Voter Fraud Review - Part 2

One of the most important cornerstones of our country and our democracy is the ability to elect people to office to carry out the wishes of the citizenry. The bedrock of that concept is that one person has one vote which makes all of us equal under this doctrine, rich or poor, white or black, young or old, every vote should be legitimate and count as one person voicing their own opinion in the voting booth.

When this principle of one person one vote is violated or appears to have been violated, the whole foundation of our democracy and freedoms is undermined. We can never be quite sure if the election results actually reflect the will of the people or if those election results have been skewed by incompetence, deceit, criminal behavior, and anti-freedom forces.

I have people in my life that pooh pooh the idea that there is massive voter fraud in this country, either intentional or unintentional, due to incompetence or deceit of government officials and politicians. We are going to take a look at their hypothesis that voter fraud is insignificant over the next few days. I think that when we are done, you will agree that our voting processes are badly broken and possibly criminally broken and skewed and that unless actions are taken to restore the faith in our election processes, the country and the freedoms we enjoy are in serious trouble.

1) Yesterday we discussed the reality that many states have more registered voters in many of their counties then they have citizen adults living in those counties who would be eligible to vote. The WND website recently reported on a different type of voter fraud and voting irregularities:

• The Washington Times reported recently that according to research by New Hampshire Republican Speaker of the state House, Shawn Jasper, nearly 6,000 people voted in the Presidential election last November in New Hampshire who had neither obtained an in-state license or nor registered a motor vehicle since their November vote.
• 6,540 people had voted using out of state licenses but since then only 1,014 had obtained an in state New Hampshire license, possibly indicating that a lot of people voted in New Hampshire who should not have voted or who voted twice, once in another state and once in New Hampshire.
• Given that Hillary Clinton defeated Trump in New Hampshire by only 2,736 votes while Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan defeated the Republican Senate candidate by 1,017 votes it is quite possible that both the Presidential and Senate voting in the state were corrupted and fraudulent.
• The Times article said that 196 people are actively being investigated for illegally voting in the state and elsewhere.
• Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of the Houston, Texas-based vote-monitoring nonprofit True the Vote, told WND “no one knows how many non-citizens are voting, because under the Obama administration, attempts to find answers were blocked at every turn.”

Very serious stuff. Imagine if the Electoral College results were so close that that the Electoral votes from New Hampshire made up the difference and allowed Hillary to win despite the reality that the popular vote difference was much smaller than the the fraudulent vote total. The entire voting process and Hillary Clinton Presidency would have been viewed as totally bogus by over half of the country, the majority of the country that did not vote for Hillary.

A divided country would have become even more divided because of faulty voting processes.

2) P. Gardner Smith, writing for the MRCTV website on August 29, 2017, discussed the evidence of massive voter fraud in Chicago, based on Freedom Of Information Act requests:

• Chris Cleveland, the chairman of the Chicago Republican party (a truly futile position to be in, given that Chicago has been dominated by crooked Democratic politicians forever), filed a Freedom Of Information Act to get access to Chicago Board of Electors records.
• The analysis of those voting records found that 15 Chicago precincts had at least 100 more ballots cast than registered voters while other precincts had fewer ballots counted than actual votes cast.
• In total, precincts having more votes cast than voters totalled up to an extra bogus 16,000 votes being cast.
• Now, according to law, the Chicago Board of Elections has to respond to Cleveland’s request for an explanation.
• I would not hold one’s breath in getting a cogent answer back to such bogus voting records and history, given the city’s horrible record for holding valid elections.
• The article goes on to discuss the state of New Hampshire and its voting problems, much like our previous point. 
• A former New Hampshire Democratic politician, Ed Naile, did some voter investigation when he became head of the Coalition of NH Taxpayers. He cross checked the lists of people who voted in New Hampshire elections, who lived close to colleges in the state, with the student attending those NH colleges with the hometowns of those students.
• Unfortunately, he found that many of those who were attending New Hampshire colleges and who voted in New Hampshire elections had doubled voted back in their home towns. Most of those that appeared on all three lists were registered Democrats.

Given such widespread actual or perceived election fraud and shenanigans, is it any surprise that Pew Research Center found that only 20% of Americans trust our current set of politicians?

3) We have previously reported on this proven case of voter fraud but given that voter fraud is the topic of the week, let’s review an actual case that has been prosecuted for voter fraud:

• A Virginia university student has already been found guilty of voter fraud and is serving jail time.
• Andrew Spieles, a student at James Madison University, will serve 100 days in jail based on his illegal work for a Democratic party-affiliated voter registration group, work that paid him to register voters during the 2016 Presidential election campaign.
• Unfortunately for him and the country, the people he was registering to vote were completely dead at the time he filed their voter registration papers.
• He got caught submitting voter registrations for dead people, one of which was the dead father of a current Rockingham County, Virginia judge.
• According to the government investigation: “Spieles later admitted that he prepared the false voter registration forms. He obtained the name, age, and address of individuals from ‘walk sheets’ provided to him by the Virginia Democratic Party, fabricating a birth date based on the ages listed in the walk sheet, and fabricating the social security numbers.” 

Another three cases of potential and actual voter fraud today. Faking dead people voter registrations in Virginia, more voters than actual people in Chicago, and double voting in new Hampshire. More voting fraud and nonsense in the upcoming days.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Busting Poliitical Myths, Part 4: Income Inequality and Racism

We are having a little fun over the past several days at our politicians’ expense, exploring the many myths that the politicians of this country would like us to believe. You see, if we believe the myths that they create than we are more likely to vote for them to resolve the unreal issues and problems associated with these myths. 

[Note: I thought we could finish the political class myth deconstruction in two posts but we also needed yesterday and today, four posts total, to finish up what is becoming a very interesting and apparently widespread problem, courtesy of the American political class.]

But what if what they tell is not the true reality? What if we are getting all worked up and headed in the wrong direction for a mythical problem that does not exist or for a mythical solution that resolves nothing? All it does is send us chasing our tails while the same inept politicians get reelected over and over based on nothing more than their own greed, their rigging of the election processes, and the myths that they feed us and control us with.

So starting earlier this week, we are going to look behind the myth curtail and reveal what is the true reality. With that truth we may finally start resolving some of the major issues of our times. Lord knows the political class has failed miserably over the past fifty years in eradicating poverty, winning the lost war on drugs, fixing our failing public schools, securing our borders, etc. 

Maybe it is because we have allowed them to work on myths that they created and not the true problems of our age. Keep in mind the following wise words of Groucho Marx over the next few posts: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.” Sounds like myth building to me.

1) If you were to listen to politicians, particularly those that lean Democrat and liberal, one would think that America never progressed out of its racist past where white slave owners reigned over black slaves and the Jim Crow laws of the south were still in effect. This myth allows politicians to stake out positions and “energize their voting base” to get themselves elected over and over based on this issue that they constantly raise and harp on.

But is America still a racist country, based on reality and actual data, or is that a myth that allows politicians to divide us and set one voting bloc against another? While we fight and argue with each other, they can then get by without resolving new major issues that affect us all but instead, root for the antagonisms to grow and fester which helps them stay in office.

Let’s look at some real life data in graph form that was recently published by the Independent Journal Review. More details and similar graphs on racism in America can be found at the original article: 

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/04/133024-10-charts-show-racist-america-really/

According to this graph of Gallup poll results, the acceptance of interracial marriages is quite high in America and trending upwards, a good sign for racial harmony and a bad sign for the myth. The positive, increasing trend held firm whether or not a Democrat or Republican was President and actually jumped the most, by about 14 percentage points from 65% to 79% during the Bush administration.

Now in a perfect world, one would want that graph to top out at 100%. But given that the acceptance rate is up more than four fold since 1968 and still apparently trending up, we are in good shape relative to racism in this measure, despite what myths on racism Democrats and liberals may put forth.



Same results in this interracial marriage trend chart, newly married couples have a much higher percentage of interracial couples being married than the percentage of currently married couples. One would expect this kind of result given the growing acceptance of interracial marriages we discussed and observed in the first chart above. Another good sign that the races are growing closer and more accepting of each other. 



Another anti-racism myth. The percentage of Americans who would vote for a qualified African American for President is actually quite close to the utopian level of 100%. This trend is also growing steadily, has grown steadily regardless of what party controlled the White House and Congress, and is up more than double since 1960. 

This might dispel any sub-myths that liberals put out that people disapprove of Obama’s performance in office because he is an African American. This chart would indicate that they disapprove of his actions because of his incompetence and inability to lead and bring forth change, not because he is not white. The key word in the survey was “qualified,” maybe the current President does not meet that criteria.

And finally, relative to the rest of the world, we are a very tolerant society. When people were polled around the world, and asked to pick from groups of people they would not want as neighbors, less than 5% of Americans chose “people of another race.” Compare that level of tolerance to the levels in India and the Middle East, and parts of Europe, who were a lot less tolerant of other races living next door to them as neighbors.

Is there still racism in America? Probably yes. Will there always be racism in America? Probably yes. But to listen to the politicians tell us how bad it is without heeding the above data that is actually very good and trending better in these charts, is to cater to their myth of hatred and disharmony that they use for their own good and not for the growing harmony between all of us.

2) One last myth before we wrap up this series. Democrats and liberals, particularly those in the northeastern part of the country, are always harping on the myth that they take better care of the poor and needy within their areas than the rest of the country. They point to more government welfare programs, more government job training programs, more government housing programs, higher minimum wage levels and all kinds of other political, higher tax levels that funnel money to those in need, and government initiatives to help the needy and poor. If only the rest of the country would be so generous and pro-government, all the needy in the country would be better off.

But is that assertion true or is that a myth also? Does having a very proactive, heavily indebted welfare state actually help the poor and needy? Or is that also a myth? 

One way to explore that possibility is to look at income equality. Do those states that have a much heavier government hand in helping the needy actually help them and balance out the income inequality levels that liberals and Democrats are always harping on?

There is actually a government statistic that measures income inequality called the Gini coefficient. I will not try to explain it here, I am sure there are explanations on the Internet if you are interested. The U.S. Census Bureau annually calculates the Gini coefficient for the 50 states and the District of Columbia. According to their analysis:

• According to 2012 Census Bureau data (the latest available figures), the District of Columbia, New York, and Connecticut have the highest measure of income inequality of all the states.
• Wyoming, Alaska, Utah, and New Hampshire have the lowest Gini coefficients. 
• The three states where income inequality is the most unequal—Washington, D.C., New York and Connecticut—are dominated by liberal policies and politicians and extensive, and expensive, welfare programs.
• The top three states with the lowest Gini coefficients and thus the lowest income inequality generally considered conservative red states.
• An exception in the northeast, the state with the lowest Gini coefficient is New Hampshire (.430), which has no income tax and a lower overall state tax burden than that of its much more liberal neighbors Massachusetts (Gini coefficient .480) and Vermont (.439). 
• Texas is often viewed as a deep red state with very conservative roots and California is held up as the model of liberal, more heavy handed government. Thus, it is no surprise that Texas has a lower Gini coefficient (.477) and a lower poverty rate (20.5%) than California (Gini coefficient .482, poverty rate 25.8%).
• Those states with a higher minimum wage than the rest of the country, e.g. Connecticut ($8.70), California ($8), New York ($8) and Vermont ($8.73), have significantly wider gaps between rich and poor than those states that don’t have as a high a minimum wage.
• A Cato Institute report found that the higher the welfare benefit levels, the higher the Gini coefficient. 
• States with high income-tax rates aren’t any more equal than states with no income tax. 

Thus, it appears we have busted another political class myth. Those states that give more to the poor and needy end up not benefiting the poor and needy but creating a bigger gap between poor and non-poor as measured by the Gini coefficient. This myth of heavy handed government welfare is also destroyed by looking at the first five years or so of the Obama administration. 

This administration has expanded the earned income tax credit for the poor, increased the food stamp assistance program by 50% or so, continually extended unemployment benefits, etc. But the reality of these interventions by the welfare state government, despite what liberals will tell you, has resulted in over 20 million Americans unemployed or under employed, a substantial drop in the median American household income in the past four years, and a national Gini coefficient that is worse now than the last day of the Bush administration.

All of these income inequality programs sound good on paper, they should work, but the reality is they are a myth. They make the income inequality numbers worse, the rich do get richer not because of anything they do but because the political class in this country do not know how to grow the economy. Growing the overall economy, and not the welfare state, which would get some of those 20 million Americans better jobs and offset the growing income inequality programs that the Obama administration, and others, have put forth.

John F. Kennedy once wisely said that “a rising tide lifts all boats.“ Rather than perpetuate the myth that income inequality is all-important, and then put forth programs that actually make income inequality worse, it would be better for America if the political class focused on economic growth via lower taxes, fewer regulations, simpler tax processes, etc. But that would reduce our dependence on politicians and reduce their power and control over their lives, a reality that they would rather disguise in a myth.

Okay, it took longer than I expected but we killed ten political class myths in just four days using reality checks and real data. Not bad, but I am assuming we will be coming back to this topic since the myth machine in Washington and state capitals around the country never rests. 

The first post in this series can be viewed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/06/destroying-political-class-myths-part-1.html

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

February, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 2 - A Mayor Gets Indicted, Nazi Thinking In New Hampshire, A Crooked Judge In MIchigan, Alternative Energy Cronyism and More

Yesterday, we started our review of the latest monthly insanity from the American political class. We reviewed an opulent Federal bathroom for one government executive that cost taxpayers over $200,000, we reviewed how the Obama administration is likely the worst Presidential administration when it comes to meeting its legally mandated budget deadlines, how Congress keeps spending money even when a government entity (the Defense Department) actually says it does not need any more money, and more.

But as has been the case for the past six months or so, we could not confine the insanity to one post. More insanity prevails today:

1) Although the lawsuit has just been filed and no verdicts or trials have occurred, it would not be a surprise if this was a legitimate lawsuit with a good chance of succeeding, based on the crony politics we have discussed many times before relative to alternative energy and vehicle programs.

The details below come from a Bloomberg article from earlier in January, 2013:

• XP Vehicles and Limnia recently filed complaints against the U.S. and the Energy Department in Federal courts in Washington, contending that the Obama administration’s Energy Department took care of political friends of the administration when it came to handing out taxpayer money and loans for alternative energy projects.
• Specifically, they are seeking damages for alleged abuses of the $25 billion Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan program.
• The two companies are seeking $450 million in damages, specifically: “Defendants used the ATVM loan program as nothing more than a veil to steer hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to government cronies.”
• XP Vehicles, said it wanted a $40 million loan in 2009 to mass produce an SUV-style electronic vehicle with doors and other parts made from foam.
• XP Vehicles was led to understand that review of its application would take “a matter of weeks.” but XPV claims if found out that two of its competitors, Tesla Motors and Fisker Automotive, were getting special assistance from Energy Department staff with their loan application process.
• At that time, a member of Tesla’s board of director was Steven Westly, a campaign contribution bundler for Obama.
• The complaint also claims Fisker’s investors included Obama donors.
• Tesla got their taxpayer backed loan of $465 million loan in June 2009 with an interest rate of only 1.6%, according to the complaint.
• Fisker received their taxpayer backed $528.7 million loan but in May 2011 the Energy Department blocked Fisker from receiving the rest of the loan when the company didn’t meet its developmental milestones.
• The Energy Department did not comment specifically on these lawsuits, per their policy, but did state that all protocols and guidelines for being fair were followed in all cases.

Again, only accusations, nothing proven one way or the other. But it would not surprise me if this was the actual biased process used. It would be consistent with how the Washington political class functions, political friends and cronies taken care of first, taxpayer money and wealth wasted in the process

2) If there was a tyranny of the month award, I am pretty sure this New Hampshire state legislator would be in the running.

New Hampshire State Representative Democrat Cynthia Chase encouraged her fellow legislators to use their elected positions to make New Hampshire less welcoming to any conservative or libertarian planning on moving to her state, including those already there.

A potential reason for her paranoia is a project underway in New Hampshire. The project’s aim is to encourage that Americans of conservative tenets to move to New Hampshire, run for office, and work to drive the state toward libertarianism and conservatism. It is called the "Free State Project" and supporters are called "Free Staters." These Free Staters want to make the state motto, “Live Free or Die,” a reality. Seems reasonable, given the motto has been around for hundreds of years.

Writing a web post for a blog on December 21 post, Ms. Chase wrote that, "Free Staters are the single biggest threat the state is facing today. In the opinion of this Democrat, Free Staters are the single biggest threat the state is facing today. There is, legally, nothing we can do to prevent them from moving here to take over the state, which is their openly stated goal.

In this country you can move anywhere you choose and they have that same right. What we can do is to make the environment here so unwelcoming that some will choose not to come, and some may actually leave. One way is to pass measures that will restrict the 'freedoms' that they think they will find here. Another is to shine the bright light of publicity on who they are and why they are coming."

It is tough to imagine an elected American official wanting to restrict freedom of only those that disagree with her political positions or who wants to pass punitive measures, again for just a subset of citizens, that would make their life more miserable. Unbelievable.

The Constitution guarantees equal treatment under the law and by government policies and officials. This fundamental principle is obviously lost on this politician.

I do not like to throw around comparisons to Nazi Germany, it is an insult that is rarely accurate and is often used more as a hate barb than an accurate description of the situation. However, if I change the words “Free Staters” above to “Jewish Citizens” and leave everything else the same, I think you will see how closely Ms. Chase’s words would line up with the Nazi manifesto in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

Discrimination against only certain citizens and laws to make their lives miserable and “shine the light of publicity on who they are.” Think back to your history class and remember how Jewish citizens were forced to wear yellow Star Of David signs on themselves when out in public and you will better see my point. Again, unbelievable that our political dialog has come to using the power of the government to force others of a different political position to change their lives.

3) A January 18, 2013 Associated Press reviewed how that more than ten years ago, Ray Nagin was elected mayor of New Orleans on a promise to end corruption in a city infested by decades of it. On January 18, 2013 Nagin was indicted on charges he accepted bribe money, payoffs and other payments while the relatively poor city struggled to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

The Federal investigation alleges that city contractors paid Nagin more than $200,000 in bribes and subsidized his trips to Hawaii, Jamaica and other places. In return, they were awarded Nagin’s help securing millions of contract dollars in work for the city.

The charges against Nagin are a result of a municipal corruption investigation that has already garnered guilty pleas by two former city officials and two businessmen and a prison sentence for a former city vendor. Imagine, an American politician using his office for personal enrichment and greed. Who would have thought? This is especially distressing, given how difficult the recovery has been from Katrina and the personal, emotional, and financial suffering that came with it.

4) The Salt Lake Tribune had a very interesting article on January 11, 2013. Before reviewing it, be clear that the following information is just an accusation at this point in time but the FBI and Federal Trade Commission are deeply involved in the investigation of everything going on around the accusations of illegally buying political influence.

Specifically, accusations of political kickbacks related to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are just that, unproven accusations. But the following highlights from the article are certainly interesting and could result in a Nagin-like situation for state and Federal politicians:

• A Utah businessman, Jeremy Johnson, claims that recently elected Utah Attorney General John Swallow helped arrange a deal in 2010 in which Johnson thought he was to pay Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid $600,000 to make a Federal investigation into Johnson’s company go away.
• Johnson said Swallow at first wanted $2 million to enlist Reid’s help but when he claimed did not have that kind of money they eventually agreed on $300,000 upfront and $300,000 later, according to Johnson‘s version of events.
• But when the Federal government still filed a lawsuit against the company for shady marketing tactics, a lawsuit Johnson thought he had paid to go away, he demanded Swallow return some of the $250,000 initial bribe payment.
• When he did not get the bribe money back, just days before the Nov. 6 election, Johnson engaged in a frantic effort to get Swallow to drop out of the race, saying information of the arrangement with Reid would come out and force the Swallow’s resignation from office if he became attorney general.
• According to the article, Federal agents, including the FBI, have been interviewing Johnson and others related to the situation.
• However, as proof of the scheme, Johnson has produced emails and other documents indicating that Swallow intended to put Johnson in touch with another businessman, Richard Rawle, who allegedly had connections in with Reid in Reid’s home state of Nevada, according to Johnson
• In a subsequent article, Reid's office denied any involvement in the alleged bribery scheme: "Senator Reid has no knowledge or involvement regarding Mr. Johnson’s case," his spokeswoman, Kristen Orthman, said in a statement. "These unsubstantiated allegations implying Senator Reid’s involvement are nothing more than innuendo and simply not true."

Whatever the case and whatever the Federal investigators come up with, there are some smoking guns, and smoking emails, that indicate that government favors are for sale, either at the state level, the Federal level, or just as a fraud cover to get money with no bribery involved. But that should not surprise any of us, most of us know that politicians’ priorities start and end with their career and personal financial enrichment.

The original article with the extensive details of bribery and secret meetings can be found at:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home3/55598812-200/johnson-swallow-rawle-attorney.html.csp

6) But it is not just political figures in elected office that are out only for their personal enrichment. Consider a short story that appeared in the January 20, 2013 issue of the Tampa Bay Times. Apparently, Federal authorities have filed a felony fraud charge against Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway in a case involving the sale of an upscale Detroit area home in a short sale arrangement.

The charge contends that Ms. Hathaway hid the ownership of a Florida property in order to get a short sale approved on her Detroit area home. The fraud allowed her and her husband to illegally get out from under a $600,000 debt. The article states a plea deal on the crime has already been reached and she will shortly no longer be a state Supreme Court Justice.

7) Our final political class insanity today comes from France, where it appears that politicians the world over are the same when it comes to their own financial enrichment and greed. According to a January 10, 2013 Associated Press article, the French bureaucrat leading the fight against France’s tax and fiscal fraud problem is now one of those being investigated for such fraud.

French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac has spent months seeking out and prosecuting corporate multinational tax dodgers, citizens who live abroad to avoid taxes and those within France who stash money in overseas accounts. Now, he is the target in just the sort of investigation he thought would help turn France's finances around, as prosecutors investigate an online journal's allegations that he transferred money from a Swiss account into one in Singapore, avoiding taxes in the process.

He has, of course, denied the allegations from the online news source, Mediapart, and as of now, these are not proven facts, just allegations. More to come but again, who would be surprised if a politician acted holier than thou in public while secretly arranging for his financial gain behind the scenes, in France, in the U.S., or anywhere where government is run by a political class?

That should do it for today, one last dose of political class insanity tomorrow to wrap up this month’s insults to our intelligence and pocketbooks.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w