Politicians and Party Members under the Big Top

Dan Cox, Reardon Sullivan, Neil Parrott, Greg Coll and so many more candidates joined MCGOP volunteers under the Republican Big Top for the annual Montgomery County Agricultural Fair in Gaithersburg.

Our volunteers were amazing, our contacts and conversations were wonderful, and the food, drink and rides were great and satisfying.

Fun and Politics at the Montgomery County Fair!

"Pigs, Pies and Politics"

Still time to sign up to volunteer HERE>.  Extra info on the sign-up site.

That's right - Party and Politics. AUGUST 15-20 -Montgomery County Ag Fair

We need folks to welcome visitors and sign up fair-goers for Republican activities. You can volunteer, students can volunteer, Candidates and their reps can volunteer.

Reardon Sullivan, Republican nominee for Montgomery County Executive and Don Patti, running for MD Delegate in LD 17, greet volunteers and supporters at the MCGOP Big Top. More FAIR Pix HERE>

Sign up to volunteer HERE>.  Extra info on the sign-up site.

At the MCGOP Big Top Booth (late morning thru evening). Candidates welcome. MCGOP Committeewomen Martha Schaerr and Laura Benson are coordinating our very popular political Big Top!

More FAIR Pix HERE> More activities coming all summer. Stay tuned! 

Labor Day activities are just around the corner!

Examining Trends of Drug Overdose Deaths 2006-2019

Dr. Christopher Hekimian - The Joseph Albert Hekimian Legacy Fund, 2022

Deaths due to drug abuse have long been endemic in the United States. The following figure, produced by the National Institutes of Health National Institute on Drug Abuse [i] shows drug-involved overdose death totals by year from 1999 to 2020. The serious nature of the problem is clearly evident.

[i] Overdose Death Rates. NIH, National Institute on Drug Abuse. URL: https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates, Accessed: 7/31/2022

Figure 1 CDC Totals by Year for National Drug-Involved Overdose Deaths

What can be done about the problem that continues to steal brothers, sisters, sons and daughters and moms and dads from so many American families? Can anything be done?  Let’s examine the chart more closely.

The data appears to increase monotonically until 2017, where it appears to level off, until it increases again in 2020.  The jump in death rates in 2020 is likely attributable to the negative impacts of COVID-19. In-person counseling and support group meetings were shut down and jobs and income lost through economic hardship led to increased personal stress and drug addiction relapses[i] and new cases of addiction and subsequent overdoses. In fact, linear regression analysis shows that the average rate of increase of overdose deaths was 17,155 new deaths per year for the ten years leading up to 2017. From 2017 through 2019, the average rate of new deaths per year reduces to 7,038. Statistical significance testing on the two trends show that if the initial rate of increase of deaths were to have prevailed during the years of 2017- 2019, there would be less than a 0.4% likelihood of achieving the reduced average rate of new deaths that did actually occur. Figure 2 is a zoomed in view of the relevant period of Figure 1, with the two different trend lines shown.

[i] The Impact of COVID-19 on Drug Use—and How It Contributes to Overdose Risk. News Release. NYU. Apr 25, 2022. URL: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2022/april/covid-19-drug-use.html. Accessed: 8/6/2022

Figure 2 Trend Established Between 2006 and 2016 Extrapolated through 2019 and Actual 2017-2019 Trend Lines

Figure 2 and the statistical evidence support the notion that something happened to affect positive change starting in 2017, continuing through 2019 and ending with the impact of COVID-19. Analysis indicated that we can be more than 99.6% confident that the more favorable trend did not occur by chance. So, what did happen during the period of 2017-2019 that could account for the change?

The changes included the following[i]:

1. An addition of $6 billion in new funding over a two-year window to fight opioid abuse was made.
2. The federal government Implemented a “Safer Prescribing Plan” with the objective of reducing opioid prescription fills by 33% within three years.
3. The Administration took a series of aggressive steps to secure our nations borders and ports of entry against the flow of illicit drugs into the country.
4. In 2018, the President worked with Congress to pass, in a bipartisan manner, the largest legislative package addressing a single drug crisis in history. The act was called the SUPPORT Act,

Further, the Administration at the time applied great political and economic (trade) pressure on the Chinese in an attempt to stop trafficking of the deadly drug fentanyl. The result of the pressure was that China placed 1,400 different fentanyl analogues (sometimes referred to as “bath salts”) under state control. [ii] The Administration worked with the private sector to raise awareness about fentanyl products and they designated some Chinese nationals as drug kingpins for trafficking in the substance.[iii]

The Administration also expanded access to the opioid overdose antidote drug called Naloxone.[iv]

Given the CDC data and the results of the regression analysis, the impact Trump Administration efforts can be quantified in terms of human life. In particular, had the average increase in overdose deaths of the 10 years preceding 2017 been allowed to continue, that rate of death by overdose would account for an estimated 34,310 deaths over the period of 2017 through 2019. Instead, the interventions of the Trump Administration, including the examples referred to in this article resulted limited the increase in deaths to only 14,075 over the base amount for that 3-year period. The difference in these numbers represent an estimate of more than 20,000 lives saved over the course of 3 years by an aggressive anti-drug policy.

[i] Ending America’s Opioid Crisis. Trump White House Archives. URL: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/opioids/. Accessed: 7/31/2022

[ii] Jonathan Landay. “Trump accuses China's Xi of failing to halt fentanyl exports to U.S.”. Yahoo News. 8/1/2019. URL: https://news.yahoo.com/trump-accuses-chinas-xi-failing-235641280.html. Accessed: 7/31/2022

[iii] Marisa Schultz. “Trump launches effort against fentanyl trafficking”. NY Post. 8/21/2019. URL: https://nypost.com/2019/08/21/trump-launches-effort-against-fentanyl-trafficking/ . Accessed: 7/31/2022

[iv] Maegan Vazquez. “What Trump's drug policies have meant for America's opioid epidemic”. CNN. 2/2/2020. URL: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/02/politics/opioid-epidemic-donald-trump-drug-policy/index.html. Accessed: 7/31/2022

Across all human societies at all times and in all locations, regardless of religion or other value system there was and is one irreducible base-line truth - there are men and there are women and that distinction is one of biology, not preference - the "Baseline Truth." A society only progresses in time through men and women living, laughing and loving together, having children and maintaining coherent families.  Without embracing the Baseline Truth of male and female and that necessary interaction, there are no children, there are no families and the society collapses.

NO SURPRISE HERE 

By Hessie Harris

From the day he entered office, Biden has been working to impoverish American citizens by interfering with their financial self-sufficiency with the goal of destroying it. He cancelled the Keystone Pipeline and with it the scheduled employment of several citizens.

During the “Pandemic” he allowed the CDC to impose an unauthorized rent moratorium which not only negatively affected the income of large realtors, it crushed that of some small ones.  There were those who had to sell their rental properties, the income from which they paid their mortgages.  Even with doing that their homes were sometimes foreclosed on.  

Unnecessarily restrictive rules caused many small businesses to fold. Then the rest of his “emergency welfare” in the form of unneeded, wasteful, inappropriately awarded “Stimulus” made it difficult for employers to find employees. Potential employees collected more money not working.   That caused even more businesses to fail.

His “Inflation Reduction Act” is a bad joke because he caused the inflation with his previous reckless and needless spending and this law will cause more.  But it is no laughing matter because it imposes higher and additional taxes on the American people will not reduce inflation.

Now he is trying get 87,000 new IRS agents hired supposedly to “audit citizens”.  But the facts suggest something else: raids not audits.  One of the new positions to be filled is that of “IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent” which will require a willingness to work more than 50 hours, which may be irregular. They must be on call24/7 including holidays and weekends.  The person must carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force as well as being able to participate in arrest, execution of search warrants, and other dangerous assignments”.

Furthermore, such activities are deemed within the scope of the job because “no matter what the source of the income, both legal and illegal, has the potential of becoming crimes which fall within the investigative jurisdiction of the IRS Criminal Investigation”.  (Townhall, August 11, 2022). Apparently, Former President Trump is the first victim of such procedure.

However, as stated in the Wall Street Journal, “these new efforts to Enforce the tax code will be focused on the middle and upper middle classes because that is where the money is”.  It is also where those with the courage to oppose Biden and the Leftists are found.  Wealthier people would only be at risk, if somehow the criticized or otherwise interfered with his agenda.

This is not only to destroy economic freedom and independence but also negate citizen’s rights.   Any government intrusion will be deemed excusable under this procedure.  Any form of resistance could put a person’s life and that of their loved ones in jeopardy.  People will be cowed into silence because of an overarching fear of a tax raid.

Our hope now must be in concerted efforts by citizens and Congressional representatives who opposed Biden and his henchmen.   Those members of Congress constantly say what they and the newly elected will do after the November elections.   They do not seem to see that if this IRS Gestapo is allowed, candidates opposing Biden and the Leftists will fear running for office.   Indeed, citizens will fear voting as Biden’s mafia will have no problem in corrupting the process and possibly revealing their identity and choice.

Congress persons speak in the halls of Congress, in Town Halls, and on news programs. But they are not reaching the uninformed, indifferent, ignorant and inept of the populace.  It is time that in addition to their usual approach, they proceed with the intensity that they do in their political campaigns.  They need to speak directly and more frequently to constituents about what is going on.

That means more trips back home and going where the people are. Virtual communication such as Zoom is also available.  They and/or their assistants need to telephone constituents.  That does not mean robo calls.  Tell them to write and call the White House when the problem is being generated from there. 

Citizens should also write and call the offices of presumed supporters of Biden. Many have no concept of what is being planned.

In addition, Citizens must speak to people they know.  They need to show them the articles.  Refer them to news programs that tell the story.  Encourage them to write and make the calls, as well as encouraging others to do the same.

The Biden Ministry of Truth was stopped by activism as was Biden’s proposed bill to track bank accounts of citizens with over $600 in annual transactions.

In conclusion, the Executive Branch is totally corrupt, the Judicial Branch is under attack, Congressional Representatives must work to stir the informed and educate the uninformed.   The things Biden has down as is planning can and will destroy their lives, as well as those of citizens, if they do not act.

__________

Hessie L. Harris is a newly elected Member of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee, taking office in November.

We Need You at the Montgomery County Fair!

"Pigs, Pies and Politics"

Sign up to volunteer HERE>.  Extra info on the sign-up site.

That's right - Party and Politics. AUGUST 12-20 -Montgomery County Ag Fair

We need folks to welcome visitors and sign up fair-goers for Republican activities. You can volunteer, students can volunteer, Candidates and their reps can volunteer.

At the MCGOP Big Top Booth (late morning thru evening). Candidates welcome. MCGOP Committeewomen Martha Schaerr and Laura Benson are coordinating our very popular political Big Top!

Sign up to volunteer HERE>.  Extra info on the sign-up site.

For info on the Ag Fair click the photo.

Election Season is Just Beginning!

By Ann Hingston

Our terrific Republican nominees must now go to work and engage, seek media attention and public opportunities to introduce themselves to voters of all parties. Let’s help them.

One predictable obstacle is overcoming the Democrat narrative that the 2022 election is over because Democrats outnumber Republicans in Montgomery County. It is a statement the media uses often to justify their lazy habit of ignoring Republican candidates and their shameful neglect of informing county residents that they do indeed have choices in the General Election.

It is time we call out the media and naysayers who say the election is over. Let’s provide them with some significant facts:

Why does it take Montgomery County longer to process mail and provisional ballots?

By Nahid Khozeimeh and David Naimon

A lot of Montgomery County and Maryland political eyes are on Montgomery County as we are now the only Maryland local jurisdiction continuing to process mail-in and provisional ballots, and the number one question we continue to receive is, “What’s taking you so long?”  This is not new — we’ve almost always been the last county to complete the canvass — but there understandably has been a lot more interest this year, with the large number of mail-in ballots and a few close races. Here are some of the reasons:

1. Greatest number of voters and mail-in ballots. Montgomery County, which has 670,000 eligible voters (more than 30% more than any other jurisdiction) received almost 75,000 mail-in ballots to process. That’s 50% more mail-in ballots than the next closest jurisdiction (Baltimore County, with almost 50,000 ballots), and more than we’ve ever had outside of 2020.
2. Greatest number of “web-delivered” mail-in ballots. “Web-delivered” ballots, which should be known as “Web-Delivered, Self-Printed and Mailed, Hand-Duplicated Ballots” slow down the canvassing process considerably. In addition to the extra work for voters to print the ballot, find and address the envelope to us, and provide postage, we need to duplicate the 8 1/2 x 11 paper ballots we receive onto ballot paper. Most of them are hand-duplicated by bipartisan teams, and some bipartisan teams have been using the ballot marking device. Either way, it takes more than twice as long for us to process these ballots. Montgomery County had a greater percentage of web-delivery ballot requests (16% of mail-in ballot requests) than any other jurisdiction in Maryland. We’ve canvassed about 7,000 web-delivered ballots so far.
3. Among greatest number of provisional ballots. Montgomery and Prince George’s counties have more than 8,000 provisional ballot applications each, many of which came from voters who requested mail-in ballots and either did not receive them or did not know if their voted mail-in ballot had been received before deciding to vote in person. Voters who lost, damaged, or made a mistake on their mail-in ballots also may vote a provisional ballot. We’re not sure why Montgomery and Prince George’s County have more provisional ballots applications than other jurisdictions, but we’ve heard about a lot of U.S. Postal Service issues, and plan to look into whether they affected Montgomery and Prince George’s counties differently than others. In any event, each provisional ballot requires staff research on the voter’s eligibility, and that takes time.
4. Available space and staff for the canvass during the summer months. Due to increased storage needs, our board office no longer has enough space to host a canvass or a recount (the 2018 canvass sessions and recounts were at our office). We originally planned to use a high school gymnasium, but because we knew we’d still be canvassing after August 1 (when high school fall sports practices begin), that option was unavailable and we were very fortunate that Montgomery College-Germantown allowed us to use a great space in its Bioscience Education Center. Of course, we always only have the room that the space provides, and this year (like most workplaces) summer vacation season and COVID affected staffing as well. We have had roughly 25 two-person bipartisan canvass teams working 8 hours a day, 5-6 days per week, but we might have been able to squeeze in some more in a larger space.
5. The process of preparing ballots for scanning (counting) and determining voter intent. We could speed up the process if we simply checked the ballot envelopes for timeliness and a signed oath and put them through the scanner. If we did so, the scanner would declare overvotes that really are votes where the voter crossed out one choice and picked another. (If the voter had voted in person, they could have requested another ballot. Mail-in voters can do that too, but many don’t bother to do so, since it’s much harder and takes more time.)  Our bipartisan canvass teams check each ballot for any ambiguities that require Board members to determine voter intent. For example, if a voter filled in the circle for candidate A, then crossed it out with an X and filled in the circle for a candidate B, the scanner would simply read two markings and count it as an overvote, which loses that voter’s vote. The Board can determine if it was a vote for candidate B and not candidate A, and the ballot can be hand-duplicated without the mistaken mark and counted to reflect the voter’s intent. 
6. Sorting ballots by precinct before counting them. This is time-consuming but also useful both to maintain accuracy and to be better prepared for possible recounts. If we didn’t do this sorting and had a recount that is less than county-wide, we might have to find particular ballots among all of our ballots before starting a recount — not quite finding a needle in the haystack, but pretty close.

All of the members of our Board understand the desire to get the results as soon as possible, and we’re doing what we can to keep things moving, and welcome suggestions for improvements. Our task in Montgomery County is larger than the tasks in other jurisdictions, and we also know that accuracy, not speed, comes first.

_____ 

The writers are president and secretary, respectively, of the Montgomery County Board of Elections. 

TO SEE THE COUNTY ELECTION SITE CLICK HERE>

The Reality of January 6^th Part 1

To understand January 6^th you have to understand the backdrop of January 6^th. 

It is crucial to the January 6^th narrative that there was no vote fraud.  The position is mandatory to paint January 6^th as an insurrection instead of an act of patriotism.  That is why many Democrats become rabid when you mention the vote fraud in the 2020 election.  If there was massive vote fraud – Trump was right (again) and his opponents were wrong (again).

There were enough “in kind” contributions from the mainstream media, social media, and various Internet companies to throw the election.  They hampered Trump's message and hindered his fundraising efforts (such Twitter/Facebook/Google cutting off some Trump fundraising in the days before the election).  But that is interference not fraud.

Let’s talk vote fraud.  It is odd when you look at vote fraud cases, the majority of vote fraud used to occur in the primaries.  Typical is the Compton Council race where Isaac Galvan conspired with Jace Dawson (another primary opponent) to defeat Andre Spicer in the Democrat primary runoff election by having people from outside the district vote for Galvan.  In fact most vote fraud that was prosecuted prior to 2016 appeared to occur in Democrat Primary Elections That's not good, it means Republicans were facing the best cheaters in the Democrat party as their general election opponent.  In the 2016 election there were about two dozen cases of non-citizen voting mostly from two counties that looked closely at the general election for some reason, and an uptick in mail-in fraud.

But the 2020 election introduced a new element, widespread mail-in ballot use, that was ripe for fraud.  This is demonstrated dozens of cases like Trenae Ryesha Rainey, a nursing home employee who ordered, filled out, and returned two dozen mail-in ballots for residents without their knowledge during the 2020 general election. Or Krista Michelle, Conner who sent in her deceased mother's mail-in ballot.  The 2020 election had few non-citizen voting convictions but about 30  mail-in ballot fraud and duplicate voting convictions primarily in the general election.

The claim there was 2020 vote fraud was denied by the media, the opposing political party and much of the “establishment” Republican Party.  Fraud investigations were not vigorously, thoroughly, or competently pursued anywhere.

Election Officials by and large resisted the investigations and were uncooperative.  What investigators were able to piece together were:

• Numerous problems with chain of custody and other election procedures
• Interference in the election by non-election officials (mostly Zuckerberg funded partisans)
• Various weaknesses in election machines
• Communication hardware (wireless cards and such) in actual voting machines.
• Problems with voter rolls,
• Some destruction of records and log files 
• Accusations of late or oddly sourced mail-in ballots.

But the lack of cooperation and failure of various secretaries of state to bring down the hammer and force a real investigation left us with an inconclusive picture.  Putting a number to how bad the election day machine fraud was, and whether it changed the election, is not possible with current information.

Trump's two legal teams assembled prior to the election were forced by the woke mob and some establishment Republicans to withdraw before the election.  He was unable to secure competent replacements, in my opinion, from reading some of their legal briefs. The evidence wasn't laid out in a clear way, and various unproven theories and back of the envelope calculations made their way into the filings. I did not find the filings persuasive and was not sure there was enough provable fraud until “True the Vote” laid out its case. 

What we do know is 2020 election in Fulton County Georgia and some of the surrounding counties was a complete mess on all levels with less than 5% of the chain of custody documentation filled out in Fulton County and excessive numbers of mail-in ballots (literally truck-loads) ordered too late to mail out.

We have known for a long time that elections in Chicago, Philadelphia, and other major cities aren't clean.  The fraudulent vote in Chicago has been said to be about 10% since 1960.  Yet the Republican establishment apparently can't be bothered to take an interest and seems to treat it as a cost of doing business, in part because it is a fools errand to ask the winning Democrat cheaters to investigate their own cheating.

As bad as inner city elections are, mail-in balloting is worse.  The mail-in ballots were supposed to be returned by mail, or dropped in drop boxes, which in theory preserves chain of custody.  The only people touching ballots between the voter and the election officials were supposed to be USPS personnel acting as agents of the election officials.  But in some states (like Maryland) “ballot harvesting” is permitted.  “Ballot harvesting” is when an unlicensed unregulated agent picks up ballots from voters and delivers them to drop boxes.  While “Ballot Harvesting” may be legal in some states, it should be banned since it breaks chain of custody.  What happened far too often (7% of the time in swing states according to “True the Vote”) was that the ballots didn't come from voters but from partisan organizations.

Ballot trafficking is when ballots are delivered from partisan groups to drop boxes by people they hire, typically for $10 per ballot.  This is illegal and was done anyway in swing states.  There is no way to know how the partisan organizations got the ballots to begin with.

The REAL election fraud was by mail-in ballot trafficking.  “True the Vote” used GPS data and drop box video to match people to drop box locations. They identified cell phones that got within licking distance of multiple drop boxes and scrutinized what they were doing. There have been fact-checks of the evidence from True the Vote.  To summarize the position of the fact-checkers: “We don't like 'True the Vote', and it is completely normal for people to pick up hundreds of ballots from partisan organizations (like Stacey Abrams' Atlanta office and 2 Democrat Atlanta non-profits), deliver them to 28 or more drop boxes in 5 counties, fan the ballots to make the bar or QR codes visible and take a picture (to get their $10 per ballot), then drop them by the dozen into drop boxes.”

The amount of ballot trafficking exceeds the amount needed to overturn the election in swing states.   The level of ballot trafficking blows the “elections are fair” narrative out-of-the-water.  It also undermines the voting machines are safe narrative. If ballot trafficking can occur on this scale without leaks to news organizations, a large scale voting machine fraud program is also possible.

Yet there has been no serious investigation by the Georgia Secretary of State (a Republican).  Establishment Republicans used to care about elections.  The 12,000 vote cheating in the 1994 Sauerbrey vs Glendening election was challenged.  But as demonstrated by the Sauerbrey campaign’s lawsuit, having the Democrat winners who cheated investigate their own cheating is not a winning proposition.  However the 2020 election brought cheating to a wholesale level with 2000 ballot traffickers who drop boxed hundreds of thousands of ballots in the swing states to turn the election. Both “Never Trump” (establishment) Republicans and Democrats have ignored the evidence or taken a mulligan on investigating it.

The difference may be Trump.  Establishment Republicans and Democrats worked hand-in-glove to persecute an innocent Trump when he was in office. Perhaps Establishment Republicans and Democrats are still buddies.  Or it could simply be that establishment incumbents of all stripes routinely cheat against their primary opponents and don't want elections to be examined closely.

Since it is obvious from the “True the Vote” investigation that there was massive fraud, it is curious that establishment politicians, Democrats, and news media claim there was none.  Just to be clear – there is no benign explanation for the “True the Vote” data.  But then the anti-Trump narrative has to be maintained.

Ballot harvesting and ballot trafficking in federal elections must be made federal crimes. Further, there should be a right to force a 100% audit and 100% canvass of a limited number of problem precincts.  A 100% ballot audit/canvass won't stop fraud – but it will give us some solid data on how bad things are.  The 100% audits/canvasses must be done by an independent group with complete access to all records.

The Democrats have been fighting to stop fair elections for a while now by opposing Voter-ID, opposing the cleaning of voter rolls, making it easier for illegal aliens to vote, and expanding mail-in voting among other measures.  “Dirty” voter rolls are required for massive mail-in ballot fraud.  There has to be a pool of voters on the rolls that are guaranteed not to vote.   The position of the Democrats is unsupportable. Having insecure elections invites fraud by everybody.

 We need to elect Republicans who will fight back, Republicans who will take election integrity and election interference seriously. And we need to thank the patriots who showed up on January 6^th, not condemn them, because, after all, they were right.

God bless everyone and God bless America.

_________

Paul Agle is a Member of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee.

MCGOP LEADERSHIP CHANGES

Del Lamiman received the gavel (sledgehammer) from Reardon Sullivan at the MCGOP meeting last week. Sullivan stepped down as Chair to continue his campaign for Montgomery County Executive. Mayor Lamiman as 1st Vice Chair moved into the position pending a full Committee vote.