Voter Integrity: Interestingly enough, we are now getting more and more cases that are actually being heard to determine there was (and is) voter fraud in various elections and that electronic voting machines are a problem.
The EASIEST fix to all of these uncertainties is to implement two easy reforms:
– Numbered paper ballots that can be scanned and audited if/when needed
– Live video coverage of vote counting locations with criminal penalties for obstructing or purposely manipulating the videos to make legitimate observation difficult/impossible
Many countries around the world use paper ballots to count millions of votes and that task is done within hours of their polls closing. We can do this in local municipalities without a huge hassle.
That would avoid contentious poll watching, monitoring, and fighting over potential flipped votes, machines not working etc. and provide for a trackable paper trail of all votes cast.
Now, more than ever, we need to restore trust in our electoral system. If you believe in fair and honest elections, Republican or Democrat, there should be some easy, common-sense reforms EVERYONE should/could agree with to restore faith in our electoral system.
January 6th Tapes: The release of these tapes is bothersome to say the least. We now know many folks were just following police instructions, walking through the buildings and peacefully protesting, albeit trespassing given the circumstances. Give them a ticket, not prison time.
Those who damaged property or were involved in violent acts deserve appropriate penalties.
But is should also be clear that there were MANY ‘plants’ within the crowd, be they from the FBI or ANTIFA, who were there to facilitate, agitate, and create chaos for political gain. That too should be exposed and appropriately dealt with.
Read more below and follow me on Twitter & GETTR – @sanuzis
–Saul Anuzis
Click Here for Past Commentary from Saul
Saul’s News Rewind Video
This Week: Bidenomics label quietly dropped from speeches as inflation takes a toll on Seniors and NRCC fundraising hits record pace!
Links to the articles discussed in the video:
https://www.axios.com/2023/11/30/inflation-young-low-income-higher-rates-generations
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house/nrcc-hasnt-seen-slump-fundraising-many-feared
DONATE TO 60 PLUS!
We’re fighting every day for seniors and retirees by working to eliminate the death tax, ensure healthcare freedom, and save social security for future generations. With your essential help we will continue the fight. You can even donate using Bitcoin and Ethereum!
Thank you for your help and support of the 60 Plus Association.
Donate Today! Visit https://www.60plus.org/donate
Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female Supreme Court justice, dead at 93
Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court and the justice who held the court’s center for more than a generation, died Friday, the court said in a statement.
Her cause of death was complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness. She was 93.
Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement that O’Connor “blazed an historic trail as our nation’s first female justice.”
He said the justices “mourn the loss of a beloved colleague, a fiercely independent defender of the rule of law, and an eloquent advocate for civics education.”
From the early 1990s until her retirement in 2006, she was the indisputable swing justice, often casting the deciding vote in the court’s most contentious cases. Her lack of a consistent judicial philosophy rankled some, but others praised her practical bent as a moderating influence.
Senate rankings: 5 seats most likely to flip
Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) decision to retire has made the Senate landscape in 2024 even more complicated for Democrats.
The party was already facing an uphill slog to hold on to its Senate majority, as it prepared to protect seats in West Virginia, Montana and Ohio — three states where the GOP nominee for president will be heavily favored.
Manchin’s name on the ballot suggested a competitive race. Without him, the Senate seat seems wrapped for the GOP as a gift.
Losing the state would leave no room for another loss for Democrats if they hope to keep their majority, which now stands at 51-49 with Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) voting with Democrats.
Still, the party is hopeful it can carry the day even as a recent run of polls show former President Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, leading President Biden.
Trump’s rise has given a major boost to Republicans, who believe they can win not only in red territory, but purple states as well if that stays true a year from now.
Here are the five Senate seats most likely to flip…
Not Only Can Trump Win, Right Now He’s the Favorite To Win
There’s a strange disjunction in the discourse about the 2024 elections. On the one hand, when presented with the proposition “Trump can win,” people will nod their heads sagely and say something along the lines of: “Of course he can; only a fool would believe to the contrary.”
At the same time, whenever polling emerges showing that Donald Trump is performing well in 2024 matchups, a deluge of panicked articles, tweets (or is it “X”s?), social media posts, and the like emerge, reassuring readers that polls aren’t predictive and providing a variety of reasons that things will improve for President Biden.
As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Elections analysts seem to know that they are obliged to mouth the words that Trump can win, but deep down, they don’t believe them. The notion that Biden is the favorite is deeply internalized, likely for a variety of reasons.
So let us set the record straight: Trump can win. Not in a “maybe if all the stars align and then Russia changes the vote totals (even somehow in states like Michigan that use hand-marked paper ballots)” kind of way. Just flat out: Trump can win.
Media Launder Stories Like The Fentanyl Letters To Blame Republicans For Everything
The true danger to American democracy comes from the radical left. Just don’t expect to hear it from the corporate media.
On Nov. 9, Americans learned that law enforcement intercepted a handful of fentanyl-laced letters intended for election offices across at least five states, including Georgia’s Fulton County. While alarming, fentanyl isn’t like anthrax — briefly touching it isn’t deadly. But ingesting it is — just ask the families of the 74,000 Americans who died from fentanyl in 2022 alone, much of it produced in China and smuggled in through President Biden’s wide-open southern border.
But dozens of media outlets used the poison letters to peddle the left’s favorite new “crisis”: Death threats to election workers from angry Republican voters.
I’ve tracked this myth since it was hatched in early 2021 as a sequel to the now-infamous “Zuckbucks” scheme, in which partisan billionaire Mark Zuckerberg effectively privatized the 2020 election in swing states with $420 million. After Biden’s victory, activists pivoted to solidifying that funding, only now from the federal government.
But there’s a price: With more federal funding comes even more federal control over our elections.
The scheme works because sympathetic reporters never have to prove that election officials are at a greater risk of threats from kooks post-2020 than they were pre-2020 — they simply assert it, as virtually all did with the fentanyl letters.
Voting machine trouble in Pennsylvania county triggers alarm ahead of 2024
Officials say the issue did not affect the outcome of the votes, but are nonetheless racing to restore voter confidence ahead of next year’s election.
Voters in the swing county of Northampton, Pennsylvania, mostly moved on after their new touchscreen voting machines glitched during a down-ballot judge’s race in 2019.
But when a similar issue cropped up earlier this month, it triggered a backlash within the county — one that has left state and local election officials in this key swing state racing to restore voter confidence ahead of what could be another contentious presidential election.
“We’re at the peak of mistrust of one another, but until that subsides, counties like ours need to be nearly perfect, and I think this system allows us to do that,” County Executive Lamont McClure told POLITICO before Northampton certified the vote on Tuesday, arguing the glitch resulted from human error.
The debate playing out in Northampton comes as election officials across the country are still contending with the consequences of Donald Trump’s 2020 fraud claims, which often centered around how votes are counted at the local level. With Trump a current frontrunner for the Republican nomination, that skepticism could only mount.
The stakes are particularly high in Pennsylvania, which boasts 19 electoral votes and is expected to be a top battleground next year. Northampton is home to roughly 220,000 registered voters. Trump won the state by just 44,000 votes in 2016. He lost it by roughly 80,000 votes four years later.
Northampton’s case also underscores the delicate balance politicians and election officials say they must strike when investigating legitimate problems, without providing fodder to conspiracy theorists.
Over 20 Millions Immigrants Are Set to Vote in 2024
Since the 2020 election, several lawmakers have sounded the alarm that migrants may be voting in U.S. elections illegally.
The worries are again ramping up as the 2024 presidential election nears the corner.
According to an analysis from a Left-wing American Immigration Council, more than 23 million immigrants are set to vote in the upcoming election, revealing the electoral power of the United State’s annual importation of more than a million immigrants has given to naturalized citizens.
“As more immigrants naturalize and become eligible to vote, they continue to gain political power,” the analysis states. “The number of immigrant voters is only projected to rise in the next decade, and in some states, foreign-born voters are already capable of deciding elections.”
Election Fraud Cases Have Been Filed in New Jersey, Connecticut, Arizona, and Iowa
A new primary election has been ordered by a Connecticut state court amid allegations of election fraud, with Democrats in Massachusetts and New Jersey also accused of or charged with election fraud. This brings the total of election-related criminal cases across the country to at least three. Bridgeport Superior Court Judge William Clark overturned the results of a Democratic mayoral primary and ordered a new election in connection to allegations of absentee ballot abuse. The general election for mayor was set for Nov. 7, but the judge told lawyers that they had 10 days to work with city and state election officials to determine a potential date for the new election.
In neighboring Massachusetts, a Democratic mayoral candidate is accused of bribing residents to vote. Election officials for the city of Springfield say they witnessed voters being brought to the city hall for early voting and that at least some expected to be given cash after they voted for Democratic candidate Justin Hurst. Video footage has also been released of a man associated with Hurst’s campaign allegedly handing cash to voters last weekend. City officials claim in sworn affidavits that the distribution of $10 bills, clearly visible in surveillance footage, represents voter fraud. Hurst denied all the allegations ahead of Election Day on Tuesday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts could not confirm or deny if an investigation was taking place, but charges have yet been filed. In contrast, election fraud investigations that have been confirmed in New Jersey have announced charges against two Democrats. Paterson City Council President Alex Mendez (D) is facing additional charges in a 2020 election fraud case, after having previously been charged in June 2020 and February 2021. Last month, state Attorney General Matthew Platkin’s office announced that new charges have been brought against Mendez and his associates regarding mail-in ballot election fraud, which occurred during the 2020 election that was mostly conducted by mail. Mendez’s campaign allegedly collected ballots that were not sealed by voters and examined them at the campaign headquarters to see if they were cast for him. Ballots that were not cast for Mendez were allegedly destroyed and replaced with a ballot for him.
The Right to Self-Defense Has Never Been More Important
The world is a dangerous place. Even in America, where we’re blessed to live in relative peace compared to many other regions of the world, there are always threats to our safety and well-being. It’s a reality that we must all accept and prepare for. One place to start is to be equipped and trained as a responsible gun owner to protect ourselves and our families.
Many anti-gun politicians in Washington would prefer to ignore the data, but the reality is that millions of Americans who are seeing violence unfold around the world or in their own neighborhoods are stepping up and becoming responsibly armed citizens. In the last two years, the United States has consistently witnessed over 1 million monthly firearms sales, as evidenced by the 1.3 million federal background checks conducted in October.
We all understood the historic surge in gun sales during the COVID-19 pandemic reflected Americans’ weariness of civil unrest and the need to defend themselves and their families. We know law enforcement cannot be everywhere and you often only have minutes or seconds to respond to an immediate threat. While there was a slight dip in sales this year as we emerged from the pandemic, recent events have led to new spikes, both at the national level and among specific demographics and local communities.
Gun ownership reaches record high with American electorate
A record share of voters in NBC News’ latest poll say that they or someone in their household owns a gun.
More than half of American voters — 52% — say they or someone in their household owns a gun, per the latest NBC News national poll.
That’s the highest share of voters who say that they or someone in their household owns a gun in the history of the NBC News poll, on a question dating back to 1999.
In 2019, 46% of Americans said that they or someone in their household owned a gun, per an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. And in February 2013, that share was 42%.
“In the last ten years, we’ve grown [10 points] in gun ownership. That’s a very stunning number,” said Micah Roberts of Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm that co-conducted the poll with members of the Democratic polling firm Hart Research.
“By and large, things don’t change that dramatically that quickly when it comes to something as fundamental as whether you own a gun,” Roberts added.
Gun ownership does fall along partisan lines, as it has for years, the poll finds.
Warren has opposed ObamaCare repeal efforts and advocated for ‘Medicare for All’
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., “is at long last acknowledging that ObamaCare has increased healthcare prices” and created other unintentional consequences, the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote Friday.
Warren, who has long supported the Affordable Care Act, the official name for ObamaCare, has recently come to an “epiphany” about “industry consolidation and price increases caused by the healthcare law,” per The Journal.
A letter to the Health and Human Services Department inspector general was aimed at determining if “vertically-integrated health care companies are hiking prescription drug costs” and are “evading federal regulations.”
In a bipartisan letter, she and Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., complained “that the nation’s largest health insurers are dodging ObamaCare’s medical loss ratio (MLR),” according to The Journal.
As Warren describes in the letter, health insurers have exploited the situation, making for “sky-high prescription drug costs and excessive corporate profits.”
“In functioning markets, generic drugs cost 80 to 85 percent less than their name-brand equivalents, giving patients much-needed relief from high drug costs and saving taxpayer dollars,” Warren wrote. “But patients – including patients in public health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid – who either use or are compelled to use vertically integrated specialty pharmacies are not seeing this relief.”
The senators continued: “By owning every link in the chain, a conglomerate like UnitedHealth Group – which includes an insurer, a PBM, a pharmacy, and physician practices – can send inflated medical payments to its pharmacy. Then, by realizing those payments on the pharmacy side – the side that charges for care – rather than the insurance side, the insurance line of business appears to be in compliance with MLR requirements, while keeping more money for itself.”
George Santos expelled from House of Representatives
In a historic vote, the House of Representatives voted to expel Rep. George Santos (R-NY) from Congress, making him just the sixth member of the House to face that punishment.
In order to expel Santos, the House required a two-thirds majority, and the effort succeeded despite House GOP leadership voting against the resolution, citing concerns about future precedent. The expulsion passed with 311 voting for it, including 105 Republicans, 114 voting against it, and two voting present.
The vote ends an era in Congress in which, from the beginning, the embattled New York Republican continually made news for his antics, legal woes, lies, and flamboyant interactions with the media.
New York Republicans who have sought Santos’s removal for months took a victory lap after the House adjourned on Friday, expressing confidence they can replace the former freshman with “a good conservative Republican.”
“It’s a sad day,” said Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), one of the New York Republicans who led the charge for Santos’s ouster. “We wish we never had to be here. But now the focus on is on doing the work of the American people.”
“We didn’t want to spend the first 11 months talking about George Santos, and I hope today is the beginning of not having to talk about him,” he added.
