Florida Dems: Steal Going Strong?
There are plenty of threats to democracy, but what happens in the voting booth shouldn’t be one of them!
There are plenty of threats to democracy, but what happens in the voting booth shouldn’t be one of them! Tell that to the people of Florida. Days after the media called the Senate and governor’s races for Rick Scott (R) and Ron DeSantis (R), election officials have suddenly “found” tens of thousands of Democratic votes. And we’re concerned about other governments meddling in our elections?
Unfortunately for Republicans, this isn’t the first time Broward and Palm Beach Counties have been caught cheating the system. More people have been burned by voter fraud on the west side of Florida than the sunshine. Brenda Snipes, the head of Broward County’s election board (and a registered Democrat), could have faced five years in jail for tampering with votes two years ago. Now, Snipes is back to her dirty tricks, telling reporters she has no idea how many ballots are left to count in a race for governor that the Democrat already conceded.
In testy exchanges with reporters, Snipes was visibly upset when Local 10 News asked why two days had gone by and she still didn’t have a final count. “But, Dr. Snipes, it’s now Thursday. We’re still counting ballots in Broward County.” “We’re counting five pages or six pages for each of the people who voted,” Snipes fired back. “But other counties have been able to do it,” he replied. “Other counties didn’t have 600,000 votes out there,” she argued. “Well, Miami-Dade did,” the reporter said simply. “Don’t try to turn this around [on me],” Snipes said and stormed off.
But people who know Snipes’s history say it is on her. In 2016, a judge found her guilty of destroying ballots from a primary in the middle of a lawsuit. In August, she was charged with “improperly handling mail-in ballots,” opening them in secret. Even fellow Democrats, Governor Rick Scott (R) reminds everyone, accused her of “individual and systematic breakdowns” in 2014. Tim Canova, one of the victims of her political sabotage, said, “We’re dealing with organized crime. I don’t trust anything that comes out of this office…”
Neither does Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R), who blasted the counties’ leadership for trying to steal the election. Bay County, he points out on Twitter, “was hit by a Cat 4 Hurricane just four weeks ago, yet managed to count votes and submit timely results. But over 41 hours after polls closed Broward elections office is still counting votes?” Pictures snapped by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel show stacks of ballots that supposedly still haven’t been counted. “A U.S. Senate seat and a statewide Cabinet officer are now potentially in the hands of an elections supervisor with a history of incompetence and blatant violations of state and federal election laws.”
Then there are the other inconsistencies: a passerby allegedly sees ballots being transported in private vehicles and transferred to rent truck on Election night and posts the video “This violates all chain of custody requirements for paper ballots,” Rubio fumed. “Were the ballots destroyed and replaced by a set of fake ballots? Investigate now!” At Miramar Elementary School, a teacher stumbled on an entire box labeled “Provisional ballots” left behind on Tuesday. Republicans in Palm Beach complained that they weren’t allowed to monitor the county’s handling of damaged absentee ballots, which is a serious violation of protocol. And it gets even fishier in Minnesota, where a woman who hadn’t lived in Florida for five years says she got a Florida ballot in the mail.
Governor Scott, whose race for Senate against Bill Nelson (D) had been called by all of the major news networks, now seems headed for a recount, thanks to the magical appearance of 42,000 Democratic ballots. How unusual is that? Well, according to the Florida Department of State, there hasn’t been a recount for governor or senator in state history. And now, suddenly, there are two in one year?
“Late Tuesday night, our win was projected to be around 57,000 votes,” Scott told reporters Thursday. “By Wednesday morning, that lead dropped to 38,000. By Wednesday evening, it was around 30,000. This morning, it was around 21,000. Now, it is 15,000.” Scott, who filed a lawsuit and launched a state investigation, told Fox News’s Sean Hannity, “We don’t know how many votes they’re gonna come up with. But it appears they’re going to try to come up with as many votes as it takes to win this election…” But, he promised, “We’re gonna fight this… No ragtag group of liberal activists or lawyers from D.C. will be allowed to steal this election from the voters in the state of Florida.”
After the antics and outright lies we’ve seen from the Left this year’s, no one can be surprised at how low they will stoop to get their hands on more political power. But this isn’t just about 2018. It’s about 2020, 2022, and every election that comes after. Democrats, Republicans, Independents — we all have a stake in making the democratic system an honest one.
Originally published here.
A Washington Post Mortem on SPLC
“‘See that speck there?” retired Lt. Gen. William G. 'Jerry’ Boykin says, directing my gaze to the ceiling of the Family Research Council’s lobby in Washington. I spy a belly-button-size opening in the plaster. ‘That’s a bullet hole.’“ That’s how the Washington Post magazine opens the latest in a long line of mainstream media features on the fall of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Since the shooting at FRC in 2012, the tide has been turning on the one-time civil rights watchdog — and more and more reporters are taking note.
After the 2016 election, it seemed to everyone that an SPLC comeback may be in the offing, thanks to the millions of dollars dumped into the group’s pockets by Trump-despising companies like Apple and JP Morgan. It would’ve been a miraculous recovery for an organization that, just last year, was among the trusted organizations of a gunman who attacked a congressional baseball practice — and before that, gave Floyd Corkins directions to FRC’s office for the shooting this Post reporter saw up close.
But the same shady tactics that raised the eyebrows of Politico and the Wall Street Journal are floating to the surface again in a front-page exposé that casts even more doubt on SPLC’s credible. Like other formerly supportive news outlets, the Post seems to wrestle with the legitimacy of a group that, it points out, "forays into political activism” that “could certainly hurt the list’s reputation.”
“Researchers at the Southern Poverty Law Center have set themselves up as the ultimate judgers of hate in America,” the article explains. “But are they judging fairly?” “For decades, the [SPLC] hate list was a golden seal of disapproval, consider nonpartisan enough to be heeded by government agencies, police departments, corporations, and journalists. But in recent years, the list has swept up an increasing number of conservative activists.”
The story points to SPLC’s growing number of liberal detractors — which included Obama’s own FBI and Justice Department. Since then, more leftists have come forward to question the group’s motives and methodology, which has had a devastating effect on SPLC’s credibility. So too, the Post points out, has the conservative pushback. “There are signs,” the Post explains, that the campaign to expose SPLC “is having an impact.” “Last year GuideStar, a widely consulted directory of charitable organizations, flagged 46 charities that were listed by the SPLC as hate groups. Within months, under pressure from critics, GuideStar announced it was removing the flags.”
Then, of course, blinded by their liberal zeal they overstepped in the labeling of Ben Carson an “extremist,” and being forced to settle a $3.4 million lawsuit with Muslim Maajid Nawaz. When the Post pressed SPLC’s Richard Cohen to explain why there were more conservatives on the “hate” list than liberals, he shrugged and said the Left doesn’t “condemn categories of people for who they are.” After this election cycle, one that witnessed conservative leaders being attacked, harassed, driven off the road, and punched, the Post pushed back.
“What about antifascists, or antifa, those black-clad anarchists who hate capitalists and even Democrats, and who love to run amok during events like Trump’s inauguration?” the reporter asked. “While often violent, the antifa movement doesn’t have an ideology against people for their immutable characteristics, Cohen says.” “…What about Black Lives Matter?” the Post went on. After all, they advocate cop-killing. Cohen shook his head.
Unfortunately, no amount of reason or negative attention seems to faze SPLC. They continue to double-down on labeling that could have cost FRC and congressional conservatives countless lives. Thursday, the groups was back at it, releasing a special report on how “extremism fared in the U.S. Senate elections.” Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a single Democrat on the list. Instead, the SPLC tried to accuse the mainstream conservatives winners — and the combined 6.8 million people who voted for them — as radicals. Why? For holding beliefs that — even now, polling shows — are the prevailing views in America!
At least for now, any pretense of SPLC’s neutrality is gone. “Hate,” the Post closes in its fair hearing of the debate, “like so much in American life, has become highly ideological. In this climate, seeking widespread credibility for a hate list — with its inherently blunt methodology — seems at once quaint, noble and, possibly, futile.”
Originally published here.
Voters Recoil at House Gun Agenda
California’s Nancy Pelosi (D) has been waiting to get her hands back on the House speaker’s gavel for nearly a decade. Now that she might, it’s obvious how she plans to use it: as a hammer on the values of everyday Americans.
Democrats have to know how voters feel about their radical social agenda. (If they didn’t, this week’s polling ought to make it quite clear.) Everyone from party bosses to the mainstream media blamed it for Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016. But with the keys of half of Congress within reach, liberal leaders just can’t seem to help themselves.
Pelosi was already quite clear about one of her first priorities: ending religious freedom and privacy as we know it. “It isn’t in our ‘For the People’ agenda,” she explained, “because it doesn’t get that specific, but there’s one more because it’s personal for me that I really want to do, and it’s called the Equality Act.” Considered the most radical piece of pro-LGBT legislation ever introduced in Congress, this bill would force Americans’ conformity on everything from sexuality to transgenderism. It would make what’s been unfolding in Target bathrooms look like a Sunday school picnic. Under this bill, anyone who objects to same-sex marriage or gender-specific policies would be severely punished by the government. That includes schools, businesses, food banks, adoption agencies, homeless shelters, faith-based ministries, and government offices.
As if that weren’t offensive enough, the prospective speaker wants to give voters a hefty dose of gun control. On CNN Thursday, Pelosi confirmed what most Americans fear. “I do believe, because in this Congress…there is bipartisan legislation to have common sense background checks to prevent guns going into the wrong hands. It doesn’t cover everything, but it will save many lives.” This, she said clearly, “will be a priority for us going into the next Congress.”
In a party that doesn’t know the meaning of the word “moderation,” this kind of ideological whiplash might backfire. It certainly did in 2010 and 2016. When voters entrusted the House to Democrats, it wasn’t an endorsement of their radical social agenda. If you don’t believe me, read the exit polling. Tuesday’s election was as much about the GOP’s inability to get values bills passed as anything else. This is where you will play a critical role in educating your senators, especially Republican senators, that they’re now the firewall between Nancy Pelosi and common sense American values.
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.
