Our Blog

June 9

Intimidation.

Here's how vote-harvesting works in California: You're a registered voter, so you receive a ballot in the mail. A few days later someone knocks at you door offering to deliver your ballot.

We have no first-hand knowlege of what happens during these interactions (strangely we've seen no bodycam or social-media accounts) but judging by the impressive results, the visitor who arrives to collect your ballot isn't some kindly church volunteer who easily accepts No for an answer. Vote-harvesting efforts are largely funded by unions and the far left (which would explain why leftist candidates are the chief beneficiaries), where dissent isn't tolerated.

The rules say that collectors may retrieve only ballots already signed and sealed but no serious person could actually think this is true in every case, or even in a majority of cases. It's more likely that many voters simply sign the ballot and hand it back to the collector who ... completes the process. For the person targeted, there's no trouble and no consequence for voting the wrong way. (Yes, many think their ballot isn't secret.) That would explain why batches of harvested ballots are cast for one candidate.

The Trump-deranged media are quick to say there's "no evidence" of misconduct. Exactly. That's because, as we can see, the system is designed to obscure the evidence. Anything that does emerge can always be dismissed as a one-off. Nearly impossible to demonstrate a pattern.

Millions of California voters don't view this alarming loss of liberty as anything to fret about. Either they arrived from the Third World or are sustained by a monthly government check, so this is just part of life for them. Which is why immigrant and low-income neighborhoods are where the "voter assistance" occurs.

This didn't start in California. If you lived in Chicago during the reign of Mayor Richard Daley everyone knew there were consequences if one's election-day absence was noted by the local Democrat precinct captain, usually a city employee whose job depended on maximizing the neighborhood turnout. On the next collection day your trash can could be skipped. Your service could be resumed usually by donating to a candidate or cause recommended by the precinct captain, who also had fund-raising responsibilties.

It's legal. So what are we going to do about it?

Here's some old political advice: If you know something's going to happen, predict it.

In advance of (or perhaps as part of) the slate card mailing, the Republicans can inform each voter that
a) voter intimidation is illegal
b) your ballot is secret
c) no one but you can fill out your ballot
d) by the way here's a number you can call to report a violation.
That should dampen the other side's effort. They'll be less brazen about abusing the law if they know someone is watching.

Expensive? Yes. But when you consider the tens of millions spent on ineffective ads supporting hapless Republican candidates, one can easily argue the money is out there for something cheaper that actually delivers votes.

Had the Republicans tried something like this in Los Angeles, it's likely Spencer Pratt would have made it into the November election.

Before Mr. Pratt is forgotten, it bears mentioning that he performed a great service for the Republicans everywhere. He demonstrated that a smart common-sense campaign will move the needle but surrender will only move it back.

Note to Republicans: Surrender is not a strategy.

Sept 6, 2024

Today they're mailing out absentee ballots in North Carolina. (In Ohio and presumably elsewhere they've already mailed absentee-ballot applications.) Which means that in Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, the Democrats are hard at work "banking" their votes.

Oh. Wait a minute. Now we're hearing the mailing has been delayed because of RFK Jr.'s lawsuit to have himself removed from the ballot. Which just underscores the absurdity. And here's another absurdity: this deadline was established by a Republican-dominated legislature.

Which underscores our general gripe: the Republican election system is broken largely because it's dominated by frivolous incumbents in safe districts who haven't a clue of what it's like to campaign in majority-D precincts.

September 3, 2024

Once again the WSJ's Gerard Baker hits it out of the park. Main take-away:

They are the teachers, equipped with the knowledge and authority to direct their hapless charges. We are the students, naive and ill-informed, sometimes attentive but too often insubordinate, with minds that need to be shaped and disciplined.

This self-image of Democrats and their role in government as benevolent, omniscient educators emerges from a mindset that represents a greater challenge to our freedoms than any attempts at interference in the lives of law-abiding Americans the Republicans are accused of planning. The didactic ethic, in which our leaders treat us as people who can’t make good decisions for ourselves, has been vividly on display in the last decade

We aren’t well-informed enough to understand the damage fossil fuel-energy production is doing to the environment. So we need to be told what kind of car we can drive and what kind of stove we can cook on. We can’t be trusted with information from unreliable sources. Like schoolchildren reading naughty books and listening to schoolyard gossip, we must be protected from “misinformation.” We aren’t sufficiently developed to comprehend the dangers of firearms. So our leaders must determine who can have access to them. We didn’t have their deep grasp of the science behind pandemics. So we had to be instructed to stay home, wear masks and submit ourselves to vaccination on pain of losing our livelihoods. Lacking their sophisticated biological knowledge and understanding of geopolitics, we weren’t permitted to speculate about what caused Covid-19 either. We must accept the teacher’s word on the subject.

Not content with ensuring our compliance with their social studies and science curricula, our governor-didacts insist on teaching us ethics. We need to be educated in how sinful we are as white people, as Americans, guilty inheritors of Western civilization. We must learn the new catechism of critical theory and expiate our sin.

August 30, 2024

Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

From “Those Who Remain” by G. Michael Hopf

August 28, 2024

from RFK Jr.'s social-media post after endorsing Trump:

"Make America Great Again' recalls a nation brimming with vitality, with a can-do spirit, with hope and a belief in itself. It was an America that was beginning to confront its darker shadows, could acknowledge the injustice in its past and present, yet at the same time could celebrate its successes.
It was a nation of broad prosperity, the world's most vibrant middle class, and an idealistic belief (though not consistently applied) in freedom, justice, and democracy. It was a nation that led the world in innovation, productivity, and technology. And it was the healthiest country in the world. I have talked to many Trump supporters. I have talked with his inner circle. I have talked to the man himself. This is the America they want to restore."

As we repeat elsewhere on this site, indeed the political sands are shifting.