More than 40 percent of absentee ballots sent to voters in Detroit have already been returned, sparking concerns about Democrat ballot harvesting among people who remember the suspicious events that plagued the city in 2020. But the data also indicates the return rate spike might have more to do with a decrease in ballots being requested, rather than a significant increase in ballots being returned this early.

Detroit has sent 100,470 absentee ballots and received 41,235 — a 41 percent return rate, according to data released by the secretary of state’s office on Tuesday. At the same point in the 2020 presidential election (Oct. 12), the city had issued 132,879 absentee ballots and only received 34,735 — a 26 percent return rate. An X user affiliated with the group VoteHub pointed out that Detroit’s return rate was in a “league of its own” compared to other jurisdictions in the state.

However, the raw number of people returning ballots this early in Detroit isn’t wildly different than it was this time last presidential election.

“I don’t want to prevent anyone from identifying red flags, but this is kind of standard,” Ashley Hayek, executive director of America First Works, which is conducting voter canvassing in Michigan and elsewhere, told The Federalist.

Of the absentee ballots cast so far in Detroit, 70 percent were also returned more than two weeks before the 2020 election, Hayek said, citing data obtained by America First Works. Sixteen percent of the total were from voters who

The British are coming, the British are coming! To interfere in U.S. elections. 

At least the leftist Brits are.  

Sofia Patel, head of operations for the United Kingdom’s Labour Party (yes, that’s Labor with an O-U-R), in a recent post claims she has “nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the US in the next few weeks.” They’re heading to critical battleground states North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, as well as Virginia, Patel wrote in her post. 

“I have 10 spots available for anyone available to head to the battleground state of North Carolina — we will sort your housing,” the leftist Labour Party official noted on her LinkedIn page, which now appears to have been deleted. 

🚨 NEW: Nearly 100 current and former Labour Party staff are going to battleground states in the US election to campaign for Kamala Harris, with the party offering to ‘sort your housing’ pic.twitter.com/12EBTkuNL5

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) October 17, 2024

Patel, who served in field operations for former U.S. Secretary of State and failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, asked that interested parties reach her at labourforkamala@gmail.com.

As an interested party, I did just that. Patel has yet to respond to my email seeking comment. 

Labour Party Favors

It’s not technically illegal for a foreigner to participate as a volunteer in a U.S. campaign, but election law expert Hans von Spakovsky said it’s definitely not a good look for Democrats, who have portrayed themselves as defenders against foreign influence in U.S. elections. 

“From the standpoint of public relations, the Democrat Party has been the loudest complainer about ‘foreign interference’ in elections, starting with their false claims about Trump and the Russian government,” von Spakovsky, manager of the

What does totalitarianism look like? Ask leftist corporate media in this last month of the presidential election, and you’ll get one answer. “New fears that Trump threatens democracy,” reports CNN. “Trump Is a Threat to Democracy,” declares New York Magazine. Rolling Stone offers “A Guide to Trump’s Fascist Rhetoric.”

There is a certain absurdity to this alarmism, given that former President Donald Trump was already a democratically elected president, vacated the White House, and is once again competing in an election in which his ticket will be beholden to a bureaucratic process guided by thousands upon thousands of election officials. That certainly doesn’t sound like authoritarian behavior.

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to revisit the tenor and texture of actual authoritarianism. The 50th anniversary of Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago circulating throughout the former Soviet Union offers an extensive, disturbing lesson on how coercive, unaccountable governments can vitiate human freedom and flourishing.

The ‘Best Nonfiction Book of the Twentieth Century’

It is difficult to overstate the importance of The Gulag Archipelago, written by one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Solzhenitsyn, once an ardent communist and atheist, who was twice decorated while commanding an artillery battery during World War II, became increasingly disenchanted with Stalin and the brutality of the Red Army during his service in East Prussia. Private letters criticizing the Soviet regime were uncovered, and Solzhenitsyn was convicted of “founding a hostile organization” and sentenced to an eight-year term in a labor