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ballot access crime and punishment election law

Elections Overturned & Undermined

Sure, democracy is a messy affair. But it does require several fine balances. One of them is that elections must be trustworthy: neither rigged nor gamed.

In recent years, many elections have been charged to be somehow “stolen.” Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of “stealing” the 2016 presidential election; Donald Trump, in turn, accused the Democrats of stealing the 2020 election, in which he was given his walking papers.

Now reports by Roman Balmakov, at Epoch TV, show that election irregularities at the local level can not only be contested, but elections overturned. 

Sans “insurrection.”

“In a shocking turn of events,” explains Balmakov, “a judge in Connecticut overturned a primary election because the evidence of fraud was just so overwhelming.” Video captured late-night ballot box stuffing, with identifiable government-employee perps. The judge overturned Bridgeport’s Democratic primary race for mayor.

In a sheriff’s race in a Louisiana parish an even more extraordinary set of events occurred. An election wherein a candidate lost by one vote was challenged; a recount adjusted the figures but the single-vote spread remained. Another challenge led the state Supreme Court to appoint a judge to look into the mess, and he found one: clear evidence of massive voting irregularities. He demanded a new election.

But Roman Balmakov’s report from yesterday may spark wider interest. It was about a thorough Rasmussen poll of 2020 voters: “1-in-5 people who voted by mail committed some type of voter fraud.” You might say they confessed as much in how they answered the poll. 

All three stories cast a dark light on the state of American democracy. But the poll may be the most troubling. 

If not how little interest the Rasmussen survey has garnered from major media.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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crime and punishment First Amendment rights judiciary

Court Halts Imprisonment for Speech

Left-wing enemies of right-wing freedom of speech, specifically the freedom of speech of Douglass Mackey, recently got their way when U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly sentenced him to seven months in prison.

But now, a month after sentencing, another court has said wait a minute.

As I reported in October, Mackey was convicted for actions in 2016 that nobody could have known would later be treated as crimes. The FBI had arrested him shortly after Joe Biden became president in January 2021 — as if waiting for a favorable political climate for an obviously partisan action.

According to selectively prosecuting U.S. Attorney Breon Peace, Mackey threatened democracy and sought to “deprive people of their constitutional right to vote.”

What attempted deprivation of voting rights? Did Mackey lock people in their homes so that they could not go out to vote? Steal ballots? Glare and scream at people walking toward a voting site?

No, all that this obvious opponent of Hillary Clinton did was publish satirical posts telling Hillary voters to vote by text, much easier that way. Obnoxious, maybe; or silly. But the posts had no power to hypnotize or derange anyone or, for that matter, prevent anyone from double-checking with an election office or Google. And prosecutors brought in no voters who claimed to have been fooled by the obvious jest — which arguably was satire, a jape upon Mackey’s political opponents.

There’s no there there. Nevertheless, Mackey’s liberty has been at risk at least since 2018, when his legal name behind his pseudonymous social media presence was revealed.

It’s still at risk. But the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked Mackey’s seven-month imprisonment until his appeal can be decided and the free-speech issues properly adjudicated.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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crime and punishment initiative, referendum, and recall international affairs

Sikh Freedom First

If I get gunned down in a hail of bullets . . . well . . . who done it?

The genocidal Chinese Communist Party, furious at my new website, StoptheChinazis.org

Perhaps. But what about the regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India? 

I’m a member of the Punjab Referendum Commission, an international group advising and monitoring the non-governmental referendums being organized among the worldwide Sikh diaspora by U.S.-based Sikhs for Justice. Recently, I stood at the entrance of a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia, outside Vancouver, where Canadian intelligence agencies say agents of Modi’s government assassinated Sikh leader and Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, back in June, spraying him with 30 bullets. 

Then, last week, U.S. prosecutors indicted an Indian national for, according to The Wall Street Journal, “working with an Indian government officer to pay a purported hitman $100,000 . . . to murder a prominent advocate” on U.S. soil.

“The court filing did not name the victim,” The Washington Post reported, “but senior Biden administration officials say the target was Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, general counsel for the New York-based Sikhs for Justice. . . .”

My mouth’s suddenly a bit dry; I’ve been on the same stage as Mr. Pannun several times. 

There’s a long history of political unrest and violence between Sikhs in the Punjab region and the central Indian government . . . leading today to roughly one-fourth of Sikhs living outside of India. 

What can we do? Well, though I take no position on whether — YES or NO — the Punjab region should secede from India, I very much like that Sikhs for Justice is resorting to the opposite of violence — democracy — by asking Sikhs around the world to cast their vote.

If they dare.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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crime and punishment property rights

Stop Thieves!

In July, a King Soopers employee, Santino Burrola, was fired for filming shoplifters.

He even managed to get their license plate number; to do so, he had to peel off an aluminum-foil cover on the plate as the thieves began driving away.

Burrola helped police quickly capture one of the suspects. But Kroger, the parent company, fired him anyway. See, Burrola had violated the sacred kick-me-again Kroger policy that employees must never interfere with thefts in progress.

The policy is like waving a flashing neon red ROB US MORE sign and, unfortunately, is common.

Fortunately, though, it’s not a policy that Michael Sullivan, operations manager of Roger’s Gardens in Orange County, California, had to worry about as he tried to figure out how to stop a months-long series of thefts of expensive shrubbery and other items from the Gardens.

Security cameras weren’t helping. They recorded the thief but were unable to capture his license plate, which could be used to track him down. He kept coming back to steal more.

Finally, Sullivan hit on the idea of hiding AirTags on things that the thief might grab. The stratagem paid off. Sullivan discovered the location of the evildoer and relayed the info to police.

They found a yard clogged with $8,000 in goods stolen from Roger’s Gardens.

The stolen goods have been returned to the Gardens; the thief has been arrested.

Hard? No. Wrong? No. 

Thwarting thievery fends off barbarism. Doing it at low personal risk is good business.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Accountability crime and punishment international affairs

Stuck With It?

Poland told Pfizer to stick it elsewhere. Now Pfizer’s suing for failure to pay for all the jabs . . . that Poland didn’t use. Or take. Or even allow in the country.

Pfizer’s a big company, of course, but you know we’re not talking about Celebrex or Fentanyl Citrate or Sonata here. We’re talking about The Jab. The one developed with BioNTech and contracted for by governments around the world.

As near as I can make out, it’s a breach of contract case.

But with a wrinkle.

Poland put a halt to pushing Pfizer’s COVID vaccine in April of 2022, and the people generally seem just fine with it, seeing as how they have a much, much lower rate of excess deaths now than does, say, Sweden, which pushed the vax for far longer. 

But why couldn’t Poland simply stop usage of the jab? 

After all, a customer shouldn’t be forced to take a medication, right? 

Well, the contract was not between Pfizer and Poles individually — this is the modern, statist world, after all — or even collectively, corporately, through the state. The contract was between Pfizer and the European Union!

And elements were secret

The Polish government, placed on the hook for the drug, was not allowed to see the whole contract.

Think of this as just one of the many ways that politicians who bash Big Pharma bent over backwards to give Big Pharma cushy, cushy deals.

But in court, how will those secret clauses play? I suspect that Pfizer’s prognosis may be negative.

Which would be a healthy outcome.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom

Disagreeing With Päivi Räsänen

In 2019, Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen cited the Bible in her Twitter account in order to express her views about sex and Christianity.

“How does the doctrinal foundation of the Church fit in with shame and sin being raised as a matter of pride?” Räsänen asked (in Finnish). Her tweet included a link to an Instagram post displaying Romans 1:24-27, which refers to how males “did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.”

Whether you or I agree with Räsänen’s view that homosexuality is per se immoral is irrelevant. What is not irrelevant is our support for freedom of speech and religious expression: she should surely not be prosecuted for expressing her opinion!

But Finnish police investigated her for the tweet. For good measure, they also included as a possible charge her 2004 publication of a pamphlet questioning same-sex marriage and discussing related issues. She had published the pamphlet before it became illegal in Finland to express such opinions.

Now Räsänen and a Lutheran bishop being prosecuted for similar reasons have been acquitted.

This is a second acquittal. In 2022, the Helsinki District court ruled that it’s not the job of the court “to interpret biblical concepts.” A state prosecutor replied, “You can cite the Bible, but it is Räsänen’s interpretation and opinion about the Bible verses that are criminal.”

Politicians of Finland, don’t continue on this dark path. Revoke all laws that aim to jail people who disagree with you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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