Several charged for election fraud scheme in Los Angeles involving fake signatures for ballot measures.

Los Angeles' Skid Row. L.A. Times. 

Nine people were arrested for an election fraud scheme in Los Angeles involving paying homeless people for fake signatures for ballot measures. LA Times. The schemers would pay homeless people $1 or a cigarette to register to vote and sign ballot measures. California's ballot measures system is a popular way to change the laws in the State. However, the people involved in this plot were paying the homeless to help get those ballot measures on the ballot. Ballot workers are paid for the number of signatures they get but it is a crime to offer to pay for it. None of the homeless people involved in the scam were charged while the offenders have been charged with felonies. 

My Comment:

For all the people that say that voter fraud doesn't happen, here's another example of it occurring. Local officials downplayed how serious this is and claimed that no fake petition signatures were found, but I don't believe either account. It is good that these people were caught but it does call things into questions. 

It seems very unlikely that the local officials are right and this didn't effect ballot measures. They said that the check signatures against voter registration forms but the suspects in this case were paying off people to register as well! Depending on what ballot measure these people were trying to support it may have changed what was on the ballot. It's very possible that voters ended up voting for ballot measures that should never have been in the ballot if not for this fraud. 

It's unclear how widespread this fraud was. LA's Skid Row is one of the largest collection of homeless people in the state of California but it is far from the only one. Were there similar schemes in places like San Francisco, San Diego and other large California cities? We really don't know but I am guessing that this wasn't a one off thing. 

I have been rather annoyed that none of the articles I have read about this story have said what ballot initiatives these people were paying people to sign for. That seems like extremely relevant information but I haven't found it anywhere. California tends to have a ton of ballot measures every election so even ignoring the obvious political implications it's pretty much impossible to figure out which ballot measure these people were trying to scam. 

I would also be very interested in if these people were working for a specific organization. There are a ton of political organizations out there that try to register voters and gather signatures for petitions like this. If they put these workers up for it than they are just as guilty and should be charged as well. 

 Finally, I think the possible sentences are extremely lite. They are felonies, so these people shouldn't be able to vote themselves for quite some time, but they only face a maximum of six years and four months in prison. That seems like a very slight punishment for undermining the elections in California... 

Voter fraud in Florida? Governor and Senator Elect Scott successfully sues Broward County over ballot issues.

Florida Governor Rick Scott (R). State of Florida. 

Governor and Senator elect Rick Scott has successfully sued Broward county over ballot issues in the 2018 midterms. Fox News. A judge ruled that the Broward county election officials were violating election laws and the Florida State constitution. The suit alleged that the county officials were hiding the number of votes tallied and counted. The judge ordered immediate access for GOP officials and the preservation of evidence. Two heavily Democratic counties, Broward and Palm Beach, have found thousands of new votes long after the rest of the state has finished their counts and it is tightening what was a sure victory in the Governor and Senate races there. In Palm Beach election officials violated the law when judging damaged or incomplete ballots with no oversight from the GOP or general public. 

My Comment:

The head of the Broward County election, Dr. Brenda Snipes has already interfered with the 2016 election. During that election she declared the results before the votes were fully counted and also destroyed ballots in a congressional race. That alone should have been enough to completely remove her from the political world and give her a hefty prison sentence in a sane world. But in this world she was allowed to interfere again in 2018.

It also boggles my mind that the counties hit by Hurricane Michael were able to get their votes counted just fine. Broward County wasn't hit by the hurricane so they have no excuse for these late ballots. It reeks of incompetence and maleficence. 

As far as I am concerned it doesn't matter if voter fraud went on. Just the fact that these election officials aren't following the law and allowing transparency is a huge threat. Even if everything is on the up and up, people will lose faith in the elections if someone isn't punished here and punished severely. And if actual voter fraud is found then something drastic needs to be done. No if, ands, or buts. 

But did it happen? I am guessing it did. You don't just "find" thousands of ballots that all go against Republicans a couple of days after the election. Ballots don't just appear out of nowhere. Someone has to keep track of them and if the chain of custody is broken then there is no way to trust their validity. My guess is that they had a good idea what the results were and "found" a bunch of ballots that they had filled out themselves using the voter rolls to determine who was registered but hadn't voted. 

Having zero oversight over damaged or incomplete ballots is a massive issue as well. Without neutral or GOP observers there is no way to tell if the officials in Palm Beach were playing it fair or if they were just doing whatever they could to mark ballots their way. It is a massive problem and it is utterly insane to me that it would ever happen like this in America. 

Of course Broward County is one of the most corrupt in the country. There have been election issues there dating back to the election of George Bush. And the rot extends far beyond elections, they also completely screwed up the Parkland school shooting. It's a very corrupt and dangerous county that needs some serious federal investigations. 

It sees like Florida is not the only problem right now as well. President Trump also pointed out that the election in Arizona has been a mess too. The critical senate race there hasn't been called yet with similar problems of "lost" votes showing up. And I remember watching the election results for Wisconsin. Scott Walker had a 1000 to 2000 vote lead for most of the night then, even though Milwaukee County had been called 100%, 30,000 votes for Tony Evers came out of nowhere. 

I do have to say that there is a massive amount of hypocrisy from the Democrats here. For two years we had to hear about how the 2016 elections were invalid due to Russia buying a few facebook ads and some fake twitter accounts. But now that there are accusations of domestic election interference, they are suddenly against transparency and criminal investigations. 

This is also a very dark day for our country. Elections are one of the few ways people have to solve their differences without violence. When elections are corrupt and it's clear that one side isn't playing fair then what recourse is left for the other side short of violence? The aggressive moves by Governor Rick Scott and President Donald Trump may forestall that but if they fail, things could go bad very quickly in this country. We must all hope that the truth in Florida comes out and people are punished for their behavior here. If not our country could be heading to a truly dark place. 

What to make of the 2018 midterm results and what it means for the future.

As you now, the 2018 midterms were yesterday. As of this writing not all of the races have been called, but generally speaking it was a confusing night. The Democrats had a decent night in the house gaining enough seats to gain control of the body. Republicans expanded their lead in the Senate while several Governor's races flipped for each side, including my state of Wisconsin.

It's pretty clear that I was wrong that the Dems would not win the house. I gave it a 70/30 percent chance that the Republicans would win in the house. That didn't happen. In my defense I did say that I was a lot less confident in victory than in 2016, but that doesn't mean I deserve much credit for that.

So what happened?

-Historical inertia. Presidents almost always lose their midterm elections. For example, Barack Obama got destroyed in 2010. The GOP picked up 63 house seats, 6 senate seats and 6 governor's seats as well. It's just one of those things that happen, similar to why Bush was replaced by Obama and Obama was replaced by Trump. It's just as rare for a party to keep the presidency after two terms as it is for a president to keep seats in the house during the midterms. I thought that this election was going to be different but it obviously was not.

-Strategic considerations. It was pretty clear that keeping control of the Senate was a huge priority for President Trump. Without the Senate he wouldn't be able to confirm any new judges or replace any new cabinet members, which he just did today with Jeff Sessions. Control of the house would have been nice too, but it wasn't critical like the Senate was.

Towards this end, Trump campaigned heavily for critical senate races and won most of them. It was also a counter move to the Democrats who dumped millions of dollars into races like Texas against Ted Cruz. If Trump and the GOP had focused on holding the house, they might have kept it but they would have lost the Senate instead.

-Bad leadership in the house. Let's face it, Paul Ryan did nothing to keep control of the lower chamber. Ryan was part of the never Trump wing of the Republicans and never had the President's back. He also was a lame duck candidate that wasn't running this year and would be out of power in a few months anyways. He didn't care what happened in the House because he is phoning it in anyways.

Contrast this to the Senate where leadership like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham were stumping all over the country to try and win the Senate. Unlike Ryan they were actually trying.

-Lack of October surprises against the Democrats. There were a couple of bad stories for the Republicans in the lead up to the election but nothing really bad happened in the lead up to the primaries. There was the Kavanaugh debacle but that was weeks ago and was already out of the news. Had the FISA warrants been released it might have changed things but that would have been a huge risk if Trump lost the senate.

-Media bias. Speaking of the news, the news probably had an effect. Three years of the media just completely abandoning even the most basic attempts to be unbiased. The constant attacks of racism, sexism and every other ism there is in the book probably convinced a few people to vote for Democrats and got the vote out for them as well.

-Tech censorship. In the past I had paid for advertisement for this blog. I did so in the lead up to the 2016 election via facebook. I didn't spend much money at all, but it did help me reach a larger audience. It wasn't a huge effect but I did get a lot more views that way.

This didn't happen in 2018. I had tried to buy a few ads a couple of times on Facebook but it was no longer possible. Facebook no longer allows ads of a political nature unless you sign you life away, give two factor authentication and go through dozens of hoops. It wasn't worth the effort for me and a lot of other smaller writers, bloggers and activists anymore and those were disproportionately on the right.

And even if you could advertise there was no guarantee that your message would be heard. Almost all of the tech companies out there have banned hundreds of conservative accounts. Thankfully I wasn't one of them but many of the most influential people on the right were kicked off all the major platforms. People like Alex Jones, Gavin McInnes and Rodger Stone were completely silenced. And the one big tech company that didn't censor conservatives, Gab? It was taken down right before the election and only came back a couple of days ago.

So what does the 2018 midterms mean for the future?

-For me personally it was devastating. Forget about the national elections, my state got screwed. I have never been a fan of Scott Walker but he has kept the economy of this state humming and greatly expanded gun rights. With Tony Evers in power both of those things are at risk. Unlike the left, I don't want Evers to fail if it means bringing Wisconsin down with him, but I have little faith that he will leave office with Wisconsin being a better state then it was. Horrible.

-This may actually help Trump in the long run. Many of the house Republicans that lost were anti-Trump people that were no help for him and were actually holding him back. With the fat cut out of the party it's very clear that it's Trump's party now.

Trump also has a built in excuse for anything that goes wrong. Any failures in the house the past two years had to be at either his fault or Paul Ryan and for either to call the other out would hurting unity. That isn't a problem anymore as Nancy Pelosi is the perfect scapegoat.

Trump is also set for the 2020 elections. It won't be likely that the Democrats can take back the Senate with the victories yesterday. The map just doesn't work for them anymore.

-Expect total gridlock from the government. With the GOP in control of the Senate and the Democrats holding the house it's an uphill battle for any new legislation. They have almost zero reason to work with each other so almost nothing will get done from the legislative branch, with pot legalization being a possible exception (I might get around to a post on this topic soon).

-Expect rounds of investigations and counter-investigations.The endless Russia distraction is likely to continue and there will be investigations into the investigation of why that investigation started. It seems very clear that the gloves are coming off. With Jeff Sessions being shown the door it also seems very clear that the investigations will not only be coming from the Democrats.

-The Judicial branch and federal bureaucracy will continue to be staffed with Trump people. With a stronger hold over the senate and only one anti-Trump GOP senator left (Mitt Romney of Utah) Trump has a rubber stamp now to approve judges up to and including Supreme Court Justices. There is a very good chance that if Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies or retires the court will be a 6-3 majority. And she's not the only one that might leave...

All that being said, I don't think this election was a disaster (other than for my state with a new Democratic governor). It's going to be status quo ante for the most part. Neither side delivered any knockout blows and nobody can really claim victory.

My midterms voting experience.

Here's my promised "voting experience" post. I was #109 at my poling place and it sure was busy. I arrived there at 7:20 AM and didn't get out of their until 7:55. There was a LOT of turnout, comparable to the 2016 presidential election. Part of that is likely due to the fact that I showed up right away in the morning. 

The crowd skewed older. I don't think I saw anyone over the age of 25. I live in a college town and when I voted in 2016 there were a couple of younger people that were voting, obviously for their first time, but I didn't see them this time around. This may have been due to the time of day, I know that when I was in college I would be voting after lunch at the earliest but still, I expected to see a few younger people. Even the people in their late twenties were the minority as the crowd seemed to be my age (35) and older. 

I also saw only two people register to vote. Everyone else was already good to go. The two that I saw were an older gentleman and a woman who was one of the few people in her twenties. This seemed odd to me as even during other elections there were more people registering for the first time. This was even true for the Wisconsin primaries, which only took about five minutes to vote. 

The mood of the people seemed pretty upbeat, with a few people complaining about the lines. I was kind of surprised that nobody complained that the line extended outside of the building. It was raining here this morning so I got a little wet, but even if a hobo ran up to me and stabbed me in my ribs I was going to vote. A little rain wasn't going to stop me. 

A couple of people did not stay in line after it was clear it wasn't going to be an in and out thing. One younger couple left early without voting as they had to take their kid to school. That's something I have never seen before in any election. I wonder how serious they were about coming back and voting later? They were talking about noon, but that's probably an even worse time to vote with everyone taking their lunch breaks. 

I do have to say that my local polling place seemed a bit disorganized. Part of it was because the line was divided by last name. This seems like a good idea in practice but in execution it never seems to work out. Just like in 2016 the people with names A-N got screwed while the M-Z people were able to skip half the line! Just my luck I was in the first group. 

Other than that it was a fairly painless voting experience. It took a bit longer than I would have liked but that's my fault for not early voting and for doing it right away in the morning. It was the only time I could do it easily though so it worked out. I am so glad that I got to vote and I was even a little irrationally worried that I WAS going to get stabbed by a hobo or get into a car crash or something so I would end up missing voting. Now that it is done, it's like a weight off of my head. 

As for this blog, a reminder. I probably won't have a reaction post up tonight. I do have work tomorrow and I doubt that election results will be completely called by this evening. I also don't expect to write it tomorrow morning but I should have one up by Wednesday night. 

As for tonight, I may have a post up about non-election related things though that is going to depend on what happens in terms of stories and time constraints. I do have to go grocery shopping tonight, so I might just take tonight off and just relax. I think I earned it! 

My general predictions for tomorrow's election.

The last post I had on this blog was all about why I am voting for the Republicans in the 2018 midterms. This post is not that post. Instead I will be posting who I think will win control of the house and senate as a result of this election. It's still my opinion but I hope that my reasoning is as free from bias as it can get. This isn't a "get out the vote" post but "who will win" one.

The media seems to be pretty deep into the "blue wave" theory of the election. The general prediction is that though the Republicans will hold onto the senate or even gain a seat or two, the house will fall under a wave of new Democratic members of congress and that they will easily take control of the house.

I don't buy it. Why? Well for one it seems pretty clear that the media doesn't buy it either. Already they are hedging their bets saying that the GOP has a decent chance to hold onto the house. Given how embarrassed they were in 2016 I am guessing that this hedging is to make any outcome that isn't a total Democrat victory less embarrassing for them. That's why we have seen so many articles the last couple of days where they ask "what if the Republicans win?" and why Nate Sliver is backing down on his predictions. Indeed, even the "Dems win house, GOP wins Senate", narrative is a step down from the original blue wave prediction where the Democrats would win both.

So what do I think? I think that the GOP is going to pick up at least 5-6 seats in the senate and have a chance at a 60 seat super majority. In the house I think they are probably going to lose a couple of seats but won't lose control of the body. I'm not 100% confident of this outcome. If I were to put it into percentages I'd give it about a 50% shot of a minor GOP victory (keeps the house and gains senate seats) a 20% chance of a "red wave" (gains seats in the house and/or gets a supermajority in the senate) a 29% chance of losing the house to the democrats and a 1% chance of a blue wave (where the GOP loses in both the house and the senate).

I'm not as confident as I was during the 2016 presidential election. Why? Well we had history on our side for that one. It's very frequent that after a two term president that the other party gains control. But in the midterms history is against the GOP as the ruling party almost always loses seats during the midterms. In a normal election year it's almost unheard off that the ruling party wins

This isn't a normal election year though, to say the least. For one thing, in the senate, the Democrats are at a huge disadvantage. Few GOP held seats are even up for election while many Democratic ones are. And those seats tend to be in States that went for Trump in 2016. Of the Senate Democrats running in red states, only Joe Manchin seems safe, due in part for his vote for Kavanaugh and his general reputation as the last sane Democrat in the Senate (at least in the eyes of his red state voters).

President Trump's approval rating seems fairly high as well. Rasmussen's daily approval rating for him hovers around 50%  and even the more biased polls have him above 40%, which is much better than it has been. Trump's approval rating among minorities has jumped as well, sometimes hitting as high as 40% among blacks. Those are probably outlier polls but even if 10% of blacks switch to the GOP it will be devastating to the Democrats.

Trump has also been working his ass off trying to get out the vote. He had held dozens of huge election rallies in critical states. The turnout for these rallies has been extraordinary. I've never seen turnout so high for midterm rallies with tens of thousands of people waiting in lines for hours to see their president promote local and federal election candidates. The Democrats election rallies, on the other hand, have been a joke with even major stars like former President Obama or Bernie Sanders only getting a few thousand people. This suggests that voter enthusiasm is on the side of the GOP.

I also don't think that the polls are very accurate. I was citing Rasmussen above but they are one of the few polling companies that got the 2016 election right. Rasmussen today says that the congressional ballot is basically tied, with the GOP having a slight one point lead. This seems more realistic than other polls that say the Democrats have a huge advantage on a general ballot.

Why do I think the other polls have it wrong? I don't think they ever learned their lessons from 2016, or they did and don't care. In those polls they always over sampled Democrats to a ridiculous degree and then adjusted their polling results based on what they thought the polls were telling them instead of just reporting the raw numbers. I consider this to be due to bias by the pollsters and the media who reports on the polls.

I also think that the regular Republicans aren't being honest with pollsters. I know I have seen many people on the right saying that not only do they lie about who they are going to vote for, but they encourage others to do so as well. Some of that is due to real fear of being attacked or otherwise harmed by crazies that hate the GOP, which is especially true in blue states. The rest is due to people just being fed up with the perceived bias of polling companies and trying to make them look even stupider than they already are. This "shy Tory" effect was well documented in the 2016 election and any poll that doesn't try to factor this in is probably underestimating GOP support by a goo 1 to 5%.

The news has been fairly good for the GOP lately as well. The economy is booming right now and I think voters realize that it is largely due to the GOP. I know that I personally received raises both due to the Republican tax cuts and the fact that there are so many job openings my company had to raise wages to compete. With wages going up and tons of new jobs people have very little reason to want to change course outside of culture war BS.

I also think that the Democrats drastically misunderstood how that Kavanaugh confirmation and the Central American caravan would play to the electorate. Time and time again I have heard how the Kavanaugh confirmation was a crossing of the Rubicon for the Democrats. People were utterly disgusted by the behavior of the Democrats during the confirmation hearings. The idea that the Democrats were perfectly willing to destroy a good man over completely unreliable and even made up accusations was a real eye opener for people. I have heard from multiple people that the Kavanaugh confirmation debacle has pushed them from being independent voters to straight ticket GOP.

The Caravan was handled poorly as well. People will tolerate immigrants but the won't tolerate people who so flagrantly violate the law. The Democrats looked like idiots when they claimed that the Caravan were a bunch of innocent women and children when the men in the Caravan were fighting with Mexican police. The Caravan is hugely unpopular and people are furious not only at them but those that are enabling them as well. Whatever you think of Trump's border moves at least he can say he is trying to do something about the Caravan. The Democrats though seem to be actively encouraging them to come here which plays horribly

The bad news for the GOP kind of fizzled as well. The fake bombing campaign by an apparent disturbed Trump supporter had very little impact. Everyone considered the fake bombs to be an absolute joke and among Republicans it was dismissed as either a false flag or a made up controversy. Everyone knew that nobody was in any real danger and that the bomber was a nutjob and not a representative of mainstream GOP thought.

The shooting at a Synagogue might have had an effect but it too disappeared from the news very quickly. Part of that is just general fatigue of mass shooting stories. People just don't care anymore. I also think that the fact that the Synagogue was involved in importing migrants erased quite a bit of sympathy from the victims during this time, as sad as it is to say. Most importantly, the fact that the attacker hated President Trump made it impossible to blame the GOP for it.

So how could I be wrong about this? I do think that voter fraud is a huge issue that hasn't been fully addressed. Voter ID laws have helped but many states still do not have them. And with news from Georgia of the Democrats being accused of hacking election databases, it's clear that the threat is real. And there are still millions of illegal aliens living in America under assumed identities who may be able to vote.

It also might depend on how motivated the Democrats' base is. Though the Democrats haven't really offered voters anything other than a giant middle finger to Trump, that could be enough. Though Trump's approval ratings have risen considerably, the people that hate him REALLY hate him, to the point of irrationality. Angry people do have a tendency to show up at the polls. I think that turnout is going to be good for both sides and we can't just assume that only the GOP is angry.

Still, with all that being said, I do think that the GOP should do well on Tuesday. I will stand by my 70/30 prediction of a GOP win. If they do lose I will be surprised but not totally shocked. But if I were a betting man I would be putting money down on the GOP to win on Tuesday.

Finally, I am not going to be able to cover the election as well as I would want. I do have to work tomorrow and Wednesday so I will not be able to do a late night post recapping the results Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. I do expect to have a recap post up Wednesday night where I will either bask in the glory of correct predictions or try and explain how I am not an idiot despite being wrong. I also expect to have a short "voting experience" post up after I hit the polls Tuesday morning and may even have another non-election post up Tuesday night if I have the time.

How I have benefited from the Trump presidency and GOP control of congress.

I had been thinking about writing a general "get out the vote" post for the 2018 elections but in the end this isn't going to be that post. For one thing, if I had made my strongest arguments, it wouldn't matter as Facebook won't let my advertise my blog anymore without signing my life away. Without that extra push my post wouldn't get that much attention. Instead I will be writing instead about how today's current politics have affected me positively, which is more directed to the people that know me personally. I know I rarely talk about myself on this blog and since it is semi-anonymous I will be leaving some details out.

I graduated college in December of 2007. It was one of the weakest job markets there has been in my lifetime and I of course ended up entering the full time job market then. Nobody ever said I had good timing. It did not go well for me to say the least. I had put in for a few jobs but never got any call backs and I was working two part-time jobs with infrequent hours. I was broke and generally miserable. Though I have fond memories of one of the jobs, the other one was horrible and neither paid more than a pittance.

My degree ended up being largely useless as it was in a VERY crowded field. Criminal Justice at the time wasn't like it is today with lots of job openings, it was a joke. For police jobs, which was what I initially wanted, there were 300+ applicants per posting, and many of them had more qualifications then I did (i didn't have certification to go along with my B.S., but the people that got jobs generally did). And everything else was as bad or worse.

Why was the job market so bad? I like to think it was the economic polices of our last two presidents. Both Bush an Obama bear responsibility for the terrible economy that has only started to turn around now under President Trump. Their main goal was never to make sure that people like me had work and that our conditions improved. Both of them cared way more about big businesses, who were exporting jobs out of the country and hiring illegal immigrants, than the people that made up the base of the Republican and Democratic parties.

I did finally end up getting a full time job. It took a couple of years but it did finally happen. It's the job that I work at today, which I am still thankful to have. The pay wasn't great and it was a 45 minute commute each way but at least I could pay my rent money. I couldn't really afford too much else. Things got better but not that much. My first couple of raises were completely wiped out by the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the cost of living was generally higher than it is now. I was working hard but I never felt like I was getting ahead.

I caught one huge break though. When Obamacare was passed, I was lucky enough to be at a job that offered full healthcare benefits. I have heard so many horror stories of people around me that paid through the nose for healthcare that they didn't need and couldn't afford to use. I personally would have been absolutely broke if I had to go on Obamacare and to this day I am so glad that I didn't. If I had I know for sure that I would have been more outspoken in the 2016 election, but not on here. The internet would have probably had to have been something I had to cut out of my life because I couldn't afford it anymore. Obamacare was that bad, and I am thankful every day that I never had to go on it.

Things have changed for the better now. It started to turn around in 2014 or so, largely because I worked so much overtime. I had gotten a couple of raises and was putting money into the bank. But I was still scared to spend it. I generally did not buy things I needed because I had no faith in our countries leaders to keep the economy going and knew that if Obama and the Democrats had gotten their way I'd go right back to being broke.

That mindset finally changed after Donald Trump got elected. The national security situation stabilized and the economic situation seemed very bright. It was to the point where I took my first vacation as an adult, to Las Vegas, last year and I actually buy things, not only when I need them but also when I just want them. I generally don't worry about money that much anymore, which is a great feeling to have, even if I don't really make as much as I had hoped I would by this age.

The presidency of Donald Trump and GOP control of the Senate and Congress has been an economic boon for me. The tax cuts that they passed ended up giving me quite a bit more money each paycheck. It was enough of a raise that it pretty much pays for my energy bill each month off on one paycheck, with money left over for other things.

I have also gotten, since Trump has been elected, three raises, which ended up being a lot more than before he got elected. Some of that was our general small raises to combat inflation, but a huge chunk of it was due to President Trump. Though our company hasn't publicly said that they raised wages due to the tax cuts and booming economy (and I wouldn't dox myself by putting that info here), that was what I was told by my bosses and management. They told me that they just couldn't get away with the lower wages with the hundreds of job openings out their right now.

I think that this economy only continues if the GOP keeps congress. Trump's economic plan seems to be working out great and he has reformed the GOP party into one that actually delivers jobs. From tax cuts, to tariffs to punishing companies that outsource, he's doing a great job on the economy and the GOP held legislature is helping him out.

The problem is that if the Democrats take the house (which is possible) and/or the senate (which isn't), all those economic gains could be wiped out. It's very clear to me that the Democrats would be willing to tank the economy just to spite Trump and the Americans who support him. They haven't even made the case that we should elect them for their ideas. Their entire pitch is that we should vote for them because they hate Trump and nothing else.

That's an argument that isn't ever going to work on me. My life is better under Trump and the GOP then it would ever be under the Democrats. They have nothing to offer me and I fear for this country if they gain power again. I know that my bank account would suffer as more illegal immigrants would pour in and more jobs would be sent overseas. And that's leaving out the obvious cultural and foreign policy damage that a Democratic congress would bring.

And that's the main question I want you to ask yourself before you go into the polling place on Tuesday. Is your life better now than it is two years ago? Forget about the culture war BS, I am talking about your economic life. I know for a fact that I am and I implore everyone who feels the same to vote Republican in the 2018 election.

Florida GOP office hit in drive by shooting, no injuries or deaths.

The damage to the GOP office. NBC News. 

A Florida GOP office has been attacked in a drive by shooting which thankfully resulted in no casualties. AP. Four shots were fired at the Republican Executive Committe of Volusia County. The attack occurred near Daytona Beach and the office was empty at the time. Police are still investigating the attack and speculate that the motive was vandalism. 

No one was hurt. At least 4 bullets went through the windows pic.twitter.com/34a6MEthJR

— Mike Springer WFTV (@mspringerwftv) October 29, 2018

My Comment:
Compare the coverage this incident is getting to the fake bomb attacks that occurred last week. Those were and are still headline news with hours and hours of coverage. This attack? I had to search for it after seeing it on twitter this morning. A few news outlets, like Fox News, the Associated Press and the Washington Post covered it but not to the extent the bomb threats got. Part of that is of course the fact that the targets in the bomb hoax were famous and powerful while this attack is targeting a county level office, but that doesn't mean that this incident shouldn't get some coverage. There is bias at work here.

Calling this attack vandalism is fairly dishonest. A brick through the window or someone spray painting something on the walls would be vandalism. This feels more like someone throwing a Molotov cocktail into a building. The main goal might be property destruction but the chance of someone getting injured or hurt is a lot higher in both an arson attack and a shooting like this. This kind of attack is inherently more threatening than typical vandalism.

I also don't know if the attacker realized that the office was empty. If he or she thought that the office was occupied at the time then this attack is elevated from vandalism to attempted murder. Given that the attack happened at night when the office was closed it's probably pretty likely that the attacker did realize that the office was empty. That means that I feel this attack is a bit more serious than vandalism but not as bad as attempted murder.

The main goal in this attack seems to be pretty much the same as the fake bomb threats against various Democrats that ended in the arrest of a man. It's no coincidence that this happened right before the 2018 midterms. The goal in both attacks is to silence people on the other side through threats and intimidation.

I do think that this attack is a lot more intimidating, not that the bomb attacks weren't. The bomb attacks never even had a chance to hurt someone. The bombs couldn't have exploded unless the victims were stupid enough to get a lighter and detonate the bombs themselves. This attack could have very easily killed someone even by accident. Plus, with the suspect still not caught there is a chance that a follow up attack could happen that could kill or injure someone.

The good news is that I expect things to calm down a bit after the midterms. Right now that election is bringing out all the crazies on both sides and once that election is decided I am hoping that we won't see anymore political attacks in the short term. But unfortunately the division and hysteria in the media that is fueling this conflict will probably ramp up again in 2020...

Suspect arrested in letter bomb case

Cesar Sayoc mugshot. Wall Street Journal.

A suspect in the letter bomb case has been arrested for sending bombs to several high profile Trump critics. Wall Street Journal. Cesar Sayoc, a 56 year old from south Florida was arrested for the crimes. Sayoc was a Trump supporter and a male stripper who had several run ins with the laws. This was not the first time he made threats as he had served a one year probation sentence for a 2002 incident where he threatened to bomb a utility office he was having a dispute with. Sayoc is half white and half Native American. 

My Comment:

Though I think the threat this man represented has been massively overblown in the media, I am happy that he is in custody. Sending fake bombs to people isn't something that is ever ok, even if it is against people I don't like. I don't believe in political violence in any way, even if it's just a threat like this. I sincerely hope that Mr. Sayoc spends a very long time in prison. 

I really don't know what Sayoc was trying to accomplish here. If he was actually trying to murder people, which I don't think he was, he failed miserably. I do believe that I heard that Sayoc said he didn't want to hurt anyone but I haven't been able to find a source for that to confirm it. If he was trying to shut up the people he sent the fake bombs to, it didn't work. I doubt any of them were really intimidated and they now have the opportunity to gain sympathy from the attacks. 

Indeed, Sayoc's plot probably did damage to the man he claims to support. The last thing President Trump needed was this idiot making threats against his enemies. The media is having a field day with this and will probably cover it until and after the 2018 midterms. If he was trying to help he was a complete failure. 

It seems like Sayoc wasn't all there mentally. Someone in the Walls Street Journal was quoted as Sayoc being a racist, which makes little sense as he isn't fully white himself. Plus the pictures of the van he owned showed he was WAY too into politics. And I say that as someone who is too into politics. With his entire van covered in Trump pictures I wonder if he wasn't trying to draw someone into a fight. He also had a criminal history of making bomb threats, so it isn't too surprising that he did this. 

I do wonder if Sayoc had some help. I kind of think that Sayoc might have been a "known wolf" and been known to the FBI or other law enforcement. The FBI has a long history of encouraging terror plots to the point of giving them weapons and/or explosive and then arresting them at the last minute. Though I have no proof, I wonder if that is what happened here. If it did, I doubt we will hear about it anytime soon. 

I don't think this case effects the election all that much. The people that hate President Trump will still hate him while the ones that love him will continue to do so. I doubt that even one vote has been changed because of this attack. The general public seems very willing to move on to other things.

The general response I have seen from Trump supporters has been that Sayoc wasn't one of us and that none of us support this kind of political violence. Indeed, the main reason I supported President Trump in the primaries was due to the violence against him and his supporters. Compared to some of the major attacks against Republicans, including the Alexandria baseball shooting, the attack on Rand Paul and the various powder/Ricin attacks, not to mention the constant attacks against normal Trump supporters, this incident was basically a joke. Nobody was ever in any real danger. Some are still thinking there is a wider conspiracy, and I do agree that there are questions about that this case that should be asked, but for the most part we have already moved on. 

The Democrats and media are trying to act like innocent victims  but I am not buying it. I don't think it's a coincidence that almost everyone targeted in this incident were people that have either threatened Trump and his supporters with violence or didn't speak out against it. I think in Sayoc's mind he thought he was helping to protect the president. Given how violent the left was, I can at least understand that line of thinking even if Sayoc's response was completely unjustified to say the least. 

I don't plan on covering this story again, as I feel it really isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. Indeed, I am somewhat annoyed that the amount of coverage for this case greatly exceeded even the coverage of the Alexandria shooting. A fake bombing campaign is a serious thing, but not the world changing event that the media is making it out to be. 

Minnesota house GOP candidate given a concussion by an attacker at a restaurant.

Minnesota house GOP candidate Shane Mekeland. Star Tribune. 

A candidate for a Minnesota state house seat has been injured in an attack at a restaurant. Star Tribune. Shane Mekeland is running for the 15b house district, which is an open seat. Last Friday Mekeland was attacked as Mekeland was talking to people at a restaurant and received a concussion. The attacker is still under investigation and his name has not yet been released. Mekeland said that the attacker made a political statement about politicians not caring about the middle class. Mekeland criticized the lack of civility present in politics today and criticized Maxine Waters, Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder.

My Comment:

Though Mekeland was running for a relatively unimportant state house race, it is still disturbing that he was attacked like this. A concussion is a very serious thing and blows to the head can kill. Mekeland was lucky that he wasn't hurt or disabled by this attack. 

These kinds of attacks seem to be more common. There was an attack in California recently and of course there was the castor bean attacks against Trump, Ted Cruz and members of Trump's staff. And we also can't forget that there was the Alexandria shooting as well. 

I do think that Democratic politicians should take some of the blame for this. There is no evidence that this particular attack is due to the comments of people like Maxine Waters, Corey Booker, Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder, but there isn't any evidence that it isn't either. However, if the investigation does show that the attacker was inspired by those politicians then they should pay a political price for this. 

I fear that these kinds of attacks might become more frequent. The Democratic party has whipped their constitutes up into a frenzy and there is very little release for them. I think many people realize that they are losing and might want to do something stupid or dangerous. Though I hope this isn't a sign of things to come... 

Elizabeth Warren claims DNA test proves she has Native American ancestry

Elizabeth Warren. The Daily Beast/Getty.

Elizabeth Warren has released DNA tests that she says proves that she has Native American ancestry. The Boston Globe. Warren has come under massive criticism for claiming that she had Native American ancestry, especially by President Trump, who nicknamed her "Pocahontas". In order to counter that attack and claims she lied about her heritage to get hired as a professor via diversity quotas, Warren commissioned a DNA expert to analyze her DNA. He found that Warren was almost all white but had some Native American DNA from 6 to 10 generations back. That would mean Warren would be between 1/64th and 1/1024th Native American. Due to tribal resistance to widespread DNA testing the expert had to use DNA samples from South and Central America. Warren is widely expected to run for president in 2020. 

For the Cherokee Nation's part, who Warren claims she is a member, they accuse Warren of undermining tribal interests. The nation claims that DNA tests are useless and that Warren is making a mockery of them and tribal laws on heritage.

My Comment:

Man oh man are the media hyping this story, and not in a good way. The difference between the headlines and the actual results is stunning to the point where it looks like the media is lying. There is a huge difference between a headline that says "Elizabeth Warren takes DNA test and finds she has between 1/64th and 1/1024th Native American DNA" and "Elizabeth Warren takes DNA test that proves she has Native American ancestry". It's to the point where it's a lie of omission. 

The statement from the Cherokee Nation was hard to find as well. I saw a screenshot on Twitter and wanted to verify it but both Google News and Bing News had nothing. A second glace at Twitter showed the Daily Beast story above but even then I had to search the Cherokee Nation on Twitter, which was trending at the same time. You would think that the actual Native Americans calling Elizabeth a lair and a scoundrel would be the end of this story, but I think a lot of people aren't even going to see it. If I wasn't on Twitter I would have missed it. 

I do think it's hilarious that Warren apparently thinks that this vindicates here claims that she's Native American. My great grandfather was Greek, which makes me 1/8th Greek on my father's side. I sometimes jokingly refer to myself as Greek but I would feel guilty as hell running for a Greek scholarship or being counted as a Greek American for diversity quota's. 

But Elizabeth Warren, with her tiny amount of Native American DNA and no affiliation with any tribal organization, did exactly that. She claimed to be Native American during her career as a college professor. Why is unknown but my guess is she thought she would have had a better chance of being hired if she was "diverse" than if she just admitted that she was white. 

Though I personally think that diversity quota's are both stupid and wrong, it's pretty obvious that Warren played the system. And she is going to great lengths to try and justify what she did. Part of it is just genuine annoyance at Donald Trump for continuously bringing it up, but it's also clear that she thinks it's a major issue for her reelection campaign and for her 2020 presidential ambitions. 

I also think that anyone claiming ancestry from a 1/64th to a 1/1024th DNA sample is being foolish. From what I understand, most Americans have similar levels of Native American DNA. Having an ancestor from that long ago doesn't make you an American Indian unless you are actually a member of a tribe. I do know that there are quite a few generally white people who are in Native American tribes but it's not the color of your skin or your DNA test that makes you eligible for that. It's up to each tribe to determine their membership, not a DNA test. 

Do I think that her lies disqualify her from the Senate or a presidential run? Probably not, though it is a scandal that shows she is dishonest. I always encourage people to vote on policy, not character as pretty much everyone in politics is some kind of scumbag and if you dig into anyone's lives like we do to politicians you are pretty much guaranteed to find something. That being said, I absolutely do not endorse Warren in the senate or as a presidential candidate. Her views on gun rights alone should forever bar her from running for dogcatcher, let alone President of the United States. 

Finally, I have to say that President Trump's attacks on Elizabeth Warren have very clearly worked. Before he started calling her Pocahontas, I wasn't aware of this issue at all, but now pretty much everyone in the country knows what Warren is and what she did, to the point that's she's probably as famous for this as she is for her actual accomplishments and policies. And he also baited her into releasing this DNA test that doesn't actually prove her claims and got the Cherokees to call her out on her behavior. Not bad for an obvious troll attempt. 

Man arrested for suicide bombing plot targeting the National Mall in Washington DC.

Police search the home of the suspect, Paul Rosenfeld. NBC News.

A man has been arrested in upstate New York for a bombing plot that would have targeted the National Mall in Washington DC on election day. NBC News. Paul Rosenfeld, 58, of Tappen New York was arrested for the plot. His goal was to draw attention to sortition, the obscure democratic process of selecting legislators randomly by lottery. The plot fell apart after Rosenfeld sent letters and text messages to a Pennsylvania reporter detailing his plot. Rosenfeld's device weighed 200 lbs but only had 8 lbs of black powder explosives. Rosenfeld appears to have acted alone and had no apparent connections to any terrorist groups. 

My Comment:

A very strange case out of New York. Rosenfeld's actions here are bizarre to say the least. His plot to blow himself up at the National Mall on election day in order to draw attention to an obscure political system seems very stupid. 

I do have to wonder how Rosenfeld expected his plot to work. His 200 lbs device would not be concealable at all and would be immediately noticed by police stationed at the National Mall. And with only 8 lbs of explosives the bomb would be unlikely to kill anyone besides him. It would still be extremely dangerous to be caught in that area and if Rosenfeld had used things like nails or BB's for shrapnel it might be deadly, but when it comes down to it, 8lbs isn't much, especially if it is contained by a 200 lbs device. Perhaps this was less of a terror attack and more of a protest suicide that had a ludicrously high chance of injuring or even killing an innocent person or persons. 

For comparison here's what 5 lbs of black powder can do to a car. Certainly dangerous but smaller than the worst case scenario. 

I don't know much about the sortition political system. I have heard of political systems where people were drawn from the wider voting bloc and made into legislators but I have no idea how Rosenfeld expected to work in the United States. Doing so would probably destroy the two party system but it would be wildly inconsistent. I can't see it ever working in our country considering how massive we are and how many different beliefs people have. If we were a homogeneous nation with a hundredth of the population it might work but that's obviously not the case. 

I do have to say that even if Rosenfeld's plot failed, it did work to draw attention to the concept of sortition. Thousands of people are learning about it today and he defiantly raised awareness of the idea. On the other hand it has now been permanently associated with a nutjob that wanted to blow himself up. 

Of course the timing of this plot was significant. Though the actual damage of this attack would have likely been small the media coverage and ensuing panic could disrupt the 2018 midterms. People would likely be afraid in the immediate confusion and might be too afraid to go to the polls. This could change the outcome of dozens of races and might even lead to calls for new elections. 

I was already worried about violence during the elections or in the immediate lead up to them. Especially with the media's hysterical coverage over the Kavanaugh hearings and Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder's reckless and dangerous statements. Though it doesn't appear that Rosenfeld was inspired by anything by his odd political beliefs, there is a real chance that someone will take Clinton or Holder's words literally... 

Hillary Clinton says Democrats can't be "civil" anymore.

Hillary Clinton speaks at Oxford University. EPA/USA Today.

In an interview with CNN, Hillary Clinton said that Democrats can't be civil with Republicans anymore until they win elections. USA Today. Clinton said that Democrats have to be tougher against Republicans. Clinton told CNN's Christiane Amanpour "You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about," adding "That's why I believe, if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and or the Senate, that's when civility can start again." Hillary Clinton also bashed President Donald Trump and Republicans in general. 

My Comment:

Sometimes I wish that Hillary Clinton would just go away. She's obviously done as a politician and has basically no chance of ever holding political office again. She does have a new career as a public speaker, but she was doing that before the election as well. I don't think she has anything important to say about anything and it is especially hypocritical to criticize the treatment of women by the GOP when her husband is a serial sexual criminal. 

Her remarks here are of course troubling to say the least. Given the fact that Democrats and leftist have already murdered or attempted to murder people based on their political beliefs, this is the exact opposite of being helpful. We have already seen attempts like the Alexandria shooting, the various attacks against police and the handful of assassination attacks against people like President Donald Trump and Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. And we have seen hundreds of attacks, threats and harassment of pro-Trump regular people.

In my eye, Hillary Clinton knows this and doesn't care. She doesn't want to avoid violence or disorder but instead is encouraging it as she knows it will help her bottom line and perhaps even keep her out of prison. I think some of it is just whining as well. She lost the 2016 election and now there is a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court. She probably knows that the "Blue Wave" was never really going to happen and that the GOP will keep the house and take a few seats in the Senate. Political violence is about the only weapon that the Democrats have left. 

Of course, a more charitable interpretation of Clinton's remarks is that she wants Democrats to just be tougher on Republicans without resorting to violence. How such a thing would be possible is beyond me. They are already harassing GOP elected and appointed officials every time they do pretty much anything and constantly belittle, insult and attack anyone who disagrees with them. For me, I don't see how she could possibly mean anything other than violence. 

On the other hand, I do have to say that Hillary Clinton is probably one of the GOP's best weapons. Normal people seem to hate her and even many Democrats wish she would just go away. Her remarks today is the kind of thing that will fire up the GOP base, alienate centrists and do very little to actually get Democrats to the polls. 

Indeed, it is amazing to me that the Democrats still haven't figured things out. They should have known that blocking Brett Kavanaugh's nomination with unproven at best sexual assault allegations would backfire on them. Instead they could have helped themselves quite a bit if they had just change tone and started talking about what they could do for regular people. If they had gone with something like Bernie Sanders' populist platform for 2018 they might have had a chance. Bernie "Free Stuff" Sanders message of free stuff may be something I disagree with but it's a lot better message than "all white people are racists, sexists and now rapists so vote for a party that hates you" message that Clinton and the rest of the Democrats are pushing now. 

I also have to say that I doubt that the Democrats would be civil if they were to gain power. Listening to leftist pundits and the blue checkmark brigade on twitter and it's clear that they are after revenge. They hate President Trump to be sure and will likely try to remove him from office if they were to win back the house and senate, but I doubt it will end with him. I would expect the worst behavior from the left that we are seeing right now, the violence, the censorship and the civil disorder, to increase with the tacit approval of Washington. And it will be regular people caught up in the chaos instead of just the political class. 

Thankfully, I don't see that happening anytime soon. The Kavanaugh issue has united and enthused the GOP base and I see them as very motivated to vote. They might not be voting for whoever managed to run for congress or the senate, but they will be voting against Democrats. And the undecided voters are going to be taking a hard look at the behavior of people like Hillary Clinton and the relative success of President Trump's economic and foreign policy and probably make a choice against the Democrats. I think there is a chance that the GOP loses the house but that chance is growing smaller everyday. Assuming there isn't some kind of massive October surprise in the Democrats favor or widespread civil disorder or voter fraud, I see the Blue Wave being a Blue Trickle and the GOP holding on to the seats of power. Perhaps then the Democrats will finally take a look at themselves and discover that what they are doing isn't working and actually go back to their former values of tolerance, peace and justice.

EDIT: Steve Scalise said it better than I could... 

Seriously, Hillary? https://t.co/EPJVwX692T

— Rep. Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) October 9, 2018

Arrest made in ricin case targeting President Trump, Ted Cruz and James Mattis.

US Defense Department workers screening mail. ABC News/AFP.

An arrest has been made in the ricin case that targeted President Trump, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Senator Ted Cruz and Admiral John Richardson. ABC News. William Clyde Allen, a Navy veteran from Logan, Utah has been arrested for the attack. Investigators have found that the powder was not ricin but castor beans, which ricin is processed from. Castor beans are still deadly if eaten but are not dangerous if casually contacted. The investigation linked the attacks on Trump and the Pentagon with the attack on Ted Cruz, which wasn't initially thought to be connected to the other attacks. Allen was tracked down after he left his return address on one of the envelopes. 

My Comment:

An update to yesterdays post. It looks like this case was less dangerous than it was. It seems like Logan wasn't even able to make ricin, which isn't so hard to do. Instead he just sent the seeds. It's unclear if those seeds were ground up or not but they are a lot less dangerous than actual processed ricin. They were unlikely to harm anyone unless someone was stupid enough to eat it. Thankfully this attack failed pretty miserably. 

I was surprised that the Ted Cruz attack was included in the other three. That case seemed different than the other three with the substance seemingly ruled out from being ricin or castor beans. Apparently that wasn't the case and this event was part of the other attacks. Perhaps I should have waited until better info came out but I was just going off of reporting I had seen from multiple sources. 

The attacker in this case seems like a total idiot. Not only did he fail to make an effective weapon, he also was tracked down almost instantly and has already been arrested. Sending out mail with poison in it and then leaving your return address on it is almost criminally stupid. Especially because it's more effort to actually include the return address than to leave it off. 

It almost makes me wonder if this wasn't some kind of suicide mission. He had to know he was going to get caught right away right? And if he knew he was going to get caught what could he be looking for? My guess is attention. He thought trying to attack the President and other important figures would get attention and it worked. 

As for motive, it seems pretty clear that this wasn't a non-political attack. The rumor mill is that this guy was antifa, but nobody has confirmed that. Still, given his choice of targets it would make sense. Attacking Trump and Ted Cruz wouldn't be out of character for a #Resist type, but targeting the military in James Mattis and Admiral Richardson makes antifa more likely. Regardless though, even if he wasn't antifa, it's hard to argue that this wasn't done for political reasons. 

Either way though I am glad that this guy was caught. Though he failed miserably in his attacks there is no reason not to suspect that he couldn't have gotten better and refined his attacks so they actually hurt someone. Plus his actions were extremely disruptive to the Ted Cruz campaign and further attacks might have cost him votes unfairly. He deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. 

Ricin attack targeting President Trump, Secretary of Defense Mattis and Admiral Richardson foiled.

Secretary of Defense James "Jim" Mattis. Monica King/US Dept. of Defense. 

Envelops containing ricin targeting President Trump, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and top Navy officer Admiral John Richardson have been found in a new threat against the US government. Fox News. All three envelopes were intercepted before they reached their intended targets. Intial tests indicated positive for ricin, a deadly poison made from Castor Beans. ricin is one of the easier poisons to make and have been used in attempted and successful assassinations before. 

The attack occurred around the same time as another scare happened at the headquarters for Senator Ted Cruz's reelection campaign. Two people were hospitalized after a white powder was found in a piece of mail. Testing did not indicate any danger but investigators have yet to identify the substance. It is unclear if there Cruz scare had anything to do with the assassination attempts on Trump, Mattis and Richardson. 

My Comment:

Before I say anything else I have to say that trying to kill Jim Mattis is not going to work out for anyone. The man is essentially war incarnate and you would be a fool to think something like ricin would be enough to take him down. Plus, he's one of the most popular men in the Military so if you did take him down you have have the fire and fury of the entire American armed forces come down on you. In short, this was a terrible idea and one that will not end well for the person responsible for this attack. 

Of course the attacks on Trump, Mattis and Richardson were never likely to work. This is not the first time someone has sent ricin to government officials and as usual they were intercepted before it could hurt anyone. Our government is hardened to such attacks and it would take a major mistake for an attack like this to hurt anyone, let alone someone as important as the three men targeted in this attack. 

Before I say anything else I do have to make sure that these attacks aren't always partisan. There were two of these attacks against the Obama administration and neither of them seemed to have been done for partisan political reasons. That may not be the case here but I just wanted to point that out. 

Motive is a mystery for me. Normally I would say that the Ricin attacks were because of politics, but the inclusion of Jim Mattis give me pause. Mattis is the most popular member of Trump's cabinet and is one that even most Democrats respect. If this was done because of political reasons, it would be extreme ones as the mainstream left gives Mattis some respect. 

More likely though this was some psychopath doing it for attention and not for some grand political scheme. I'm thinking more like John Hinkley Jr as opposed to Lee Harvy Oswald. On the other hand, mailing and producing ricin shows a level of planning and expertise that rules out the severely mentally ill. Without a note or some claim of responsibility we will have to wait until this attacker is arrested and even then we might not find out the full story. 

I am more worried about the attack on Ted Cruz. I doubt there is any connection to the ricin cases as why would someone try to poison three people but just hoax the fourth? But if that attacker had used ricin, they probably could have injured and/or killed someone. Unlike the government, political campaigns have much weaker security which makes attacks like this much more likely to work. The fact that two people were hospitalized as a precaution shows how vulnerable they could have been to a real attack. 

The motive in this case was likely political. Cruz is in a tough reelection campaign and his hated on the left. The attack was a major disruption to his campaign a month away from election day. Cruz himself was likely safe but all the time he and his staff spent dealing with this is time they could have been campaigning. And his headquarters was shut down for quite some time, leaving him at a disadvantage. 

My hope is that both of these cases are resolved quickly. Though ricin poisoning via the mail rarely works, it is still a major threat and one that cannot be taken lightly. If the ricin attacker switches up tactics and hits more vulnerable targets he or she may very well kill someone. And in the middle of election season we can not allow these kinds of attacks to continue to disrupt it. Let us all hope that these attackers are found soon and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 

Is China interfering with the 2018 midterms?

US Ambassador to China, Terry Branstad. Reuters. 

The US Ambassador to China Terry Branstad has repeated President Trump's claim that China is interfering with the 2018 midterm elections. Reuters. China's China Daily paper had bought a four page advertisement supplement in Iowa's Des Moines register touting US-China trade relations. China is currently engaged in a trade war with the United States and China has specifically targeted Iowa with tariffs. Branstad wrote a reply article in the same paper countering the claims of China and had attempted to have his opinion piece published in China. China refused that offer. 

My Comment:

Much has been made about the 2016 elections and Russia's supposed interference in those elections. But I have always felt that China is a much bigger influence in our elections in general. Though Russia may have preferred Trump they seemed to have gone for a chaos strategy. China, on the other hand, went for Hillary Clinton due to Trump's position on trade. 

The article and many others have said what China has done here is fairly common. Many countries have done the same thing but usually not under these circumstance. I think there is a difference between doing it just to promote trade and doing it to hurt President Trump and the GOP's election chances in 2018. 

China has an obvious interest in having the Democrats win in 2018. They do not support Trump's trade practices and may try to derail his new trade deal with Canada and Mexico. Those trade deals were largely at the expense of China. China is already suffering economically and will be damaged greatly by the new trade deals. 

I also have always thought that China has too much power over American culture. Movies are a good example of this. These days Hollywood is obsessed with Chinese movie dollars to the point where they censor themselves. A good example of this is the remake of the movie Red Dawn. Originally China was the villain but it was changed to North Korea at the last minute. Many other changes like this have occurred as well. That essentially means that China has editorial control over American movies.

Still, I have never really bought election interference as a thing. I doubt a bunch of facebook memes and twitter accounts did anything in the 2016 elections and I doubt an oped in an Iowa newspaper will either. People are going to vote because of the economy, their opinion on President Trump, and the deplorable behavior of the Democratic Party. China's interference isn't going to do much. 

GOP candidate for congress in California attacked by a man with a switchblade.

The suspect, Farzad Fazeli. Sacramento Bee. 

A Republican candidate for Congress in California's 15th district was attacked by a man with a switchblade this weekend. Sacramento Bee. Rudy Peters, a Navy veteran, is running against Eric Swalwell in the 15th district and was campaigning at the Castro Valley Fall Festival when he was attacked. The attacker, Farzed Fazeli, approached Peters at his campaign booth and began disparaging him and President Trump Fazeli then pulled a switchblade and may have thrown a glass mug at Peters as well. Peters defended himself using a campaign sign and was able to drive off the suspect after his switchblade failed. Police arrested him a short time later. For his part, Peters opponent, Eric Swalwell condemned the attack on Twitter. 

On Sunday, my opponent @PetersCongress was attacked at his campaign booth in Castro Valley. I’m glad to hear Mr. Peters is okay. But it’s NEVER okay to use violence to settle political disagreements (or any disagreement). Fortunately, @ACSOSheriffs arrested the suspect.

— Eric Swalwell (@ericswalwell) September 11, 2018

My Comment:
This story is not getting much attention outside of conservative and local outlets. You would think someone attacking a congressional candidate would be major news but I guess not. Part of it might be because the 15th district is a safe blue district and not really competitive, but even then this is kind of a big deal.

Peters had a real chance of being hurt or even killed. Indeed, it seems he was saved because he aggressively defended himself and because Fazeli's switchblade failed. If either of those things were not true he could have been injured or worse. It just goes to show that self defense is something everyone should be prepared for.

I have to say that I respect Peters for fighting back. Going up against a deranged armed man while armed with nothing more than a campaign sign is a brave thing to do. Winning in that situation is just bad ass. I'd consider voting for him just because of that. He's a Navy vet so he probably had some kind of training but even then going up against an armed man is not a good scenario for anyone.

I do have to say that this situation mirrors the attempted assassination of right wing presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. He was out in the public trying to rally votes as well, but his attacker's knife didn't fail. He almost died because of it and it just goes to show how vulnerable political candidates can be.

This is especially true for minor candidates like Peters. Presidential candidates have the Secret Service and most bigger candidates for major officers can afford private security. That's not the case for a probable long shot candidate like Peters. I doubt he had any security at all and given California's draconian gun laws he probably didn't have a CCW permit. A minor candidate like this has very few options.These people are especially vulnerable to attack.

I think this is a pretty clear case of Trump derangement syndrome. Fazeli was so incensed by Peters and his pro-Trump campaign that he tried to kill him for it. That kind of reaction is so over the top but it is becoming more and more common. It was mostly dumb luck that this case didn't end up as an assassination...

Sad as it is to say, I would not be surprised if a GOP candidate for office does get murdered before then 2018 midterms. We all remember the congressional baseball shooting and you may also recall that there was an ill concived plot against the President himself during the 2016 campaign. With the media so out of control it wouldn't surprise me if some deranged nut job or even just a really pissed off person were to take the media seriously and actually try and stop a GOP candidate with violence. For me it seems less of a question of if but of when...

A few quick thoughts about the Ohio 12th district special election.

Final election results. Via New York Times.

As you may be aware the special election in Ohio came down to the wire and was an extremely close victory for Troy Balderson, the Republican in the race. I have a few quick thoughts about the election and what it means. 

-Blue Twitter seems to be blaming the loss on Joe Manchick voters for the Green Party. The final election numbers pretty much blow that theory out of the water as even if every single one of those voters would have voted for Danny O'Connor, the Democrat, he still would have lost in an extremely tight race. And I doubt many of those people would have voted for a Democrat under any circumstances. Not everyone votes for the "lesser of two evils" and there is no guarantee that if Joe Manchik didn't run all of those people would have voted for O'Connor. Many would have stayed home and some might have even voted for Balderson. Attacking those voters will probably not endear any of them to the Democrats so it's kind of funny to watch. 

-Blue Twitter is also saying that this election is a moral victory for them as the race was close when it went pretty strongly for Trump in 2016. I don't buy it. Turnout is always down for special elections, but the Democrats poured money into this district, which is up for re-election in a couple months. Democrats were highly motivated and desperate for a win but still couldn't pull it off. GOP turnout will be up in November and I think that OH-12 is no longer in play for the Democrats. 

-The election was almost totally pointless. Like I mentioned, the office is up for re-election in November, so no matter who won, they would have to do it over again in a few months, only with a larger GOP advantage (barring a hell of an October Surprise). I honestly don't know why the Democrats raised and spent so much money for a seat that they would probably only hold onto for a couple of months. 

-This is a morale blow for the Democrats. Far from a blue wave, this was a narrow GOP victory. As much as the Democrats are trying to convince everyone that they will take the House and Senate this November, I see those elections going the same way as this one. A narrow victory for the GOP. I'm not seeing much of a red wave either, but I think the status quo will likely remain. 

Chelsea Manning running for senate in Maryland...

Chelsea Manning, from her announcement video. ABC/AP.

Chelsea Manning, formally Bradly Manning, the former Army intelligence soldier that leaked information to Wikileaks, is running for Senate in Maryland. ABC News.  Manning was convicted of a felony for the leak and was granted clemency by Barack Obama after coming out as transgender. Manning will run in the primary against incumbent senator Ben Cardin. Neither Manning or Cardin has officially filed the paperwork to run yet. Maryland is considered a safe state for Democrats and Cardin is one of the most liberal members of the Senate. 

yup, we're running for senate 😎🌈💕 #WeGotThis https://t.co/ynFv6w32np

— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) January 14, 2018

My Comment:
Well, just when I thought nobody could find a Senate candidate worse than Joe Arpaio, the Democrats may have topped it. Chelsea Manning is quite possibly the worst choice and if she's the candidate it's very possible that a rock solid blue senate seat could flip to the Republicans. 

Manning represents everything wrong with the Democratic Party, at least in the eyes of the right and many of the more rational people on the left. She was convicted of sending secrets to Wikileaks, and though Wikileaks has been reformed in the eyes of many on the right, her leaks didn't really do much to improve the country. People will support leakers but only if they leak stuff that actually improves things. The diplomatic cables and war logs she released only embarrassed the United States.

Quite a few people consider her a traitor and were disgusted that she is free right now. And those people are across the political spectrum. There are many Republicans, Democrats and Independents that agree that what she did was wrong and that she never should have been granted clemency.

There is also the obvious problem of electing a convicted felon who has already proven that she can't be trusted with secrets. If she were to be elected, how could anyone trust her to keep secrets? How do we know that the first thing she does once elected is just leak everything she gets here hands on? Plus, even though our standards of  what is acceptable, do we really want a convicted felon as a Senator? At least Joe Arpaio was pardoned, Manning's conviction is still on the record.

The obvious elephant in the room is the fact that Manning used to be a man. Depending on your views of the matter, she's still a he. Indeed, I'm mostly referring to Manning as a female due to the fact that it's politically dangerous to do otherwise.

I am guessing the fact that Manning is transgender is going to be a mark against her. Even though the Democratic Party is supposedly the party of LGBT rights, there are large numbers of people in the party that aren't exactly happy with that fact, especially among the minority racial members of the party. Though most people are reasonably tolerant of the LGB groups, they aren't really sold on the T portion. Democrats have ran transgender people before, and won, but not in a race as important as this. Alone it might not be an issue, but with Manning's other flaws it should be enough to lose in the primaries.

It also goes to show that the Democratic Party is being pushed way further to the left. It's not like Ben Cardin is a blue dog Democrat or anything. He's a loyal and reliable senator who always toes the party line. But since he's a old white male (well Jewish, but same difference) he has to be purged from the party to make way for a MTF transgender. That's going to do little to help the impression that the Democrats are a party that has no place for white males.

I doubt it will get to that point though. It's very hard to unseat an incumbent and I doubt Manning will get much in the way of mainstream support. Cardin's fairly popular and I doubt the Democrats will want to risk a safe senate seat over a transgender felon.

If they do though, I think that Manning will almost certainly lose. Maryland is a safe blue state, but not that safe. Cardin won with 55% of the vote in 2012, and I am guessing there will be defections if Manning is the candidate. Manning's felony conviction alone will probably cost at least 5% of the vote and I am guessing the fact that she is transgender will lose here another 5 or 10%. Just like the Republicans with Roy Moore and Joe Arpiao, the Democrats too are finding new and creative ways to lose.