iVoterGuide – monoblogue

Odds and ends number 108

It’s an end-of-year special on my e-mail box as I go out with the old and in with the new. You know the drill: I give you a paragraph or three on subjects that pique my interest enough to write on but not enough for a full post.

The two-tier Delaware system

I’m going to start out this one with part of an e-mail blast I received several weeks back from District 36 representative Bryan Shupe, the opening paragraphs of which read:

The debate over whether indicted State Auditor Kathleen McGuiness should resign or take a leave of absence from her post highlights a larger systematic failure on the issue of government accountability and transparency in Delaware.
Over the last 18 months, we have seen five Delaware elected officials accused of misconduct. While every citizen should find this disturbing, almost as troubling is that each case has been treated differently. As it stands, legislators pick and choose which colleagues will be held accountable and which ones will be subject to a lesser standard.
I do not believe justice is something that should be decided on an arbitrary sliding scale, based on the personal whims of legislators or the political affiliation of the accused. There should be clear protocols for handling all cases of official misconduct involving elected officials in an equitable fashion.
“Reform is needed to rebuild public trust,” State Rep. Bryan Shupe, October 28, 2021.

Indeed, the double- and even triple-standard is troubling, but all of the circumstances are different, too. In the case of McGuiness, the accusations are damning but she hasn’t had her day in court yet, either. (And to be honest, these charges aren’t really on a Cuomo level. Ask yourself just how many Democrats somehow finagle taxpayer-paid sinecures for their family and friends.) And the rumor has been floating around out there that this batch of dirt was dug up on her because her auditing is getting too close for comfort for those who have taken full advantage of the Delaware Way, if ya know what I mean – wink wink, nudge nudge.

You may also recall Shupe was the sponsor of a voting bill that got left on the cutting room floor after Republicans came to their senses and bounced the Democrats’ mail-in balloting bill last spring. Shupe’s common sense bill was intended to eliminate a practice where, in some municipalities (including Laurel) the voter registration for town elections is separate from those of state and federal elections – so people who think they are registered get shut out of the process. I had never heard of such a thing so this proposal made sense and deserved support, not a three-year-old’s tantrum.

Bad information

About the same time I got Shupe’s assessment of a two-tiered justice system, I got wind of a two-tiered media system.

A piece by Michael Watson of the Capital Research Center discussed the Good Information project, an attempt by far-left entities to open new media markets with websites that claim to be “non-partisan” but will provide a steady diet of pro-Democrat news. (Just like every other “mainstream” media outlet.) Here’s the money paragraph:

As part of the creation of Good Information, the group is acquiring McGowan’s former liberal agitprop network, Courier Newsroom. Courier Newsroom was a front for ACRONYM, operating what the left-leaning OpenSecrets called “a network of websites emulating progressive local news outlets. Courier has faced scrutiny for exploiting the collapse of local journalism to spread ‘hyperlocal partisan propaganda.’”
Michael Watson, “Onetime Disinformation Donors Back Left-Wing Propaganda Targeting Disinformation,” Capital Research Center, October 28, 2021.

I took a look at Courier Newsroom and it’s actually a professional-looking site that links to eight subsites – all in swing states: Arizona, Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Their tagline is that they’re “Building a more informed, engaged, and representative America” but in order to do that they need to pull themselves off the left gutter and move over about 20 boards. (A little bowling lingo there. Sometimes straighter IS greater.)

Meanwhile, shouldn’t this be something someone on the right side of the spectrum would be doing? People actually believe these propaganda sites.

Another great piece by Watson appeared in The Daily Signal in November and should be required reading for my friends at Patriots for Delaware because it talks about how the unions elect school board members.

Hitting me where I live

This one comes ohsoclose to being promoted to its own post, but I think I can condense like Readers Digest. Here’s the key pull quote from a story I saw back in October.

On Sept. 16, 2021, Delaware lawmakers unveiled a plan to address a much-needed infrastructure improvement project – implementing high-speed broadband across the entire state. This $110 million investment was made possible with funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and if completed will make Delaware the first in the nation to make wired broadband available to every home and business in the state.
(snip)
With the proper guidelines in place, getting to 100 percent connectivity is a reasonable goal. The strategic plan estimates that the number of Delawareans without access to high-speed broadband could be brought down by approximately 87 percent if providers were to extend their existing networks just half a mile from their current cutoff points. This approach is called “edge-out.” This approach lends itself to utilizing multiple means of connecting through cable, fiber, fixed wireless, mobile, wireline DSL, and satellite broadband. The plan also suggests using the funding to replace old and failing equipment to ensure that the investment is something that will benefit all Delaware residents for years to come.
Kathleen Rutherford, “The Last Mile: Can Delaware Deliver?”, A Better Delaware, October 29, 2021.

We are a family who is in a broadband desert. Currently I oscillate between a cellular tower-based service provider and phone hotspot depending on time of day and conditions – in the evening the hotspot tends to be faster. We live too far from a Bloosurf tower for it to be viable and, to be honest, our friends who live near their tower say their service is about worthless anyway.

Prior to this move, we had wired service through a cable provider, paying for it as part of a bundle. But there is a wrinkle out here in that we have Delaware Electric Co-Op as our electricity provider and I found out that Choptank Electric Co-Op, which has a similar customer makeup two miles from me across the border in Maryland, offers “broadband over fiber optic connections directly to the home.” So I asked my state representative, Tim Dukes, about this and so far I have no answer.

As far as I’m concerned, for a home internet setup “fixed wireless, mobile, wireline DSL, and satellite broadband” is trash. If you want to spend the $110 million wisely, let DEC (which primarily serves a rural area) wire our homes like Choptank is doing.

The merger

Longtime readers of mine probably know more about iVoterGuide than the average person. The group, which rates federal and state candidates for office from a Biblical perspective, recently announced it was merging itself with American Family Association Action. Debbie Wuthnow, President of iVoterGuide, explained that, “The need for voters to know accurate information about candidates on their ballots has never been greater, and the merger will allow iVoterGuide to immediately expand our coverage to include federal, statewide, and state legislative races in 35 states for the 2022 Primary Elections. And we’ll continue to grow our coverage of judicial and school board races in key districts.”

As I found out a few years ago in helping them out – a “neat experience” – iVoterGuide is very thorough in their assessment of candidates and they do a reasonably good job of pegging where they stand on the political spectrum. So I wish them the best of luck with their merger, and if they need someone to help assess their Delaware candidates I’m happy to be of assistance.

More advice

I’m sure I have told you about ammo.com since their content pops up on this site from time to time, usually as an odd or an end. So I guess I have an imitator, at least according to this e-mail I’ve now received twice.

Monoblogue,
I came across your blog while doing a little research on a couple of Maryland’s gun laws, and your blog popped in my newsfeed. I appreciate many of your political views. As a Trump supporter, I thought (redacted) would be a good resource for (my site). The recoil score it provides is pretty cool. Haven’t seen it before. Do you shoot? I appreciated your content.
More fun e-mail.

Jordan, yes, I received your e-mail. Twice.

I’m glad you appreciate many of my political views, but I don’t think the resource is really something I can use. Now if we’re talking paid advertising or sponsorship from the overarching site, well, that’s a different conversation. (Since I’m probably not in line for that Soros money discussed by Michael Watson above.) And to answer your question, I do shoot off my mouth (rhetorically) all the time.

So since I have closed up the e-mail box now (it’s much more streamlined) I can tell you there is one other item in it, but that one is getting a coveted promotion to a full post because I think I can do it further justice. That may be one of my last items of the year before I figure out my annual Christmas message and compile the year in review – can you believe it’s that time?

With that, I bring this odd year of odds and ends to an end.

The avalanche of “fake facts”

Being a blogger of long standing, I’m quite aware of where I fall in the news ecosystem. Since my site doesn’t exist to be a news aggregation site like some others I’m familiar with, I’m not the place for news – my niche is in the opinion genre. However, I do make occasional forays into first-person reporting when I go to events which create news or promote interests that I believe should be shared for the public’s good – not as many as I once did, say, ten to twelve years ago, but there have been a few over the last couple years.

However, in working for The Patriot Post (and later, writing Rise and Fall) I learned the value of checking and verifying sources. I found out that there are some writers on the Left who still practice the craft of reasonable journalism and some on the Right who are totally partisan rah-rah hacks that deal in rumor and innuendo that doesn’t pass the sniff test. Naturally, we could switch the political sides and find examples there, too – the point is that we shouldn’t go out and live in an information silo regardless of how tempting that might be.

(My advice to people like that: unplug social media for a week or two and bring your life back to balance. There’s this Good Book a lot of people have that is worth reading in the interim.)

As most of my readers know, I came across iVoterGuide several years ago and helped them evaluate Maryland candidates in 2018. We went through a lot of factual information in grading these hopefuls on their political philosophy, so they are a pretty good guide to what they called Five Ways to Spot Fake “Facts.” Alas, it was only an e-mail and not a link so you’ll have to trust me on this long blockquote. All emphasis is in original.

*****

As someone who seeks to be accurately informed, how can you protect yourself from believing and spreading false information? And how can you consistently spot the truth amidst an abundance of error?

At iVoterGuide, this is something we think about all the time. So I wanted to share with you five practical tools our team uses to spot fake “facts.” You can use these in evaluating the flood of information and misinformation flowing into your life every day:

Recognize the difference between original sources vs. news or commentary. News reports, “fact checks”, editorials, and statements made by an individual are interpretations of an original source. For example, a certain law may be described as either “suppressing voting rights” or “protecting against voter fraud”. How are the words influencing your perspective?
Check original sources, if possible. These are sources referenced by the news article, commentary, or individual. In the example above, reading the original source (the law itself) will tell you what the law actually accomplishes. And if you can’t conveniently get the original, just remember you are working off of someone’s interpretation.
Check and compare multiple sources of information. Contrast an individual’s statement on social media to a news report on the same subject. Compare news sources with differing perspectives. Proverbs 18:17 says, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.”
Ask probing questions, even from sources you personally trust. For example:

What makes this person/source an authority on the subject/issue?
What are their sources? Are they quoting eyewitness accounts, original source documents, or simply another news agency?
Does the evidence justify their statements? (This is very important when the author makes assumptions about a person’s motives or character.)
Are they accountable to anyone for their accuracy? (For example, a news reporter must comply with the journalistic standards of their news agency, in contrast to an independent blogger. However, it’s worth asking if the news agency is itself a reliable watchdog these days.)
Am I being presented with the whole picture/video/story? Has anything been edited out? Is a quote being taken out of context?
When was this written? Is the information up to date? Is it still too early to confidently know the details?

Be mindful of your emotions. Even if the story or statement confirms your beliefs, it deserves an accuracy check before sharing. In opinion pieces, fundraising emails, or social media posts, both the Left and the Right can succumb to exaggerating facts in order to spur action. In addition, our fast-paced culture breeds impulsive decisions. Intentionally avoiding a reaction based in anger or fear, however, can greatly protect your integrity.

With a personal commitment to integrity and accountability to truth, you can avoid spreading falsehood and, most rewarding, discover the truth. In our present culture, those who know and spread truth are like welcome beacons of light to other truth seekers—and lighthouses to keep unwary citizens from dangerous rocks of deception.

*****

As I noted above, my little news niche comes from first-person reporting – generally in my “pictures and text” posts like my recent coverage of Patriots for Delaware or Mt. Hermon Plow Days. If there’s any gatekeeping, it comes from which photos I select or which quotes I use. Obviously I have a narrative I want to pass along in my reporting, although it’s generally dictated by the information I gather – unfortunately, sometimes I miss the best line in the remarks or the photo doesn’t come out.

But there are a lot of times that I’m the only one who bothered to cover the event, so unless you have some other first-person narrative you’re stuck with mine and it becomes the historical record, for whatever that’s worth. Still, I try to pass all the aspects of this five-part test above, and there’s a reason for that.

Many years ago, when I began this long excursion in writing, I told myself that I wasn’t going to write anything that would make me lose sleep over what I said. So I don’t get into gossip, and if that lost me a couple readers along the way, well, they probably weren’t going to stick around long anyhow. I just do the best I can with the talents I have, and I’m just thankful for all those thousands who have stopped by over the years.

Regardless, there’s some advice here to take to heart.

The party reports

I said a few days ago that the Constitution Party really shot itself in the foot this time and botched its 2020 election effort.

So a couple days ago I received an e-mail that agreed with me, and it was from outgoing party chair Frank Fluckiger. In it he said, “We just did not run a good campaign this year and should have gotten more votes for Blankenship than we did. We did not get serious about the campaign until early (October) and that was costly.”

Well, first of all you should have nominated a better candidate, but besides that let’s look at what happened.

Not only did they not take the generally simple step to become a write-in candidate in several states (including Delaware and Maryland) but they missed Wyoming (a state where they have ballot access) because they forgot to turn in a three-person slate of electors. Really?

And Fluckiger adds this nugget of wisdom: “Five states… got 30,772 votes for Blankenship or 52% of the total vote Blankenship got nationwide. That is a serious indication of just how weak the party is in many states. So, there is a lot of work that needs to be done.” (These states were North Carolina, Michigan, Utah, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. And just so you know, the CP didn’t cost Trump any of these states since he won three and “lost” by a margin exceeding the CP’s vote in the other two.)

Finally, we can place this in the hopper, too: “With the exception of Tennessee and North Carolina, we did rather poorly in the Southern States. In (Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Florida) we have next to no party organization other than just being on the ballot. That should hopefully change with the new regional chairmen in place.” Maybe, and maybe not. But their focus should be on running good candidates in the offyear election, primarily in areas where one party dominates. They can either keep a wavering Republican honest or provide a clear alternative to a Democrat.

I also received some much more cheering election news from my friends at iVoterGuide, as they were thrilled about their impact on legislative races around the country. They called it their biggest victory:

Hands down, I believe it is state legislatures. Because it is a census year, the state legislators who were elected on November 3 will have control of redistricting – redrawing district lines for both their state legislature AND the U.S. House of Representatives. The Constitution gives the legislatures this duty after each census records population changes. That means they can redraw districts to favor conservative candidates for the next decade!
In these state legislative races, Christian and conservative voters had a nearly perfect night November 3. Candidates that share your values will control the redistricting of at least 188 congressional seats, or 43 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Left will only control redistricting of 73 seats at most—just 17 percent of the U.S. House.
“HUGE! You should celebrate these Christian election wins,” e-mail from iVoterGuide, December 1, 2020.

They continued by praising the newly-elected “obstacle course” that the Left will have to outmaneuver for the next two years until the conservative Christian reinforcements arrive in the 2022 midterms.

Just to give you an idea of their perspective, this is how they graded the on-ballot federal candidates for local races:

Delaware U.S. Senate: Chris Coons (very liberal), Nadine Frost (moderate), Mark Turley (conservative), Lauren Witzke (conservative)

I could see where they came up with these, as Nadine is a little more libertarian on immigration than they may prefer. I still see her as a right-leaning libertarian relatively in line with how I think. Mark Turley is more moderate to me based on his renewable energy stance, so I would be inclined to flip those two challengers. The other two are pegged pretty well.

Delaware U.S. House: Lisa Blunt Rochester (very liberal), Lee Murphy (somewhat conservative), Catherine Purcell (somewhat conservative), David Rogers (liberal)

I think I can buy these depictions based on the evidence I uncovered.

Maryland U.S. House, District 1: Andy Harris (very conservative), Mia Mason (liberal)

I think I would call Mason very liberal, like fall off the end of the earth liberal, but that’s just me.

Having worked in iVoterGuide’s process for the 2018 election (I helped evaluate Maryland candidates) I would enjoy doing it again for 2o22, even if Delaware only has a House race slated. I could still help out in Maryland, too.

Just in time for Cyber Monday…

I received this e-mail a couple weeks ago but decided to hang onto it until the time was right. So guess what? It’s right.

Over the last few years I’ve been familiar with the “buy American” group promoting our manufacturing base known as the Alliance for American Manufacturing. Since 2014 (which is about the time I became more acquainted with them – perhaps an odd coincidence) they have put out a Made in America Holiday Gift Guide, for which the latest rendition is here. (As they note: if you can’t find what you’re looking for, they link to the previous four editions at the end of this year’s list.)

While Delaware and Maryland are represented on the 2018 list, they opted to go across the C&D Canal and Bay Bridge for their featured products this year. Still, if you peruse the Guide you’ll notice a couple things: many of these entrepreneurs have unique niches for which they target their products, and while all of them are internet-based (obviously, as they are linked from a webpage) not many have a “brick and mortar” location. It’s a testament to the American entrepreneur that we have combined the vast selection and ease of package shipping into something where we need not even participate in Black Friday anymore – yet all will arrive at our doorstep before Christmas.

Meanwhile, despite the fact the Patriot Voices group has curtailed its activities over the last couple years (insofar as it began as a vehicle to keep former Senator and two-time presidential candidate Rick Santorum in the stream of social conservative consciousness) they are still promoting their annual Made in the USA Christmas Challenge. As they argue:

Did you know that a large percentage of our Christmas gift dollars go overseas? For every $1 we spend in the USA on manufacturing, $1.81 will be added to the economy. That is a great deal!

Sometimes it is simply difficult to find products made in the USA. The next best thing would be to buy local. Support the small businesses and workers in your own community.

As yesterday was Small Business Saturday, it’s not too fine a point to note that, while large mega-retailers make headlines as teetering on the brink of insolvency if their Christmas season isn’t completely boffo, the same holds true for locally-owned shops but they fly under the radar. You don’t know they’re gone until you show up there one day and the store is dark.

Several years ago I began this little side hustle of talking about manufacturing because I was working for a now-defunct enterprise called American Certified, which perhaps was an idea before its time since the AAM also has a page for products made in America which are submitted by members of the public. There’s just not a cut of the action for AAM (insofar as I know, anyway) and I don’t write for their website. But it also points out the long-standing desire to support American-made products, which used to be the norm before industry cut and ran for far-flung points around the globe in the last half-century. A new generation of entrepreneurs might be turning back the clock, though, and that’s a move we can all support.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday we have what’s become known as Giving Tuesday. To delve slightly into the political, the Joe Biden-backed American Possibilities group has called on its supporters to instead take some time to give to the firefighters in California through the International Association of Fire Fighters Disaster Relief Fund.

Today, as we enjoy the warmth of our homes and the presence of our loved ones, we have the opportunity to help these heroes get back on their feet.

The union-based charity “Provides financial assistance to members living in disaster areas who have also experienced losses of their own and has provided more than $5 million dollars in assistance since its inception.”

For a more religious perspective, my friends at iVoterGuide have turned their attention from preparing for the next election cycle to helping out their favored charity.

As shoppers prepare for hitting the malls on Friday and grabbing online savings on “Cyber Monday,” a shift is being consciously made by many to turn the Tuesday after Thanksgiving into a national day of giving known as #GivingTuesday. We embrace this idea at iVoterGuide, and our staff is taking part in Operation Christmas Child — a project of Samaritan’s Purse. It’s an easy way to share the Gospel and help the needy.

They also had a little word for themselves:

Finally, if you would like to give back to iVoterGuide, we would appreciate you praying about any organizations or people with whom you might be able to connect us as we prepare for the 2020 elections. Might you know of an organization who would like to join our coalition of partners so that we can cover more down ballot races in more states? Do you know of someone who would like to help sponsor coverage of their state legislative races or support the work of iVoterGuide?

I was one of those who helped cover the Maryland races, and it was a neat experience. The good thing about Maryland is that they only have federal elections in 2020 (meaning the same amount of coverage for iVoterGuide that they had this time) which hopefully will lead to enhanced coverage of state races in 2022. It’s a long way from Cyber Monday, but sometimes the things we do today are only realized months or years later.

Hopefully any stuff you acquire won’t already be ignored in someone’s closet by then.

Odds and ends number 89

Call it the final culling of the election mailbox, and not a moment too soon. Yet again we dispatch with stuff in anything from a few sentences to a few paragraphs.

One effect of the Trump presidency has been a resurgence in manufacturing, which has pleased my old friends at the Alliance for American Manufacturing to no end. “Any job losses – and there have been very few actually documented – as a result of tariffs are being more than offset by the strength of the factory economy,” said AAM’s president Scott Paul in reaction to September’s job numbers. But with even better numbers in October (32,000 new jobs vs. 18,000 in September) Paul was a little more greedy:

It’s good news that factories hired 32,000 new workers in October. If there is any employment impact from tariffs or retaliation, it’s being more than washed away by the overall strength of the manufacturing economy. That said, tariffs alone aren’t going to keep manufacturing strong.

We need to see structural economic reforms in China, a better deal for workers through fairer trade agreements with Mexico, Canada, Japan and the European Union, as well as a renewed effort to crack down on exchange rate misalignment and manipulation.

It’s a start on the 3.4 million jobs claimed to be lost to China by the (left-leaning) Economic Policy Institute in a recent report.

But my question for Scott would be how much effect he believes the dismantling of the regulatory state on Trump’s watch has helped the situation. AAM seems to focus more on the aspect of trade and less on the other areas where we labored at a competitive disadvantage, but that could be a product of its union background. Interestingly enough, a recent survey AAM commissioned was bullish on President Trump and his effect on manufacturing in America – far more than Congressional Republicans or Democrats.

President Trump may have good reason to be bullish himself after what was described by my friend Rick Manning at The Daily Torch as “One of the best job reports imaginable.”

250,000 more jobs created in October alone, in spite of the impacts of two major hurricanes. The unemployment rate rests at 3.7 percent, the lowest rate since 1969, the year Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. More than 4 million jobs created since Donald Trump became President, with more than 1,000 manufacturing jobs created each day during October and nearly 300,000 overall in the Trump time in office. And when it comes to where the rubber meets the road – in the paycheck – America got a raise over the past year which exceeded the inflation rate. That’s right, a real raise year-over-year for the first time in nine years.

Despite the Left’s insistence that this election is about the accused rapist Brett Kavanaugh, supposedly pro-Trump criminals who mail inert bomb-like devices or savagely butcher defenseless worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue, or the overreaction to the forthcoming caravasion, they are all desperate diversionary tactics to take the voters’ minds off of their fattened bank accounts since Trump took office.

And speaking of the caravasion, a little digging by Hayden Ludwig of the Capital Research Center has found one key American sponsor of the effort, the infamous “Puebla Sin Fronteras” (People Without Borders). That group is but a small part of a tangled web Ludwig details in his stateside investigation. On the other end, writer and former CIA operations officer Charles Faddis asserts:

Yet, already what has emerged shows that far from being a campaign for the rights of oppressed peoples (the caravan) is a deliberate, pre-planned effort on the part of socialist enemies of the United States to damage American prestige and to embarrass American allies.

Perhaps this is why the caravasion’s rumored arrival as a late “October surprise” has now been pushed back as the first wave has hit some turbulence.

A much earlier surprise was the arrival and successful ballot access of an unaffiliated candidate in our Maryland U.S. Senate race. Neal Simon continues to be on my radar as we reach the final day of the campaign.

It began in early October when a poll touted by his campaign came out, putting his support at 18 percent. See if you can follow this:

Despite common misconceptions from the press, including The Washington Post, about a lack of support for unaffiliated candidates, 54 percent of voters said they will consider an unaffiliated candidate for U.S. Senate; 56 percent of Democratic respondents also said they would consider an unaffiliated candidate; 30 percent of undecided voters lean to Simon. In comparison, only 4 percent of undecided voters are leaning towards Cardin and only 3 percent are leaning towards voting for Republican candidate Tony Campbell.

I actually asked the campaign for the crosstabs (since it was an unreleased part of the overall Gonzales Poll) and they never responded. I say unreleased because:

Neal Simon’s campaign purchased three rider questions on the Gonzales Maryland Survey conducted from October 1-6, 2018. The campaign purchased the questions because the polling firm had not planned on including the Maryland U.S. Senate race in its poll.

I’m certain they have had internal polling all along as well. The U.S. Senate race is definitely one of the topics I’m going to discuss in my postmortem, in part because of this claim:

Gov. Larry Hogan today announced that he has cast his vote for Maryland’s U.S. Senate seat for unaffiliated candidate Neal Simon.

To be quite honest, that would not surprise me. Maybe it’s a quid pro quo, as Simon earlier said:

I’m happy to announce my endorsement of Gov. Hogan today for another term as Maryland’s governor. From cutting taxes and fees, to investing in education and cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, Gov. Hogan has accomplished a lot for Marylanders. And he’s done it by working across the aisle to find common ground. Instead of sowing divisiveness and conflict for cheap political points, Gov. Hogan has stayed true to his promise to govern from the center. He’s a true model for how to get things done.

Of course, according to the iVoter Guide, Neal Simon is a liberal.

It was a couple years ago that I first mentioned the group, which was asking for prayer:

Pray for unity and peace. Our country is deeply divided. Christians must truly start loving our neighbors as ourselves so that there can be a spiritual awakening. Now is not a time to gloat but to turn our hearts continually toward God so we can be examples of His love and work toward reconciliation and unity. Pray for all nations, as a new stage is being set both nationally and internationally.

A couple weeks ago I found out they had expanded their iVoter Guide to Maryland – alas, this time only for federal races. But it’s a well-documented source to help you through the clutter, especially all the clutter caused by an estimated $5.2 billion in spending this time.

Yes, you read that correctly: five point two billion, with a “b” dollars. (I think half of that was spent on mailings to my house.) From OpenSecrets:

While Republican candidates are raising funds at record levels, the huge uptick in spending is driven primarily by unprecedented Democratic fundraising. Democratic candidates are projected to spend more than $2.5 billion this cycle, while Republicans are expected to spend approximately $2.2 billion.

Democratic House hopefuls have raised more than $951 million, crushing their Republican opponents’ $637 million haul. Things are closer in the Senate – $513 million to $361 million – but Democrats are still ahead.

Gee, do you think they’re a little upset that Hillary couldn’t close the deal?

Last but not least is something from a woman basically forgotten in the 2018 race. Available online election results for the Comptroller’s office over the last 32 years show that only one Republican has ever exceeded 40 percent of the vote: Anne McCarthy was the last woman to run as a Republican nominee back in 2006 and received 40.8% of the vote in the election that elevated Peter Franchot to the job. Twelve years later he faces another woman, but one who has been severely underfunded from the start because Franchot has the advantage of a healthy relationship across the aisle with Governor Hogan.

So when you receive an e-mail appeal from Anjali Phukan saying “Franchot is in the pocket of special interests and here’s proof!” you think to yourself, that’s nice, but perhaps that vein should have been mined back in March. And it’s too bad because this is interesting:

I believe at least 29 entities overcontributed (to Franchot), questioning the validity of over $354,000 in donations. The biggest overcontributor gave about $140,500 (David Trone via RSSI, Total Wine, and other related entities). There was a court case in September 2016 for this matter, but Franchot only returned $62,000. Other overcontributors looked like the entity name was typed slightly different to be perceived as a different person for donating over the limit without triggering reporting system red flags, others looked like a primary entity was using small business(es) owned by a donor, for donating over the limit without triggering reporting system red flags.

I have noticed this on a number of financial reports over the years: a donor name may be typed in slightly differently or the address is incorrect – a case in point: there are campaign finance reports out there which have my address in Ocean Pines for some strange reason, perhaps because someone read a long list of names and addresses incorrectly and put line 62’s name with line 63’s address and never bothered to change it in the system for awhile afterward until it was pointed out. It happens.

But the system is only as good as its reporting because the software appears to keep a running total for each contributor. If a name is spelled differently that resets the system, so let’s say I wanted to be devious and donate $12,000 (twice the legal limit) to a candidate. If I found an old check at an old address and told the treasurer to spell my name “Schwartz” (a common error, trust me) I just might be able to get away with it unless someone audited the account later. And then I could say it was an honest mistake – I just forgot I maxed out to the candidate already. (Either that or I can just set up multiple LLCs, which seems to be a time-honored avoidance technique, too.)

Anyhow, it’s a good point but unfortunately far too little and far too late. Phukan will be hard-pressed to beat 30% today, and it may be a good test to see how loyal Republicans are to their straight ticket. I can tell you that I will not be, but where I depart is for me to know and you to maybe find out at some later time.

Let’s put this election cycle to bed. Pray for the best possible results.

Odds and ends number 83

Subtitled, the post-election edition.

I have a number of items I collected over the last few weeks that I figured I would end up getting to after the election. Well, the election is over so now I can clean out the e-mail box with this handy feature.

Despite Donald Trump’s stated defense of Planned Parenthood (coupled with his vow to defund it) and shaky position on abortion, the head of the pro-life group Created Equal was pleased with the election results and their efforts in securing them.

“Now, we must hold our new president-elect accountable for his promises to defund Planned Parenthood, pass a 20-week ban, and nominate a Constitutionalist to the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Created Equal’s Mark Harrington.

Defunding Planned Parenthood will be a battle since Congress controls the purse strings and a Republican majority couldn’t get the job done in this edition of Congress. And as a reminder: they are funded through September 30, 2017 – the end of the federal fiscal year. Passing a 20-week ban and getting a pro-life SCOTUS justice will also be difficult with 48 Democrat Senators, although eight of them may want to keep in mind that Trump won their state and they are up for re-election two years hence. (In 2018 Democrats face the same minefield Republicans did this time: 23 of 33 Senate seats at stake are held by Democrats, along with two “independents” who caucus with the Democrats.) But I suspect the pro-life side will be disappointed with a President Trump; however, I never thought he would be President either so he may shock us all.

Another group angling for a payoff is my old friends at the American Alliance for Manufacturing, who are begging:

President-elect Trump and Congress must come together on much needed investment that will put Americans to work building and repairing our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. Stronger trade enforcement to address China’s massive overcapacity and a crackdown on countries trying to circumvent U.S. trade laws can boost manufacturing jobs.

Factory workers were more than a prop in this election. Now’s the time to deliver for them.

The signs are there that Trump may be their kind of President: we know he’s more hawkish on trade, and he’s planning on making it possible for up to $1 trillion in private-sector infrastructure investment over the next decade. But it takes two (or more) to tango on trade, so progress on that front may be slow. And the union-backed AAM may not be happy with the infrastructure plan if it doesn’t feature union-friendly rules and prevailing wage regulations. (Maybe this is a good time to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act? I doubt Congress has the guts to.)

But if you thought AAM wanted a tougher stance on trade, this diatribe came from Kevin Kearns, head of the U.S. Business & Industry Council:

Trump’s antagonists (on trade) are Wall Street institutions, multinational corporations, major business organizations, academic economists, editorial boards, business journalists, opinion writers, bloggers, and the generally knowledge-free mainstream media. All are opposed to Trump because they are wedded to a false, outdated “free trade” dogma, which has decimated the working and middle classes.

On Capitol Hill, a minority of Democrats and majority of Republicans are partial to the same free-trade theories. Speaker Paul Ryan admitted as much in his remarks on the election victory, noting that Trump alone had recognized the dire plight of average Americans.

I found it interesting that the LifeZette site has as its editor-in-chief Trump ally (and radio talk show host) Laura Ingraham. But this was the real payoff of the Kearns piece for me:

Trump must impose a Value-Added Tax of 18-20 percent applicable at the border to all imports. Over 150 of our trading partners use such taxes to make American exports pricier in their home markets. We should reciprocate.

So anything we import becomes 18 to 20 percent more expensive? Yeah, that will end well.

Another item in the election hopper was some attempted reform from another guy who I’ve oftentimes cited on my website, Rick Weiland. A “trifecta of reform” his group successfully put on the South Dakota ballot went 1-for-3 the other night. Measures for redistricting reform and non-partisan elections failed, but South Dakota voters narrowly passed a sweeping campaign finance reform package the state’s Attorney General said “may be challenged in court on constitutional grounds.”

Personally, I would have been fine with the two that failed in a broad sense – as a Maryland resident, I know all about partisan gerrymandering and would be interested to see how non-partisan elections pan out. (The duopoly would have a fit, I’m sure.) But this campaign finance reform was a bad idea from the get-go, and it tips the Democrats’ hand on how they would attack the Citizens United decision. One controversial facet of this new law would be a $9 per registered voter annual appropriation to pay for this public financing – such a law in Maryland would be a required annual $35 million appropriation from our General Fund. (The fund Larry Hogan used in his successful 2014 campaign was built with voluntary donations via a checkoff on income tax forms; a checkoff that was dormant for several years but was restored last year.)

And instead of “democracy credits” as this amendment proposed, a better idea would be one I believe Ohio still uses: a tax deduction of up to $50 for political donations. But I’m sure soon a South Dakota court (and maybe beyond) will be ruling on this one.

I also received some free post-election advice from the creators of iVoterGuide, which is an offshoot of a small Christian group called the Heritage Alliance (not to be confused with the Heritage Foundation.)

Pray specifically for the appointment of Godly people as our newly elected President selects his Cabinet and closest advisors. Pray that the Administration, Senate and House will work together to honor life and liberty as set out in our constitution by our founding fathers. Pray for ALL elected officials to humble themselves and seek God’s will for our nation. We need to repent, individually and as a nation, and turn from policies contrary to God’s word.

Pray for unity and peace. Our country is deeply divided. Christians must truly start loving our neighbors as ourselves so that there can be a spiritual awakening. Now is not a time to gloat but to turn our hearts continually toward God so we can be examples of His love and work toward reconciliation and unity. Pray for all nations, as a new stage is being set both nationally and internationally.

I think I can handle that. Oddly enough, this was also a subject of our Bible study prayer group Wednesday – maybe one or more of them is on this e-mail list, too. As for iVoterGuide, what they need is a larger state-level base as Maryland and Delaware aren’t among the handful of states they cover (it’s mostly federal.)

As iVoterGuide‘s executive director Debbie Wuthnow concludes, “we ask you pray about how God wants you to be involved in retaining the freedoms He has so graciously granted us.” I suspect I’m going in the right direction here but one never knows what doors open up.

I was originally going to add some energy-related items to this mix, but I think I will hold them until later this week for a reason which will become apparent. There’s one other subset of items I’m going to have fun with tomorrow – I would consider them odds but not ends. And so it goes.