Tag: election

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initiative, referendum, and recall

The Good News

Trump, midterms, election, Democrats, Republicans, noncitizen voting, immigration

Republicans suffered a thumping by Democrats across the country, Tuesday, not only losing their majority in the U.S. House, but also losing the Senate — beaten badly in GOP strongholds including Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas.

Plus, Senate contests in Alaska and ruby-red Mississippi are still too close to call.

The only “conservative” bright spots? Ballot issues decided by the very same voters who booted the GOP and boosted Democrats. 

Take California’s Proposition 40. Puh-lease. Though the ever-envious left loves the idea of confiscatory taxation against people whose only crime is producing wealth, the actual votes of Californians have the Billionaire Wealth Tax losing by 11 percentage points. (If we can live long enough to see Golden State ballot tabulators actually finish counting, we may legitimately celebrate.)

Citizen Only Voting measures swept at the ballot box in five states: Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia. “The laws are expected to prevent any local jurisdictions from moving to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections,” NBC reported, “which some municipalities have sought to do in recent years.”

Yes, non-citizens are now voting — legally — in 24 U.S. cities in four states and the District of Columbia. In most of those cities, even non-citizens here illegally are empowered to cast a ballot.

Conversely, since 2018, more than 45 million voters in 20 states have had the opportunity to decide whether their state and local elections should be limited to American citizens. Thus far, Citizen Only Voting is 20-0. 

More sanity? Nebraska legislators placed a constitutional amendment on Tuesday’s ballot to weaken their term limits; more than 80 percent of Cornhusker voters said, “No.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability ideological culture national politics & policies Voting

What Was Applied

midterms, election, voting, Republicans, Democrats, Socialism, Islam, war,

Shellac seems to have entered English from India in the 1600s. The noun was derived from “shell” + “lac” — a resin secreted by the lac insect of South Asia, scraped from trees, refined into flakes and dissolved in alcohol to make varnish. 

It was ubiquitous in the 19th and early 20th centuries for furniture finishing, phonograph records, and sealing things.

In American slang, “shellac” came to refer to cheap alcohol and the adjective “shellacked” to being drunk. Shellac joined other slang terms for hooch like “varnish.”

From this latter meaning, “shellacked” morphed into “beaten up” or “trounced” — someone staggering after a fight looked much like someone staggering out of a saloon. By the 1930s, sportswriters were using “shellacking” freely to describe lopsided defeats. You’ll find it ubiquitous in boxing and baseball coverage of that era; political writers followed suit, saying a defeated candidate had “taken a shellacking.”

Yesterday, Donald Trump and the Republicans took the proverbial shellacking.

We’ve seen this sort of thing before. It’s not unheard of. Americans repudiate failed programs, and Trump, who promised to keep the American people out of war did the precise opposite of what got him elected in the first place. Only by grace extended from the American people could the application of the varnish be withheld.

Boy, that grace was so not extended! Overwhelmingly electing members of a party that includes actual “seize the means of production” communists was . . . graceless? 

A kind of justice, maybe.

This could be a warning to all: the awfulness of your opponents will not stay the hand of shellac . . . er, citizen correction.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Sleazy Scheme

Alaska, election, campaign, voting

“Do we have a scheme for you,” chirped a consultant to Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign for the U.S. Senate in an online chat.

According to her then campaign manager, Peltola was “definitely aware,” The New York Times reported yesterday, that her campaign worked closely “for months” with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) to successfully recruit a candidate with the same name as her Republican opponent, incumbent U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan. 

“[N]ot only did Ms. Peltola’s team work with people trying to recruit Mr. Sullivan to run for Senate, but the effort was much broader,” the paper explains. “The group worked to coax other would-be spoilers into the race, to dilute the incumbent’s support and help catapult the Democrat to victory.”

In fact, on Alaska’s four-person ballot, the choices are incumbent Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan; Democrat Mary Peltola; the other Dan J. Sullivan, recruited by the Peltola campaign and the DSCC; and a registered Republican, Gerald Heikes, also recruited into the race by the Peltola campaign and the DSCC.

All while lying about it, of course.

“Peltola advisers seemed to make fun of voters while watching a focus group,” The Times disclosed, “surmising the participants would be susceptible to being tricked into voting for a ballot spoiler.”

In that same chat, a pollster with the Peltola campaign referred to it as “our ballot strategy plan :)”

A spokesman for Dan Sullivan — Alaska’s U.S. Senator, not the DSCC-recruited replica — reminded that Mary Peltola has “spent months gaslighting Alaskans” about this matter . . . which turns out to be a very obvious plot by her campaign to manipulate voters.

Not illegal. Just deceptive and anti-democratic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture political challengers

Post-Conflagration L.A.

Spencer Pratt, Karen Bass, Los Angeles, mayor, election, AI

Though Angelinos started voting early in the mayoral race, today is L.A.’s election day. It’s a race watched with varying degrees of enthusiasm and alarm across the country. Polls show no candidate close to a majority, which means the top two will likely face-off in a November runoff.* 

Spencer Pratt, a former reality TV star, has run a study-worthy campaign and could finish close to the top.  He’s a former Palisades homeowner. He now lives in a trailer on his property, upon which he cannot yet re-build after the fires that swept through the area in January 2025. And he’s built his campaign around the government’s absolute failure on every level to assist — or just get out of the way — of a recovery.

His video ads — and satirical contributions by fans — have been magnificent.

Erstwhile Castro-loving incumbent Mayor Karen Bass — who was celebrating in Ghana during the conflagration, basking in the glory of the continent’s first woman president — is in no small part responsible for the city’s worse-than-inept response to the fires. And candidate Pratt isn’t letting anyone forget it. 

A month ago, Mayor Bass blasted Pratt for “exploiting the grief of people in the Palisades,” calling it “reprehensible.” A weird twist of the reality of Pratt’s righteously indignant stance. What she did and didn’t do during and after the Palisade Fires are better described as “reprehensible.” 

The other major candidate is Councilwoman Nithya Raman, an outspoken homeless advocate who didn’t like it at all that homeless started camping outside her home.

Yesterday, the race was described as “neck-and-neck” by KTLA-5, with Hollywood actors Jane Fonda and Samuel L. Jackson cited as “supporting Mayor Bass, while Chelsea Handler and Mindy Kaling are backing Councilwoman Raman.”

In most other cities these endorsements would likely fizzle.

But in L.A. . . . ?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The latest UC Berkeley/LA Times poll shows Mayor Bass with 26%, Councilwomen Raman with 25% and Pratt with 22% support. Los Angeles does not use the same Top Two system that California uses statewide, whereby the top two vote getters move on to the General Election. In L.A., if a candidate garners a majority, the race is over. 

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insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies

Sleepy’s New Clothes

Joe Biden, Jake Tapper, election, president, democracy, cover up, scandal

“I was shocked to see his condition,” CNN commentator Van Jones tells Jake Tapper on State of the Union. Mr. Jones is talking about when former (but then-) President Joe Biden stepped up to debate his challenger, current (but then former-) President Donald Trump.

“And so was the world,” he continues. “And that wasn’t the first time [Biden] was in that condition; the book makes it very, very clear.”

The book noted above being Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Decision to Run Again, written by host Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, a national political correspondent for Axios. 

“There are people who knew and said nothing and that is a crime against this Republic,” argues Jones, “and I think the Democrats are gonna pay for a long time for being a part of what is now being revealed to be a massive cover up.”

“It was obvious to the American people before the debate,” former Obama strategist David Axelrod offers. Obvious to politicians, too, but not “politically wise to speak out.”

“[T]his is The Emperor’s New Clothes playing itself out in real time,” Jones elaborates. “Everybody knew but everyone was afraid to say.”

Later in the program, still pitching his book, Tapper blames a “small, secretive group of advisors” as the culprits, clarifying that “the original sin of the 2024 election” was “President Biden’s decision to run for reelection, even though he would be theoretically 86 years old at the end of his second term and was showing every day of it.”

One can only wonder how Mr. Tapper and so many other journalists missed in real time what a president of these United States was “showing.”

Democrats remain focused on the disaster of losing the election, but the real disgrace? After the June 27, 2024, debate non-performance, they and their fawning media allowed a person clearly not up to the job to remain in this most incredibly powerful position for another seven months. 

Silly me, I’m focused on the presidency and the job he’s supposed to do for Americans. Not just wielding political power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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The Colorado Gambit Crushed

Colorado, Trump, election, democracy

The Supreme Court unanimously nixed the clever scheme to keep Donald Trump off the Colorado ballot. The court explained its actions in the second paragraph of its anonymously written March 4th ruling: “Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.”

That’s it. The 14th Amendment, which the Colorado gambit relied upon, does make Congress the instrument for preventing “an insurrectionist” from serving in office.

So Colorado’s ploy to rig the 2024 election out in the open has been stopped. And good thing, too, since the political repercussions could have been . . . harrowing. 

A lot of commentary and reporting on the ruling has been devoted to pushing what was not covered. Take the CNN article by John Fritz and Marshall Cohen, “Trump’s on the ballot, but the Supreme Court left key constitutional questions unanswered.” It is hard not to interpret such headlines as providing excuses to partisan Democrats — in this case those at CNN — who had put so much hope in Colorado’s (and other states’) taking of the Trump matter into their own hands. 

“But while the unsigned, 13-page opinion the Supreme Court handed down Monday decisively resolved the uncertainty around Trump’s eligibility for a second term,” the article explains, “it left unsettled questions that could some day boomerang back to the justices.”

True enough, but so what? Take the first mentioned: “Could Democratic lawmakers, for instance, disqualify Trump next January when the electoral votes are counted if he wins the November election?”

Well, no. 

The 14th’s third section does not list presidents as barred by insurrection: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President,” it says. Electors of. But not the President and VP.

I’m sure the Supreme Court would be happy to expedite an opinion to that effect should the Democrats attempt anything that stupid.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Pied Pipers, Again

Adam Schiff

In 2015, the Hillary Clinton campaign exhibited the hubris for which politicians have been associated since the dawn of civilization. 

Instead of relying on a strategy of promoting Hillary herself, Clinton insiders plied what they called “Pied Piper candidates,” Republican hopefuls who, they theorized, would shift mainstream candidates further “right,” thus making the ultimate winners unpalatable to enough general election voters to win Hillary the election. There were three they identified: Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump. 

We know how this worked out.

In California, Democrats are returning to hubristic form.

The serpentine Adam Schiff, who is running to fill the slot formerly occupied by Senator Diane Feinstein, has directed $11 million in the primary “to elevate a GOP candidate,” according to The Washington Post. 

“The ads argue that Republican Steve Garvey — a congenial former pro baseball player for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres who voted twice for Donald Trump but won’t say if he will do so again — is too conservative for California and highlight his recent surge, in an apparent effort to consolidate support for him on the right.”

The idea is to boost Garvey with Republican primary voters in hopes that Garvey takes the second of two spots available for the November election under California’s Top Two system, becauseSchiff’s people think Garveyis easier to defeat than liberal Democrat “Rep. Katie Porter, whom Schiff and his backers would prefer to avoid facing come November in this left-leaning state.”

But can this strategy really work in California? The ads portray Garvey as more Trumpian than he probably is, and recent polling suggests that Schiff and Garvey are now neck-and-neck.

A review of the Clinton metaphor, “Pied Piper,” shows how slippery the strategy can be. The “Pied Piper of Hamelin” is a cautionary tale. 

The Democrats’support may go the way of rats and children.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Parties Demoted

voting, elections, primary, democracy, rules

Though “[s]everal left-leaning groups have sued to block the former president from the state’s ballot on 14th Amendment grounds,” Tom Ozimek of The Epoch Times reported in November, “Trump Listed on Michigan Primary Ballot,” as the headline states.

The primary was yesterday. Trump won. As expected.

But he appeared on the primary ballot only with legal wrangling. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, was under a lot of pressure to keep Trump off the ballot. Which she resisted, explicitly stating that she thought the maneuver to allow state officials to prohibit Trump from appearing on ballots because of the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection” clause was a bad idea.

Michigan’s voting system is now quite complicated. First, it’s an open primary state, so there will always be strategic voting, where partisans will cross lines to sabotage opponent parties. Though in the case of Trump, there is some irony here, since Trump benefitted in 2016 from such voting by Democrats, thinking he was the candidate easiest to beat in the general election.

Michigan sports a hybrid system for selecting partisan candidates to appear on the general election ballot. “More of Michigan’s 55 delegates to the Republican National Convention (RNC) will be awarded,” explains Nathan Worcester, also of The Epoch Times, “through the caucus process than through the primary vote — 39 as opposed to just 16.” But there are dueling conventions for caucusing, and it’s quite a mess.*

Michigan also now offers early voting at special voting sites. Is it a sign of a healthy democracy that there are so many ways to vote?

It sure doesn’t seem healthy that national partisan politics almost kept a Republican candidate off a primary ballot. Could the solution be to take parties’ candidate selection entirely out of state balloting?

Demote major parties from their current favored position to paying their own way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* In the Democratic Primary, President Biden won big against Dean Phillips, a largely unknown congressman from Minnesota, and author Marianne Williamson. But, with roughly half the vote counted, a not insignificant 14 percent of Democrats snubbed the president (and the field) by voting “Uncommitted.” Many were no doubt protesting the president’s policies concerning the Israel-Hamas War; in the county containing the University of Michigan, 20 percent voted uncommitted. Yet, even in rural counties across Michigan, more than 10 percent of Democrats opted for uncommitted.

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Dangerous Neighbor

Taiwan, election, China, Paul Jacob

“Are you a journalist?” asked the woman in an overflow crowd of thousands, who, like me, couldn’t fit into the packed stadium for a Democratic Progressive Party rally on the eve of Taiwan’s election.

“Or do you just love Taiwan?” 

With a broad smile, I told her: “I love Taiwan.”

This, my second trip to the beautiful island nation, was as inspiring as my first, in 2019. 

Two other women in the crowd explained they flew in from Italy to cast their ballots — believing the future of Taiwan depended on their vote. Which, of course, it did.

Most poignant was my conversation with a couple who had escaped the Chinazi clampdown in Hong Kong. After discussing how those 2019 protests helped “wake up the world,” I snapped a selfie with them. 

Then, five minutes later, they came back to ask me not to post their picture on social media without blacking out their faces. You see, they have relatives still in Hong Kong who might face harassment or worse from the Chinazis, if they were outed. 

“Enjoy the freedom of Taiwan today,” a Taiwanese man had offered earlier in the day at the Kaohsiung Museum of History. “It may be gone tomorrow [Election Day].” He feared a KMT victory would usher in a government far too willing to cozy up to the Chinese regime. 

On Saturday, however, DDP presidential candidate Lai Ching-te won a clear victory. His triumph was declared by the gaslighting Butchers of Beijing to be an “extreme danger.” 

But it is obvious to all that the nation of Taiwan is a danger to no one . . . and Communist Party-ruled China is a danger to everyone. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

* One doesn’t need to look to Asia to see the threat from China. Chinese dissidents in the U.S. and Canada are routinely harassed and threatened, which our governments seem unable to do much about. And the website we’ve launched — StopTheChinazis.org — has numerous writers but only two have chosen to use their real names. Why? Fear of reprisals from the CCP against Americans here in America. 

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Enthusiasm for Extremism in Action

Donald Trump, TDS, voting, election

She insists it’s about the rule of law. And not political. Not in any way.

“Maine Secretary of State Claims Politics Played ‘No Role’ in Booting Trump Off Ballot,” is how The Epoch Times headlined the story.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has unilaterally barred former President Donald Trump from the Maine presidential primary ballot. As in the Colorado case, the excuse rests with the January 6, 2021, protest rally and mob entrance into the capitol building. She says that “the weight of evidence” she “reviewed indicates that it was an insurrection.” 

Knowing what real insurrections are, and what words mean, and the long history of protests that get out of hand, including in recent times, most non-partisan people, as well as all Trump supporters, must conclude just the opposite: no insurrection was even attempted.

Bellows may actually believe that the January 6 events constituted an insurrection, that her job allows her to do what has never been done in American history, and that this would be good for the nation.

On the insurrection issue, she and Democrats rely upon motivated reasoning. People worked up in a cause can believe almost anything that would aid the cause. Still, the common-sense guess is that almost no one really believes her . . . but of course her Democratic comrades must pretend.

On the scope of her position, prudence would usually steer a partisan such as herself away from doing such a radical thing.

On the good of the nation, the clear hyperpartisan appearance would exacerbate tensions around the country, widening the divide into a chasm.

What may really be in evidence, though, is that leftists are mimicking the radicalism of the pandemic lockdowns, driven by the sheer frenzy of their vision of themselves as embodiments of righteousness . . . always to exercise arbitrary power.

An enthusiasm that spreads virally. As a mania. 

Thus does extremism work.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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