Category: Politics

Sacramento County appears to make voter fraud easy. They eliminated traditional polling places, instead mailing ballots to all registered voters in the county. Voters are supposed to return their ballots to a drop center in their community. As my wife and I found out, these drop centers are not manned and nobody is tracking when your ballot is turned in. In a strict sense, there is no effort at any chain-of-custody for ballots. The only proof that anyone has that they voted is a signature on the outside of the ballot envelope and a stack of I Voted stickers on top of the ballot drop box should you choose to get one.

What happens to the ballot once it is returned? In the old days, the signature was checked before the envelope was opened; however, do you really think somebody is checking every signature for 300,000 ballots? The second would be what happens if it doesn’t match the signature on file? Again, in the old days, the ballots were not counted. Furthermore, the voter is never notified that their ballot is not counted or had a problem. If it is a legitimate mistake, too bad. If voter forgets to sign the envelope then what happens?

Color me cynical but I have extra blank ballots at my house every election cycle since this system was implemented. I’m confident that many other folks are experiencing the same situation. I’m sure nobody would ever think to go house to house to collect these extra ballots in exchange for money, food, or in the name of keeping elections honest. Surely, not!

Here are other voting concerns that folks are having this election season:

Los Angeles, California –  The LAPD arrested 3 people on Friday for voter fraud, just latest in a long list of arrests for the charge. The suspects are paying homeless people a dollar or a quarter, or food or cigarettes to forge names on California ballot measures. And it’s been going on for years.

Suspects set up tables on Skid Row where they approach homeless people to gather forged signatures. The California government claims that such situations are “rare.” But according to the LAPD officer who patrols Skid Row, it’s common. So far in 2018, the LAPD has arrested 7 people for felony voter fraud and 4 of those charges were reduced to misdemeanors. Which effectively erases the problem from people’s radar. This is an excuse for Democrats to say that voter fraud is “rare.”

Voter Fraud in Los Angeles- Paying Homeless to Forge Signatures

 

San Francisco reportedly spent $310,000 on a new registration system aimed at getting non-citizens to cast votes in school board elections.

The program resulted in 49 new voters, which turned out to cost the city $6,326 each, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. The paper called the effort “pretty much a bust the first time out.”

Local officials suggest residents who might otherwise consider registering are worried the Trump administration would learn their identities.

San Fran spends $6,300 for each non-citizen voter to sign up

Lest you think California is the only spot experiencing voter issues, remember that everything is bigger in Texas.

When the registered independent went to a recreational center in Grapevine, Texas, last week, he planned to vote for Senate hopeful Beto O’Rourke. The Hart machine offered a fast-tracked option for straight-ticket voters. Martin selected it, expecting the machine to populate an all-Democrat ballot.

“It floored me. My vote showed up on the machine for the wrong senator. Instead of Beto O’Rourke – the Democratic candidate – it said [Republican candidate] Ted Cruz,” he said. After noticing the error, Martin backtracked to the initial screen and manually registered his vote.

The Texas secretary of state has been aware of the issue for at least a week.

An election advisory from Director of Elections Keith Ingram, dated Oct. 23, said: “We have heard from a number of people voting on Hart eSlate machines that when they voted straight ticket, it appeared to them that the machine had changed one or more of their selections to a candidate from a different party. This can be caused by the voter taking keyboard actions before a page has fully appeared on the eSlate, thereby de-selecting the pre-filled selection of that party’s candidate.”

Martin denied misusing the machine. “What is this going to be, another Dade County?” he said, referring to disputed Florida ballots in the 2000 presidential election. “The only vote that counts with national scope is the one being destroyed.”

Marian Schneider, president of Verified Voting, a voting integrity organization, issued a statement Monday in response to reports that voters in the state’s six largest counties experienced problems using the company’s machines. She called for verifiable systems that include a voter-marked paper ballot: “Verified Voting calls on Secretary of State Rolando Pablos to launch a broader and more robust statewide public information effort to advise voters to carefully check their choices as displayed before submitting them. . . . Paper ballots that are retained can be later sampled to check if the software is correctly reporting the voters’ selections. Without such a safeguard, public confidence in elections diminishes.”

The issue, she said, impacts 5.1 million Texas voters, at a minimum.

This isn’t the state’s first problematic run-in with the Hart voter systems, according to Sam Taylor, communications director for Pablos, who confirmed that voters in only five counties had experienced issues with the machines.

During the 2016 election, the agency ran tests on the machines after voters’ choices of presidential candidates were deselected. The problem affects only the first race on the ballot. In 2016, that was the presidential race. This year, it’s the senatorial contest.

Texans say glitchy voting machines are changing their ballots

 

A voter fraud investigation in Dallas County continues to deepen with prosecutors asking a judge late last week to impound a “suspicious box” of mail-in ballot applications they believe may be tied to a political candidate in the May election.

Investigators appear to be homing in on the candidate, who they did not name in new court documents but described as a suspect who lives in Grand Prairie. Authorities are also looking into two other suspects who are connected to the candidate and who prosecutors say assisted voters in mailing ballots in envelopes signed with suspected forged signatures. Those votes were rejected from being counted.

The filing Friday by the district attorney’s office revealed new details in a wide-ranging investigation of thousands of suspicious mail-in ballots and ballot applications submitted in West Dallas and Grand Prairie since last year. This year, prosecutors have investigated possible fraud in the handling of more than 1,200 mail-in ballot applications that generated at least 459 ballots from West Dallas, Grand Prairie and parts of Oak Cliff, Assistant District Attorney Andy Chatham said in March.

Voter fraud investigation deepens in Dallas County, targeting Grand Prairie candidate

 

Voting machines — even the optical scan ballot machines — are computers running specialized programs. Cybersecurity experts warn that antiquated hardware, remote access malware and insecure databases are vulnerabilities that might allow hackers to meddle with elections.

As the federal government has noted, states are responsible for conducting elections. Due to budget constraints, many voting machines haven’t been updated in years. In 2016 Christopher Famighetti of the Brennan Center for Justice interview told CBS News, “We found that more than 40 states are using voting machines there that are at least 10 years [old].”

This year at the cybersecurity conference Defcon, hackers were able to crack a Diebold voting machine in 15 minutes.

Campaign 2018: Voting machines are vulnerable to hacking

 

Children as young as 5 will compete to hack election results websites, and DEF CON has partnered with children’s hacking organization r00tz Asylum to award prizes to the first and youngest kids to breach the sites and hack equipment.

Jake Braun, a former White House liaison for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told ABC News that the conference decided to invite young hackers because it would be a “waste of time” to demonstrate that cybersecurity experts can hack election results reporting sites.

“These websites are so easy to hack we couldn’t give them to adult hackers — they’d be laughed off the stage,” Braun told ABC News. “They thought hacking a voter website was interesting 20 years ago. We had to give it to kids to actually make it challenging.”

At DEF CON ’18, kids as young as 5 challenged to hack election results websites, voting machines

Until governments get serious about voter integrity I don’t look for things to improve.

Republicans have a reputation for playing checkers while Democrats run rings around them because they are playing chess. Democrats plan and scheme while Republicans react. Democrats are big on the credo “he who defines the issue wins the debate” while Republicans just stare with glassy-eyed amazement at their opponents.

Folks I’m sensing one of those scenarios—the attempt to impeach of Donald J Trump—unfolding before our eyes now. Granted this is speculation but let’s connect some dots.

1 The conventional wisdom this election season has been that Democrats will clean House and Senate and take Congress away from evil Republicans and restore it to its rightful owners; the Democrats.

2 Robert Mueller has rallied the Dems for the last two years on Russian collusion but it is clear that he will not be delivering the goods to Impeach Trump.

3 Democrats claim that they never let a good crisis go to waste—especially one that George Soros is willing to finance—and George has found a new cause of late that is sucking-up much media time going into the election.

4 Democrats see open borders as a way to expand their control of the political apparatus of the United States. They want illegal aliens to vote in our elections to keep them in power. Every time someone wants to limit elections to US citizens—which by the way is the law in every state in the Union except maybe California—Democrats are the first to run to some judge of their own choosing that claim voter suppression. Democrats want illegals and felons to vote. Democrats want rampant voter fraud. Democrats want chaos. Democrats rule by dividing people into groups and then pitting the groups against each other.

5 The Guatemalan Invasion is a trap that is being set for Trump. It is organized and paid for by folks in the United States including George Soros. The Dems figure that they have Trump boxed into a corner where either way Trump loses and they win. They see no scenario in which he wins.

If Trump caves and lets these folks into the United States then he will forever have to give up his promise of the wall. He will be called a hypocrite for campaigning on border security and then collapsing like George W Bush when the rubber hits the wall.

Or, Trump really does call out the troops to protect the border. Trump has reportedly said he will do this. In this instance, Democrats are hoping the Trump does what he said. They will call him hotheaded and move to impeach him immediately because they will maintain that he doesn’t have the right to deploy troops within the borders of the United States. Democrats will cite the Posse Comitatus Act as grounds saying the President doesn’t have the legal authority to deploy troops.

6 Using Posse Comitatus Act is thus their Plan B to remove or severely cripple Trump. The House will Impeach him whether the Senate later votes to remove him or not. They believe that they have the votes to remove Trump but if not, so tarnish him that he won’t run again in 2020. They don’t want to defeat Trump, they want to destroy him.

The only problem with the above scenario is that the Democrat Wave that has been forecast for the last six months is turning out to be “vaporware”. The political polling folks are collapsing their predictions about a Democrat Wave.

Two months ago, Democrats were believed to be picking up four to six Senate seats and now the opposite is being said. Republicans are likely to pick-up more seats in the Senate.

In the House, two months ago, Democrats were expecting to pick-up at least 60 seats but now there is doubt that they will take back the House. Republicans are expected to lose seats this cycle but may be able to maintain control. Without control of the House, no impeachment proceedings can be started.

The catalyst for this change in political fortunes appears to be the direct result of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. Thus Dianne Feinstein has singlehandedly saved the Republicans for themselves.

 

Further Reading

The Blue Wave Was a Lie, But It Could Be Even Worse for Democrats

Polls Could Be Missing a GOP Surge. Here’s Why

U.S. military weighs request for troops on Mexico border

Soros? GOP Rep. Posts Video Purportedly Showing People Being Paid To Join Honduran Caravan

DHS: We Can Confirm There Are Criminals, Gang Members in the Illegal Caravan

Note: Democrats dispute whether Soros is paying for the “refugees” but he funnels money thru many organizations dedicated to open borders. Someone is paying for food and supplies for a group that yesterday was reportedly about 14,000 strong to walk over 1,000 miles to the US border. Talk about a community organizer.

In addition to such documented liars as Elizabeth Warren, here are three samples of the idiots that Democrats expect low information voters to support on November 6th.

 

Kyrsten Sinema Democrat for US Senate

 

Lie #1 She grew up homeless

However, one of the key claims made by Sinema is now being challenged by The New York Times.

Throughout the campaign, Sinema, a member of Congress who represents Arizona’s 9th District, has repeatedly made the claim that she comes from humble beginnings. She recounts in interviews and in speeches that she spent the majority of her childhood living homeless and in a former gas station without utilities.

In February, she tweeted, “I’m a little bit different than most people in politics. For nearly 3 years, my family lived in an abandoned gas station without running water or electricity. Those were tough times, but I knew it could be different.”

Additionally, Sinema touts the idea that she would be the rare senator who has dealt with being homeless.

However, court documents obtained by The Times are now casting a shadow of doubt on her claims.

Oops: Democrat Candidate’s Childhood Poverty Story Revealed To Be Fake

Lie #2 Arizona Voters Are Crazy

The GOP has sought to highlight Democrat Kyrsten Sinema’s past radicalism — she protested the Afghanistan war in a pink tutu, and her organization portrayed American soldiers as murderous skeletons inflicting “US terror” — as well as her biographical…shall we say, enhancements.

She called Arizonans “crazy” and Arizona the “crazy” state.

Hoo Boy: Democrats’ Arizona Senate Nominee Caught on Tape Bashing…Arizona

Clearly, she has never been to California.

 

Lie #3 Stay at Home Moms Are “Leeches”

“These women who act like staying at home, leeching off their husbands or boyfriends, and just cashing the checks is some sort of feminism because they’re choosing to live that life,” she told Scottsdale nightlife magazine 944. “That’s bulls**t. I mean, what the f*** are we really talking about here?” . . .

Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema Attacked ‘Bullshit’ Stay-At-Home Moms For ‘Leeching Off Their Husbands’

 

Stacey Abrams Democrat for Georgia Governor

Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for Georgia governor, dismissed the notion that free-market principles might play a role in improving health-care outcomes for her constituents during a town hall in Atlanta on Sunday.

“And I am sick and tired of hearing about the free market being the solution to this problem because I’ve never seen the free market write a prescription in rural Georgia,” Abrams said. “I mean, I’ve never seen the free market show up and give someone Metformin so they can have a little bit of control of their diabetes before it turns into an amputation of their foot. I’ve never seen the free market say I’m going to replace that stent in your heart next door and not make you go 200 miles to get it done. The problem with the free market is the free market needs to make a profit and there is no profit in doing the right thing.”

Stacey Abrams Blasts ‘Free Market’ in Town-Hall Rant

A 1992 photo of Stacey Abrams, who is now the Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia, has resurfaced, showing Abrams ― who was in college at the time ― at a protest where students burned what was then Georgia’s state flag.

Old Photo Of Stacey Abrams Protesting Confederate Symbol On State Flag Resurfaces

 

Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said Tuesday the Democrats’ “blue wave” in November would be comprised of those who are “documented and undocumented.”

Stacey Abrams: ‘Blue Wave’ Is ‘Comprised of Those Who Are Documented and Undocumented’

 

Ilhan Omar Democrat for US Congress

Minnesota state Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-60B) currently leads the race to fill the federal House seat being vacated by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN). Immediately after being elected to her current seat in 2016, Omar faced allegations — soon backed by a remarkable amount of evidence — that she had married her own brother in 2009, and was still legally his wife. They officially divorced in December 2017.

The motivation for the marriage remains unclear. However, the totality of the evidence points to possible immigration fraud and student loan fraud.

Official School Records Support Claims That Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) Married Her Brother

 

Whether their gender is an issue, I will leave for you to decide. Personally, I agree with Rush Limbaugh. “I like the women’s movement…especially from behind.”

First, nobody in the Republican or Democrat Parties thought Donald Trump had a prayer of beating Hillary Clinton in 2016. Hillary was the presumptive President of the United States in the minds of many and has been since she beat-out Bernie Sander two years ago. (In point of fact, Hillary had Bernie beat before a single vote was cast due to having 1/3 of the delegates needed for the nomination by securing the support of the Democrat “Super Delegates” concurrent with announcing her candidacy.) Certain folks out there think that her gender; her caustic personality; multiple failures in policy as FLOTUS (First Lady of the United States), US Senator, and Secretary of State; and the fact that she slept with a former President of the country are her qualifications for office. When she ran as a candidate for US Senator, not one single supporter in New York could name three accomplishments that were reasons to vote for her but she won anyway. Today, I still say that those supporters of Hillary can’t name three things that she has accomplished.

Hillary was a failure as Secretary of State. Many thousands of people died because of her incompetence including the folks that died needlessly in Benghazi and a multitude of Christians in Middle Eastern Countries. Other nations knew her unfitness as a leader and wanted to cripple her presidency before she ever got into office. Also, don’t forget that President Obama frequently interjected himself into political campaigns in other countries; especially Israeli elections and the Brexit vote in Great Brittan. Hillary and John Kerry were joined at the hip to Obama in these efforts.

Sensing her weakness, presuming her victory was pro forma, and wanting some payback for US policy, nation states such as Russia and China did use the openness of the US to exact some retribution on Hillary. The irony is that all you have to do to harm Hillary politically is tell the truth about her.

As is the typical pattern, China gets a pass from Democrats. This is due to the millions of dollars that China has invested in the Democrat Party since the Clinton Administration and in left leaning businesses such as Hollywood movie studios and technology that they have heavily invested in.

Not believing that people in other countries could be mad at Hillary—who thinks she is the handmaiden of the Messiah—anything not supporting of her must be the fault of Trump. Trump gets the blame because most establishment Republicans supported her over Trump in 2016 and many still do to this day.

This led to the myth that Trump is the puppet of Russia and this whole collusion story. Even after it has been proven that Hillary and her supporters created this conspiracy out of whole cloth, the Dems and media are holding onto this narrative.

Enter Robert Mueller. Two years have passed since beginning his investigation and he still can’t find the goods on Trump. Believe me if he had, his report would have leaked-out by now just to help the Democrats wipe the Republicans off the map on November 6th. The consensus is that Mueller’s report will end with a whimper not an Impeachment.

Matt Drudge has had this report linked to his website for the last couple of days.

I feel bad for them, in the way that I feel bad for kids who are about to discover that the Tooth Fairy is fake. After 17 months of appending compound adjectives (“Russia-linked,” “Kremlin-backed”) to the names of an increasingly obscure cast of characters accused of things like sending spam emails and holding pointless meetings that went nowhere, it looks like we are finally getting close to the end of the Mueller probe. A report in Politico suggests that what skeptics have argued for more than a year and a half is true: namely, that Mueller and his team have not found any smoking-gun evidence of “collusion” between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government because no such collusion took place.

How the Mueller fairy tale ends

Trump has endured two years of reporting about him that is 92% negative and yet he is drawing record crowds at political rallies. The pundits are back peddling on the Democrat tsunami on November 6th, could America actually like this guy? What is their Plan B?

Elizabeth Warren’s entire professional life is based on a lie. Not a mistake or distortion but an old-fashioned bald-faced lie. Yep, she knew it was a lie and like many lies, it furthered the cause of Liberalism, so no one challenged her on it. Liberals embrace the different and don’t discriminate between perversity and diversity so long as the lie continues to advance their cause.

Lest you think this claim is just about Warren’s heritage consider this; if illegal aliens and/or dead people started voting Republican, do you think the rampant voter fraud—especially here in California—would continue unchecked? As long as the Party in power is the beneficiary of the fraud, they will do nothing to insure voter integrity.

Another example which I have documented better than the MSM (main stream media) is the gutting of the Board of Equalization. Liberals had no problem throwing the black Democrat under the bus to pull-off this political sleight-of-hand. The political life of one guy is a small price to pay to highjack the State Constitution to give the Governor more executive power to confiscate money from the people with no recourse.

Sadly, the media went long ago from the watchdog of government to its lapdog.

Back to the good Senator. Her fraudulent heritage was well documented even before she was elected by the Boston Globe newspaper.

 

May 25, 2012

US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has said she was unaware that Harvard Law School had been promoting her purported Native American heritage until she read about it in a newspaper several weeks ago.

But for at least six straight years during Warren’s tenure, Harvard University reported in federally mandated diversity statistics that it had a Native American woman in its senior ranks at the law school. According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics are almost always based on the way employees describe themselves.

In addition, both Harvard’s guidelines and federal regulations for the statistics lay out a specific definition of Native American that Warren does not meet.

The documents suggest for the first time that either Warren or a Harvard administrator classified her repeatedly as Native American in papers prepared for the government in a way that apparently did not adhere to federal diversity guidelines. They raise further questions about Warren’s statements that she was unaware Harvard was promoting her as Native American.

The administrator responsible for Harvard Law School’s faculty diversity statistics from 1996 to 2004, the period in question, was Alan Ray, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation who, like Warren, has fair skin, blue eyes, and Oklahoma roots.

But Ray, now president of Elmhurst College in Illinois, said in a statement that he “did not encourage the Law School to list any faculty member as one particular race or ethnicity, including Professor Warren.’’ He further said through a spokeswoman that he “never encouraged any faculty member to list himself or herself in a particular way.’’ Ray added that Harvard “always accepted whatever identification a faculty member wanted to provide,’’ a characterization another highly placed former Harvard administrator backed up.

In a statement to the Globe Thursday, Harvard disavowed any wrongdoing, saying that it “adheres to the Department of Education and Department of Labor regulations and guidance concerning the reporting of race and ethnicity.’’

Warren arrived as a visiting professor in 1992, but left a year later. By then, she had been listing herself for seven years as a minority in a legal directory often used by law recruiters to make diversity-friendly hires. She continued to list herself in the book until 1995, the year she took a permanent position at Harvard.

That year, the director of Harvard’s Native American program was quoted in the law school newspaper bemoaning the university’s “lack of Native faculty in any of the schools.’’

But the school had begun describing Warren as Native American in the media soon after she was hired.

In 1996, law school news director Mike Chmura, speaking to the Harvard Crimson, identified Warren as a Native American professor.

In 1997, the Fordham Law Review, citing Chmura, referred to Warren as Harvard Law’s “first woman of color.’’

In 1998, Chmura wrote a letter to the New York Times, saying the law school had appointed or tenured “eight women, including a Native American.’’ Three days later, the Crimson again touched on the issue: “Harvard Law School currently has only one tenured minority woman, Gottlieb Professor of Law Elizabeth Warren, who is Native American.’’

The Harvard document defines Native American as “a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North America and who maintains cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition.’’ It notes that this definition is consistent with federal regulations.

It is not a definition Warren appears to fit. She has not proven she has a Native American ancestor, instead saying she based her belief on family lore, and she has no official tribal affiliation. The current executive director of Harvard’s Native American program has said she has no memory of Warren participating in any of its activities.

Filings add to questions on Warren’s ethnic claims

Warren’s DNA test has blown-up on her.

As The Federalist’s Sean Davis points out, according to The New York Times, the average white person in America has nearly double the amount of American Indian DNA (0.18%) as Elizabeth Warren (0.098%), who claims to be Cherokee.

When her supposed Native American heritage came under scrutiny during her first Senate bid, Warren presented a recipe she had published in her cousin’s cookbook as evidence of her background. It was signed “Elizabeth Warren — Cherokee.” Later we learned that even the recipe was taken verbatim from an article in The New York Times five years earlier.

It’s easy to see what’s going on. Warren wants to dull Donald Trump’s “Fauxcahontas” jibes because she is about to run for president. Rather than admitting she has no genuine cause for being “proud of my Native American heritage” in her career, she’s doubled down on the assertion.

Elizabeth Warren’s DNA Test Proves She Was Lying

 

Even “The Old Gray Lady” can’t provide cover for Senator Warren.

Yet even as she sought to defuse the issue, Ms. Warren was criticized on both the right and the left Monday. Conservatives mocked her for releasing a test that indicated she is anywhere between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American.

“Elizabeth Warren hasn’t dealt with a problem, she has highlighted it and opened up other avenues for attack,” wrote the editor of the conservative National Review, Rich Lowry, on Twitter. “For Trump, 1/1024th will be priceless material.”

And liberals, as well as conservatives, said Ms. Warren had still not adequately addressed why she changed her ethnic identity from white to Native American as a law professor in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

“Warren’s gotta say she shouldn’t have listed herself as Native American 30 years ago and apologize profusely and sit down with community leaders that agree to meet with her,” said Josie Duffy Rice, a progressive writer. (Ms. Warren has said she began identifying as Native American to honor her heritage because many of her older relatives were dying in that period).

And Cherokee Nation, which is based in Oklahoma, also criticized Ms. Warren, saying in a statement she was “undermining tribal interests” by claiming Native American heritage.

Elizabeth Warren’s DNA Results Draw Rebuke from Trump and Raise Questions

 

The test — part of her strategic preparations for a likely presidential campaign — did not placate President Trump, who has mocked Ms. Warren as “Pocahontas” and once promised $1 million to a charity of her choice if a DNA test substantiated her claims of Cherokee and Delaware heritage. And her announcement of the results angered many Native Americans, including the Cherokee Nation, the largest of the country’s three federally recognized Cherokee tribes.

DNA testing cannot show that Ms. Warren is Cherokee or any other tribe, the secretary of state of the Cherokee Nation, Chuck Hoskin Jr., said in a statement. Tribes set their own citizenship requirements, not to mention that DNA tests don’t distinguish among the numerous indigenous groups of North and South America. The test Ms. Warren took did not identify Cherokee ancestry specifically; it found that she most likely had at least one Native American ancestor six to 10 generations ago.

Why Many Native Americans Are Angry With Elizabeth Warren

 

This just proves the old axiom that repeating a lie enough times will get people to believe it, especially when its what they want to hear. In Senator Warren’s case the truth won’t set her free, but it might make her unemployed. We can only hope…

.

You smell that smell?  Not the ethnic food you ate last night, I mean that other smell, like burned toast?  That’s what a certain soon to be former Senator from North Dakota smells like today.  No, not because she voted no on Kavanaugh, but for the reason she gave.  Sen Heidi Heitkamp who by the way comes from a political family a la the Clintons in North Dakota, said she didn’t vote to confirm the good judge because she believed Dr. Ford, the accuser, not Judge Kavanaugh the accused.  Even though the accuser’s story could not be verified and the FBI came to a similar conclusion after their own investigation…Heitkamp still voted no.  Then proceeded to say the investigation was not thorough enough.  Keep that last sentence in mind as I drop this new revelation that came out about then Attorney General of North Dakota Heitkamp…..

While Heitkamp was Attorney General AKA the second most powerful law enforcement official in North Dakota from 1992 and 2000 she ignored rampant sexual harassment and assault at Wahpeton Indian School.  This is a boarding school for troubled Native American Students (No word on if Elizabeth Warren is familiar with said school).  A teacher was accused of sexually assaulting a young girl.  Heitkamp looked the other way.  Heitkamp you may recall gave this reason for not voting to confirm Kavanaugh “Our actions tonight are a poignant signal to young girls and women across this country.”  “I will continue to stand up for them.”  This leads to an obvious question, where were you when your “constituents” needed you most clown?  Why didn’t you stand up for women during your time as Attorney General?  Apparently you believe Native Americans, most in North Dakota live far below the poverty line and have no access to running water or electricity are just throwaways, shame on you.  Heitkamp for what it’s worth said it is not the Attorney General’s job to sue or enforce the law it’s the bureaucracy’s job.  Maybe someone should make sure Xavier Beccerra of CA gets that memo?  He sues the Trump administration by the hour.  Glad you feel so self-righteous about a vote to oppose a duly qualified judge to the highest court.  Maybe you can charge yourself with some sort of failure to prosecute crime?

But wait there is more…..

The Heitkamp campaign over the weekend took out a full page ad in an “open letter” to her opponent criticizing his position on protecting sexual assault victims.  This printed AD listed over 100 names of women who were victims of sexual assault…..allegedly.  Allegedly, because several named women have come forward saying they never gave permission to use their name publicly!  Kind of a big deal.  Other names were discovered as never being victims of sexual assault, yeah the women came forward saying #NotMeToo.  Heitkamp denied any involvement saying it was the first time she had seen the ad, kinda funny being it was paid for by her campaign. Either she delegated this campaign job to Aaron Park or she is lying. Woah! I think we can gather up the hymn books on this one, and I think I hear a portly sized women warming her vocal chords up…I think this one is over!

Heitkamp #MeToo open letter used women’s names without permission

ND-Sen: Victims furious after Heidi Heitkamp campaign identifies abuse survivors in ad

Heitkamp looks to be borrowing a chapter out of the Democrats new playbook, accuse someone erroneously of sexual assault.  Back it up with omitted facts and errors and then when all else fails just deny you ever had a part in any of it.  Even worse it seems the playbook also includes denying the same accusations decades ago, ala Bill Clinton.  Heitkamp could well face charges for running that ad without obtaining permission from those women. Also I think it’s Libel when someone writes something publicly that isn’t true?  I will defer to Heitkamp on this one, since she is you know an attorney…allegedly.  I feel kind of bad for her, her family’s political name is officially tarnished for generations.

That is the one nice thing about a dumpster fire, no one puts it out; it just keeps raging until it no longer has fuel.

I predict a big win by her Republican opponent Kevin Cramer…actually YYYUUUUUUUGGGGEEEEE!

BTW the “Chief” will have no comment on my now fellow Indian by blood Elizabeth Warren, however as the Chief I designate your new tribal name as “Squaw of Crazy Ideas.”

As a homeowner in Sacramento County, I live in an area “served” by the “Sacramento Municipal Utility District” (SMUD). This is our local monopoly providing electricity to well you guessed it, Sacramento and a couple surrounding areas. What we have here is a government created monopoly, if you live in SMUD’s service area you must be hooked up to a SMUD electric meter and receive a bill from them each month. Just to be fair, SMUD does have pretty low rates compared to the other major electric providers here in California, and I’ve never had any service related issues in my three years owning my house.

 

Now to the point of my article, every month in your billing statement you get a couple small fliers (usually 1/3 of a page) stating they are filing for a rate change. This flier is written in such legalese that no common man can reasonably ascertain what is being said, so as a result you wait for a commercial or some sort of article saying what is happening to rates. Newsflash, they never go down. Similar to your credit card company, when they claim the reward benefits are getting better for you, do not buy it. In this case SMUD got very creative, saying peak rates will increase (5-8pm) and all other rates will decrease. What is happening here is rates will go down for the seniors, the stay at home mom’s, and for folks who telecommute or work from home. Every other group gets absolutely soaked under this new plan. Oh, if you didn’t read that little flyer, rest assured, under the new rates, the electric rate you will be charged between 5 to 8 PM triples from what you were paying!

 

Think about it, when do you do your cooking? Dishes? Laundry? Watch the latest series of Survivor…yep all between 5-8 pm. So, your bill is going to go literally up in flames. As far as the discount, well when you are working what electricity is being used while you are away? Your fridge? That’s fair, but your other appliances are either off or EnergyStar ® certified so likely not using much if any power.

 

The bottom line here is this type of government rule (I know utilities aren’t government but are governed by Public Utility Commission) have created a monopoly and really took away choice from the consumer. I am going to use a perfect example of what allowing competition does. I do not watch much television anymore, but when I do, I’m usually inundated with insurance company advertisements. I mean literally you could see 10-15 commercials per hour for these products. I kid you not: the Lizard, the ditsy brunette, the discount double check, the quirky professor, Esurance, the Liberty, Liberty, Liberty company, and Dennis Johnson hawking Allstate. However as much as I loathe the ads, that’s one heck of a lot of consumer choice right there. This way if a company loses its way; price, service or product quality, you are free to go and send them a message via your wallet. This is not true with our government created utilities that eliminate competition. The utilities have full control over you and the rates, case in point? The only way you can refuse service from them is not paying a bill and having power shut off, and to restart service you will be paying a large fee and back penalties with interest.

I promised not to write about John McCain but I found someone that seems to have a some interesting thoughts on the guy.

Who Was the Real John McCain?

I’m not sure what to believe about John Sidney McCain III.

He has the most ferocious detractors, who accuse him of informing on fellow captives in a North Vietnamese prison, and betraying critical military information that enabled the enemy to shoot down more U.S. aviators. His accusers range from obvious flakes to some people who appear pretty credible to me.

But he has credible die-hard defenders, too, who insist that he conducted himself honorably under the most extreme conditions. All we know for sure is that he went into harm’s way in his country’s service, was held in captivity for five years and came home in great pain, unable to comb his own hair. Like most Americans, I’m inclined to give a banged-up ex-POW the benefit of the doubt.

But McCain himself was not so generous toward POW/MIA activists, whom he ridiculed as “hoaxers” and “charlatans.” I have no firm opinion whether we left a significant number of soldiers and Marines behind in Vietnam. I don’t pretend to know. But if the government sent one of my loved ones off to war and he or she never came back, I think we would be entitled to the utmost transparency. At last count, there are 1,597 unexplained missing. The government is accountable for each citizen it sent into harm’s way.

The senator reportedly was hostile to transparency in the Vietnamese government, as well. U.S. files about the extent of POW collaboration and cooperation with the enemy remain airtight (classified), but the North Vietnamese kept records, too. Some were reportedly archived at a museum there.

Fellow U.S. delegates who visited Vietnam with Sen. McCain said he became visibly agitated on the subject, and warned their Vietnamese counterparts that Vietnam would never get diplomatic recognition if it released those records, which included his own.

Without trying to guess McCain’s motives, it’s obvious that he considered government service a personal domain in which he was free to move the chess pieces around without any particular accountability to the pawns.

He once ditched a plane and bailed out while returning to Norfolk after the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia. He said the engine quit. He lost a plane in the water during training because, he said, that engine quit, too. When the Navy recovered the plane, the engine fired right up but the admiral’s son continued the course in a new plane.

The fact-checking websites have lined up to absolve McCain of responsibility for the catastrophic U.S.S. Forrestal fire in 1967 that killed 134 and injured 161 crew on the aircraft carrier. But it’s still controversial among fellow sailors who said he was notorious for “wet starts” that produced a flare to startle the pilots behind him on the flight deck. He was immediately transferred off the stricken ship after the disaster, to a public relations position in Saigon, far from embittered crewmates.

But it matters if he has lied to us or let his supporters lie to us in order to shame us into acquiescing in his politics, or discouraging us from exercising our best judgment. We’ll never really know whether the North Vietnamese tortured Lt. Cdr. McCain, partly because Sen. McCain used his political power to ensure that the relevant records are unavailable to us. On this subject and others, the senator strongly preferred that we just take his word for it.

Who Was the Real John McCain?