The Election 2016

Like most of the rest of the U.S., this election has me shaking my damned head.  This year has been the worst in my lifetime in terms of the dearth of candidate character and substituting personal attacks for rational debate of the issues.

I usually have post-election thoughts that I share every four years.  But I see no need to wait.  I'll share them now and then intend to take the next month off of political/election oriented reading and writing.

Soooooo, here we go.

On Donald Trump:  We may well wake up on November 9th with Mr. Trump as our President-elect.  If so, then he will be my President.  I will support his policies when I can and respectfully oppose them when I cannot.  I will criticize him when he steps outside of the law and/or otherwise fails our Constitution.  But it will be done with respect and without vitriol to the best of my ability.

All elections matter.  If Mr. Trump wins, then he will be my President.

On Hillary Clinton:  We probably will wake up on November 9th with Mrs. Clinton as our President-elect.  If so, then she will be my President.  I will support her policies when I can and respectfully oppose them when I cannot.  I will criticize her when she steps outside of the law and/or otherwise fails our Constitution.  But it will be done with respect and without vitriol to the best of my ability.

All elections matter.  If Mrs. Clinton wins, then she will be my President.

On the GOP:  I'm not looking to change your vote.  However, your candidate is heavily flawed.  He's about as attractive as a bucket of warm moose drool.  If you cannot identify and understand those flaws, then you are part of the problem with American politics these days.

You had other choices.  You had a whole raft of other choices running from John Kasich to Marco Rubio to Carly Fiorina.  Any of them would have left Mrs. Clinton in the dust.  And you opted for a bucket of warm moose drool.

When your candidate loses, don't look at the rest of us.  Take a good long look at yourselves.

On the Democrats:  I'm not looking to change your vote, either.  However, your candidate is heavily flawed.  She's about as attractive as a bucket of warm pig drool.  If you cannot identify and understand those flaws, then you are part of the problem with American politics these days.

You had other choices.  Jim Webb would have been a solid candidate that would have left Mr. Trump in the dust.  You have an entire party of worthwhile candidates.  And you opted for a bucket of warm pig drool.

When your candidate loses, don't look at the rest of us.  Take a good long look at yourselves.

On buckets of drool:  If you are interested in debating the relative merits of moose drool vs. pig drool, then you are also part of the problem with American politics these days.

ETA - well crap.  You always forget a couple things.

On those threatening to leave:  So you have threatened to leave the U.S. if your candidate doesn't win the Presidency.  Samuel Adams covered this quite well.

"...May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."

You haven't got what it takes to be an American.

I enjoy a wealth of acquaintances and friends from across the political spectrum.  We argue.  We fight...rhetorically.  To a person, every single one of them is an American in their heart and in their head.  The(y) love freedom even though we disagree on the best means of pursuing that freedom.

There are millions of people that have immigrated to the U.S. in pursuit of that freedom.  People from Iran and Iraq and other parts of the Middle East that are fed up with living under various flavor of dictatorship; theocratic or otherwise.  Millions more have come from south of our border to escape dictatorships, oligarchies, kleptocracies and other offenses to the cause of individual liberty.

And you know what?  Millions more have the same unquenchable thirst for freedom.  They have in their heads and in their hearts the desire to be left to live their lives in peace and liberty and away from the bullying nose of government.

And if you lack that thirst, then please find the nearest exit.  Leave your citizenship at the door.  You don't have what it takes.

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace.  We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.  May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen. - Samuel Adams"

On those threatening to move to Canada:  You have a particularly ignorant and racist position there.

It is ignorant in that Canada has some pretty strict rules for immigration when compared with the U.S.  They want young people with skills and/or education to be in their labor force for a long time.  The old, uneducated, and unskilled need not apply.  The election of either of the major candidates will not qualify you as a political refugee in any place beyond your imagination.

It is racist in that these folks never threaten to move to Mexico.  As most of the "or I'm moving to Canada" folks seem to be quite a bit left of center, I'm also surprised that they don't want to move to the Chavista paradise that is Venezuela.  They have bucket loads of that "democratic socialism" down there.  And yet they almost always offer to move to Canada.....or less often to "Europe".

They never offer to move to a place where they could use their skills and education to improve life for the people in their new country.  Must be too many brown skinned people for their taste.

Who's Counting - A Goodreads Book Review

Who's Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk by John Fund

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was a frustrating book for me to read.

Voter fraud is an issue that attracts my attention.  Everyone should have the right to vote....once.

The first half of the book is a compendium of voter fraud tactics that are used by Democrats AND Republicans routinely use to skew election results.  Due to my past attention to this issue, there was little new material in the first half of the book.

One new tidbit came out of Florida where there are naturalized citizens who immigrated from Cuba running absentee voter fraud rings in areas with lots of senior citizens.  Their activities are for the benefit of local/state Republican candidates.  Given that they were active in 2000, I think it is legitimate to wonder how much their activities influenced the 2000 Presidential election.  (I still think that GW Bush was a better candidate and President than Al Gore regardless of the debate over elections issues.)

And then I hit the wall roughly half way through.  The theme of the book went from documenting voter fraud to strictly criticizing the Obama administration over the inaction of the various agencies to prosecute people that have violated federal elections laws.  A chapter or two about that lack of legal action would have been sufficient.

However, the back half of the book makes it much harder to recommend this book to those that are left of center.  When we need every political persuasion to participate in securing our elections, how can I recommend a book that so strongly disparages the left?  That is essentially the back 1/3 to 1/2 of this book.

This dichotomy was so strong that I had to put this book down for several months.

Read it for the first half.  That part of the book is worth 5 stars.



View all my reviews

Voter Fraud: Blue On Blue Edition

Had this been properly investigated at the time, Hillary Clinton would have won Indiana in the Democrat primary.  How that might have altered the 2008 election is anyone's guess.

But make no mistake about it, voter fraud is real and it does affect our current elections.

Working As Intended

Anyone with a modicum of American civics and history education knows that our President is selected via process that is known as the Electoral College.  Votes for President are in reality votes for electors that will represent a given state when the College meets in the weeks following the election.

But why use an intermediary organization?

At the time of our nation's founding, there was a concern that a candidate with regional appeal would be able to garner enough votes from a few populous states to win in a straight popularity election.  The use of the Electoral College was intended to cause candidates to campaign more broadly in order to demonstrate their appeal to a greater cross section of the electorate.

While there are those that suggest that the 2000 election was a fluke, I strongly contend that it was proof that the Electoral College system was functioning as intended.  While Mr. Gore did receive more popular votes, he failed to win enough electoral votes to win the presidency.  A look at the county-by-county map from that election clearly shows Mr. Gore as appealing almost uniformly to a select group of urban centers.

Of course, let's be honest with one another.  The closeness of that election clearly indicates that Mr. Bush could have done more to broaden his support among voters.  It was a close election after all.

In the wake of the 2000 election, we were treated to all manner of leftish initiatives to abolish the Electoral College in favor of using the popular vote.  Apparently, they could not conceive of a condition where a Democrat might beat a Republican in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote.

More recently, there has been the news of GOP initiatives in a few states to change the state election laws to split those electoral votes based on voting trends within the respective congressional districts.  The theory is that this change will make the GOP more competitive in future Presidential elections.  It is based on looking backwards at the 2012 election where Mr. Obama won a number of crucial "winner takes all" states by very narrow margins.

These current initiatives are as idiotic as the prior attempts to convert us to using the popular vote.  In fact, they are nothing more than an attempt to move us partially down the road to using the popular vote.  Apparently, today's GOP cannot conceive of a condition where a Republican could lose to a Democrat under their proposed distribution of electoral votes where they might win under the current "winner takes all" system used in most states.

That last item is pretty important.

There have been all manner of hyperbolic claims about the GOP "rigging" future elections or "stealing" future elections with these proposals to alter the distribution of electoral votes.

Bullshit.

Excuse the language, please.

Nebraska and Maine currently use a proportional distribution of their electoral votes and have done so for years.  The Constitution permits states to determine how their electoral votes will be distributed.  The current "winner takes all" approach that is used in most states is legitimate only because it represents the current election laws of those states.  Those state legislatures can legitimately decide to use some different system at any time.

Again, let's be honest with one another.  America is significantly divided.  Dense urban centers and many of the surrounding suburbs support Democrats almost exclusively.  Less dense urban centers, associated suburbs, and rural American support Republicans almost exclusively.  These two groups have decisively different views about the role of government in our lives.  Until that difference of opinion gets resolved, I do not see our political tensions as abating any time soon.

But as long as actions taken by either side are kept within the law, charges of "rigging" or "stealing" elections are entirely out of place.

But I Am Sure He Did Not Mean Me

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently suggested that we need national election standards.

Election officials across the county should “be striving to administer elections more efficiently and more fairly,” Holder said, according to the remarks.

“This means taking steps to address long lines at polling places — and ensuring that every polling place has an adequate number of voting machines,” Holder said. “We must acknowledge that giving our fellow citizens access to the voting booth for longer hours and over additional days will enable more of them to cast their ballots without unduly interfering with the work or family obligations that so many have.”

Holder also said that the “ordinary citizens who, just last month, endured long lines, biting temperatures, and blazing sun to make certain that their votes would be counted” were continuing the legacy of Americans who have fought for the right to vote.

The snow drifts in hell must be eight feet deep at this point.  I agree with Mr. Holder.

Although I would include elements like ensuring that voters are citizens of the U.S. before they are registered, and ensuring that felons/prisoners that are ineligible to vote under state laws are in fact prevented from voting.  I also want to see voter ID requirements strengthened; especially in the case of same day registration/voting.  We have had far too many instances where people are voting without being properly identified as qualified voters, or voting in multiple jurisdictions.

A comprehensive set of national election standards would resolve many questions about our current elections practices.  It would, theoretically, secure the right to vote by not only establishing common voting conditions and methods for reviewing voter rolls, but by also clamping down on fraudulent registration and voting.

I am more than a little skeptical about Mr. Holder's ability to be truly comprehensive.  I am willing to bet that the electoral issues that concern me do not concern him in the slightest.

Nefarious

The Blogfather has this precisely correct.  If this had been done by some people/groups on the right, then the media would be screaming bloody murder and calling for new regulations.

More than 4 million people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 did not vote this year. But by applying new voter science, Obama nudged enough replacements in key states — many who were rare or first-time voters — to give him his margin of victory (leveraged even larger by the Electoral College).

Years of stealthy multimillion-dollar efforts paid off forAmerica’s left in the 2008 and 2012 victories by President Barack Obama. Using new voter science to get rare and first-time voters to go to the polls, the races have changedAmerica’s electorate — those who make the country’s decisions by showing up and voting.

Aided by $5 million minimum from George Soros, plus millions more from others, at least two secretive institutions were created to enable this effort by focused research on behavioral science. Their results are made available only to liberals and their causes.

Just imagine if the Koch brothers had been involved....

2012 Elections - Presidential Edition

My absentee ballot is already in.

I voted for Mitt Romney.  I voted that way for a few good reasons.

I really would have preferred to vote for Gary Johnson.  But due to vagaries in Michigan's election laws, Mr. Johnson's appearance on the Michigan GOP primary ballot made him ineligible to run in the general election as anything other than a write-in candidate.  So the value of voting for Mr. Johnson went way down.

The three issues that matter most to me are fiscal responsibility, the U.S. Supreme Court, and national defense; specifically winning the War on Terror against Al Qa'ida, Ansar al Islam, and their fellow travelers.  While Mr. Romney is not perfect on either of these issues, he is better than the alternatives.

Gary Johnson wants to bring the troops home before the war is won.  That's called surrendering.  It is the wrong course of action.

While I was surprisingly pleased with Mr. Obama's continuing prosecution of the War on Terror during his first couple of years in office, he has continued to demonstrate that he really does not believe that we are in a war.  Either that or, he doesn't believe that winning this war matters.

Mr. Obama's response to the recent, planned terrorist attack against our facilities in Benghazi, Libya seem to represent his distilled perspective.  When he could have responded, he didn't.  Instead, is swallowed the terrorists' propaganda and regurgitated it for American consumption.

That is not the sort of leadership that I can support.

On the economic front, it is crystal clear to me that Mr. Obama does not know how anything about real world economics.  He knows how he wishes economics works, but he knows nothing about how economics actually work.  His continuing threats to increase income taxes have needlessly slowed our recovery.  While some of his stimulus spending was worthwhile, a lot of it was not.  Finally, the significant tax increases that are coming next year due to the ACA will put a further damper on the economy.

I would add that Mr. Obama has been a pretty good "friend" of Wall Street.  He elevated "corporatism" or "corporate-capitalism" far beyond anything Mr. Bush did.

That doesn't make Mr. Bush "good"... just not as bad in that category.  "Too big to fail" is a problem.  We need to stop using privatizing profits while we leave losses to the public budget.

Mr. Obama had an opportunity to do something about the structural problems with our federal budget.  Specifically, Medicare and Social Security (along with other social spending) are crippling the federal government.  They need to be reformed.  Fixing our spending problem would have gone a long way towards creating a strong recovery.

Instead, he created even larger structural problems for the federal budget.

The final issue is the Supreme Court.  As above, I don't think Mr. Romney is going to nominate great Supreme Court justices.  I think Mr. Obama has and will continue to nominate lousy ones.

I believe that the U.S. Constitution is our "social contract".  It empowers the federal government to undertake certain actions.  It leaves any other powers with the states or with the people.  It also guarantees individual liberty.  The entire purpose behind the words in the Constitution was to place limits on the size and scope of the federal government.

As I was reading on a legal blog last week, conservative justices and judges have continually given a comfort and counsel to libertarian leaning law students.  They accept those students as clerks, thereby giving them invaluable experiences.  And while they have not ruled in favor of the Constitution over "precedent", they are not hostile to the concept.

Left wing justices and judges have been continually hostile to libertarian leading law students.  They never accept them as clerks.  They rarely listen to their thoughts.  Left wing justices and judges have a history of ignoring the plain language of our Constitution and instead seeking extra-Constitutional "guidance" when writing their rulings.

So while conservative judges are unlikely to support the plain language of the Ninth Amendment regarding gay marriage, they are equally unlikely to support the next power grab that comes out of Congress and/or the administration when it comes to further nationalizing parts of our economy.

So I voted for Mitt.  Not because he is a great candidate.  Just because he will do less harm than the other options.  Had Gary Johnson been on the Michigan ballot, I might very well have voted for him as he would have been correct on two out of the three issues that I care most about.

Not exactly one of the great electoral moments in my life.

2012 Election - Michigan Ballot Edition

I'm done voting this year.  I think absentee voting will be a big part of my future as the hassle is a whole lot less.

For those not interested in Michigan politics, have a nice day and move on to something pleasant.  'Cause this is gonna get thick.

We have six proposals on the ballot this year.  Most of them seek to amend the Michigan Constitution.  The proposals, and my thoughts follow.

Let The Silly Season Begin!

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty."  Edward R. Murrow

A brief thought as our quadrennial electoral circus begins.

It is time for Mr. Obama to go.

He isn't evil.

He isn't a Stalinist.

He doesn't belong in prison.

Under no circumstances, should he come to any harm before his term in office expires.  Or after, for that matter.

Outside of the Presidency, Mr. Obama seems like a nice enough guy.  However.....

Mr. Obama is quite simply enamored of any number of substantially flawed ideas with respect to economics, tax policy, and health care issues.  His deficit spending has undermined the value of the dollar and saddled our youth with trillions of dollars of excess debt.  Mr. Obama's spending makes every single other President look like a piker.  His Justice Department has pro-actively armed criminal organizations that operate inside our neighbor and ally, Mexico.  His foreign policies have largely abdicated the field of global diplomacy to terrorist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and to China, our most daunting economic competitor.  And he has actively fostered divisions in our country.

At the time of his election, Mr. Obama decidedly lacked the experience in a leadership position to run for the office of President of the United States.  It was reasonably suspected that his economic platform would further empower a too powerful central, federal government by moving towards a more European style of social-democratic government.

Both have come to fruition.

Mr. Obama's defense policies have been pretty good. And his administration has had moments where they have moved the country forward.

Pundits make comparisons between Mr. Obama and former President Carter because it is apt.  And like Mr. Carter, Mr. Obama does not deserve another four years in office.

Voter ID Is A Good Requirement

So says Artur Davis, former US Representative from Alabama:

The truth is that the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African American community, at least in Alabama, is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt.

Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too-mentally-impaired to function, cancels out the votes of citizens who are exercising their rights -- that's suppression by any light. If you doubt it exists, I don't; I've heard the peddlers of these ballots brag about it, I've been asked to provide the funds for it, and I am confident it has changed at least a few close local election results.

...

The case for voter ID, however, is a good one, and it ought to make politics a little cleaner and the process of conducting elections much fairer. I wish I'd gotten it right the first time.

Keep the above in mind when we go to the polls a year from today.  There are professional vote fraud agents in the land that sell their services for politics and profit.  And they are working to steal your vote.

h/t to Instapundit

Pick One, Herman

Mr. Cain supported the right of homosexuals to be homosexual, and opposed government intervention in the private decision regarding abortion.

And then he flipped.

*Sigh*

Too Bad To Be False

Sort of the reverse of "too good to be true".

At a recent candidate's debate/forum in Illinois, a representative of the organizer was offended by the audience.  They had the temerity to think that it was appropriate to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at a debate between candidates that were running for the U.S. Congress.

Sort of makes you wonder what league the League of Women Voters is really in.....

For your reading pleasure....if you can stand it.

And Then Some

Just what were voters saying on election day?

A new IBD/TIPP poll on public attitudes suggests that Tuesday's event was less an election than an intervention: Stop what you are doing; you're hurting us all.

 The results of the poll suggest that the five most important priorities for voters were:

1) cutting the deficit by cutting spending
2) repeal or revise the new health care law
3) provide more protection against terrorism
4) reduce illegal immigration
5) pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by next year

Sadly, this message will probably sail right over the heads of the people that need to hear it most.

Pity I Don't Vote There - Democratic Edition

I checked in on my good buddy, Vin Suprynowicz, and discovered that he....like me....occasionally finds a Democrat worth voting for.  Experienced.  Competent. Scandal-free.

Pity I can't quote any of the juicier parts for you without incurring legal risks beyond measure.

Felonious And Fraudulent

Why all the concern over fraudulent voter registrations?  Why the concern over keeping voter rolls clear of those that are ineligible to vote?

Because they affect the outcome of close races.  Not theoretically.  Actually.

The six-month election recount that turned former "Saturday Night Live" comedian Al Franken into a U.S. senator may have been decided by convicted felons who voted illegally in Minnesota's Twin Cities.


That's the finding of an 18-month study conducted by Minnesota Majority, a conservative watchdog group, which found that at least 341 convicted felons in largely Democratic Minneapolis-St. Paul voted illegally in the 2008 Senate race between Franken, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, then-incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman.

Of course, some folks just won't care....because they approve of the outcome when fraudulent ballots are used.