A State Funeral, A Leaderless Caravan, and Rampant California Voter Fraud

THE FUNERAL. It was a good funeral, not as religious or emotional as Barbara's, but John Meacham did his best to make a hero of Bush. President GW Bush was, for me, the most sincere and honest, along with the pastor who also spoke the eulogy for Barbara if I remember right. Michelle was the only woman not in black and with a decolletage neckline...ho hum. President Trump was extremely focused. I always get the feeling that he is so much more intelligent than whoever he is with that he focuses to try to understand them from their point of view. What will tomorrow hold -- freed of Trump's presence and of DC and the confines of government??? But, of today's state funeral of President George Herbert Walker Bush, we can say that it was dignified, correct, restrained, moderately non-partisan, and safe. It was American. • • • THE ILLEGALS ARE FEEDING ON AMERICA. American Thinker's Monica Showalter reported on Tuesday that : "Anyone who thinks illegal aliens and "asylum" applicants are coming here to work is living on another planet. New data from the Census show that 63% of non-citizens are helping themselves to the welfare. They get it legally, and sometimes illegally, through food programs, general assistance programs, Medicaid, and the earned income tax credit for low-income workers, just for starters. They get even more when benefits derived from their US-born children are thrown in, though bringing in a kid born elsewhere is also an asset." • The Washington Examiner reports : "A majority of 'non-citizens,' including those with legal green card rights, are tapping into welfare programs set up to help poor and ailing Americans, a Census Bureau finding that bolsters President Trump's concern about immigrants costing the nation. In a new analysis of the latest numbers, from 2014, 63% of non-citizens are using a welfare program, and it grows to 70% for those here 10 years or more, confirming another concern that once immigrants tap into welfare, they don't get off it." Showalter notes : "So no, it's not a temporary little safety net for those who just arrive here until they get their sea legs on the vast ship of America -- the percentage of non-citizens on welfare expands as such people stay a while, meaning welfare is preferable to work. Why work when Uncle Sam is giving it away for free? That's a great deal for someone otherwise condemned to living in a tin shack out in Tegucigalpa but not a benefit to our country. In fact, it's a drain, and Democrats, based on their policy positions, seem desperate to import more of it." • The Census news relates to what is going on in Tijuana. Showalter says : " It's almost a given that the illegal alien population would be part of this trend. The migrant caravan of Honduras consists almost exclusively of low-skilled, zero-English people who at best have a tenth-grade education. As a result, they are likely to earn only low wages here and are least likely to assimilate, given their high concentrations. The generous welfare state is making it easy for them, and drawing more to come." • But, adds Showalter : "Amazingly, even legal immigrants are higher consumers of welfare services, too. That likely speaks to the power of leftist judges who take any asylum claim no matter how unlikely an applicant is to succeed here, as well as the power of family reunifications that expand the size of non-citizen welfare families as well as their consumption of welfare. It's very rare that an uneducated legal immigrant here is going to have a lot of educated relatives to bring in through chain migration." • Monica Showalter is very concerned : "Every detail of the report is problematic. Most people probably wouldn't mind if illegal aliens and other non-citizens really did come here to work and nothing else. But even work is corrupted with the fact that illegals and other non-citizens qualify for the earned income tax credit, meaning that if they earn low wages, they get big fat tax refunds back despite not paying any taxes into the system. That explains why nearly all non-citizen households have one member who works. The tax credit, after all, is large. This presumably doesn't even get into other kinds of services illegals use that aren't considered welfare, such as free public school education, public defenders, highway use, and untaxed remittances on illegally earned wages. And the use of public assistance seems to be going up. If you look at this interview done by Paul Sperry earlier this year from an immigration-skeptical think-tank, the official says 62% of non-citizens use welfare. Now the Census data shows that it is 63%. That signals word getting around south of our border. Two things stand out. One, Republicans have done nothing to cut off at least some of the benefits, such as the earned income tax credit, which is so obviously a magnet for non-contributory migrants who come here to take, without putting a penny into the system. Where were these Republicans when they had some power to end this injustice? Two, the Democrats are pushing for more of this kind of welfare migration, extending the goody table ever farther for them. California, for instance, wants to put every low-waged illegal on Medi-Cal, offering up a free ride to all takers from abroad while the rest of us make rent-sized payments for our health insurance, and Democrats want to extend the vast banquet table of benefits ($12 billion's worth) to DREAMers. That speaks to a party desperate to import more poverty to secure votes. That was how Hugo Chávez secured his votes -- and his permanent power in Venezuela. Voters haven't a clue as to how dangerous this all is." • Dangerous. Costly. Unfair. A burden to US taxpayers. Showalter asks a good question -- why is no one in the Washington Swamp doing anything to stop this abuse?? The obvious answer is because these welfare recipients -- often illegal as well as legal -- vote for Democrats and #NeverTrump Republicans. • • • THE CARAVAN'S ORGANIZERS DISAPPEAR. American Thinker published another Monica Showalter article on Monday that noted that caravan organizers have dumped the migrants and are fleeing responsibility : "With the caravan in Tijuana descending into a sozzled mess and den of pestilence, caravan organizers Pueblo Sin Fronteras now say they have nothing to do with it and seem to have skipped town. Get a load of the interesting stories within this long piece that ran in the San Diego Union-Tribune that begins with a migrant thinking about going back to Honduras : " 'I think this is the end,' Benavides said. The experience taught her not to believe things as they appear, she said. Many in the caravan have said they felt deceived by the messages they received along the way about what awaited them at the US border. The caravan had leaders as it traveled north, Benavides said, but she hadn't seen them since Sunday's march to the border. Though she had family in the US ready to help her if she's allowed inside, she didn't know how to begin the process of asking for asylum or where to go for information. Getting accurate and useful information to a group of more than 5,000 people can be challenging, and the caravan's nebulous leadership structure only adds to the difficulty." • That was where Showalter differed with the San Diego Union-Tribune : "The reporter seems to be a good reporter, but she doesn't have a clue as to what's happening here : the caravan organizers are realizing that their political project to challenge Donald Trump at the border is a disastrous mess and, instead of taking responsibility for it, are now abandoning the people they used for the television cameras and saying they had nothing to do with it. The migrants they lured to the caravan via flyers and social media and press appearances were useful so long as the moms and kids and strollers put the political heat onto the US, but now that the truth is out about who they really are -- military-aged young men, mostly -- and they're sitting in a squalid camp waiting their turn for entry same as anyone else, they're no longer an advertisement about how to immigrate easily into the US (actually, they're the opposite). So now the organizers are gone. Packed up and left the circus. Missing. AWOL. Nowhere to be found. Their website hasn't been updated since advertising for last week's border confrontation. And the mayor of Tijuana says he wants them arrested." • Showalter reminds us that that the caravan went to distant Tijuana to make its asylum showdown with the US, as opposed to, say, the far closer and easier to reach US border city of McAllen, Texas : "because the far-left organizers, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, had a base of operations there, right near the beach at Playas de Tijuana, the site of the first caravan arrivals....And PSF organizers told the press they had organized successful caravans in the past, with most asylum-seekers from their caravan last April getting in -- a while back, they were bragging about their track record. Documentary filmmaker Ami Horowitz shows how Pueblo Sin Fronteras was right there from the start, telling the migrants what to do in their black t-shirts and neon vest -- boarding them onto buses and ladling out soup. There also was cash handed out during the early part of the caravan. Somehow, there wasn't any at the ante-gate before the great charge into San Diego." What happened to the Soros money?? The 'caravaners' have been had, and they know they've been had, and now the organizers seem to have skipped town. As Showalter says : "Some shepherds. Think of that next time the far leftists claim to be champions of the people." • • • CALIFORNIA VOTING FRAUD GOES ON AND ON. The media and the ProgDems want us to stay focused on Tijuana and the caravan while they finish stealing the 2018 mid-term elections. Consider California. TeaParty.org published on Tuesday a Gateway Pundit article that said : "Orange County released its official vote count on Monday and the numbers don’t add up. Orange County, a conservative area just south of Los Angeles, California turned all blue after Democrats produced hundreds of thousands of votes weeks after election day using a practice known as 'ballot harvesting.' The amount of mail-in ballots counted in Orange County were unprecedented -- a whopping 250,000 ballots were produced in OC as a result of the new 'ballot harvesting' law. Republicans such as Mimi Walters, Dana Rohrabacher and Young Kim were all ahead election night only to lose their races after late ballots were counted. Young Kim was ahead by 8,000 votes on election night and even attended freshman orientation in Washington DC only to lose to her Democrat opponent weeks later. The new voting system in California is so bad that Democrat TJ Cox, who was down by 6.4% on election night in California’s 21st district ended up defeating GOP incumbent David Valadao three weeks later. Precinct 38083 in Orange County, California had a 120% turnout -- 465 registered voters and 561 ballots cast in this precinct. The vote irregularities are available at < thegatewaypundit.com/2018/12/orange-county-releases-official-vote-count-and-the-numbers-dont-add-up-one-precinct-has-120-turnout/ >. • The commentary is spreading. Take this one : "Orange County seems to have skipped right past the risk limiting audit and published official vote count. Turns out it’s the highest turnout in 50 years one county even had 120% turnout impressive… @DHSgov @ODNIgov pic.twitter.com/0VFfcWTeMH" — Rosie Memos (@almostjingo) December 3, 2018. The Gateway Pundit has been reporting on this for weeks : "October 22 totals for voter registration there show 541,665 (R) and 523,624 (D) yet totals from Election Day for D’s surpass that by 40k votes so we’re to believe there was 100%+ turnout of registered Dems? 'It’s not as if Republicans didn’t show up? Harkey race had a 76% turnout, there’s zero rhyme or reason. pic.twitter.com/L2dxmyJU0C' — Rosie Memos (@almostjingo) December 3, 2018. Judicial Watch is investigating “ballot harvesting” in California yet the Republican party has done nothing to fight this practice that violates the chain of custody and is illegal in nearly every state. 2018 GOP candidate for California’s 37th district Ron Bassilian said he’s looking into the potential voter fraud with election law attorney Mark Meuser : "I’ve been trying. @MarkMeuser is checking options. @ali agreed this is mathematically impossible. But with everyone 'giving up' on CA few are left to fight back. @RPLAC can barely keep the lights on." — Ron Bassilian (R) (@Ron4California) December 4, 2018. • Canada Free Press calls it "California's 'Grand Theft Election'." Katy Grimes wrote for CFP : "On election night, California Republicans were heading for victories. Less than one month later, while ballots are still being counted, half of California’s Republican Congressional races were flipped by Democrat challengers, none of whom have ever held an elected public office. Republicans lost election night leads for five members of Congress, three state Assembly races, two state Senate seats and a Board of Equalization candidate, Shawn Steel wrote in a column this week. Assembly Republicans total only 20 out of 80 members of the Assembly, and Senate Republicans are down to 11 members out of 40 Senators, for a grand total of 31 elected Republicans out of 140 total legislators in all of the Capitol. In the State Legislature, Democrats won 60 Assembly seats and 29 Senate seats, giving them a whopping supermajority. So while Democrats are reveling in the California Blue Tsunami, Republicans throughout California have borrowed a page from former Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and are asking 'What Happened?' Yet nary a word since Election Day from California’s Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte who was MIA during the midterm election....nothing since Election Day except a statement about the death of former President George H.W. Bus....nothing from Chairman Brulte on the staggering Republican losses." • What Happened? Grimes says : "California Democrats have created the perfect storm with pre-voter registration for teenagers, and illegal aliens, felons, and inmates now able to vote. San Francisco also now allows illegal aliens to vote in a local election. Remember how the city spent more than $300,000 to register 49 non-citizens to vote? We have same-day voter registration and voting allowed now in California. The California Department of Motor Vehicles automatically registers to vote people obtaining or renewing a drivers license. I live in one of the five California Counties which now do an all-vote-by-mail absentee ballot -- Whether you like it or not. In 2016, the California Legislature and Governor Jerry Brown ostensibly 'legalized' ballot harvesting, allowing a third party to collect ballots and deliver them to election officials, eliminating the ballot protection law that allowed only a family member to return another voter’s ballot. Assembly Bill 1921 now allows anyone to return an absentee ballot. The law has encouraged campaign operatives to engage in coercive tactics, achieving the perfection of election fraud, Shawn Steele explained. Effectively, California has eliminated voting integrity laws that protect voters from campaign intimidation, with Democrat operatives knocking on doors collecting the ballots of Democrat voters. What happens to those ballots after they are collected is anyone’s best guess. All chain of custody procedures are off the table at this point. 'The more than 250,000 election day vote-by-mail drop-offs were also the result of ballot harvesting,' Lloyd Billingsley reported at Frontpage Mag. 'And the Election Integrity Project California found discrepancies in the totals of poll and mail ballots cited by the state and four counties in Southern California' following the June 2018 Primary Election." • • • PROGDEMS STOLE CALIFORNIA FROM BERNIE SANDERS IN 2016.And, it is not just Republicans who suffer. CFP's Grimes says : " 'With all of the election fraud reported in California on Primary Election Day June 7th, it is particularly interesting that former President Bill Clinton met with California Governor Jerry Brown behind closed doors in California the week before the Primary,' I reported in 2016. ‘They discussed foreign and domestic politics, and yes, the presidential campaign,’ said Brown’s spokesman Evan Westrup, the Los Angeles Times reported.' I’ll just bet they discussed foreign and domestic politics...just the way Attorney General Loretta Lynch said she and Bill Clinton talked only of grandchildren, golf, and their respective travels, in a private jet on a tarmac in Arizona. The electronic vote rigging in California appeared designed to keep Bernie supporters from electing him in the primary -- and it worked. If Democrats can steal an election in California, they can steal a Presidential Election. Election fraud was widespread during the California Primary election June 7, 2016. Thousands upon thousands of California voters showed up at their designated polling stations only to discover that their party registration had been changed, or they were dropped entirely from the rolls. And it was evident this was done from within the state’s electronic voting system. • • • THE CALIFORNIA VOTING FRAUD CONTINUES. Grimes reported that : "Eleven California counties have more voters than eligible voters, and Los Angeles County officials informed the Election Integrity Project that 'the number of registered voters now stands at a number that is a whopping 144% of the total number of resident citizens of voting age.' In 2017, The Election Integrity Project California joined Judicial Watch in sending a National Voter Registration Act Section 8 notice of violation letter to California Secretary of State, Alex Padilla. The letter was ignored. NVRA Section 8 requires states to conduct reasonable list maintenance so as to maintain an accurate record of eligible voters for use in conducting federal elections. Federal law is unambiguous and says that only legal citizens may vote in an election for federal office. Immigrants, documented or not, do not have the right to vote in federal elections in the United States, until they obtain citizenship. Yet California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law The California New Motor Voter Program, which automatically registers all 'eligible' California voters to vote when they first obtain or renew their driver’s licenses at the Department of Motor Vehicles. 'Eligible' no longer means having the right to do or obtain something, or satisfying the appropriate conditions. A 2014 report by the Election Integrity Project titled, The Doors Are Wide Open For California Election Corruption, found California’s election system had serious vulnerabilities, no centralized computerized, no statewide voter registration list, poor National Voter Registration Act list maintenance, non-compliance with statutes protecting lawful voters, and suspected voting fraud. The report also found key election officials were roadblocks to election integrity. 'Whether this stems from negligence or design, or a misguided central focus on ‘voter experience’, the result is the same: Corruption. The injury to lawful voters is patent,' the report said. We believe the problem is with Vote Cal,' Election Integrity Project co-founder Linda Paine said in a June interview. 'It’s the same problems all over the state." • BUT, states Grimes : "No county or state election officials will meet with the Election Integrity Project to review their evidence. It is obvious that both political parties will not address the issue of Democrats stealing elections, OR Republicans are avoiding the topic altogether because they just want to keep their seats. California is becoming as corrupted as the Soviet Union, Venezuela, and Communist China. Disenfranchising Republicans is just the start, especially in California, because the rest of the country couldn’t care less about what happens in California. 'Californians deserve what they get,' I frequently read on social media." • As with welfare abuse by illegal and legal immigrants, the GOP permits voter fraud to go on. Grimes asks the right questions : "Were GOP poll watchers at EVERY polling station in California on election day? Why are there no lawsuits? Why has there been no demand for a Department of Justice civil rights investigation into California’s many elections issues? Where is the CAGOP? Unless we all act immediately, all of California will become a one-party state. It may take a Supreme Court decision to end this obvious fraud in California. Other states prosecute election fraudsters for showing up with boxes of ballots from the trunk of a car without chain of custody documents. But what do we do about elected officials knowingly passing illegal and unconstitutional bills, and a governor who signs them into law? California’s People’s House has become a den of thieves." • • • ONE STATE WON THE VOTER FRAUD BATTLE. Georgia. Democrats yelled for open voter registration and no legal voter list maintenance. AND, it paid off. Republican Georgia state Representative Brad Raffensperger won the runoff election to become the next Georgia secretary of state, defeating former Democratic Representative John Barrow on Tuesday night. The 2018 midterm elections finally drew to a close for Georgia voters, with the Associated Press and other election analysis sites calling the race for Raffensperger. The Republican candidate captured a little over 53% of the vote as of now. Neither Barrow nor Raffensperger received over 50% of the vote in November, forcing them into a runoff. The results November 6 were close between the two candidates, with Raffensperger receiving 49.1% to Barrow’s 48.6%. Under Georgia law, statewide candidates must receive over 50% of the vote or else face a runoff with the second-place finisher. • Raffensperer will fill the position held by Republican Governor-elect Brian Kemp, who stepped down from the Georgia secretary of state position after being elected. His victory over former Democrat state Representative Stacey Abrams created controversy that trickled down to the secretary of state race. Abrams has loudly accused Kemp of using his secretary of state position to suppress black voters and has refused to acknowledge his victory as legitimate. These accusations, which Kemp debunked, continue to be repeated by Abrams’s campaign staff. The former Democratic lawmaker is suing the state over perceived voting irregularities. But, despite raising half as much as his Democratic opponent, Raffensperger ultimately prevailed Tuesday night. • • • DEAR READERS, as you can read at the side of the blog every day -- politics is everybody's business. It is the obligation of every citizen to get involved. When we stay out of politics -- which is after all the art, or science, of the relationship between a people and its government -- we really do get what we deserve. I do not believe that Americans deserve either the Swamp or the ProgDem morass that characterizes California Democrat politics. We can do something about it. But, it takes some anger at what is being foisted on us and a little initiative to say 'I will not put up with this.' Vote. Work for honest Republican candidates. Support President Trump's efforts to eliminate voter fraud, including the Census question about whether the responder is a citizen. Force your local and county GOP officials to actively oppose voter fraud. Nobody is going to do it for us. We have to do it ourselves. President Reagan said about saving the world from Communism, "If not now, when? If not us, who?" His words apply with equal force to voter fraud.