Election Fraud?

I was recently called a fool on Facebook—not particularly unusual. Why? I suggested that while rare, election fraud was about 1% of the total vote, and that it mostly favored Democrats. Did I offer any proof? No. Did the person who called me a fool offer any proof? No. In fact no proof can be offered either way. Then I ran across this paper that examined the 2008 elections. 

In 2008, the proportion of non-citizens who were in fact registered to vote was somewhere between 19.8% (all who reported or had verified registration, or both) and 3.3% (11 non-citizen respondents were almost certainly registered to vote because they both stated that they were registered and had their registration status verified). Even the low-end estimate suggests a fairly substantial population of registered-to-vote non-citizens nationwide. Out of roughly 19.4 million adult non-citizens in the United States, this would represent a population of roughly 620,000 registered non-citizens⁴. By way of comparison, there are roughly 725,000 individuals in the average Congressional district.

While I do not have much confidence in these kind of surveys, nor do I offer this as "proof," it seems to me that my point of voter fraud is valid. If the high end is accurate, that is almost 3 million votes. This is just the potential illegal alien vote. The paper does not discuss voting in two states as a snow bird; ballots being thrown away by election workers; absentee votes by relatives and nurses in nursing homes, and so on.

The paper mentions the election of Al Franken to the senate by 300 votes. 

This race, ultimately decided by 312 votes for Democrat Al Franken, was of critical national importance. It gave Democrats the filibuster-proof super-majority needed to pass major legislative initiatives during President Obama's first year in office. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, for instance, would have had a much more difficult path to passage were it not for Franken's pivotal vote. The MN 2008 Senate race is also the race where the smallest portion of non-citizen votes would have tipped the balance – participation by more than 0.65% of non-citizens in MN is sufficient to account for the entirety of Franken's margin. Our best guess is that nearly ten times as many voted.

Election fraud has changed elections. We have election fraud to thank for ObamaCare as it gave the Democrats a "super majority"  to override a potential filibuster. 

My wife voted in her first American election this year. She has voted in the past in Russia. She was shocked with the lack of security. "Where are the police?" "Why aren't there cameras?" "Why aren't they asking for identification?" I had no answers for her. 

No one knows how big a problem voter fraud is, but it is a problem. 

Health Vacations and Immigration

It used to be that international "snow birds" would return home for healthcare. This response is less and less prevalent. From an expatriate living in Mexico:

When I came here a decade ago, people would disappear and the story would be that they went back to the US, because of health problems, to avail themselves of Medicaid/Medicare. However, now Americans are showing up here to get healthcare, especially dental, plastic surgery, and outpatient procedures. They can pay cash and still come out well ahead of paying deductibles in the US. 

Billing for example is simplified.

One of the major differences I’ve observed is the amount of paperwork here is much lower. I had bypass surgery in the US and got a 42 page bill in the mail. It was just for the blood work over 6 days. When I had hip surgery in a private Mexican hospital, the bill was 2 pages. One listed the 6 doctors that saw me and the other page listed the hospital charges. Neither one was a full page.

Read the whole article. 

I am considering immigration myself for these very reasons. I figure I can buy health insurance in Russia, for example, and live quite well on the money I would save. I pay that much here. Personally what I pay here for health care is a huge portion of my income. A few years ago it was actually greater than my income for that year. A personal example is that my wife recently got a MRI. The co-pay was $800. I have no idea what the insurance company was charged. She had a similar procedure in Russia a few years ago. She had no Russian insurance as she is not a resident. It cost less than $100. 

To be frank, I doubt Trump will do what needs to be done. "Hope and Change" is why both Obama and Trump were elected. Obama failed to deliver. Trump will too. For one suggestion of what needs to be done, click here. 

So what happens in 2017 will determine where I live in 2018. 

At This Point in Time, What Difference Does It Make?

No matter who is president, there will be a recession in the next four years.

No matter who is president, the US will spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined. 

No matter who is president, US sovereign debt will expand. Right now it is at 100% of GDP, it is going higher. 

No matter who is president, the US population will get older and the unfunded liabilities of Social Security, and especially Medicare, will blossom. This might be as much as 100 trillion dollars, five times the horrific US national debt. This is such a large number that no one can comprehend it.  

No matter who is president, the unfunded pension liabilities of states and municipalities will continue. Chicago alone is over 100 billion in unfunded pension obligations. 

I opposed Clinton because I did not want to die in a nuclear holocaust. Not dying is a good thing. 

We have a window for reform. I hope Trump does not waste this window and reforms the US healthcare system. If the healthcare system isn't fixed, nothing else matters.

I will talk about this in the next blog post. Until then I leave you with this version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I Have Good News and Bad News

I have some good news and bad news. The good news is that Clinton was not elected president. The bad news is that Trump was. 

You would have to add me to the list of those wrong about Trump. I just did not think that the "powers that be" would let Trump be elected. Apparently they lost control of the memes due to having no control over new media. I did expect a tie, however if the election had played out as I thought Clinton would have won. I did not predict a win for Trump in Pennsylvania. Michigan and Wisconsin? Don't even think about it. I sure didn't. 

Camille Paglia, a Sanders supporter, said this about Trump before the election:

Primary voters nationwide are clearly responding to Trump’s brand of classic can-do American moxie. There has been a sense of weary paralysis in our increasingly Byzantine and monstrously wasteful government bureaucracies.  Putting a bottom-line businessman with executive experience into the White House has probably been long overdue.  If Mitt Romney had boldly talked business more (and chosen a woman VP), he would have won the last election.  Although the rampant Hitler and Mussolini analogies to Trump are wildly exaggerated–he has no organized fascist brigades at his beck and call—there is reason for worry about his impatient authoritarian tendencies.  We have had more than enough of Obama’s constitutionally questionable executive orders.  It remains to be seen whether Trump’s mastery of a hyper-personalized art of the deal will work in the sluggish, murky, incestuously intertwined power realms of Washington.

Here is a montage of Trump skeptics. 

A Historic Rant

Normally I would not put items with profanity on this blog, but I decided to make an exception. A rant is a rant. This is Jonathan Pie, who is I assume a British comedian, on the Trump election. 

As I said on Facebook:

The Republicans have managed to nominate someone who might not be able to beat Hillary Clinton; the Democrats have managed to nominate someone who might not be able to beat Donald Trump. 

Note that rants have a long history and are even in the Bible, especially the book of Ezekiel. Naturally conservative Bible commentators interpret these rants literally, to great confusion.