I know, I just think Khan has become an icon for something he is not, and I am a dweeb sometimes.

Thor... it was a metaphor. Didn't you see my hat?

Swamp is deep and wide

I have all of that data for NY and for FL.
Public records. I know: DOB (age), Race, Gender, address, voter id, and full name.

That's how we match the duplicates!

Ah, the pollworkers don't know the people at the polls, not unless they are related or they are famous, and the latter is easy to avoid.

Imagine this. ONE of the names that we caught voting in both places. The Pollworker in NY remembers THAT PERSON being marked off by accident. To me, the pollworker has an amazing memory, How many hundreds did she sign in? And she remembered that one was an accident? But did NOTHING to correct the record until questioned about it. (Yeah, it could have been an accident. Did they accidentally check in the other 100 people on the list too? oh That question was not asked).

Oh, BTW, if your address has changed, it creates a nightmare. You should NOT be voting in that precinct any more. SO, how do you think they train the employees to handle this:

https://www.screencast.com/t/DC1sA69ma

That is from the manual. DO NOT ASK. DO NOT CHECK. DO NOT COMPARE.

That is ONE county, but most counties do the exact same thing. It is wrong. If you are too lazy to change your voter registration when you MOVE... Why should you be voting in that precinct for those schools? Where exactly do you live? Oh, as long as it is in Florida. You are good. AND we have ID requirements! They just can't SCRUTINIZE them.

BTW, if someone has passed away, they prefer to mail in the ballot. Less risk, because they know it will NEVER be prosecuted.

But if you know someone wont be voting... The odds that the people at the voting place KNOW them... By Name, without ID... One in 10,000?

And as you can tell by the manual link above. The goal is to NOT stop anyone from showing up and voting. Stop a few people, and I can promise you, you wont be working there next year! That would disenfranchise a voter.

ANd if they do send someone in. They choose ROUGHLY the same age, gender, and race. All available. Including the last time they voted. AND HOW they voted. (Which we use to find this. Someone who voted for 10 years in person, suddenly shows up in a new county, votes in person there, but votes by mail in the old county, or by early voting... Same First, Last, and DOB, and Middle Initial). We flag that for the authorities. Who promptly ignore it!

Then we have witnessed the Supervisor DELETE the appropriate data, without filing a charge, and preventing FUTURE votes (when they remove them from the rolls, it comes up missing, which looks like a DELETE for us).

Again, go watch the Project Veritas tapes. The guy literally explains it.

I completely agree with the need for ID on all important transactions.

How does the bus scheme work? The architects of it would have to know whose on the voting roles at each voting place, their demographics, which of them are not going to vote, and they'd have to match them up with a busload of volunteers willing to commit voting fraud. The biggest risk I see is some polling worker catching on. If I tried to vote in person for family members who passed away, there's a good chance the poll workers would know.

Although many regulations were eliminated under President Regan many more were imposed and those that were eliminated weren't in use anyway. President George Bush Jr. did a similar thing immediately after his election when he used his executive pen to repeal an abortion program that wasn't being used and he was hailed by the pro-lifers as a hero. Nothing really changed about supporting abortions with government funds or stopping the abortions from continuing but it looked good to those he wanted to impress. If the bureaucracies that are empowered to write their own laws and demands on the public are not eliminated then the minions are still at work writing more regulations and quickly replacing anything one person might do. I am not any more impressed with Donald Trump than I was Obama, the Clintons, Regan; list any president here. The move of those that govern is to acquire more power (the right to use violence against others) and use it in a steady ever increasing process that has never been impeded by anyone in any position of power, executive, legislative or judicial all follow the same trail.

Presbyopic.

Exactly. Some coordination exists. But if you study it, you find people willing to look the other way, but you find "grouping". In Florida, we have a lot of people registered to vote here and in NY.

And sure enough, people do. BUT, we also find that people use the same data we have. The call the voter (admitted on video) and ask (like they are polling) if they plan to vote in NY (where no ID is really required). If the person says No... They circle that one, and KNOW they wont get caught. (This is usually part of a bigger fraud, but typically limited to a few counties. And gets back to the BUS of people, where there is video of one lady saying she only got to vote twice. While her bus may have stopped at 4-5 voting places, she only matched the demographics of 2 known absentee people).

And without ID laws, you have instant plausible deniability. "It wasn't me" is all they have to say.

Real ID laws.

Also, if you look into it. You do not PROVE you are a citizen when you register to vote, you simply check the box that says you are. And 90% of states WILL NOT validate this. In some states it is ILLEGAL to try to validate their citizenship!

That is why I like the phrase, all voter fraud is local. It gets people thinking. And if your parents are passed but the mail keeps delivering ballots, who gets hurt if you vote "their will"? (until you get caught). But they almost NEVER even try to prosecute it.

"government employee unions"
I think it's inherent conflict of interest to spend any government money on lobbying for more government money.

"Demand zero base budgeting, where every dime must be credibly justified, for starters."
That sounds good. I have no idea. I always thought they should have cost centers with managers who get an incentive, but I'm told that doesn't work for gov't. My wife has a Masters in Public Administration (MBA in gov't). Before she went into private practice, she worked in a state agency aimed at fighting waste. They wanted her find minor waste but not waste in anything that would really shake up the gov't. In her opinion they were inordinately concerned with making a mistake that their critics could condemn. Even though they were not unionized, there were rules that prevented managers from bringing in outside accountants and attorneys to verify numbers and get things moving faster. Basically it what you would imagine of when you think of a gov't agency.

My view is they should just cut spending, but maybe that's simplistic. Maybe they should do reforms that empower management to move things around and cut waste. I'm not knowledgeable about it. When I hear you say Inspectors General I think of my wife's old job and (maybe wrongly) think it's hopeless.

"To assume we have Shoplifting "
This is really interesting. I always thought voting fraud where someone votes twice or impersonates someone would be rare because there's no much benefit to the individual and there is some small risk of getting caught. But that same thing is true of petty shoplifting. The value of voting twice or voting when you're ineligible may be like stealing a candy bar, but people do steal candy bars either b/c they're willing to break the law for a trifling reason or because they get some thrill out of risk taking. I actually suspect most small shoplifting is thrill seeking or a cry for psychological help-- troubled kids, bored housewives. Why wouldn't these same people vote illegally for the same reasons?

"I can tell you it is all local."
Does this mean it's people walking into voting booths and voting twice and voting when they are ineligible? Or do you mean some local election official has access to fake ballots to stuff the box or throws away boxes she thinks contain votes against her preferred candidate?

I have always been for voter ID. Banks have good methods of identifying people making withdrawals and tracking them electronically, where there's more incentive to commit fraud. than in voting. So it seems like we should be able to do the same for voting.

Until now I always imagined voting fraud being a rational coordinated effort. But you make a good point about who vote in an election they know they're not entitled to vote in for motivations similar to shoplifting?

The swamp (or as some like to call it, the Deep State) is very real. It consists of a legion of unelected bureaucrats unaccountable to voters and wedged deep in all government agencies. Thanks to the ridiculous rules allowed for government employee unions, these swamp creatures can undermine any effort at reform. I've witnessed actions by these disgusting fiends that were unquestionably criminal, but they're very good at covering for each other. They work hand in hand with lobbyists, and money does change hands in blatant corruption to thwart the intent of acts by the Executive and Congress aimed at improving efficiency, reducing waste, and eliminating duplication.

The growth of government is the primary goal of the swamp brethren. In numbers, there is strength, and they have become unnervingly strong, enacting rules in such a way that they have become more powerful than the elected members of Congress.

How to dial back the power of the swamp? Demand zero base budgeting, where every dime must be credibly justified, for starters. Grant more power to the Inspectors General of the agencies, allowing them to rank proposed budget items by priority, and identify items they determine to be wasteful or duplicative, requiring those reports be made public and presented formally to congressional budget hearings. Retired Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (labeled "Dr. NO" by his senate colleagues for his continuing votes against inflated agency budgets) published a book made up of the Inspectors General reports on their findings of waste and duplication, and often spoke in favor of Congress basing its budget on those recommendations. He estimated over ten trillion dollars could be saved over ten years by that method.

Voters should demand an end to government employee unions. No less a progressive icon than President Franklin D. Roosevelt warned that such unions would destroy any hope of an efficiently functioning government.

I actually research voter fraud, and I can tell you it is all local. To assume we have Shoplifting and Bad debt, but EVERYONE is squeaky clean when it comes to voting is a JOKE. I have NOT seen a shoplifter in years. It doesnt mean they aren't out there doing it!

Please go watch the Project Veritas tapes, where they have people ON VIDEO TAPE and AUDIO saying not only that they have fraud, but that they are planning to do it again, and describe how they do it.

We hear 3 arguments all the time
1) There is no voter Fraud
-- We usually show them the examples we have of the people voting in 2 states or in 2 counties that we have
2) There is very little voter Fraud (as a percentage)
-- While we agree, it only takes 3% shoplifting to bankrupt a store. Then we show some of the studies/tactics
3) It is not enough to win an election
-- We simply reference Bush v. Gore An election SOLELY determined by a sliver of the accepted fraudulent votes

Finally, our own supervisor of elections has admitted that Illegals and felons voted in the 2016 election, in our county.
The media treats it like Teen Suicides. They are afraid to cover it. The DA does not want to prosecute it... Going as far as telling a Sheriff to not bother investigating it because they won't bring suit.

But don't just take my word for it. Watch the project veritas videos. Poll workers in NH saying "just say that you plan to move here, and you can vote"... this person MAY have early voted somewhere else. But they clearly were not going to live in NH. Oh but that's just one. But it means it happens.

PS: I don't believe Trumps number is accurate, but I do see a problem we need to solve! BTW, why won't the biggest BLUE states participate in the Voter Fraud Research, and turn over their voter rolls/ voter history files? If they are CONFIDENT they have ZERO fraud, what could the data find that scares them so much? (Hint: The Truth)

I know I seem like a Pollyanna to people who accept this stuff, but I accept the studies that show the election was conducted fairly. I find all claims of widespread voting fraud in the recent election absurd. It seems like some people start with the outcome they expected and then invent facts to explain the vote count.

People have a right to make bad decisions: debt, bad jobs. bad purchases, bad investments, basing financial decisions on bad information. It's would be depressing to focus on them. Sometimes it's people close to me, and I just have to avoid the topic unless they're asking what I would do and giving an indication that they mean to make big changes.

The money in politics is problem. I think the key is the size of the gov't. If govt were a tiny fraction of GDP, there would be less incentive for it and it would matter less. I question if the best system on earth could have gov't spending accounting for 30% of GDP yet be squeaky clean.

Now we've elected a president who doesn't even pretend to want to stop the growth of gov't spending and intrusiveness, and he doesn't even hide his efforts to use his gov't position to grow his branding business. I don't know if it's worse to have a complete clown letting it all hang out or traditional politicians do it in carefully concealed deals. I think it all comes down to gov't being a third of GDP.

A lot of Nevada politics has been rather embarrassing. I live in Elko County which is as far removed from Vegas/Reno/Carson geographically and politically as you can get and still be in the same State. But entirely subject to the horrible demographics. Harry Reid, Dean Heller, John Ensign and voting for Obama and Hillary. Great track record, Nevada folks. Although so far I have liked what Adam Laxalt has been doing as AG and now he is running for Governor. Way better that Gov San-noballs.

My business is booming. I am turning down work because I simply can't get to it at any price.

My older brother lives at home with my dying father, and represents most of the country. When my dad passes, he is not sure his Walmart job will let him STAY in the house he group up in, that is paid for. Just taxes, insurance, electricity and gas will consume 50% of his take home.

Parents are no longer leaving homes and estates for their families. They are reverse mortgaging to cover medical costs, and living expenses (in which inflation does NOT include FUEL and FOOD... You know, the 2 things we will DIE if we don't have!)

The "Utter Depth of DESPAIR" is a reflection that WHEN WE elect a person to congress. Their first job is to CALL DONORS to get donations. Based on the $$$ they bring in, it determines WHICH committees they will be on. And we all know that the $$$s they bring in come with Strings (and should be considered quid pro quo, immediately. The IRS would call it an arms length transaction, we should too!). MEANING: no matter who we elect, they are beholden to the DONOR CLASS, not the citizens.

And the downside to not having a wall, is that the next president can do what Obama did. Cut down patrols, and PUBLISH the areas that will be patrolled (making it clear what areas can be safely crossed without detection). Undoing any protection a fence and monitoring really has.

My life is just fine, and I have plenty to be Thankful for. Our President being one of them. This guy will lose over $1 Billion of personal wealth for the pleasure of being president, thanks to the continuous lies and assaults on him, his family, and all of his businesses. All while donating his paychecks!

But our country is being run by a rich donor class, who love to go to wars/incursions with our military, because they provide the resources to the military and profit from it on both sides. Did you notice who profited from the Libya take down? HRCs friends, as they now make $ on every barrel of oil Libya sells. Funny how money is always involved.

So, your prosperous country has kids graduating from college with MASSIVE student loan debt that cannot be washed away. Having to buy houses with 30+ year mortgages, and buy cars that cost what they make in a year. Leaving them in a position that after a lifetime of working, they have very little that they actually own, and the threat of bankrupting medical bills to encourage them to become socialists (at least when it comes to healthcare).

Oh, and our debt has reached levels that literally can NEVER be repaid...

Genghis Khan was a pretty good leader. The first significant leader with religious tolerance. Everyone was brutal back then. He was actually very cool.

We have a lot of voters in Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, in particular, to be thankful for this turkey day. I love the smell of burnt hair as the left slowly roasts over all the fires that they light. Darwin Award candidates, all.

How Susan Collins of Maine can be called a Republican with a straight face is beyond me. Or John McCain, or Dean Heller either, for that matter. I live in Vegas and all the Heller commercials picture him as the most conservative guy you could ever encounter. All BS, of course. Whoever is put up against him in the primary will get my vote, even if it's Genghis Khan.

A myopic view point and not conscious
Of the reality that most of the country has been suffering with stagnant wages for two decades as inflation has out paced wage growth. The % of Americans below poverty line in 2000 was 11%
2014 it was 14.5% Congrates on your own personal success.

"He lost the popular vote to an unpopular candidate by 3 million votes" which is easy to explain: California. Having lived there for 20 years (no more, thank goodness!) I don't think it would be hard to find anywhere between 2 and 4 million illegals in San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, to explain the vote count.

But being boorish and brutish on Twitter is an effective way to grab the attention of the Left. The rest of us are just collateral damage. :-]

To my knowledge, being "a crazed, trade-deal touting, twitter-abusing, megalomaniac" isn't yet a crime and I take issue with both "crazed" and "megalomanic" as ad hominem attacks that do nothing to further discourse which, I am sure, was the intent of the pejoratives.

The Legislature has abrogated its duty to make law by creating these monstrous bureaucracies in the first place and placing at the fingertips of the Execuitive branch the levers of power. We will keep getting these kinds of dueling executive order blasts whenever the Presidency shifts from one power-base to another until the citizenry gets off its ass and calls for a Convention of States to correct and amend the Constitution. Of course, we may not like all of the corrections and amendments.

"We learn the UTTER DEPTH of DESPAIR that our nation is really in"
"It makes me want to go to the GULCH, and and watch it all burn!"
It's so odd. I see these as the most prosperous times in history-- far from utopia but amazingly prosperous and free. I think they conducted the presidential election fairly with little cheating. Only really fringe people question the legitimacy of the election, i.e. say Trump shouldn't be removed from office because he cheated or because of his outrageous comments.

Wall rhetoric aside, the country was doing a good job installing fencing and monitoring equipment where people were sneaking in, and it was reducing illegal border crossings. The gov't will probably continue along that path, further preventing illegal crossing. Technology will continue to make it easier to move value across the border, making borders less relevant.

If the trend continues, the prosperity will make the world unrecognizable within my children's lifetimes. Seeing utter despair is so far from anything I see in these times that I cannot even understand it.

"But I also find it to be something I can overlook because he isn't trying to bypass the Constitution every other day like his predecessor."
Yes. That why the CEI article is so encouraging. If President Trump dialed back executive power and pushed for reducing spending (he's not doing the latter), I would not care about his crude antics.

"You don't think the swamp is real?"
I'm saying it doesn't mean anything. It's a vague description of things people don't like about gov't.

"people rail on and on about the popular vote"
I wasn't commenting about the merits of the Electoral College. Rather, I'm saying it is not biased toward outsiders / unothodox or any other trait. If the popular vote is within a few million votes, the Electoral College can favor the "establishment" candidate or the outsider.

"The popular vote just tells me how many socialist/communist morons exist in the public"
I'm just saying don't count on it breaking one way or the other. Some socialistic person could lose the popular vote and become president.

"even the Democrats couldn't stomach Hillary Clinton"
Yes. She's hugely unpopular.

"Bernie supporters were still angry enough at the DNC for the superdelegate votes that made Hillary the nominee that they refused to vote afterward. "
I know them. Some of them proudly posted on social media how they were voting for Stein.

"just like Republicans stayed home instead of voting for John McCain"
Maybe so. At that time, though, I never felt like McCain had the negatives that Clinton had. Clinton just drives her critics bonkers. McCain seemed like a very reasonable, honest, hard-working person. He's appearance and public persona remind me of my father.

" I want to see the general trend of government in the United States turn towards limited Federal Government,"
I do too. Sadly I don't even see that on the things to be discussed. There's no discussion even of freezing spending. In my opinion most problems with gov't come down to its size. If gov't were closer to its size 100 years ago, many of the problems would disappear.

"every candidate for centuries has advocated for change"
That's a good point. These times may not be as peculiar in that way as I imagine.

I have very similar opinions to you on Carter, Romney, Paul, and Johnson. I had my hopes up so high this time. Clinton was an "establishment" candidate running on her extensive experience, while Trump was an outsider running his lack of experience and assclown public persona. Johnson was moderate libertarian, not calling to eliminate the fed gov't in a year, not getting naked at a speech. So this was his chance to run against two unpopular candidates and really win! He got rattled too many times. He needed to be more politician-like giving one of a dozen canned memorized answer whenever he spaced out. Running around the country doing hundreds of interviews you're bound to space out, get angry, or make a stupid joke. He really looked bad doing that, like he needed more coaching from his seasoned politician running mate.

" one portion of the populace who is frustrated: conservatives"
But what does conservative mean? One meaning is people who want to do things as they did them in the past simply because they were in the past. Another meaning is authoritarian, liking a clear might-based pecking order in life. It could also mean risk-averse. It could be less gov't.

I see a lot of the conservative and liberal frustration as a longing for post-WWII period of prosperity and income equality. There is no formula to make those good old days come back, IMHO. We need to move on to good new days. People note that back then we had stronger unions, a clear superpower antagonist, much higher income tax rates, less immigration, less foreign trade, less automation, more racism/sexism. They think maybe if we bring one or more of those back, the post-WWI period will return. It's absolutely impossible to go back though, and if we looked at it with no nostalgia we would not want to go back.