Ultimate dumpster fire

Tom Stiglich cartoon at Townhall

7 hours wasted

Did anyone watch the 7-hour Townhall on CNN with Democrat candidates campaigning on the subject of climate change? I didn't think so. Here is what you missed:

Ramirez cartoon via Townhall

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Cleveland makes the list

image credit: imgbin.com

Issues and Insights is the editorial blog for Investor’s Business Daily. Here’s part of John Merline’s column (h/t Instapundit):

On Friday, Trump attacked Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, who had been complaining about conditions at the border, by saying “his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous.” Trump called it “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

He’s right about the rats. Last year, the pest-control service Orkin rated Baltimore as one of the “rattiest cities,“ behind Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Cleveland.

. . .

Indeed, if you want to see what liberal Democratic policies tend to produce, go to any one of those cities, or other Democratic strongholds. Democrats promise to help the poor and downtrodden, grow the middle class, make life more fair. But their policies consistently produce the opposite.

. . .

Washington, San Francisco, New York, Detroit, and Cleveland are also among the 10 worst-run cities, according to WalletHub. Three other Democratic strongholds — Oakland, Flint, Hartford — make WalletHub’s worst-run list. 

Yet, whenever the desperate conditions of these cities get discussed, they’re treated either as if these problems simply fell out of the sky, that somehow Republicans are to blame, or that more taxpayer money will solve everything. The connection to liberal policies never gets made.

. . .

Read the rest here.

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Nancy Pelosi's problem

Ben Garrison cartoon credit: conservativedailynews.com

Newt Gingrich’s take on the chaos in Congress:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi – and the old guard Democrats at large – are in a very difficult position.

The radical young voters the Democrats have been courting for years have finally elected like-minded radical young representatives – and Pelosi and her leadership team has no control over them.

A big reason why, as I mentioned on Hannity this week, is that there is a wide generational gap between Democratic House leadership and freshmen Democrats, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and others.

. . .

The result is, these new Democrats are throwing a party – and the grandparents aren’t invited. Pelosi and members of Democratic leadership are simply trapped in a cycle of responding to headlines. This is how you end up with the so-called Green New Deal, which is a work of complete legislative fantasy that would utterly bankrupt the country. It’s also how the House got to a second forced public condemnation of the new Democrats’ flagrant anti-Semitism. Pelosi simply can’t control the young, radical, progressive wing, which is ardently socialist, anti-Israel, and contemptuous of America and its history. 

. . .

Already, because of Pelosi’s inability to control her caucus, the Democrats can’t do anything positive. It’s making them desperate. The most they can do is focus their efforts on their shared vendetta against President Trump and everyone in his orbit.

. . .

These divides in the Democratic Party are only going to become more pronounced as Pelosi’s grip slips further. The new Democrats’ private party will become increasingly raucous until it has lost all touch with normal Americans. Moderate Democrats will have to continue answering for their colleague’s radicalism. Pelosi and the grandparents will not be invited along, but they will still be left cleaning up the mess.

The rest of Mr. Speaker's column is here.

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Re: the media’s double standards

image credit:catholicleague.org

Here's Howie Carr on the media’s double standards (h/t Instapundit):

Have you ever noticed how differently Republicans are treated in the media than Democrats?

Every newsroom in the country used to have what was called the “AP Stylebook” to use in writing news stories.

Now you need two AP stylebooks, one for Democrats, about whom seldom is heard a discouraging word, and a second for the GOP, with a hundred different pejoratives.

Two parties, two vocabularies. One positive, one negative — very bad, evil in fact.

Consider the testimony by Michael Cohen last week in front of various Congressional committees.

For example, since he worked for Donald Trump, Cohen was described about a million times as a “fixer.” Democrats, on the other hand, have lawyers.

To prevent the release of embarrassing information, Democrats’ lawyers negotiate NDA’s — nondisclosure agreements. Republican fixers’ NDAs are “hush money,” or “bribes.”

Hillary Clinton paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrat operatives who then bought or made up false Russian dirt on Trump — that was opposition research. Republicans, on the other hand, “collude!”

Republicans lie, Democrats misspeak.

Democrats plan, Republicans scheme.

Republicans hire lobbyists, Democrats use advocates. Republicans employ operatives or hired guns, Democrats prefer community activists.

If a Democrat changes his or her position on an issue, they have evolved … grown. Republicans “flip-flop.”

Whenever an unfamiliar politician is ensnared in some scandal, you naturally wonder which party he or she is a member of. If the “embattled” pol is a Republican, affiliation is usually noted in the headline, or at the very latest in the first paragraph.

If, however, you reach the third paragraph of the story without his party being identified, you can be absolutely certain you are reading about a Democrat miscreant.

. . .

The rest is here at the Boston Herald.

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Election ‘reform’ encourages voter fraud

image credit: zazzle.com

A couple of days ago, I posted “How To Steal An Election,” highlighting analyses by J. Christian Adams at PJ Media. Today at Fox News, John Fund is sounding the alarm as well:

Pelosi's election ‘reform’ encourages voter fraud to benefit Dems

When Democrats reclaimed majority control of the House of Representatives under Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California this month, they had many choices on what to make their top legislative priority.

It says a lot that the new majority made a bill to upend federal election law House Resolution 1. The measure would give Democrats a partisan advantage over Republicans in everything from campaign finance to regulating online political ads.

Democrats would even go after the right of states to set “the time, manner and place” of elections that is guaranteed to them by the Constitution. States would be required to automatically register everyone in government databases as a voter unless individuals explicitly opted out.

In 2012, the Pew Research Center found that more than 3 million people were registered to vote in more than one state. In addition, 1.8 million dead people were on the voter registration rolls.

Requiring automatic voter registration would inject even more errors and potential for fraud into our already dubious voter rolls.

Under the Democratic bill, states would be required to offer voter registration online. They would also be required to offer at least 15 days of early voting and unlimited absentee balloting.

All of these so-called “reforms” trample on the rights of local election officials and raise the risk of fraud. And there is no crying need for such federal big-footing.

. . .

Please read the rest here. The group “MassFiscal” attempted to identify election and voter irregularities in Massachusetts and encountered considerable resistance. The report concludes that

other Democrats may not be concerned about evidence of possible voter fraud, but MassFiscal is hoping the local U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI may be. The group has sent its findings to the federal officials and is hoping someone in government will listen.

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How To Steal An Election

image credit: iowalabornews.com

The Electoral College is one of our guardians of states’ rights. J. Christian Adams reported on another priority of the Democrat-majority House of Representatives:

If you thought the midterm elections had problems, wait until you learn about Nancy Pelosi’s plan to terminate state control over American elections.

Democrats in Congress have announced their top legislative priority, and it isn’t health care, immigration, or taxes. Instead, they want to centralize power over elections in Washington, D.C. H.R. 1 is number one on the legislative agenda because it is the number one priority of House Democrats, leftist groups, deep-pocketed dark money, and those who use election process rules to help win elections -- or at least to cause chaos.

The bill is a 571-page dreamscape of wild wishes and federal mandates on states. The Constitution decentralizes power over American elections and puts states in charge. H.R. 1 would undo that.

Decentralization promotes individual liberty. When power over elections is centralized, it is easier for that power to be abused. When power over elections is decentralized, no single malevolent actor can exert improper control over the process. That is precisely why Democrats are so eager for Washington, D.C., to have more power over our elections.

H.R. 1 has 218 cosponsors. It forces states to implement mandatory voter registration. If someone is on a government list -- such as receiving welfare benefits or rental subsidies -- then they would be automatically registered to vote.

Few states have enacted these systems because Americans still view civic participation as a voluntary choice. Moreover, aggregated government lists always contain duplicates and errors that states, even without mandatory voter registration, frequently fail to catch and fix.

H.R. 1 also mandates that states allow all felons to vote. . . .

H.R. 1 would also force states to have extended periods of early voting, and mandates that early voting sites be near bus or subway routes. . . .

H.R. 1 mandates same-day voter registration and would obliterate state registration procedures. 

The full report is at PJ Media here. I doubt this will ever pass, but it certainly exposes the Progressive Left’s agenda.

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Tea Party and MAGA vs Uniparty

Image via Conservative Treehouse

Sundance has must-read history lesson starting with the Tea Party movement in 2009, its metamorphosis into the MAGA movement, and why the GOP continues to break its promises and obstruct President Trump’s initiatives. A few extracts from Sundance’s history lesson at Conservative Treehouse:

An interesting pattern of seemingly disconnected political stories is beginning to show signs of a common continuity.  In the bigger of the big pictures seven words continue to set the baseline: “There are trillions of dollars at stake”.

When the common sense Tea Party movement formed in 2009 and 2010 it contained a monumentally frustrated grassroots electorate, and the scale of the movement caught the professional republican party off-guard. When Donald Trump ran for the office of the presidency he essentially did the same thing; he disrupted the apparatus of the professional republican party.

The difference between those two examples is one was from the bottom up, and the second was from the top down.  However, the commonality in the two forces resulted in the 2016 victory.

. . .

A few years pass and the issues that spurred the Tea Party movement remained unresolved.  In 2015 Donald Trump taps in to that exact same Tea Party frustration toward the control authority within one-half of the DC UniParty; again, the professional republican apparatus was disrupted.  The movement re-branded and now the MAGA movement wins the presidency.

So it should not come as a surprise to see an eerily similar response from within the GOP toward the new threat; the Trump presidency.  After all, there are two constants in an ever changing universe: (1) “NeverTrump” didn’t go away; and (2) the Bush-clan, or GOP old guard, will never accept losing power.

The professional republicans and the professional democrats, ie. “the uniparty”, have a common enemy in President Trump.  The vulgarian leader of the deplorable coalition never asked for permission; never paid the indulgency fees; never attended the necessary cloistered club meetings paying homage; and never offered the indulgent team of political elites terms for his takeover.

Thus Donald Trump, just like the Tea Party, would never be accepted.

. . .

There are no MAGA lobbying groups in Washington DC advocating for policies that benefit economic nationalism.  On this objective President Donald Trump stands alone.

We don’t need a third party in Washington DC, we actually need a second one.

I no longer think of the GOP as the “party of Stupid.” I think of the GOP instead as the “Party of Bought” -- that would be the (R) half of the “Uniparty.”

Read the whole thing here.

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The Pocahontas / Fauxcahontas Factor

 image credit: watcherofweasels.org

Kimberley Strassel at the Wall Street Journal fills in some of the details behind Richard Cordray’s run for Ohio Governor ("Biggest Loser: Elizabeth Warren"):

For a decade Ms. [Elizabeth] Warren, 69, has been busy trying to remake Washington in her progressive image. Her role in creating a new financial regulatory apparatus gave her outsize influence over the bureaucracy. Her successful 2012 Senate bid gave her a megaphone to rail against “billionaires, bigots and Wall Street bankers”—and Donald Trump. The left begged her to challenge Hillary Clinton in 2016 and rebrand the Democratic Party as a populist, progressive force. Ms. Warren demurred, leaving the field to Bernie Sanders.

She instead carefully designed this year’s midterms as her launchpad to the presidency. Ms. Warren seeded into key races several handpicked progressive protégés, in particular Richard Cordray, former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (who ran for Ohio governor), and a former law student, Katie Porter (who ran in a California House district). Ms. Warren geared up a shadow war room, built ties with some 150 campaigns, directed millions of fundraising dollars to select candidates, and thereby earned chits. She dispersed staffers to early primary states and crisscrossed the country herself. A week ago she was dominating Ohio headlines at rallies for Mr. Cordray. If Mr. Trump was on the ballot nationally, Ms. Warren was on it in the Buckeye State.

The lead-up to Tuesday had already been brutal for her. Hoping to elbow her way back into the headlines after Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Ms. Warren chose in mid-October to release a five-minute video and piles of documentation aimed at proving she really is at least 1/1,024th Native American. The ridicule was ruthless, matched only by the anger Democrats directed at her for distracting from the election.

But Tuesday compounded the disaster. Ms. Porter—who campaigned in Orange County on single-payer health care, expanded Social Security and debt-free college—flamed out to two-term Rep. Mimi Walters. In Ohio, Mr. Cordray lost to Attorney General Mike DeWine.

Read the rest here.

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Jobs or Mobs?

DC Whispers reports:

By nearly every possible metric the Trump administration is succeeding across the board—success which in turn is benefiting tens of millions of Americans all across the nation regardless of race, gender, religion, or political affiliation.

Meanwhile, Democrats now seem to only offer character assassination, threats of violence, actual violence, and promises of further chaos. 

Jobs not Mobs—coming to an election result near you…

So - today’s meme via Chicks on the Right:

###

The Great Divide

DC Whispers published this tweet:

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Today’s scary read: the moving dictatorship

Image credit: trump.news

Daniel Greenfield redefines the “Deep State” and it’s scary. The full transcript of his speech to the  South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention in Myrtle Beach is also posted at Zero Hedge (h/t Instapundit).   Here are a few extracts:

the Democrats have rejected our system of government

…

You can hate the other party. You can think they’re the worst thing that ever happened to the country. But then you work harder to win the next election. When you consistently reject the results of elections that you don’t win, what you want is a dictatorship.

Your very own dictatorship.

The only legitimate exercise of power in this country, according to the left, is its own. Whenever Republicans exercise power, it’s inherently illegitimate.

The attacks on Trump show that elections don’t matter to the left.

. . .

It’s the moving dictatorship. It’s the tyranny of the network.

You can’t pin it down. There’s no one office or one guy. It’s a network of them. It’s an ideological dictatorship. Some people call it the deep state. But that doesn’t even begin to capture what it is.

To understand it, you have to think about things like the Cold War and Communist infiltration.

A better term than Deep State is Shadow Government.

Parts of the Shadow Government aren’t even in the government. They are wherever the left holds power. It can be in the non-profit sector and among major corporations. Power gets moved around like a New York City shell game. Where’s the quarter? Nope, it’s not there anymore.

The shadow government is an ideological network. These days it calls itself by a hashtag #Resistance. Under any name, it runs the country. Most of the time we don’t realize that. 

. . .

Civil wars swing around a very basic question. The most basic question of them all. Who runs the country?

Is it me? Is it you? Is it Grandma? Or is it bunch of people who made running the government into their career?

America was founded on getting away from professional government. The British monarchy was a professional government. Like all professional governments, it was hereditary. Professional classes eventually decide to pass down their privileges to their kids.

America was different. We had a volunteer government. That’s what the Founding Fathers built.

This is a civil war between volunteer governments elected by the people and professional governments elected by… well… uh… themselves.

In the intro, Greenfield acknowledges and thanks “anyone and everyone still fighting the good fight.” Including Tea Party people volunteering in their communities. Read the rest here.    # # #

Trump Supporters Protest Bill Kristol Fundraiser In The Rain

Cleveland Deplorables

This just in: Patrick Howley at Big League Politics reports:

 A handful of indefatigable Deplorables protested Bill Kristol’s appearance at a $300-a-plate luncheon for the Cuyahoga County Republican Party in Ohio Friday.

#NeverTrump town crier Kristol’s speech at the luncheon inflamed Trump-supporting Ohio Republicans, who remember the difficulties of taking on the GOP Establishment to elect Trump on John Kasich’s home turf.

Brian Wollet, an executive committee member of the Cuyahoga County party, had his Trump sign ready to go to meet Kristol and the luncheon guests.

Wollet described it as “A cold and rainy morning that felt more like November than May.”

Nevertheless, Wollet told Big League Politics that the protest was “fun.”

Cleveland Tea Party and Main Street Patriots co-founder Ralph King told Big League Politics that the public appreciated the protest, which took place outside the Marriott East.

“The weather was literally terrible. It was cold, it was windy, it was rainy. But we had a good reception among the cars that were driving by. So we were well received by traffic and the public. Friday morning, raining, nasty, blowing, I was happy with the response,” King said.

“I’m still floored that they had William Kristol to come in to address anybody. When you read this guy’s stuff or look at what he stands for, two things come to mind. The snobbery of the Establishment elite is why the American public rejected both the Democrat and Republican parties and elected Donald Trump. William Kristol, listening to him talk, you would think the Democrat Party would bring him in to talk. The way he continually criticizes President Trump? He should be used as a fundraiser for the Cuyahoga County Democrats.”

King pointed to Kristol’s current Weekly Standard article “After Trump,” which he calls “absolutely ridiculous.”

“William Kristol is a cheerleader for the Democrats. You know, being in DC, that the Democrats and establishment Republicans are the same. There’s no difference,” King said.

“The party was doing everything they could to increase attendance. Most of the people I associate with would never go to anything like this,” he continued.

“They don’t get why Donald Trump was elected. They think it was because of the Republicans. No! It didn’t have anything to do with you. Conservatism? That was rejected too. Ted Cruz didn’t win. People wanted somebody to get things done. If they wanted conservative ideology, they would have elected T-shirt Ted Cruz, the T-shirt preacher.”

Kristol, his preferred candidates vanquished in the primaries, led a harebrained scheme to run a third-party challenger against Trump in the general election to help Hillary Clinton’s chances. General James Mattis, now the Defense Secretary, considered Kristol’s offer but turned him down. After a lot of searching and speculation — involving Mitt Romney among others — Kristol backed no-name National Review writer David French for president. French declined to run. Kristol then supported the independent bid of Evan McMullin, who ran in Utah to peel off Mormon votes from Trump to try to stop the Republican nominee from reaching 270 in the Electoral College.

McMullin, known colloquially as “McMuffin,” and Kristol failed.

Kristol’s star has dimmed considerably since the Iraq War, a failed experiment based to a large degree on Kristol’s own inaccurate and dishonest projections. But despite helping to tank a Republican administration and fighting tooth and nail against a Republican nominee, Kristol still lingers in Republican circles, talking to people for $300 a pop. 

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Steyn: Laws are for the Little People

art credit: zazzle

Mark Steyn has been on hiatus for several months, but he popped up yesterday and posted a column before the debate. As usual, he knocks it out of the park. The entire article is here, but here’s a small sampling:

As I've said for years - on radio, TV and in print - for me the overriding issue in American politics is the corruption. In the Obama era, we have seen the remorseless merging of the party and the state - in the IRS, in the Justice Department and elsewhere. Whatever one feels about, say, Scandinavia, they at least come to their statism and socialism more or less honestly. Not so the United States.

It's bad enough that Democrats aren't agitated about this corruption - but then it works to their advantage. Slightly more mysterious is why so many of my friends on the right aren't incensed by it.

. . .

Needless to say, if you get your news from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, etc, etc, you will be entirely unaware of all this. 

. . .

The present arrangements work for the political class, the permanent bureaucracy, their client groups, and the lawless. But not for millions of the law-abiding. Consider illegal immigration, for example, which pre-Trump was entirely discussed in terms of the interests of the lawbreakers - how to "bring them out of the shadows", how to give them "a path to citizenship", celebrate their "family values" and "work ethic" - and never in terms of the law-abiding, whose wages they depress, whose communities they transform, and, in too many criminal cases, whose lives they wreck.  . . .

. . .

Hillary is the most known known in the history of knowns. And what we know of her is that she's stinkingly corrupt, above the law, and able to suborn entire government agencies in the cause of her corruption. Where do you think we're gonna be after eight years of that?

As Trump says repeatedly. “We will never fix a rigged system by relying on the people who rigged it in the first place.” The full article is on Steyn's website here. 

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Hillary Rides the Subway

Photo op shows that Hillary's slogan "Fighting For Us" means fighting for Everyman:

YouTube: Hillary needs five swipes

h/t Conservative Treehouse, who notes that Hillary has not driven a car in over 20 years! 

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Governor Kasich: Which party do you belong to?

art credit: thebullelephant.com

From RyanLovelace yesterday at The Washington Examiner (beware of the link; it’s a user-UNfriendly website):

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said he isn't willing to serve as anyone's vice president, but he indicated party affiliation would not matter to him when choosing his own running mate.

After losing the Arizona primary and trailing a candidate who is no longer running for president, Kasich hit the campaign trail in Wisconsin and told voters only he could beat the Democrats in November.

He ruled out the possibility of serving with any GOP nominee, but would not oppose putting a Democrat near the top of the Republican ticket himself in November.

“I'm going to be nobody's vice president, OK?” Kasich said, interrupting a questioner at a town hall in Wauwatosa. "I will not be anybody's vice president. Just so you know."

So, he won’t run for Vice President on the GOP ticket, but if nominated for President by the GOP (presumably nominated at a brokered convention, since mathematically he cannot win with delegates), he’d be happy choosing a Democrat as his running mate?!?!

Who’s side is he on? Actually, it looks like he’s on the side of the elite establishment political class, both GOP and Democrat (the so-called Uniparty). He’s accepted campaign contributions from George Soros and his surrogates; see CTPP’s earlier blog here. The GOPe does not care whether it wins or loses, as long as the elite noses are still in the trough. And Gov. Kasich is part of the elite’s game plan.

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Presidential Primary Debates : Links

The first GOP primary debate between Republican candidates for President is in Cleveland in a couple of weeks:

Thursday, August 6, 2015

9pm ET - Republican Primary Debate 

Aired On: Fox News Channel

Location: Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, OH

Sponsors: Fox News, Facebook

Moderators: Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace

Rules: Top 10 candidates in an average of 5 national polls

Candidates: To be determined

Notes: Fox News has added a candidate forum at 1pm ET the same day for candidates who don't make the debate cut

The website with details on subsequent debates is here. 

The website for upcoming primary debates between Democrat candidates is here; details are not yet posted.

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Phyllis Schlafly on early voting, especially in Ohio

 Photo credit: dailycaller.com

Phyllis Schlafly on early voting, especially in Ohio, from Townhall:

Although the midterm elections are still two weeks away, about two million Americans have already voted. The circus of early and mail-in voting undermines the federal law, which provides: "The Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, in every even numbered year, is established as the day for the election."

When our national elections were held on one unifying day, discussions and debates could continue among family, neighbors and the media up until the day that virtually everyone voted. The one and only debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter occurred only a week before Election Day in 1980, with the candidates tied in the polls while a television audience of perhaps 120 million people watched.

Why rampant early voting is even allowed remains a mystery. The Constitution requires that the members of the Electoral College, who elect the president, must cast their votes on the same day throughout the nation, because our founding fathers wisely sought to avoid the mischief caused by early voting.

Yet in this year's race for the U.S. Senate in Iowa, which may decide which party controls the Senate beginning January, some 170,000 Iowans had already cast their votes before the candidates held a key debate. Those votes that are cast before debates are held can hardly be desirable.

In Congress, a representative may change the vote he cast for or against a piece of legislation up until all the votes are cast and the voting period is closed. But the millions who vote early cannot change their vote based on new information, and candidates are wasting time and money campaigning in front of people who have already voted.

Because of the Ebola scandal, some may wish to change their vote, but that is impossible for those who have already voted. Some early voters may die before Election Day, and early voting allows the votes of those dead people to be included. If there is any dispute over whether their votes were valid or fraudulent, they are no longer with us to defend themselves.

Typically, there are no poll watchers during early voting, so the integrity of the casting of the ballots cannot be monitored. Many of the early votes are cast in a coercive environment, such as a union boss driving employees to the polls and watching over the process so there is no guarantee that their votes will be private.

Democrats promote early voting for the same reason they oppose voter ID: because they view early voting as helping their side. In the absurdly long 35-day period of early voting in Ohio in 2012, Democrats racked up perhaps a million-vote advantage over Republicans before Election Day was ever reached.

. . .

Romney lacked a message, too, but he was mainly defeated by the Democrats' superb ground game, which exploited early voting in key states such as Florida and Ohio. By continuously updating their computer-based information about who had not yet voted, Democrats could harass and nag low-information voters until they turned in their ballots.

Read the rest here.

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