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We do not want to deliver another depressing show, and we won't. But if you're looking at the country and thinking, "How do we measure the health of the United States?" there arepretty obvious ways to do it. The average life expectancy is one, the marriage rate, the effectiveness of the U.S. military, housing costs, the value of the U.S. dollar, health of the financial markets, the safety of our streets, etc. By every single one of those very basic measures, the Biden administration has failed and done so dramatically.

Biden isn't simply incompetent, though obviously he is. Biden is the single most destructive force in the history of the United States. In just a year and a half, Biden and Ron Klain, his strange, shadowy chief of staff, have done more damage to this country than anybody could possibly have imagined. We read the numbers every night, but they don't capture it. You know, what captures it? This story.

This story comes from the reliably liberal financial news outlet CNBC. Here's the second sentence of the piece: "A rising number of former Californians are migrating out of the country altogether and are instead heading south of the border. Many are seeking a more relaxed and affordable lifestyle in Mexico."

Yes, in Mexico, not Switzerland. Mexico. So, things are so bad in Joe Biden's America that thousands of Americans are voluntarily moving to a Third World country in the middle of a brutal drug war. Yes, there are human heads littering the side of the road in Acapulco, but at least it's not Los Angeles.

HUNTER BIDEN BRAGGED JOE BIDEN WOULD 'TALK ABOUT ANYTHING THAT I WANT HIM TO' IN 2018: REPORT

Darrell Graham works in real estate in Mexico. He says of the people he sells to "at least half are coming down from California... Suddenly the cost of taxes, the crime rates, the politics, all the things that people are unhappy with in California make them want to come down to Mexico." Another analyst who studies the trend at the Migration Policy Institute says so many Americans are relocating to Mexico right now that locals are being priced out of their own neighborhoods.

So, it's mass migration in reverse. It's pretty amazing.

No matter how bad you thought this administration was going to be, you probably could not have imagined ever caravans of Biden refugees fleeing our country across the southern border, looking for a better life in Mexico. At this rate, the next stop will be Port au Prince. Say what you will about Haiti, it's better than Baltimore. Now, one upside of moving to Latin America is like-minded neighbors. Hispanics despise Joe Biden, too. Biden's approval rating among Hispanic voters in this country has fallen to 24%. That's his lowest among any demographic group.

Meanwhile, as of tonight, guess who's the preferred candidate for 2024 among self-described Latinos? That's right. The Taco Bowl Guy, Donald J. Trump. Let that sink in for a second. Donald Trump, supposedly the most anti-Hispanic racist this country has ever produced, that man, is far more popular among actual Hispanics than a cringing White liberal like Joe Biden. So, the guy who tried to build a border wall is loved. The guy who uses the word Latinx, not ironically, is hated. Remarkable.

It's alsoand this is not an overstatementpolitically, a disaster of generational magnitude for the Democratic Party. Latinos dislike Joe Biden intensely, and they dislike him for the same reason that everybody else does. Biden has made things worse, a lot worse. The median income in this country is $44,000 a year a year. Imagine trying to live on that right now. Do the math. You couldn't do it. Not in any recognizably American way. Inflation is too high. It's making you poorer. Well, today in Philadelphia, Joe Biden unveiled his plan to fix inflation. Now watch this tape and keep in mind as you do that, it is real. We've not edited it in any way. Here it is:

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PRESIDENT BIDEN: We can do all this. I'm asking, all I'm asking is for the largest corporations and the wealthiest Americans to begin to pay their fair share in taxes. I'm deadly earnest. Anybody out there think the tax system is fair? Raise your hand.

This guy. The AFL-CIO. How many private sector labor union members support Joe Biden? 12%? 15%? It's not 50% And yet they host the guy. They're so corrupt.

But listen to the message. Higher taxes will make the things that you buy cheaper. That's what Biden just said. Inflation is up because taxes aren't high enough. Now, it's hardly a defense of corporate America, which we would never defend, to point out that as an economic analysis is completely insane. It's not true.

We've lost control of inflation because people like Joe Biden pushed a species of lunacy called modern monetary theory. They printed an endless torrent of fake money to enrich and empower themselves and by doing that, they crashed the U.S. dollar and made you much poorer. That's what happened. There's not much debate about that and they're not going to acknowledge it, of course. They can't even be bothered to pretend to care about baby formula shortages. Here's Joe Biden's publicist just yesterday.

BOXER JAKE PAUL BLASTS BIDEN FOR GAS PRICES, INFLATION, CLAIMS BIDEN VOTERS ARE THE AMERICAN PROBLEM

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Monday, June 13, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

REPORTER: So, I have two questions on baby formula. So first, what is the White House, what is the latest update the White House has received on the current formula situation across the country?

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. Let me see if I have anything new for you on that. So, I think it's been a couple of days since we have been asked that question. Okay. I don't have anything new. I know we made some announcements last week. I don't, I just don't have them in front of me.

Oh, mothers can't feed their babies. "Let me see what I have here." Somehow, the White House communications team forgot to load the baby formula talking points into the binder, leaving our historic LGBTQ+ immigrant, class ceiling shattering press secretary speechless. "I just don't have them in front of me." In other words, "What does that question have to a trans rights? Nothing? Okay, next."

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECY LAUGHS OFF QUESTION ABOUT BIDEN'S HEALTH: 'NOT A QUESTION WE SHOULD BE ASKING'

The one thing Karine Jean-Pierre can say with dead certainty is that Joe Biden is great. Joe Biden is energetic. He's fully in charge of his faculties. In fact, he's planning on running again in 2024, by which time all of suburban Chicago will have moved to Haiti in search of a higher standard of living.

She actually said that, "To be clear, as the president himself has said repeatedly, he plans to run in 2024." And we can just guess how you feel about that, but how do leaders of the Democratic Party feel about that? He's their guy, and yet they're horrified. Even Sandy Cortez, who can defend anything if she has to up and including another pointless neo con war in Ukraine, even she can't get behind another Joe Biden run. Watch.

AOC: We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, but I think if the president has a vision and that's something certainly we're all willing to entertain and examine when the time comes.

DANA BASH, CNN: That's not a yes.

AOC: I believe that the president has been doing a very good job so far and, you know, should he run again, I think that, I you know, I think it's, it's, we'll take a look at it.

BIDEN LOSES CONTROL OF INFLATION, AND THE TRUST OF AMERICAN PEOPLE

"Yeah. We'll cross that bridge, right? We'll take a look at it." So, what they're really saying and this is their latest talking point is, "We don't like Joe Biden and we never have." They've got nothing to do with Joe Biden, turns out. David Axelrod and Joe Scarborough, the other professional liars who foisted this senile mannequin on America, are now trying to run away from him.

The New York Times, which is their newsletter, ran a front-page story two days ago on Sunday about Joe Biden's mental decline. Really? That topic was completely off limits just a year ago. You couldn't say it. The New York Times quoted one DNC official who's advising Biden to announce now, right after the midterms, that he's not running again. As David Axelrod masterminding the Obama victories, put it himself, "The presidency is a monstrously taxing job and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue."

In other words, he's too freakin' old. Biden has got dementia. Who knew? Well, actually, they all knew, and they all knew all along, and they should not be allowed at this late date to evade their culpability for knowing and lying about it. They committed this crime. These people are cynical. They're ruthless. They're morally disfigured and if you need more proof of that, consider how they're treating poor Kamala Harris.

BIDEN LASHES OUT AT CRITICS AND DEFLECTS BLAME FOR SOARING INFLATION, TWITTER RESPONDS

They've abandoned Kamala Harris completely. It's shocking, really, given that just 18 months ago, these very same people were yelling at you about how lucky you were to have this historically Indian, Black female vice president, the very first in history. It was thrilling. They got emotional just thinking about it. Kamala Harris was that wonderful. Here's a recap.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: Kamala Harris is being sworn in, the first woman vice president.

AMY KLOBUCHAR: And our first woman vice president.

STEVE SCHMIDT: We'll see our first woman vice president. It will be a historic day.

JOHN KING: Kamala Harris will be the first woman vice president of the United States.

BIDEN: We mark the swearing in of the first woman in American history elected to national office, Vice President Kamala Harris. Don't tell me things can't change.

BIDEN ADMIN MAY RELAX CHINA TARIFFS IN BID TO EASE INFLATION, COMMERCE SECRETARY SAYS

Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she departs after speaking at the Tribal Nations Summit in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

"Don't tell me things can't change!" Oh, they can change and they have. That was just the other night. We were getting goose bumps listening to it, but now they're ghosting Kamala Harris like a bad tinder date. They're pretending she doesn't exist. In effect, in doing that, the Democratic Party is embracing White supremacy. How? Well, Democratic Party leaders plan to deny Harris a job that she has earned as Democratic nominee and replace her in the next cycle with yet anotherwait for it nowWhite man.

Let's try Beto. How about Mayor Pete? Notice a theme here? Pale and male as they are forever telling us because it turns out diversity isn't actually our strength. Equity and inclusion are fine if you're hiring middle managers at a big company. You would never hire a middle-aged White guy at Citibank. That's probably illegal, same with the airlines and hospitals. We've got way too many White male pilots and heart surgeons and Supreme Court justices. The Biden administration tells us that constantly.

They seem to me that they use DOJ to enforce their rules. Yet somehow the most anti-White political party in the English-speaking world is suddenly pushing another White man for president. How does that work, Joe Biden and friends Ron Klain?

Well, it turns out the presidency is a different thing. Affirmative action is essential for vice presidents, obviously. That's how we got Kamala Harris in the first place, but not for presidents. Presidents have too much power, so the usual diversity standards don't apply. We've had 46 White male presidents in a row, and the Democratic Party wants you to have another.

THESE 27 DEMOCRATS VOTED AGAINST PROTECTIONS FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICES

Oh, not so fast, racists. Hold on a second. Now, the rest of official Washington may be completely on board with this coup against Kamala Harris, who, again earned the job. They may be willing to stand back and allow America's highest-ranking woman of color to be degraded and humiliated in the pages of The New York Times, but we're not. We believe Kamala Harris is a human being with hopes and dreams and aspirations.

She's a first in so many ways. She celebrated Kwanzaa before it was even invented and of course, now that Oprah is retired, Kamala Harris is America's main source of life affirming aphorisms that don't actually mean anything. Watch this montage, which we have lovingly collected. Ask yourself how anyone who stand in the way of this woman becoming president United States.

KAMALA HARRIS: You know, when we talk about our children, I know for this group, we all believe that when we talk about the children of the community, they are the children of the community.

KAMALA HARRIS: And so what we all experienced is on an electric school bus, on an electric bus, no exhaust, no diesel smell.

KAMALA HARRIS: It is time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day. Every day it is time for us to agree.

President Joe Biden, with Vice President Kamala Harris, arrives to speak before signing the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, Nov. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

KAMALA HARRIS: This whole thing about the border. We've been to the border. We've been to the border.

LESTER HOLT, NBC NEWS: You haven't been to the border.

KAMALA HARRIS: And I haven't been to Europe. I mean, I don't think...

KAMALA HARRIS: And my pronouns are she, her and hers.

KAMALA HARRIS: She would look down at me and, "Kamala, what do you want? What do you want?" And I looked back up and I said, "fweedom."

KAMALA HARRIS: You're going to literally see the craters on the moon with your own eyes, with your own eyes. I'm telling you.

KAMALA HARRIS: We must together, work together to see where we are, where we are headed, but also see it as a moment, yes, to together.

KAMALA HARRIS: It is the perspectiveof a woman who grew up a Black child in America, who was also a prosecutor, who also has a mother who arrived here at the age of 19 from India, who also, you know, likes hip hop. Like, what do you want to know?

CNN POLITICAL ANALYST SAYS CHATTER AROUND BIDEN NOT RUNNING IN 2024 'WEAKENS HIS ABILITY TO GOVERN'

What do you know? She's unbelievable. You would deny that person a chance to serve? That is the person the Democratic insiders are tonight, ladies and gentlemen, trying to remove from the public stage and if no one else to say it, we will. It's wrong. Despite appearances, Kamala Harris is not a disposable consumer product. She's a pioneer. Do you what she went through trying to get a fair shake in the systemically racist country as the daughter of college professors? It wasn't easy. You know howhard she worked? At one point, she even dated Montel Williams. Few would go that far, but Kamala Harris did. No wonder she's sick and tired of being sick and tired. We get it. Watch as she did the work and unpacked her generational trauma live on television for you.

KAMALA HARRIS: You know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day and that little girl was me.

"Yeah, that little girl was me." Now, that little girl actually grew up in French-speaking Canada, not in the Jim Crow South, but whatever. Look what she's become. Now, simply because she's a moron and no one likes or even agrees on how to pronounce her first name, the Democratic Party is trying to throw Harris away, toss her out the window like a used Big Mac wrapper.

Now, Kamala Harris may be stained with secret sauce, but she deserves more than that. Yes, she does. Mediocrity is no excuse for firing someone. A low IQ, a terrible personality, a total inability to do the prescribed job those are not reasons to deny someone a job. The Biden administration has told us that repeatedly.

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By the way, democracy plays a role in this, too. You just saw the woman who Liz Cheney tells us a lot that 81 million votes in the last election. Now that's the most votes of any vice president in history. That's more votes than Liz Cheney's dad got. So, denying Kamala Harris the Democratic nomination in 2024 is nothing less than a form of insurrection.

It's an attack on democracy and on our sacred norms. It's disinformation, probably Russian in origin. Whatever it is, we cannot allow it and as long as this show is on the air, we won't. Tonight, we are endorsing Kamala Harris for the 2024 Democratic primaries. She deserves it and so do Democrats. They created her. They should be forced to live with her and anyone who disagrees with that is, by definition, a racist.

Tucker Carlson currently serves as the host of FOX News Channels (FNC) Tucker Carlson Tonight (weekdays 8PM/ET). He joined the network in 2009 as a contributor.

Original post:
Tucker Carlson: The Democrats should be forced to live with Kamala Harris - Fox News

The $332 million that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan provided to a progressive group to help run the 2020 elections was distributed on a highly partisan basis that favored Democrats, according to a new analysis by election data experts.

While these Zuckerbucks or Zuck bucks were touted as a resource meant to help all jurisdictions administer the election during the COVID crisis, tax records filed by the progressive Center for Tech and Civic Life show that the group awarded all larger grantson both an absolute and per capita basis to deeply Democratic urban areas, particularly in swing states, according to the new report. Its authors are William Doyle, research director at the right-leaning Caesar Rodney Election Research Institute, and Alex Oliver, chief data scientist at Evolving Strategies, a nonpartisan research group.

The report contrasts with a report Zuckerberg commissioned in December, which emphasized that more Republican jurisdictions, defined as municipalities that voted for Trump in 2020, applied for and received grants.

Doyle and Oliver say this conclusion is misleading because Republican jurisdictions were far more likely to receive grants of less than $50,000, which, they wrote, were likely not substantial enough to provide the funding, infrastructure, and personnel to materially change election practices in the recipient jurisdiction. These small grants comprised 27 percent of the centers awards.

In the counties where CTCL made its 50 largest grants in terms of per capita spending, the average partisan lean in favor of Democrat Joe Biden over Republican Donald Trump was 33 pointsmeaning the aid could be expected to stimulate more Democratic votes. Twenty-five of the top 50 grants per capita went to just five statesGeorgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, and Texas (the latter two where Democrats were optimistic about Bidens chances, the authors write). Seven of the top ten largest grants per capita went to counties in Georgia and Wisconsin, states that Biden narrowly won by 12,000 and 21,000 respectively. (Along with the report, Evolving Strategies has put together an online map and visualization app that tracks CTCLs top 100 grants on a per capita basis.)

The distribution of the CTCL programs grant amountsboth in absolute and per capita termsshows, unequivocally, a systematic bias in favor of Democratic jurisdictions, they write. The larger grants revealed a partisan pattern of funding [that] was especially apparent in swing states. Regardless of intention, CTCLs geographic allocation of larger grants is prima facie and de facto partisan.

Before 2020, the private funding of election administration was virtually unheard of. Against positive coverage of the development in liberal news media, conservative activists sounded the alarm about CTCLs efforts. Privatizing the management of elections undermines the integrity of our elections because private donors may dictate where and how hundreds of millions of dollars will be managed in these states, Phill Kline of the Thomas More Society told the Washington Post. Since 2020, 17 states have effectively banned the private funding of local election offices either through new laws or regulations. Two other states, Alabama and Missouri, are awaiting for the governors signature on similar bills.

The center and its defenders have argued that it is only logical that urban areas, which tend to support Democrats, would get more grant money, simply because they have more voters. But Doyle and Olivers analysis shows that those areas received more funding on a per capita basis. While the grant size for urban areas might naturally be larger overall, they said, areas with high concentrations of voters should result in economic efficiencies where substantial fixed cost of election administration is spread out over a relatively larger population, decreasing the per capita cost. If anything, they said, per capita costs of running an election should be higher in more rural Republican areas.

The report showed that Georgia alone received 10 of the top 50 grants per capita, totaling $41 millionmore than 10 percent of the $332 million CTCL spent across the country. Nine of those grants went to counties with an average partisan lean of 35 points in favor of Joe Biden.

The center awarded a total of $10.1 million in grants in Wisconsin, but $8.5 million of that went to the cities of Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee, and Racinecities where Bidens average margin of victory was over 37 points. All five cities ranked on CTCLs top 50 per capita grants. Similarly, Pennsylvania had four of the top 50 per capita grants, amounting to $16 million. Some $15 million of those grants went to Philadelphia and to Delaware and Chester counties in the Philadelphia metro area. The Philadelphia vote favored Biden by 64 points, and Delaware and Chester voted Biden by 27 and 17 points respectively. Biden won Pennsylvania by just 1.2 points, so the victory might have been sealed by the influx of cash from private sources to the Philadelphia region, the states biggest cache of votes, which also has a history of corruption and electoral fraud.

The CTCL did not respond to RealClearInvestigations request for comment. Its executive director, Tiana Epps-Johnson, told the Washington Post in February that the grants given out reflected where the requests for funding came from, not any bias on the part of her organization. But the center has offered no insight into its internal process for awarding grants.

An investigation by Broad and Liberty, a right-leaning publication dedicated to Pennsylvania politics, obtained emails showing that the office of Pennsylvanias Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf coordinated with left-wing nonprofits to implement a secretive process that selectively invited Democratic counties to apply for Zuck bucks grants.

The center did not just award money to counties and cities that applied for grantsin many cases it embedded progressive activists into key local election offices to shape how elections were run. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, emails to the mayors office from the center touted its network of current and former election administrations and election experts available to build up vote by mail processes and ensure forms, envelopes, and other materials are understood and completed correctly by voters. In a July 13, 2020 email to the center, Celestine Jeffreys, chief of staff for Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich, wrote, As far as Im concerned I am taking all of my cues from CTCL and work with those you recommend.

Eventually the center helped install an out-of-state operative named Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein in Green Bay and other Wisconsin election offices, who engaged in activities unusual for someone other than a public officialsuch as asking for direct access to the Milwaukee Election Commissions voter database and other sensitive data. Spitzer-Rubenstein became so active in running Green Bays election that City Clerk Kris Teske, unhappy with being replaced in her job, took leave a few weeks before the election and quit shortly thereafter.

I was verbally abused by the Mayor in front of everyone she reportedly wrote in one email. He had agenda when it came to the election and I nor the Clerks Office were included even though its the Clerks job to administer an election. He allowed staff who were not educated on election law to run the election, along with people who werent even City of Green Bay employees.

Though technically considered a nonpartisan organization, CTCLs leadership team has an extensive history of working with the Democratic Party and progressive causes. Epps-Johnson founded the organization with Whitney May and Donny Bridges. All three previously worked together at the New Organizing Institute, which the Washington Post described as the Democratic Partys Hogwarts for digital wizardry and the lefts think tank for campaign know-how.

A further Democratic-Zuckerberg intersection: Former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is listed as head of policy and advocacy at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the power couples philanthropy. In his 2020 book, A Citizens Guide to Beating Donald Trump, Plouffe wrote that the 2020 election may come down to block-by-block street fights in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee.

This article was written by Mark Hemingway for RealClearInvestigations.

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Team Zuckerberg Masks the Heavily Pro-Democrat Tilt of 2020 Election 'Zuck Bucks,' Study Finds - The Epoch Times

Kevin Rinkes latest campaign ad is nothing if not eye-catching.

The ad, designed to bolster the Michigan car dealers campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, features Rinke standing next to an actor made up to look like a zombie wearing a Biden-Harris T-shirt and multiple "I voted" stickers.

"Why is it that dead people always vote Democrat(ic)?" Rinke says, motioning to the zombie with bugged-out eyes and a wide-open mouth. Rinke goes on to accuse Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of failing to crack down on voter fraud, saying that if he wins the governorship, hell make sure that voters are "registered, identified and alive."

Katie Martin, a spokesperson for the Rinke campaign, said that a "quick Google search will show multiple news articles on deceased voters voting in elections."

Ballots cast on behalf of dead people does happen, though its a tiny fraction of all votes. However, a Google search like the one the Rinke campaign requested actually shows that its assertion that dead people "always" vote Democratic is itself a zombie claim and no less mythical than an actual zombie.

"This ad is so incorrect it gave me a headache," said Thessalia Merivaki, a political scientist at Mississippi State University who studies voter fraud. She said there is "zero evidence" that ballots cast by dead people account for more than a tiny fraction of all votes recorded, and theres also "zero evidence" that such ballots have uniformly been cast in favor of Democrats, Merivaki added.

Allegations of voter fraud in Michigan

Politicians aligned with former President Donald Trump have consistently raised the specter of voter fraud to explain how Trump could have lost the state to Joe Biden by more than 154,000 votes in the 2020 presidential race after winning it in 2016. But none of these claims hold water.

For instance, a viral tweet said Wayne County home to Detroit saw thousands of ballots cast by deceased voters. However, the list contained names of voters outside the county; several were not listed as ever having received or cast an absentee ballot; and at least one voter listed said she was alive and cast a ballot in the election.

The Michigan Secretary of States office has previously said that it is "not aware of a single confirmed case showing that a ballot was actually cast on behalf of a deceased individual in the state."

Officials have ways to flag deceased voters, and clerks across the state successfully identified thousands of voters who submitted absentee ballots in 2020 but died before Election Day. Their ballots werent counted. In total, clerks across Michigan rejected 3,469 absentee ballots cast by people who were alive when they returned them but died before Election Day on Nov. 3, 2020.

A review by Michigans Office of the Auditor General thoroughly debunked charges by Trump and his allies that thousands of ballots were cast on behalf of dead Michigan voters in the 2020 election. The vast majority 98.8% of votes cast by those who died before the 2020 election passed away less than 40 days before Election Day.

Ballots cast on behalf of dead voters are rare in other states, too. Merivaki pointed to a 2021 study of Washington states vote-by-mail program, a system that is used statewide. The analysis found "extraordinarily low rates of potential fraud related to deceased individuals ballots."

The study concluded that "among roughly 4.5 million distinct voters in Washington state (2011-18), we estimate that there are 14 deceased individuals whose ballots might have been cast suspiciously long after their death, representing 0.0003% of voters. Even these few cases may reflect two individuals with the same name and birth date, or clerical errors, rather than fraud."

An official review in Georgia found that in the 2020 election, just four absentee ballots were cast on behalf of deceased voters.

What fraud cases do exist include many examples of voters acting in grief over the loss of a relative.

For instance, in Pierce County, Washington, auditor Julie Anderson found five instances of ballot fraud on behalf of dead voters in the 2020 election, several of which were cast by "a household member who firmly believes their loved one would have wanted to vote and wanted to participate," the Tacoma News-Tribune reported. (The newspaper did not report the partisan affiliation of the voters.)

What is the partisan affiliation of ballots cast for dead voters?

States like Michigan typically make public whether a voter has cast a ballot in a given election, but they do not specify for whom an individual has voted. In fact, the government doesnt even know how someone voted because a marked-up absentee ballot is removed from its envelope before being counted, a process that separates specific votes cast from a voters identifying information.

When we combed news reports in recent years for cases of ballot fraud on behalf of deceased voters, we found that Republicans were more often the perpetrators. This does not mean that only Republicans perpetrate this kind of fraud; ours is not a scientific study, and its possible that other occurrences, by either Democrats or Republicans, have not been detected or reported on. (One study commissioned by WBBM-TV in Chicago found that 119 ballots were cast on behalf of dead people in the city over the decade ending in 2016; while the city is heavily Democratic, the partisan leanings of the perpetrators are unclear.)

Regardless, the presence of any Republicans committing this sort of voter fraud is enough to undercut Rinkes sweeping statement that only Democrats do it.

Here are some examples:

Nevada: In the aftermath of Bidens roughly 34,000-vote win over Trump in Nevada, Donald Kirk Hartle, a Republican, told KLAS-TV that he was "surprised" to see that his wife cast a ballot "because she passed away three years ago. That is pretty sickening to me, to be honest with you."

While Hartles story quickly gained attention from GOP leaders and pundits who were questioning the results of the states presidential vote, the tale eventually fell apart, as investigators concluded that Hartle himself had cast the fraudulent ballot.

Hartle pleaded guilty to one count of voting more than once in an election, receiving a sentence of probation and a $2,000 fine.

Pennsylvania: Bruce Bartman from Marple voted on behalf of his late mother in the 2020 presidential election. He pleaded guilty to two counts of perjury and one count of unlawful voting and was sentenced to five years of probation.

Bartman said his illegal vote was cast for Donald Trump, the Associated Press reported. He also registered his late mother-in-law but did not secure an absentee ballot for her.

Bartman apologized, telling the court, "I was isolated last year in lockdown. I listened to too much propaganda and made a stupid mistake."

Meanwhile, in August 2021, a man from the Wilkes-Barre area pleaded guilty to a third-degree misdemeanor not for voting fraudulently but for filing an absentee ballot application in the name of his late mother. The application cited a need to vote absentee because the mans mother was purportedly "visiting great grand kids Oct. 24-Nov. 10."

The defendant, Robert Richard Lynn, was a registered Republican, the Times-Leader newspaper reported, citing state records. He was sentenced to six months of probation and 40 hours of community service.

Florida: In 2020, voter Larry Wiggins of Manatee County tried to "test" the system by requesting a ballot for his late wife. "I heard so much about ballots being sent in and people just having found them in different places," Wiggins told WFLA-TV. "I feel like I havent done anything wrong." He told the Tampa station, "I said, Well, let me just send it in and see whats going to happen, to see if theyre actually going to send a ballot for her to vote."

The request was flagged by the local elections office when it went through standard identity checks, so Wiggins did not receive a ballot. Instead, his case received a criminal referral. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 24 months of probation and 100 hours of community service.

Wiggins told WFLA that he was a Democrat who supported Trump.

Arizona: Tracey Kay McKee of Phoenix cast her late mothers ballot in the 2020 general election. She was sentenced to two years of probation, fines and community service.

Both McKee and her recently deceased mother were registered Republicans, the Associated Press reported. In court, prosecutors noted that McKee railed against absentee voting during an interview with investigators in which she denied casting the ballot herself, saying, "I dont believe that this was a fair election. I do believe there was a lot of voter fraud."

Colorado: In 2017, a woman from Golden pleaded guilty to voting twice for her late father. Toni Lee Newbill had cast ballots in the 2013 general election and the 2016 Republican primary.

Our ruling

Rinke said, "Dead people always vote Democrat."

Not every case of voting on behalf of the dead has been discovered, adjudicated in court, and received media coverage. However, six cases that have surfaced during the past five years produced either a plea of guilty or no contest, and in each case the defendant was either a registered Republican or acknowledged voting for Trump.

Even this small number of cases is enough to invalidate Rinkes sweeping statement that only Democrats do this.

We rate the statement False.

RELATED: All of our fact-checks about elections

RELATED: All of our fact-checks about Michigan

Read more:
Debunking the zombie claim that 'dead people always vote Democrat' - PolitiFact

A Democratic congresswoman unveiled a bill Thursday that would curb the collection of personal reproductive health data that could be used to target or arrest people if abortions are criminalized.

Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) announced the My Body, My Data Act, which aims to create a national standard regarding access to such information by apps and websites as well as prevent the misuse or disclosure of this data. It would be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.

A recent leaked draft decision signaling that the Supreme Court will soon overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which gave all women in the United States the right to an abortion, has raised serious concerns among liberals and women's rights groups that data collected by reproductive apps and websites could be used to hurt the people who use them if the issue of abortion is returned to the states, with many poised to crack down on the procedure.

THE BLUE CITY PLAYBOOK FOR DEFYING ABORTION BANS

Popular apps that help women track their menstrual cycles and pregnancies, such as Flo or Clue, could share with law enforcement or the government users' location data, search histories, and reproductive health data collected each month, Jacobs warned.

Since the Supreme Court leak, Ive heard from so many people who are panicked about their personal reproductive health data falling into the wrong hands," Jacobs said in a statement. "The My Body, My Data Act will protect that information, protect our privacy, and reaffirm our rights to make our own decisions about our bodies."

Like tens of millions of Americans, Ive used period tracking apps to help manage my reproductive health. Its unconscionable that information could be turned over to the government or sold to the highest bidder and weaponized against us, and especially against low-income people and people of color who will be most impacted if Roe is overturned, she added.

Jacobs's bill, which she said will be introduced when the House is back in session, would limit the personal reproductive and sexual health data that can be collected and used to only what is needed to deliver a product or service. It would also make it easier for people to sue companies for violations and provide additional consumer protections such as allowing users the right to access or delete their personal data if they so choose.

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"With at least 26 states likely or certain to ban abortions if Roe is overturned, this bill is the first Congressional action to strengthen digital privacy and protect our personal reproductive health information specifically," the press release for the bill says.

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Democrat introduces bill to protect women from 'period tracking apps' - Washington Examiner

Robert Rivas, a San Benito County Democrat and an advocate for farmworkers, secured the support Tuesday from his current Democratic colleagues to become the next speaker of the California Assembly.

The announcement was made Tuesday night in a joint statement with Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) at the conclusion of a lengthy closed-door meeting of Assembly Democrats, capping off a tumultuous few days as they each sought control of the lower house.

The two legislators offered no timeline for a transition of power to Rivas, who said the caucus wants to keep Rendon in charge until at least the end of the legislative session in August. The statement was not clear on when Rivas would succeed Rendon or how long he will have to hold his supporters together to officially secure the job.

I applaud Robert Rivas for securing the support of a majority of the current Democratic Caucus to succeed me as Speaker of the Assembly, Rendon said in the statement.

I agree with the majority of our current caucus that Speaker Rendon should remain as Speaker for at least the rest of this legislative session, Rivas said. I look forward to working with him for the betterment of California and the unity of the Assembly Democratic Caucus.

Democrats currently hold 58 of the chambers 80 seats.

The November election will bring a new crop of lawmakers to the Assembly to fill seats left vacant by legislators who have resigned, termed out, or declined to run for reelection. Rivas could have to earn the support of incoming lawmakers later this year if he is not officially confirmed as speaker before they take the oath of office in December.

The ascension of Rivas would signal the beginning of the end of Rendons more than six years as the most powerful legislator in the lower house and the longest-serving California Assembly speaker in the last quarter of a century.

Leadership changes in the Legislature are often negotiated in private and announced in a joint statement between the outgoing and incoming leader. But Rivas effort to replace Rendon turned into an unusual power struggle.

Rivas, 42, first approached Rendon on Friday, claiming to have secured commitments of support for his bid to become speaker from a majority of Assembly Democrats. But Rendon initially rebuffed Rivas attempt to be acknowledged as his successor.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) has served as leader of the lower house since 2016.

(Associated Press)

Several hours after the contentious meeting on Friday, Rivas sent out a press release announcing that he had secured enough votes from members of the Democratic Caucus to become the next Speaker of the California State Assembly.

All members of the Assembly, regardless of party, vote on the choice of the houses speaker. Typically a formal vote to elect a speaker takes place when a new legislative session convenes and a leadership transition is put in place, but aspiring leaders sometimes push for an informal agreement when they earn enough support in the majority caucus.

Both lawmakers worked to shore up support to their side over the weekend, while some of their allies launched blistering attacks on social media.

On Tuesday, Rivas supporters in the Assembly forced a private caucus meeting shortly after the Assembly floor session began.

Rendons supporters wanted to postpone the caucus until after Tuesdays floor session ended. A few Republicans joined Rivas group of progressive and moderate allies in a series of procedural votes to convene a caucus, in which Democratic lawmakers spent several hours discussing the potential speakership succession. Lawmakers said that no vote was taken in that meeting.

The expected change would mark a power shift in the Legislature and likely lead to a shuffling of committee chairs and other key positions. Whether theres a substantial policy difference between Rivas and Rendon remains to be seen.

A cornerstone of Rendons leadership philosophy has been to delegate his offices power, giving committee chairs more control over the fate of legislation. As opposed to a top-down style favored by some Assembly leaders in the past, his approach made committee chairs more influential with interest groups at the state Capitol and, in turn, made those lawmakers among his most powerful allies.

Rivas was elected in 2018. The Latino lawmakers Assembly biography says he was raised by his single mother and grandparents in Paicines, where his grandfather was a farmworker. He was elected to the San Benito County Board of Supervisors in 2010 and served two four-year terms. His current Assembly district, considered a safe Democratic seat, includes Big Sur, Gilroy, Salinas, Watsonville and a smattering of other communities along the Central Coast.

The California Labor Federation, an umbrella organization that represents more than 1,000 labor unions and 2 million workers, gave Rivas a 95% voting score during his time in the Assembly, which means he has backed nearly all labor proposals that came before him.

The United Food and Commercial Workers, consumer attorneys, firefighters and the Service Employees International Unions California State Council funded an independent expenditure committee to support his first race for the Assembly. He also received support from charter schools and the California Building Industry Association. Oil companies opposed his campaign.

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Democrat Robert Rivas is poised to be next Assembly speaker - Los Angeles Times