Resolutions 2017

In keeping with tradition, I will make 10 resolutions for myself and 5 with regard to my children and never look at them again until nearly 2018. Here goes nothing.

10) Drink 5 glasses of water a day.

Upping it from 4 even though I've really stopped drinking at all again. This is important. I do this weird thing where I withhold water from myself if I'm feeling like I'm not worthy of it. I need to fight that mentality more than I need the water, but drinking the water will fight that mentality.

9) Go to the gym and/or run consistently 3-4 times a week.

Exercising every day is too big of a goal for me, especially because my brain tells me that doing ten push ups at home most certainly doesn't count, so I don't do it. I also gained about 10 pounds this year because I couldn't exercise because of a neck injury, and I eat like a garbage can, for real.

8) Stop biting my nails

This is like the 4930276849 time I'll be trying this one.

7) Do something actionable and politically motivated every single week.

During 2017, fervor about the state of our country will die down and normalize. You can already see it happening as the activists collectively take a break and a breath for the holiday season. The point is to get back on the horse. To not forget. To prepare for the vote in 2018. That is the goal. 2018 is not long away when you consider that we have to get an entire new system going for the Democrats and figure our shit out while fighting the legislation coming down from this administration tooth and nail.

6) Read 15 books. Journal 250 times.

I managed 11 this year, but the one I'm on now, I've been on since August. When I don't like a book, I draggggg it out. Journaling, too, comes in waves.

5) Make $55,000-$60,000.

This is a stretch for sure. I'd be happy with $50,000.

4) Publish 100 pieces.

I am flagging in terms of writing. I have the assignments, I'm just sitting on them. I have to get back into the groove and do this thing. This will be harder because it appears my best client (after a shift in personnel) may not be using my services as much as they were if at all.

3) Teach at least six classes this year.

I have to not allow my teaching to drop off as I try to increase my writing. I must maintain connections with different colleges and departments at UF and look to other places as well.

2) Publish my thesis.

I've been putting this off and the embargo is up. I really don't want to do this, but I really, really should.

1) Save another $5,000 for each of my kids for their college education.

If my income stays where it is, I can do this. Of course, freelancing is forever a rocky road full of hustle.



For my kids and I, I resolve the following:

5) Get them to stop fighting all the time.

Like, they are stubborn with this. They love to fight with each other and try to get each other in trouble, as if one is vindicated and good if the other one is getting punished. Stop it.

4) Make them do math and reading every day for at least a short while.

When we do this, it's great, but when we have all the time in the world (ie: vacation), we slack off because it's just easier for me not to make them do it. If I were consistent, it would be easier.

3) Get them into an activity other than Capoeira to expand their horizons a bit.

2) Play a game with them every day.

I can do better with this. I can try harder. It's just five minutes.

1) Have them do chores every day.

I slacked with this because it's just easier for me to do them, but the girls get really entitled about it and don't help at all and give attitude when asked to help if I let it go too long.

Resolution Check-In: 2016

Each year, I check back on the resolutions I made the previous year to see how well I've done. I only look at these things twice a year. Once when I make them, and once when I check them, 12 months later. It's interesting to see what my goals were and whether or not I made it.



10) Drink four glasses of water a day.

I mostly did this, but slacked off during October and November as the entire world went to shit.

.5

9) Do some form of exercise every day.

I was doing really well with this until summer when I got more work, and then the election happened, and I'm only just now getting back on the train, and it's not everyday, for sure.

0

8) Read and journal every day.

I was rocking this, truly. Then October and November happened. I didn't journal once then, and I didn't read any books. But, the year total is 212 journal entries and 11 books read. That's more than half.

.5

7) Take care of myself in some way every day.

HAHAHAHA

0

6) Stop smoking.

.5

5) Stop biting my nails.

0

4) Make $40,000 this year.

I made $48,000 this year.

1

3) Publish 100 pieces.

Only 65. I slacked because I wasn't prepared for how much work creating online lectures and teaching online and in-person would be.

0

2) Get some sort of big project off the ground.

So, I'm going to give this a point. I'm not sure if I did this right or made any difference, but the push of this resolution was to be open about it, and do something big somehow that moved me out of my comfort zone.

I honestly think the activism I started on November 9th could count here. I'm putting all my resources into it, and trying to bring others along. I'm showing up in person to events and planning meetings. I'm doing more than writing about it. I'm writing to people, calling them, giving all my extra money to it. I think this counts. I know I've certainly never done it before, and God do I wish I had.

1

1) Save $5,000 for each of my kids to start the college fund.

DONE. Amazingly. And I had totally forgotten I'd made this resolution, lol.

1


TOTAL: 4.5 out of 10. Better than usual, actually.




And I make five resolutions specifically with regard to my children each year. This year, I resolve the following:

5) To keep with the scheduling and strike system.

I did a pretty good job with this. We fell out of it sometimes, when we got super busy, but on the whole, we were consistent. I also started us in play therapy to help me more than them so that I didn't get so overwhelmed and we didn't get into a negative attention feedback loop. Things are going pretty strongly here.

1

4) Help them study.

I tried really hard on this. Carlos started helping, too, because it turns out I am just a HORRIBLE elementary school teacher. I make them do homework every day, I sit with them and answer the questions, I give them pep talks and guide them through the work when they're being stubborn. It's been hard, and will continue to be hard.

1

3) Have them read every day.

I did not make them read on the weekends, and I only make them read sporadically on vacation, but every school day, they've been reading. And that's HARD for all of us, actually.

.5

2) Get them to stop competing and fighting so viciously.

Fail. But I have faith for this year.

0

1) Play a game with them every day.

I tried hard on this one, too, but I got busy and playing with them is difficult sometimes because they compete for attention. Still, I managed a more than 50 percent ratio, so I'll give it a .5

.5


3 out of 5. Better than last year, anyway.

Freelancing numbers - year 2

This is my second year of freelancing, and while I did it full-time my first year, this year I ended up taking a teaching position at UF, and taught full-time last semester, so I'm going to show salary with that included and without it. It took up a bunch of my pitching and writing time, but also gave me a steady paycheck that I could (mostly) earn from home. And I get to teach students about journalism and how to do it! For me, this step was worth it.


This year, I made $47,979 total.
I made $19,412 of that from teaching at UF.
Therefore, I made $28,567 writing this year.

Last year, I only wrote, and I made $23,833.

My lowest income month was April: $1,832 
(Interestingly, last year's lowest income month was also April at $735)

My highest income month was February: $7,743. 
(Last year it was July at $4,566)

On average I made $3,998 a month, which is nearly $1,000 a week.
If I take out the teaching salary, I made $2,381 a month, or $595 a week.

Last year I made $1,986 a month or $496.52 a week.

Remember, though, I still have to do my taxes on $30,000 of this.

I'm happy with my professional decisions this year, and I recommend writers taking on a class or two if they have the time.


THE NUMBERS BEHIND THE MONEY:

We'll focus now on just the writing. To get that $30K, I published 65 pieces this year, down from 80 last year.

My highest number published in a month was July with 11 pieces published.
My lowest number in a months was May with 2 pieces published.

On average, I published 5.4 pieces a month, down from 6.7 pieces a month. (remember, even without the teaching money, I made more money writing this year than last, so inch up your pay rates when you can.)


In terms of publications, I published in 24 different places, down from 30 last year, including websites, newspapers and magazines.

The most pieces I published for one place? 23.


The lowest I wrote for was free. I wrote one piece for free this year. Not counting that, $50. I published two pieces for $50.

The highest check for one piece I received this year was for $4,000.

On average, I made $440 a piece, up from $300 last year. (This number skews high because I counted a few reprints and some blogging revenue in my yearly total.) So, let's probably say I made about $350 a piece this year.


THE EFFORT BEHIND THE NUMBERS:

Let's talk pitches, rejections and acceptances. To publish my 65 pieces this year, I sent out 267 pitches this year, down from 329 pitches last year. 

I was rejected outright 96 times. 
I was accepted 80 times (some are still in edits, and some were killed, which brings the published list to 65). 
I was ignored 91 times (which is a silent rejection, obviously).

So, my percentages work out like this:

Accepted: 30% of the time
Rejected: 36% of the time
Ignored: 34% of the time
Total Rejected: 70% of the time.

I was accepted 30 percent of the time. I was rejected 70 percent of the time.

Keep trying! Keep going! We can do this, freelancers. It is possible.


Last year's complete numbers are here.

Why Does Western Society Not Value the Elderly? -- s post

In traditional societies, elderly relatives are cared for; revered even, despite the fact they can no longer contribute. Yet in our supposedly ‘developed’ western society, we routinely push our elderly parents into poorly run care homes or abandon them to a life of neglect, visited only by paid care workers instead of loving relatives.

Elder Abuse

The media is full of stories of old and vulnerable people being abused in care homes, or neglected by their relatives. The problem is that isn’t always easy to prove deliberate neglect. Hidden cameras help, and if you do secure proof that your elderly relative is being abused, you can use elder abuse attorneys such as Garcia Law to bring the matter to court, but what happens if an old person has nobody to be an advocate for their needs?

Respect the Elderly

Whereas our elders are treated with little respect, in other cultures, it’s a very different story. In Korea, for example, younger members of the family have a duty of care to look after their elderly relatives. In China, this is also the case, and to abandon one’s parents in a nursing home is viewed as deeply dishonorable. In India, too, disrespecting elders is stigmatized by society.

Yet the situation is so very different in the U.S. and Europe, where youth is venerated and the elderly are pushed out to the side-lines of community life. Many experts believe that our treatment of the aged stems from deeply held beliefs about natural aging and death itself. Buddhists celebrate death whereas westerners fear old age and do everything in their power to stay forever young, even to the point of fighting the natural aging process by way of cosmetic surgery. Public figures are torn apart by the media when they are photographed looking ‘old’ and ‘past it’, so they do everything humanly possible to stay looking young.

Growing Old is Part of Life

Growing old is all part of life and being old is not something to be ashamed of. The older generation have plenty to offer society. They have experience, knowledge, and skills the younger generation lack. Older people can provide childcare while younger family members work.  This has many benefits, including saving money and allowing the older generation to impart their knowledge to the younger generation.

From time immemorial, older people have passed down their stories, skills and knowledge. Without such a process, many important things would have been lost forever. In Native American cultures the elders are expected to pass on their learnings to their children and grandchildren. It’s a rite of passage to ensure the younger generation learn from the teachings – and mistakes – of their forebears.

We can all learn from this. Just because our elderly parents have become a burden, it doesn’t mean we should abandon them to their fate. We all have a duty of care to look after older members of society, so next time you walk past your elderly neighbor’s home, call on them to see if they need any groceries or a chat. It’s the right thing to do.

Finding fake news -- Breitbart (part 2)

When people look to back up their preconceived ideas of society, the internet has made it easy to find a website source stating any viewpoint as fact. How do we discern who is actually trustworthy?

Yesterday, Lyle sent me a flurry of news meant to prove that 3 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton, as put forth by Infowars and our President-elect.

I went over his first link yesterday. You can find that story here.

Let's move on to his second piece of evidence:

.@parentwin https://t.co/2B7nUjL5H2

— LyleRuderburg (@BetterGemsToday) November 29, 2016

This is a link to a Breitbart story, entitled Illegal foreign voting in Virginia covered up by Soros-backed Democratic Officials, says report. It's dateline is October 2, 2016.

We're not going to tackle that yet. That's in the days to come. First, we're going to look at Breitbart itself.

And what is Breitbart? Liberals immediately dismiss Breitbart as an alt-right (white supremacist, according to the Associated Press) publication which promotes propaganda and fake news. Is that true?

Side note: You might not like that the AP has labeled alt-right white supremacist. But they're not doing it because they don't like the alt-right. This label is primary sourced. Ben Shapiro, formerly of Fox News (and someone who interviewed me mercilessly over one of my liberal pieces for time) calls the alt-right "not good people," and a whole lot more.

We can start at Breitbart itself. In this piece by Milo Yiannopoulos and Allum Bokhari, Milo's deputy, he combats the idea that the alt-right is synonymous with white supremacists, stating, "one thing stands out above all else: intelligence. Skinheads, by and large, are low-information, low-IQ thugs driven by the thrill of violence and tribal hatred. The alternative right are a much smarter group of people — which perhaps suggests why the Left hates them so much. They’re dangerously bright."

He used this image in the piece:

Milo is a Breitbart writer permanently suspended from Twitter over racist remarks and threats (I'll provide two different takes on that story for you. Breitbart's and The New York Times). Now, you can believe that Milo should still be on Twitter; you can think his "abusive comments" (NYT) were not abusive comments. But the facts show that Twitter executives found enough betrayal of their terms of service to suspend him permanently. That's fact. If you don't like it, that's perfectly reasonable. You can say anything you like about Twitter or discount their decision, but the decision still stands. The decision and the reasoning behind that decision is fact.

Back to the alt-right and white supremacism: Milo cites the alt-right's intellectual beginnings at Richard Spencer and his website, alternativeright.com. At that site, we find Radix, a multi-media endeavor, which lists its mission as being "dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of European people in the United States, and around the world."

White supremacy, by definition is: "the belief, theory, or doctrine that white people are inherently superior to people from all other racial groups, especially black people, and are therefore rightfully the dominant group in any society."
Spencer's mission is fairly close to that definition, but not, I think, close enough that we should objectively close the gap. So, let's move forward.

Richard Spencer is the President and Director of the National Policy Institute. It's tagline is "For our people, our culture, our future" and it self-describes on its site as "an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of  people of European descent in the United States, and around the world."

Okay, same goal there. He got a BA in Virginia, an MA in Chicago, and was going for a doctorate at Duke before becoming, as he calls it, a journalist. The posts on the NPI site fall off in 2015, and the last time the Twitter account was used was last month.

On November 19, Spencer spoke at his institute's "Become who we are" event, and led the crowd shouting, "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail our victory." This is public video. Now, you can believe he was talking about the presidential election, the Trump voters, and the election victory. And you can believe that the hand-raising salute reminiscent of Hitler's regime is a coincidence. But that doesn't mean he didn't say those words in that way and use that gesture in that way in clear view of the public. And as he is a renowned alt-right intellectual, by his own account and others, it would perhaps be insulting to him to assume he didn't know what he was recalling in his words and actions. This is a thing that happened. It is primary sourced. It is fact.

Spencer's Twitter account has also been suspended and Twitter released this statement, excerpted here: 

". . . our rules prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others . . . we’ve seen an uptick in the number of accounts violating these policies and have taken enforcement actions against these accounts, ranging from warnings that also require the deletion of Tweets violating our policies to permanent suspension. 

"We know many people believe we have not done enough to curb this type of behavior on Twitter. We agree. We are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to better allow us to identify and take faster action on abuse as it’s happening and prevent repeat offenders..."

The headmaster at Spencer's high school alma mater, St. Mark's School of Texas, released a statement denouncing Spencer: ". . .video footage emerged of this alumnus leading a white nationalist meeting in Washington, D.C., bringing even greater attention to these hateful, divisive, racist, and anti-Semitic views. This has been deeply troubling and terribly upsetting to our whole school community. At St. Mark’s, we reject racism and bigotry in all its forms and expressions."

So, our facts on Spencer, the man Milo held up as a rational intellect of the alt-right, include that he has made white nationalist, white supremacist remarks (as primary sourced), that he runs two white nationalist organizations/websites, and that Twitter kicked his personal and his Radix accounts off their platform for abusive comments.

Quick side-note on Twitter bans versus the First Amendment and censorship issues:

The First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

It applies to our government, not to private companies who have a duty to the safety of their users. Twitter's Terms of Service states: "you may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease. We also do not allow accounts whose primary purpose is inciting harm towards others on the basis of these categories."

When you sign up voluntarily for an account on their platform, you agree to their terms and are bound by that contract. Twitter has determined that Milo and Spencer were in violation of their hateful conduct and harassment clauses. Fact.

So, while you might believe that Milo and Spencer have been censored, the fact remains that they agreed to a contract that they then violated. It's fact.

Let's get back to Milo's defense of the alt-right/white supremacist movement (according, again, to the Associated Press).

The next group Milo writes about are the Neoreactionaries. Klint Finley, a reporter for Wired, wrote about it for TechCrunch, and thankfully, we don't need to go just on his word. At the end of his piece, he links tomes of information on the neoreactionaries.

Neoreaction started with Curtis Yarvin, who started as an internet commenter on sites like 2blowhard. The movement continues to be fanned on debate sites like Less Wrong.

Enter Michael Anissimov, a leader in the neoreaction movement, and studier of artificial intelligence.

Anissimov's LinkedIn points us to him being the owner of Zenit Books. This company cannot be found on the internet. It appears to be a shell publisher for Anissimov to publish his works. He calls it his independent publishing and consulting company. Linkedin also says he previously was the Media Director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, a nonprofit focused on artificial intelligence. It studies the mathematic underpinnings of intelligent behavior.

In this video, he says that it is a fundamental premise that people are not equal.

"We almost viscerally react away as if it's not fair or evil that there could be beings that are a lot stronger or smarter, and that makes us unprepared. . .We can't upgrade everyone on the planet slowly or at the same time. So we're going to be looking at a world in the next 50 years with huge power and intellectual disparities. . . 

"We're finding out that there are racial differences and that race is something that truly exists. I think that we will learn to fear diversity. . .Liberalism wants to think that we're all equivalent. It's considered unacceptable to study of human genetic variation, particularly in the area of IQ, which is very important."

Now I picked those quotes, because those are the quotes relevant to connecting Anissmov's work in AI with neoreaction. The entire video was linked above and you can listen to the whole 30 minutes yourself. That said, this is primary sourced. He said this.

Importantly, Neoreactionaries are against Democracy. This can be primary sourced to Assiminov as well.

He wrote on a now defunct website moreright.com that "Demotist systems, that is, systems ruled by the ‘People,’ such as Democracy and Communism, are predictably less financially stable than aristocratic systems. On average, they undergo more recessions and hold more debt. They are more susceptible to market crashes. They waste more resources. Each dollar goes further towards improving standard of living for the average person in an aristocratic system than in a Democratic one."

Neoreactionaries promote monarchies. Remember Yarvin, from above? He proposes turning nation states into corporations. Again, not skewed news media. His ideas, written down, directly.

If Neoreactionaries aren't enough for you, here is Weev, tearing Anissimov apart because violently threatened and harassed libertarian vlogger, Julie Borowski. Not because of the threats, of course, but because this human reaction undercut "the revolutionary ideas" of the movement. Weev then makes a direct offer to neoreactionaries:

"To those proponents of the dying neoreactionary movement that want to reshape society to make it more friendly to high-IQ individuals, and those that have abandoned neoreaction because of those like Anissimov, I want to assure you that you have a home in white nationalism. We have the courage and brutality that neoreaction lacks. We have the kinds of resources you would never have in NRx, because whites of all aptitudes and attitudes are welcome. We have jackboots on the ground who are capable of taking care of any man-children who decide to try to represent the movement. We assure all engineers a very special place in the new order, and we are making heavy investments into new technologies that I think you'd be very happy to participate in.

Get in touch with me if you want to switch pro-white movements. We've got a slack setup. We're building things. It's an exciting time to be pro-white."

Weev, by the way, is a renowned hacker. Here's a Vice piece about his work with the AshleyMadison site a while back. You can google him and find any number of his conquests and exploits. Here's a Wired piece about his conviction which was overturned when he grabbed personal information from 100,000 people via AT&T's unsecured site. Weev is a thing.

So, through Weev, we now have a direct connection between Breitbart and white nationalism, and the alt-right and white nationalism.

And I'm stopping here for the time being, though we are only a quarter of the way through Breitbart.

Trump has said he is distancing himself from these groups, but let us all remember that he appointed Breitbart's Steve Bannon to Chief Strategist, and that his National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, stands in praise of Milo. We'll get into all that later, but for now...

That is fact.

Finding fake news -- 3 million fraudulent Hillary voters (part 1)

Media are a wreck. In this day of opinion everything and cherry-picked facts, people are searching for ways to find their own information. We need to know how to source our own news, as most outlets aren't doing a good enough job for the nation. This will be a series.

I'm starting with the 3 million fraudulent votes claim, as brought to me by a random twitter user.

.@parentwin DNC-paid contractors were caught on camera admitting to it and three million votes of illegals have already been found ages ago.

— LyleRuderburg (@BetterGemsToday) November 29, 2016

I asked Lyle for citation, and he provided me with several links. We'll take them one by one.

http://sgtreport.com/2016/11/analysis-more-than-3-million-illegal-immigrants-voted-in-the-presidential-election-and-hillary-still-lost/

This is a link from the Sgt. Report, which proclaims itself "The Corporate Propaganda Antidote." The piece is titled: "ANALYSIS: MORE THAN 3 MILLION ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS VOTED IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION… AND HILLARY STILL LOST"

Most liberals stop right here. Because we immediately see made-up news and don't want to waste any time on it. But I want to go all the way through this, from top to bottom, so bear with me.

The piece cites a Tweet from @jumpvote, Gregg Phillips, the founder of the app VoteStand.

Completed analysis of database of 180 million voter registrations.

Number of non-citizen votes exceeds 3 million.

Consulting legal team.

— Gregg Phillips (@JumpVote) November 11, 2016

It refers to VoteStand as a non-partisan group monitoring voter registrations. It continues by stating that illegal immigrants tend to vote Democrat (uncited). Then it refers vaguely to an interview given by Obama, just before the election, where he apparently told illegal immigrants that there would be no legal repercussions for voting, by saying "when you vote, you are a citizen yourself."

It then asks readers to get more information from The Daily Sheeple.



Let's start with VoteStand.

According to its own website, VoteStand is not a non-partisan group monitoring voter registrations. It is actually an app that allows users to report perceived voter fraud. As per the site: "The process is as easy as taking a picture and filling out specific identifying information about the incident."

It allows citizens using the app to report, via their own observations, voter registration fraud, dead people voting, felon vote fraud, absentee ballot vote fraud, voter intimidation/suppression, electronic voting fraud, voter impersonation, ballot stuffing (multiple voting), electioneering and misinformation.

It states that it "uses a high-level encryption inside the app, allowing information to get to the right people and make reporting voter fraud easier."

Nowhere on the site does it say who those people are, and what they do with the information, or how they investigate the claims.

That said, there is a group behind the app. True the Vote. It was founded in 2009.

It describes itself like this on its site: "As the nation’s largest nonpartisan, voters’ rights and election integrity organization, True the Vote exists to inspire and equip volunteers for involvement at every stage of America’s electoral process. We provide training, technology, and support to fellow citizens so that they can ensure election integrity in their own communities."

True the Vote founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, told ABC Nightline in an interview that the group was non-partisan, but admitted to heading a Tea Party group in Houston and to making a $5,000 donation to a Republican organization.

This is not "the skewed news media." If you watch the video on the link I provided, you will hear Engelbrecht say these things herself. That is a primary source.

So, the nonpartisan organization's founder is partisan. While the organization may perhaps be partisan (which could be proven through staff and volunteer listings which currently do not exist), there is a conflict of interest at the very top.

All of this leads us back to the question of how a small grassroots organization made of citizen volunteers, and an app to help them photograph people they assume are fraudulently voting, allow Gregg Phillips to state that they'd analyzed 180 million voter registrations and found 3 million fraudulent ones.

Let's start with Gregg Phillips. His @jumpvote Twitter account has this pinned at the top:

So, he's not non-partisan.

He didn't answer my request to clarify how he got his numbers, but did answer another user who asked him to show his evidence by saying this:

"I have been consistent from the outset. I will publish all methods, data and analysis to the public and the DOJ."

The thing is, he hasn't. And when you go with news before you present your findings in a publicly accessible or verifiable way, that is fake news. Others may say they trust him, but in that case, they are using a system of belief over a reliance on facts.

So, there is no verification from Gregg Phillips about that 3 million voter fraud number. Only a vague promise of some later, followed immediately by several professions of him being "just a regular guy."


Randi Kaye, an anchor for CNN's 360, asked Phillips for an interview to review his numbers and make his case to the public, presenting his proof. His reply was that she had already decided, and so he wouldn't go on the air.

So, he's not going to show his proof for these numbers. Now, he says it's because CNN has already decided. Fair enough. And yet, no one has any proof of this claim. Again, people can choose to believe him. But that's a belief without facts backing it up.

But who is Gregg Phillips?

In his Twitter profile, he says he's "Founder: @VoteStand, The Cause, Time for a Hero, Voters Trust & Winning Our Future PAC. Board Member."

The Cause seems to be a curated list of voting related news, everything from The Washington Post to Breitbart. From where I sit, it's not slanted, providing stories of all kinds about voting news from all types of publications.

It also has only one issue (August, 2016) and the forward to that issue is written by a John David Phillips.

Voters Trust is said to be a nonprofit organization, but no trace of it exists other than citations from Gregg and Engelbrecht in conservative news sites like The Blaze. This linked piece describes Phillips' role in the organization that cannot be found, but its intent is to highlight a bounty reward that True the Vote was hosting for someone who could find IRS or Obamacare fraud. That bounty went untaken.

A link to another interview with Phillips was provided and it led to The 405; The Talk Alternative, a talk radio show website, which states it is a "independent and growing talk outlet covering the broadest spectrum of politics as well as pop culture and sports, including written and visual media," but also appears to be linked to the Common Sense Conversations podcasts and radio, which is based out of California according to its mailing address. A phone number and email is listed for the creator, but no last name. She goes by Beth Ann. The show with Phillips in it is two hours long, called Sacks Radio. I listened to it for you.

Within that written piece on the 405 site, there was a link to Phillips' Voters Trust PAC, which is also listed on his Twitter profile, if you recall. The link led to a defunct website.

Infowars' Alex Jones linked Phillips to Vote Fraud, a website that stems from 1996 and looks like it. That page, however, is linked to an up-to-date site, Election Night Gatekeepers. There is no information about who runs this site, although it is a pro-Trump site, which quotes Stalin right up top. There is a call-in option for Thursday, for those inclined: "Dial-in Number: (712) 775-7035, Participant Access Code: 938190#." You can contact them at Action@ElectionNightGatekeepers.com, Phone: 513-741-2095. Again, there is no transparency here. Who are we talking to and what are their qualifications?

Election Night Gatekeepers talks  in-depth about Watch the Vote. The first thing on Watch the Vote USA is a paragraph about how they forced the Iowa GOP to change the winner of that caucus in 2012 from Romney to Santorum. We have now reached the first part of this entire post that can be verified. I don't know if Watch the Vote USA had anything to do with it; but Santorum beat Romney by 34 votes two weeks after the state had been called for Romney by eight votes only. The New York Times has this cached.

There is no link that leads from Phillips to Election Night Gatekeepers aka Vote Watch.

Phillips also lists Winning our Future PAC in his Twitter. This is a super-PAC that supported Newt Gingrich in 2012. It's not been updated since, but the Public Integrity Project (Pulitzer Prize winner) shows top donors gave up to $7.5 million in funds; it had a Full Disclosure rating. That's a good thing. It means we can see all donations. It was created by former Gingrich aide, Becky Burkett.

None of this tells us anything about Gregg Phillips other than he's a staunch, active Tea Party Republican.

If you check his LinkedIn, you see he's the founder of AutoGov, and that years ago, in 1995, he was the Executive Director of Mississippi's Republican Party. In 1989, he was the Finance Director for the Alabama Republican Party. So he's not non-partisan. AutoGov is a company that analyzes data, and its star invention is CaseVue, a program that filters multiple patient data to determine whether that patient is eligible for Medicaid, ranking them as if they were getting a credit check.

CaseVue uses "applicant case information together with hundreds of additional bits of publicly and privately sourced data, then uses predictive analytics to assess the presence of risk, quickly defines the likelihood of eligibility – and delivers answers to desktops of caseworkers – all in real time."

It doesn't mention what the privately sourced data are nor how they are found.

AutoGov's other main innovation is GovBox. It looks to be the same program, tweaked for large government program eligibility--mainly social services. It was said to be used in Mississippi after the State extended Medicaid under the ACA to help hospitals there combat the expense of that program (ignoring that the state got a credit for that).

I said said to be because the press release does not name any hospitals in particular, nor does it state any start date for the programs they say are falling into place there. It's published on a site called Presumptive Eligibility, which is run by AutoGov, as another way to sell CaseVue. It was written by a Taylor Phillips.

Now, if you look carefully at GovBox, you will see that Gregg Phillips is looking for information on residents in states that might use it (I couldn't find any currently using it), specifically: Identity (Social Security Numbers), proof of residency, proof of citizenship, income, and assets.

So, it turns out Gregg Phillips is at least working on collecting data about residents of the U.S. for his day-job.

Since CaseVue is said to be in practice in at least four states already, the information on those patients has, at the very least, passed through Phillips' hands. I say said to be because I can find no news from any health related site or organization actually talking about CaseVue other than AutoGov itself.

Autogov has a Dallas, TX address on the site, and a Birmingham, AL address there. News briefs about the company refer to it as an Austin-based company.

Googling him brings up Give Time to a Hero, a failed crowdfunding attempt to buy a watch for every special op in America. This is touching and kind. He only raised $490 out of his $10,000 goal. He's found, much like everyone else, America gives money to conspiracy theories a lot more easily than they give to other people who do good service for our country.

So, that's Gregg Phillips. A guy collecting massive amounts of data through his private company, an outspoken advocate for the far right, and the self-appointed gatekeeper of voter fraud.

Nowhere do we see how he could have gotten the 180 million voter registration information he claims he has. Nowhere do we see how his app and watch groups found 3 million fraudulent voters.

Because it's not real. If you choose to believe it is real, you are believing, not relaying facts. I could not find any facts that backed up his claim, and I went about as deep as one could go.




Okay, let's just QUICKLY look at the rest of the piece he linked me.

"Illegals tend to vote Democrat" it said.

That would be true, as the Pew Research Center found that 31 percent of undocumented immigrants aligned with the Democratic party where as only 4 percent aligned with the Republican party.

So why isn't it true? Because undocumented immigrants don't vote. They're not allowed to by law, and as we just exhaustively went over, there is no evidence suggesting that undocumented immigrants vote.


How about when Obama told Gina Rodriguez illegal immigrants should vote?

I can see how this is being put across. Check out the interview.

Rodriguez wrongly referred to undocumented immigrants as citizens, then she framed the question around herself, a true citizen (in the conservative sense of the word.)

She asks: "If I vote, will immigration know where I live, will they come for my family and deport us?"

Obama is answering her personally. When he said, "when you vote, you are a citizen yourself, and there is not a situation where the voting rolls are transferred over and people start investigating," he is using the you are a citizen yourself as the disclaimer, as the clarification that he is talking about citizens who may have undocumented family members that they are afraid for.

I can absolutely see, however, how it could be taken as an if/then cause/effect statement when only part of the question and answer is given.

When a person hears, "when you vote, you are a citizen yourself" as the article quoted, that has an entirely different meaning than the full quote. However, I would also posture that those who do not like Obama would also hear the second meaning given the entire interview. But that's not what he said.

So IN CONCLUSION:

I spent hours looking for the proof of voter fraud given to me by this link by a random Twitter user. And it wasn't there.

As of right now, no proven voter fraud.

I'll be back with the rest of the links tomorrow or something.