My newest book has Gretchen Whitmer on the front cover, and Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom on the back cover. The book is called, “The COVID-19 lockdown is killing more people than it is saving.”
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091DWWWL6
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091DPTGF3
All the terrible problems the Democrat party and their media allies go on and on and on about — racism, gun violence, policing, etc. — those problems happen almost exclusively in Democrat-run cities.
As Democrat-Run Cities Go to Hell, Life Remains Safe and Clean in MAGA Land
By John Nolte
March 29, 2021
If we could remove Democrat-run cities from America, America would no longer have gun violence or hate crime or mass-shooting or homeless or violent crime or policing or pollution crises.
I’m not saying America would be perfect. What I am saying is that the “crises” would go away.
In other words, the only thing stopping America from being a safe and clean country where we all live together without any racial tensions, are these shithole cities where Democrats are in charge.
All the terrible problems the Democrat party and their media allies go on and on and on about — racism, gun violence, policing, etc. — those problems happen almost exclusively in Democrat-run cities.
Democrats and the corporate media attack Trump supporters as violent and racist and anti-environment, and yet out where we all live, out here in Rural America, out here in MAGA Land, most of us own guns and yet, we have no gun violence crises. Oh, and our air and water and streets are safe and clean and we have no racial tensions.
We have other problems, sure. The poverty rate in my rural county is higher than the poverty rate in Baltimore, but we have almost none of the violence that plagues Baltimore. Rural America also has issues involving drug abuse, but Rural America has none of the murder and violence that comes with drug abuse in the shithole cities where Democrats are in charge.
Look at this weekend…
While Rural America enjoyed peace and quiet and brotherhood, in these shithole cities where Democrats run things, life continued to be a hell of violence, homelessness, and racism.
In Democrat-run Washington, D.C., a 15-year-old girl and a 13-year-old girl were charged with the felony murder of Mohammad Anwar, some poor, innocent guy just trying to make a living in a Democrat shithole city. This allegedly happened during an alleged car-jacking that reportedly involved torture with an alleged taser.
Carjackings in Democrat-run D.C. are up 350 percent this year, and that’s after a 150 percent increase last year.
And what’s the Democrat mayor of D.C.’s idea to solve this problem? Blame the victims:
Meanwhile, in Democrat-run Chicago, 30 people were shot over the weekend. Thirty! In one city. Over one weekend. Three died.
How would you like to live in Democrat-run Oregon, where the left-wing domestic terrorists in Antifa are allowed to spread terror without fear of penalty?
Oh, and things are so bad in Baltimore, Maryland, a shithole run exclusively by Democrats since 1967, the city has given up entirely prosecuting certain crimes. If you thought things were bad in Baltimore before…
People can feel free to cherry pick the occasional violence and shootings that happen in Rural America. No one is saying those exceptions do not happen in MAGA Land, but they are exceptions, not the norm.
Nothing, however, changes the fact that 90 to 95 percent of the time, when there’s a hate crime or gun violence or violent crime or riots or racial strife or bad policing, it is where Democrats are in charge. And in many cases, Democrats have enjoyed a monopoly of political power in those shithole cities for decades. So…
Dear Democrats: instead of blaming us Trumptards for all of your problems, maybe you should be asking us for advice on how to live. Because…
Life is sweet and clean and safe and serene out here in MAGA Land.
Biden Administration Urges Supreme Court To Let Cops Enter Homes And Seize Guns Without A Warrant
Biden Administration Urges Supreme Court To Let Cops Enter Homes And Seize Guns Without A Warrant
By Nick Sibilla
March 23, 2021
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear oral argument in Caniglia v. Strom, a case that could have sweeping consequences for policing, due process, and mental health, with the Biden Administration and attorneys general from nine states urging the High Court to uphold warrantless gun confiscation. But what would ultimately become a major Fourth Amendment case began with an elderly couple’s spat over a coffee mug. (more…)
Biden administration waves FBI background checks for babysitters who take care of migrant children. Taxpayers are paying $775 per child per day for this babysitting.
US waives FBI checks on caregivers at new migrant facilities
By NOMAAN MERCHANT
March 27, 2021
HOUSTON (AP) — The Biden administration is not requiring FBI fingerprint background checks of caregivers at its rapidly expanding network of emergency sites to hold thousands of immigrant teenagers, alarming child welfare experts who say the waiver compromises safety.
In the rush to get children out of overcrowded and often unsuitable Border Patrol sites, President Joe Biden’s team is turning to a measure used by previous administrations: tent camps, convention centers and other huge facilities operated by private contractors and funded by U.S. Health and Human Services. In March alone, the Biden administration announced it will open eight new emergency sites across the Southwest adding 15,000 new beds, more than doubling the size of its existing system.
These emergency sites don’t have to be licensed by state authorities or provide the same services as permanent HHS facilities. They also cost far more, an estimated $775 per child per day.
And to staff the sites quickly, the Biden administration has waived vetting procedures intended to protect minors from potential harm.
Staff and volunteers directly caring for children at new emergency sites don’t have to undergo FBI fingerprint checks, which use criminal databases not accessible to the public and can overcome someone changing their name or using a false identity. (more…)
The bleeding hearts let another dangerous, violent serial criminal out of jail. Anyone who’s not a bleeding heart can guess what happened next.
Why was Syracuse murder suspect let out of jail week before killing?
March 26, 2021
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The woman accused of killing 93-year-old Connie Tuori at Skyline Apartments in Syracuse had an extensive criminal past, and was released by Judge Felicia Pitts Davis one week before allegedly murdering Tuori.
Over the past year, Victoria Afet was arrested at least 10 times. Her offenses included stabbing, fighting and stealing.
Eight days before Tuori’s murder on Feb. 26, Afet was arrested for armed robbery and attacking a 74-year-old woman at the same apartment building. Court documents say she bit the woman.
“Less than 24 hours later, despite the objections of the Onondaga County DA’s office, Ms. Afet was released with no bail and a week later is alleged to have murdered Connie Tuori,” said Onondaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick said that under bail reform, a judge can set bail for a repeat offender. His office requested bail for $50,000, but Pitts Davis let Afet go without any bail.
Pitts Davis is currently in her first term as a city court judge. She ran as a Democrat and was sworn in on Dec. 27, 2020.
CNYCentral reached out to Pitts Davis to ask why she did not set bail for Afet. We were told by Supervising Judge James Murphy, “Judges are ethically prohibited from publicly commenting on pending cases.”
RIP Beverly Cleary
https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2021-03-26/beverly-cleary-childrens-author-obituary
Beverly Cleary, beloved and prolific author of children’s books, dies at 104
By Valerie J. Nelson
March 26, 2021
Beverly Cleary, the grande dame of children’s literature who wrote humorously and realistically about the anxieties of childhood in such enduringly popular books as “Henry Huggins” and “Beezus and Ramona,” has died. She was 104.
Cleary, who penned more than 30 books over five decades, died Thursday in Carmel, where she had lived since the 1960s.
A former children’s librarian, Cleary became one of the most popular authors in the history of American children’s books.
More than a decade ago, the Library of Congress declared Cleary a living legend, and her birthday — April 12 — is celebrated with a national Drop Everything and Read Day, held annually in libraries and schools.
With witty yet economic prose and a gift for recalling the inner emotions of childhood, she wove timeless tales that took young readers back to the Portland, Ore., of her youth.
Her stories have served as a collective touchstone for the childhoods of many baby boomers and succeeding generations who saw themselves in the pages of her work.
Eventually, Cleary sold more than 75 million books around the world.
“She showed me that the inner life of any child, the dynamics of family and pets, can be captured as rich, comic, fascinating, poignant and meaningful,” Susan Patron, a Newbery Medal-winning novelist and former youth services librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library, told The Times in 2011.
In 1984, Cleary won the Newbery for a book that was a departure from her usual light-hearted fare, “Dear Mr. Henshaw,” the story of a 10-year-old boy who corresponds with a famous author while his parents divorce.
Despite the serious subject, her trademark playfulness was evident from the boy’s first letter: “My teacher read your book about the dog to our class. It was funny. We licked it.”
The idea had literally arrived in the mail when two boys from different parts of the country asked her to write about divorce.
By then, Cleary had already written more than 25 books about what she called “ordinary children” with everyday lives — and in the process changed the landscape of children’s literature.
With the publication of her first book, “Henry Huggins,” in 1950, Cleary began to usher in an era of realistic storytelling for young people more used to morality tales or “reading about children in England,” as she later said.
Her clear-eyed approach influenced many authors who followed, helping “bring a low-key realism to the territory of childhood, highlighting the dramas, large and small, of daily life,” Times book critic David L. Ulin wrote in 2011.
Another highly successful children’s author, Judy Blume, said in a 94th birthday salute to Cleary: “You made me fall off the sofa, laughing. … When I began to write you were my inspiration. You will always be my inspiration.”
Cleary invented one of her most popular characters — the spirited, pesky Ramona Quimby — as an afterthought when she realized that everyone she wrote about appeared to be an only child.
A typical Cleary creation, Ramona was believable yet invoked giggles. She drove her older sister Beezus crazy and was always getting into jams. Ramona might bake a cake, but she would also mix her favorite doll into the batter. While making a sign to persuade her father to stop smoking, Ramona made a mistake universal to childhood when she misjudged her space and wrote “NOSMO KING.”
Eight Cleary books revolved around the amusingly imperfect heroine, including Cleary’s last, “Ramona’s World” (1999), in which the fourth-grader marks her “zeroteenth” birthday. “Ramona and Her Father” (1977) and “Ramona Quimby, Age 8” (1981) were named Newbery Honor books and the series of Ramona books was made into the 2010 movie “Ramona and Beezus.”
The earlier novels “Beezus and Ramona” (1955) and “Ramona the Pest” (1968) were her “twin masterpieces,” writer Bruce Handy declared in 2006 in Vanity Fair: “Imagine if Henry James had drafted episodes of ‘Leave it to Beaver.’ ”
People always assumed that she was Ramona, Cleary said, but she asserted that she was far better mannered than her uninhibited creation. The author did, however, admit to having “Ramona-like thoughts!”
An only child, Cleary was born Beverly Atlee Bunn on April 12, 1916, on her family’s 80-acre farm near McMinnville, Ore.
Hard times forced her parents, Chester and Mable Cleary, to sell the family farm. They moved to Portland when she was 6 and her father went to work in a bank.
“I had a bad time in school in the first grade,” Cleary told The Times in 2011. On the farm, she had been “free and wild,” and it was a shock to be “shut up in a classroom.”
It didn’t help that she found the first-grade reader to be “incredibly stupid.” In third grade, Cleary discovered “The Dutch Twins” by Lucy Fitch Perkins and from that moment on was a reader.
For a sixth-grade assignment about a favorite literary character, Cleary wrote about a girl who visited Bookland and talked to a number of famous figures.
“A feeling of peace came over me as I wrote far beyond the required length,” Cleary recalled in “A Girl From Yamhill,” one of her two memoirs. “I had discovered the pleasure of writing.”
“The teacher said that when I grew up, I should write children’s books,” she recalled in the 2011 Times interview. “So I put that in the back of my mind.”
Her practical mother suggested she have another job that would provide steady income, so Cleary decided to become a librarian.
During the Depression, her father lost his job, just as Ramona’s father would decades later in Cleary’s fiction.
Cleary was able to afford to go away to school by living with a cousin and attending Chaffey College, a community college then in Ontario. She earned pocket money shortening skirts for classmates.
She transferred to UC Berkeley and earned a bachelor’s in 1938 in English. At a school dance, she met Clarence Cleary, an accountant and fellow student six years her senior. They married in 1940.
Beverly moved to Seattle to study to be a children’s librarian at the University of Washington and received her degree in 1939. Soon after, she was hired by the public library in Yakima, Wash., and, in an oft-told story, recalled a request that stayed with her: “A grubby little boy” had asked, “Where are the books about kids like us?”
During World War II, Cleary worked as a librarian on an Army base in Oakland.
In 1948, she and her husband settled in a small home in the Berkeley Hills. When she came upon an unused ream of paper in a closet, Cleary took it as a sign that she should start writing, she later recalled.
“Henry Huggins was in the third grade,” Cleary began. “His hair looked like a scrubbing brush and most of his grown-up front teeth were in. He lived with his mother and father in a square white house on Klickitat Street,” an actual street in Portland near where Cleary had grown up.
“Ribsy” (1964), one of several sequels, unfolded from the perspective of Henry’s “plain ordinary city dog, the kind of dog strangers usually called Mutt or Pooch,” she wrote.
After her twin children, Marianne and Malcolm, were born in 1955, they eventually enriched her writing by bringing home stories from school, she later said.
When Cleary saw Malcolm — her reluctant reader — playing with a toy motorcycle while he was sick, she was inspired to write the 1965 book “The Mouse and the Motorcycle,” which was made into a movie in 1995.
Boys often wrote to tell her that the book, about a reckless mouse with a penchant for adventure, was the first they had ever enjoyed reading, Cleary later said. She also wrote two sequels.
Her kid-lit schoolyard included “Ellen Tebbits” (1951), about a third-grader who is always fighting and making up with her new best friend, and “Otis Spofford” (1953), a prank-loving fourth-grader who meets his match in Ellen.
Cleary did what she set out to do, writing “humorous books” that “made children want to read,” she said more than once. “I’ve had an exceptionally happy career.”
Cancel culture goes after USA Today editor Hemal Jhaveri for saying that the Boulder shooter was white. Here’s a picture of the shooter. He sure looks white to me.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
March 26, 2021
Hemal Jhaveri just got fired from USA Today because she said the Boulder shooter was white.
Here’s a picture of the Boulder shooter. He sure looks white to me.
But regardless of whether Jhaveri was right or wrong about the shooter’s race, I think it sucks that USA Today fired Jhaveri.
Cancel culture sucks.
Biden gets his index cards mixed up. After a reporter asked him a pre-screened question about guns, Biden read his pre-written answer from the index card about infrastructure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agTSJ9bqh58
Taxpayers Stuck with Bill of $392.69 per Person per Night on Hotels for Illegals Crossing Border
Taxpayers Stuck with Bill of $392.69 per Person per Night on Hotels for Illegals Crossing Border
By Jim Hoft
March 26, 2021
This is infuriating.
Joe Biden and the Democrat majority government are spending $72,000 per person to house illegal aliens and fake refugees in hotels in Texas and Arizona.
The average median household income in America in 2019 was $65,712 per household. And that was before the, before the Fauci lockdowns in 2020.
Via Breitbart.com:
Biden’s Plan to House Illegal Immigrants in Hotels to Cost Taxpayers $72,000 per Border-Crosser: Report
President Joe Biden’s plan to house migrants in United States hotels is set to cost American taxpayers about $72,000 per border crosser awarded a room, analysis details.
This week, the Biden administration announced it awarded a Texas-based nonprofit an $86 million contract to pay for hotel rooms in the U.S. for border crossers. The contract is for six months and will provide rooms to about 1,200 migrant families.
Analysis by former federal immigration judge Andrew Arthur, a fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, finds the cost to taxpayers is expensive.
Arthur writes at CIS.org:
On March 20, Axios reported that the Biden administration has entered into a six-month contract worth $86 million to house 1,200 migrant family members near the Southwest border in Texas and Arizona. That works out to $71,666.67 per migrant, paid by your tax dollars, meaning that you are now a co-conspirator to one of the largest smuggling schemes in history.
Keep in mind, as the outlet notes, that $86 million is just the beginning, as the contract (“through Endeavors, a Texas-based nonprofit” — I would hate to see the tab if they were in it for the money) “could be extended and expanded”.
Why does the Biden administration need $86 million in hotel space? ICE, which detains adults and adults traveling with children (family units or FMUs), is already using its family residential centers (FRCs) as “rapid-processing centers with the goal of releasing families within 72 hours”. But apparently even with that short turn-around time, the agency is running out of space.
By the way, $71,666.67 divided by six months equals $392.69 per person per night. One night at the AAA-rated three diamond Best Western Plus Laredo Inn & Suites for two adults and two children is $127.49 per night ($111 for AAA members), and includes a free breakfast, refrigerator, and microwave.
Keeping the public schools closed is mean, cruel, inhumane, and evil, and it has nothing to do with COVID-19
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
March 26, 2021
Please take a lot at all these things, and please note the date on each one.
All of these things, taken together in context, proves that keeping the public schools closed has nothing to do with COVID-19.
Keeping the public schools closed is mean, cruel, inhumane, and evil.
May 28, 2020
Reopening schools in Denmark did not worsen outbreak, data shows
May 29, 2020
Denmark, Finland say they saw no increase in coronavirus after schools re-opened
July 13 , 2020
German study finds no evidence coronavirus spreads in schools
July 21 2020
No known case of teacher catching coronavirus from pupils, says scientist
September 18, 2020
Suicide among children during Covid-19 pandemic: An alarming social issue
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7500342/
January 8, 2021
Escalating suicide rates among school children during COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown period: An alarming psychosocial issue
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0253717620982514
February 10, 2021
Child suicides are rising during lockdown
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-child-suicides-lockdown.html
March 1, 2021
Matt Meyer, the president of the Berkeley teachers union, says it’s too dangerous to open the public schools. But Meyer was just filmed taking his own daughter to a private school. I never trust anyone who isn’t willing to live under the same rules that they expect everyone else to live under. Clearly, the real reason for keeping the public schools closed has nothing to do with safety.
March 9, 2021
LA teachers warned to not share vacation pics as union seeks safe return to classrooms. UTLA members voted overwhelmingly to reject what the union called an ‘unsafe’ return to the classroom unless certain demands are met. I never trust anyone who isn’t willing to live under the same rules that they expect everyone else to live under. Clearly, the real reason for keeping the public schools closed has nothing to do with safety.
March 19, 2021
Doctors indicate startling rise in child suicide, psychiatric admissions during lockdown
March 22, 2021
The lockdown made it harder for victims of domestic violence to seek help
https://www.city-journal.org/lockdowns-and-domestic-violence
I think the COVID-19 lockdown is killing more people than it is saving. Here are my many reasons for thinking such a thing. Updated for March 26, 2021.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
March 26, 2021
I think the COVIOD-19 lockdown is killing more people than it is saving.
I’m going to start out by posting the CDC’s estimated survival rates, by age, for people who contract COVID-19:
Green Bay Officials Turn Down Request to Testify on March 31 After they Gave Dem Operatives Access to Voting Room and Internet Network During Election — They Say They’re Busy
Green Bay Officials Turn Down Request to Testify on March 31 After they Gave Dem Operatives Access to Voting Room and Internet Network During Election — They Say They’re Busy
By Jim Hoft
March 24, 2021
Earlier this month Wisconsin Spotlight reported that former top Democrat operative Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein was given keys to the KI Center ballroom in Green Bay, Wisconsin where absentee ballots were stored and counted for days prior to the 2020 election.
Newly released emails by Wisconsin Spotlight confirmed this development in the battleground state of Wisconsin.
Then earlier today we reported – Emails show that Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, Wisconsin state lead for the National Vote at Home Institute, was given secret internet access at the hotel convention center where ballots were counted in Green Bay.
Wisconsin Spotlight is reporting on this Wisconsin scandal.
But Mayor Genrich and City Attorney Vanessa Chavez refuse to testify before state lawmakers. They say they are busy.
FOX 11 reported:
The Assembly committee members didn’t invite city officials to the first hearing on March 10th, but they did invite them to the one next week.
Mayor Eric Genrich and City Attorney Vanessa Chavez say a scheduling conflict will prevent them from attending.
Chavez sent FOX 11 a letter she sent to committee chair, State Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menominee Falls):
Hello Rep. Brandtjen. Thank you for extending an invitation to testify at the March 31st hearing to the City. I would be the proper person to represent the City. Unfortunately, I have a scheduling conflict on that day, so the City will not be able to attend on March 31st. However, as you may know, the City of Green Bay Common Council has tasked me with drafting a report on the City’s activities with respect to the election, which I am happy to share once it is complete, which will likely be ahead of the March 31st meeting. Finally, if you are hoping to have someone attend in person, I can certainly look at coordinating for a future date. Please let me know. Thanks.
Chavez says she has not heard back from Brandtjen.
They have prior commitments and can’t make it?
Unreal.
DeKalb County, Georgia threw away ballots, envelopes, and other information required to be retained by law for 22 months
DeKalb County, GA Is Throwing Away Ballots, Envelopes, Other Information Required To Be Retained By Law For 22 Months… Question Is, Why?
March 23, 2021
The documents in these images were found in trash receptacles outside of Dekalb County election facilities after the inauguration of Joe Biden on Jan 20th of this year.
Dekalb County, GA is breaking the law as the possibility of audits and inspection of ballots from the Nov 3rd U.S. general election and the Jan 5th Senate runoff in Georgia become more likely. Multiple legal challenges are working their way through the courts to the massive election fraud executed in the Peach State last election cycle.
Today a Gwinnett County court looks to be forcing ballot images to be presented in a non-partisan election suit. A court in Henry County is accepting a plan tomorrow by VoterGA.org for an audit of the ballots in Fulton County from the general election.
Federal election law states:
“Every officer of election shall retain and preserve, for a period of twenty-two months from the date of any general, special, or primary election of which candidates for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, or Resident Commissioner from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico are voted for, all records and papers which come into his possession relating to any application, registration, payment of poll tax, or other act requisite to voting in such election, except that, when required by law, such records and papers may be delivered to another officer of election and except that, if a State or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico designates a custodian to retain and preserve these records and papers at a specified place, then such records and papers may be deposited with such custodian, and the duty to retain and preserve any record or paper so deposited shall devolve upon such custodian. Any officer of election or custodian who willfully fails to comply with this section shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”
Ballot envelopes can be inspected to determine if they were sealed in bulk or sealed individually by different people. This is why they must be maintained.
In addition, it looks as if Dekalb County may have counted ballots not placed in official ballot envelopes, but in crude counterfeit envelopes.
GA Secretary of State Raffensperger is not interested in stopping this destruction of evidence. He is not interested in investigating election fraud.
There must be a Federal grand jury convened to hear all of the evidence of election fraud in Atlanta, GA. The November 3rd, 2020 election, and the Senate runoff on Jan 5th are a travesty of justice foisted on the American people. It cannot be allowed to stand. Further investigation is required.
Receipts show that Dekalb County, Georgia ordered 25 million voter registration applications for a population of less than one million
BREAKING UPDATE: It Looks To Us Like Dekalb County, GA Did Order 25M Voter Registration Forms For A Population Of Less Than 1M
March 13, 2021
UPDATE 3/24 1520 EST – CDMedia has examined additional receipts found in trash receptacles outside Dekalb County election facilities after the Biden inauguration. The document found (in original article below) which shows Democrat-controlled county ordered 25 million voter registration applications for a population of less than one million seems to be valid. We found other receipts from counties with populations of the same order of magnitude and the order procedure, and discount codes used are the same. See Below.
CDMedia called Dekalb County director of Voter Registration and Elections Erica Hamilton and asked her if the Nov 11th, 2020 receipt for $20M was valid. She refused to answer and gave us a Gmail address for a PR person to answer for her.
Frankly, we find this absurd, as the county should field its own media inquiries, not a Leftist-controlled private media spin operation.
To solve the problem, we have filed an open records request with Erica Hamilton. She has three days to respond.
We will keep our readers advised to the progress.
The other receipts found are directly below.
Questions Raised
Why did Dekalb order 25M voter registration applications prior to the Jan 5th Senatorial runoff, which decided control of American government?
Why does Dekalb County use a private firm to interact with the public?
CDMedia has been reporting on information found in dumpsters outside of GA election facilities. We thought this one was especially interesting. Dekalb County, on the east side of metro Atlanta, with a population significantly less than one million, possibly ordered in November of last year after the general election, 25 million voter registration applications.
Dekalb was suspiciously slow on the evening of the GA Senatorial runoff election on January 5th of this year.
You can see the receipt below.
What could possibly be the reason for this order? At the very least, this needs to be investigated by GA election officials and law enforcement.
You be the judge.
Good Mythical Morning: What’s The Best Frozen Pizza? Taste Test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9SeECaq30g
Democrats’ operative got secret internet connection at Wisconsin election center, emails show
Democrats’ Operative Got Secret Internet Connection at Wisconsin Election Center, Emails Show
By M.D. Kittle
March 23, 2021
A veteran Democratic operative intricately involved in Green Bay’s November election was given access to “hidden” identifiers for the internet network at the hotel convention center where ballots were counted, according to emails obtained by Wisconsin Spotlight.
Green Bay city officials insist the presidential election was “administered exclusively by city staff.” But the emails show that Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, Wisconsin state lead for the National Vote at Home Institute, had a troubling amount of contact with election administration Nov. 4.
“I’ll have my team create two separate SSID’s for you,” Trent Jameson, director of event technology at Green Bay’s Hyatt Regency and KI Convention Center, where the city’s Central Count was located on Election Day, wrote to Spitzer-Rubenstein.
SSID stands for Service Set Identifier. It’s an internet network’s name. Open up the list of Wi-Fi networks on your laptop or phone, and the list of SSIDs will pop up. Wireless router or access points broadcast SSIDs so nearby devices can find and display any available networks.
Hiding the identifier keeps the network name from being publicly broadcast. The identifier won’t immediately pop up in the display, although the network name remains available for use.
“One SSID will be hidden and it’s: 2020vote. There will be no password or splash page for this one and it should only be used for the sensitive machines that need to be connected to the internet,” Jameson wrote in his Oct. 27 email to Spitzer-Rubenstein.
Spitzer-Rubenstein in turn forwarded the email Oct. 30 to Celestine Jeffreys, Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich’s chief of staff.
Also on the email were Amaad Rivera-Wagner, the mayor’s community liaison; Jaime Fuge, Green Bay’s chief election inspector at the time; Shelby Edlebeck, multimedia communications specialist; and Mike Hronek, the city’s information technology administrator.
“The other SSID will be: gbvote and that one can be seen in the settings app of your phone or laptop under ‘networks’ and should be used for the poll workers who need internet,” Jameson wrote in the email to Spitzer-Rubenstein.
Jameson told Spitzer-Rubenstein there would be a third identifier, which was to be used by media or other guests “not part of your team.”
Why would a guy who has been described as a consultant or adviser to the city need to have hidden SSIDs? Why would the city want him to have knowledge of Service Set Identifers for “sensitive machines”?
Spitzer-Rubenstein was brought in to provide technical support, but why would he receive such sensitive information before the city’s IT director and the clerk’s office did?
Genrich, Green Bay’s mayor, did not return Wisconsin Spotlight’s call seeking comment.
In final official results in Wisconsin, Democrat nominee Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump by 49.6% to 48.9% of the vote, flipping a state with 10 electoral votes that Trump won in 2016.
As Wisconsin Spotlight first reported, Spitzer-Rubenstein and his National Vote at Home Institute were involved heavily in Green Bay’s election process.
The National Vote at Home Institute is one of several private, left-leaning groups funded largely by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Spitzer-Rubenstein, with an impressive political resume of working for Democratic politicians and campaigns, had significant influence over the administration of the presidential election in Green Bay and, it appears, in Milwaukee as well.
The Chicago-based Center for Tech and Civic Life received hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from Zuckerberg and his wife, money they pumped out in big grants to cities in the name of “safe elections.”
>>> Zuckerberg Grant Allowed Outsider to Infiltrate Presidential Election in Wisconsin
Spitzer-Rubenstein appears to have played point man for the coordinated effort among the “Wisconsin 5” cities: Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Racine—which received a combined $6.3 million in Zuckerberg money.
Emails show Spitzer-Rubenstein offered to correct or “cure” ballots in Green Bay, and he told the city clerk that he had come up with a similar process for Milwaukee.
And despite the city’s assertions that Spitzer-Rubenstein did not have the keys to the KI Center where absentee ballots were, a hotel contract obtained by Wisconsin Spotlight shows the keys were to be delivered to the Democratic operative.
“Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein will be the onsite contact for the group,” the hotel’s instructions state.
Emails show him inside the KI Center asking city officials about where ballots would be located.
“Are the ballots going to be in trays/boxes within the bin? I’m at KI now, trying to figure out whether we’ll need to move the bins throughout the day or if we can just stick them along the wall and use trays or something similar to move the ballots between stations,” Spitzer-Rubenstein wrote to city officials two days before the election.
There’s more.
Sandy Juno, former Brown County clerk who has accused Green Bay of going “rogue” in its handling of the election, said she found use of the secretive internet access points “unusual.”
Spitzer-Rubenstein is shown in photos working on a laptop by a printer at Central Count on election night.
“I’m not sure what the need was for all of those different [Service Set] IDs, but the one that bothered me most was for the ‘sensitive machines,’” Juno said.
Why isn’t everyone in Florida dead or in the hospital?
Why Isn’t Everyone in Florida Dead or in the Hospital?
By Wayne Allyn Root
March 21, 2021
I hate to say I told you so. But I told you so.
I’m one of the few brave souls in the American media who warned and advised from day one (back in early March 2020) not to lock down the American people or the economy.
I argued the following:
— That lockdowns wouldn’t stop COVID-19, because you can’t stop a virus.
— That there was never a reason to lock down everyone. Anyone relatively young or healthy never had a reason to fear death from COVID. The survival rate has been reported at 99%, especially for anyone relatively healthy under the age of 65.
— That over time, lockdowns would cause more deaths from suicide, depression, loneliness, drug and alcohol addiction, joblessness, poverty and stress (from people being unsure how to feed their families) than from COVID.
— And, worst of all, that lockdowns would destroy the economy. If Grandma or Grandpa is sick and dying from COVID, how does it help them if their kids and grandkids lose their businesses, jobs or homes? It only makes things much worse. Grandma and Grandpa would not want their kids and grandkids to be jobless, hopeless or homeless. They want them to live life and prosper. That’s how you honor Grandpa and Grandma.
I warned that the only way to fight COVID and pay for COVID was to keep the economy open and healthy. And to keep Americans employed.
Don’t look now, but I was 100% right.
Florida is exhibit A. Everyone needs to know the Florida story.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis should be America’s Hero Governor. He stood strong in the face of massive pressure to close the state, close the economy, lock down the people and order mask mandates. He refused. He kept Florida open for business.
Now look at the amazing results. Florida’s economy is booming. People are happy. Quality of life is high. And very few are sick. It worked!
Even though Florida has been wide open (without masks) for almost a year now, even though the state has millions of retired senior citizens, it still has less deaths and hospitalizations right now than most of the know-it-all liberal states that are locked down and run by authoritarian Democratic governors. Florida’s numbers are better than those of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois.
All this and the people of Florida kept their businesses open, kept their jobs, kept their kids in school and kept living normal lives.
My friends own restaurants in Florida. Restaurants and bars are jammed. No one is wearing masks. They tell me that not only are the customers healthy; all their employees are healthy.
How is this possible? How can Florida be thriving and prospering and healthier while California and New York have been shut down the entire time, with businesses dead, jobs gone, schools closed and kids not leaning a thing?
The answer is simple. Democratic governors blew it. They made all the wrong decisions. No lockdowns were ever needed. Nor were they ever constitutional. No jobs should have been lost.
This was all a travesty, a tragedy, a farse. With lockdowns, people still get sick; you can’t stop a germ. But they do succeed at three things: destroying the economy, destroying quality of life and, ironically, making more people sick and die due to the stress, loneliness, depression and poverty the lockdowns produced.
Lockdowns prove the solution is often worse than the virus.
The only answer is freedom and individual choice. Let Americans choose whether to keep their businesses open, go to work or wear masks.
As usual, government was wrong. Government made things much worse. As usual, liberal Democratic ideas failed miserably. Lockdowns are perhaps the worst mistake in America’s history. Case closed.
A year into the pandemic, Florida is booming and Republican Gov. DeSantis is taking credit
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/17/politics/ron-desantis-covid-florida/index.html
A year into the pandemic, Florida is booming and Republican Gov. DeSantis is taking credit
March 17, 2021
St. Petersburg, Florida (CNN) After a year of criticism by health experts, mockery from comedians and blistering critiques from political rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is standing unabashedly tall among the nation’s governors on the front lines of the coronavirus fight.
“Everyone told me I was wrong,” DeSantis, a Republican, said in a fundraising appeal on Tuesday, drawing attention to his defiance against the pandemic. “I faced continued pressure from radical Democrats and the liberal media, but I refused to back down. It’s clear: Florida got it right.”
As many parts of the country embark on an uneasy march toward normalcy, Florida is not only back in business — it’s been in business for the better part of the past year. DeSantis’ gamble to take a laissez faire approach appears to be paying off — at least politically, at least for now, as other governors capturing attention in the opening phase of the pandemic now face steeper challenges.
Despite far fewer rules and restrictions, Florida lands nearly in the middle of all states on a variety of coronavirus metrics. The state has had about 3% more Covid-19 cases per capita than the US overall, but about 8% fewer deaths per capita. More than 32,000 Floridians have died of Covid-19, and the state’s per capita death rate ranks 24th in the nation.
“Those lockdowns have not worked. They’ve done great damage to our country,” DeSantis said Tuesday at a news conference in Tallahassee. “We can never let something like this happen again. Florida took a different path. We’ve had more success as a result.”
DeSantis — who, at 42, is the nation’s youngest governor — is standing out among his peers and seizing upon what he and his supporters believe is a vindication for their policies.
Lockdowns and school openings are suddenly a new measure for voters to hold governors and other elected officials accountable, a sign that the politics of the pandemic could open an uncertain chapter for many holding public office. He will be among the governors putting his record to the test when he runs for re-election next year.
“We still have millions of kids across this country who are denied access to in-person education,” DeSantis said at the news conference. “We still have businesses closed in many parts of this country. We have millions and millions of lives destroyed.”
‘It would not be booming if it was shut down’
With spring on the horizon, DeSantis suddenly appears to be in a position of strength compared to some of his fellow governors, including many of whom took far more restrictive approaches to the fight against coronavirus that caused a trickle-down effect on the economy.
He is not facing a potential recall like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, under investigation like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo or being second-guessed for lifting a statewide mask mandate like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
DeSantis refused to implement a mask mandate in the first place, making him an outlier a year ago. At the time, he was hewing closely to President Donald Trump’s playbook, which he argued at the time was good for business.
The unemployment rate in Florida is 4.8 %, according to the latest figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared to 6.8% in Texas, 8.8% in New York and 9% in California.
“If you look at what’s happening in South Florida right now, I mean this place is booming. It would not be booming if it was shut down,” DeSantis said last month as a crush of tourists began arriving. “Los Angeles isn’t booming. New York City’s not booming. It’s booming here because you can live like a human being.”
Florida has recorded about 9,204 cases per 100,000 people and about 150 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. Across the country overall, there have been about 8,969 cases per 100,000 people and 163 deaths per 100,000 people.
Despite far more stringent restrictions, California only ranks one spot better than Florida in both measures. Its death rate is about 5% lower than Florida’s, which means about 1,500 lives could have been saved in Florida if the state’s death rate matched that of California.
Still, comparing one state to another is complicated and often counterproductive, said Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida College of Public Health who maintains his own Covid dashboard. For example, he said, the humidity of Florida and the density of New York City offer entirely different scenarios for fighting coronavirus.
“What I’d love to ask about Florida is, if we had done things differently in Florida, what would it have looked like?” Salemi told CNN. “If you use those metrics of where Florida is relative to a lot of other states, we’re looking middle of the pack. So no, it hasn’t been a disaster in that we’re leading in mortality per capita in cases per capita.”
He added: “It’s not always about doing well relative to your peers. It’s how can we prevent as much morbidity and mortality from the virus while keeping an eye on what’s happening with our economy.”
He said Florida has also benefitted from local ordinances requiring masks and restricting the sizes of gatherings. DeSantis has prohibited cities and counties from fining people for refusing to wear masks and is stirring outrage among local officials by pushing to strip their authority to put such rules in place at all.
Throughout the pandemic, it’s that defiant and often combative DeSantis who has increasingly become the darling of Republicans. He declines most interview requests, including from CNN, even as he frequently appears on Fox News and other propaganda platforms. He has been locked in one fight after another with the state’s media over transparency on Covid statistics and other issues.
Yet his policies have boosted his standing inside his party, all but certainly closing the door to any Republican challenges. Potential Democratic contenders are already circling.
Rep. Charlie Crist — who served as Republican governor of the state from 2007 to 2011 and switched parties in 2012 — is among the Democrats thinking about challenging DeSantis for re-election next year. He said he intended to make up his mind before summer.
Asked how he thought Florida had withstood the pandemic, Crist said: “It’s a mixed bag, to be candid.”
“We have a light at the end of the tunnel feeling and that really is a godsend,” Crist told CNN in an interview in his office here. “On the other hand, there’s about 33,000 of my fellow Floridians that are dead now. And that’s incredibly sad, tragic and beyond unfortunate. So how are we doing? Well, we’re slugging through it like the rest of the country is and just doing the best we can.”
Crist and other Florida Democrats are calling for a US Justice Department investigation into whether DeSantis gave preference to donors after invitation-only vaccines clinics were set up in at least two upscale communities. The exclusive Covid-19 clinics allowed about 6,000 people to jump ahead of tens of thousands of seniors on waitlists in Manatee and Charlotte counties, where the drives happened.
“Was there preference given to certain Caucasian wealthy, Republican communities?” Crist said. “Because it certainly looks like it.”
A spokeswoman for the governor has dismissed the accusation, saying: “The insinuation that politics play into vaccine distribution in Florida is baseless and ridiculous.”
‘I think he took a gamble and it worked out’
Here in Florida, where beaches along the Atlantic Ocean and on Gulf of Mexico are crowded this week in ways not seen for more than a year, the complete story of the pandemic has yet to be written, as President Joe Biden inherits the challenge and has accelerated vaccines here and across the country. Yet health experts and local officials worry that a parade of spring break vacationers could contribute to a spike in Covid-19 cases.
Tom Golden, who owns a restaurant and bar along the busy stretch of Central Avenue in downtown St. Petersburg, said he didn’t have much of an opinion on DeSantis a year ago. But with his business not only surviving, but thriving, he offers a measure of credit to the governor.
“When he went into office, I wasn’t sure what to expect,” Golden said in an interview just before lunch on a sunny morning this week. “But he didn’t do anything to hurt me as a business owner or me as a Floridian. So fine with me.”
After businesses were allowed to open after being shuttered for several weeks late last spring, Golden said he recalls having mixed feelings about the balancing act of keeping the economy alive and protecting the public’s health.
“Well, of course, as a business owner I supported it, but as a human being, I kept thinking that it’s a horrible position to be in,” Golden said. “It’s a hard one to measure. I think he made a good decision.”
Conversations with more than a dozen Floridians offered a wide assessment of views about DeSantis’ handling of the coronavirus crisis. Several people suggested they were not initially supportive him, but in hindsight found themselves approving of his decision to reopen the economy and schools.
A woman strolling down the St. Petersburg Pier spoke about her grandchildren in California, who have attended school virtually for the last year. She said she believes the Florida approach was better, given the temperate weather and ability to be outside. She declined to be identified by name, but praised DeSantis’ decisions that have allowed the orchestra to resume playing here and the economy to thrive.
Molly Minton, who works as a laboratory supervisor, said she recalls being dispirited as she drove home from work and saw crowded bars and restaurants. Looking back, she said, she is glad many small businesses were able to stay open and believes Florida was simply lucky in many respects.
“I think he took a gamble and it worked out,” Minton said of the governor.
In a sprawling state of more than 21 million people, where some estimates say about 1,000 new residents arrive every day, many people said they had no opinion of DeSantis at all and didn’t know much about him.
He was born in Jacksonville and raised on the Gulf Coast just north of here in Dunedin, and he had a love for baseball that sent his team to the Little League World Series. Later, he played outfield while studying at Yale. He graduated from Harvard Law School and worked as a Naval prosecutor, including a stint in Iraq as a Navy JAG lawyer advising a SEAL team.
In 2012, he won a seat in Congress and was elected governor in 2018 two months after he turned 40. He was largely unknown during the primary campaign until he won the endorsement of Trump, who became aware of him through frequent appearances on Fox News.
Now, DeSantis is seen by many grassroots conservatives as a potential 2024 presidential candidate. That path depends on his gubernatorial reelection next year.
His long-range future, of course, also depends on the outcome of the rest of the pandemic. Yet it’s clear he hopes to make that his new calling card, which he telegraphed in a fundraising appeal for Republican governors that he sent to supporters on Tuesday.
“Right now,” DeSantis wrote, “my state of Florida is one of the only states that said no to oppressive lockdowns and has become an oasis of freedom for Americans.”
New data show 92,367 mail ballots in Nevada went to the wrong addresses – in a single county
New Data Show 92,367 Mail Ballots in Nevada Went to Wrong Addresses – in a Single County
By J. Christian Adams
March 17, 2021
Hindsight is 20/20, and now numbers from the 2020 election show how Nevada made a mistake rushing to automatic mail ballots. Dirty voter rolls combined with automatic mail made the 2020 election a mess in Nevada.
Concrete post-election data show that 92,367 mail ballots sent out by Clark County election officials came back as undeliverable. They had incorrect or outdated addresses.
That means they were sent where the registered voter did not live. That means someone else could have snatched those misdirected live ballots. That means someone probably did.
This unfortunate number is unwelcome considering President Joe Biden only carried Nevada by 33,596 votes. Clark’s 92,367 bounced ballots demonstrate a real vulnerability with mass mail balloting.
That’s just Clark County where Las Vegas is. The number of ballots that went to the wrong addresses statewide is most certainly much higher.
It is true that these ballots ultimately bounced back uncast. If nothing else, that’s a lot of wasted paper and postage. But how many ballots never came back because there wasn’t yet clear information about the registrants who had died or moved away?
More importantly, sending 92,367 ballots to the wrong places was a gamble our system of electing leaders should not be making.
Remember, last year The Public Interest Legal Foundation, an organization I am affiliated with, documented through video that ballots were mailed and cast from vacant lots, abandoned mines, liquor stores, and casinos in Nevada.
Nobody should want tens of thousands of ballots floating through the mails to destinations unknown. Elections don’t run well when voting is scattered and distant from election officials. The 92,367 bounced ballots demonstrate slack in the system.
Never mind all that, Congress is considering making it worse.
Despite the evidence of problems with mail ballots in Nevada and other states including Pennsylvania, Congress is trying to push more of our elections into the mail. The bill is called H.R.1 and now is in the Senate for consideration.
H.R.1 would federalize control over state elections. It would undo the very compromise that led to the creation of the United States, namely that states control their own elections. H.R.1 would put bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., in charge of every aspect of elections.
Not only will H.R. 1 mandate more mail-in balloting, but it will also increase the inaccuracies in voter rolls, resulting in more undeliverable ballots across the United States.
H.R. 1 would also strip states of control over their own elections.
One of HR 1’s many inane provisions prevents election officials from checking the eligibility and qualifications of voters. This includes restrictions on using the United States Postal Service change-of-address system to help do maintenance on the voter lists. This will only result in more ballots being sent to the wrong places.
If passed, H.R.1 would institutionalize slack and chaos in elections. We need to learn from the lessons — and data — of 2020 and pass laws that increase the accuracy of voter rolls and trust in our elections. Instead, HR 1 amplifies the shortcomings of 2020 on a national scale.
Mass mail voting is a step backward for the United States. We now have real data. Nobody wants 100,000 live blank ballots sent out in the mail to bad addresses. It’s time for election officials to clean voter rolls and reconsider relying on the post office in helping to decide elections.
Michigan judge rules secretary of state violated election law by unilaterally changing absentee voting rules
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/judge-rules-michigan-sec-state-broke-law-absentee-ballot
Michigan judge rules secretary of state violated election law by unilaterally changing absentee voting rules
By Andrew Mark Miller
March 16, 2021
A judge has ruled that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson violated state law last year when she issued “guidance” on how absentee ballots should be evaluated.
State Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray ruled last week that Benson, a Democrat, did not follow the proper rule-making process when instructing voting clerks in October to presume the accuracy of absentee ballot signatures, and the guidance is now invalid, according to the Detroit News.
“The presumption is found nowhere in state law,” Murray, a Republican-appointed judge, wrote in the ruling. “The mandatory presumption goes beyond the realm of mere advice and direction, and instead is a substantive directive that adds to the pertinent signature-matching standards.”
Murray wrote that Benson issued the rules without following the process for creating a rule under state and federal law, thus violating the state’s Administrative Procedures Act.
Murray contends that the rule stated only signatures with “multiple significant and obvious” inconsistencies should be questioned, which he argued fell within the definition of an administrative rule that required a multiple-step process that was not undertaken last year.
“An agency must utilize formal rulemaking procedures when establishing policies that ‘do not merely interpret or explain the statute or rules from which the agency derives its authority,’ but rather ‘establish the substantive standards implementing the program,’” Murray wrote.
Michigan is one of six states where former President Donald Trump and his surrogates have alleged widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, potentially costing him a victory, and Republicans have argued that Article II of the Constitution requires election rules to be decided by state legislatures and not elected officials.
Trump lost dozens of election fraud legal challenges across the country, and the United States Supreme Court rejected three different cases on the subject.
Judge Determines Secretary Of State Benson Violated The States Administrative Procedures Act On Absentee Voter Signatures
Judge Determines Secretary Of State Benson Violated The States Administrative Procedures Act On Absentee Voter Signatures
March 16, 2021
This news is certainly being kept under the cover. The media is certainly not on the Democratic Party’s side, right? I would have never known this occurred if I had not seen a Press Release from State Representative Matt Hall’s Office.
It started when the Allegan County Clerk-Register of Deeds Bob Genetski with the Republican Party sued Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in her official capacity and Jonathan Brater, Director of Elections in his official capacity. They sued her because they believed she violated Michigan’s Administrative Procedures Act when she solely decided the voter ballot signature matching guidelines prior to the 2020 election.
As the court document stated:
“Jocelyn Benson issued what defendants refer to as “guidance” for local clerks who are charged with inspecting signatures on absent voter ballot applications and ballots. The document, which was entitled “Absent Voter Ballot Processing: Signature Verification and Voter Notification Standards”. This guidance regarding signature verification forms the heart of the issues in the present case and it requires additional examination.
The stated purpose of the at issue document was to “provide[ ] standards” for reviewing signatures, verifying signatures, and curing missing or mismatched signatures. Under a heading entitled “Procedures for Signature Verification,” the document stated that signature review “begins with the presumption that” the signature on an absent voter ballot application or envelope is valid.”
You should read the ruling because it explains how Secretary of State Benson watered down the signature verification requirements so much, if someone had what looked to be the letter “i” in their name and it somewhat looked like there may or may not have been an “i” in their signature you were supposed to approve it. It was actually heartbreaking to see what Benson did. What she did was tantamount to invite and enable illegal votes to be cast.
For example, the document issued by Benson stated:
“Signatures “should be considered questionable” the guidance explained, only if they differ “in multiple, significant and obvious respects from the signature on file.” (Emphasis in original). “[W]henever possible,” election officials were to resolve “[s]light dissimilarities” in favor of finding that the voter’s signature was valid.”
How did the judge rule, well since you are hearing nothing about this in the news you probably have already guessed? Michigan Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray ruled:
‘Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson violated Michigan’s Administrative Procedures Act because the guidance issued by the Secretary of State on October 6, 2020, with respect to signature matching standards was issued in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.”
In a nutshell, SoS Benson violated the state of Michigan’s Administrative Procedures Act due to the fact that she set absent voter ballot signature matching guidelines prior to the 2020 election on her own circumventing the Michigan Administrative Procedures Act. An administrative rule is an agency’s written regulation, statement, standard, policy, ruling, or instruction that has the effect of law.
That is why you are hearing nothing from any other news source out there other than my show and WBCK. Where is the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, Lansing State Journal, any of the local news stations from Detroit to Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids and beyond?
Nowhere on this story.
Wonder why?
Court invalidates Michigan rule on how to verify absentee ballot application signatures
Court invalidates Michigan rule on how to verify absentee ballot application signatures
By Gus Burns
March 16, 2021
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson last year said local clerks should start with a presumption of validity when verifying signatures on absentee ballot applications, but a court ruling says that rule wasn’t properly established.
A Michigan Court of Claims judge last week ruled that clerks no longer need to follow those instructions for determining whether to send an absentee ballot to applicants.
According to the March 9 opinion and order issued by Judge Christopher M. Murray, Benson issued instructions that constituted “rules” without following the process for creating a formal rule under state and federal law.
Murray wrote that “the guidance issued by the Secretary of State on October 6, 2020, with respect to signature-matching standards was issued in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.”
The Michigan Republican Party and Allegan County Clerk Robert Genetski, who jointly filed their complaint prior to the Nov. 3 election, claimed the signature standards allowed for “invalid” ballots to be counted.
Murray noted in his opinion that Genetski, however, never claimed the “guidance caused him to accept a signature that he believed was invalid.”
Benson’s guidelines focused on signature verification of absentee ballot applications and their return envelopes, which were to be compared against each other as well as against signatures in qualified voter files.
Benson’s office said “that signature review ‘begins with the presumption that’ the signature on an absent voter ballot application or envelope is valid,” Murray wrote. The Secretary of State’s instructions to clerks further said signatures with any “redeeming qualities” — described as those having “similar distinctive flourishes” or those with “more matching features than nonmatching features” — should be validated.
Only signatures with “multiple significant and obvious” inconsistencies should be questioned, Benson advised, according to the judge’s analysis of the rule.
Murray determined the guidelines fell within the definition of an administrative rule and therefore should have been approved through the formal rule-making process, which requires multiple steps.
“An agency must utilize formal rulemaking procedures when establishing policies that ‘do not merely interpret or explain the statute or rules from which the agency derives its authority,’ but rather ‘establish the substantive standards implementing the program,’” Murray said, citing a 1998 precedent.
The ruling leaves certain standards for accepting absentee ballot application signatures at the discretion of the local clerk, unless the Legislature created legal guidelines or the Secretary of State’s Office creates administrative rules for that determination.
The current law states any signatures on applications or return envelopes that don’t “agree sufficiently” with the voter signature on file should be rejected.
The Court of Claims judge noted Michigan law doesn’t clearly define what it means for a signature to “agree” or “agree sufficiently.”
Representatives from Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on the ruling and it’s unclear if the Court of Claims decision will be appealed.
“We have no comment at this time,” Tracy Wimmer, an SOS spokeswoman said.
Clerks additionally compare signatures on absentee ballots with signatures on file before votes are counted during any election.
Fewer than 1 percent of Michigan’s 3.3 million absentee ballots cast in the Nov. 3 general election were rejected by local election clerks, according to data released by the Secretary of State’s office.
In total, 15,300 ballots were rejected by election officials for a variety of reasons, such as arriving after Election Day or not having a signature. In the August primary election, more than the 10,600 ballots were rejected.
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 