"Cheney for President"
Current events and election news
"The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all," she said. "Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our union and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history."
- Liz Cheney in her concession speech.
These are the fighting words of Liz Cheney, as she signaled that is isn’t done with politics yet.
In fact, read that portion of her concession speech again. It appears that Liz Cheney is implying that she will be running for President of the United States. She goes on:
“This primary election is over. But now the real work begins."
Are you ready for “Cheney for President”?
Yeh right… “Cheney for president”. Just no.
One of the more interesting elections that happened yesterday was in Alaska, not because Sarah Palin became one of four people to advance to the general election but because of the ranked choice voting system that was used for the first time. Ranked choice voting is gaining popularity so expect to see more state and local initiatives and proposals promoting ranked choice voting in the future.
The Alaska election is worth assessing because it is also an open primary state - so voters vote for the both parties on the same ticket. This makes ranked choice voting particularly compelling for the independent or moderate voter for the reasons explained below.
So, how does rank choice voting work?
Voters list the candidates that they like best in ranked order.
The chart below shows what the ballot might look like:
Then what happens?
Ranked-choice voting is an instant run-off system, meaning that the winner must win the majority of the vote.
First, everyone’s first choice is counted.
Taking the example above (from the Common Cause website):
Candidate A receives 20% of the votes. Candidate B receives 30%. Candidate C receives 24% and Candidate D receives 26%.
No one in this hypothetical election got a clear majority of 50%. That means the election would go into a second round automatically. This is the instant run-off portion of ranked choice voting.
Candidate A is then excluded from the second round - as they got the fewest votes.
This means that everyone who ranked Candidate A as their first-choice now have their second choice counted for their vote.
If necessary, this process continues past the second round until one candidate has more than 50% of the vote.
For the person who might want a republican for the first choice and a democrat or an independent as their second choice, the lure of ranked choice voting is obvious.
As I was doing some research this morning, I was bouncing around the site OpenThe Books.
On that site, I came across the list of the top paid executives in the US government. It turns out, there are about 300 medical officers and other executive in the US government making over $400,000.00.
The site lists the top 10,000 salaries of officials in the US Government.
The highest paid federal employee is Dr. Anthony Fauci. he earns $456,028.00 (page 1 of the list)
The lowest listed of the 10,000 employees is $336,594.00 (here is page 100, the last page of the list).
However, if one takes a specific year, such as 2020, the lowest listed for the top 10,000 employees is 282,760.00
THIS MEANS THAT TEN THOUSAND GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES MADE OVER 282,000.00 IN 2020!
I know a lot of physicians The vast majority of physicians don’t make this kind of money annually. Even the average salary of physicians being around $195,000 is a lot, but it is NOT near that much. Even most executives don’t make this kind of money - looking at executive salary tables online, they don’t make close to that. So why is our government paying these huge salaries?
Of interest: Deborah Birx made $324,330.00 in 2020
On the OpenTheBooks website, there is a section listing the top donors of federal candidates for office. The pages in this section are a little difficult to navigate. However, what is clear in reading the openthebooks website is that many of the candidates that I find most attractive, are to a significant extent funded by “Club for Growth”
Many of these candidates don’t have large donor numbers, so the Club for Growth donations are super important.
WHAT IS CLUB FOR GROWTH
Fighting for Economic Growth, Together. The Club for Growth is a national network of over 500,000 pro-growth, limited government Americans who share in the belief that prosperity and opportunity come from economic freedom. The leading free-enterprise advocacy group in the nation, we win tough battles and we have an enormous influence on economic policy. The Club for Growth is the only organization that is willing and able to take on any Member of Congress on policy who fails to uphold basic economic conservative principles…regardless of party. We pinpoint key bills up for debate in Congress. We exert maximum pressure on lawmakers to vote like free-market, limited government conservatives. And if they don’t, we hold them accountable by publicizing their voting record.
Newsweek is often one of the few “main-stream” news journals doing actual investigative work. The article below adds some fascinating detail to the Trump raid.
FBI Sought Documents Trump Hoarded for Years, Including about Russiagate
Newsweek, August 17, 2022
The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago last Monday was specifically intended to recover Donald Trump's personal "stash" of hidden documents, two high-level U.S. intelligence officials tell Newsweek.
To justify the unprecedented raid on a former president's residence and protect the source who revealed the existence of Trump's private hoard, agents went into Trump's residence on the pretext that they were seeking all government documents, says one official who has been involved in the investigation. But the true target was this private stash, which Justice Department officials feared Donald Trump might weaponize.
"They collected everything that rightfully belonged to the U.S. government but the true target was these documents that Trump had been collecting since early in his administration," says the source, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues…
"Trump was particularly interested in matters related to the Russia hoax and the wrong-doings of the deep state," one former Trump official tells Newsweek. "I think he felt, and I agree, that these are facts that the American people need to know." The official says Trump may have been planning to use them as part of a 2024 run for the presidency.
The high-level U.S. government officials explain that it was not necessarily the classification level of the documents nor even their subject matter that investigators were focused on.
I would venture to say that Lincoln lost his early elections because nobody knew who he was and what he stood for. Liz Cheney lost her election because people know exactly who she is and what she stands for.
I don't believe President Trump had a "private stash." Baloney. This is just an excuse for the abuse and misuse of the FBI.
Ranked choice voting is awful. It can be easily manipulated. The worst candidate can end up as the winner. Closed primaries are the best way to go. You get, in theory, two competing ways of approaching government. The conservative side chooses their candidate and the liberal side chooses theirs. Then there is a face off.
With ranked choice voting what happens is that the 2nd, 3rd or 4th tier candidates end up facing off. You get 2 Democrats running against each other so the choice becomes Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum and you end up with a California.
The Lefties are pushing ranked choice voting heavily because it is a way for them to win elections when otherwise they couldn't. Don't be fooled by it. Vote against it if it comes up on your ballot.