together with Joe Biden as the president of the United States…the Biden/Harris administration will provide access to $100 billion in low-interest loans and investments from minority business owners,” Harris awkwardly claimed.

If Joe Biden is president, why is it the Harris administration? Who is pulling the strings?

Steven Hayward at Power Line Blog notes:

I’m betting the Secret Service is taking resumes of food tasters right about now.

The article at MRCTV concludes:

Harris’ mix-up between herself and the man who is actually running for president is also in line with many concerns on the right over Biden’s age, mental acuity and physical ability to do the job of POTUS, with many saying that a vote for Biden is really a vote for Harris if and when Biden becomes unable to hold the office.

When you consider Kamala Harris’ record as California Attorney General, the thought of her in the White House is troubling. Her prosecution of cases was very uneven and often appeared to be politically motivated.

If Presidential Debates Happen, The Will Be Interesting

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Breitbart posted an article today about a recent comment made by Presidential Candidate Joe Biden.

The comment:

“unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community.”

Wow.

The article reports:

National Public Radio’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro asked Biden about whether he would stop the deportation of Cubans.

“I’m going to look at every single country in the world … this guy [President Donald Trump] is sending them back,” Biden said, promising to extend the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program on his first day in office — one of several such first-day promises Biden has made.

Garcia-Navarro followed up, asking whether Biden would attempt to restore the Obama-Biden administration’s policy of improving relations with communist Cuba.

“Yes,” he said.

Biden then went on to add:

“And by the way, w hat you all know, but most people don’t know, unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community, with incredibly different attitudes about different things … it’s a very diverse community.”

Biden attempted to explain that point by arguing that Latinos in Florida and Arizona had different views on immigration.

Garcia-Navarro did not ask Biden why he thought the black community was not diverse. She moved on to a different topic.

I think there are a number of black conservatives who might argue that the African American community is diverse and quite capable of thinking as individuals rather as a monolithic group.

This Is A Very Strange Story

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Remember when the media was blaming President Trump for the death of the man in Arizona who died from drinking fish tank cleaner? Well, he did die from drinking fish tank cleaner, but there are a lot of details surrounding his death that somehow have been overlooked in the major media.

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article on Friday about some details that were somehow left out of the mainstream media.

The article notes:

But friends of 68-year-old Gary Lenius, the Arizona man who passed away last month from drinking a fish tank cleaner that contained an ingredient, chloroquine phosphate, that Trump had touted as a potential coronavirus cure, say they are still struggling to understand what drove an engineer with an extensive science background to do something so wildly out of character.

These people describe Lenius as intelligent and levelheaded, not prone to the sort of reckless and impulsive behavior he reportedly engaged in on the day he died. This account is based on interviews with three people who knew Lenius well and paints a picture of a troubled marriage characterized by Wanda Lenius’s explosive anger.

The article goes on to detail some of Wanda Lenius’s destructive behavior toward her husband–destroying his aircraft model collection that represented hours of work to create and at one time breaking husband’s laptop screen, allegedly because she was angry he had updated the Windows software on her computer.

The article notes:

In a phone interview with the Free Beacon, Wanda said she and her husband had seen President Trump praise a drug called chloroquine on the news, citing preliminary studies that showed it could be a promising treatment for coronavirus. She said she remembered purchasing a jar of “chloroquine phosphate” years before to clean a fish tank.

The powder form of the drug is sold by aquarium suppliers and is used to treat viral outbreaks in large fish tanks. She told the Free Beacon she had mentioned this to her husband “and he kind of laughed at me, you know. It was just a regular conversation.”

She said she didn’t think about chloroquine again until a few days later, March 22, when Lenius confessed to her that he had hurt his leg while riding his new dirt bike and might have to go see a doctor.

“I’d already stocked the house with groceries and extra dog food and everything was set. We were ready to self-isolate,” said Wanda. “He didn’t want to tell me that he got hurt bad because he knew I was upset. I didn’t want him to ride a motorcycle, he was 68 and I didn’t want him getting hurt.”

Wanda Lenius said her husband was planning to schedule a doctor’s appointment to have his leg looked at and the couple worried he might pick up coronavirus at the clinic. That’s when, she said, she reached for the fish tank cleaner in her pantry.

There is no way of knowing if Wanda Lenius knew that her actions would result in her husband’s death. However, it was a really, really dumb thing to do. I suspect the friends of the couple have their own ideas of what the truth is, but I suspect we will never really know if Wanda Lenius understood exactly what she was doing.

Why Border Security Matters

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Yesterday Fox News posted an article about a recent drug seizure at the Arizona border.

The article reports:

A drug bust last year was hailed as the largest fentanyl bust in U.S. history—254 pounds seized at an Arizona border crossing.

The seizure came as the scourge of fentanyl continues to fuel the opioid epidemic, ravaging communities across the U.S. while killing tens of thousands of people.

“Fentanyl also continues to be a tremendous problem, contributing to 68,000 overdose deaths in the United States in 2018,” Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection told Congress in November. He said CBP’s seizures of fentanyl rose by 30 percent in fiscal year 2019, totaling 2,770 pounds.

Fentanyl comes from China. Often it is smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico by drug cartels involved in a violent war with Mexican police and military forces.

The historic 254-pound bust was just one of a half-dozen big fentanyl busts recorded by law enforcement in recent years, a tally shows.

These six busts have led to the seizure of some 818 pounds of fentanyl–enough to kill 229 million people, according to authorities.

The article lists the six major drug busts. Please follow the link above to the article to see the details.

On March 22, 2019, I Heart Radio reported:

A new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows how the opioid epidemic has ballooned over the past six years. The report found that from 2011 to 2016, the number of overdose deaths from the synthetic opiate fentanyl has risen by over 1000 percent.

The CDC says that in 2011 and 2012, around 1,600 people died each year from a fentanyl overdose. The number of deaths rose to 1,900 in 2013, but in 2014 officials saw the number of fatalities jump to 4,223. In 2015 the number of deaths nearly doubled to 8,251, and in 2016 there were another 10,000 deadly overdoses, bringing the total to 18,335 for the year.

The massive spike in fentanyl-related deaths was seen mainly in men. Up until 2013, the number of men and women who overdosed on fentanyl was about the same, but in 2014 the numbers began to diverge, and in 2016 there were three times as many men killed from an overdose as women.

Fentanyl is now considered the deadliest drug in America and is responsible for 29% of all overdose deaths in the nation.

Border security matters.

Once A Community Organizer, Always A Community Organizer

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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.

 

Supporting Patriotism

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The Washington Times is reporting today that Arizona Governor Doug Ducey will be cancelling be the incentives offered in a deal with Nike in response to the athletic company scrapping plans for a Betsy Ross-inspired sneaker. Just as Nike is free to scrap its plans for the sneaker, Governor Ducey is free to withdraw his offer of incentives to the company.

The article reports:

The sneakers, featuring a U.S. flag with 13 stars on each heel, reportedly was canned after former football player and political activist Colin Kaepernick said the design could be seen as an offensive symbol of slavery.

…Mr. Ducey said the state was supposed to announce a deal with Nike but then “this news broke yesterday afternoon.”

“Nike is an iconic American brand and American company. This country, our system of government and free enterprise have allowed them to prosper and flourish. Instead of celebrating American history the week of our nation’s independence, Nike has apparently decided that Betsy Ross is unworthy, and has bowed to the current onslaught of political correctness and historical revisionism,” the Arizona Republican tweeted.

“It is a shameful retreat for the company. American businesses should be proud of our country’s history, not abandoning it. Nike has made its decision, and now we’re making ours. I’ve ordered the Arizona Commerce Authority to withdraw all financial incentive dollars under their discretion that the State was providing for the company to locate here,” he said.

Would someone please explain to Mr. Kaepernick that history needs to be viewed in the context of its time–not the context of today. In the time of Betsy Ross, slavery was practiced all over the world. There was nothing noteworthy about it. Indentured servitude was also practiced. Mr. Kaepernick might want to take notice of the fact that there are countries today where slavery is still an acceptable practice. If he is so concerned about slavery and its ills, he might want to see what he can do to help the countries that practice slavery end the practice.

Kudos to Governor Ducey for taking a stand against misguided selective outrage.

 

The Supreme Court Will Hear The Case Regarding The Citizenship Question On The Census

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Yesterday Breitbart reported that the Supreme Court will hear the case regarding putting a citizenship question on the 2020 Census.

The article details some of the history of the question:

The Enumeration Clause in Article I of the Constitution requires a nationwide census be taken every ten years. The Census Act empowers the head of the Commerce Department to determine what the census will ask, aside from the number of persons residing at every address in the nation. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross decided for the Trump administration that the census will ask each person in the nation next year if that person is a citizen of the United States.

That was a recurring question on census forms until recently. The first census to ask about citizenship was the one conducted in 1820, and the last was 1950. After 1950, the Census Bureau – which is part of the Commerce Department – has continued to ask that question on the “long form” census form that goes to some census-takers, as well as on its yearly questionnaire that goes to a small number of households each year, called the American Community Survey (ACS).

…However, when Ross put that question on the 2020 census, leftwing partisans sued, claiming that inserting this question violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). More surprising to many, Judge Jesse Furman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York agreed, writing a 277-page decision (which is shockingly long) holding that it is illegal to ask about citizenship.

The article explains that the case revolves around the APA:

There are three issues in the case. The first is whether it violates the APA for the census to ask about citizenship. The second is whether courts can look beyond the administrative record to probe the thinking of top-ranking government officials in an APA case. The justices inserted a third issue of their own, asking whether asking that if the APA allows the question, would that question nonetheless violate the Enumeration Clause.

In other words, the case is about whether asking about citizenship violates either federal law or the Constitution, and also whether it is out of bounds to chase down a member of the president’s Cabinet in such lawsuits.

This case has very significant implications. Legislative districting lines for Congress and statehouses are based on census data. Dozens of congressional seats and perhaps hundreds of state seats could shift if states drew lines based on citizenship, instead of total numbers of persons. Some even argue that congressional seats, and with them Electoral College votes for president, could be reallocated among the states based on citizenship data. At minimum, billions of dollars in federal spending is based on census numbers.

The states that will probably lose representatives and electoral college votes if the citizenship questions is on the census are California, New York, Arizona, and possibly New Mexico.

The question to me is whether or not people who are in America but not citizens should have a voice in our government. Would you allow a guest in your house to determine your household budget?

Thank You, Goernor Ducey

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Fox91 in Arizona announced today that Governor Doug Ducey has appointed Representative Martha McSally to replace U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl in the U.S. Senate seat that belonged to Sen. John McCain. Senator Kyl had only agreed to serve until the end of 2018.

Just as an aside, we have lost the vision of our Founding Fathers when Senators hold a Senate seat long enough to die while in office and have the Senate seat they vacated referred to as their seat. It wasn’t John McCain’s seat any more than the seat in Massachusetts was Ted Kennedy’s seat. However, these men had been in office for so long it was as if they owned the seat. That is not what our Founding Fathers intended–Congressmen were supposed to serve one or two terms and then return to public life to live under the laws they passed. In 1992, former Senator George McGovern wrote a letter to The Wall Street Journal about what he had learned since leaving office. Please follow the link and read the letter. It perfectly illustrates our current problems in Washington.

The article at Fox91 reports:

McSally is a two-term congresswoman who was long considered for the Senate by the state’s GOP establishment. The first female combat pilot, McSally rose to the rank of colonel in the Air Force before entering politics. She got a taste for it through working for Kyl’s office as a national security aide.

McSally represented a swing district in Tucson that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. She carved out a reputation as a moderate who could win tough elections. That went out the window during her Senate campaign this year. She had been critical of President Donald Trump in 2016 but praised him during the midterm election. Facing a primary challenge from her right, McSally embraced a tougher stance on immigration.

Hopefully Ms. McSally will vote with the President to keep our country’s borders secure.

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.

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.

Running Against Opponents Funded By Outside Sources

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Yesterday The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, currently running for re-election.

The article reports:

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is one of three attorneys general in the country who knows his opponent this fall has the backing of California billionaire and political activist Tom Steyer, but told the Washington Free Beacon he believes his track record of focusing on local issues and the rule of law will be a better hand come November.

Steyer’s efforts on the national stage have been flashy. He has poured his resources into the “Need to Impeach” television campaign and pledged hundreds of millions to help Democrats retake the majority in the House of Representatives.

However, Steyer has not abandoned local politics, keeping an eye out for local races that interest him. In this instance, he is backing the Democratic nominee January Contreras, who has experience as a county and state prosecutor, but has never run for elected office until now.

“It’s been said that you can judge a person by their opponents, so I don’t know if I should take it as a badge of honor that a California billionaire with a radical-left agenda has decided to target me,” Brnovich told the Free Beacon in a recent one-on-one interview.

There are certain state offices that are vital to the Democrat’s agenda. For instance, a state Attorney General can decide not to report illegal aliens to immigration services. A state Attorney General can decide to look the other way regarding certain laws. A state Attorney General has the power to take the blindfold off of justice and corrupt the system of justice in a state. A Secretary of State is in charge of elections in most states. There is tremendous potential for mischief in that office.

Targeting certain state offices in not a new Democrat tactic. The video “Rocky Mountain Heist” (available at YouTube) explains how a group of wealthy men targeted certain key offices in Colorado and turned a red state blue.

I have embedded the video here because I am not sure how much longer it will be available at YouTube:

One example of how state politics can have a national impact. Ted Kennedy died in August 2009. His vote was needed to get ObamaCare past a Republican filibuster. During the time Mitt Romney was Governor of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts legislature had passed a law saying that any Senate vacancy would be filled by a special election rather than by appointment of the Governor. Massachusetts law now requires a special election to be held on a Tuesday, no fewer than 145 days, nor more than 160 days from the date of office vacancy. When Ted Kennedy died, Governor Patrick (a Democrat) appointed the Executor of Ted Kennedy’s will to fill the vacancy temporarily. The special election was held in January–after the Senate had voted on ObamaCare. The reason that ObamaCare was passed through reconciliation rather than being voted on again in the Senate was that after Scott Brown won the election in Massachusetts, he would have been the vote that blocked ObamaCare. State politics make a difference nationally.

 

Common Sense Comes To The Courtroom

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Townhall posted an article yesterday about a recent court decision in Arizona. Arizona’s Supreme Court ruled that DACA recipients are no longer eligible for “in-state” tuition.

The article reports:

The state’s attorney general Mark Brnovich welcomed the ruling as his office has continually argued that colleges and universities were violating state and federal laws by allowing DACA recipients to pay in-state tuition rates.

“While people can disagree what the law should be, I hope we all can agree that the attorney general must enforce the law as it is, not as we want it to be,” the statement said.

In-state tuition at Arizona State University is $9,834 for the next school year. Non-resident tuition is $27,618. At Maricopa Community Colleges, residents pay $86 per credit. Non-residents pay $241 per credit.

This decision makes sense to me–if DACA recipients are not actually citizens, how can they be considered legal residents of a state? There is no reason for them to be given preferential treatment over American citizens.

 

 

Convicted For Doing His Job, Now Pardoned

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CNS News is reporting today that President Trump has pardoned former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Sheriff Arpaio was convicted of misdemeanor criminal contempt of court stemming from a civil rights lawsuit that accused him of racially profiling Latinos in the course of his law enforcement duties. He faced six months in jail. Sheriff Arpaio is 85 years old. He was checking the immigration status of Latinos because many Latinos were illegally immigrating to Maricopa County. It would have been a waste of time and money to check the immigration status of other groups. He might have found a few illegals, but the effort was better spent in the Latino community. To do otherwise is the equivalent of stopping little old ladies at a checkpoint when the description of the bank robber you are looking for says six-feet tall and about thirty-five years old.

The article includes the following statement from The White House Office of the Press Secretary:

Today, President Donald J. Trump granted a Presidential pardon to Joe Arpaio, former Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona.  Arpaio’s life and career, which began at the age of 18 when he enlisted in the military after the outbreak of the Korean War, exemplify selfless public service.  After serving in the Army, Arpaio became a police officer in Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas, NV and later served as a Special Agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), formerly the Bureau of Narcotics.  After 25 years of admirable service, Arpaio went on to lead the DEA’s branch in Arizona.

In 1992, the problems facing his community pulled Arpaio out of retirement to return to law enforcement.  He ran and won a campaign to become Sheriff of Maricopa County.  Throughout his time as Sheriff, Arpaio continued his life’s work of protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration.  Sheriff Joe Arpaio is now eighty-five years old, and after more than fifty years of admirable service to our Nation, he is worthy candidate for a Presidential pardon.

For whatever reason, the Obama Administration supported illegal immigration. The Obama Justice Department attacked Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona when she tried to enforce immigration laws that were already on the books. Sheriff Arpaio was attacked simply because he chose to uphold the law. Despite the howls we will hear from the political left, President Trump did the right thing in pardoning Sheriff Arpaio.

 

How Things Work

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I received this in my email from a friend. I am not sure if it is true or not, but it makes a good point:

The owner of the Phoenix Suns basketball team,
Robert Sarver, came out strongly opposing AZ‘s new immigration laws.

Former Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer, released the following statement in response to Sarver’s criticism of the new law:

“What if the owners of the Suns discovered that hordes of people were sneaking into games without paying?

What if they had a good idea who the gate-crashers are
but the ushers and security personnel were not allowed
to ask these folks to produce their ticket stubs, thus non-paying attendees couldn’t be ejected.

Furthermore, what if Suns’ ownership was expected to
provide those who sneaked in with complimentary eats and drink?

And what if, on those days when a gate-crasher became ill or injured, the Suns had to provide free medical care and shelter?”

Troubling Information

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On Wednesday, Judicial Watch posted an article about one of the guns used in the Paris terrorist attack. According to law enforcement sources, the gun was illegally purchased in Phoenix, Arizona. The obvious question is how did it get from Phoenix to Paris.

The article reports:

A Report of Investigation (ROI) filed by a case agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) tracked the gun used in the Paris attacks to a Phoenix gun owner who sold it illegally, “off book,” Judicial Watch’s law enforcement sources confirm. Federal agents tracing the firearm also found the Phoenix gun owner to be in possession of an unregistered fully automatic weapon, according to law enforcement officials with firsthand knowledge of the investigation.

The investigative follow up of the Paris weapon consisted of tracking a paper trail using a 4473 form, which documents a gun’s ownership history by, among other things, using serial numbers. The Phoenix gun owner that the weapon was traced back to was found to have at least two federal firearms violations—for selling one weapon illegally and possessing an unregistered automatic—but no enforcement or prosecutorial action was taken against the individual. Instead, ATF leaders went out of their way to keep the information under the radar and ensure that the gun owner’s identity was “kept quiet,” according to law enforcement sources involved with the case. “Agents were told, in the process of taking the fully auto, not to anger the seller to prevent him from going public,” a veteran law enforcement official told Judicial Watch.

It’s not clear if the agency, which is responsible for cracking down on the illegal use and trafficking of firearms, did this because the individual was involved in the Fast and Furious gun-running scheme. An ATF spokesman, Corey Ray, at the agency’s Washington D.C. headquarters told Judicial Watch that “no firearms used in the Paris attacks have been traced” by the agency. When asked about the ROI report linking the weapon used in Paris to Phoenix, Ray said “I’m not familiar with the report you’re referencing.” Judicial Watch also tried contacting the Phoenix ATF office, but multiple calls were not returned.

The gun was probably sold as part of ‘Fast and Furious,’ which is troubling enough, but I want to know how you get a gun from Phoenix to Paris in this age of airline security. Was it packed in the person’s checked luggage or did he manage to get it through the metal detectors? Did it go from the United States to France or from Mexico to France? How did the gun get into France, which has very strict gun laws? It would be very interesting to trace the journey of the gun from Phoenix to Paris. It is also interesting to note that this story is based on law enforcement leaks. The people who are charged with enforcing our laws have reached the point where they are so frustrated with the unequal enforcement of the laws that they are speaking out.

When The Truth Doesn’t Matter

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Truth seems to be taking a back seat in some major political discussions lately–Katie Couric‘s gun documentary did some creative editing and the State Department edited a press briefing that was to be saved as an historical archive. In both cases, the idea was to promote a point of view that was contrary to the truth. The gun documentary was supposed to show how easy it was to obtain a firearm, and the editing of the press briefing was to erase the fact that negotiations with Iran on the nuclear deal started long before there was a ‘moderate’ president of Iran. Just for the record, the president of Iran is not the person who is actually in charge. The group that is currently ruling Iran is essentially the same group of people that took over in 1979.

Yesterday The Independent Journal Review pointed out another problem with the gun documentary. People unfamiliar with gun laws who watched the documentary might have missed this, but Dana Loesch, a 2nd Amendment advocate, noted the following:

In an interview shared by Ammoland TV, Soechtig (Stephanie Soechtig, also involved in the production of the show) discusses the making of the film and notes the following:

“We sent a producer out and he is from Colorado and he went to Arizona and he was able to buy a Bushmaster and then three other pistoles without a background check in a matter of four hours. And that’s perfectly legal.”

Except it isn’t. Legal, that is. When Soechtig sent a producer to Arizona from Colorado specifically to acquire firearms, she could have actually broken two federal laws:

  • Interstate transfer: for a purchaser to acquire a firearm outside their state of residence – in this case, Colorado – the transfer must go through a licensed firearms dealer in the purchaser’s state of residence [18 U.S.C 922(a)(3); 27 CFR 478.29].
  • Straw purchase: one individual may not make the purchase of a firearm in someone else’s name [18 U.S.C. 922(a)(5)].

By Soechtig’s own admission, she sent a producer across state lines with instructions to purchase a firearm on her behalf (violation of straw purchase laws). And unless her producer is also a licensed firearms dealer, it’s likely that interstate transfer laws may also have been violated.

Loesch called on the ATF to investigate, noting the irony that people criticizing law-abiding gun owners were actually the ones violating gun laws already on the books.

It is interesting that those fighting to undo the 2nd Amendment do not understand the laws surrounding it. The 2nd Amendment was put there to protect the rights of Americans to own guns. We can argue about the current regulations surrounding the 2nd Amendment, but generally speaking, the safeguards are there to prevent criminals and unstable people from acquiring firearms. The right of law-abiding Americans to buy guns is part of the Constitution. It needs to be upheld. What was done in Katie Couric’s gun documentary is simply another example of the media trying to mislead the American people. We need to be smart enough to know when we are being lied to. Also note that many of the people trying to take away the guns of Americans have armed bodyguards. Another example of a law for thee, but not for me.

 

Huh????

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Yesterday The American Thinker posted an article about a recent decision by the Supreme Court not to hear a case regarding proof of citizenship for voter registration.

The article reports:

In a commonsense decision, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a case that decided that people registering to vote in federal election don’t have to prove their citizenship.  That means that people registering to vote won’t be bullied into proving citizenship, which now seems to be an irrelevant criterion for voting.

“I am very pleased, obviously,” said Dolores Furtado, president of the Kansas chapter of the League of Women Voters. “It’s a good feeling because we’re truly trying to help” people get registered to vote.

Furtado said the league’s main interest is in increasing participation in the democratic process “rather than trying to make more hoops, more steps, to go through.”

It would have been nice if the Supreme Court had ruled on this; however, there is an interesting consequence of this decision that will give Kansas a more honest election on the state and local level.

On Monday, Roll Call posted an article explaining how the decision of the Supreme Court not to take the case would impact elections in Kansas and Arizona.

The article reports:

The Kansas and Arizona laws stand, meaning that people wishing to register to vote with state forms are required to show proof of citizenship. Kobach said more than 99 percent of Kansans use the state forms. “But because of the Supreme Court decision not to review the case,” he added, “we do have a small limited loophole.” The slim majority that uses the federal form can “refuse to provide proof of citizenship,” he said, “but that will only suffice for federal elections.”

Article I Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

Basically that means that each state can set the standard for who is allowed to vote. Obviously, because there is a federal form people can use in Kansas, there is a way of circumventing that law by using the federal form. However, using the federal form only allows people to vote in federal elections. This is another example of the federal government overriding the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

I really wonder who came up with the bright idea that non-citizens would be able to vote in American elections. That is totally ridiculous and seriously undermines the integrity of our election process.

The Inmates Have Obviously Taken Over The Asylum

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Yesterday Bizpacreview reported that ROTC members were forced to parade around the Temple University campus in Arizona in red high heels. I am not talking about female ROTC members–I am talking about male ROTC members. The exercise was supposed to raise awareness about assault against women. I suspect that the only awareness they raised was an awareness of how miserable your feet feel after doing a lot of walking in high heels.

This is one of the photos:

rotc article

The article reported:

For every social media proponent of the event, there were many more who voiced their opposition.

“Who’s the rocket scientist that thought this up and how much did it cost the taxpayers and the soldiers?” said one Facebook user.

“Extremely offensive,” read another.

“I don’t get the point here,” wrote a frustrated Facebook user, and added possibly the most relevant question of all, “How does forcing a person in uniform to wear high heels relate to sexual assault against women?????”

The sound you hear is that of the Founding Fathers turning over in their graves.

One Answer To Federal Government Overreach

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According to the IJReview, the Arizona House of Representatives passed a bill last Wednesday that had only two provisions.

The article lists the provisions:

  1. Prohibits this state or any of its political subdivisions from using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with a policy directive issued by the U.S. DOJ to law enforcement agencies in this state that has not been affirmed by a vote of Congress and signed into law as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.
  2. Prohibits this state or any of its political subdivisions from using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with an executive order issued by the President of the U.S. that has not been affirmed by a vote of Congress and signed into law as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.

Simply stated, unless Congress passes the law, Arizona is not going to follow it. That is the way our government is supposed to work. Thank you, Arizona.

 

Our Children Need To Know At Least As Much As Those Who Come Here

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Breitbart.com reported yesterday that Arizona has passed a law requiring all high school students to pass a civics exam before they graduate. The law requires that they answer correctly sixty out of one hundred questions on the civics portion of the U. S. citizenship test.

The article reports:

The test is being pushed nationally by the Scottsdale-based Joe Foss Institute, which has set a goal of having all 50 states adopt it by 2017, the 230th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution. The institute says legislatures in 15 states are expected to consider it this year.

The idea is to prepare the students to be well-informed voters in the future.

The article further reports:

Republican Senate Majority Leader Steve Yarbrough, sponsoring the bill in his chamber, called the test a needed measure.

“Requiring that students pass this test is not by any means a silver bullet, but I think is a step, a small step forward,” he said. “And I think we need to encourage the people of America to become more aware of the values of America.”

The lone Democratic senator who opposed the bill on the education committee, David Bradley, said passing the test would do nothing to make good citizens. He said that despite the bill sponsors’ promises, there is a cost to the state.

It is the responsibility of American voters to know the principles upon which their government is based. It is also the responsibility of American voters to vote for people who uphold those principles.

A friend of mine volunteers his time at public events where middle and high school students are present. During these events, he will often ask the students a basic question about the U.S. Constitution or American history. He has often remarked that generally speaking the students who can answer basic questions about our country are the ones that are home schooled. We need to make sure all of our students know the history of America and the founding principles of America. There is a reason those people desiring to become citizens of America are required to take a citizenship test. Our own children should also be able to pass that test.

I Guess You Really Don’t Need A High Tech Security System

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The Blaze posted a story today about an Arizona homeowner who set up a video system with an old cell phone so that she could check on her dogs while she was at work. When she checked on her dogs by logging on to her computer at work, she saw a strange man in her living room. She called the police as she watched the stranger feeding her dogs treats to keep them from barking.

The article reports:

Shortly after the crook was seen feeding the dogs, he noticed the camera and turned it off. However, it was too late. The 911 call had been made and cops were en route.

Police responded quickly, surrounding the property. They nabbed the would-be burglar in the alley as he exited the back of the house. He reportedly confessed to the arresting officer that he was trying to steal an X-Box gaming system.

I guess sometimes it pays to check up on your dogs.

The Obama Administration Has Forgotten Its Responsibility To Enforce The Law

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about a lawsuit in Arizona. The lawsuit

The article reports:

A career attorney with top ratings at Immigration and Customs Enforcement says that she faced retaliation from superiors for refusing to drop cases pending against illegal aliens guilty of DUI, identity theft and other crimes.

Patricia Vroom, 59, made the claims in a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court of Appeals in Arizona against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

Many of the cases involved were identify theft and other low-level crimes. Ms. Vroom was “instructed to look favorably for prosecutorial discretion on immigration removal cases involving the lowest level of felony convictions for identity theft under Arizona law.”

Think about this for a minute. These are felony convictions. The idea here is to allow convicted felons to stay in America illegally. Don’t we have enough convicted felons that are here legally?

The article further reports:

Vroom also claims that on Nov. 5, 2013, Downer emailed her concerning the case of an individual who was found ineligible for relief under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which was started by President Obama, because of an ID theft conviction.

Unknown to Vroom at the time, top ICE and DHS officials had discussed that individual case on a conference call in August 2013.

An angry Downer emailed Vroom on Nov. 5, 2013, demanding to know why she had been unable to convince her field office director to cancel the “notice to appear” order for the alien.

Our immigration laws are currently not being enforced. They do need to be revised and brought up to date, but we do not need amnesty–we need common sense. I strongly suggest that rather than having an overactive President and a lame-duck Congress rewrite our immigration laws, we let the new Congress write them–after discussion and deliberation. Hopefully our new Congress will have some respect for the concept of making sure laws are enforced and will have some respect for the wishes of the American people.

Sometimes It Takes A Bit Of Showmanship To Make A Point

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This video was posted on YouTube today:

The Daily Caller posted a related story.

The Daily Caller story concludes:

This summer has seen a whirlwind of terrorist activity on the southern border, with dire anecdotes pouring out of local news stations but ignored by the mainstream press. Security contractors found a Muslim prayer rug on the Arizona border, where 300 extremists affiliated with al-Qaida’s Somalia syndicate al-Shabab recently entered the United States unaccounted for. Terrorist watch-list suspects were also detained trying to get into the country through California. Country music legend Charlie Daniels revealed that, “I personally spoke with an Arizona law enforcement officer who had taken four what he called ‘Taliban’ out of the back of an 18 wheeler.”

Relevant on the contemporary merits, O’Keefe’s video also makes an important symbolic point thirteen confusing years after the attacks of 9/11. The terrorists we’re fighting today are more technologically savvy than their idol Osama bin Laden, the self-designed political figure who tried to fire history’s loudest shot. But their motives have not changed. And they have access to the United States.

How safe do you feel?