Hillary Clinton was spotted wearing a nearly invisible earpiece yesterday during the NBC TV Town Hall event.
True to form, the dimwits at Mediaite are claiming this is all a conspiracy, first with urgent missives like “Fox News Now Reporting Anonymously Sourced Theory About Clinton’s ‘Earpiece’” and “Donald Trump Jr. Spreads Hillary Clinton Earpiece Conspiracy Theory on Twitter”, to name but a few.
Well, it turns out that Wikileaks actually captured an email from Huma Abedin to Hillary Clinton asking whether the elderly, infirm, and oft-injured catlady had remembered her “earpiece”.
Josh Feldman, usually one of the few voices of sanity at the far left media-watching website, was quick to react to the Wikileaks revelation, offering up the ludicrous explanation that — not only are you imagining that earpiece in the photo, but — Hillary simply needed her “earpiece” for the United Nations General Assembly.
Pity Josh never bothered to actually look up what UN General Assemblies actually look like.
Psst, Joshie: do an image search for united nations translation or un translation service and you’ll see what the headsets look like.
They’re not teeny earpieces that your Abuela forgets to bring to the UN. (For more from the author of “MEDIAITE WRONG AGAIN: Yes, Granny Catlady Wears an Earpiece to Get Instructions From Handlers” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/25681712640_418f3aabcb_b-3.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-09-09 02:40:022016-09-11 03:16:06Hillary Caught Wearing Earpiece to Get Instructions From Handlers; Mediaite Wrong Again
Steven Crowder is at it again, pushing boundaries with what he declares is the “most offensive video ever.”
YouTube has been annoying content creators with their new community standards — demonetizing videos that it determines to contain “graphic content” or is otherwise “offensive.”
If you’re someone who makes money from ads on your YouTube videos, their excessive politically correct standards can really cut into your livelihood.
So in response, Crowder played fast and loose with the new rules in his latest video. Check it out:
(Don’t skip the “ad”. There is no ad. You’ll fall for the joke like I did.)
How quick until YouTube demonetizes this? This video is like when you’re in fourth grade, and you played the game of tipping your chair back. You remember that? And your teacher told you if you fell, you’d get a detention? New game, right? How close to the floor can you tip?
That’s exactly what we did here. Because what’s offensive to one is comedy to the other. Also, let’s just say whatever we want to say and let the market decide, yeah?
Hilarious.
Be sure to head over to Louder with Crowder and check out Steven’s latest podcast for his full explanation on what YouTube is doing and why it’s wrong. (For more from the author of “Steven Crowder Sticks It to YouTube’s Political Correctness in ‘Most Offensive Video Ever'” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/youtube-1349702_960_720.png629960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-09-09 01:45:432016-09-09 01:45:13Steven Crowder Sticks It to YouTube’s Political Correctness in ‘Most Offensive Video Ever’
On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts — without their customers knowing it — since 2011.
The phony accounts earned the bank unwarranted fees and allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales figures and make more money.
“Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses,” Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a statement.
Wells Fargo confirmed to CNNMoney that it had fired 5,300 employees over the last few years related to the shady behavior. Employees went so far as to create phony PIN numbers and fake email addresses to enroll customers in online banking services, the CFPB said. (Read more from “5,300 Wells Fargo Employees Fired Over 2 Million Phony Accounts” HERE)
The following is a political conversation between a Christian progressive (“Dorothy”) and a free market Christian conservative (“Jeremiah”) sparked by this year’s election.
DOROTHY: I agree with you that abortion is killing. It’s tragic and wrong, and we as Christians should be doing everything we can to discourage it. But I object when people like you think you can corral our political allegiance to your candidates over that single issue, especially when your party treats opposition to abortion as an ugly stepchild, which it trots out every four years then puts back in the corner wearing a dunce cap.
JEREMIAH: I agree that the pro-life issue is a hill worth dying on. It’s crucial to rid the GOP of pro-choice candidates and public officials. We’ve actually done a pretty good job of doing that; all but one (sub 1% George Pataki) of the GOP presidential contenders in 2016 was pro-life. But your party won’t even let pro-life Democrats speak at its convention — and hasn’t, since 1992 when the Clintons banned Robert Casey. Inside that party, pro-life Democrats barely rise to the level of “cranks.” They’re more like … exotic pets.
DOROTHY: You’re wrong to claim the “pro-life” label. Like me, you’re anti-abortion, but you’re not comprehensively “pro-life.” The rest of your party’s platform makes that obvious.
JEREMIAH: I assume you’re invoking the “Seamless Garment,” a statist ideology that was cooked up to dissipate the pro-life movement in a dozen irrelevant directions while helping the Democrats. It pretends that a million voluntary murders of innocent babies are interchangeable with, say, accidental gun deaths or side-effects of climate change. Hold on, while I email you some articles from The Stream which address that.
[He takes out his phone and sends links.]
Why is it, you think, that conservatives just happen to be right about the abortion issue, on which every prominent, successful, or even vocal liberal politician or organization just happens to be wrong? That’s a coincidence, is it?
DOROTHY: I’ll agree with you that progressives have a blind spot on abortion. They see it as a crucial piece of the feminist agenda, granting equal sexual autonomy to women as to men. We need to wake them up on how it exploits and hurts women. But that would be easier, I think, than converting the whole conservative movement on a long list of subjects where it’s out of sync with Gospel priorities.
JEREMIAH: I think you’re mistaken about “Gospel priorities,” and even on what the words “pro-life” mean. You’re against abortion thanks to some residual trace of good sense and common decency that you’ve clung to. But otherwise you’ve signed on to an ideology that rejects individual responsibility and hence human dignity, which sees us not a citizens with rights and duties but termites in a hive, whose work and wealth and daily activities must be controlled by the Collective. Abortion fits in perfectly with such a worldview, since it’s the ultimate means of dodging responsibility for one’s actions.
You have far more common ground with pro-choice secular leftists such as George Soros than you do with any historic Christian church, the Gospel itself, or any world view that is remotely compatible with orthodox Christianity. You can no more be an authentically Christian leftist than you can be a faithful Catholic Social Darwinist, or a devoutly Muslim Hindu.
DOROTHY: So you think that Donald Trump is a model Christian statesman? Why don’t you explain that to me. This should be good.
JEREMIAH: The Republicans this year chose a flawed candidate, who isn’t completely in sync with the party’s platform, or with most GOP elected officials in the country. If elected, Trump will have tangle with those people, who will moderate his views and water down his proposals. He may have tried to grab control of the party, but as we saw in the GOP primaries, he failed. Every single Trumpian challenger he supported got defeated, so even if he wins, he will be isolated within his own party. In other words, we’ll restrain him.
The Democrats, by contrast, nominated a lockstep left-wing multiculturalist who will have the full backing of their governors, senators and congressmen in promoting the radical policies she endorsed in their party’s platform. The main objections Democrats had to Hillary Clinton were to her appalling personal ethics, autocratic isolation, manifest greed, and habit of doing blatantly illegal things that endanger national security, then bald-face lying about them to the American people and Congress. So I’d say that the “character” problems of the two candidates at least cancel each other out. We’re better off comparing the parties and their platforms.
DOROTHY: Fine. Apart from abortion, the Democrats’ platform is much more closely in accord with Christian values of tolerance, inclusion, social justice, and respect for life.
JEREMIAH: The only way you could support that is by cherry-picking from the Gospels the verses that fit your ideology — ignoring context, Christian history, the examples of the saints, and the thinking of faithful Christians for almost 2,000 years. You’d have to assert that nobody understood Christianity correctly until the mid-nineteenth century, when people who were losing their faith in the church’s supernatural claims replaced them with the “social gospel.”
Whether or not Jesus really rose from the dead or is coming again, we can build an ersatz Kingdom of Heaven on earth by making the State really, really strong, and corralling people at gunpoint to follow our version of Christian ethics. That way the church remains relevant whatever becomes of its creed, because it’s close to the sources of money and levers of power. (See the mainline Protestant churches and too many American Catholic bishops.) But because you are moral superheroes, you will only use your powers for good, instead of evil. Of course you will.
DOROTHY: I challenge you to find in the Gospels any place where Jesus talks about the need to protect private property, maximize economic efficiency, guard national borders, or prepare for war. Those aren’t what he was interested in. He was speaking constantly about the poor and the marginalized — just like the Democrats.
JEREMIAH: Jesus didn’t comment on private property, economics, immigration or war. That’s why the Christian tradition has yielded many different answers on those issues. Yes, Jesus talked about our religious obligation to help the poor, enforcible on pain of hellfire. Even more than that, he talked about our duty to kneel down and worship Him as the Son of God, to avoid the same Gehenna. Both of those things are religious duties, not political programs. Neither one, if done at bayonet point to avoid going to prison, will do a thing to save your soul. So unless you want a theocratic state that will force everyone to be Christian, you can’t use Jesus’ words to advocate the redistribution of wealth by the government, either. Make other arguments, but leave Jesus out of it.
DOROTHY: Jesus was constantly telling people to give up their possessions and distribute them to the poor.
JEREMIAH: Those passages don’t mean what you think they mean. You’re confusing a call to Christian perfection — such as monks, nuns, and missionaries embrace willingly — with a crass political program to buy votes with confiscated money. Let me rewrite the Gospel to read as it would have to, if your program were truly Christian. Imagine if St. Mark had written:
And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.” And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” At that saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.
And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “Go apprehend him.” Peter and John ran after the young man and bound him with ropes, bringing him back to Jesus. Jesus bade Judas to question him about his riches and where they were kept. Once Judas had fully accounted for all of his holdings, Jesus said to his disciples, “Go to his estate, seize all that he owns, sell it, and distribute it to the poor. Blow a trumpet and announce that it is I who have done this, and command them to follow me. Then let us find more rich men and do likewise, that our numbers may be complete before we march on Jerusalem.” [Mark. 10: 17-28, Revised Socialist Version]
I could go through the whole New Testament, rewriting Christ’s words and works to fit your political program. But I don’t have to bother. Leftist pastors across America effectively do that in their sermons every Sunday. (For more from the author of “Was Jesus a Social Justice Warrior?” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/bible-879073_960_720.jpg720960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-09-09 00:44:232016-09-09 00:44:23Was Jesus a Social Justice Warrior?
In one of her first press conferences since last year, Hillary Clinton today accused Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus of sexism for tweeting that Clinton appeared “angry” in last night’s national security forum.
“I’m going to let all of you ponder that last question,” said the Democratic presidential candidate after being asked about Priebus’ comments. “I think there will be a lot of PhD theses and popular journalism writing on that subject for years to come.”
Clinton went on to criticize both the RNC and her opponent, Republican candidate Donald Trump. “I don’t take my advice and I don’t take anything seriously that comes from the RNC. We were talking about serious issues last night. I know the difference between what we have to do to fix the V.A., what we have to do to take the fight to ISIS, than just making political happy talk. And I had a very short window of time in that event last night to convey the seriousness with which I would approach the issues that concern our country.”
“Donald Trump chose to talk about his deep admiration and support for Vladimir Putin. Maybe he did it with a smile, and I guess the RNC would have liked that.”
Priebus Tweeted that Clinton was displeased when asked about her continuing email scandals by moderator Matt Lauer. Clinton’s campaign responded in kind shortly thereafter.
@HillaryClinton was angry + defensive the entire time – no smile and uncomfortable – upset that she was caught wrongly sending our secrets.
Clinton’s verbal response to Priebus came thanks to a question from ABC News. A reporter asked if Clinton could “react to that,” and said that Clinton has “suggested that there is a double-standard. Do you think you’re treated different in this race because you’re a woman?”
Clinton surrogates and others have used the sexism card throughout the 2016 campaign, including against Lauer last night and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during his primary run against Clinton. Lauer was slammed by partisans on both sides, but especially Democrats for interrupting Clinton several times in what some said was a sign of sexism. Lauer also didn’t challenge Trump when the Republican falsely said he “was totally against the war in Iraq.”
Priebus’ Tweet was tame compared to one issued by then-Democratic National Chairwoman (DNC) Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) last year, when she accused Trump of “racism”:
The RNC chair thinks Donald Trump is a "net positive" for the GOP. More evidence that Trump's racism knows no bounds: https://t.co/vHzVMfRAbT
Earlier this year, interim DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile accused Trump of “soaking up … hate and … spilling it back out.”
Partisan attacks are normal in election years, especially when the White House is at stake. Republican candidates are especially targets of vitriol by their political opponents. (For more from the author of “Hillary: Saying I’m Too Serious Is Sexist” please click HERE)
The mainstream media is warning us in anxious tones that an “Ohio abortion pill law led to worse health outcomes.” Allow me to briefly describe the new law and show why the case against the law is at best weak, and at worst, dangerously confused.
The drugs mifepristone and misoprostol are sometimes injected into pregnant women to kill the lives inside their wombs. The procedure is called a “medical” or “medication abortion” to distinguish it from other methods of killing the unborn, usually involving sharp objects or vacuums.
In 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a version of the mifepristone + misoprostol method of killing. This version requires medium doses of both drugs to be given at an abortionist’s office on different days. To ease demands on their time, some abortionists instead prefer another, “off-label” combination of these drugs, one not approved by the FDA: a high dose of mifepristone at the office and a low dose of misoprostol self-administered at the would-be mothers’ homes.
The distinction is important because Ohio in February 2011 passed a law requiring abortionists to use only the FDA-approved method. The law was passed in dispute. Some abortionists complained that the work of killing was better using the off-label method.
Apples, Oranges and the Unborn
A group of researchers led by Ushma D. Upadhyay tried to investigate the questions, studying pre-law and post-law abortion data. They published their attempt in “Comparison of Outcomes before and after Ohio’s Law Mandating Use of the FDA-Approved Protocol for Medication Abortion: A Retrospective Cohort Study” in the journal PLOS: Medicine.
The researchers found four abortion sites willing to cooperate with their research. The immediate finding was that the fraction of medication abortions dropped dramatically at all four of the abortion sites after the law passed. The average rate was 22% of all abortions were medication before the law, which dropped to only 5% some time after. One site even discontinued medication abortions for a period of almost two years.
The researchers do not say if the medication abortions that were performed post-law were all the FDA-approved method or if any were the now illegal off-label method. This is not surprising, because admitting to use of the off-label method would be admitting violating the law. Given that the sympathies of the abortionists and the researchers was not with the law, it is possible biases creep in, both in the analyses and in way treatments themselves are administered. Confirmation bias is ever a possibility.
That sort of bias might account for why the researchers did not trouble to report what fraction of FDA-approved medication abortions were performed before the law. All? None? We never learn. And it is a crucial number to know if we are to compare pre-law with post-law adverse events, especially if it is to be asserted that the FDA-approved method causes greater harm to the would-be mothers (both methods, of course, cause ultimate harm to the lives inside their wombs).
Further muddying matters, many of the characteristics of the women given medication abortions changed pre- to post-law. For instance, pre-law only about 15% of would-be mothers had at least a Bachelor’s degree, compared to over 23% post-law. Blacks represented 21% of the pre-law sample but only 16% of the post-law sample. Importantly, only about 27% of the women had private insurance pre-law, jumping to 34% post-law. Better educated women with insurance might be more willing to be checked for adverse effects, which would boost reported rates.
Number of Gestation Days Before Killing
The oddest discrepancy was in the number of gestation days, i.e. number of days the women were pregnant before seeking an abortion. In the pre-law sample, 13.4% of women had medication abortions at 34 gestation days or fewer, contrasted with only 7.2% post-law. Also, 52.2% of women pre-law had abortions between 42 and 49 days, versus 63.6% after. These figures are notable because it has been found that the greater the gestation period before the lives inside the women are killed, the greater the likelihood of an adverse effect upon the women.
Before the law, medication abortions were legal for gestations greater than 49 days. In the new law, all medication abortions had to be performed before 50 days. So the greater number of post-law abortions in the 42-49 day period could be accounted for by women who might have rushed in before the new deadline. But this doesn’t explain why fewer women opted for earlier abortions. Whatever the reasons, the changes imply that the characteristics of the women, or the practice of abortionists, changed after the law.
And there was another questionable maneuver by the researchers. All pre-law medication abortions greater than 49 gestation days were excluded from the researchers’ analysis. Of the rate of adverse events in this important and risky group we therefore never learn. This exclusion really makes it impossible to compare health effects pre- to post-law, as do the other points made above. Nevertheless, the researchers soldiered on.
Medication Abortion: Dangerous Medicine
About those adverse events: these included “acute hemorrhage, or infection.” Nasty business, abortion.
As the authors emphasize, but fail to realize the importance of, post-law women were required under the law to go to the abortion site “a minimum of four visits instead of two,” and so there was greater opportunity post-law to report or discover adverse events (in addition to the other reasons noted above).
Now 4.9% of the pre-law women required “additional interventions,” which were things like aspiration (vacuuming up the remains inside the womb), repeated misoprostol doses, and blood transfusions. These interventions rose to 14.3% post-law. Some 12.6% of pre-law women had “at least one side effect during their medication abortion” compared to 15.6% after. Side effects included nausea, vomiting, pain and so on. These numbers comprise the authors’ main “findings.”
Yet even if it were true, as the authors suggest, that the FDA-approved method is causing the boost in rates of interventions and side effects, the number of women who suffer ill effects caused by medication abortion could still shrink. Why? Because even though the rates of ill effects increase, the number of medication abortions procured fell sharply under the law.
The calculation that could prove this is tough to do because we don’t know about the adverse rates for women with gestations greater than 49 days pre-law (a shocking omission) — nor do we know them for other abortion methods. Plus, for the many reasons given above, we do not know that the FDA-approved method is causing the boost in rates for medication abortions, even though the researchers are anxious to suggest that it is.
Perhaps most interesting is the finding (admission?) that such large percentages of women undergoing medication abortions will require “interventions” or will suffer an adverse effect. That is news worth spreading. (For more from the author of “Dangerously Daft New Study Calls Ohio Abortion Pill Restrictions Dangerous” please click HERE)
The Alamogordo, New Mexico Alamogordo Daily News reported on September 2, 2016 that 33-year-old Police Officer Clint Corvinus was fatally shot on September 3, 2016 by 38-yr-old wanted fugitive Joseph Moreno.
In the shootout, following a routine traffic stop, involving Moreno, Officer Corvinus, and a second Police Officer, Christopher Welch, Moreno was also fatally shot.
The report of the investigation of the shooting conducted by the New Mexico Department of Public Safety (NMDPS), updated on September 5, states:
“Forensic evidence at the scene, Officer Welch’s lapel camera video providing footage of the incident, and officer interviews, reveal the following information. During the course of the foot pursuit, Mr. Moreno had in his possession a bag he was carrying. As Mr. Moreno was running away from officers, he reached inside the bag and removed a .357 caliber revolver (later revealed to have had the serial number unlawfully removed).
Mr. Moreno turned toward officers and pointed his firearm at officers. Officer Welch fired at Mr. Moreno after Mr. Moreno pointed his firearm at the officers. At this time Mr. Moreno fell to the ground. While Mr. Moreno was on the ground, Mr. Moreno fired multiple shots at officers. Evidence at the scene indicates Officer Corvinus was struck with one round fired by Mr. Moreno.
Mr. Moreno then got up off the ground and briefly continued to flee on foot. Officer Welch continued to pursue Mr. Moreno and fired additional shots at Mr. Moreno near 602 South Florida Street. Mr. Moreno sustained a fatal shot to the head and fell to the ground a second time. During the time Officer Welch fired rounds at Mr. Moreno, Officer Corvinus was behind Officer Welch and never in his direct line of fire. Officer Welch was unaware Officer Corvinus had been struck by gunfire until after Mr. Moreno had been subdued.
Officer Welch secured Mr. Moreno and the firearm in Mr. Moreno’s possession. Officers later discovered inside the bag in Mr. Moreno’s possession were ten unfired hollow point bullets and a pair of handcuffs. A pistol holster was also found next to Mr. Moreno. Evidence obtained by investigators at the scene will be further analyzed by the state crime laboratory for additional examination.”
Furthermore, the NMDPS report states that:
“At the time of the incident, Mr. Moreno had three outstanding warrants for charges of possession of a controlled substance, two counts of burglary – third degree felonies, and driving with a suspended license. Mr. Moreno had an extensive criminal history and involvement with law enforcement. His criminal history includes arrests for armed robbery, aggravated burglary, multiple counts of possession of controlled substance, multiple counts of possession of firearm by felon, and contributing to the delinquency of minor.”
When queried via emails as to the citizenship status of Joseph Moreno at the time of his death, the report’s author, Sergeant Elizabeth Armijo, New Mexico State Police (NMSP), Public Information Officer stated:
“I don’t have any information regarding the citizenship of Joseph Moreno. There is no indication he is anything other than a US citizen” (September 7, 2016)
In response to a further query as to if the NMSP “assume US citizenship on the basis of his {Moreno’s} residence in Alamogordo, NM,” Sergeant Armijo responded:
“The New Mexico State Police is not assuming anything regarding the citizenship of Joseph Moreno. Our investigation is pertaining to the incident surrounding his death and that of an Alamogordo police officer. His citizenship has nothing to do with our investigation.” (September 8, 2016)
On January 31, 2011, a press release from the Office of New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez entitled “GOVERNOR SUSANA MARTINEZ RESCINDS NEW MEXICO SANCTUARY STATUS,” states that, according to Executive Order 2011-009:
“SANTA FE – Governor Susana Martinez announced today that she has signed an executive order rescinding sanctuary status for illegal immigrants who commit crimes in New Mexico while protecting victims and witnesses of criminal acts. The order signed by Governor Martinez directs law enforcement officers to inquire about the immigration status of those who are arrested for committing crimes.
‘This order takes the handcuffs off of New Mexico’s law enforcement officers in their omission to keep our communities safe,’ said Governor Martinez. ‘The criminal justice system should have the authority to determine the immigration status of all criminals,
regardless of race or ethnicity, and report illegal immigrants who commit crimes to federal authorities. Meanwhile, it is important that we safeguard the ability of victims and witnesses to report crimes to law enforcement officers without fear of repercussion.”
So is New Mexico still a de facto sanctuary state? (For more from the author of “SANCTUARY STATE: New Mexico State Police Refuse to Ask for Cop Killer’s Citizenship Status!” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/11029946016_29f72487bc_b-2.jpg7781024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-09-09 00:18:142016-09-09 00:18:14SANCTUARY STATE: New Mexico State Police Refuse to Ask for Cop Killer’s Citizenship Status!
Election integrity foes mistakenly tell us voter fraud is a myth. So when legitimate voter fraud is actually discovered, these foes pretend it didn’t happen, fail to take any steps to investigate or prosecute such cases, or, even worse, try to cover it up. Take Virginia, where the State Board of Elections and some local election officials want to hide a blatant case of voter fraud involving noncitizens.
Penalties for voting as a non-citizen
When non-citizens register or actually vote, they violate both state and federal statutes because citizenship is a requirement to vote in both state and federal elections. Falsely claiming to be a citizen on a voter registration form is a felony that violates three different federal statutes. Voting by a non-citizen under 18 U.S.C. §611 is a strict liability offense. In other words, it “does not require proof that the offender was aware that citizenship is a prerequisite to voting.” Article II, Section 1 of the Virginia constitution requires a voter to be a citizen, and §24.2-1004 of the Virginia Code makes it a felony to vote when you are “not qualified to vote” in the state.
So you would think state and local election officials would treat these crimes with appropriate seriousness. Guess again.
When I was a member of the Fairfax County Electoral Board in Virginia, we discovered close to 300 non-citizens who had illegally registered in our county, about half of whom had also illegally voted in prior elections. We removed those individuals from the voter rolls and forwarded their files to both the Commonwealth Attorney (Virginia’s equivalent of the county district attorney) and the U.S. Justice Department for investigation and prosecution. Neither took any action to enforce the law against these non-citizens.
Voter Fraud in Virginia
Fast forward to April of this year when the Virginia Voters Alliance and a Virginia voter (David Norcross) filed a lawsuit against the city of Alexandria, Va., claiming that the general registrar, Anna Leider, was violating the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).The lawsuit charged that Leider failed to make her records related to the city’s voter-list maintenance procedures available for public inspection, which would obviously include all information about the removal of ineligible voters.
The Alliance also claimed Leider was not conducting the reasonable list-maintenance procedures mandated by the NVRA to clean up the rolls by removing the names of registered voters who are deceased, have moved, or are otherwise ineligible to vote (like non-citizens). As a result of the lawsuit, the Alliance was finally able to get into Leider’s office and inspect the voter registration records. Among the items they discovered was a list containing several hundred registrants who had been removed from the voter rolls because they were not U.S. citizens.
Leider stonewalls the Alliance
When the Alliance asked to photocopy this document, Leider refused. Her attorney later told the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which is representing the Alliance and David Norcross, that the state election board was telling her she could not release that information.
The Alliance was not able to determine exactly how many of those non-citizens had illegally voted before being dropped from the voter list. In a letter to the Public Interest Legal Foundation, the city’s attorney subsequently claimed that the voter history of non-citizens who are removed from the voter rolls is not subject to the public records inspection provision of the NVRA. In other words, they are trying to hide whether non-citizens illegally voted.
Whether Alexandria notified law-enforcement officials is unclear. The city’s attorney says there were some “communications to and from the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office,” but no records concerning those communications have been released. That response indicates that the city did not turn over any records to federal authorities.
What we have here are several hundred cases of voter fraud in just one Virginia city that won’t appear in any public reports when there are discussions and debates about voter fraud.
Fraud elsewhere in Virginia
As a result of the discovery of all of these non-citizens in Alexandria, the Alliance decided to send information requests under the NVRA to several other Virginia counties requesting information on registered voters who were not U.S. citizens. Prince William County produced a list of more than 400 non-citizens who had been removed from the county’s voter rolls. There is no indication that Prince William (or the state election board) forwarded information to local or federal prosecutors on these 400 potential felons for investigation and possible prosecution either. So here we have another 400 likely cases of voter fraud that won’t appear in any records.
Bedford County, a relatively small rural county in Virginia with only about 60,000 individuals of voting age, actually provided the Alliance with a list of several dozen non-citizens who had been removed from the voter rolls. After the Alliance received the list, the Public Interest Legal Foundation received a telephone call from the Bedford County registrar asking the Alliance to either return or delete the list. She said that Virginia state election officials had contacted her and informed her that she shouldn’t have sent the Alliance the list of removed non-citizens. There is also no evidence that Bedford County forwarded information on these non-citizens who had broken the law to law enforcement officials for possible prosecution.
Numerous other Virginia counties have refused to provide this information to the Public Interest Legal Foundation, apparently based on instructions from the State Board of Elections and individuals working for the state Department of Elections, which the Board supervises. This is what a cover-up directed by state election officials looks like. They are trying to hide hundreds, if not thousands, of instances of voter fraud that occurred on their watch.
If thousands of aliens are registered or actually voting, it would obviously undermine the national narrative that voter fraud is a myth. This would be particularly disturbing in a state like Virginia, in which statewide elections for attorney general have been decided by fewer than 1,000 votes in the last decade.
Nonchalant attitude rampant in Virginia politics
This should come as no surprise. After all, it was Gov. McAuliffe who in April 2015 vetoed a bill that would have required jury commissioners to forward information to election officials on individuals who were excused from jury duty for not being a citizen. And last year, I criticized James Alcorn, one of the two Democratic appointees on the Virginia Board of Elections, after he proposed that the election board change its rules so that individuals leaving the citizenship question unanswered on the voter registration form would still be allowed to register.
Alcorn stated at the time that the focus shouldn’t be on “whether the voter is able to complete the form,” which totally discounted the fact that ignoring this omission would make it incredibly easy for non-citizens to get away with illegally registering to vote. Although the proposal was apparently supported by the other Democratic appointee, Singleton McAlister, Clara Belle Wheeler, the sole Republican member of the State Board of Elections, objected to the proposal which, after a public outcry, was tabled.
Blocked investigation
By instructing the counties not to provide the requested information to the Virginia Voters Alliance, these state officials appear to be violating federal law, specifically the provision in NVRA covering “Public disclosure of voter registration activities” (52 U.S.C. §20507(i)) which mandates that election officials “make available for public inspection and, where available, photocopying at a reasonable cost, all records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters.” Another provision of federal law, 52 U.S.C. §20702, makes it a misdemeanor for any individual to “conceal” any such “records and papers” relating to voter registrations and other election documents. Violation can result in a fine of $1,000 or imprisonment of not more than a year.
So the next time someone tells you that we shouldn’t be concerned about voter fraud, think about the hundreds of non-citizens who have apparently illegally registered and who may have even voted in elections in the Commonwealth of Virginia. They may have been removed from the voter rolls but so far none of them has been prosecuted for violating the law. Worse, these aliens were only detected because they sought to renew their driver’s licenses and told the truth the second time when they admitted to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles that they were not citizens.
We have no idea how many other non-citizens remain undetected in the voter rolls of Virginia, a purple state where the outcome of the November election is still in doubt, and where the state takes no steps of any kind to verify the citizenship status of voter registrants. It is a state where the controlling members of the State Board of Elections obviously see nothing wrong with violating federal public records law, attempting to conceal illegal registration and voting, and seem to have no interest in taking any steps to prosecute those who have violated some of our most fundamental protections intended to preserve the integrity of our election process. (For more from the author of “Virginia Dems Blocking the Truth About 100s of Non-Citizens Engaged in Voter Fraud” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/2330348917_eff123efd3_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-09-09 00:01:492016-09-09 00:01:49Virginia Dems Blocking the Truth About 100s of Non-Citizens Engaged in Voter Fraud
The annual budget is the most powerful tool given over to the party that controls Congress. It is a tool that can be used to express the priorities and worldview of that party, and can be used as a platform to present their case for a White House win.
In a sane world, Republicans would have immediately presented their budget this week, funded every agency and department (even the bad ones and functions like Obamacare that will have to wait for future leverage points), albeit prohibited funding for some of the most damaging and imminent problems facing this country. Obama’s refugee increase, the internet giveaway, and payments to Iran, to name a few. The bill would include emergency funding for Zika, but stipulate that leftover funds from Ebola must be used first and that no funding can go to Planned Parenthood.
Republicans could have spoken with moral clarity to the American people that Democrats, who refused to pass a budget when they controlled Congress, better not shut down the government in order to fund Iran, turn America into Europe’s security nightmare, and hand off America’s greatest invention to a tribunal influenced by Russia and China. If Democrats want to shut down the government and not fight Zika because they want funding for a private entity under criminal investigation for harvesting baby parts, let them have at it.
When you actually believe in something, especially regarding popular issues that resonate with voters, it’s not too hard to message it. But alas, these GOP leaders believe in nothing beyond pursuing the path to least resistance. Democrats embrace confrontation as a means of promoting their agenda, even when it’s unpopular; Republicans abjure confrontation even when it is politically advantageous for them.
In comes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 42%). Instead of throwing a touchdown, he actually plans to toss an interception and use the GOP-control of the Senate to undermine conservatives in the House. Yes, this is another example of why it was actually worse to win back the Senate with RINOs in 2014 than to have Democrats control that body. McConnell is preemptively undermining House conservatives by openly calling for Harry Reid’s plan of a continuing resolution (CR) that fully funds Obama’s agenda with no significant expression of American priorities, much less conservative ones.
There are also late reports indicating that McConnell plans to capitulate and drop the prohibition on funding Planned Parenthood in the Zika bill, as suggested as suggested by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. (C, 77%) and Mark Kirk, R-Ill. (F 17%) earlier this week. This runs counter to the House bill passed earlier this year. It’s essentially a fight with Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats, and Obama on one side and House conservatives on another side. House leadership is pretending to fight for conservatives while allowing McConnell to orchestrate the sabotage for them.
What’s worse, McConnell is also siding with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. (D, 2%) against conservatives by demanding that the budget bill expire in December, during the lame duck session, instead of some time in 2017. If Republicans plan to surrender and not go for a touchdown by harnessing the budget leverage to force good policy, at the very least they should be prevented from tossing an interception and tacking on bad policy to the “must-pass” budget bill. By having this iteration of the CR expire during the lame duck session, history has shown that retiring members act out as political suicide bombers and use the must-pass vehicle as a conduit for extraneous liberal bills. All sorts of bad bill could potential hitch a ride on a budget bill in December.
This is why I believe there is no utility to conservatives rewarding liberal Republican senators by voting for them in November. It’s one thing to vote for a presidential candidate or a GOP House, even when the candidates in the general elections aren’t conservative because there is more at stake in preventing a bad Democrat agenda. But once Republicans have control of the House, there is no utility to having a “Republican” Senate with the current cast of characters. And in fact, they make matters worse by lending the GOP name to Democrat priorities and marginalizing House Republicans. The only difference they would make if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency (if Trump wins, on the other hand, it’s hard to see Republicans losing the Senate) is the ability to block judicial nominees. But if you think these people would block any Hillary nominee after having won the presidency you have not been paying attention.
Despite McConnell’s betrayal, the House Freedom Caucus must hold their ground and demand, at the very least, that A) any budget bill not expire during the lame duck session and B) Obama’s refugee program must be defunded (no gimmick provisions like the one the House passed last year). If they don’t stand firm and do so quickly, McConnell will have the ball in the wrong end-zone within days. (For more from the author of “McConnell’s Double Budget Betrayal Begins” please click HERE)
With the presidential election two months away, a Kansas law requiring voters to show proof of citizenship remains in legal limbo.
Late last month, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach asked a U.S. appeals court to reinstate a provision of a law requiring Kansans to prove their citizenship when registering to vote while obtaining driver’s licenses.
Kobach, a conservative crusader in a movement in Republican-led states to toughen voting laws, wants the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a ruling by a federal judge in May. The judge’s decision temporarily restored voting rights to about 18,000 individuals who, as of the ruling, had registered to vote at motor vehicle offices without providing citizenship paperwork.
Kobach estimates that 18,000 will swell by November to about 50,000 potential voters who haven’t proven citizenship, so the appeals court decision will determine the fate of their votes.
He views the Kansas law as a guard against illegal immigrants voting.
“There is a huge potential for aliens’ votes to swing a close election,” Kobach told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “Even if it’s just a handful of votes, it’s still a huge injustice. Every time an alien votes, it effectively cancels out a vote of a U.S. citizen.”
Since 2013, Kansas has required voters to provide proof of citizenship when voting—whether they are applying at a motor vehicle office or elsewhere in the state—by showing birth certificates, passports, or naturalization papers.
Kansas is one of four states—the others are Alabama, Arizona and Georgia—to have adopted laws requiring proof of citizenship during voter registration.
In February, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of the League of Women Voters and individual Kansans who said they were left off the voter rolls after registering at the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.
The ACLU lawsuit specifically targets the issue of Kansas’ requiring proof of citizenship from those registering to vote at the DMV.
The plaintiffs argue that the Kansas law violates the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, particularly a provision that requires states to offer people the opportunity to register to vote when they get a driver’s license. That section says that those who register to vote in this way can be asked only for “minimal information,” allowing them to simply affirm that they are citizens—under the threat of perjury if they lie.
The federal law does not require registrants to bring more documentation than they would need to get a driver’s license.
Kobach says that motor vehicle clerks sometimes accidently offer noncitizens the option to register to vote.
He argues that federal law doesn’t expressly bar states from asking for documentation proving citizenship for people registering to vote at the DMV.
“If a state wants to ask for proof of citizenship, nothing in the law prevents it,” Kobach said. “The absurdity of the legal argument that the ACLU is advancing is this notion that Congress intended to present a special privilege for people registering to vote at the DMV that other people don’t get to enjoy.”
But the ACLU counters that, under the Kansas proof of citizenship law, people who register to vote at the DMV are not always told that they have to provide additional paperwork to get on the voter rolls. These people only learn later on—after they thought they had registered successfully—that they actually were blocked from voting.
Critics also note that Kansas identified to the court only three cases of noncitizens who voted between 2003 and the implementation of the law in 2013.
“We do not have proof of fraud in Kansas,” Marge Ahrens, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Kansas, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview, adding:
We do not have illegal persons who want to vote. It’s the last thing illegal people would want to do. I do think it appeals to our sense of fear, but we just can’t find the evidence to support these laws.
Like other opponents of tougher voter identification laws, Ahrens contends that such requirements disenfranchise poor citizens who may not have the money or means to obtain documentation easily.
The League of Women Voters generally focuses its voter registration efforts on people 60 years or older. Ahrens says the elderly encounter similar challenges in trying to meet the requirements of Kansas’ proof of citizenship law.
“Older people can be stymied just by the idea of trying to pull together documents that may or may not exist,” Ahrens said. “Under this law, the complexity of the voting process has become so difficult that we really cannot do our work in a way that is effective.”
In response to these concerns, Kobach notes that Kansas eases the registration process by allowing voters to fax, email, or text a copy of their birth certificate to the DMV.
Kobach said he expects a decision from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals before the Nov. 8 presidential election. Even if a decision comes close to the election, he says, his state has contingency plans no matter the ruling.
Voters subject to U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson’s May 17 ruling—those who registered at the DMV since 2013 but haven’t provided proof of citizenship—will vote with provisional ballots and whether they’re counted won’t be decided until after Election Day.
While he acknowledged a wave of recent court rulings against voter identification laws in the states, Kobach said he intends to continue his push for stronger legal provisions, and will appeal to the Supreme Court if he loses.
“This about the rule of law,” Kobach said. “We have law-breaking when it comes to elections, and solving the problem is not difficult.” (For more from the author of “Votes of Thousands Who Haven’t Proven Citizenship Could ‘Swing’ Kansas Elections” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/5139407571_1c81d07a8c_b.jpg7651024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-09-08 21:27:282016-09-08 21:27:28Votes of Thousands Who Haven’t Proven Citizenship Could ‘Swing’ Kansas Elections
