Election advice from Down Under

image credit: timesofmalta,com

Many news sites and bloggers covered this weekend's surprise upset election in Australia. Polls predicted a win for Labor but the Liberal party (their conservative party) won re-election. One reader on the thread under the Conservative Treehouse's report was on point:

Query says: 

May 18, 2019 at 7:51 pm 

And here’s a hint for the US. 

Australia does manual voting with paper ballots marked by hand, double counted by the Aust. Electoral Commission, with scrutineers from both parties observing. No hanging shards [chads], no second rate voting machines, no boxes of ballots conveniently found to sway a close election. The US merely needs to scale up the operation. That way there are multiple counting sources and no computer algorithm that someone somewhere has a key to.

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Next target: Michelle Malkin

image credit: medium.com

Jeffrey Lord has more on Big Tech censorship at American Spectator:

Facebook has censored Michelle Malkin — for protesting censorship.

. . .

Michelle rejects identity politics out of hand, proudly calling herself an “American.” Amen and Amen! But in the Jim Crow-style of the Left she is what the Left loves to call a “woman of color.” Thus her posting standing up for free speech and opposing censorship has to be silenced. Because, like Diamond and Silk, Michelle Malkin is a threat to the totalitarian mind-set of Facebook rulers who have appointed themselves the Gods of who gets to say what and where.

The battle against the totalitarian mindset that is increasingly, vividly targeting conservatives with social media to unperson and de-platform them has now reached out to get Michelle Malkin.

Read the rest here.

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Today: Armed Forces Day

In the United States, Armed Forces Day is celebrated on the third Saturday in May. It falls near the end of Armed Forces Week, which begins on the second Saturday of May and ends on the third Sunday of May.  

That's today, Saturday, May 18.

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Ways to Stuff the Ballot Box

This blog recently reported that 

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced a plan to create a work group that will focus on modernizing the state's voter registration, which would include automatic voter registration. (via Watchdog Ohio)

California serves as a How-To Manual of facilitating voter fraud. Here’s Monica Showalter at American Thinker:

California's election has unsettled many, given the role of ballot-harvesting in supposedly flipping Reagan-country Orange County entirely blue in the last midterm.

But the details rolling out now are getting far more disturbing. RealClearPolitics investigative reporter Susan Crabtree has put together a string of criminalities surrounding the way California runs its elections which makes one wonder if California has adopted the Venezuela Model of electoral governance.

She starts with a sickening new report that California's election was hacked through its "motor-voter" system, the system the state has to register as many votes as possible. If a California resident applies for a drivers license in the state, he (or she) gets registered to vote whether he likes it or not. An applicant can only say 'no' to the registration, not 'yes,' the 'yes' is embedded into the system. It's a set-up that relies on the "honor system" for a voter's claims of valid citizenship to vote and there is no verification. 

Read the rest here. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s website is here, with multiple ways to let him know what you think.

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Censorship creep

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker reports (“The next stage in tech overlords' censorship: De-platformingun-PC blogs”):

It's no longer just Facebook, Twitter, and Google who are censoring online content that offends political correctness.  Wordpress.com, a blog-hosting site that offers anyone the opportunity to create and publish a blog at no cost, has decided to de-platform — in other words, kill — a blog that has been operating for 15 years: Creeping Sharia.

As Pamela Geller points out, this move by Wordpress.com is itself an example of the blog's focus of creeping sharia happening in real time.  Shutting down a critic of creeping sharia is an example of creeping sharia.

Related: Newsbusters reports on a development (which may be a start, but doesn’t seem to me to go far enough):

The White House has announced a new system that gives Americans the power to call out foul play by tech companies.  

As of May 15 it read, “SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS should advance FREEDOM OF SPEECH.” 

“Too many Americans have seen their accounts suspended, banned, or fraudulently reported for unclear ‘violations’ of user policies,” it continued before delivering a bipartisan message that freedom of speech is a right held by all Americans. “No matter your views, if you suspect political bias caused such an action to be taken against you, share your story with President Trump.”

The submission form begins with a survey asking users to submit their names and confirm that they are citizens of the United States. It then asks whether they were censored via major Big Tech platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It also listed an option for “Other” acknowledging that there are plenty of other platforms which deplatform users.

It then asks, if possible, for a link or screenshot of the restricted post. 

In a reversal of Trump’s earlier praise of Twitter as a way to reach his audience free of being filtered by the media, this White House page asked users for permission to send newsletters via email so that the administration “can update you without relying on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.”

The Trump administration said it was “fighting for free speech online,” while the liberal Washington Post characterized the new system as part of Trump’s “war against Facebook, Google and Twitter.” 

Rest of the report is here. Hmm. Either these companies need to be trust-busted, or they need to be subject to regulation by the FCC.

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Stephen Moore goes to Cleveland

Stephen Moore recently withdrew as a nominee for the Federal Reserve Board, but he had a look at Cleveland in his report on “Ohio The Comeback State” at Townhall:

I recently traveled to the Cleveland area and the renaissance of this once-Rust Belt city is remarkable and visible to the naked eye. The downtown area was bustling with economic activity and building cranes. Great restaurants, a vibrant music scene, museums, wonderful and accessible sports stadiums and swanky new office buildings and condominiums.

Research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland documents that thanks to the increase in jobs in construction and manufacturing, the unemployment rate is down to 5.1% and the "labor markets remain healthy." Per capita GDP rose 3.4% in 2017 and the per capita GDP is closing in on a record-high $70,000 a year.

Cleveland certainly has its problems, but it’s nice to read some good news. The rest of Mr. Moore report is here.

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Happy Mother's Day

image credit: pinterest.com

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