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Monday, November 30, 2020

The Political Class’s Hypocrisy Long Predates Covid-19

 We are ruled, in many places, by clowns. Often vicious clowns, but still clowns.


On some level, politicians have always believed that they deserve special treatment, that the ordinary rules don’t apply to them. They have pushed for limits on school choice for the poor while sending their own children to private schools. They have advocated for gun control and defunding the police while being protected by armed security guards. They have denounced the influence of money in politics while courting wealthy donors at closed-door fundraisers.

But the coronavirus protocol breaches we’ve witnessed this year could wind up being far more consequential if they lead to less support for nanny-state policies. Conservatives, who are more constitutionally averse to busybody politicians making decisions for people, were always warier of lockdowns and the rationale behind them. What has changed since the spring is growing skepticism of public-health edicts among liberals. . . .

These people are perfectly aware that infection rates are rising and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly cautions against celebrating the holiday with people outside your household. Alas, many of them don’t seem to care anymore. According to the American Automobile Association, there could be as many as 50 million Thanksgiving travelers this year, only 10% less than in 2019.

This is a form of mass civil disobedience like nothing the country has seen since the 1960s. Some of it is born of Covid fatigue, to be sure. But the endless parade of politicians flouting their own rules surely has also played a role. It began shortly after the spring lockdowns and if anything has become more commonplace, even farcical.

Sunday, November 29, 2020

Reasons why the 2020 presidential election is deeply puzzling

 

Why it was stolen.

.... Something very strange happened in America’s democracy in the early hours of Wednesday November 4 and the days that followed. It’s reasonable for a lot of Americans to want to find out exactly what.

First, consider some facts. President Trump received more votes than any previous incumbent seeking reelection. He got 11 million more votes than in 2016, the third largest rise in support ever for an incumbent. By way of comparison, President Obama was comfortably reelected in 2012 with 3.5 million fewer votes than he received in 2008.

Trump’s vote increased so much because, according to exit polls, he performed far better with many key demographic groups. Ninety-five percent of Republicans voted for him. He did extraordinarily well with rural male working-class whites.

He earned the highest share of all minority votes for a Republican since 1960. Trump grew his support among black voters by 50 percent over 2016. Nationally, Joe Biden’s black support fell well below 90 percent, the level below which Democratic presidential candidates usually lose.

Roger Kimball: "Reality and the Narrative" about the stolen election

 The strongest argument for Biden’s victory is not the vote tally. It is the monolithic narrative, pumped up like one of those inflatable play castles at a child’s birthday party. With every passing day, that narrative becomes more boisterous, more assertive, more uncompromising. It is a collective primal scream, emitted with eyes shut and ears plugged. 

There is a problem for the narrative, however. Or more to the point, there are 73 million problems. A major concession in the Biden-won-give-it-up-narrative is revealed by the hawkers of the “Unity Now” meme. Let us all come together as one nation, under Joe, and reassert the American normality that has been so sorely missing under the despotic reign of Donald Trump. 

No. No, that’s not going to fly, and not only because of the snarling viciousness that attended Donald Trump and his entire administration from the moment he was elected until now. Granted, Democrats are masters of hypocrisy. I will give them that. Brazenness is part of the formula. They are utterly unembarrassed by double standards. Indeed, they glory in them. But glaring hypocrisy is not the only reason that the narrative’s call for unity is failing. 

How to inflate WuFlu numbers


When politics, sensationalism, and "getting clicks"  combine to create panic where none exists.

 The U.S. counts coronavirus deaths differently from other countries. Indeed, we are counting deaths differently than we have for any other disease.

“The case definition is very simplistic,” Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of Illinois Department of Public Health, explains. “It means, at the time of death, it was a COVID positive diagnosis. That means, that if you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means, technically even if you died of [a] clear alternative cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it’s still listed as a COVID death.” . . . Beyond including people with the virus who clearly didn’t die from it, the numbers are inflated by counting people who weren’t even infected. New York has classified many cases as coronavirus deaths even when postmortem tests have been negative. The diagnosis can be based on symptoms, which are often similar to those of the seasonal flu.

Pandemic Rules Are Only for the Little People

 As we've seen time and again, such hypocrisy is common. We're expected to suffer discomfort, economic pain, and emotional distress or else pay fines and even serve jail time. Government officials, meanwhile, take offense when called out for violating the standards they created.

The pandemic will eventually pass, but it will leave behind our memories of arrogant authorities who consider themselves above the concerns of the common people. Long after the virus is gone, those memories should stay with us as a vaccine against future trust in agents of the state.

Saturday, November 28, 2020

Windsor mayor breaks COVID restrictions at restaurant, just hours after urging zero tolerance

 


Rules are for the little people.

Justice Is Coming: Carter Page Takes Comey, McCabe, Strzok to Court in $75M Obamagate Lawsuit


 

 The lawsuit names a host of defendants, including the federal government of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Justice (DOJ), former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, FBI agent Joe Pientka III, and more. These individuals and others have confessed to compiling and approving four FISA warrants to spy on Page despite numerous errors and omissions — warrants Comey and others said they would not have signed, knowing what they know now.

Read the whole thing. 

Friday, November 27, 2020

A column this week by former Defense Secretary James N. Mattis that blasted President Trump‘s “America First” theme


Via Ace of Spades website 

 Mattis' China connection is certainly interesting, and one could easily conclude that he is not arguing disinterestedly, but that's not what I want to discuss. What strikes me is his antipathy toward the concept of building our foreign policy around the idea 'America First'.

Mattis wrote:

“‘America first’ has meant ‘America alone.’ That has damaged the country’s ability to address problems before they reach U.S. territory and has thus compounded the danger emergent threats pose.”

That's just a misrepresentation. 'America First' has never meant 'America Alone', it just means that American interests must be paramount in every international endeavor undertaken by the United States. It doesn't mean we can't work with other countries when it is in our interest to do so.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed back against Mattis' depiction of Trump as some lone gunslinger:

“We built a real Coalition. A coalition that crushed the caliphate in Syria, a coalition that’s pushed back against the Chinese Communist Party, a coalition that refuses to appease Iran,” Pompeo continued. “We develop Coalitions that actually deliver real results and reflect the reality on the ground.”

The question I have for Mattis is, if we're not supposed to put America's interests first, then whose interests should we put first? It's got to be somebody's, if not us, then who? And what it boils down to is: the safety and security of a nation's citizens are ultimately a nation's only vital interest. So if the people whom we elect to run this country do not have my safety and security (from threats foreign and domestic) first and foremost in their minds, then what hell are they doing? I obviously made a mistake voting for them and I will vote against them at the earliest opportunity.

WHITLOCK: BLACK PRIDE RELIGION ORDAINED BY WHITE LIBERALS TAKING BLACK PEOPLE AND AMERICA STRAIGHT TO HELL




 

 I am repulsed by the people who have worked tirelessly for more than 400 years to convince black people that our skin color is our most prized asset and defining characteristic. This conceit originally led to our physical enslavement. It has now led to our mental enslavement. 

The stewards of the zeitgeist –i.e. the spirit, mood, characteristics of a particular time in history –” have persuaded black people to pursue blackness above all else, above faith, intelligence and freedom. 

I object. Passionately. 

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

To Avoid Thanksgiving Restrictions, Family Having Several Clumps Of Cells Over Instead

 REDDING, CA—Families are wondering how to spend the holidays with their loved ones in light of state restrictions on family gatherings. One local family, dismayed that they couldn't invite the people in their family to Thanksgiving dinner, decided instead to invite their favorite clumps of cells and share a meal with them.

"The Governor's order specifically prohibits gathering with other people," said the head of the household Chad Hollister. "Fortunately, my in-laws, brothers, sisters, cousins, and parents are not necessarily people. According to experts at Planned Parenthood, these are essentially just clumps of cells. What is a person, anyway? No one can really say!" he said with a wink.

According to sources, the Hollister family will host approximately 18 autonomous cell-clumps for the holidays. These cell-clumps will bring delicious dishes filled with other kinds of cooked and seasoned cell clumps for the larger cell-clumps to enjoy.

"Our Governor says he really cares about human life, but we found that when you identify as a simple clump of cells, he doesn't care so much," said Hollister. "So as far as we can tell, we're all just clumps of cells here! Aunt Sandy, can you pass me a clump of delicious sweet potato cells?"

Walmart Thanks Government For Completely Obliterating Their Small Business Competition

 U.S.—In an open letter addressed to state officials, Walmart leadership expressed gratefulness to the government for inflating their sales and stock price while completely pulverizing their small business competition. 

"Yeah, we know 2020 has been tough for the little people," said one board member while shoveling piles of cash into his vault. "But it's been super great for us! No longer do we have to worry about the baker down the street or the family-owned hardware store next door taking away some of our business. The government just blew them up! We didn't even ask them to! Can you believe it? What luck!"

According to reports, Americans are really looking forward to giving all their business solely to giant mega-corporations like Walmart, Amazon, and McDonald's until all local culture has disappeared.

"This is my dream come true!" said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. "Within 10 years, everyone will be wearing the same identical futuristic grey jumpsuit and eating Amazon-issued food cubes, just like in the movies! That will be so cool."

New York: Oppression imposed because of almost no COVID-19 deaths

 In the last few weeks the Democratic Party governments that control the state and city of New York imposed new and incredibly oppressive new rules, clamping down hard on the freedoms of their citizens, as well as the ability of visitors and tourists to come there.


  • Travelers to New York must quarantine for three days, then get coronavirus test
  • NYC schools close through Thanksgiving as city reaches 3% COVID-19 positivity rate
  • Cuomo limits private gatherings to 10 people due to COVID spike
  • New York imposes curfew, including shuttering of bars & gyms at 10 pm to slow spike

The justification used by Democrats Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio for these new edicts against freedom? Both claimed that an increase to 3% of what they called “the positivity rate” required more restrictions. This increase comes from increased detection of COVID-19 due to increased tests, but it does not mean there has been a significant rise in actual illness.

Quote of the Day

 This is a profound crisis for America. In my view, it has reached the level of the question of slavery, which was too big an issue to be settled by conventional expectations for courts of law and social and political transactions. 

In 1861, there were many Americans, as there are many today, who didn’t see the question as being that much beyond the scope of ordinary remedy. 

But it was. For what it’s worth, I don’t foresee an armed battle erupting over the 2020 election, per se. That’s partly because there’s no obvious way to organize one. Unlike the situation of the Civil War, there’s no territorial division to make options plain. 

But the spiritual divide between Americans who don’t perceive a crisis (or whose intention is to provoke one and benefit from it), and Americans who do perceive one, could not be deeper. Either there must be a fight, to authenticate the 2020 vote and ensure that it produces a new president only if it was really honest and fraud-free, or there need not be a fight, but only a formulaic consultation which cannot possibly establish the meaningful absence of fraud. 

If the choice is supposed to be the latter, voting is meaningless anyway, and no one is under moral compulsion to agree to be governed by its “outcomes.”


Check the comments. 

The left is now reaping what it sowed

 The Democrats are now reaping what they sowed. Their lies for the past four years has destroyed any trust by Republicans of anything Democrats do. It is perfectly reasonable today for Republicans to doubt the results of this election, to suspect a fraud perpetuated by the Democrats. Those same Democrats have demonstratively shown their willingness to lie and cheat about almost every political issue for years. That they are also now fighting any investigation or audit of the election count only increases that distrust.


Read the whole thing. 

Saturday, November 21, 2020

It's not rational to believe the Democrats did not try to steal the 2020 election


Democrats have been trying to destroy Trump since he came down the escalator to announce his candidacy.  They used the NSA to spy on him, sent spies to set him up, accused him of being a Russian agent, set a perjury trap for General Flynn, sent a Special Council and a team of Trump haters to investigate him for years, impeached him for a phone call and vilified him in the media for four years.

So after nominating an elderly man with failing faculties to run against Trump; a man who spent the campaign hiding in this basement, it's totally irrational to assume that the Democrats didn't try to rig the election by stuffing ballot boxes and/or computer fraud.  

The Left's Utter Nonsense

 I’m at the end of my cooperative, benefit-of-the-doubt tether. I “officially” declare a monstrous national misstep and hereby refuse to believe or accept anything coming out of any anti-Trump, anti-American mouth. That means everyone from the mainstream media (including Fox News), anyone from the Democrat party, anyone who worries about this dratted virus, anyone who thinks he or she can tell me with whom and with how many I can associate, what holidays I can celebrate, and which businesses I can frequent. I have been asked to accept one too many ridiculous things.

Even a Military-Enforced Quarantine Can’t Stop the Virus, Study Reveals

The Marines tested two groups of recruits.  One was in strict lockdown, mask-wearing, hand-washing, sanitizing everything constantly.  The other group lived the ordinary lives of Marines.  The result?  

Which is to say that the nonparticipants actually contracted the virus at a slightly lower rate than those who were under an extreme regime. Conversely, extreme enforcement of NPIs plus more frequent testing and isolation was associated with a greater degree of infection. 

Check the article for the details and the data.

Friday, November 20, 2020

Lockdown Addicts

 The chief effect of school closures is to hurt students.


I am conflicted.  American schools are a toxic learning environment.  Students are taught junk science and American-hating history. 

So I'm conflicted about whether reading, writing, and arithmetic is enough to offset hatred of Western civilization. 

Homeschooling appears to be one answer.

9 Key Points from Trump Campaign Press Conference on Challenges to Election Results

 Rudy Giuliani and other lawyers representing President Donald Trump’s campaign outlined their case Thursday that the Nov. 3 presidential election was so deeply flawed in several key states that the results should be overturned in the president’s favor.

Giuliani said there was a pattern to the alleged irregularities in key states that suggested, he said, a “plan from a centralized place” to commit voter fraud in cities controlled by Democrats.

He said widespread adoption of vote-by-mail had allowed Democrats to take big-city corruption practices nationwide. “They picked the places where they could get away with it.”

Here are the key allegations the lawyers presented:

Trump supporters voted in such big numbers that it overwhelmed the rigged voting machines

.... the way in which the Enemy stole the election was sophisticated, involving multiple players including foreign actors and perhaps governments as well as hundreds or even thousands of operatives handling both paper ballots as well as rigging the computer tabulations. But the one thing they didn't count on - just like in 2016 - was Trump's voters turning out en masse in a way that completely screwed up the steal. And that's when they panicked and someone sent out a signal to the six swing states to stuff the ballot boxes. That is how they got caught.

Tucker Carlson on Big Tech and Corporate Oligarchs Want to make you Serfs

 

Fox News Launches New PR Campaign as Final Fuck-You to Former Conservative Viewers: "Fox News, Standing Up for What's Right"

The New, Improved Fox News

Fuck you, Deplorables.

Giuliani Highlights Vote Fraud as Well as Corporate Media Corruption in Fiery Press Conference

 

Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit:

I DON’T WANT TO READ ANOTHER ANALYSIS OF “WHY TRUMP LOST” BECAUSE HONESTLY? ALL INDICATIONS ARE TRUMP NOT ONLY DIDN’T LOSE. HE OUTSTRIPPED THE WIN THAT THE DEMS COUNTED ON SO MUCH THEY HAD TO BE BLATANT IN THEIR FRAUD: 

And the reason I don’t want to hear it is because this is not remotely about Trump anymore. This is about us, and our right to representation. This is about a Republic if we can keep it. So stop rolling over, because rolling over is going to get you under the boot of the global oligarchy. You’re Americans. Remember that. Stand on two.

This is no time to be “reasonable.” Mr. Reasonable has left the room. And he’s taken Ms. Conciliatory with him.

The core of the stolen election was vote switching in the Dominion voting machines and Smartmatic software.

CODEVILLA: I Helped Write FISA. Let’s Destroy It


If you wondered what the role of Stefan Halper, Joseph Mifsud, and Alexander /Downer was in the Russia Hoax, here's the answer.  

 

 Circa March 2016, as it appeared that Donald Trump would be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in the forthcoming election, someone with White House authority — we do not yet know who or through what channel — directed the National Security Agency electronically to surveil communications in and out of Trump’s campaign headquarters in New York’s Trump Tower. At the same time, the CIA and FBI were vectoring longstanding CIA assets, including Stefan Halper in Britain and Joseph Mifsud in Italy as well as Australia’s Alexander Downer not so much to gather information about low-level Trump advisers’ contacts with the Russians, but to provide pretexts for further surveillance of Trump and, above all, for press stories implicating Trump with Russia. By July 2016, the FBI and CIA had encompassed the Trump campaign in formal counterintelligence and criminal investigations, while shopping suggestive allegations to the press. The so-called Steele dossier, alleging a host of details, some lurid, all false, was part of this classic political agitprop. 

Read the whole thing

CODEVILLA: Biden Has No Foreign Policy. Here’s Why Americans Should Be Worried

 Between 2016 and 2020, their use of national security powers in matters of domestic political consequence made it possible for the ruling class to cast aspersions on its opponents while preventing them from challenging the bases on which the aspersions were made. Thus, federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies were key to the evolution of America’s political system from a republic of equal citizens to an oligarchy by, of and for its bureaucratic and corporate constituents. 

For the oligarchy to endure, to foreclose opposition from the Deplorables, it will need to continue to shut down access to authoritative information about what its components are doing and to further enable un-answerable aspersions against its opponents.

The Decapitator's Veto

 





Biden wants to end free speech

Thursday, November 19, 2020

The Chump Effect

 Do you ever feel like a chump, like this dad?

Last January, a small but telling exchange took place at an Elizabeth Warren campaign event in Grimes, Iowa. At the time, Warren was attracting support from the Democratic Party’s left flank, with her bulging portfolio of progressive proposals. “Warren Has a Plan for That” read her campaign T-shirts. The biggest buzz surrounded her $1.25 trillion plan to pay off student-loan debt for most Americans.

A man approached Warren with a question. “My daughter is getting out of school. I’ve saved all my money [so that] she doesn’t have any student loans. Am I going to get my money back?”

“Of course not,” Warren replied.

“So you’re going to pay for people who didn’t save any money, and those of us who did the right thing get screwed?”

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Oh, that free and independent press that gives us a diverstiy of views.

It's in the code: Trump won Michigan and Wisconsin

 

Some things are not possible, including counting paper ballots by the hundreds of thousands in mere seconds.  The only conclusion is that the switch was electronic.  

Excerpts (read the whole thing)


At 3:37 AM CST, total votes were 3,018,212; Trump had 1,536,270 votes (50.9%); Biden 1,427,614 votes (47.3%); other candidates 54,328 votes (1.8%).

At 3:42 AM CST, total votes were 3,186,598; Trump had 1,561,433 votes (49.0%); Biden 1,570,993 votes (49.3%); other candidates 54,172 votes (1.7%).

Total increase in Trump votes in 5 minutes: 25,163 (1.64%).

Total increase in Biden votes in 5 minutes: 143,379 (10.04%).

(These vote numbers are approximate because they're calculated from the percentages, which are given to only one-tenth of 1%. But they're good enough for statistical analysis.)

Before the Biden vote dump, both candidates' votes were increasing at about the same rate, 1.64% per 5 minutes. So the "legitimate" Biden vote increase is likely around 23,400 votes. The remaining 119,979 votes are fake.





Nevada – Trump Campaign Team Lawsuit: More Than “15,000 People Voted In Nevada and Another State”…

 Clark County Nevada is notorious for election fraud going all the way back to the SEIU union bussing people in from California to vote in Nevada elections. This is part of Harry Reid’s long-lasting legacy.

Earlier today the Trump campaign team in Nevada held a press conference (full video below).  Within the presser attorney Adam Laxalt outlined some of the more consequential discoveries: “This lawsuit presents that 15,000 people voted in Nevada and another state, it also presents dead voters.”

The Ministry of Truth

Earlier today there was an interesting discussion between Senator Dianne Feinstein and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Feinstein used the example of a “Stop The Steal” group to initiate a conversation about a new U.S. program similar to “The Ministry of Truth”.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Democrats believe in stolen elections

 In 2016 Democrats told us that the election was stolen.

They said it was easy to steal.  All it took was some Facebook posts and Twitter tweets by Russians.

And the revelation that  Hillary stole the nomination from Bernie thanks to emails that showed exactly that.

Thanks to one of the biggest lies in political history, millions of people believe that Trump stole the election with Putin’s help.

A Special Council was appointed to investigate the Trump-Putin collusion hoax.  For two years, spending $40 million dollars on 18 rabid Democrat attorneys only to conclude that there was no collusion.

Today we find that dead people cast their votes for Joe Biden and hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots were counted in secret, we are told by the press that everything is on the up and up.  There's this thing about mail-in ballots.  The only way to be sure that the ballot is legal is to check the signature of the person voting.  It's on the envelope enclosing the ballot.  The ballot itself is secret.  Once the envelope is separated from the ballot there is no way of checking whether the vote is legitimate.  When this is done in secret and members of both parties are not allowed to observe the process, the result is subject to fraud.  

Obama doesn’t believe in America. He doesn’t believe in the Freedoms we all enjoy because of the brilliance of our Founding Fathers.

 “I recognize that there are those who believe that it’s time to discard the myth—that an examination of America’s past and an even cursory glance at today’s headlines show that this nation’s ideals have always been secondary to conquest and subjugation, a racial caste system and rapacious capitalism, and that to pretend otherwise is to be complicit in a game that was rigged from the start. And I confess that there have been times during the course of writing my book, as I’ve reflected on my presidency and all that’s happened since, when I’ve had to ask myself whether I was too tempered in speaking the truth as I saw it, too cautious in either word or deed, convinced as I was that by appealing to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature I stood a greater chance of leading us in the direction of the America we’ve been promised.”

Jesse Watters Breaks From Fox News and Declares Biden’s Win a Fraud – ‘It Doesn’t Add Up’

CNN’s Amanpour Compares Trump To Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht

 

If Conservatives attending a rally is the same as a Nazi rally, the Left can, in good conscience, do anything to you.

The face of evil
The face of evil

Yes indeed, she really said that with 100% conviction that she is speaking the truth. Trump is Hitler. 

What was Kristallnacht?

“Starting in the late hours of November 9 and continuing into the next day, Nazi mobs torched or otherwise vandalized hundreds of synagogues throughout Germany and damaged, if not completely destroyed, thousands of Jewish homes, schools, businesses, hospitals and cemeteries. Nearly 100 Jews were murdered during the violence. Nazi officials ordered German police officers and firemen to do nothing as the riots raged and buildings burned, although firefighters were allowed to extinguish blazes that threatened Aryan-owned property.”

The Jewish community was fined nearly $400 million (in 1938 dollars) for the damage Hitler’s Gestapo inflicted and over 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up in the days after Kristallnacht and sent to the concentration camps. 

This horrific event in 1938 is not and should never ever be compared to any events or people today. But that is exactly what Christiane Amanpour did. And she meant it. 

Anti-Semitism is completely ok if it is spouted by journalists, especially by those journalists who hate President Trump and have done everything they can for the last four years to spread lies and misinformation. 


 Amanpour, Frum and too many others are not only hating for the sake of hating because of President Trump, they are using the Jewish people as props for their hatred. That is dangerously wrong on every level for ALL of us.

Looking for an Argument - Mark Steyn on the Do Nothing GOP

 One of Mrs Thatcher's great insights was: First you win the argument; then you win the election.


To win the argument, you have to make it. In the Westminster system, you make the argument for three or four years, then you have a six-week election campaign. That's when the system's functioning, which it certainly wasn't under, say, Andrew Scheer's Tory leadership in Ottawa.


But, even when it's not functioning, somebody's making an argument. Thus the fatal miscalculation of David Cameron when he decided that the Brexit referendum would be the best way to put the EU issue to bed once and for all. By then every electorally viable political party - from the Tories to Sinn Féin - was "pro-Europe". Nigel Farage had been making the argument for twenty years, but, because he had no real political party to advance it, it didn't get him anywhere at UK general elections. So, the minute Cameron called a referendum on Nigel's issue in splendid isolation, it gave Farage a shot at the second half of Maggie's great formulation: He'd won the argument; and Cameron delivered up a mechanism that allowed him to win the vote.


In the American system, it is, as the Brits say, arse over tit: As Monty Python once asked, where's the room for an argument? There are no parliamentary debates, so you never see a Dem senator going at it with a GOP senator. Even more strikingly, there are a bazillion political talk shows, none of which ever features a Dem senator going at it with a GOP senator - the way that even the most despised BBC, CBC, ABC yakfests routinely feature opposing legislators debating health care or the Irish backstop or Covid response.

Saturday, November 14, 2020

Secure the Vote - Geri McCaleb

 In 2016, Donald Trump, New York City brash, thrice married, most recently to an international model; not refined, not from Harvard or Yale, but a multibillionaire with a flair for gold came down his escalator and declared a run for President. The man who built hotels, casinos, and golf courses was putting his hat in the ring.    

 His skeleton crew of advisors bested the professionals and their staffs. He said things no politician would dare say and he drew crowds and loyal followers who could not be dissuaded that this guy was the answer the nation needed. 

When the dust settled he won the nomination and then there was the great dilemma in the land. Hillary or Trump. The woman or the womanizer? She the champion of Planned Parenthood, he aligned himself with Pro Life. He produced a list of originalist judges for the Supreme Court.  He decried the trade deals that shipped American jobs to China. He believed in borders;  NATO nations should pay more of their own defense. America should look out for its own interests first. He told the African American community,  give me a try, what have you got to lose?

All the polls said Hillary, and then he won. The stunned media was left speechless, some in tears. This couldn’t possibly be happening. Oh No!!. 

Immediately the investigations began. The Mueller Probe spent $40,000,000, trying to find the evidence of Russian collusion.  The long promised impeachment happened over a phone call to Ukraine.  It was a four year barrage of  attacks by the media, the loyal opposition, and members of his own party. He was called a hater, a racist, a Nazi, a fascist, his likeness was beheaded by a comedian.

Trump carried on. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and moved the embassy from Tel Aviv.  He withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal and the job killing Paris Climate Accords. He eliminated regulations so companies could come back to do business in America and brought unemployment down to record lows. He made America energy independent. He addressed  prison reform and instituted Right to try. 

In the midst of the impeachment the China Virus hit. He shut down travel from China, and then from Europe. Medicine didn’t really know how to deal with this virus and directives were given that often contradicted one another. The President worked with companies to manufacture PPE and researchers worked hard to learn how to deal with this virus. 

Suddenly time for another campaign season. The Democrat field looked like the Republican field of four years before, a myriad of candidates. Just as Donald Trump was the unlikely winner for the Republicans four years before, so Joe Biden came out on top for the Democrats. 

COVID brought restrictions on campaigning but then the Trump campaign hit on the idea of airport rallies. A destination city was announced, Air Force one would pull up, he would emerge from the plane, make his speech and be on his way again. The rallies became a thing that drew huge crowds. There were spontaneous boat parades and car parades.

In the meantime former Vice President Biden did little campaigning. He relied on political ads and groups of 10 in circles. He promised masks for all and said Trump had done it all wrong except his solutions sounded a lot like Trump policy.  

The media which couldn’t say a good word about the President couldn’t find it in themselves to criticize Mr. Biden. Even when his son’s laptop was found with incriminating evidence it was declared off limits for questions by the press and social media. That laptop must have been planted by the Russians to hurt Joe, defenders said. 

Election night, things were looking good for President Trump, until about one AM when all counting stopped and in a few hours leads vanished. Claims of irregularities came in from a myriad of sources. The media and the Biden campaign say it over and let the healing begin. But that’s not how the constitution says it works. 

Using COVID as an excuse to do mail in ballots, all kinds of safeguards against voter fraud were dropped. Efforts to ensure a safe and secure vote was decried as voter suppression or lacking safety.

The integrity of the vote is the most important thing we have in a representative democracy. When that is compromised the whole system is compromised. In any sane system any changes in voting regulations should be tested and debated, and not in the heat of a campaign season. That is a recipe for distrust in our system and a disaster for the future of election integrity. The United States is dependent on an informed and self policing electorate where integrity is in everyone’s self interest. If we lose this we lose the basis for our democracy.

It is of utmost importance that every instance of possible voter fraud be investigated . Just like Al Gore had recount after recount in a handful of Florida Counties there can be no rush to say this election is over. 

We have a couple of years before the next big election and our legislators need to work to see what needs to be done to make our election system more secure and not less. I for one don’t care about convenience. Voting is serious business it needs to be treated as such.  


   


Tuesday, November 03, 2020

First Do No Harm

They called it “Bleeding” and at one time, draining your blood was considered a cure for many illnesses.  George Washington was one of its most famous victims.  Washington fell ill after supervising farm activity on December 12, 1799.  He asked to be bled by his overseer.  Three physicians were called in and each one drew more blood until he lost 40% of his blood before he died.

In Washington’s time, bloodletting was widely considered a treatment for many ailments based on the ancient Greek idea that the human body was composed of four humors, one of which was blood.  Removing blood was supposed to "rectify the humors."

In retrospect, that loss of blood contributed to Washington’s death.  “First do no harm” is an old medical doctrine.  We should be reasonably sure that the cure we prescribe in not worse than the disease.  

Which brings us to the “cure” of shutting down the economy to stop the spread of a virus.   There is no question that people who have a communicable disease should stay away from people who are well.   However, forcing everyone to stay home, sick or well, as a way of coping with a virus has serious side effects.  These include loss of income, psychological problems including rising suicide levels, failure to treat other illnesses, drug and alcohol abuse and material shortages.  

The American Institute for Economic Research cited a study which predicted what the effects of a shutdown:

This article forecasted more than 100,000 excess deaths due to drug overdoses, suicide, alcoholism, homicide, and untreated depression – all a result not of the virus but of policies of mandatory human separation, economic downturn, business and school closures, closed medical services, and general depression that comes with a loss of freedom and choice.

The prediction has come true:

People are dying across all demographics due to the radical transformation of life itself. In addition, new research is showing that there has been a huge increase in excess deaths in elder-care homes probably due to despair and loneliness from the prevention of family visits. 

The whole pattern is extraordinary and deeply tragic. It was also entirely predictable. Instead of dealing rationally with a textbook virus, as we had done during the whole of the 20th century, we embarked on a new social/political experiment in lockdowns. We attempted to intimidate a virus with PhDs and political power, hoping that it would shrivel and die, and in so doing dramatically disabled human freedom and social functioning. What do we have to show for it? Massive carnage, and a virus that is still with us.

Remember the mantra in March of 2020 that we had to “flatten the curve?”  Nobody says that any more because hospitals are not facing a surge of patients with Covid-19.  But policy makers seem unwilling to admit their errors and some want us to repeat the failed experiment.  

We have become smarter about living with a virus and have begun to realize that shutting the economy down is not the answer to managing this pandemic.  Unlike George Washington’s physicians, we are not going to take more and more blood until the patient dies.  



Monday, November 02, 2020

Lawyer for Delaware shop owner: FBI initially turned down purported Hunter Biden laptop

 The family of the Delaware shop owner who says he came into possession of a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden first tried to turn over the computer to the FBI in summer 2019 but was rebuffed, only to have agents return months later during President Trump's impeachment proceedings, his lawyer said Thursday night.

In a lengthy statement to Just the News, attorney Brian Della Rocca provided a detailed timeline of the actions his client, John Paul Mac Isaac, says he took in trying to get authorities to investigate the laptop.

The lawyer also decried public figures on both sides of the aisle for politicizing the episode and for attacking the Delaware computer repairman without having the facts.

Mac Isaac "unwittingly became the target of a smear campaign by doing what he thought was right," Della Rocca said. "John Paul is not a right-wing fanatic, nor is he a Russian hacker."

Read the whole thing!

The bottom line, in these times, everything is political


 Frustration with the media, social media

"Instead of reporting on the matter, news outlets are making the decision themselves as to the veracity of the claims about Hunter Biden's laptop. If you are an avid follower of CNN or Politico, you have already been led to believe that John Paul is a part of an overall Russian disinformation campaign.

"Twitter and Facebook have taken it upon themselves to relegate this story to a level equal to that of conspiracy theories. The actions by these social media platforms further hurt John Paul's reputation by advancing the notion that he is a part of a Russian disinformation campaign."

Joe Biden Tells Philly Crowd “I Got My Eagles Jacket On” …Except It’s Not. It’s a Blue Hen

He even lies about the little things.

Oh just some teachers in Pakistan teaching a bunch of small children how to behead someone for "slandering the prophet"