Posts Tagged ‘damagnificent seven’

Pennsylvania voting: A bumpy ride ahead

Posted: April 2, 2024 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

In Pennsylvania, a pivotal state in the 2024 campaign, it appears that the Democrats, who control much of the state government voting apparatus, realize that mail-in ballots played a significant role in Biden’s election as president.

Over the past two weeks, my wife and I have received six application forms to file for absentee ballots.

Moreover, the slick presentation allows us to file a once-for-a-lifetime guarantee of mail-in ballots for each election.

It is unclear how the local and state officials verify the requests for mail-in ballots, which were once known as “absentee” ballots for use when an individual would not be at his or her home address on Election Day.

But other problems loom as November nears.

Pennsylvania has experienced a significant decline in the number of experienced election directors, increasing the risk of errors that could cause voters difficulties, disenfranchise their votes, and ignite disputes over results.

In total, 58 officials who served during the November 2019 election have left. Compared with experience levels during the 2019 election, the state has lost a combined 293 years of experience among the top county election officials as of this publishing date, according to a Votebeat and Spotlight PA analysis of county data. The state has 21% fewer years of experience than it did for the November 2019 election.

Recent ballot printing and administration errors in Greene and Luzerne Counties, among others, show that having less-experienced county administrators can result in more problems occurring in an election. Last year, one of Greene County’s errors was an incorrect instruction telling voters to choose up to three candidates in a commissioner race that allowed only two selections.

If a voter had followed the instructions, the ballot would not have been counted. 

“I think the loss of experienced election directors at the county level is one of the biggest dangers we face,” Secretary of State Al Schmidt said recently. “That turnover creates an environment where it’s more likely for mistakes to be made.”

After the 2022 elections, a flurry of precinct-level recount petitions prevented Pennsylvania from certifying its election results until Dec. 22 — weeks later than usual.

This year presents an even more challenging scenario: a new federal law requires states to certify their slate of presidential electoral votes by Dec. 11, about five weeks after Election Day.

Forrest Lehman, the election director for Lycoming County in north central Pennsylvania, said he had hoped the legislature would shore up vulnerabilities in the post-election process in response to Congress passing the Electoral Count Reform Act, though that now seems unlikely.

“We need to look at what needs to be clarified, maybe what parts need to be hardened a little bit so that someone can’t take advantage of them,” he said. “The recount petitions are one example, but also [there’s] the potential for a repeat of what we saw previously, where a county simply refused to certify its results, and they had to be taken to court.”

Lehman referred to a dispute between the Pennsylvania Department of State and several counties after the spring primaries in 2022. Berks, Fayette, and Lancaster Counties refused to include mail ballots without handwritten dates. 

The department sued the counties and eventually obtained a court order compelling them to include the votes. However, the process took over two months.

Cabrini: a film about faith and persistence

Posted: March 26, 2024 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

Cabrini, a film about a Catholic nun who built orphanages and hospitals worldwide, is the best movie I have seen in years.

The storyline is outstanding. In 1850, a small and sickly girl, Francesca Cabrini, was born two months prematurely to a farm family in Italy. In her teens, she decided to give her life to Christ. The Daughters of the Sacred Heart rejected her, considering her too weak to endure convent life. She persisted and became a number in 1877, taking the name Frances Xavier Cabrini.

Years before, while visiting her uncle, Father Don Luigi Oldini, she placed violets into paper boats, dropped them into a stream, and imagined they carried her and other missionaries to China, where the great St. Francis Xavier had journeyed 300 years before.

When she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1880, she told Pope Leo XIII she wanted to travel to Asia with her small group of sisters. However, the pope had another idea and sent her to the United States, where Italian immigrants lived in the harsh streets of New York. 

Pope Leo expressed skepticism about that journey and its challenges, given her weakness–a worry compounded when people met her because she was barely five feet tall. But she told him, “We can serve our weakness, or we can serve our purpose. We can’t do both.”

The cinematography and acting are compelling. 

Director Alejandro Monteverde provides a jarring, tightly focused tour of the underside of New York, where the poor scavenged for a life. 

Mother Cabrini, superbly portrayed by Cristiana Dell’Anna, encountered slums, hunger, disease, and virulent anti-Italian sentiment—even among many Irish Catholics, not least among them Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan, played by David Morse. 

The dialogue alternates between Italian and English, but I didn’t find the subtitles as annoying as I often do. Sometimes, the translations were a bit off, but not disturbingly so. 

The movie is not a religious hagiography. Despite almost overwhelming odds, it demonstrates what one person can accomplish. 

Before she died in 1917, Mother Cabrini helped build 67 schools, orphanages, and hospitals worldwide, including in China. 

She was canonized in 1946 and became known in the United States as the patron saint of immigrants.

Defining the real divide in America

Posted: March 5, 2024 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

For more than 50 years, I worked in two elite professions, currently known as the “talking professions” of university professors, journalists, lawyers, actors, and lobbyists.

Only in the past few years have I realized how dangerous these professions and elites can be. 

Stephen Moore, the co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, just published a study entitled “Them vs. U.S.” examining how America’s cultural elites are hopelessly out of touch with ordinary Americans. The study defined a member of the elite as someone with at least one postgraduate degree, a $150,000-plus annual income, a high-density urban residence, and Ivy League school attendance. 

“First, there are the cultural and overeducated snobs — the kind of people who religiously read The New York Times, drive electric vehicles, wear Harvard or Yale sweaters, and have never even heard of NASCAR or eaten at Popeyes or ridden a John Deere tractor,” Moore wrote recently. “And then there is normal Main Street America. The snobs thumb their collective noses at the unrefined working-class Americans. The elites believe they are intellectually, culturally, and morally superior to the working class and rural America. You won’t see too many elites at a Trump rally with 30,000 people.”

Following are some of the findings:

Financial Well-being: Nearly three-quarters of the elites surveyed believe they are better off financially than when Joe Biden entered the White House. Less than 20% of ordinary Americans feel the same way.

Individual Freedom: Elites are three times more likely than all Americans to say there is too much personal freedom in the country. Almost half of the elites and 6 of 10 Ivy Leaguers say there is too much freedom.

Climate Change: 72% of the elites—including 81% of the elites who graduated from the top universities—favor banning gas cars. Majorities of elites would also ban gas stoves, nonessential air travel, SUVs, and private air conditioning. 

Education: Most elites think that teachers’ unions and school administrators should control school agendas. Most mainstream Americans think that parents should make these decisions.

“Crime, illegal immigration, inflation, fentanyl, and factory closings aren’t keeping the elite up at night because in their cocoons, they don’t encounter these problems on a daily basis the way so many Americans do today. Not too many Main Street Americans are losing sleep about climate change or LGBTQ issues,” Moore wrote. 

Although the study did not analyze recent media accounts, it is readily apparent that the left is ramping up counterattacks. For example, MSNBC launched an attack on those who consider the United States as a country founded as a Christian nation. These people are called “Christian nationalists.” 

Also, Paul Krugman, arguably the worst prize-winning economist in history, wrote recently in DaTimes that “white rural rage is arguably the single greatest threat facing American democracy.”

Having lived in big cities and small towns, I think the Committee to Unleash Prosperity’s poll provides a far better understanding of the divide in the United States. 

Econ 101

Posted: February 27, 2024 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

Joe Biden complained recently about “shrinkflation,” when consumer products become smaller in quantity, size, or weight while their prices stay the same or increase.

“Some companies are trying to pull a fast one by shrinking the products little by little and hoping you won’t notice,” said Biden, who called for the companies to stop the practice.

Here’s a classic example of why it happens at a local eatery near my home. When Ingrid Callenberger, the co-owner of The Tria Prima in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, went to place her regular sugar order in mid-February, she was startled by a near-double price increase.

“I knew it was going to happen, but then it happened, and I wasn’t prepared,” Callenberger said. “I felt a lot of panic because the train keeps going. We can’t stop to figure this out.”

Small businesses like The Tria Prima, which serves tea and sweets, have limited business choices.

“Because we’re so small, we can’t afford to buy at volume. Sometimes I don’t order for three months,” she said. Buying larger portions would reduce costs, but the goods could spoil before use.

Callenberger said she believes in supporting small producers, so she buys bulk sugar from smaller-scale companies, not industry giants like Domino Foods. Turning toward alternative sugars like maple syrup and honey is an appealing but pricey move, and using less sugar would limit the variety of products the business can offer.

When goods and shipping costs increase, retail prices must rise, Callenberger said. “When we have to charge more, we’ll charge more.” To support the consumer, The Tria Prima may maintain prices but switch to smaller portions or shrinkflation.

Callenberger said she fears unpredictable market changes will force small businesses like hers to shutter. “We’re fighting something bigger than us to keep going.”

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