How To Steal an Election, Hypothetically(?)

“Those Who Cast The Votes Decide Nothing. Those Who Count The Votes, Decide Everything” – Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin, Circa 1950

Picture this:

It's in the fourth year of a wildly controversial presidential term. The current president is fiery, speaks bluntly and sometimes foolishly, has a record of success along with a record of repeatedly antagonizing his political opponents both in his party and among the opposition, and he is strongly disliked by many in the political ecosphere... reporters, analysts, pontificators... because he does not seek their approval or their advice. In fact, he often disregards and ridicules it, to the consternation of the so-called political establishment and to the delight of his base. His base is comprised of mostly lower and middle income White and minority voters who value independence, identify themselves as religious, and who generally support social and financial conservative values... small business owners, semi-skilled and skilled workers... as well as the majority of law enforcement and military members. He does not garner much support or respect among the professional class, those in academia, the tech industry, the financial sector, and especially from the media and entertainment industries. He is the butt of most late night comedy show hosts, and much if not most of their nightly routines center on finding something to ridicule the president about. The opposition party has tried and failed to remove him from office repeatedly, first by pushing a baseless investigation of him as a foreign agent based upon a known-false document prepared by the other presidential candidate during the last election cycle as if it were true, then by impeaching him on a party-line vote in the House on false, specious accusations of abuse of power and obstruction of justice only to see the impeachment fail on a party-line vote in the Senate. Neither the baseless collusion investigation or the baseless impeachment had wings once they became known as baseless, and thus have not been referred to by the opposition party against the president during his re-election campaign. The economy made a remarkable turnaround under this president's lead, reaching historic highs, then the nation and the world was hit by a pandemic caused by a virus from China that quickly spread world-wide with 10X the fatality rate of the common flu. The actions taken to combat this pandemic have significantly and negatively affected the world's economy; the nation's economy has also experienced a significant contraction due to the curtailing of economic activity as a preventative response to the pandemic.

In this environment, the primary season was abbreviated and the opposition kept any one candidate from taking an insurmountable lead until April, when all but the front-runner and the second-place candidate dropped out and endorsed the front-runner, ensuring the second-place candidate who openly supported socialism would not win for the second election in a row. Thus, the front-runner's eventual ascension to the nomination was inevitable. Yet, there were problems. The nominee had not done well in primary debates; many questioned his mental capabilities due to his performance and his advanced age of 77. Yet, the consensus among political ecosphere was that the nominee was the candidate who would best appeal to the American public based on his projected 'likable' persona and his political experience. In order to appeal to the special interest groups that comprise the Party faithful, the African-American woman primary candidate was chosen for the VP position. The idea was to create a 'balanced' ticket that appealed to all of the party's constituencies... men, women, White, or People of Color... while also being deemed preferable to the two distasteful current office-holders who were both openly White, male, conservative, and Christian (thus, bigoted, racist and homophobic). But it wasn't enough. The party had lost the last election even though their candidate won the nationwide popular vote. Typical party constituencies... working-class, union members, even minority voters... could not be relied upon. What to do?

What if... the current pandemic was used to justify the wholesale indiscriminate mailing out of ballots to all registered voters whether requested or not? What if a subset of those ballets were duplicated, say, ballots for registered voters who had not voted in the past couple of elections, and stashed away? What if the election WERE held, the mail-in ballots plus day-of-voting ballots resulted in the party's candidate losing to the current office-holder? Well, we know who voted because we have their ballots... and thus we know who hasn't yet voted. We can bet that the vast majority of registered voters who didn't vote are represented in our stash... and we don't need them all. Just enough. So, we pause the voting, use our list of returned votes to exclude those from our stash, and take enough votes from our stash, mark them for the votes that matter in the time we have (mostly the presidential ballot, maybe in a few states throw in a senator because we're not worried about the House... no way we're losing that!) and throw them into the mix? What would that look like? Of course, we can't let observers see all this, so we block windows, we sequester them away so they can't look closely at piles of ballots we bring in from the stash or we can mix them in with ordinary ballets, we tell observers to go home because we're done counting... and when they go home we resume counting.

It would look like the incumbent is leading with significant margins in several states, only to see that lead whittle away and then disappear, giving the election in these states to our candidate. It would look like the vote swinging in favor of our presidential candidate, but lower races on the ballot not changing so that state races don't change and most Senate and House races don't change. Remember, we don't have to do this in every state, or even every precinct or county in every state... just enough precincts and counties in just enough states to push the election our way.

I'm not saying this is what happened, I'm saying that it certainly looks like what happened. And, brought to us by the party that vigorously opposes any form of establishing certainty that a registered voter cast the vote being counted, denying full transparency and openness on the vote tabulation process, and pushing processes and practices that only enhance the capability for vote fraud. The same party that tried to tell us that the Russians changed the course of the 2016 election yet denies any such thing could possibly have happened in 2020. Or, that 150K+/- ballots suddenly appearing in the middle of the night, almost all for their candidate (which is statistically highly unlikely) is normal. The problem is, we don't know and we CAN'T know that the election was fair, that only legitimate votes were counted... because one party doesn't want us to know and has done what it could to ensure we don't know and will NEVER know. That is the problem. Joe Biden has declared himself as the winner and the media is supporting him, yet Joe and the media know that the election results are not finalized... but they are trying to create the impression that the election is over when it's not. Why?

I would like to live in a country where, whether my candidate wins or loses, I have full and complete confidence in the integrity of the election system and processes. I cannot say that today, can you? THAT is the problem. The solution is simple: do in the US what we did to ensure fair and honest elections in Iraq. Make the first Tuesday in November a mandatory federal holiday (get rid of one of the other ones), require everyone to vote in person absent a valid reason for a mailed ballot, require voter ID (driver's license, passport) at the polls, put the voter's thumbprint on their ballot at the polls (have an ink pad in the booth, they thumbprint the ballot before leaving the booth and this is checked against the voter's thumbprint on record by the ballot-registering computer), provide voters a receipt for their ballot with their recorded votes, require ID for registration including a valid government ID (driver's license, passport), expire voter registrations every five years and require re-registration otherwise the voter is removed from the rolls to clean out the moved and dead voters. This would support automatic ballot confirmation, reduce the cost and effort of voting, ensure that only qualified citizens voted, and let us know who won the election by the end of the day. You know one party would be supporting this, while the other party would vigorously oppose it... and you know why, having seen what has happened during this election cycle. Because campaigns, platforms, positions, outreach... none of it matters if you control a voting process that is open to fraud.

"We Can't Manage The Federal Budget, So Let's Run The Automakers!"

I don't get why Glenn Reynolds is picking on Chrysler, when the real villain/moron in the story is the Obama Administration. I understand Chrysler's attempts to stimulate sales on vehicles sitting at dealerships, including the soon-to-be-ex-dealers; Chrysler doesn't want to take the vehicles back. To be honest, the additional $1k is making me seriously consider buying a new Dodge Ram half-ton. I've owned two Dodge Dakota Quad Cabs ('00 and '04) and have found them to be well-designed and built, and trouble-free. Ford and GM also make great trucks, but I don't hesitate to recommend Dodge and to buy another one. However, if Chrysler goes under (fails to emerge from bankruptcy) then the value of any Chrysler product including a brand-new vehicle will drop significantly, and that is perhaps the main reason why I hesitate to buy. The blame for this will lie not with Chrysler, but with the Obama Administration and their botched handling of the bankruptcy. More specifically, the responsibility will be Obama's.

Although Chrysler's problems are not new, all of the automakers have suffered from the recession. People who are worried about whether or not they’ll have a job aren’t going to go out and buy a new car. What differentiates Chrysler is the FUD that has been spread by the Obama Administration and it's hardball approach to the Chrysler bankruptcy. Chrysler's sales have slumped more than the others due to concerns about the automaker's future viability. Throwing money, or Fiat, at the problem isn't going to fix it. Instead, the fix is to give Chrysler the same labor environment that successful US automakers (Toyota, Honda, BMW, VW) have, by breaking the UAW's stranglehold on the company. Of course, this one critical fundamental step is the one that Obama won't do due to his obligations to the unions.

What I don’t understand is, why is Chrysler shedding dealers? There is no ownership involved; dealers are independent businesses with a contractual agreement to buy Chrysler products and then support them. Automakers need dealers, because consumers won’t buy a car without a dealer to back the car up. Chrysler evidently thinks that their sales won't drop if they close these dealers. What they fail to understand is that the marginal cost of additional dealers is minimal. Dealers are truly the automakers' customers, so who cares if they buy 100 cars or 10,000? Each additional car sale is one that might not happen without that dealer.The economy will rebound, and it will be a lot harder to get new dealers than to keep the existing ones.

Can someone tell me how, if the desire was to kill Chrysler instead of saving it, would the Obama Administration's actions concerning Chrysler be any different?

The Difference Between Liberals and Conservatives: It's Not What You Think...

So, I've been playing with watching streaming video over the Internet on my TV, through my XBox, and found a program called PlayOn. Playon lets you set up a PC to receive video streams from a variety of sources, including Amazon Video-On-Demand, Netflix, and YouTube. It's pretty easy to install, costs $35, and mostly works well (there are a few glitches but the PlayOn folks release updates often and the software has improved even in the past month or so that I've been using it).

One of the YouTube channels I've subscribed to has been TEDtalksDirector, the video stream for the various TED presentations available. TED, which stands for 'Technology, Entertainment, Design' is a yearly conference series that brings together movers and shakers from a variety of different areas including high tech, education, politics, business, and entertainment. The conferences offer a multitude of presentations on a variety of subjects, from how the world began to the use of rock chords in progressive jazz... in other words, a very eclectic mix. Although some of the presentations are controversial, and others are just fluff, the occasional nugget of gold can be found.

I'm embedding a TED Talk entitled "The Real Difference Between Liberals and Conservatives" by Jonathan Haidt. I just watched this, and at the beginning I was thinking yet another biased presentation, yet by the end my opinion switched to thinking that this was perhaps the best TED Talk I've seen yet.

Here it is. Please watch it and then feel free to leave a comment on what you thought.



As for me, it made me think about the various discussions I've had with my liberal friends... and the political combat that seems to be growing even harsher with every passing year regardless of who wins the White House or Congress.

How to Solve the Energy Crisis: Part 1

I've been thinking about America's energy crisis for a while now, and believe I pretty much have it figured out. A post on solar power , about adding 3kW of solar panels to a house in order to move their net electricity usage down into the lowest price bracket, sparked the idea for a series of articles on how America can solve its energy crisis. It all comes down to one thing: cheap electricity. This is the first article, on how a lot of little things can add up. Facts were obtained by Googling appropriately.

A 3kW/h system should generate more than 15 kilowatts on a sunny day. The average house uses about 500 kilowatt/hours per month, meaning that this system would be able to replace most, if not all, of the energy used by the house it is installed on.

Interestingly, power is consumed at the highest rate during the day, especially on hot, sunny days. That's because, while household usage is down, business usage is at its highest. So... if every house in CA had just enough PV generation capacity to provide 10% of its daily use, or 1.5kW/h worth of generation, there would be no electricity crisis in California.

How much would this cost? Well, figure 8,000,000 homes, x 1500 watts x $4, or about $48 billion, for 12 gW of generating capacity. There's 30 million people in CA, so about $1500 per person, or $500 per family. Now, this would be a one-time investment that could be amortized over the life of the PV generation systems, or about 20 years... so figure $25/year per person.

I know, $48 billion is a lot of money... but how much will it cost to bring an extra 10% of power generation capacity online thru a generating plant (coil, gas, nuclear), and pay for 20 years of fuel, pay for the infrastructure (high power lines, towers, etc.) to support the new plant, and pay for the staff to run and maintain it?

For the sake of comparison, a 1.34 gW coal-powered generating plant, with a coal mine on-site(!) that provides 70% of the coal needed for the plant, was purchased in WA state for $554 million. So... you're looking at a little over $2 per watt for coal-fired generation, or about half that of PV. However, the $200 million required for new smoke scrubbers needs to be factored in, plus the cost of the 30% of coal needed daily to generate the power, plus the cost of the staff to operate the mine and power plant, plus the cost of the new transmission line infrastructure needed to support the plant and hook it to the grid, plus the cost of maintenance, etc., and what happens to the operating costs when the mine runs out of coal? By the way, this plant just added two natural gas-fired turbine generators, so perhaps they know more about coal costs and availability than we do.

The state of California takes in over $1 trillion of tax revenue each year. Surely it could offer a 3-year tax break (give people a tax credit for 1/3 of the cost each year for 3 years), and ensure this gets up by requiring every house to add this within a 5-year window.

I know, it's a great idea. Figure the odds of it ever happening.

Solving The Immigration Crisis

Yesterday, Hispanic immigrants (both legal and illegal) engaged in a multi-city organized effort (organized by leftist groups including International ANSWER and the Socialist Workers' Party, eager to support and exploit any cause that weakens America) to demand a relaxation of US immigration laws and for unconditional amnesty for illegal aliens.

The worst thing we can do at this point is to accede to their demands. However, this view is not universally held; news sites have been reporting the Senate is evidently considering another attempt at "revamping" our immigration laws (ht: Drudge Report). What is wrong with our leaders... of both parties??!!

This country doesn't need uneducated workers who are a drain on the social welfare system. This type of immigrant only benefits the exploitative employer, while the rest of us subsidize that employer due to higher social services costs. We may save on produce and landscaping, but we pay higher taxes.

What we need are, often times, the very workers who are disadvantaged by our immigration laws and policies. Here's one example: an Indian software engineer with a post-graduate education is severely restricted by our immigration policies. If she obtains a job in America's high-tech industry, she is locked into that one job and, if she wants a green card (permanent resident status) or US citizenship, the waiting period will be reset if her job title changes. That means she cannot switch jobs, and she cannot accept a promotion. She must work at least seven years at the same position, at the same company, before she can apply for a green card. Meanwhile, she must pay thousands of dollars each year in expenses to maintain her H1B visa, in fees to Indian companies to fill out paperwork and file forms, and in lost work time and travel expenses to return to India to visit the US Embassy in order to extend her visa.

Nearly all of the legal immigrants I know, especially the more-educated ones who want to become US citizens and who are following the rules, are incensed at the protesters, and the protests. They wonder why they should follow the law, especially when they think of the possibility of illegals getting a jump on the all-important green card, and they feel like fools. It's not a laughing matter; many of these people who are trying to obtain the American Dream the right way through hard work and education become clinically depressed when they realize that at least a decade of their lives must be spent 'on hold' in a stagnant career position if they wish to follow the path to citizenship.

My solution:

• Build the damn fence, already!
• (here's the big one) Change the law so that only children born to parents who are legally in the US as permanent residents or US citizens are themselves granted US citizenship.
• Force state and local authorities to enforce existing immigration laws, or lose all federal funds. That means police must ascertain whether people are legal immigrants, must detain those who aren't, and must turn these people over to US Immigration for deportation. That also means that employers must be held civilly and criminally responsible for hiring illegal workers.
• Allow legally-employed H1B visa holders to switch positions or employers without having to restart the waiting period for a permanent visa. This encourages educated, professional immigrants to become stakeholders, and eventually citizens, in the US.
• Restrict permanent visas to those who have held gainful, legal employment for a period of seven consecutive years, and who have made high enough wages to be required to pay income tax, with an exemption for those who have served in the US military. Each day of unemployment adds a day to the waiting period, and unemployment for sixty days, or one hundred twenty days in two years, results in cancellation of your H1B visa and deportation. If you can't find a job, we don't want you.
• Only US citizens can draw Social Security, but all employees must pay Social Security taxes. Legal immigrants' contributions to Social Security are credited to them upon achieving citizenship.
• Once all of this is done, then we need to create a guest worker program so that foreign nationals can come for a limited duration to work in our country and then return to theirs.

We need to remove the incentives for illegal immigration and increase the penalties, and we need to make it harder to get away with.

The only question is, do we as a country have the decisiveness to pull it off? Or, have we lost the national will to insist that foreigners obey our laws, or leave?

Solving The Energy Crisis... Really!

I see that the Bush Administration has finally decided to modify the way CAFE (corporate average fuel economy--the way car manufacturers' average gas mileage for their fleets is computed) standards are measured. The major change is to move SUVs and light trucks (pickup trucks) from the exempt 'truck' category into the 'passenger cars' category. The goal is to try and force car manufacturers to make lighter, more efficient SUVs and trucks with better fuel economy.

What the NHTSA seems to have forgotten is why the popularity of SUVs rose in the first place. In the late '70s, SUVs were available (the IH Scout II, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Chevy Suburban, full-size Ford Bronco) but were generally sold to special purpose users, i.e., large families, rural residents who lived in communities with bad roads or bad weather, trailer pullers. The station wagon was the vehicle of choice for the average American family with children. The Carter Administration changed that, when they enacted CAFE regulations, and these regulations largely doomed the station wagon. Corresponding with these regulations were the increasing requirements for child safety seats, which require more 'hip room' than the average adult occupies. The American car-buying public is inherently rational, and the disappearance of the station wagon forced many of them into buying SUVs. This trend was noticed by the Big 3 and, with the introduction of the Dodge Caravan mini-van and the Jeep Cherokee SUV the market was born. It didn't hurt (the car manufacturers) that SUV and light truck sales weren't counted against the CAFE averages.

Here we are, twenty years after the introduction of the mini-van. What will happen if American auto manufacturers are restricted from making enough SUVs to satisfy customer demand? Well, car buyers will buy SUVs from foreign manufacturers. Used SUVs will rise in price. And people will keep their SUVs longer, and keep them running longer. Altogether, not what the rule-changers have in mind, and a course of action that will actually result in a decrease in average fuel economy (older vehicles invariably are less efficient as their drivetrain ages and deteriorates).

Instead of all of this useless symbolism, why not do something that will make a difference? That will result in a decrease of at least 10% of the petroleum used by this country? That will make the environment cleaner? And, that will require absolutely no reduction in energy consumption by American businesses and consumers? I know... you're sold already... or if not, you should be.

First, some facts about US energy consumption:

• Approximately 2% of the electricity consumed in this country is generated using petroleum not including natural gas

• Because of inherent generation inefficiencies, it takes three times the amount of energy as measured in BTUs to be consumed as is generated, e.g., one BTU of electricity requires the expenditure of three BTUs of petroleum with two BTUs wasted in heat and friction losses

• Approximately 45% of the total petroleum consumed in this country is used for gasoline production and use in automobile transportation

These facts indicate that if we can generate an extra 2% of our electricity via other means we can eliminate the use of petroleum for electrical generation, and any extra generation will reduce the usage of natural gas. They also indicate that using another energy source for automotive transportation besides petroleum (electricity, hydrogen) that is itself not a byproduct of petroleum will, again, reduce our oil consumption.

The secret to petroleum independence is alternate means of generating electricity. After all, hydrogen is created using electricity. And, solar-generated electricity (by the use of solar panels) is among the cheapest forms of electricity; the entire cost consists of the cost of the panels and ancillary hardware, and there is no operating cost. So, what we have to do is to increase the amount of solar electrical generation.

Here's how:

• Change building codes to require each new residential and commercial construction to include enough solar or wind generation capability to provide 10% of the anticipated daily building consumption

• Give corporate and individual taxpayers a tax credit for US-manufacturered solar or wind generation equipment used to provide up to 10% of their daily energy consumption (US-manufactured means the solar panel must be made entirely in the US, ancillary gear must be manufacturered here in the US and use US-made components if available)

• Require utilities to provide net metering so consumers can sell their generated electricity back to the utilities, thus reducing the amount of electricity utilities have to generate especially during peak times (daytime) while lowering consumers' electricity costs

• Give corporate and individual taxpayers a tax credit for purchasing vehicles that use renewable energy sources (electric vehicles) or for using non-petroleum fuel sources (electricity, biodiesel, ethanol)

• Require public transport to use either electricity, biodiesel, ethanol, or LPG as fuel, and prohibit the use of any other fuel (gas, diesel)

• Let drivers of electrical vehicle get free public parking and use of HOV lanes regardless of the number of passengers in the vehicle

• Allow the sale of biodiesel to consumers and exempt it from any fuel-related tax (sales tax only)

• Open up ANWR for drilling and exploration because any oil we get domestically reduces our trade deficit and keeps US dollars in the US instead of sending them to the Middle East

These changes would result in automakers building SUVs with small, powerful, yet efficient turbodiesels, as well as producing more electric and hybrid vehicles. They would also stimulate the public to buy these vehicles. The onsite generation requirement would result in more efficient structures that also generated part of the electricity they consume.

All of these changes would be much less disruptive to the American economy (the tax credit for US-manufactured energy equipment would greatly stimulate production and lower costs due to increased economies of scale), and would knock back our usage of petroleum. If only the business/residential energy generation requirement were passed in California, their electricity crisis would be over (max consumption is during the day, when the sun shines). Giving people incentives to purchase new, more energy-efficient and eco-friendly vehicles that still met their needs will also help, and it will help stimulate the economy. If all of these changes were adopted nationwide, in a decade or so our petroleum energy consumption would probably drop by 25% per capita, which would make a big difference.

Well, there's my plan for energy independence. What do you think?