FLORIDA: School Punishes Teacher Who Refused To Watch Girl Change In Boys’ Locker Room

Another Florida school district is cutting parents out of the loop on transgender school kids and gagging teachers, but this time going after a male P.E. teacher who refused to observe a middle school girl who was claiming to feel like a boy and using the boys’ locker room.

Pasco County schools, a suburban county just north of Tampa, allowed a self-determined transgender female student daily access to the boys’ locker room, without providing any advanced warning to the boys’ parents or to the boys themselves.

This resulted in an embarrassing shock the first time the obvious girl entered the locker room and there were naked boys.

When the male P.E. teacher refused to watch the minor girl change clothes, a school administrator threatened the teacher with placing him on administrative leave. According to Liberty Counsel attorney Richard Mast, whose organization is involved in the situation, the threatening email said that refusing to supervise the girl would “not be tolerated.”

The Liberty Counsel is a pro-bono national law firm that protects individuals’ rights from a traditional, constitutional viewpoint.

Interestingly, a female P.E. teacher also objected to the situation, but was ignored by school administrators. She has not yet been threatened, and given the publicity now surrounding the school, probably will not be. Those are usually done quietly.

The first time the girl entered the boys’ locker room, she caught “boys (literally) with their pants down, causing them embarrassment and concern by the fact that they had been observed changing by an obvious girl,” according to the complaint letter sent to the Pasco County School District from the Liberty Counsel. Remember, these are 13- and 14-year-old boys just discovering their awkward transition into manhood.

Teachers at Chasco Middle School are banned from discussing the change in policy — not the specifics of the case, which would make sense, but the policy itself. There is no other reasonable term for that than “gag order.”

So the Liberty Counsel letter goes on to explain that the teacher refused to “knowingly place himself in a position to observe a minor female in the nude or otherwise in a state of undress.” That actually is a both moral and legally sensible move on the part of the teacher. However, school administrators shifted from the threat of administrative leave to a threat to having him “transferred to another school as discipline for ‘not doing your job in the locker room.’”

The situation arose in September, yet the Pasco County parents of 70,000 students in the district have still not been informed of the new policy by the school district, even though the female student still has full access to the male changing facilities. The Pasco School Board also is aware of it and has done nothing.

The reason is not hard to see. LGBTQI activists are organized, well-financed, powerful and intimidating. Very few politicians or even regular people want to be even perceived as going counter to their agenda.

The Pasco controversy mirrors similar transgender secrecy and heavy-handed intimidation on the part of school district officials in Sarasota County, just south of Tampa. (Both Sarasota and Pasco counties are politically red counties. Their School Boards do not seem to be reflecting that.)

At the recommendation of the Sarasota County School District’s LGBTQI Task Force, the superintendent issued “guidelines” to govern how the district’s 50 public schools handle transgender and gender questioning students — starting as young as kindergarten.

The Sarasota County school policy guidelines implement a full-blown transgender protocol allowing students to use whichever bathroom and locker room corresponds with the gender with which they “identify;” and forces everyone else to use the pronoun of the students’ choice. This sounds identical to Pasco’s policy — or perhaps guidelines is the technical terms as the Board did not take action on it.

But maybe the biggest affront is that the Sarasota guidelines also say that parents can not be informed of their child’s decision to identify as a different gender, because some trans activists claim the schools are a “safer” environment than the home. This again seems to be in line with what is going on in Pasco, which suggests that the administrative guidelines are being heavily influenced or even written by trans activists.

In Sarasota, the secrecy along with the general egregiousness of the policy, attracted a lot of controversy. A 31-year-old Sarasota father of a young child not yet in the school system, sent the superintendent a brief email criticizing the guidelines and keeping transgenderism secret from parents.

That parent found officers from the school district’s brand new police force at his door the next day. Nothing came of the officers’ visit, because they realized the letter was harmless. Nonetheless more showed up at the father’s parent’s home and neighbors’ home.

This is a shocking level of intimidation for a local school district, and certainly at least some parents must have got the message: Shut up, sit down and let us handle your children. Or else we may come knocking.

In Pasco, the message sent is similar, but directly to teachers. Shut up and do what you’re told. Or else.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act.

Social Conservative Review: An Insider’s Guide to Pro-Family News

In this age marked by cultural brokenness and political division, it can be easy for Christians to shake our heads in resignation to this seemingly discouraging predicament and say, “God’s Kingdom is obviously not here right now.”

Or is it? In the Gospel of Luke, the Pharisees ask Jesus when the Kingdom of God will come. He said in reply, “The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21).

What does this mean? When Christ said these words in first century Judea, they would have caused great confusion amongst the Jews since it was clear from the Roman occupation of their ancestral land that there was certainly no “Kingdom” currently present. But Christ wasn’t speaking of the potential reign of an earthly king. He was asking those who were listening to realize that God’s Kingdom was right in front of them–in Christ’s own witness of love, mercy, and healing. He was asking them, and therefore all of us, to look into our hearts and see that whenever we act with love, compassion, and sacrifice, God’s Kingdom is literally “among” us.

It should give us great encouragement to know that whenever we show Christ’s love to others, we are an ambassador for Christ’s Kingdom on earth. Keep in mind that showing love can take the form of seemingly small acts, such as simply giving encouragement to someone we encounter in our daily lives who seems like they are in need of a boost. Whenever we do any act of love, whether great of small, we bring God’s Kingdom in our midst.

Thank you for your prayers and for your continued support of FRC and the family.

Sincerely,

Dan Hart
Managing Editor for Publications
Family Research Council


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FRC Articles

Evangelicals Power Republicans to Senate Victories — David Closson

Voters Say ‘Full Steam Ahead’ On Judges — Travis Weber and Alexandra McPhee

America Deserves Better Than the Broward County Disaster — Ken Blackwell

School Board Says Boys and Girls Have Different Brains — Except in the Bathroom — Cathy Ruse

Post-Midterm optimism for religious freedom — Alexandra McPhee

Is the Republican Senate Ready to Advance Pro-Life Policy? — Patrina Mosley

The Supreme Court can fix Establishment Clause jurisprudence with the Peace Cross case — Alexandra McPhee

Speaker Series: The Reality of Faith-Based Adoption Services

Truth Obscured by Hollywood Take on Sexual Orientation Therapy — Peter Sprigg

Must the State Recognize All Identities? — Dan Hart

The Times En-“genders” Controversy with Ignorance of “Sex” — Peter Sprigg

Notre Dame Students Take a Stand Against Porn — Patrina Mosley

Religious Liberty

Religious Liberty in the Public Square

Supreme Court’s latest church-state conundrum: Must a ‘peace cross’ memorial to World War I vets come down? — Richard Wolf, USA Today

Muslims, the Bladensburg Cross, and the Preservation of Order — Ismail Royer, Public Discourse

Professor Sues after University Requires He Use Student’s Preferred Pronoun — Jack Crowe, National Review

Trump Administration Updates Conscience Exemptions for Contraceptive Mandate — National Catholic Register

The State of Hate — David Montgomery, The Washington Post

Christian student senator at UC Berkeley harassed for abstaining from pro-LGBTQ vote — Caleb Parke, Fox News

Fordham University Political Science Department Mandates Use of Students’ ‘Preferred Pronouns’ — Alana Mastrangelo, Breitbart

International Religious Freedom

What you should know about the persecution of Kachin Christians — Joe Carter, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

78 Kidnapped Cameroonian Students from Christian School Freed — Aliya Kuykendall, The Stream

Christians Dragged Out of Cars and Beaten, Haunted With Fear as Asia Bibi Case Tears Pakistan Apart — Stoyan Zaimov, The Christian Post

Christians, pray for your brothers and sisters in North Korea — Christopher Summers, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

Asia Bibi Leaves Pakistani Prison–Open Doors Calls for Urgent Prayer — Lindy Lowry, Open Doors USA

Life

Abortion

The Point of Gosnell — Charlotte Allen, First Things

6 claims of Planned Parenthood’s new president debunked — Kristi Burton Brown, Live Action

New Planned Parenthood CEO: “I Plan to Expand” Abortions. We Have a “Moral Imperative” to Kill Babies — Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews

Pro-life ballot measures win passage in two of three states — Valerie Richardson, The Washington Times

Adoption

Philadelphia foster families continue fight for Catholic Social Services — Perry West, CAN

3 ways your church can participate in orphan care and prevention — Brittany Salmon, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

Bioethics

Canadian Doctors Get Ready for Child Euthanasia — Wesley J. Smith, National Review

Family

Marriage

How Expectations Affect One’s Happiness in Marriage — Dianne Grande, Psychology Today

When the Military Takes a Toll on Your Marriage: Reflections on ‘Indivisible’ — Gary Chapman, Military.com

Men and Women: Should We Just Call the Whole Thing Off? — Rachel Lu, The American Conservative

One Couple’s Fight to Honor God With Their Bakery — Benjamin Hawkins, Focus on the Family

37.8 Percent in Generation That Starts Turning 21 Next Year Was Born to Unwed Moms — Terence P. Jeffrey, CNS News

Parenting

How to Respond When Your Kids Are Bullied — Jonathan McKee, Focus on the Family

Mothers Against Macron — Joy Pullmann, First Things

I’m Raising an Old Soul And It’s Such a Gift — Heidi Hamm, HerViewFromHome

Making of a Mom: How Motherhood Helped my Anxiety Disorder — Casey McCorry, Verily

New Findings Add Twist to Screen Time Limit Debate — Jean Twenge, Family Studies

Podcast: Your Teenager Needs Discipleship — Jen Wilkin and Melissa Kruger, The Gospel Coalition

Video: How is spiritual warfare involved in parenting? — Phillip Bethancourt, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

How to Be a Kindness Role Model for Your Kids — Dale V. Atkins and Amanda R. Salzhauer, Greater Good Magazine

Postpartum Depression and the Christian — Kathryn Butler, The Gospel Coalition

Economics/Education

9 Years Into Common Core, Test Scores Are Down, Indoctrination Up — Joy Pullmann, The Federalist

The Wealth of Nations Begins at Home — W. Bradford Wilcox, Family Studies

Your Family, Your Choice — Oren Cass, Family Studies

Faith/Character/Culture

10 ways your unsatisfied life is a blessing — Amy Simpson, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

Honoring the ‘Invisible Work Force’ of Family Caregivers — Amy Ziettlow, Family Studies

How to Love People You Don’t Like — Greg Morse, Desiring God

Cultural winsomeness will not be enough for Christians — Andrew T. Walker, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

In An America This Ignorant, It’s No Wonder We Struggle To Stay Free — Stella Morabito, The Federalist

I Cremated My Unborn Son — Tish Harrison Warren, Christianity Today

8 Signs Your Christianity Is Too Comfortable — Brett McCracken, The Gospel Coalition

A Fresh Perspective on Joy — Liberty McArtor, The Stream

‘Remarkable’ decline in fertility rates — James Gallagher, BBC News

Human Sexuality

Where to Find Hope and Help amid the Sexual Revolution — Sam Allberry, The Gospel Coalition

Kissing Purity Culture Goodbye — Abigail Rine Favale, First Things

What ‘The New York Times’ Gets Wrong on the ‘Transgender Memo’ — Andrew T. Walker, The Gospel Coalition

Jesus Befriended Prostitutes. So This Victorian-Era Woman Did Too. — Kimi Harris, Christianity Today

‘Boy Erased’ Suggests Sexual Desire Can’t Change, So Religion Must — Brett McCracken, The Gospel Coalition

Where Angels Fear to Tread: The Fraud of Transgenderism — Babette Francis and John Ballantyne, Public Discourse

Pornography

The Problems of Pornography: Sexual Dysfunction and Beyond — Freda Bush, Focus on the Family

A Glimpse Into a World Without Men

Ah, to have an all-female workplace, full of sugar and spice and everything nice and absent #MeToo turpitude and transgressions. Are you in, ladies? Well, before signing on that dotted line, you may want to consider the experiences of the sugar-and-spice girls at Sweden’s new Gender Equality Authority.

Yes, that sounds like what’s birthed when Orwell’s 1984 meets The Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (Bill Maher’s most memorable movie), but it wasn’t mainly men being consumed in this bureaucracy. As Sweden’s FriaTider reports (auto-translated and corrected for grammar):

The New Gender Equality Authority has a leadership consisting of 100 percent women. Ten months after its inception, an internal report now reveals a work environment so bad that 70 percent of its employees are distressed enough to be at risk of ill health, reports Ekot.

The internal survey, Ekot also noted, shows in addition that a majority of the employees of the Gender Equality Authority suffer from sleep problems and “risk fatigue”.

Among other things, the women-dominated workplace is characterized by bullying and harassment, according to the survey.

If this surprises you, perhaps you derived your conception of the sexes from a women’s-studies class (maybe the one known as modern American culture). Whether it was Aristotle’s observation that women are more likely “to scold and to strike,” Rudyard Kipling’s verse about how “the female of the species is more deadly than the male” or statistics on bullying, it has long been known that the sugar-and-spice bit reflects marketing and male flattery, not reality.

As Forbes wrote in 2012 on inter-employee harassment, “Women make much nastier office bullies than men, says psychologist Dr. Gary Namie, co-founder of the [Workplace Bullying] Institute.” This behavior is “particularly vicious among working women,” informs Forbes, and ranges “from playing favourites to badmouthing colleagues” to undermining other women’s careers (and men’s, too).

Unsurprisingly, Forbes attributed this to conditioning (read: it’s our Patriarchal™ society’s fault), writing that girls “are taught to be critical about each other from adolescence.” How this is taught or where it’s taught I have no idea, but that’s their story and they’re stickin’ to it. It’s just good the Female Criticism 101 classes don’t also instruct on how to criticize men, otherwise there could actually be nagging wives in the world. (Unless they’d just skip right to the physical, as some studies show that women are more likely to initiate both domestic and teen-dating violence.)

Those adolescent girls must be quick learners, though, because experts and studies (two troubling phenomena, no doubt, but, hey, even a blind squirrel and a broken clock, ya’ know?) inform that bullying among girls is notably worse than among boys. Just consider the left-wing Guardian, which outlines the problems and practices of these teen Gorgons and then closes with the question: Do these realities “make the ‘normal’ bullying of, generally, low-level violence as used by boys seem strangely comforting?”

Part of the explanation for this is that as poet William Congreve noted in 1697 (pre-“gender”-sensitivity training), Hell hath no “fury like a woman scorned.” His context was affairs of the heart, of course, but it extends further. While men have their characteristic sins (lust, for example), a female one is vindictiveness. I suspect this is partially, though not completely, because women are very emotion-oriented, are easily hurt and, most significantly, are emotion-retentive. Thus, a real or imagined slight cuts deeply and doesn’t just remain in a woman’s mind, but in her heart. It’s harder to forgive when negative feelings linger — demanding retribution.

The bottom line is that, as often portrayed art-imitating-life-style in film, two men can engage in fisticuffs and be buddies an hour later. Women? Not so much.

The psychological experts will tell us this is taught, too, but it’s even (and especially) apparent in children. When a little boy gets upset, he may have a tantrum and explode like a volcano yet 15 minutes later behave as if nothing happened. A girl is less likely to do this but more apt to simmer for long periods, not boiling over noticeably but not cooling to a calm, either. Consequently, rifts with friends are too often permanent.

Then there’s that, speaking generally, men are creatures of principle, women of preference. As I put it, treating this recently, “Years ago a female writer (whose name…escapes me) discussed the different ways boys and girls settle problems. She wrote that boys are natural-born deal makers; they’ll try to ensure fairness for everyone and then shake hands, saying ‘Deal? Deal.’ In contrast, girls will try to ensure an outcome everyone feels good about.”

“Witnessed here, even from young ages,” I continued, “is that boys instinctively reference principles, the objective; fairness is a principle. The girls, of course, are referencing feelings, the subjective.”

The point? “Fair fighting” or conflict resolution in the workplace or anywhere else requires adherence to principles; emotion won’t secure it (which is why catfights are, well, catfights). Philosopher C.S. Lewis touched on this in his book Mere Christianity when he asked: With whom would you rather deal if your dog bit the child next door, the man or woman of the house?

Lewis explained that when the man handles what could be called the family’s “foreign policy,” outsiders are more likely to get a fair shake; the woman’s extreme “family patriotism” often precludes this.

The latter is, of course, what can cause a woman to be wholly devoted to her children, even to the point of backing them when they do evil (serial killers’ mothers come to mind). For only principle instructs, “Your family is wrong, and you must say so”; emotion exclaims “My family right or wrong!”

Kipling touched on this as well, writing of man, “Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands [t]o some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands.”

The strong, unyielding feminine emotion can provide the no-holds-barred love and devotion a child needs. But when this intense passion is turned to competition in the workplace or elsewhere, it’s just no-holds-barred. So I don’t know about spice, but maybe, as so many today claim, sugar really is a killer.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Angel Santos on Unsplash.

EXCLUSIVE: Mich State Dept investigates college for potential campaign finance violations

  • The Michigan State Department launched an investigation into Schoolcraft College over possible campaign finance violations.
  • The investigation was prompted by an ethics complaint, filed by Michigan attorney Karen Woodside.

The Michigan State Department is investigating Schoolcraft College for potential campaign finance violations after school employees allegedly used public resources for political activism.

The Michigan Department of State confirmed to Campus Reform on Tuesday that its Bureau of Elections unit launched an investigation into  Schoolcraft College for potentially illegal activity. Fred Woodhams of the Michigan State Department told Campus Reform that the investigation will take a couple of months to complete.

The Michigan Department of State confirmed to Campus Reform on Tuesday that its Bureau of Elections unit launched an investigation into Schoolcraft College for potentially illegal activity.    

Michigan attorney Karen Woodside filed an ethics complaint against Schoolcraft College, as previously reported by Campus Reform. Woodside’s complaint alleged that some employees used school computers during office hours to campaign for a property tax hike on the Nov. 6 election ballot. The ballot initiative did pass and is set to give the school increased funding through 2029.

Employees urged residents to vote in support of the initiative, referring to the ballot question passing as “winning,” according to emails obtained by Campus Reform.

According to Michigan campaign finance law, “a public body or a person acting for a public body shall not use or authorize the use of funds, personnel, office space, computer hardware or software, property, stationery, postage, vehicles, equipment, supplies, or other public resources to make a contribution or expenditure” for local ballot questions.

An incident in which communications show “express advocacy” can be addressed by Michigan’s Secretary of State Elections Bureau, according to Watchdog.org.

Campus Reform reached out to Schoolcraft College, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Mich college accused of using public resources to promote tax hike

Email to students gives voting ‘recommendations’

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission.

12 Times Florida County’s Elections Supervisor Has Been ‘Incompetent and Possibly Criminal’

As both parties scrutinize the vote count in Florida’s Broward County, with the state’s gubernatorial and senatorial races closing in on a tie, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the county’s elections office has a history of malfeasance.

“This is at a minimum a pattern of incompetence. Voters deserve better,” the Florida Republican said Thursday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” “This is not even a partisan thing. This is a county that apparently cannot even count votes as well as a county that just got wiped out by a hurricane.”

The state’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott filed a lawsuit Thursday against Broward Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes for allegedly refusing to tell them about votes she has not yet counted.

The vote totals Snipes tabulated two days after the election would have readers believe that more people cast votes for agricultural commissioner than for U.S. senator.

Additionally, lawyer Marc Elias of Perkins Coie—who hired Fusion GPS for the Democratic National Committee to investigate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election—has been hired to litigate a recount on behalf of Democrats.

The Republican National Committee also pointed out 12 times news stories, using its own headlines, where Snipes has “been outright incompetent and possibly criminal”:

  1. Illegally destroying ballots (Sun Sentinel, May 14, 2018)
  2. Absentee ballots that never arrived (Miami Herald, Nov. 6, 2018)
  3. Fellow Democrats accused her precinct of individual and systemic breakdowns that made it difficult for voters to cast regular ballots (Miami Herald, Nov. 4, 2014)
  4. Posted election results half an hour before polls closed – a very clear violation of election law. (Miami Herald, Nov. 2, 2018)
  5. Sued for leaving amendments off of ballots (Miami Herald, Oct. 20, 2016)
  6. Claiming to not have the money to notify voters when their absentee ballot expired (Sun Sentinel, November 8, 2018)
  7. Having official staffers campaign on official time (Broward Beat, July 20, 2016)
  8. Problems printing mail ballots (Miami Herald, Nov.2, 2018)
  9. Accusations of ballot stuffing (Heritage, Aug. 1, 2017)
  10. Voters receiving ballots with duplicate pages (Miami Herald, Nov. 2, 2018)
  11. Slow results and piles of ballots that cropped up way after Election Day (The Capitolist, Nov. 8, 2018)
  12. Opening ballots in private, breaking Florida law (Politico, Aug. 13, 2018)

COLUMN BY

Luke Rosiak

Luke Rosiak is an investigative reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Twitter: @lukerosiak.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

What You Need to Know About Florida Recount, Georgia Vote Tallying

A Replay of 2000? Florida Recount Stirs Concerns.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Environmentalist Policies Are Exacerbating Wildfires. It’s Time to Rethink Forest Management.

Massive wildfires continue to rage out of control in Northern California, causing historic loss of life and billions of dollars in damage.

The images coming out of California towns, which look like bombed-out cities from World War II, are a sobering reminder of man’s occasional futility in the face of nature unleashed.

Stopping these huge blazes is, of course, a priority. The firefighters who have been battling these infernos have at times done a miraculous job under extremely difficult circumstances.

However, policymakers should also look at ways to curtail the long-term trend of growing numbers of major wildfires. While some argue that climate change is to blame for the uptick in fires, it’s also worth grappling with the drastic alterations in forest management that have occurred over the last four decades.

Many have argued that this is driving the surge in huge fires.

As a Reason Foundation study noted, the U.S. Forest Service, which is tasked with managing public wildland, once had success in minimizing widespread fires in the early 20th century.

But many of these successful methods were abandoned in large part because of efforts by environmental activists.

The Forest Service became more costly and less effective as it increasingly “rewarded forest managers for losing money on environmentally questionable practices,” wrote Randal O’Toole, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute.

Spending on the Forest Service has risen drastically, but these additional resources have been misused and haven’t solved the underlying issues.

“Fire expenditures have grown from less than 15 percent of the Forest Service budget in [the] early 1990s to about 50 percent today. Forest Service fire expenditures have increased from less than $1 billion in the late 1990s to $3.5 billion in 2016,” O’Toole wrote.

Perhaps now, Americans will begin to re-evaluate forest management policies.

In a May congressional hearing, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., said, “Forty-five years ago, we began imposing laws that have made the management of our forests all but impossible.”

He went on to say that federal authorities have done a poor job of implementing methods to reduce the number of deadly fires, and that this has been devastating for America’s wildlands.

“Time and again, we see vivid boundaries between the young, healthy, growing forests managed by state, local, and private landholders, and the choked, dying, or burned federal forests,” McClintock said. “The laws of the past 45 years have not only failed to protect the forest environment—they have done immeasurable harm to our forests.”

In a recent House address, McClintock pinned the blame of poor forest management on bad 1970s laws, like the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. He said these laws “have resulted in endlessly time-consuming and cost-prohibitive restrictions and requirements that have made the scientific management of our forests virtually impossible.”

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has promoted a change to forest management policies, calling for a more aggressive approach to reduce the excess vegetation that has made the fires worse.

Congress is also moving to address the problem.

Members of the Western Caucus have proposed legislation to dramatically change the way forests are managed. If passed, this bill would give power back to local authorities and allow for more aggressive forest thinning without subjecting them to the most onerous of environmental reviews.

While state and federal governments can take measures to enhance forest and wilderness management, private management can also get involved to improve conditions.

One idea is to adopt a policy popularized by the school choice movement: create charter forests that are publicly owned, but privately managed. This would allow forest management to move away from top-down, bureaucratic control to a decentralized and varied system that may better conform with local realities.

As professor Robert H. Nelson wrote for The Wall Street Journal, the charter forest “would be exempt from current requirements for public land-use planning and the writing of environmental impact statements. These requirements long ago ceased to perform their ostensible function of improving public land decision making.”

Similar privatizing efforts have succeeded in the past.

No measure can truly prevent all fires, but reasonable steps can be taken to reduce the incidence of huge blazes like the ones currently engulfing California.

It’s time for lawmakers to redouble their efforts to protect American lives and property from nature’s most devastating ravages.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman is an editor and commentary writer for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Send an email to Jarrett. Twitter: .

RELATED ARTICLES:

Trump Is Right: Poor Land Management Is Leading to Bigger California Fires

23 Photos of the Wildfires Burning Through California

House Lawmakers Push Legislation to ‘Stop the Spread of Catastrophic Wildfires’


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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images and video is republished with permission. Photo: Barbara Munker/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom.

Collectivism and the 8th Commandment

In the 18th century our Founding Fathers fought the War of Independence to escape the tyranny of the British monarchy. Our Founding Fathers envisioned a New World where citizens of the United States of America would be bound by the Constitution and live as free individuals in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The 10 Commandments were foundational to the Judeo-Christian tradition of the United States and to its ordered liberty. The Commandments provided the infrastructure and moral basis for the secular laws written to govern American society.

The separation of church and state was an acknowledgement that different religious doctrines existed within the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment was a defense against the tyranny of an official state religion.

What our Founding Fathers did not envision was the secular tyranny of collectivism – collectivism is a late 19th century political ideology.

“Thou Shalt Not Steal” is the 8th Commandment that strictly forbids stealing. So, let’s talk about stealing – the taking of another person’s property.

Stealing assumes a separation between self and other and is an acknowledgement of property rights. That is, one person cannot take another person’s property unless both parties acknowledge that each person has a separate existence and that property belonging to one is not the property of the other.

There would be no moral injunction against stealing and no Commandment or secular law against stealing without this fundamental acknowledgement.

The problem with collectivism, whether it is socialism or communism, is that it defies this most fundamental acknowledgement. Collectivism denies the property rights of an individual and, therefore, that individual’s existence as a separate entity.

Collectivism says that what is yours belongs to the state and the state is the entity that determines its distribution. Theoretically, without property rights there are no human rights because if what I produce is not mine and the fruits of my labors belong to the state, then I do not belong to myself. I am without human rights.

Collectivist ideology is antagonistic to the Judeo-Christian tradition because it denies the existence of the self. In collectivism the individual’s life belongs to the group.

This most fundamental and critical issue of property rights and its connection to human rights and the self is denied by the humanitarian hucksters selling socialism. When Obama tells business owners “You did not build that” he is denying their human rights and misappropriating them to the state. Obama is the prime time humanitarian huckster disingenuously selling socialism as the provider of social justice and income equality. He is the consummate con man deceitfully selling “resistance” as freedom fighting.

What Obama and his sycophants are not saying is that first socialism steals your property and then socialism steals your freedom. Ask the good people of Venezuela who were duped by the humanitarian hucksters selling socialism in their once beautiful and prosperous country. The ruling elite in Venezuela stole the private property of its citizens by socializing the country. Without private property the government had complete cradle-to-grave control of the population – the population ceased to exist as individuals – they had forfeited their freedom to socialism.

The Leftist Democrat Party is the party of collectivism in America that envisions a New World order similarly antagonistic to the individual. The Left denies the property rights of the individual (You did not build that) and, therefore, that individual’s existence as a separate entity. President Donald Trump is the existential enemy of the Leftist Democrat party because he rejects collectivism entirely. POTUS believes in Americanism, the sovereignty of the United States, equal opportunity, and the freedom of the individual.

Decades of insidious educational indoctrination of America’s youth toward collectivism has made socialism and anything anti-Trump fashionable today.

The recent midterm election was a referendum on socialism and the ongoing contentious battle between individualism and collectivism.

Craig Biddle’s clarifying article explained the divide in 2012, Individualism vs Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice.

Ayn Rand articulated the implications of the choice in the 1960’s:

  • “Whoever claims the ‘right’ to ‘redistribute’ the wealth produced by others is claiming the ‘right’ to treat human beings as chattel.”
  • “Both [communism and socialism] negate individual rights and subordinate the individual to the collective, both deliver the livelihood and the lives of the citizens into the power of an omnipotent government – and the differences between them are only a matter of time, degree, and superficial detail, such as the choice of slogans by which the rulers delude their enslaved subjects.”
  • “There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism – by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”

The Leftist Democrat party of collectivism wants open borders, sanctuary cities, illegal immigration, birthright citizenship, and chain migration so that illegal aliens can VOTE!

The Leftist Democrat party has embraced the tyranny of collectivism in defiance of the 8th Commandment. Leftist Democrats are stealing your liberty with every socialist policy that redistributes your private property, your voting privileges, and your tax dollars to illegal immigrants who will then vote the leftist Democrats into power. Incentivizing illegal immigration to vote themselves into office will eventually award your private property and your individual freedom to the government which is precisely how socialism enslaves the population by vote.

Open borders and the importation of illegal immigrants is a humanitarian hoax. It is a power grab by Leftist Democrats designed to install themselves as rulers of a socialized America. Venezuela is a cautionary tale. A commitment to socialism is what Obama pledged when he deceitfully promised to fundamentally transform America.

Capitalism provides equal opportunity for the American dream in our constitutional republic. Socialism provides equal outcome as promised – eventual shared national poverty because as Margaret Thatcher so wisely remarked, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” The choice is ours – individualism vs collectivism.

Our 18th century Founding Fathers could not envision the tyranny of collectivism but we 21st century Americans can.

We cannot allow the Left to steal America – remember the 8th Commandment – Thou Shalt Not Steal.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Goudsmit Pundicity. The  featured photo is by Ryan Loughlin on Unsplash.

America’s Red Green Education System

It has become increasingly apparent that the “Red” (Communists, Socialists, Progressives, etc.) and “Green” (Islamic activists, Jihadists, etc.) are collaborating effectively against the “Right” (Constitutionalists, Conservatives, Nationalists, etc.) on political and cultural issues. What is not as well-known, but is at least as troubling, is the collaboration they exhibit in the accreditation of each other’s schools.

According to the U.S. Department of Education “Accreditation in the United States is a voluntary, nongovernmental process, in which an institution and its programs are evaluated against standards for measuring quality.” The Department further states that “The U.S. Department of Education does not have the authority to accredit private or public elementary or secondary schools, and the Department does not recognize accrediting bodies for the accreditation of private or public elementary and secondary schools.”[1]

It is important here to note that this leaves the accreditation (whether termed “Registered”, “Recognized” or otherwise designated) completely up to the state or county education/school entity. This local independence, a deliberate feature of the U.S. educational system, nevertheless here in the context of mutually-reinforcing, reciprocal accreditation by identifiably “Red” and “Green” accreditation organizations, gives rise to concern.

Although there are numerous other organizations involved in Pre-K-12 educational accreditation, such as the Montessori Association[2]and International Baccalaureate (IB) program[3], the primary “Red” accreditation organization is “AdvancED”.[4]AdvancED was formed through a 2006 merger of the Pre-K-12 divisions of the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement (NCA CASI) and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (SACS CASI)—and expanded through the addition of the Northwest Accreditation Commission (NWAC) in 2012.

AdvancED states that it comprises “the largest community of education professionals in the world” and that it is “non-profit and non-partisan”.[5]The organization also states that “Combining the knowledge and expertise of a research institute, the skills of a management consulting firm and the passion of a grassroots movement for educational change, we serve as a trusted partner to 36,000 educational institutions—employing more than four million educatorsand enrolling more than 20 million students—across the United States and 70 other nations.”[6]

When AdvancED accredits a “non-public school,” that evaluation is based on four elements, one of which is “Cultural Competence”. It states that this is established by “staffing the team with a critical mass of individuals who have understanding and experience with the cultural realities existing in any given school. Cultural competence can be mission specific as in the case of independent schools, special purpose schools or faith-based schools, such as Christian, Catholic, Islamic, Lutheran, etc. Cultural competence also is related to school type and school location such as K-12, elementary, middle, high school, post-secondary, distance education, corporation, career technical, Department of Defense, boarding, day, single sex, or international schools in Latin America, Asia, Middle East and Europe.”[7]

AdvancED further states that “The observations and evidential insights provided through cultural competence of team members are experiential and intuitive. Written evidence provided to the team that is mission specific or culturally relevant, while valuable, is practically irrelevant in the hands of a culturally incompetent team. The cultural competence of the team is one of the most critical components needed to experience a transformational visit for the school.”[8]

While AdvancED in and of itself accomplishes a necessary mission in the accreditation of educational institutions, the concern arises when realizing that the field of U.S. academia long has been dominated by leftist, Marxist, and Progressive influences. This is especially true at the college and university level. That “Cultural Competence” is one of the four elements AdvancED uses to accredit “non-public schools” inevitably does give rise to legitimate concern about the pervasive spread of just such influences across the entirety of the U.S. educational system.

On the “Green” side, there are several organizations that accredit U.S. Islamic schools (or madrassas), which are often attached to Islamic Centers that include a mosque and other facilities. Primary among these is the Council of Islamic Schools in North America (CISNA).[9]

CISNA was formed at an educational symposium hosted by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in 1989. ISNA is one of the largest Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the country and was named by the Department of Justice an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation HAMAS terror funding trial.

CISNA describes its mission as follows:[10]

  • Its vision is “To be a leading and unifying organization striving for the advancement of Islamic schools and Islamic education respectively.”
  • Its structure is “an association of Islamic schools and educational organizations working to improve Islamic schools through accreditation, consultation, and professional development; advocating for Islamic education; and fostering professional relationships with educational institutions and agencies relevant to Islamic education.”
  • Its goals are to:
    • Promote Islamic schools and Islamic education on a global level
    • Provide accreditation services
    • Provide professional development at a global level
    • Foster professional relationships among Islamic schools and other organizations
    • Provide consulting services relevant to Islamic education

CISNA has accredited a total of 31 Islamic schools across the U.S.,[11] most of which are also accredited through AdvancED. This conveniently reciprocal accreditation arrangement—between AdvancED, the leading (and decidedly leftist-leaning) accreditation authority in the U.S., and ISNA, one of the most influential Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the country—surely must give rise to at least a measure of concern.

CISNA is currently in close collaboration with ISNA to plan its 20thAnnual Education Forum in April 2019 with the theme of “Integrating Social Justice in Islamic Education”.[12]

Islamic Schools League of America (ISLA)[13]

ISLA was founded in 1998 by four parents whose own children received an education in a U.S. Islamic school. Their satisfaction with that Islamic education and a desire to see Islam-based schooling expand in the U.S. led to an interest in the general condition of Islamic K-12 education across the country. A year of research convinced the parents that the status of Islamic education nationwide was encouraging because Islamic schools were expanding rapidly in Muslim communities across the country.

Today, ISLA serves as a non-profit advocacy hub to promote Islamic education in the U.S. It works with educators, organizations, parents, and universities around the U.S. to provide professional pedagogical training, offer educational resources, and facilitate networking among Islamic educational institutions in the U.S. ISLA also accredits Islamic schools (41 to date), some of which have received additional accreditation from other organizations such as AdvancED.[14]

The ISLA Facebook page[15]shows girls from a very young age as well as female teaching staff completely covered in hijabs and enveloping robes, links to ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) and CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations), both Brotherhood front groups, Zaytuna College (a Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic university in Berkeley, CA) and an ad for Shariah Compliant Financing (SCF), all problematic indicators. The ISLA Twitter page[16]is similarly troubling, with multiple links to Nation of Islam and Malcom X, SCF, more little girls in hijabs, and links to AdvancED and CISNA.

Conclusion

CISNA was formed directly by ISNA, a Muslim Brotherhood front group. ISLA may be somewhat more independent, but still openly displays its Brotherhood connections and shariah-adherent identity. Also, like CISNA, there is significant overlap between it and AdvancED in accreditation and a more limited overlap with CISNA. Whether this could indicate that CISNA is targeting ISLA or vice versa for absorption is not clear. The concern, though, arises because of the interlinked and mutually legitimizing relationships among educational accreditation organizations here identified as respectively, leftist and jihadist in nature.

Whether that veneer of legitimacy is warranted or not is the question, at a time when a traditional American curriculum that focuses on traditional subject matter but also encourages civic responsibility and patriotism seems on the wane. In view of the indoctrinating influence the Progressive left has inflicted on the U.S. educational system over the last century, to see now the expansion of a jihadist influence within American academia that is not only openly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood but operating in collaboration with that hard-core left is deeply disturbing.

COLUMN BY

Timothy White

Timothy White has been affiliated with American law enforcement and military for over thirty years. He has trained and advised several agencies in law enforcement, criminal intelligence, counter-insurgency and other related fields. He is currently advising a government agency in modernizing their law enforcement and criminal intelligence program.

REFERENCES:

[1]https://www2.ed.gov/students/prep/college/diplomamills/accreditation.html

[2]https://amshq.org/

[3]https://www.ibo.org/

[4]AdvancED website: https://www.advanc-ed.org/

[5]https://www.advanc-ed.org/about-us

[6]Ibid

[7]AdvancED website: https://www.advanc-ed.org/

[8]https://www.advanc-ed.org/source/advanced-accreditation-embraces-cultural-relevancy

[9]Council of Islamic Schools in North America (CISNA) website: https://www.cisnausa.org/

[10]CISNA website, About tab: https://www.cisnausa.org/about-us/

[11]https://www.cisnausa.org/accreditation/accreditation-process/locate-a-school/

[12]http://www.isna.net/education-forum/

[13]https://theisla.org/

[14]https://theisla.org/membership/member-schools/

[15]https://www.facebook.com/theisla/

[16]https://twitter.com/theisla?lang=en

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column with images is republished with permission.

If Trump Ended Birthright Citizenship by Executive Order, He’d Be Enforcing Existing Law

President Donald Trump’s critics have found something else to rend their garments over: his determination to end so-called “birthright citizenship.” Why, they thunder, it’s unconstitutional. And even if it could be changed, it can’t be by executive order.

They’re wrong on both counts.

That probably comes as a surprise to many Americans, including some who consider themselves Trump supporters. Haven’t we all been told for years that if you’re born here, you’re automatically a U.S. citizen? It’s all right there in the 14th Amendment. No matter who your parents are or what their status is, you’re an American. Simple as that.

Or is it? Consider the actual wording: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside.”

Seems pretty cut and dry, but check out that crucial clause: “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” It’s easy to mumble over it, but we shouldn’t. The Senate included it there for a reason when it passed the amendment in 1868: to make it clear that not everyone born here is automatically a citizen.

Being born here is only half the equation. You also must be “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The original proposed wording of the amendment did not include that phrase. It was inserted specifically to make it clear that the law did not, in fact, confer citizenship on everyone born here.

Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, a member of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction and a strong supporter of the Citizenship Clause, noted that Congress intended to exclude “persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, [or] who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States.” Supreme Court cases decided in the years soon after the amendment’s passage confirm this view.

Moreover, says constitutional scholar Edward Erler:

“It is hard to conclude that the framers of the 14th Amendment intended to confer citizenship on the children of aliens illegally present when they explicitly denied that boon to Native Americans legally present but subject to a foreign jurisdiction.”

Notes Hillsdale College’s Matthew Spalding:

“Few developed nations practice the rule of jus soli, or ‘right of the soil.’ More common is jus sanguinis, ‘right of blood,’ by which a child’s citizenship is determined by parental citizenship, not place of birth.”

In short, it was wise of Congress to limit the scope of the amendment. And those who misinterpret it are wrong. Trump should be commended for trying to bring current understanding back in line with the original intent of the framers.

That leaves us with the question of whether he would be right to set this issue straight via an executive order. Some people who agree with him on birthright citizenship, such as National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy, believe that he shouldn’t. They argue that it should be done by the same body that issued the amendment in the first place: Congress.

In other words, this is a job for Congress, the branch of government that creates our laws, not the executive, which enforces them.

According to McCarthy, a president cannot “unilaterally change an understanding of the law that has been in effect for decades under a duly enacted federal law.”

Granted, but as constitutional scholar Hans von Spakovsky points out, “that assumes the ‘understanding’ is the correct one. If that understanding actually violates the plain text and intent of the law, the president as the chief law-enforcement officer can, and indeed has an obligation, to direct the federal government to begin applying and enforcing it correctly.”

To put it another way, the president here would not be attempting to make a new law, but to enforce the correct view of an existing law.

Sure, his order would be immediately challenged. Perhaps we’d even wind up with Congress clarifying the original intent of the law.

All the more reason to do it. Fairness demands that we get this issue settled—and soon.

Originally published in The Washington Times

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Ed Feulner

Edwin J. Feulner’s 36 years of leadership as president of The Heritage Foundation transformed the think tank from a small policy shop into America’s powerhouse of conservative ideas. Read his research. Twitter: .


The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now


EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Photo: Ron Sachs/CNP/AdMedia/Newscom.

The Vortex—’Sodomitic Filth’

RELATED ARTICLE: Vatican, US bishops face class-action lawsuit from victims of clergy sex abuse

TRANSCRIPT

What the latest crisis in the Church has caused is the dropping of all pretenses.

Just like Trump’s presence on the political scene has caused all issues and agendas to be brought into the light, so too the newest scandal of cover-ups and lies has focused the white-hot spotlight exactly where it needs to be burning: the sodomitic filth in the ranks of the clergy.

And if you find that phrase a little disquieting or off-putting, then take it up with St. Peter Damian, who wrote to the Pope in the 11th century imploring him to save the Church from “sodomitic filth that insinuates itself like a cancer in the ecclesiastical order, or rather like a bloodthirsty beast rampaging through the flock of Christ.”

The phrase was recently used again, this time by Cdl. Walter Brandmüller in an interview where he lays the blame for the corruption in the clergy squarely at the feet of sodomite clergy.

In so doing, he echoes exactly what Abp. Viganò declared in his first testimony back in August that there is a homosexual current in the Church strangling the life out of the Church, with far-reaching tentacles, like an octopus — his analogy.

Cardinal Raymond Burke has openly said the same thing and that’s not surprising. But what may give a good many people pause is that none other than Fr. James Martin — clerical gay cheerleader himself — has openly admitted that first: there are loads of gay priests — he says thousands.

But add to that, he is now on record at talks and conferences as publicly stating that Pope Francis is deliberately appointing sodomy-friendly bishops and cardinals and even names Cupich in Chicago and Tobin in Newark as two examples.

In so doing, Martin legitimizes another of Viganò’s main points and names the same names. Martin deftly avoids the pressing issue of whether the men themselves are actually same-sex attracted.

Viganò names them as part of the homosexual current, which can be understood in two ways: either being homosexual themselves or allying themselves with the homosexual agenda or both.

That Martin would just come right out with it and add that the reason they were appointed by Francis was precisely to push this new acceptance of homosexuality by lay Catholics and clergy is a bombshell, which of course got tremendous downplay in the usual bought and paid for establishment Catholic media.

So let’s step back shall we — big picture here.

This infestation of gay men into the clergy was first spoken of by Communist Party USA leader Bella Dodd, who claimed to have planted over a thousand Communist agents into American seminaries back in the 1920s and 30s at the prompting of Joseph Stalin to begin a destruction of the Church. Stalin insisted that many of them be homosexual, owing to their immorality.

Undoubtedly, a sizable number of these men rose to positions of authority over the intervening years, and by the time the 1960s rolled around, they were firmly ensconced in the power structure.

They would have been appointing seminary rectors and religious house leaders and so forth who, in turn, would have begun a generational cycle of deliberately recruiting other homosexual men into the priesthood.

The timing here lines up perfectly. That second generation of priest recruits lines up almost identically with the explosion of child sex abuse cases in the 1970s through the 1990s, which came to full light in the early 2000s owing to The Boston Globe reporting and other secular outlets.

Sodomite clergy raping young men — physically mature males in their teens — and homosexual bishops covering it all up. And if the bishops involved in the cover-up weren’t homosexual themselves, they nevertheless played along with it extremely well.

And yet, in the face of all these facts, lying prelates like Blase Cupich — although he certainly isn’t alone — have the gall to say none of this crisis has anything to do with homosexual men in the clergy.

Cupich, being a cardinal and all, is sure to have a larger-than-life presence at the bishops’ meeting in Baltimore because, despite what many other bishops think of him personally, they know he is anointed by Pope Francis to turn the Church gay, and none of them will challenge him.

Many of these men have no supernatural faith; if they ever did have it, they don’t now. Their mission is destroy, plain and simple, and they are legion.

Some of the more good-willed bishops, extending a little too much good will in fact, just can’t seem to comprehend that there are enemies of Christ in their midst sitting right next to them in their meetings — priests of Satan.

It’s like the Last Supper when Judas was doing his thing, and the Apostles were absolutely clueless, thinking when he left to go spring the trap, that he had instead gone out to get something for the meal.

The men of good will among the bishops better wisen up and realize what’s at stake here. Many of them were recruited by this wicked cabal precisely because they were seen as weak men who could easily be manipulated and fooled and would never confront the evil.

Back in their own seminary days, they were being watched and studied and determinations were made that they would go along with whatever they were told. They were handpicked because of their lack of confrontational spirit. They would ensure the status quo would remain in place so the work of destruction could carry on out of site.

Weak men are the best allies of evil men. So here we have sodomitic filth in the clergy, for successive generations now, a hapless group of good-willed but incredibly naive clergy who are, for the most part anyway, unwittingly complicit and a laity being ravaged by all of it.

And now, the moment arrives for the laity to stand up and be counted and call for an end to the episcopal sodomy, and the bishops hire extra security, try to move venues at the last minute and then lie about us to the cops — painting us as violent Antifa-type protestors.

Thank God it’s not a massive, massive crisis where the bishops can investigate themselves and conclude it has nothing to do with homosexuality.

We’ll be keeping you updated on the goings on here in Baltimore in the coming days, and please remember to tune in to the live-stream of the Silence Stops Now rally beginning at 1:25 p.m. ET tomorrow, Tuesday the 13th.

EDITORS NOTE: This video was first published in The Vortex.

Florida Media Is Adjusting Recount Expectations Downward

Several major Florida media outlets are running stories today explaining that the likelihood of the contentious Florida election recount changing the results of Tuesday’s elections are very small. That is good news for Republicans, bad news for Democrats, on a couple of fronts.

The state’s largest paper, the Tampa Bay Times, reported:

“…a recount that reverses an initial margin of more than a few hundred votes would be unprecedented in the recent history of American elections.

According to an analysis by the nonpartisan group FairVote, which advocates for electoral reforms that make it easier to vote, out of 4,687 statewide general elections between 2000 and 2016, just 26 went to a recount. Of those 26, just three recounts wound up changing the initial result of the race: The 2004 Washington governor’s race, the 2006 Vermont state auditor’s race and the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race. The average swing in those three elections after the recounts? About 311 votes.”

The state’s second largest newspaper, the Miami Herald, ran essentially the same story and statistics. Expect more to follow.

Remember, Republican Gov. Rick Scott has a 12,500-vote lead over Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis has a 34,000-vote lead over Democrat Andrew Gillum in the governor’s race after official tallies were in. While those are tiny leads in such a big state, they’re huge leads for a recount.

For a recount that does not find a major “error” or corrupted system (Broward County?) there is nothing remotely suggesting that this week’s recount will do more than change a few hundred votes. But even if it changes a few thousand votes, the results would still remain the same.

The difference between this time and 2000 in Florida — and the 2008 Minnesota race for U.S. Senator — is that the margins now are much larger and there are no more votes being added to the total. The uproar raised by Republicans and Republican lawyers to stop Broward and Palm Beach counties from continuing to “find” votes well past the legal deadline were successful in both the courts and the eyes of the public.

So unless some court wrangling and a liberal judge allows Broward to manufacture some more Democrat votes — yes, that sounds cynical but it’s pretty hard not to be — then these are the vote totals. The recount will just find anomalies.

That’s why Gillum was in church Sunday politicking away and demanding every vote be counted, because he knows without more votes added to the total, the recount won’t give him the election.

The fact that the media is running these stories this Monday morning is also an important sign. Their readership is heavily Democratic for obvious reasons, and this acts to adjust expectations as those reporters who actually understand Florida voting laws and history realize the chances of changing the outcome of the two big races are very tiny.

If the recount does maintain these results, the left will still fly into hysterics and rage and march and protest and generally throw a tantrum. But they’ve been doing that almost every day since Donald Trump was elected president anyway.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Democrats demand removal of Illinois election judge after she reported fraud

Illegal Ballots Mixed in w/ Broward County Election Results

Yes, Florida Elections Have Had Their Moments, Like 200,000 Non-Citizens Possibly Voting In 2012

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act.

Why We Need More Climate Change Skeptics

Instead of demonizing such skeptics, we need to encourage and respect such people who work hard to identify where biases have interfered with the pursuit of truth.


Climate scientists are not prophets. Those who believe them on faith provide no good service to the pursuit of truth.

Those who blame climate change for every storm or forest fire are silly. Equally silly are those who claim that a particularly cold day proves that climate change is a farce.

Fear of environmental calamity has caused human destruction before, such as when Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, led to the banning of the pesticide DDT. As a result of the “success” of the environmentalist movement in banning DDT, an estimated 30-50 million people in Africa—mostly children—died from malaria carried by the renewed growth in the mosquito population. Malaria deaths increased from tens of thousands per year pre-ban to millions per year post-ban. The story was similar in India. These were preventable deaths that resulted from stoked fears.

Now the target is carbon dioxide. We are told that 97 percent of climate scientists agree with their own scientific consensus. But that’s a misleading statement in an important way. The actual figure refers to “97 percent of climate scientists actively publishing in scientific journals.” To understand the relevance of this 97 percent figure, we need to know: what are the determiners of “actively publishing?”

Could the selection process for entry and success (“actively publishing”) in the climate profession create a bias that compromises the information we rely on to make our critical decisions about climate?

Let’s ask the question, calmly and rationally, and see where it takes us.

1. It is reasonable to consider that children raised in climate-conscious families are more likely to become interested in the environment than those raised by families who either don’t care or who deny. The climate-conscious children are more likely to undertake science fair projects and write papers about climate change. Climate work is rewarded in school, so it shouldn’t be any surprise if such children, more than others, later consider environmental science as a college major. If this occurs, which seems likely, this childhood process would be Distillation Step 1 in creating a future climate scientist. More speculatively, if sufficiently reinforced, some of these youths might even develop some neuronally hardwired (unchangeable) biases as the brain matures.

2. As is true in all fields, college climatology professors encourage the most dedicated students in introductory environmental studies classes to pursue climate science as a major. Other students—such as those who are skeptical—may never again see the inside of a climate science classroom. The selection of academic major is Distillation Step 2.

3. When students pursue their master’s degrees, the crop of future climate scientists is further distilled. Those who don’t align with their professors’ views are less successful getting into PhD programs. Then, success within a PhD program relies (in any field) on abiding by one’s dissertation committee’s wishes so as to get their PhD in as few years as possible and finally make some money. During this phase, those who best comply will be more likely to obtain their doctorate and get set up in post-doc positions working for experienced senior scientists. Distillation Step 3 has occurred, along with further psychological reinforcement to agree with those more senior. The climate liquor is getting more concentrated.

4. To succeed in academia, the newly minted PhD must apply for grants, mostly from government agencies or his own university. He chooses hypotheses and writes his grant application with care, knowing he’ll need the approval of committees populated with scientists who are invested in promoting their previously published papers and who make their living from government-funded studies of climate change. If he fails to craft his project to appeal to the needs of the reviewers on the committee, he won’t get funded. Funding failure increases the likelihood that he will wash out of academia. This selection of research grants to write is Distillation Step 4.

The process of nurturing and selection of the climate scientist starts in kindergarten and proceeds through high school and college, then to grant funding, manuscript preparation, and publication. His research is then only seen through the lens of the media’s selective presentation. The many reinforcing layers of bias create a distillate of pure concentrated climate orthodoxy, and this liquor is what we are offered to drink.

5. Successfully obtaining funding allows the young academic to perform a research project that will buttress the beliefs of the grant committee that channeled funding to him. Research studies are these days (improperly) designed to accomplish the affirmation of the hypothesized outcome as opposed to examining the truth of a hypothesis. If his project (done well or done poorly) appears to prove his hypothesis, then he tries to publish a paper to join the ranks of the “actively publishing.” He will craft the conclusion and abstract to promote his bias (again, this is true in any field). By the way, we should not underestimate the pressured academic’s skill at justifying to himself the removal of any data from his dataset that adversely affect his ability to get a publishable p value of “less than 0.05” (an arbitrary cut off in statistics that is needed for publication).

Note that if the project fails to prove his hypothesis, the young scientist probably will never write a manuscript about it, and therefore he won’t yet be “actively publishing.” Oh, and often there are multiple hypotheses in a project, and if only one of them is proven, it will be the only one written up and submitted for publication. The disproven hypotheses will not be written up and will never be seen by us. This is all part of Distillation Step 5.

6. Even if a scientist goes to the effort to write a manuscript that fails to support climate change concerns (which would be called a “negative manuscript” as it negates the hypothesis), it will be harder to get it published. Such “negative manuscripts” are, in any field, commonly rejected by the editor before going to peer review.

If a negative manuscript does get to peer review, the reviewers will be more critical because the manuscript will conflict with their prior publications. Then the scientist will have to go to the considerable effort of resubmitting the manuscript elsewhere or have to respond to the reviewers’ critiques by getting more grant money and doing more studies, which will prove difficult. And it just isn’t worth it because publishing such a paper could only hurt his career. So the young academic understandably sticks the rejected manuscript and its data in a desk drawer, never to be seen again. This is Distillation Step #6.

Selective manuscript writing, editorial bias, peer-review bias, and selective re-submission are four important biases in any field. This could be a reason—completely unrelated to scientific facts—as to why climate literature slants the way it does.

After these multiple distillation steps, almost all impurities have been distilled away. Perhaps only 3 percent remains. It should be no more surprising that 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists agree with the climate change consensus than that 97 percent of actively preaching seminary graduates believe in their religion.

7. Those who make it onto the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), are the most highly distilled, fully vetted climate scientists of all. Pure 200 proof. For this reason and others, consensus at the level of the IPCC is even less useful than “expert opinion.”

In response to climatologists’ complaints that the IPCC is biased against nuclear power, Jonathan Lynn, an IPCC spokesman, rejected the accusation, telling Axios: “We completely reject the idea we are biased about nuclear power or anything else.”

I would call Mr. Lynn’s statement psychological denial. Of course the IPCC is biased. Everyone who cares, one way or the other, is biased. To say otherwise is poppycock.

8. Now, if it bleeds it leads. The lay world only hears the most dramatic climate stories. What self-disrespecting mainstream click-baiting journalist will bother to read anything beyond a research abstract or would waste their editor’s time with anything positive (or even innocuous) regarding climate change? Answer: none. Furthermore, journalists now manage to stick a scary line about climate change in any article they can. Bees, birds, ticks, human migration… it’s all climate change. This continual exposure to unsubstantiated statements from journalists will bamboozle many readers.

What we in the lay world get to read and hear is a highly distilled climate change liquor and the most catastrophic fears of what climate change may cause. The climate-concerned lay reader is unlikely to be presented with, or click on, a climate story that opposes his worldview. Those with defensive personalities will reflexively lash out with vitriol at an author of such an article, as if the author were an infidel, often without reading past the title.

We need to get our heads around the climate in an intellectually comprehensive way. We need science to do that. Unfortunately, the politicized climate field has many reinforcing biases entrenched within it. This must lead to the dissemination of biased or incomplete facts and biased conclusions.

Yet it is important we don’t get this wrong because people suffer and die when science becomes unquestioned dogma.

We need private watchdogs who go to the effort to examine the research that the climatologists produce, looking for flaws, biases, misrepresentations, malincentives, and even manipulations. Instead of demonizing such skeptics, we need to encourage and respect such people who work hard to identify where biases have interfered with the pursuit of truth.

I recognize the importance of a healthy climate. I am not ignoring facts, and I respect the scientific method. I’m not brainwashed by oil companies nor in psychological denial. To the contrary, any skepticism I have arises because I do not deny the weaknesses of the academic process that create a scientist and the research he produces. Reinforcing layers of bias can occur in any field, but politicization exaggerates it.

Let’s remember what saved the whales. It wasn’t Greenpeace. It was, rather, the successful distillation of petroleum that replaced the demand for the renewable fuel known as whale oil. That distillation made petroleum purer and more flammable. The distillation of climate science makes it purer, too—and more incendiary.

Policymakers, teachers, journalists, environmentalists…all of us…really know nothing about climate change other than what trickles down from the climate scientists’ desks. Are the many reinforcing layered biases of the climate field sufficient to have relevant effects on the research results that are presented to us? Are the climate scientists getting some of it wrong, or maybe exaggerating it?

It has happened before—with DDT—with horrific consequences.

And the climate change field is even more politicized.

This article was reprinted from International Man.

COLUMN BY

Doug Casey

Doug Casey

Douglas R. Casey is an American writer, speculator, and the founder and chairman of Casey Research. Casey is a real estate investor, as well as an advisor on how to profit from market distortions and periods of economic turmoil.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission.

First Gun Confiscation Death

Why 5:17 a.m. – doesn’t appear to have been an imminent threat – this is ridiculous overreaction by law enforcement in the People’s Republic of Maryland and could happen anywhere.

These Red Flag Laws are also known in Florida as Risk Protection Orders under the Marjory Stoneman Public Safety (gun control) Law. We are the only Red state out of 12 which have instigated such laws. Already in Polk County since Sep 14, there have been 121 cases of gun seizures prior to a hearing. Don’t know how many of these cases were proven or unproven (and guns returned or how long it took) but in cases threat not proved, it is certain to generate unnecessary costs to those accused persons who elect to hire attorney and unnecessary humiliation.

Totally unconstitutional and in violation of Due Process. hard to believe Republican dominated Florida Legislature approved this and Governor Scott signed it.

This has got to be challenged in courts and soon before more innocent Americans are killed or put thru this wringer ignoring their 4th, 5th and 14th Amendment rights against false search and seizure and due process of being innocent until proven guilty based on someone’s unproven perception they are a threat!

You could predict this would happen in a state with red flag laws.

Breaking: First Gun Confiscation Killing Reported in Maryland

This is absolutely tragic. Police officers in Anne Arundel County, Maryland arrived at a man’s home to confiscate his guns under the state’s Red Flag law. When he answered the door holding a gun, a fight ensued and they shot him dead.

For months, we have been warning you about the so-called “red flag” bills that are being passed in states around the country. These laws allow family members, friends, and even complete strangers to turn gun owners into police to have their firearms confiscated. It is then up to the gun owner to prove that he or she deserves the right to keep and bear arms. It completely turns the justice system on its head. Under these laws, gun owners are presumed guilty until proven innocent.

On Monday morning, police officers in Anne Arundel County, Maryland showed up confiscate 60-year-old Gary J Willis’ guns. A family member had called police and asked them to suspend Gary Willis’ gun rights, and the local police department was more than happy to oblige.

When the pounding on the door began at 5:17 am, Gary showed up to his door holding a firearm. When he saw it was police, he put the gun down to talk to them. But then, the officers informed him they were there to confiscate all of his weapons.

Imagine how you would feel. You wake up out of a sound sleep to pounding on your door. You grab a gun in case it is a criminal, but it turns out that the police are there to confiscate your guns without even accusing you of committing a crime…

Read more.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Bruno Martins on Unsplash.

Trump Calls Out Embattled County Election Official in Florida Vote-Count Mess

President Donald Trump is scrutinizing the Florida election-recount process, and he isn’t the only one—largely because of Broward County.

On election night, it appeared likely that Rick Scott, the outgoing Florida Republican governor, had defeated Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for his seat. It appeared even more likely that Republican ex-Rep. Ron DeSantis defeated Democrat Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, to be Florida’s next governor.

By Friday morning, both Nelson and Gillum were challenging the outcome.

Also still in question is the outcome of the race for the state agriculture commissioner, with the candidates separated by fewer than 500 votes as of Thursday night.

Automatic recounts are triggered under Florida law when the candidates are separated by less than 0.5 percent of the vote. The office of Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, a Republican, will review the returns on Saturday.

Scott’s Senate campaign and the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee sued both Broward and Palm Beach counties, seeking to make the counties’ vote counting more transparent and ensure that each is following state election laws. Late Friday, a Florida court ruled in Scott’s favor in the Broward County case.

Nelson’s campaign sued the state Thursday to force a recount. Nelson’s lawyer, Marc Elias, a former attorney for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, called the Senate race a “jump ball.”

“We’re doing it to win,” he said.

Departing the White House on Friday morning en route to Paris, Trump said there “could be” a federal role for sorting out the electoral mess in Florida, when asked about it by a reporter.

He also referenced Brenda Snipes, the supervisor of elections for Broward County—though not by name. Snipes, a Democrat, was most recently re-elected in 2016.

“If you look at Broward County, they have had a horrible history,” Trump said. “If you look at the person, in this case a woman, involved, she has had a horrible history.

“All of the sudden, they are finding votes out of nowhere, and Rick Scott who won—it was close, but he won by a comfortable margin,” the president said of the Republican hopeful’s vote edge. “Every couple of hours, it goes down a little bit.”

As The Daily Signal reported last year, Snipes admitted, in a lawsuit over the county having more registered voters than eligible voters, that noncitizens and felons might have voted.

In May of this year, a state judge ruled that Snipes violated state and federal law when she destroyed ballots from a Democratic congressional primary in August 2016, even though there was a pending lawsuit seeking access to the ballots.

Her office also posted results of an election 30 minutes before polls closed, which was a violation of the law.

Days before the election this year, the Miami Herald ran an article anticipating problems in Broward County, noting Snipes and her background.

“Bad things have gone on in Broward County, really bad things. She’s been to court. She’s had a lot of problems. She’s lost,” Trump said. “I say this: He [Scott] easily won. But every hour it seems to be going down. I think that people have to look at it very, very cautiously. … What’s happening in Florida is a disgrace.

“Go down and see what happened over the last period of time, 10 years. Take a look at Broward County. Take a look at the total dishonesty of what happened with respect to Broward County,” he said.

Scott was also critical of Snipes.

For her part, Snipes told a South Florida ABC affiliate that her office was counting five or six pages for each person who voted by mail.

“It’s a serious issue with me. … We ran 22 sites, we ran 14 days, we ran 12 hours. We had a big vote by mail, so don’t try to turn it around to make it seem like I’m making comedy out of this,” Snipes told a reporter.

The Associated Press reported Snipes said she wasn’t certain how many ballots remain to be counted.

J. Christian Adams, a former election lawyer with the Justice Department and now president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, argued against Snipes’ office in a two-week trial in 2017 in Florida.

“Brenda Snipes is one of the most incompetent election officials in the United States,” Adams told The Daily Signal. “She does a terrible job maintaining the voter rolls and enforcing the voter laws. She has been sued three times in the past two years. It’s astounding to me that she keeps her job.”

In 2014, her office was sued over a confusing ballot layout. In 2016, she was again sued regarding the destroyed ballots. Scott’s legal action marks the third lawsuit against her.

Interestingly, Snipes was first appointed to the post in 2002 after her predecessor, Miriam Oliphant, was removed for incompetence. She has since been elected and re-elected to several four-year terms to the county office.

Ballots were counted slowly every year except for 2008 and 2010 under her watch, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

The last time the eyes of the political world were on Florida was after the presidential election of 2000. That’s when Florida recounts and a Supreme Court case decided the presidential contest between then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, a Republican, and then-Vice President Al Gore, a Democrat.

Still, there’s scant legal comparison between then and now, Adams said.

“I don’t even think there’s any similarities,” Adams said. “In 2000, the question was about the intent of the voter. In these cases, we’re not even there yet.”

During his briefing with reporters Friday, Trump also referenced Nelson’s lawyer, again though not by name, and the connection Elias had with the infamous so-called “Steele dossier,” the unverified opposition research document that suggested ties between Trump and Russians.

Elias works for the Perkins Coie law firm, which retained Fusion GPS for opposition research on Trump. That resulted in the document written by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, that became the basis for the federal investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and Russian operatives to affect the outcome of the 2016 election.

“Then, you see the people, and they were involved in the fraud of the fake dossier, and I guess I hear they were somehow involved with the [Fusion GPS] people,” Trump said referencing Elias.

Elias, Nelson’s lawyer, bickered Thursday with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., on Twitter.

Elias also heralded the tightening Senate race.

Gillum, the Democratic candidate for governor, said he is just interested in seeing all votes counted. He previously conceded the race, but subsequently rescinded his concession.

DeSantis, the Republican candidate for governor, who has declared victory, has generally continued acting like the victor, the Associated Press reported.

COLUMN BY

Portrait of Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Photo: Dan Anderson/ZUMA Wire/Newscom.

Free and Fair Elections?

Why is it that the with the majority of the contested recounts we mostly find tens of thousands of missing ballots for the Democrats and not the Republicans? I mean, what are the odds of that? Slim I would suggest, slim. If Rick Scott of Florida does not take decisive action and steps immediately, his own election along with Ron DeSantis is in serious jeopardy. Am I insinuating that there is voter fraud and election theft taking place in Florida and other states as well? You bet. Now there is plenty of news out there today and in the coming days perhaps weeks about the recounts taking place today that can be found on social media and by scouring the various news feeds. So I will not regurgitate. If you are a true concerned patriot and possibly an activist then I ask you to read the following excerpt from my book Trump and the Resurrection of America provided for you below and share this post everywhere.

Chapter Excerpt

Americans are under the illusion that there is a two-party system in place and that we have free and fair elections and we have a choice. But in actuality, it really is a one–party system serving the same master. I will get into this in the chapter titled “Shadow Government.” Let’s discuss the U.S. free and fair elections. Free and fair elections? Oh really? Ask Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders about free and fair elections.

The United States actually has the worst voting system in the developed world. According to NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller, even Harvard University ranked the U.S. dead last place in the developed world. Professor Miller went on to say that former President Jimmy Carter said in 2006 in a NPR interview that the elections in the U.S. are so poor that we don’t even rise to the minimal level where the Carter Center would bother to monitor them.

You see, we are under the illusion that we have free and fair elections when in fact the candidates are “selected,” funded with full-blown support from the PACS, big corporations, the corrupt, biased media, and then placed into office. We have shed blood across this globe fighting for others to have the right to free and fair elections, yet we do not. It is “they” who get to decide who becomes the President of the United States. Well, that all changed with the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016, being perhaps the only exception in modern history. Consider this.

Voter Fraud and Election Theft

Voter fraud and election theft have been going on for a very long time and perhaps even more so today. Who is guilty? Well, both parties are guilty; depends upon what the shadow government’s agenda is.

We see reports where dead people are voting. During the primaries of 2016, absentee ballots were seen being shredded into a wastebasket. There is gerrymandering taking place as yet another method. There are instances where one person has voted multiple times. There is the corruption in play with the PACS that Donald Trump spoke out against during the primaries of 2015 and 2016. Some years ago, in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, there were sworn affidavits which have been collected by a team spearheaded by attorney Mark Adams, indicating that votes were significantly changed in local elections. Not to mention the onslaught of illegal aliens voting. There are many other instances of fraud. But perhaps the most telling and most disturbing one of all is the fact that the Diebold voting machines are hackable and rigged. Then there is the process known as “skimming.” What is skimming? The following summation of skimming and the GEMS software sections were provided by Dr. Richard Davis of PollMole.

Skimming

  • A very sophisticated method of election fraud
  • The most common way to “steal” an election
  • Manipulate pre-election polls to project a “close race”
  • Design the polls to have a wide margin of error
  • Wide margins rig the system against any effective legal challenge
  • Manipulate the vote to make sure the race is close
  • Fit the official vote to hide within the black hole (i.e., margin of error)
  • Skimming is hard to detect and almost impossible to prove
  • Honest campaigns can only win in real landslides of 10 percent or more, unless a scientific polling technology could be deployed that generates cost-effective, statistically robust results with very small margin of error.

Traditional Polling So with typical polling you see oftentimes a “select” group of people being polled. The number of people being polled is typically five hundred to two thousand. Then with traditional polling you can expect a margin of error to be as high as 6 to 10 percent. This is about as effective as polling a group of steak eaters at a large steak house in one neighborhood and asking them if they prefer steak or seafood for dinner. This is the same method used in political polling. This type of polling is not representative of the electorate across the country. And so the fix is in, and the expectation is set, and the biased media’s talking points set the narrative for the regurgitating puppets, we the “sheeple.”

For example, after the second debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, CNN released a poll minutes after the debate, a select group of people totaling just 537, and the poll resulted in Hillary beating Trump 57 to 34 percent in that debate. CNN reported that 58 percent of those polled were democrats.

Anyone who watched, even Hillary supporters, knows that Trump slaughtered her in this particular debate. I rest my case. Skewed, rigged polling, skimming the elections. The plot thickens.

Edison Research Group

What is the Edison Research Group? This group conducts the exit poll results on election day. They provide the data under an exclusive contract to the National Election Pool (a cartel of six huge media conglomerates: ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC, and AP). Edison is owned by the same six cartel members. How cozy and convenient. And with the GEMS manipulation capabilities in place and if the artificial intelligence (AI) is activated, election theft occurs. Think about it, private for-profit companies tell us about our election results outcome. Are you hearing me? Are you following me? Are you with me so far?

All of the mainstream media (MSM) and now as recently observed even some of the alternative media will never get into the crux of the voter fraud and election theft issue. Sure they might touch on the dead voters, the voter who has voted more than once, and so on, but pre-programmed computers with AI? You probably won’t hear that on the MSM. Discussing computerized election fraud is generally off limits. It’s like discussing how the twin towers came down on 911, not to mention building number seven. These subjects are off limits when it comes to MSM. And so the blackout and gag order are in full force and Americans are once again hoodwinked and a laughing- stock to the world.

GEMS

The GEMS resident software has been installed on virtually all central server voting machines deployed in the U.S. and can easily steal the election, undetected, with extreme precision. This is also known as black box voting. There is some evidence that this technology was used by Hillary to steal her primary from Senator Sanders. The GEMS software has now been placed under the control of an advanced Artificial Intelligence system that can continuously manipulate the “official vote” tally nationwide in nanoseconds, right down to the precinct level, without detection. This system will have been specifically designed and purpose-built to be the perfect tool—leaving no evidence behind—in order to commit the perfect crime.

WikiLeaks has provided credible evidence that the pre-election presidential polls were being rigged as well, in order to set the expectation for a Clinton victory. Meanwhile Clinton and Kaine had been cancelling rallies due to little to no attendance as Trump continued to fill arenas across the nation, with thousands more lined up outside unable to get in. Enough said. There is speculation within inner circles that perhaps a counter AI may have been deployed, ensuring the victory for Trump. We simply don’t know for sure. We do know that the election process in America is fatally flawed for multiple reasons and Russia had nothing to do with this.

Forward Progress

“The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.” – Joseph Stalin.

The Founding Fathers stated the votes are to be cast in private and counted in public. This of course is no longer being done since the advent of computerized voting. Think about it—have you ever seen a computer count? The following suggestions regarding an overhaul to our flawed corrupt election process were made by NYU Professor Mark Crispin Miller.

  • Eliminate private companies with vested interests in the counting and reporting of votes
  • Return to hand-counted paper ballots
  • Get rid of computerized voting
  • Require automatic registration on birthdays
  • Election Day should be a national holiday.

These in my opinion are sound and simple steps to take to help re- store election integrity. There is another method, yet another way of detecting and deterring voter fraud and election theft. You may recall in my open letter at the beginning of this book I mentioned I spent some time assisting with a startup company leading up the election of 2016. That company was PollMole. So what is PollMole, you may ask? Reminds me of the movie Back to the Future, where the guy says to Marty, “Who the hell is JFK?” This may soon become the case with PollMole. Time will tell. PollMole is a highly disruptive, transformative social networking and connectivity technology. It empowers its users to directly and interactively retrieve, analyze, process, archive, and share opinions, ideas, beliefs, and other forms of complex information, from an almost unlimited number of people, simultaneously, in real time, twenty-four/ seven, and translate this information into actionable intelligence, thus providing extremely accurate, focused, science-based information designed to optimize decision-making ability.

Whew. So how does this relate to the election process? In essence, PollMole bypasses the traditional content controls erected by the big media’s information cartel and delivers real information directly into the hands of we the people. PollMole is a downloadable app that can help to restore election integrity results. When you download your free app and cast your anonymous vote, an electronic affidavit is registered within the technological platform. Should there be an election contest, PollMole can become quite the useful tool as a “weapon of truth” if you will.

If a court order were presented to PollMole, the candidate contesting the election outcome might find PollMole most useful. After all, if there were a large sampling of votes cast across all 180,000+ precincts, say, with twenty million votes having been casted and recorded in the PollMole app with a near zero margin of error, this would detect just where the voter fraud took place and perhaps reveal enough forensic evidence to overturn the election results. This would be historical and a real game changer. In fact, this would change everything.

In addition to detecting voter fraud and election theft, there would be consequences such as prosecution for those who committed the fraud. This can be widespread as you move up and down the channels.

Furthermore, the media and the rigged polling organizations, agencies, and corporations as well as the pundits are caught with their pants down, exposed and discredited, and so the media itself must then become honest and straight or simply lose their audience, ratings, revenues.

And due to the way the firewalls have been constructed within the PollMole back-end technology, the names of those who cast the votes remain anonymous as intended by the Founding Fathers.

You can learn more about this startup company called PollMole by visiting the company’s developing website and by doing a Google search. I am certain by the time the next election cycle rolls around, with a Trump administration in place, we can look forward to significant and much-needed changes to the election process.

Conclusion

I hope you actually took the time to read this book excerpt. As to PollMole, you can learn more by visiting the PollMole archived articles on my website JohnMichaelChambers.com and I will be providing an update on PollMole before 2018 plays out.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Broward voters deserved better from Snipes – she should go | Editorial

A look at Broward elections chief Brenda Snipes’ long history of trouble

Disgraced Snipes, Head of Broward Elections, Mixed Illegal Ballots with Valid Ones

Arizona GOP Claims Democrat Election Official Destroyed Evidence of Ballot Counting ‘Irregularities’

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Randy Colas on Unsplash

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