As President Trump walked out of Wednesday evening’s press conference a female reporter, in a fashion emblematic of the press’s unprofessionalism and its disrespect for the Office of the Presidency of the United States yelled out, “Mr. President, are you a sore loser?”
The question, of course, is sophomoric, insolent, and designed to injure Donald Trump the person. Fortunately, President Trump did not honor the question with a response as he quietly strode out of the White House Press Room, but it did bring up another issue altogether that is being raised with increasing frequency amongst the audacious press. Should the President of the United States even be contesting this election? Wouldn’t he better off to bow out quietly and gracefully?
The United States has a two-centuries-long tradition of observing the peaceful transition of power. Indeed, the time when such a transition became most threatened was following the highly contested race between Jefferson and Adams where the latter, after a protracted and heated stalemate in the House of Representatives, quietly loaded up his coach and rode out of Washington. Since then, Americans have prided themselves at being the harbingers of peaceful transitions, although they were not always smooth.
Regardless of the outcome, this election will go down in history as one of the most contentious, heated, and vitriolic in American history, and with Joe Biden holding an apparent lead, one must ask, shouldn’t the loser bow out gracefully?
Well, for every thing, there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. For President Trump, the time now is for a legal fight.
The fact is that this election has been anything other than transparent. Impropriety is running rampant among polling stations in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, among others, in some cases preventing even the observation of counting procedures. It is curious that in every contested state where the President has had a lead, it has dwindled with the discovery of more ballots. And in each of these locations, suspicious circumstances have abounded. Meanwhile, in the first example of hard data supporting a case for election malfeasance, the President and his team have provided a list of over 3,000 names of individuals who had previously changed their state of residence, but nevertheless still voted in Nevada. With an 11,000-vote deficit, such a list, if accurate will make a dent in the former Vice President’s lead. Concurrent with the delivery of the list, the Trump team announced that thousands more such names will be forthcoming without including an even larger list of deceased persons who apparently resurrected long enough to vote in that state.
As the list of impropriety grows, it appears that the President’s case to reverse some of these adverse results is getting stronger, and I would not be surprised if some of those states declared as Biden’s ultimately get reversed and are declared to be Trump’s.
So, should the President pursue every legal recourse to reverse outcomes that appear to have come out in Biden’s favor? Of course the should. Not only is this a question of great personal import to the President, but it is one of even greater import to his followers. Recall, these votes do not belong to President Trump or former Vice President Biden. They belong to every person who cast them, and these two men are their primary representatives.
At some point, when the process is exhausted, Vice President Biden may end up being declared the winner of this nasty, dirty election. However, with what I am seeing, it seems to me that the winner will likely be the President. Either way, the President has a duty, not only to himself, but to the American people to zealously pursue this process to its natural conclusion. Only then can some semblance of credibility be preserved for the ultimate winner of this contest.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Julio Gonzalezhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Julio Gonzalez2020-11-06 06:38:242021-10-07 21:21:18President Trump’s Duty to Zealously Contest this Election
A republic is not just a nation of laws. It also relies on its good-faith watchdogs, such as honest pollsters, the media, and bipartisan institutions.
We still didn’t know the final result of Tuesday’s presidential election as of Wednesday night. But there are lots of reasons to worry that something in America has gone terribly wrong.
Many of the mainstream pre-election polls predicted that Donald Trump would lose in a landslide. He did not—to the shock of a host of propagandists.
A CNN poll had Trump down 12 percentage points nationally entering the final week before the election. An ABC News/Washington Post poll in late October claimed Joe Biden was leading in Wisconsin by 17 points. That state’s voting ended up nearly even.
The left is actively working to undermine the integrity of our elections. Read the plan to stop them now. Learn more now >>
YouGov’s election model showed Biden prevailing with a landslide win in the Electoral College. Progressive statistics guru Nate Silver had for weeks issued pseudo-scientific analyses of a Trump wipeout.
Pollsters were widely wrong in 2016. Yet they learned nothing about their flawed methodologies. So how do they remain credible after 2020, when most were wildly off again?
A cynic might answer that polling no longer aims to offer scientific assessments of voter intentions.
Pollsters, the vast majority of them progressives, have become political operatives. They see their task as ginning up political support for their candidates and demoralizing the opposition. Some are profiteering as internal pollsters for political campaigns and special interests.
Never again will Americans believe these “mainstream” pollsters’ predictions because they have been exposed as rank propagandists.
That bleak assessment won’t make much difference to pollsters. They privately understand what their real mission has become and why they are no longer scientific prognosticators.
Big liberal donors sent cash infusions totaling some $500 million into Senate races across the country to destroy Republican incumbents and take back the Senate. In the end, they may have failed to change many of the outcomes.
But did they really fail?
Democrats dispelled the fossilized notion that “dark money” is dangerous to politics. They are now the party of the ultra-rich, at war with the middle classes, whom they write off as clingers, deplorables, dregs, and chumps.
In that context, the staggering amounts of money were a valuable marker. The liberal mega-rich are warning politicians that from now on, they will try to bury populist conservatives with so much oppositional cash that they would be wise to keep a low profile.
Winning is not the only aim of lavish liberal campaign funding. Deterring future opponents by warning them to be moderate or go bankrupt is another motivation.
Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey seemed unapologetic that his company was systematically censoring and de-platforming conservative users. In a recent hearing he talked to members of the Senate as if he were a 19th-century railroad baron.
Google has been accused of massaging its search results to favor progressive agendas. During the final weeks of the campaign, social media platforms shut down accounts and censored ads and messages, providing an enormously valuable gift to Biden.
Silicon Valley, like the 19th-century oil, rail, and sugar trusts, sees no reason to hide its partisanship and clout.
The media coverage of the election was unsavory. Journalists confirmed the findings of Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center, which in an assessment of news coverage of Trump’s first 100 days in office found that 80% of the coverage was negative.
As in the fashion of the Russian collusion hoax, the media for weeks on end revved up their engines for a seemingly certain Biden landslide victory. They rarely cross-examined Biden on the issues. And they certainly stayed clear of the Biden family influence-peddling scandal.
What do all these power players—big polling, big money, big tech, and big media—have in common other than their partisanship and their powerful reach?
One, they stereotypically represent a virtue-signaling coastal elite that feels its own moral superiority allows it to destroy its own professional standards.
Two, they worry little about popular pushback because they assume that their money, loaded surveys, and internet and media cartels create, rather than reflect, public opinion.
Three, while these elite cadres have enormous resources, they still are relatively unpopular. Despite being outspent 2-to-1, pronounced doomed by pollsters, often censored on social media, and demonized in print and on television, Trump was neck and neck with Biden—a fact that a few days ago was deemed impossible.
If Biden wins, we should assume that in late January 2021 these same forces will regroup to frame a new post-election narrative.
Expect our Big Brothers to instruct Americans that the COVID-19 pandemic is mutating into little more than a bad flu.
The “Biden vaccine” and miraculous “Biden recovery” will have ended the need for Trump-era lockdowns.
And the rioting, looting, and arson?
They will all have miraculously disappeared because the disuniter and inciter Donald Trump is now gone.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the book “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.” You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com. Twitter: @VDHanson.
Election fraud is already a problem. Soon it could be a crisis. But election fraud is not the only threat to the integrity of our election system.
Progressives are pushing for nine “reforms” that could increase the opportunity for fraud and dissolve the integrity of constitutional elections. To counter these dangerous measures, our friends at The Heritage Foundation are proposing seven measures to protect your right to vote and ensure fair, constitutional elections.
They are offering it to readers of The Daily Signal for free today.
Get the details now when you download your free copy of, “Mandate for Leadership: Ensuring the Integrity of Our Election System.”
As might be expected during the undecided presidential contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, pundits and typical voters alike are voicing more concerns about voter fraud and unfair election practices.
Already numerous internet rumors have been proven wrong or lack evidence. That doesn’t mean every assertion will prove to be without merit, however.
Conversely, some legitimate questions about ballot counting have enough evidence behind them to support litigation. That doesn’t mean such questions won’t ultimately have satisfactory answers.
Here’s a sampling—based on what currently is known—of seven claims in the postelection chaos.
The left is actively working to undermine the integrity of our elections. Read the plan to stop them now. Learn more now >>
1. Wisconsin Votes vs. Registered Voters?
One popular claim circulating on social media and at least one viral email goes like this: “Wisconsin magically now has more votes than registered voters.”
That essentially is a “fake” claim, said J. Christian Adams, president of the conservative-leaning election integrity watchdog group Public Interest Legal Foundation.
“Wisconsin has same-day voter registration, so you are obviously always going to have more voters than registered voters,” Adams told The Daily Signal.
Adams noted that by Thursday afternoon, he had gotten at least 20 emails calling for investigations into bogus rumors floating on the internet.
FactCheck.org determined that the number of registered voters as of Nov. 1 actually exceeded the actual voters Nov. 3 by 388,000.
2. No Sharpies in Arizona?
An example of a legitimate problem is in Maricopa County, Arizona, Adams said, where 11 voters are suing the county for not “curing” their vote, meaning not providing a new ballot when a ballot is somehow spoiled.
The lead client in the case, Laurie Aguilera, represented by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, is asking a court to vindicate her voting rights. Aguilera is joined by 10 unnamed plaintiffs, dubbed “Does I-X.”
The lawsuit asks the court to order that election officials identify and correct all ballots that were denied because poll workers had required voters to use Sharpie markers in filling out ballots.
Aguilera was issued a Sharpie to mark up her ballot on Election Day, according to the lawsuit. That’s despite established state guidance that felt-tip writing utensils not be used.
Aguilera said she became alarmed when she noticed ink bleeding to the other side of her ballot, according to the lawsuit. Election officials instructed her to feed her ballot through the counting machine.
When the machine failed to accept her ballot, the attending poll worker cancelled the ballot and Aguilera’s request for a replacement ballot was denied, according to the lawsuit.
“These voters were denied the right to vote. Arizona election officials allegedly were part of the problem, and denial of the right to vote should not occur because of failures in the process of casting a ballot,” Adams said in a public statement.
The suit asks that ballots denied because of the supplied Sharpies be identified and allowed to be cured; that voters who were given felt-tip markers be given the chance to be present to observe the handling and adjudication of their ballots; and that the court order their votes to be tabulated.
Maricopa County officials pushed back, saying that Sharpies in fact may be used, referring to an Election Day video that said ink could not bleed through ballots.
Did you know we use Sharpies in the Vote Centers so the ink doesn’t smudge as ballots are counted onsite? New offset columns on the ballots means bleed through won’t impact your vote! Find a location before the polls close at 7 p.m. today at https://t.co/8YEmXbWyRL. pic.twitter.com/KKG2O8rQhf
— Maricopa County Elections Department (@MaricopaVote) November 3, 2020
3. Wisconsin Ballot Dump?
Another claim about Wisconsin is that someone discovered more than 112,000 ballots marked for Biden between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.
The left-leaning PolitiFact identified a Facebook post as being the source of this rumor, which the social media site flagged.
PolitiFact called this claim “false,” quoting Reid Magney, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Elections Commission, as stating, “Absolutely no ballots were ‘found.’”
Magney added: “All of the election results that were reported in the early morning hours of Wednesday were valid ballots that were received by 8 p.m. on Election Day according to the law.”
Aside from social media and a blog post, no major Republican or conservative figures have made a case for this claim.
4. Who’s Counting in Michigan?
A lawsuit filed Wednesday in Detroit asserts that Democratic observers are reviewing thousands of spoiled ballots without an Republican observer present, as required by law.
About 100 counting groups operating in Wayne County determined that ballots rejected by voting machines had to be reviewed.
State law allows a Democrat and Republican election observer to review each ineligible ballot and make a mutual determination of the voter’s intent. However, several witnesses allege that only Democratic observers were correcting such ballots in violation of state law, the lawsuit says.
“The law in Michigan requires Republican and Democrat observers,” Phill Kline, a former Kansas attorney general who now directs the Amistad Project and represents the plaintiffs in the case, told The Daily Signal.
Kline said every ballot could be perfectly legitimate, but the public needs to have confidence in the process and so far, Wayne County has not been transparent.
“The lawsuit is only asking to open the record to the public. We need to know how the votes are being counted,” Kline said. “We know they are violating state law. That makes fraud easier.”
The suit calls for officials to quarantine the ballots until representatives of both parties have evaluated them.
Biden supporters assert that the charge of no Republican observers is “unfounded.”
5. 138,000 for Biden, 0 for Trump?
Another claim stated that Michigan at one point gained 138,339 ballots, all marked for Biden and none for Trump.
This didn’t require hostile fact-checking. The person who first made the assertion admits it is false.
The Detroit Free Press reported that this rumor began when Matt Mackowiak, chairman of Texas’ Travis County Republican Party, first tweeted that Biden received 100% of newly counted votes. An attachment showed two election maps.
But Mackowiak deleted the tweet and posted another tweet saying: “I have now learned the MI update referenced was a typo in one county.”
This tweet was taken and share honestly. I have now learned the MI update referenced was a typo in one county.
It’s nearly impossible for such a thing to happen anywhere, said Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation.
“There are a lot of stories and rumors that turn out not to be true,” von Spakovsky told The Daily Signal. “If it was true that tens of thousands of votes appeared and every single one was for one candidate, that would of course raise grave suspicions, particularly this year when even black and Hispanic voters supported Trump in surprisingly high numbers.
6. Huge Biden Flip of Trump County?
In 2016, Trump won 62% of the vote in Antrim County, Michigan, in his race against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Yet, when the county tabulated votes this week, Biden reportedly beat Trump by 3,000 votes.
Republicans at the local and national level, including American Conservative Union President Matt Schlapp, flagged this development as unusual.
Have Republican votes mysteriously disappeared in Antrim County Michigan and it has become a strong Biden territory? Odd that @GovWhitmer owns property in the county – coincidence? #StopTheStealhttps://t.co/etfrhdyLRW
The questions got results when the Antrim County Clerk’s Office announced it would count the ballots manually. The county has about 24,000 residents.
“There is no way that we flipped from 62% Trump in 2016 to upside-down this time around,” said state Rep. Triston Cole, a Republican, according to Interlochen Public Radio.
7. Dead Voters?
The Public Interest Legal Foundation also filed a lawsuit against the state of Pennsylvania for failing to maintain and update voter rolls after finding 21,000 apparently deceased voters still on the rolls.
That does not mean anyone was falsely voting under the names. However, critics have said unclean voter rolls present the opportunity for fraud.
The lawsuit in Pennsylvania states:
As of October 7, 2020, at least 9,212 registrants have been dead for at least five years, at least 1,990 registrants have been dead for at least ten years, and at least 197 registrants have been dead for at least twenty years. …
Pennsylvania still left the names of more than 21,000 dead individuals on the voter rolls less than a month before one of the most consequential general elections for federal officeholders in many years.
Election fraud is already a problem. Soon it could be a crisis. But election fraud is not the only threat to the integrity of our election system.
Progressives are pushing for nine “reforms” that could increase the opportunity for fraud and dissolve the integrity of constitutional elections. To counter these dangerous measures, our friends at The Heritage Foundation are proposing seven measures to protect your right to vote and ensure fair, constitutional elections.
They are offering it to readers of The Daily Signal for free today.
Get the details now when you download your free copy of, “Mandate for Leadership: Ensuring the Integrity of Our Election System.”
“If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.” – President Donald J. Trump
UPDATE:
One Michigan county clerk caught a glitch in tabulation software so they hand counted votes and found the glitch caused 6,000 votes to go to Biden + Democrats that were meant for Trump and Republicans. 47 MI counties used this software. All must check now! pic.twitter.com/21AXyJZDZi
Donald Trump: (00:02)
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Donald Trump: (00:08)
Good evening. I’d like to provide the American people with an update on our efforts to protect the integrity of our very important 2020 election. If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us. If you count the votes that came in late, we’re looking to them very strongly, but a lot of votes came in late.
Donald Trump: (00:36)
I’ve already decisively won many critical states, including massive victories in Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, to name just a few. We won these and many other victories despite historic election interference from big media, big money, and big tech. As everybody saw, we won by historic numbers, and the pollsters got it knowingly wrong. They got it knowingly wrong. We had polls that were so ridiculous and everybody knew it at the time.
Donald Trump: (01:06)
There was no blue wave that they predicted. They thought there was going to be a big blue wave. That was false. That was done for suppression reasons. But instead there was a big red wave, and it’s been properly acknowledged actually by the media. They were, I think, very impressed, but that was after the fact. That doesn’t do us any good.
Donald Trump: (01:26)
We kept the Senate despite having twice as many seats to defend as Democrats, and in a really much more competitive states. We did a fantastic job with the Senate. I think we’re very proud of what’s happened there. We had many more seats to defend. They spent almost $200 million on Senate races in South Carolina and Kentucky alone, two races, and hundreds of millions of dollars overall against us.
Donald Trump: (01:57)
At the national level, our opponents major donors were Wall Street bankers and special interests. Our major donors were police officers, farmers, everyday citizens. Yet for the first time ever, we lost zero races in the House. I was talking to Kevin McCarthy today. He said he couldn’t believe it. Zero races, very unusual thing, zero, and actually won many new seats with, I think, many more on the way.
Donald Trump: (02:24)
This was also the year of the Republican woman. More Republican women were elected to Congress than ever before. That’s a great achievement. I won the largest share of non-white voters of any Republican in 60 years, including historic numbers of Latino, African American, Asian American, and Native American voters. The largest ever in our history. We grew our party by 4 million voters. The greatest turnout in Republican Party history.
Donald Trump: (03:00)
Democrats are the party of the big donors. The big media, the big tech, it seems, and Republicans have become the party of the American worker, and that’s what’s happened. And we’re also, I believe the party of inclusion. As everyone now recognizes, media polling was election interference in the truest sense of that word, by powerful special interests.
Donald Trump: (03:25)
These really phony polls, I have to call them phony polls, fake polls, were designed to keep our voters at home, create the illusion of momentum for Mr. Biden and diminish Republican’s ability to raise funds. They were what’s called suppression polls, everyone knows that now, and it’s never been used to the extent that it’s been used on this last election.
Donald Trump: (03:51)
To highlight just a few examples, the day before election, Quinnipiac, which was wrong on every occasion that I know of, had Joe Biden up by five points in Florida, and they were off by 8.4 points and I won Florida easily, easily. So they had me losing Florida by a lot and I ended up winning Florida by a lot. Other than that, they were very accurate.
Donald Trump: (04:22)
They had him up four points in Ohio and they were off by 12.2 points, and I also won Ohio, great state of Ohio very easily. And the Washington Post said, “Biden up 17 points in Wisconsin,” and it was basically even. They were off by about 17 points, and they knew that, they’re not stupid people. They knew that. Suppression.
Donald Trump: (04:49)
There are now only a few states yet to be decided in the presidential race. The voting apparatus of those states are run in all cases by Democrats. We were winning in all the key locations by a lot, actually, and then our numbers started miraculously getting whittled away in secret and they wouldn’t allow legally permissible observers.
Donald Trump: (05:15)
We went to court in a couple of instances and we were able to get the observers put in. And when the observers got there, they wanted them 60, 70 feet away, 80 feet, 100 feet away or outside the building to observe people inside the building. And we won a case, a big case, and we have others happening.
Donald Trump: (05:33)
There are lots of litigation, even beyond our litigation. There’s a tremendous amount of litigation generally because of how unfair this process was, and I predicted that. I’ve been talking about mail-in voting for a long time. It’s really destroyed our system. It’s a corrupt system and it makes people corrupt, even if they aren’t by nature, but they become corrupt. It’s too easy. They want to find out how many votes they need, and then they seem to be able to find them. They wait and wait, and then they find them, and you see that on Election Night.
Donald Trump: (06:09)
We were ahead in vote in North Carolina by a lot, a tremendous number of votes, and we’re still ahead by a lot, but not as many because they’re finding ballots all of a sudden. “Oh, we have some mail-in ballots.” It’s amazing how those mail-in ballots are so one-sided too. I know that it’s supposed to be to the advantage of the Democrats, but in all cases they’re so one-sided.
Donald Trump: (06:34)
We were up by nearly 700,000 votes in Pennsylvania. I won Pennsylvania by a lot. And that gets whittled down to, I think they said now we’re up by 90,000 votes and they’ll keep coming and coming and coming. They find them all over and they don’t want us to have any observers. Although we won a court case, the judge said, “You have to have observers.” Likewise in Georgia … And they’re appealing, actually they’re appealing. We want a case that we want people to watch and we want to observers and they’re actually appealing, which is sort of interesting. I wonder why they’d appeal? All we want to do is have people watch as they do the vote tabulations.
Donald Trump: (07:16)
Likewise in Georgia, I won by a lot, a lot, with a lead of over getting close to 300,000 votes on Election Night in Georgia. And by the way, got whittled down and now it’s getting to be to a point where I’ll go from winning by a lot to perhaps being even down a little bit.
Donald Trump: (07:37)
In Georgia, a pipe burst in a far away location, totally unrelated to the location of what was happening and they stopped counting for four hours. And a lot of things happened. The election apparatus in Georgia is run by Democrats. We also had margins of 300,000 in Michigan. We were way up in Michigan, won the state. And in Wisconsin, we did likewise fantastically well, and that got whittled down. In every case, they got whittled down.
Donald Trump: (08:12)
Today, we’re on track to win Arizona. We only need to carry, I guess, 55% of the remaining vote, 55% margins, and that’s a margin that we’ve significantly exceeded. So we’ll see what happens with that, but we’re on track to do okay in Arizona. Our goal is to defend the integrity of the election. We’ll not allow the corruption to steal such an important election, or any election for that manner. And we can’t allow silence, anybody to silence our voters and manufacture results.
Donald Trump: (08:46)
I’ve never had, I’ve been doing a lot of public things for a long time, I’ve never had anything that’s been as inspirational by people calling, talking, sending things to us. I’ve never seen such love and such affection and such spirit as I’ve seen for this. People know what’s happening and they see what’s happening and just before their eyes, and there are many instances which will be reported very shortly.
Donald Trump: (09:16)
There’s tremendous litigation going on, and this is a case where they’re trying to steal an election. They’re trying to rig an election and we can’t let that happen. Detroit and Philadelphia, known as two of the most corrupt political places anywhere in our country easily, cannot be responsible for engineering the outcome of a presidential race, a very important presidential race.
Donald Trump: (09:39)
In Pennsylvania, Democrats have gone to the State Supreme Court to try and ban our election observers and very strongly. Now we won the case, but they’re going forward. They don’t want anybody in there. They don’t want anybody watching them as they count the ballots, and I can’t imagine why. There’s absolutely no legitimate reason why they would not want to have people watching this process, because if it’s straight, they should be proud of it. Instead, they’re trying obviously to commit fraud. There’s no question about that.
Donald Trump: (10:20)
In Philadelphia, observers have been kept far away, very far away. So far that people are using binoculars to try and see, and there’s been tremendous problems caused. They put a paper on all of the windows so you can’t see in, and the people that are banned are very unhappy and become somewhat violent.
Donald Trump: (10:41)
The Eleventh Circuit ruled that in Georgia, the votes have been in by Election Day, that they should be in by Election Day, and they weren’t. Votes are coming in after Election Day. And they had a ruling already that you have to have the votes in by Election Day. To the best of my knowledge, votes should be in by Election Day, and they didn’t do that. Democrat officials never believed they could win this election honestly, I really believe that. That’s why they did the mail-in ballots, where there’s tremendous corruption and fraud going on.
Donald Trump: (11:15)
That’s why they mailed out tens of millions of unsolicited ballots without any verification measures whatsoever, and I’ve told everybody that these things would happen because I’ve seen it happen. I watched a lot of different elections before they decided to go with this big, massive election with tens of millions of ballots going out to everybody. In many cases, totally unsolicited.
Donald Trump: (11:43)
This was unprecedented in American history. This was by design. Despite years of claiming to care about the election security, they refuse to include any requirement to verify signatures, identities, or even determined whether they’re eligible or ineligible to vote. People are walking in there, they have no idea. They just take in the numbers. They’re writing down things, the workers, and doing a lot of bad things. And we have a lot of information coming and litigation that you’ll see that will shake even you people up, and you’ve seen it all.
Donald Trump: (12:16)
The officials overseeing the counting in Pennsylvania and other key states are all part of a corrupt Democrat machine that you’ve written about. And for a long time, you’ve been writing about the corrupt Democrat machine. I went to school there and I know a lot about it. It hasn’t changed since a long time ago and hasn’t changed. It has gotten worse.
Donald Trump: (12:36)
In Pennsylvania, partisan Democrats have allowed ballots in the state to be received three days after the election, and we think much more than that, and they’re counting those without even postmarks or any identification whatsoever. So you don’t have postmarks, you don’t have identification.
Donald Trump: (12:56)
There have been a number of disturbing irregularities across the nation. Our campaign has been denied access to observe any counting in Detroit. Detroit is another place, and I wouldn’t say has the best reputation for election integrity. Poll workers in Michigan were duplicating ballots. But when our observers attempted to challenge the activity, those poll workers jumped in front of the volunteers to block their views so that they couldn’t see what they were doing and it became a little bit dangerous.
Donald Trump: (13:32)
One major hub for counting ballots in Detroit covered up the windows again with large pieces of cardboard, and so they wanted to protect and block the counting area. They didn’t want anybody seeing the counting, even though these were observers who were legal observers that were supposed to be there.
Donald Trump: (13:49)
In Detroit, there were hours of unexplained delay in delivering many of the votes for counting. The final batch did not arrive until 4:00 in the morning. And even though the polls closed at 8:00 o’clock, so they brought it in and the batches came in and nobody knew where they came from.
Donald Trump: (14:06)
We’ve also been denied access to observe in critical places in Georgia. In multiple swing states, counting was halted for hours and hours on Election Night. With results withheld from major Democrat run locations only to appear later, and they certainly appeared and they all had the name Biden on them, or just about all. I think almost all. They all had the name Biden on them, which is a little strange.
Donald Trump: (14:34)
I challenge Joe and every Democrat to clarify that they only want legal votes because they talk about votes and I think they should use the word legal, legal votes. We want every legal vote counted, and I want every legal vote counted. We want openness and transparency, no secret count rooms, no mystery ballots, no illegal votes being cast after Election Day. You have Election Day and the laws are very strong on that. You have an Election Day and they don’t want votes cast after Election Day and they want the process to be an honest one. It’s so important.
Donald Trump: (15:09)
We want an honest election and we want an honest count and we want honest people working back there because it’s a very important job. So that’s the way this country is going to win. That’s the way the United States will win, and we think we will win the election very easily. We think there’s going to be a lot of litigation because we have so much evidence, so much proof, and it’s going to end up perhaps at the highest court in the land, we’ll see. But we think there’ll be a lot of litigation because we can’t have an election stolen by like this.
Donald Trump: (15:43)
And I tell you, He trum Small elections were a disaster. Small, very easy to handle elections were disastrous. This is a large scale version, and it’s getting worse and worse every day. We’re hearing stories that are horror stories, absolute horror stories, and we can’t let that happen to the United States of America.
Donald Trump: (16:11)
It’s not a question of who wins, Republican, Democrat, Joe, myself. We can’t let that happen to our country. We can’t be disgraced by having something like this happen. So it will be hopefully cleared up. Maybe soon, I hope soon, but it’ll probably go through a process, a legal process. And as you know, I’ve claimed certain states and he’s claiming states and we can both claim the States, but ultimately I have a feeling judges are going to have to rule. But there’s been a lot of shenanigans and we can’t stand for that in our country. Thank you very much.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2020-11-06 05:57:332021-10-07 21:21:19DEFEND THE ELECTION: President Trump’s Fight to Protect Every American’s ‘Legal’ Vote [Video]
‘The polling industry is a wreck, and should be blown up,’ says one pundit.
It’s everyone’s nightmare scenario: an electoral stalemate; two men all but claiming the presidency; and a likely legal battle that may extend into December.
So much is yet uncertain as the final ballots are counted, and as some jurisdictions prepare to pause counting while the courts have their say. Through the frustrating murkiness, however, there are already a number of major headline stories to take out of the 2020 US election. One of the biggest is surely the abject failure of the polling industry. Again.
“The polling industry is a wreck, and should be blown up,” writes Politico.
“To all the pollsters out there: you have no idea what you’re doing,” declared Republican Senator Lindsay Graham.
Graham fended off South Carolina challenger Jamie Harrison, who in some polls edged in front of Graham and spent US$109m on the race that polls told him he could win. Instead, Harrison ended up losing by 11 points.
Graham wasn’t the only Republican Senator to enjoy an unforeseen landslide. There wasn’t a single major poll that tipped Susan Collins to win a Senate seat in Maine. Her Democrat challenger Sarah Gideon raised $70m for the upset, but lost the race by 9 points.
By most measures, the Democrats were heavy favourites to flip the Senate. Instead, Republicans are now better placed to lead the Senate than before Tuesday’s race.
The Democrat party was likewise expected to pick up anywhere from five to 15 seats in the House. In fact, the Republicans outperformed them there too, stealing a handful of seats to put themselves in an extremely powerful minority, regardless of the eventual White House result.
The award-winning FiveThirtyEight is regarded by many as the best authority on American political contests because of its polling aggregation methods. Going into Tuesday, FiveThirtyEight gave the Democrats a 72 percent chance of sweeping both houses of Congress and the presidency in a great “blue wave”. They tipped Joe Biden as the 90 percent favourite. How could they get it so wrong?
The site was just as dismal on state races. They gave Trump only the narrowest of leads in both Texas and Ohio, states that Trump won by a convincing 6 and 8 percentage points respectively. Biden was the clear favourite in Florida, but lost the perennial swing state by 3.5 points. Wisconsin—which now faces a recount after a razor-thin count—was supposed to be a thumping Biden win: 95 percent likely, according to FiveThirtyEight. A full 17 points according to the Washington Post.
I have a confession to make. In the weeks leading up to the election, there were only two polling outlets that I paid any attention to: Rasmussen and Trafalgar. I had a straightforward reason for this. While most pollsters missed Trump’s 2016 victory, they were impressively close in their predictions.
The reason for this is that they were aware of the “shy Trump voter” phenomenon, and had devised methods to account for this. Trafalgar accurately foresaw a 2016 Trump win in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan. Rasmussen came to within one point of predicting the popular vote, performing better than any other outlet according to RealClearPolitics.
And sure enough, both predicted a neck-and-neck race this year. Rasmussen correctly picked up on a growing Black and Latino vote for Trump, and Presidential approval ratings in the high 40s and low 50s during the final weeks of the campaign. Trafalgar tipped Trump to win the White House with an electoral college total in the high 270s to low 280s.
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight fame dismissed both polling outlets as “crazy”—though he’s probably eating his words now.
As early as 2015, The New York Times drew attention to what they called a “crisis” in the polling industry. They cited several reasons; among them the growth of cellphones, a decline in the willingness of people to answer surveys, and the difficulty of identifying likely voters as opposed to registered voters.
As recently highlighted by Michael Cook, when The New York Times wildly missed the Trump victory in 2016, they searched their hearts and promised to “report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you.” Of course, that didn’t last too long: all 15 of their opinion columnists decried Trump in unison over the weekend.
While the Times was doubtless correct about the social challenges facing pollsters, they missed the bigger picture. Just like the polling outlets, they were blinkered—only able to see what they wanted to see, and dismissing all else. Cognitive bias is a powerful phenomenon, and we’re all subject to it.
For four years, the liberal coastal elites—whether in statistics or journalism—have told themselves the same, tired “Orange Man Bad” story, unable to fathom that other Americans felt differently and had long ago tuned out.
As long as they are living in their own world, they will miss what half the country really thinks. And that’s to everyone’s detriment.
Kurt Mahlburg is a teacher, freelance writer, and the Features Editor of the Canberra Declaration. He contributes regularly at the Spectator Australia, Caldron Pool and The Good Sauce. He hosts his own… More by Kurt Mahlburg
EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexitieshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexities2020-11-05 14:57:502021-10-07 21:21:19Hey pollsters, maybe it’s time for a career change
NEW YORK, NY—Fox News has called Arizona for Joe Biden after just one vote was counted. The voter, Bob Johnson, was administered an exit poll, and he said, “Yep. I love Joe Biden. Might as well call the state for him now.” Immediately, Fox News reporters called the news desk, which made the call to hand the electoral votes to Biden immediately. Fox News says it will wait until Trump wins at least 4 billion votes in Florida before the state is called for him, cautioning patience and reminding voters that there are still plenty of absentee ballots to come in from military overseas and the Chinese government.
The 2020 presidential election fiasco holds a warning about central planning.
Elections are a nasty business, but sometimes they can be clarifying.
We don’t yet know who won the US presidential election, and we may not for days or weeks to come. This stems largely from the ineptitude Americans witnessed on Election Tuesday.
It wasn’t just the fact that pollsters once again failed disastrously, or that networks fumbled their election coverage.
The bigger issue is that America’s governing bodies look incapable of managing something as simple as a vote, something Americans have managed to do efficiently for centuries without the benefit of computers, digital communication, and mass transportation.
As an American, I find this a tad embarrassing. As the journalist Glenn Greenwald observed Wednesday, countries with far fewer resources and less advanced technology regularly manage to hold speedy, efficient elections. This is something the US failed to do on Tuesday, Greenwald noted.
The richest and most powerful country on earth — whether due to ineptitude, choice or some combination of both — has no ability to perform the simple task of counting votes in a minimally efficient or confidence-inspiring manner. As a result, the credibility of the voting process is severely impaired, and any residual authority the U.S. claims to “spread” democracy to lucky recipients of its benevolence around the world is close to obliterated.
At 7:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, the day after the 2020 presidential elections, the results of the presidential race, as well as control of the Senate, are very much in doubt and in chaos. Watched by [the] rest of the world — deeply affected by who rules the still-imperialist superpower — the U.S. struggles and stumbles and staggers to engage in a simple task mastered by countless other less powerful and poorer countries: counting votes. Some states are not expected to [finish] their vote-counting until the end of this week or beyond.
This, to be blunt, is unacceptable.
The most prosperous country in the world cannot manage to do something as simple as collect and count ballots. Think about that for just a moment.
Unfortunately, this incompetence carries consequences that are quite real. Americans are beginning to lose faith in the integrity of elections. I’m not just talking about voters in the fever swamps of Twitter.
Many impressive journalists, thinkers, and students of various political stripes have expressed alarm at what they witnessed in the last 24 hours.
“The most reliable way to tell that a facility is clear of ballots is the all clear process rather than comparing entry and exit scans,” said Kevin Bray, 26-year USPS operations specialist.
The all-clear process is manually sweeping each facility and finding no ballots.
Many readers can probably relate to some of these concerns.
The reality is, the inability of election authorities to do something as simple as gather and count votes is undermining Americans’ faith in the constitutional system. As Greenwald notes, this is dangerous; but it’s also rational.
Because of the power and breadth of the federal government, there is a great deal at stake in presidential elections—too much at stake. Americans sense this, and when they see mail-in ballots missing, precincts that can’t get votes counted, voting delays, errors in data feeds, and other problems it naturally creates a feeling of uncertainty. Uncertainty in turn breeds distrust.
One could argue that this year’s election was unique. Turnout was unprecedented (at least in raw numbers), perhaps in part because of the coronavirus pandemic and the record number of mail-in ballots.
Perhaps that’s true. But the fact remains: how hard is it to collect and count ballots? I don’t wish to disparage the people working these elections. The process is probably far more complicated than many Americans realize. But this is true of most systems, which brings me to a key point.
Is collecting and counting ballots more difficult than running a vast health care system that involves pricing, insurance, medication, billing, and the very lives of individuals? The answer is no.
Is collecting and counting ballots more difficult than attempting to manage the spread of an invisible virus without ruining the livelihoods, spirits, educations, and very lives of hundreds of millions of people? Again, the answer is no.
In some ways, we should not be surprised to see governing bodies fail to manage something as elementary as an election. For decades we’ve watched the United States Post Office bungle something as simple as collecting and delivering mail. The USPS bleeds billions of dollars every year doing something a private company would make a profit doing, while delivering substandard service. (This is why libertarians have been arguing for more than a century that the Post Office should be subjected to competition.)
It’s no coincidence that the election debacle of 2020 happened in the year the Post Office played its largest role ever. It was bound to happen.
As the economist Ludwig von Mises observed in his 1944 book Bureaucracy, government agencies can never be anywhere near as efficient as private businesses. The competitive market compels entrepreneurs and their employees to competently and efficiently serve the buying public or go out of business. And profit-and-loss accounting enables them to figure out exactly what’s working and what’s not. In contrast, as Mises wrote:
“Public administration, the handling of the government apparatus of coercion and compulsion, must necessarily be formalistic and bureaucratic. No reform can remove the bureaucratic features of the government’s bureaus. It is useless to blame them for their slowness and slackness. It is vain to lament over the fact that the assiduity, carefulness, and painstaking work of the average bureau clerk are, as a rule, below those of the average worker in private business. (…) In the absence of an unquestionable yardstick of success and failure it is almost impossible for the vast majority of men to find that incentive to utmost exertion that the money calculus of profit-seeking business easily provides. It is of no use to criticize the bureaucrat’s pedantic observance of rigid rules and regulations. (…)
All such deficiencies are inherent in the performance of services which cannot be checked by money statements of profit and loss.”
That isn’t to say that bureaucracy is inherently evil. Mises clarified that, “bureaucracy in itself is neither good nor bad.”
“There is a field,” he continued, “namely, the handling of the apparatus of government, in which bureaucratic methods are required by necessity.”
Elections, for example, are necessarily a bureaucratic affair, even if that means they often get bungled.
The big problem is when governments bureaucratize things that don’t need to be bureaucratic. The evil lies in, as Mises said, “the expansion of the sphere in which bureaucratic management is applied.”
For example, health care does not need to be bureaucratic. It can and has been provided through the market. To the extent that it has been, market forces and signals have made it better.
But if health care were to be socialized—as in a single-payer scheme—it would have to be managed bureaucratically and would inevitably suffer all the deficiencies of a bureaucracy: ineptitude, slowness, neglect, etc.
Just imagine having to depend on the DMV or the USPS for your medical treatment. (If you’ve ever had to deal with the Veterans Administration, perhaps you don’t have to imagine.)
One may object that our health care system already suffers from those failings and is already quite bureaucratic. But that is because the government is already so heavily involved in it. As Mises wrote, “Every kind of government meddling… breeds bureaucratism.”
It is the absence of market forces and signals that makes governments inefficient. The normal mechanisms in markets that lead to efficiency, productivity, and prosperity simply cannot be replicated in a government system. Ever.
This is not to say some government systems cannot be managed more effectively than others. Naturally, they can. Just as many countries manage to hold elections and quickly get reliable results instead of the fiasco Americans witnessed this week.
The point is bureaucracy is inefficient by nature. We saw that Tuesday night.
And we should all be asking ourselves an important question: If government cannot manage something as simple as an election, how can it possibly make rational decisions about health care and pandemics that affect hundreds of millions of people?
Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2020-11-05 14:30:052021-10-07 21:21:20Government Can’t Count Ballots. How Can It Possibly Manage a Pandemic or Our Health Care?
“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.” – Joseph Stalin, from The Memoirs of Stalin’s Former Secretary by Boris Bazhanov, published in 2002.
“There is no compromise when it comes to corruption. You have to fight it.” – A.K. Antony
As I woke up on November 4th, 2020 and began reading about how votes were magically appearing and magically disappearing in Democrat controlled cities and states across America! I was shocked. I had never seen something this wide spread and organized in my lifetime.
From Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconson to Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. Ballots were showing up after the polls closed by the tens of thousands.
As I watched news network after news network call a state for one presidential candidate over another presidential candidate before all the votes were counted I was bewildered.
The term “fake news” took on a new meaning. An ominous meaning.
When I went to Google, Twitter and Facebook to learn about what was happening with ballots and voter fraud I saw these posts completely disappear from Facebook and Twitter and shadow banned by Google. In many cases Twitter would post on a tweet about voter fraud this:
“Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”
Or this:
This Tweet is from a suspended account.
As I saw the vote counts stop and then suddenly start again followed by the counting of hundreds of thousands votes for one candidate for president to the exclusion of all the other candidates, I thought to my self – will 2020 go down in American history as the first un-free and un-fair election?
Voter fraud has now become the primary “weapon of choice” of one political party.
Since the 2016 Presidential election the Democrats have taken the following public positions on voting in America:
End the Electoral College.
Implement a national popular vote system.
Implement a national vote-by-mail system.
Control the voting process by any and all means necessary.
Control how the votes are counted.
Create phony ballots to offset legal ballots as we are learning in 2020.
Refuse to purge voter rolls of the dead, non-citizens and those who no longer live in the state. For example, a lawsuit filed by the Public Interest Legal Foundation found that in Detroit, Michigan there are: 4,788 duplicate registrations, 32,519 more registered voters than eligible voters, 2,503 dead people registered and one voter born in 1823.
Reject any form of voter ID laws, labeling them as voter suppression, thus allowing multiple cases of fraud.
Over look voters who vote more than one time, i.e. those who are residents of two states and vote in each state illegally.
Give voter IDs to anyone and everyone.
Target Republican voters and cancel out their ballots.
Emphatically say there is no such thing as voter fraud! While at the same time conducting voter fraud by all means available.
The final outcome of these Democrat Party policy positions is to enforce a popular voting system and then control that system at the ballot box.
The idea of one man/woman one vote is passé. The ideal of a free and fair election is a thing of the past. The process of counting all the votes on election day is dead, thanks to the United States Supreme Court.
The only thing important today, as Stalin said, is “who will count the votes, and how.”
Is 2020 the death of our Constitutional Republic?
Is it the final nail in our free and fair elections’ coffin? Are we entering a socialist state where the ballot box is totally controlled the state, and how the people vote be damned.
The sentiment “The people who cast the votes decide nothing; the people who count the votes decide everything” that originated with Stalin has now been perfected by Joe Biden as the leader of the Democrat Party in 2020.
Another week, another Biden-Harris campaign refusal to level with the American voter on the issue of turning the federal judiciary into a second partisan legislative branch of government. At Wednesday’s vice presidential debate, Vice President Mike Pence asked Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) if a Biden-Harris administration would attempt to add seats to the U.S. Supreme Court. Just as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden declined to answer this question during the first presidential debate, Harris did not answer this simple question.
Pence posed the following question to Harris, “If Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States, are you and Joe Biden, if somehow you win this election, going to pack the Supreme Court to get your way?” When Harris initially refused to answer, Pence reiterated, “People are voting right now. They’d like to know if you and Joe Biden are gonna pack the Supreme Court if you don’t get your way in this nomination.” Again, Harris did answer the question.
After repeated non-answers from Harris, the debate moderator attempted to bail out the senator from California by moving on to another topic. In response, a polite but forceful Pence noted, “I just want the record to reflect, she never answered the question. Perhaps at the next debate Joe Biden will answer the question. And I think the American people know the answer.”
The Vice President is right. The American people do know the answer. Given Biden and Harris’s steadfast refusal to state their position on such a monumental and unpopular policy measure, it is rational for concerned citizens to conclude the worst.
Further, New York Times reporter Alexander Burns has stated that Harris told her that she was interested in packing the U.S. Supreme Court. Burns was recorded stating, “Senator Harris told me in an interview actually that she was absolutely open to doing that…”
It was a narrow 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision that concluded in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. A similarly narrow 5-4 majority also incorporated that right to the states in McDonald v. Chicago. Even with a majority of justices that recognize the proper individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment, the narrow majority has proven reluctant to vindicate this right when presented with the opportunity.
Second Amendment supporters cannot afford to permit a Biden-Harris administration and Democrat-controlled Senate to pack the U.S. Supreme Court with anti-gun justices. Especially when both Biden and Harris have made clear that they do not believe the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms.
During a September 2019 “townhall” event, Biden was asked, “Do you agree with the D.C. v. Heller decision in regards to protecting the individual right to bear arms that are in common use and which are utilized for lawful purposes?”
Biden responded in part, “If I were on the court I wouldn’t have made the same ruling. OK, that’s number one.”
As District Attorney of San Francisco, Harris signed an amicus curiae brief in Heller that argued the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms.
Advocating against the individual right to keep and bear arms, the brief argued,
courts have consistently sustained criminal firearms laws against Second Amendment challenges by holding that, inter alia, (i) the Second Amendment provides only a militia-related right to bear arms, (ii) the Second Amendment does not apply to legislation passed by state or local governments,
According to the document, the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right, but rather, the lower court in Heller “create[d]” this right. The brief stated,
The lower court’s decision, however, creates a broad private right to possess any firearm that is a “lineal descendant” of a founding era weapon and that is in “common use” with a “military application” today.
Anticipating the U.S. Supreme Court’s move in the next landmark Second Amendment case (McDonald), Harris’s brief reiterated that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms should not be incorporated to the states. Had this thinking been adopted, state and local governments would be empowered to curtail or even extinguish gun rights without restraint. State and local governments would have been able to bar their residents from owning any firearms whatsoever.
There is every reason to believe that any court packing scheme would involve installing a solid anti-Second Amendment majority to the U.S. Supreme Court that would work to eliminate recognition of the individual right to keep and bear arms. NRA members and gun rights activists must work to inform their family, friends, neighbors, and other freedom-minded individuals about the dangers a Biden-Harris administration poses to the U.S. Supreme Court and the Second Amendment.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00NRA Institute for Legislative Actionhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNRA Institute for Legislative Action2020-11-05 05:07:262021-10-07 21:15:40Court Packing Kamala: VP Candidate an Existential Threat to U.S. Supreme Court and Second Amendment
On the ballot this election season are two different visions for America: government power vs. empowerment of people. The choice is ultimately between politicians who seek to confiscate and redistribute wealth (creating a perpetual underclass that’s dependent on government) on the one hand, or those who empower the individual, on the other hand, enabling us each to work towards our God-given destiny.
Jesus wants us to help the poor and the underclass. Nothing helps them more than to help them become empowered themselves, living out their gifts and talents. In His classic parable of the talents, Jesus commends those who work hard and smart with the talents He has entrusted to them, and He condemns the one who buried His talent in the ground. We should seek to help others to fulfill their calling. “A hand out” may be necessary in emergency situations, but “a hand up” is much better in the long run.
This power versus empowerment dichotomy can be seen in tax cuts. Tax cuts put money back in your pocket, instead of that of the government bureaucrat. Tax cuts empower we the people. But the political elitist class loses power through tax cuts. So they oppose them—even though liberal icon JFK, a proponent of tax cuts, said in reference to them that a rising tide lifts all boats.
A conservative believes that you are best qualified to take care of yourself and your family. A liberal believes that the government is best qualified to take care of you and your family. That’s the difference, plain and simple.
Dr. Ben Carson is a renowned neurosurgeon and currently serves as the head of the Department of Housing and Urban Department for President Trump.
He and his brother grew up in grinding poverty, in a housing development in Detroit with their single-parent mom.
But to help them break free from a life of dependence upon government, their mother insisted that each of them read a book a week in order to expand their lives (to empower them). She even forced them to write book reports on each of them for her perusal. Dr. Carson realized later she probably was not even literate enough to read those book reports, but they still produced them. Both brothers became well-educated and made something of their lives, because of her faith in the Lord and in them and by becoming well read.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, our schools were shut down. Some have reopened. But in Los Angeles, the teachers’ union made a series of demands if the schools were to be reopened. Included in their mandates was that there be a moratorium on building new charter schools. Nothing like trying to squash your competitors.
Generally children thrive in alternative forms of schooling, such as private schools, charter schools, and home schools.
Parents in poor neighborhoods especially want to have school choice because it can empower their children to make something of their lives. But the teachers’ union sought to protect the power of its own members—rather than empower children and families.
College would seem to be a great place to become empowered—to learn things with which to make something of one’s life. But much of college education today is just politically correct indoctrination.
“1960s student radicals graduated without much debt and for all their hipness could enter a booming economy with marketable skills. Today’s angry graduates owe a collective $1.6 trillion in student loan debt—much of it borrowed for mediocre, therapeutic, and politicized training that does not impress employers….In other words, today’s radical is far more desperate and angry that his college gambit never paid off.”
Those who become reliant on permanent government handouts ultimately develop a sense of entitlement—as if this money is owed them. How much better to train, to teach, to educate, to inspire, to motivate, than it is to keep people in perpetual reliance on the government, in exchange for their votes.
Steve Moore, the FreedomWorks economist, who worked for the Reagan administration and who has advised President Trump’s campaign, recorded a recent PragerU video (10/7/20). He points out: “Red state America is prospering. Blue state America is in meltdown. So where do you want to live?” For the most part, Red state America is engaged in trying to empower its citizens. The leaders in Blue state America are trying to cling to power—even using it to shut down churches and schools in the name of fighting the pandemic.
Here’s the kicker. While many on the left essentially want a perpetual underclass as their power base, everyone will one day die and give an account to our Maker as to what we did with our lives.
In Election 2020, there is a hidden issue on the ballot. That issue is which vision we choose to pursue: power for power’s sake or empowering as many citizens as want to be empowered for a better future.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jerry Newcombe, D. Min.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJerry Newcombe, D. Min.2020-11-05 04:56:582021-10-07 21:15:40Power Versus Empowerment
Democratic donors are feeling a lot lighter in the wallet this week, but how much do they have to show for it? While Fox News raced to call the House for Democrats, the real story behind the numbers is a crushing one for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). She didn’t just watch her majority shrink — she witnessed a foreboding flip of seats in solidly blue districts. Will she have control over the House when it’s all over? Probably, but from a much weaker position — and without a Senate takeover to cushion the blow.
It might be one of the most underreported narratives of Tuesday night, but when the dust settles, the GOP will have significantly outperformed in the U.S. House. Both parties, Politico points out, thought the congressional races would be a bloodbath. Democrats were supposed to win “a dozen seats in the House,” they explain, “and knock off a whole host of Republican incumbents.” Guess what? Those projections, like all the rest, were completely wrong. Instead, it was Republicans beating Democrats — and, more importantly, Democratic incumbents.
“They beat Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson after a few decades of trying,” reporters announced. They stunned in liberal strongholds like Miami, knocking off Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Donna Shalala. In places like Staten Island, South Carolina, and New Mexico, the wins came tumbling in for Republicans. “And, to add insult to injury, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Cheri Bustos, is struggling to hang on to her Illinois district.” “So much for the election landslide,” the Wall Street Journal proclaimed.
“We defied the odds,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters triumphantly. After wasting a year on bogus impeachment charges and refusing to negotiate on any legislation of substance, the country’s message to Democrats seems to be: Start doing your jobs, or we’ll give them to someone else. For pro-lifers, who’ve been battling the most extreme abortion agenda in history, the GOP’s upsets are especially good news. The more they chip away at the Left’s majority, the better likelihood of success on things like the discharge petition of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. Depending on where the final numbers end up, Republicans may finally be able to force a vote to stop legal infanticide. That, in itself, would be a major win for the unborn.
Of course, the biggest prize of the night was the U.S. Senate, where liberal activists had pumped tens of millions of dollars into defeating the GOP. But outspent, Americans quickly learned, does not mean outgunned. And within a few short hours, it was clear that voters weren’t ready to hand the keys to a party who threatened to blow up the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, and unseat district judges. Pollsters, who insisted the Senate was a lock for the Left, had even more egg on their face when Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the Democrats’ biggest target and shepherd of the Amy Coney Barrett nomination, won in a race that wasn’t even close.
Donors lost $90 million in their bid to unseat Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a record-breaking $108 million to oust Graham, and another $24 million to dispose of Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas). When CNN’s Van Jones said that “a lot of Democrats are hurt and scared tonight,” he wasn’t just talking about the presidential race. The fact that the Left couldn’t live up to its lofty goals is proof that the party is in some disarray. Despite the advantages Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had — not just financially but with their liberal megaphones in the media and social media — Democrats still can’t overcome the realities of their unpopular agenda.
With Michigan’s John James (R) still in the hunt, Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) up by two points, Alaska’s Dan Sullivan (R) double-digits ahead, and Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville (R), Iowa’s Joni Ernst (R), Montana’s Steve Daines (R) now safely in the win column, Republicans’ worst fears are put to rest. Within the next 24 hours, Senate control should be safely in the GOP’s hands — which, depending on what happens to the White House, may prove monumentally important. Not to mention miraculous, considering the obstacles they faced.
At least for now, while we watch the presidency swing from one candidate to the other, we can take comfort that this Senate will either be a check on a radical Biden or a boost to a second-term Trump. Either way, it’s a victory worth celebrating.
Tony Perkins’s Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.
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Roger Stone is a seasoned political operative, speaker, pundit, and New York Times Bestselling Author featured in the Netflix documentary “Get me Roger Stone”. A veteran of ten national presidential campaigns, he served as a senior campaign aide to three Republican presidents: Nixon, Reagan and, to his regret, Bush. Stone gives insights on behind-the-scenes political agendas and is a very proud supporter of President Donald Trump.
TOPIC: TRUMPS NEXT STEP!
PHILLIP D. KLINE
Phillip D. Kline is a Associate Professor of Law at Liberty University. Prior to teaching at the law school, he served in Kansas as the Johnson County District Attorney where he managed over 8,500 criminal cases each year. Kline’s pro-life leadership, as written by columnist Bob Novak, opened a new front on the abortion wars and placed Kansas in the epicenter of the current battle over the sanctity of human life. A successful lawyer in private practice, Kline has represented states and state agencies in large, complex civil litigation and large international interests in construction mediation, arbitration, and litigation.
TOPIC: Were Ballot Drop Boxes Properly Monitored?
DR. RICH SWIER
Dr. Rich Swier is a “conservative with a conscience.” Rich is a 23 year Army veteran who retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. He was awarded the Legion of Merit for his years of service. Additionally, he was awarded two Bronze Stars with “V” for Heroism in ground combat, the Presidential Unit Citation, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry while serving with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam. Dr Rich now publishes the the “drrichswier.com report”. A daily review of news, issues and commentary!
TOPIC: It ain’t over yet. Trust in Trump!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Conservative Commandos Radio Showhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngConservative Commandos Radio Show2020-11-05 04:16:402021-10-07 21:16:59PODCAST: It ain’t over yet. Trust in Trump!
We have received hundreds of voter complaints regarding Sharpies at polling locations. Accordingly, we sent this letter to Maricopa County election officials. Let's get some answers. Read our letter here: https://t.co/c6FSFZiNj7pic.twitter.com/HnZ16UTTrs
"My daughter-in-law went to a poll yesterday in Arizona to vote and they were handing out felt tip pens and magic markers to vote with she checked this morning with our voting commission and her vote was disqualified. A lot of this going on in Arizona." pic.twitter.com/kJDM4LDZQl
Arizona AG opens probe into voter SHARPIE complaints in Maricopa County
By: Sara Carter, November 4, 2020:
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is investigating claims that hundreds of ballots were tossed or rejected by the use of sharpies being passed out by people at voter locations in Maricopa County, as well as other polling stations in the state.
“We’ve received hundreds of voter complaints regarding Sharpies at polling locations”
Brnovich tweeted out a letter sent by Arizona Deputy Solicitor General Michael Catlett demanding Maricopa County Director of Election Day and Emergency Voting Scott Jenson answer questions regarding complaints lodged by hundreds of voters who may have been disenfranchised because they were given Sharpies to fill out their ballots.
Maricopa County has a significantly higher Republican base and concern that ballots were tossed or not counted began Tuesday with voters complaining on social media platforms, as well as complaints being lodged with the Emergency Voting Office, according to reports.
“We have received hundreds of voter complaints regarding Sharpies at polling locations,” said Brnovich. “Accordingly, we sent this letter to Maricopa County election officials. Let’s get some answers.”
In the letter, Catlett said the election board must answer his questions by Nov. 5. He wants to know which voting centers provided the sharpies and where they are located. More importantly, he wants to know how many ballots at those centers were rejected because of over-votes – mainly the ink from the sharpie leaked onto the backside of the ballot.
“Were the ballot tabulation machines utilized at voting centers on Election Day programmed to reject over-voted ballots,” he asked. He also asked the Maricopa County Election board what the process is for cancelling a voters ballot? If a ballot is reflected as “cancelled” on the Secretary of State’s website, what does that mean for the voter?
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2020-11-05 03:42:032021-10-07 21:17:00Arizona AG opens probe into voter SHARPIE complaints in Maricopa County
Two Republicans and a Democrat continued their leads in the six-way race for three seats on the Arizona Corporation Commission after a new batch of results posted Wednesday evening.
The commission sets rates and policies for utilities, including how much renewable energy they use.
Last hour the Fox News decision desk said Trump would get 45% of the outstanding Arizona vote.
Democrats are holding onto slight leads in Arizona, but hundreds of thousands of ballots are still being counted. CBSN’s “Red & Blue” anchor Elaine Quijano discusses the state of the presidential and senate races with CBS News campaign reporter Alex Tin and the editor and publisher of TucsonSentinel.com, Dylan Smith.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2020-11-05 03:16:112021-10-07 21:17:00President Trump Picks Up Another 74K in Arizona
