Tag: democracy

The Sky is Falling!  Testing the Predictions of Doom by Democrats

Who remembers the story of Chicken Little?  In the children’s tale, something falls from a tree on Chicken Little, who panics and runs around telling his friends that “the sky is falling!”  Today, the phrase “Chicken Little” is used to describe someone who is a constant worrier or pessimist, or who spreads alarm or baseless reports of danger.

Lately, a lot of Chicken Littles are running around warning us that the sky is falling.  These Chicken Littles are also known as Democrats.  Just turn on your television, check your social media feed, or talk to your Democrat friends and you will hear horrifying predictions of doom. 

Their predictions brought to mind a Bible study that my dad taught a long time ago.  He was trying to show how unlikely it is that all of the prophecies in the Bible come true unless it really is God’s word.  In the New Years Bible study, he got December issues of tabloids that had psychics making predictions about the coming year.  Some said that we would make contact with aliens.  Others tried to predict who would win the World Series or guess celebrity gossip and scandals.  Then at the end of the year he would go back and see how accurate those psychics were as compared to the Bible’s perfect record.  Those predictions were predictably inaccurate.

My dad’s old Bible study was memorable and fun, and it inspired me to similarly test the doomsday prophecies we keep hearing from the left.  This will not only be interesting to watch, but being able to look at information and correctly predict what will happen in the future is important.  If Democrats are consistently wrong, we should not listen to them, and certainly should never vote for them.

Some of their predictions are just policy issues on which they disagree with President Trump.  That is not our main focus.  We are talking about the dire warnings that they pushed throughout the campaign, and still seem to be sticking to.  My guess is that these predictions are about as likely as the psychic predictions from the tabloids in the 90s.  Here are some of the Democrat prophecies that we keep hearing.

President Trump will change or void the Constitution and stay in office after this term. – Shortly after the election, President Trump made a joke about running for a third term.  Some Democrats, who do not understand jokes, have floated the idea that President Trump will try to remain in office after this term, and even introduced a resolution to clarify that the 22nd Amendment does not allow him to do so.  The alien contact predictions are far more likely than Donald Trump remaining in office after inauguration day in 2029.

President Trump will enact a national abortion ban. – Kamala Harris has made this prediction, as have many other Democrats.  Hopefully, this prediction does come true, but President Trump has said he will not.

President Trump is a racist who will persecute minorities. – This prediction is more difficult to define.  Searching through articles and videos, many claim that President Trump will take away the non-white citizens’ rights, but they do not give any examples of what rights are supposedly going away.  The only actual policy that keeps popping up is that President Trump thinks ethnic minorities are smart enough that they are capable of competing for hiring and college admission with whites without DEI policies to handicap the whites.  That is true.  Republicans do think more highly of minorities than Democrats do.  Since this prediction is so vague, the way we will decide if it has come true is if, in four years, whites have any rights that non-white citizens do not have.

President Trump is an “existential threat to democracy.” – We have heard this one too many times to count.  Determining the accuracy of this prophecy is extremely simple.  The Democrats have already told us that they never really believed this and were just lying to scare people, because they are already talking about how to win the next election.  Obviously, if an election occurs in 2028, democracy will have survived.  Not only that, but President Trump would like to strengthen the democratic process and restore faith in our elections by passing a nationwide voter ID requirement.

President Trump is Hitler.  Also known as – Trump is a fascist/dictator/authoritarian who will rule with an iron fist. – This one seems like a strange prediction, considering President Trump has already been the president for a full term and did not act in an authoritarian way.  It is highly doubtful that he will now, all of a sudden, want to act like a dictator.  By definition, a dictator uses his power to dictate (control) what citizens do with their lives, using the force of government.  President Trump, on the other hand, has actually made it a focus to cut regulations and eliminate government intrusion in our lives.  In fact, President Trump is having Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy try to get rid of full government departments, cut the number of government employees, and eliminate regulations and expenses.  In all fairness, he was the president during the most authoritarian time in American history.  However, he was not the perpetrator.  It was state governors who forced lockdowns, mask mandates, and pushed experimental vaccine mandates.  In fact, the Democrat criticism of Trump was that he should have been more authoritarian and taken away more liberties.  My guess is that President Trump will be far less dictatorial and authoritarian than the Democrats are.  If Democrats mean it when they say they fear authoritarian rule, they will help President Trump make government less influential in our lives.  They should vote for things like school choice, tax cuts, and eliminating government departments, employees, spending, and regulations.  My prediction is that their authoritarian tendencies will shine through and they will not.  We will see whose prediction is more accurate.

President Trump will use the military to attack political opponents and media members, or the “enemy from within.” – The Left made this prediction by twisting and combining two different statements by President Trump, so it seems unlikely to come true.  He has said that some terrible people are hurting our country more than foreign enemies.  He has called them “the enemy from within.”  He has mentioned fascists, Marxists, communists, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and members of the media as being in that group.  He also spoke about possible unrest in the streets on election day by groups he called “radical left lunatics” (Presumably meaning groups like Antifa).  He said that the National Guard or the military should easily handle that.  Many on the left have turned that into a prediction that President Trump will unleash the military on the sets of “60 Minutes” and “The View,” or to throw Adam Schiff into prison at Guantanamo Bay.  As entertaining as all that would be, this is likely another prediction that will not happen.

President Trump will have the military bash down shop doors and drag away immigrants. – Joy Reid made this “prophecy” on November 26th, and several others have made similar predictions.  President Trump has said that he will crack down on illegal immigration and finish the wall.  He has also said that his first focus is on deporting criminals who are illegally in our country.  How likely are the predictions of military sweeps of city streets and storefronts to round up law-abiding immigrants to come true?  We shall see!

President Trump will cut Social Security. – A large billboard in Arizona made this claim, which the Harris campaign and the media echoed.  Contrarily, President Trump said that he would propose “no tax on social security.”

President Trump will weaponize the justice system and prosecute political opponents. – This prediction could go a couple of different ways.  We can again look back and see that he did not do this in his first term as president and assume that he will refrain from doing it again.  Yes, there were the “Lock her up” chants, but he obviously did not.  Hillary Clinton was ignored after 2016 and is still free.  This was, of course, before the Democrats actually did politically weaponize the justice system against their political opponents, and especially targeted President Trump himself.  President Trump has good reason to return the favor, and he very well may.  The other way he could react is to reform or dismantle the government mechanisms and agencies that were corruptly used to go after him and other Republicans.  He could gut the Justice Department and the FBI to try to prevent them from being used for political persecution again.  Only time will tell.

This is a solid group of predictions to test whether the left has any idea what they are talking about, or if they are just making up stuff to scare people.  I suppose there really is the possibility that they actually believe what they are saying, like Chicken Little did.  Either way, we will revisit these predictions in four years to see how accurate they were.  Hopefully, the sky is not falling.

How Democrats Have Ruined Election Day

On election day, 1980, my dad took me at 2 years old to walk a precinct to get out the vote for Ronald Reagan.  In the first 7 presidential elections of my life, I continued the tradition and volunteered to go door-to-door, asking Republican households to go vote.  Afterward, I would go home and eagerly watch the returns come in and races get called. Election day in the United States used to be fun.  It was an event.  To political nerds, it was like Super Bowl Sunday.

Unfortunately, election day is no fun anymore.  Democrats have ruined it, like so many other things in America.  This is not because the results of the midterm elections were disappointing.  It has little to do with who wins or loses.  It is about the mechanics of the election itself.  There are four main reasons why that special Tuesday in November no longer holds the magic that it once did.

  1. We don’t get results. –  Back when there were VCRs, my parents tried to record the Alfred Hitchcock classic, North by Northwest.  The only problem was that the tape cut off with Cary Grant hanging from Mount Rushmore, a literal cliffhanger.  We had to wait until we could go to the video store and rent it to find out what happened.  Nobody wants things left up in the air without a resolution.  This is, sadly, how election day is now.  We go to bed without knowing who won.  It took a few days to find out who had won the Senate, and it took 10 days before we finally found out that Republicans had taken control of the House in last month’s midterms.  That is partly because, after the 2000 election, nobody wants to call a race incorrectly and have to pull it back.  However, the bigger culprit is that there has been an assault by the Democrats on election day itself for years.  Now, there are mail-in ballots and ballots dropped off anonymously at drop-boxes, with at best, questionable authenticity, that take days to count.  There is no good reason for this.  For most of my lifetime, people voted in person on election day, and we had far more trustworthy and reliable results, and knew most of them on election night.
  • Early voting. – In many states, there is early voting for weeks prior to election day, before the campaigning is done.  This means that if somebody is persuaded in the final weeks of the campaign after they cast a vote, they are out of luck.  This also eliminates the ability of voters to take into account some late-discovered information about a candidate.  For example, some people believe that the FBI’s reopening its investigation into Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton’s staff and their use of a private email server swung the election to President Donald Trump.  Now, many people have already voted, so late-breaking information is too late. 
  • News coverage is terrible. –  Years ago, the media was biased in favor of the Democrats, but they generally tried not to turn off half of the country by openly and obviously attacking Republicans and rooting for the Democrats.  Now, most of the television news coverage is so bad that it is unwatchable.  On an election day when the Democrats had destroyed the economy, leading us to a plummeting stock market, massive inflation, and small businesses struggling to survive, the news coverage steered the conversation away from that and towards whatever sideshow they could come up with.  One example was an interview by ABC news anchor David Muir with a moderate Republican, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, at his victory party after he won re-election.  While Governor Sununu tried to focus on his supporters and his vision for New Hampshire and our country, Muir kept trying to segway into irrelevant things, like the 2020 election, and the media’s favorite target of hatred and vitriol, President Trump.  It was uncomfortable to watch.  The media will bend over backward to avoid any subject that will be damaging to Democrats, no matter how obvious.  This election, the crumbling economy was the elephant in the room, but what you heard on election day was, “yeah, yeah, inflation, but what about so-and-so?”  Every single one of you, whatever your political leanings, know that if the Republicans were in power with a bad economy, the media would be laser-focused on it.  The last time the news was fun to watch on election day was in 2016, and not because the coverage was good, but because most of the “journalists” looked like they were about to burst into tears.
  • Distrust of the results and fear of cheating. – Whichever side you are on, you cannot deny that a large portion of the country does not trust our elections right now.  This is a problem.  When things are going poorly, people need to be able to vote out those in power.  If they distrust our elections and feel like no matter how they vote, the elections are rigged, it leaves them backed into a corner with no other recourse except to fight in other, possibly less peaceful, ways.  We need to restore accountability and faith in our elections.  When I see a close race on election night, I get a sinking feeling, because I know that they will find enough ballots, however they do it, to make the Democrat win. I don’t trust the results, along with a whole lot of other people, and while there is an easy fix, Democrats refuse to do it because they don’t care if people have faith in our elections as long as they stay in power.  If anybody honestly cares about preserving our democracy, they would want to alleviate these fears.  Calling people “election deniers” and trying to vilify them does not work.  Neither does saying, “you can’t prove fraud.”  That is the point.  Due to mail-in ballots and a refusal to verify voters with ID at polling places, there is nearly no way to prove fraud.  That does not prove that cheating is not rampant.  It just proves that we have no way of knowing how much cheating is happening.  Instead of gaslighting people who have concerns about our election security, just prove to them that our elections are secure.  It is actually very easy to do.  Simply require voters to show ID when they cast their ballots, in person, on election day.  If we do this, it makes it very difficult to cheat. 

Election day can be fun again if we fix these four things.  Hopefully, we can do it.  If not, what is left for Democrats to try to ruin?  Groundhog’s Day?

Can We Trust Our Elections? Grading Each State

There should be an area of agreement between all reasonable people in the United States.  For our country to survive we must be able to trust the integrity of our elections.  If elected officials are abusing their power like they are in places like California right now, we need to have the ability to vote those people out of office or else there is no check against tyranny.  When dishonest politicians are able to steal elections, they will. 

Both Democrats and Republicans say that they want honest and fair elections.  Both parties have complained about the integrity of our recent and upcoming elections.  Unfortunately, they have different ideas about what is taking away the trust in our elections.  We heard a lot from Democrats about Russian interference in the 2016 election.  In fact, they have spent much of the last 4 years investigating it over and over again.  Many of you may wonder how they allege that the Russians changed the outcome in 2016.  Did they somehow hack our voting systems and change the vote counts?  Did they fly in Russians to swing states where they cast illegal votes?  No.  The alleged Russian interference is that they said mean things about Hillary Clinton on Facebook.  While that may be frustrating to Hillary fans, it does not actually make it easier for anybody to cast fraudulent votes.  Plus, how many of you would change your vote because some stranger said something mean on Facebook?

Republicans ask a different question about voting that we should all agree is important.  Do we know who is casting the votes in our elections and that no shenanigans are happening with those votes?  If we don’t it opens the door to voter fraud, stolen elections, and the end of our government of the people, by the people, and for the people.  Do not fall for the media line that very few people get convicted of voter fraud so nobody does it.  That’s like saying a Las Vegas club that doesn’t check ID’s has no underage people inside because no underage people got caught. 

How can we be more confident about who is voting and that they are correctly counted?  The only way to be sure is to require in person voting, on Election Day, with matching photo ID to verify that the person is who they say they are.  It’s easy and it’s common sense.  Unfortunately, not everybody wants to have honest elections. 

Each state sets up their own election laws, so some are far more reliable than others.  Some are unwisely pushing for mail-in voting, with nobody there to verify that the person who filled out the ballot is the actual person that the ballot belongs to, and with no guarantee that the ballot will be delivered or counted.  In fact, there is already an investigation into military mail-in ballots that were apparently opened and thrown into the garbage in Pennsylvania.  The only time a mail-in ballot should be accepted is for overseas military personnel.  All 50 states now allow some form of mail-in voting, so nobody gets a perfect score on preventing voter fraud, but some states at least have a few precautions set up. 

Unfortunately, other states not only lack rules to prevent election shenanigans, but they come up with ideas to make cheating so easy that the Houston Astros wish they had thought of it.  “Ballot harvesting” is the shady practice of allowing a third party to collect ballots and deliver them to be counted.  This has all of the negatives of mail-in voting with the added problem of having partisan people targeting which ballots to bring in.  In California this practice caused congressional districts that had always voted one way to flip.  In many of the cases the returns had one candidate ahead at the end of election night only to swing wildly to the other side the next day.  Whenever the results from election night change like that it raises major red flags as to the integrity of those votes.

It’s pretty unbelievable, but some states do not even require you to show identification when you go to vote.  That means we have no idea who is casting votes in those states.  Here in California, if I walked into a polling place and said my name is Fred Johnson, then I’m Fred Johnson.  Apparently in Pennsylvania their Secretary of State said that they would not even throw out a ballot if the signature doesn’t match.

What we need is a report card to know which states have safe enough elections to trust the outcome.  Below you will find it, with a grade based on how many precautions are set up to make sure that each vote has been properly cast by the correct, legal voter. 

  StateVoting Only on Election DayVoting In Person OnlyID Required to Verify Who Is VotingBallot Harvesting and Other Notable Rules  Grade
    Alabama    YesNo, but an excuse is required    YesAbsentee ballots require witnesses and must be received before the close of polling    A
  Alaska  No  No  Yes, but non-photo ID acceptedA special needs voter can have a representative return a ballot  C  
    Arizona    No    No  Yes, but non-photo ID acceptedFamily member, household member, or caregiver can return ballots    C
  Arkansas  NoNo, but an excuse is required  YesBallot harvesting allowed, but limit two ballots per authorized agent  B
California  NoNo, and everyone receives a mailed ballot  NoBallot harvesting allowed  F
Colorado NoNo, all mail-in election NoBallot harvesting allowed F
  Connecticut  YesNo, but an excuse is required  Yes, but non-photo ID acceptedOthers can return votes for disabled voters, with restrictions   B
  DelawareYes, but early voting passed for 2022  NoID is requested, but voters can sign an affidavit to avoid showing IDUnspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed   D
  Florida  No  No  YesOthers can return votes for disabled voters, with restrictions  C
  Georgia   No  No  YesOthers can return votes for disabled voters, with restrictions  C
    Hawaii    NoNo, all mail-in electionID is requested, but voters can recite their date of birth and address insteadUnspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed    F
  Idaho  No  NoID is requested, but voters can sign an affidavit to avoid showing IDUnspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed  F
Illinois No No NoBallot harvesting allowed F
    Indiana    NoNo, but an excuse is required, and coronavirus is not a valid excuse    YesMail ballots must be received before the close of polling    B
  Iowa  No  NoYes, or another voter can vouch for their identityBallot harvesting allowed  D
Kansas No No YesBallot harvesting allowed D
  Kentucky  YesNo, but an excuse is required  YesOthers can return votes for disabled voter, with restrictions   A
    Louisiana    NoNo, but an excuse is required, and coronavirus is not a valid excuse ID is requested, but voters can sign an affidavit to avoid showing IDMail ballots require a witness signature and must be received before the close of polling    B
  Maine  No  No  NoBallot harvesting allowed, but limited to five at a time  F
Maryland No No NoBallot harvesting allowed F
    Massachusetts    No    No    NoBallots may be delivered by a family member or from a healthcare facility    F
      Michigan      No      NoID is requested, but voters can sign an affidavit to avoid showing IDFamily member or certified election assistant can deliver ballots.  Ballots must be received by 6 pm on Election Day    D
  Minnesota  No  No   NoDesignated agent can return up to three ballots  F
   Mississippi    YesNo, but an excuse is required      YesUnspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed.  Mail ballots require witnesses and must be received before the close of polling    B
    Missouri     Yes      No    Yes, but non-photo is acceptedBallots can be returned by a family member or a team of election authorities and require witness signatures    B
    Montana    No    No    Yes, but non-photo is acceptedLaw limited who could return ballots and only six per person, but a judge has held up the law    D
    Nebraska  No  No  NoOthers can return up to two ballots except for campaign workers   D
  Nevada  NoNo, and everyone receives a mailed ballot  NoBallots may be returned by a family member  F
New Hampshire    YesNo, but an excuse is requiredIf ID is not presented, the voter signs a challenged voter affidavit and votes a regular ballot. After the election a mailing is sent and the voter must sign and return it; if it is not returned, the voter will be investigated for voter fraud.Family members, nursing home staff, and residential care staff can return up to four ballots which must be received before the close of polling    B   
  New Jersey  NoNo, and everyone receives a mailed ballot  NoAn authorized messenger can return up to three ballots  F
  New Mexico  No  No  NoA caregiver or immediate family member can return ballots F
  New York  NoNo, but an excuse is required  NoUnspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed   F
North Carolina    No    NoNo, although a voter ID law was passed by voters, it was blocked by an Obama appointed judge. Ballots require witness signature and may be returned by a near relative or legal guardian    F
 North Dakota    No    No    YesOthers can deliver up to four ballots, cannot be a candidate or be compensated    C
  Ohio  No  NoYes, but non-photo is acceptedBallots can be returned by a family member   D
 Oklahoma    No    No  Yes, but non-photo is acceptedCopy of ID, notarized ballot, or two witness signatures required    C
Oregon NoNo, all mail-in election NoBallot harvesting allowed F
      Pennsylvania      No      No      NoIf voter becomes too sick to vote a representative, deputy sheriff or constable can deliver an emergency absentee ballot    F
  Rhode Island  No  No  YesUnspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed  D
South Carolina    YesNo, but an excuse is required, and coronavirus is not a valid excuse      YesBallots may be returned by others except candidates or paid campaign workers and require witness signatures    A
 South Dakota     No       NoID is requested, but voters can sign an affidavit to avoid showing IDPhoto ID required for a mail ballot.  An authorized messenger may deliver ballots, but if more than one they must notify the person in charge of the election   D      
  Tennessee      NoNo, and a judge ordered them to allow no-excuse absentee voting      YesUnspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed    D
    Texas     NoNo, but an excuse is requiredPhoto ID requested. Voters who do not possess an acceptable form of photo ID and cannot obtain one, may present a supporting form of ID and execute a Reasonable Impediment DeclarationPhoto ID required for a mail ballot.  A household member, relative or person lawfully assisting a voter who is disabled or cannot read the ballot may return the mail ballot    C
  Utah  NoNo, all mail-in election  NoUnspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed  F
  Vermont  NoNo, and everyone receives a mailed ballot  NoUnspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed  F
    Virginia    No        No    Yes, but non-photo acceptedWitness signature required for mail ballots.  A designated representative can return ballot for a voter who is incapacitated or hospitalized    C
  Washington  NoNo, all mail-in election  NoUnspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed   F
 West Virginia  NoNo, but an excuse is requiredYes, or be identified by a poll workerAnyone can return up to two ballots  B
  Wisconsin      No      No      YesUnspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed. Photo ID required for a mail ballot and witness signature required    C
  Wyoming  No  No  NoUnspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed  F