Rebane's Ruminations

The Biden Bamboozle Begins

George Rebane

Actually, bamboozle is way too gentle of a descriptive for what was launched yesterday.  This commentary would actually find a better home on the next entry into our Dark Days Diary, nevertheless … .  Our new president spoke of stopping the lies inundating the nation, all the while heaping on new ones while bringing up old ones for another pass over the country’s psyche so that we could all unify in the glow of an inaugural speech that drove so many to tears, albeit for markedly different reasons.

While Seattle again enjoys Antifa’s tender mercies – this time at the state’s Democratic HQ – the Left’s nationwide destructive and murderous riots of last year are either forgotten or repainted with a fresh new coat of lies, Biden’s lamestream (yes, it’s his now) plays the 6jan21 Capitol assault video over and over again as undisputable proof of where lies the real danger to America and democracy.  In his laughable attempt to focus on unifying the country, our new president is characterizing the country as in ruins and continuing crisis, all due to the mismanagement of his predecessor, who is the nation’s Supremacista Blanca El Primero.

And all 75+ million of us who voted for him, and at least that many more of our families, all of whom supported his policies and accomplishments, these now also carry the scarlet letters that label us all as white supremacists, racists, nazis (small n), and incipient domestic terrorists.  For the Left we have become the country’s number one enemy to be sought out, identified, watched, isolated, and dealt with accordingly.  Apparently, we have always been there (as RR comment streams attest), but now Donald J Trump has outed us by rising up as our leader so that the politically proper and prudent could finally see those around them who visibly rose up to support and cheer him on.

By continually citing their carefully formulated versions of our pernicious beliefs in an historically false America and our ongoing unabashed public behavior, the new administration will be free to fumble forth with all of its failures pre-attributed to the disastrous legacy of Trump abetted by his minions, still free to roam the countryside perpetuating perfidy and lies to counter socially just progressive programs and initiatives.  This cannot and will not go on unanswered.

Of course, given the recent tendentious behavior of our Hispanics and blacks, even their own traditional constituencies are not to be completely trusted.  The Left knows that these folks have been successfully bamboozled for years, and the possibility that they may now subscribe to a new pied piper is not to be discounted.

But the 800lbs gorilla in the room remains the November election which more than half of Americans have beliefs ranging from its having unexplained irregularities to outright ballot stuffing fraud.  And all these feelings have been and continue to be reinforced by the establishment, first refusing to look at and substantively refute the presented evidence, and second then upping the ante to launch a national vilifying campaign against everyone who continues expressing concerns and thinks that the conduct of the 2020 election should get at least a small fraction of the kind of attention the Democrats mandated for the 2016 election in terms of countless congressional investigations, the involvement of DoJ and the FBI and its fraudulent use of FISA, various IGs looking into their spheres of purview, the Mueller special prosecutor investigation, and the still ongoing Durham probe.

All we hear from the Dems and their nascent Biden administration is that only racists, insurrectionists, and seditious domestic terrorists remain interested in having a transparent examination of the evidence.  And, of course, no correctly thinking American should be beholden to such an irredeemable cohort of deplorables, no matter how many tens of millions they number.  The Democrats demonstrated that they can roll out a couple of divisions of armed National Guard troops at a moment’s notice if there is even a faint (unfounded?) hint of public opposition to their new power structure.  And in the meanwhile, as our liberal commenters remind us today, they will be taking our names and making lists for when the reckoning comes.  That is who they are and have always been, now it’s their time to flex some muscle and really kick ass.  This is their 'unification' program which will continue until we all unite to 'Sieg heil!' the victory of our new masters.

‘What Just Happened?’

[Union columnist Terry McLaughlin asks that pointed question (here) on the 14jan21 edition’s op-ed page.  She goes on to provide and excellent background summary that lets the reader answer her question.  It turns out that we Americans have been given an education over the past year to accept a much more expressive way of protesting everything from public policies to individuals and institutions – in short, we have been carefully taught that riot and mayhem is now de rigueur for expressing collective dissatisfaction.  Ms McLaughlin’s piece provides us with the syllabus for that course.  It is posted below with her permission.  gjr]

Terry McLaughlin

There is no excuse for the violence that took place on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol. What we witnessed is morally reprehensible and I am ashamed and horrified that it occurred.

Americans deserve to know who was responsible, and those persons who perpetrated vandalism or violence should be brought to justice.

It cannot be denied that both the political far right and far left are home to their own share of Antifa-like anarchists, and the chaos at the Capitol has refuted any perception that the left owns a monopoly on widespread political violence. While we can never excuse or defend this behavior, we can make an honest effort to identify the environment in which it happened.

These events resulted from a multitude of causes: concerns and distrust in the integrity of our elections, pent up frustrations of citizens stripped of their livelihoods and freedoms during the pandemic, and yes, the rhetoric of the president of the United States.

But not the least of these causes is the justification, defense, and even apathy of the media and many of our elected political leaders regarding the violence committed across America throughout 2020, including attacks on federal courthouses, burning of police stations, and the establishment of “autonomous zones” in Portland and Seattle. The message was loud and clear: If you are dissatisfied with a political or social issue, violence is an acceptable answer.

Dark Days Diary – 9jan21 (updated 12jan21)

No days unalert; … alertness when most necessary, is always missing, and not to give the matter a thought is to be slated for destruction.  Gracian #264

George Rebane

Over the years to this day we have seen that our leftwing neighbors don’t have much truck with concepts like nuance or shades of gray.  Their more simple worldview resides comfortably in the corners of the extreme – for them the needle is always pegged: yes/no, black/white, racist/woke, 0/1, socialist/capitalist, … .  (Bang-bang policy in control theory)  This embrace of simplicity goes back to the Bolshevik revolution and continued all throughout the 5-year civil war that followed.

During that terrible strife, communist partisans would stop trains of ‘White Russians’ fleeing the already consolidated Red areas.  They would have the passengers dismount to line up next to the tracks and show their palms.  Those whose hands were found to be soft and/or uncalloused were executed on the spot as bourgeoisie enemies of the people.  There was no middle road to be examined, nor any propensity to do so.  Terror was the name of the game, and to make their omelet, some necessary eggs had to be cracked.

An Appeal to Restore Election Integrity (updated 16jan21)

George Rebane

[This was to be the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary censored on 6 January 2021.]

[Update.  I was informed this afternoon that my “commentary got cut tonight by station management.”  Management is now “establishing criteria for commentaries”, and there were elements in my piece with which the station took issue.  I am saddened that the pall of leftwing censorship across the land has now reached our little corner of the Sierra foothills.  Ratcheting autocracy on parade.  gjr]

[16jan21 update.  I am happy to report that The Union saw fit to publish this commentary in its 16jan21 hardcopy and online editions (here).  Update continued below.  gjr]

Today our country is again unhappy with how our national election was carried out.  Here we are not talking about voters unhappy that their candidate did not win, which happens with about half the voters in every election.  Instead, we concern ourselves with the very large number of voters on both sides of the contest who are dissatisfied with various parts of the voting process, and believe with all the cited and documented irregularities of the November election, that something serious is amiss with how we have come to elect our political leaders in the 21^st century.

Evidence - Why not look at the evidence? (updated 7jan21)

George Rebane

Why not indeed?  The existential evidence abounds of election fraud and irregularities having happened.  It exists just for the looking in forms of

1. witnessed and sworn affidavits of polling place and vote counting wrongdoings;
2. witnessed and video records of after-hours arrivals of thousands of unmailed ballots in unmarked vehicles;
3. mass arrivals of ballots supporting Biden that fail simple statistical tests that attest to their numerical authenticity;
4. demonstrated ease with which voting machine counts could be manipulated;
5. recorded denials of access to vote processing observers;
6. obvious gross numerical discrepancies between registered voters and votes cast;

Uncounted complaints of these infractions and irregularities have been filed across the land, and all have been rejected by our already dubious judicial system, not for lack of evidence, but on procedural grounds.  And these procedural grounds smell to high heaven that include the scurrilous use of ‘lack of standing’ of the plaintiff.  The legal notion of standing has no basis in constitutional law, and was only concocted in the 1920s to reduce an overly burdened case load on the courts as a means of avoiding/reducing adjudications.

What no court has done is to examine the evidence in open court and find any of it lacking in form, substance, and/or credibility.  In fact, the opposite findings have been issued to the effect that the unexamined evidence, even if verified, would not have materially changed the election’s outcome.  That is both false and a lie on the face of the vote counts presented in the reams of existing evidence.  And whether or not the evidence would change the election’s outcome is immaterial as a point of law.  What is important is to examine and conclude on the verity of the irregularities in the November election, and then prepare feasible remedies so that these will not be repeated in future elections.

All of this should be done in order to restore bipartisan confidence in our elections, especially the last one that saw copious amounts of dubious votes arrive in the dark of night to be surreptitiously counted in favor of the Democratic candidate.  So now on 6 January 2021, Congress will meet to go through what has been a pro forma certification of the electoral college votes.  However, this time dozens of Republican congress critters will rise to object to the electoral college counts.

Given the behavior of the courts, many Republican MOCs maintain with Sen Josh Hawley (R-MO) that “At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections, but Congress has so far failed to act.”  Today’s count is fluid, but upwards of 140 MOCs now say they are willing to join in the rejection of electoral college votes, and demand that the collected evidence of fraud see the light of day.

Meanwhile leftwing propaganda organs like the LA Times maintain that “there is no evidence of voter fraud and the integrity of the election has been repeatedly affirmed at the state level, in the courts and in Washington.”  Joining in accepting the current election results, no matter how marred, are members of the Republican congressional leadership led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

But given the highly polarized state of the nation and the countless controversies surrounding this election, the simple question remains, ‘Why not look at the evidence?’

Here and here are two recent, extensively referenced reports by John Lott and Peter Navarro that present in detail the case to be made for the existence, scope, and authenticity of the current body of election fraud evidence.  How would you judge an appeals process that dismisses even considering the examination of evidence only on the basis of the plaintiffs not having said the appropriate ‘Mother may I?’ at some point in bringing it to the attention of the courts?

[7jan21 update] More light on the matter from the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society is presented in 'Set In Stone? - A Historical, Constitutional, and Legal examination of Electoral College Deadlines and their implications for the 2020 Presidential Election'  Download Electoral_College_Deadlines_White_Paper.

Covid Related – 26dec20

George Rebane

The evidence against our lunatic lockdowns continues to pour in.  And as fast as it arrives, it is rejected/ignored by our anti-American, pro-control, anti-science Left.  Assemblyman Kevin Kiley writes, “California, with the nation’s most severe lockdowns, now has the most new cases per capita in addition to all the other harms. It’s hard to imagine a more catastrophic failure of political leadership.”  We are truly the poster-child for failed lockdowns and other evidence-free nostrums for fighting C19.  (more here and here) 

Epidemiologist, professor of medicine, and Greater Barrington author Dr Jay Battacharya, MD, PhD has been telling us for months about the foibles of quarantienes and lockdown in the face of this pandemic.  He and a bevy of notable colleagues in the field of infectious diseases have been promoting the diligent monitoring of seroprevalence (q.v.) instead and using that to implement focused responses that target primarily the vulnerable population segments and leave the rest of the people to go on with their work and lives while taking prudent non-draconian measures so as not to solicit infection.  All of this has fallen on deaf Democratic ears as these politicos revel in their new-found opportunities to once more dial back our liberties and attempt to install a new slate of permanent control regulations into lightly-read, compliant minds.

Covid Related – 11dec20

George Rebane

With major ongoing national issues, I’m starting what would appear to be bespoke issue-dedicated sandboxes.  Let’s see how well/long this works out.

A reader sent me a link that supports arguments I and others here have made as to why the US has its reported Covid case and mortality numbers.  The Left has effectively screamed all summer long and into the fall that these were due to President Trump’s mishandling of the nation’s C19 response program.  Well, they were wrong on multiple accounts, but with the lamestream’s help, this continuously broadcast message convinced enough people to give us the currently reported and contested election results.

The actual reason for the difficulty in reducing our numbers to that of smaller, more culturally cohesive countries is that we are a large polyglot nation, now highly polarized, and of many cultures, ethnicities, and political persuasions.  Belgium, a much smaller nation of 11M, but otherwise similarly afflicted also demonstrates even higher C19 rates (more here and H/T to reader).  And it doesn’t look like this level of America’s ignorance will be surmounted any time soon – especially now that K-12 schools are starting to embrace ‘critical race theory’ big time.

Covid-19 – A lifesaver from China? (updated 9dec20)

George Rebane

Yes, C19 has made us and the world’s other countries do terrible things to our economies, but being an extraordinary killer it ain’t.  As I explained in ‘Mismanaging Covid-19 …’, all that the virus has done is substituted its own grim reaper for the usual ones that work on the various age groups with their usual comorbidities.  Of course, the older people who are already scheduled to die of some malady they are now fighting, or soon will be fighting, are vulnerable to death from some cause.  Then along comes C19 and pre-empts the other causes, but in the process does not add to the nation’s mortality counts.

Well, that’s not exactly true.  Actually, C19 is decreasing the death rate of the nation when we examine CDC published data on deaths in America over the years. (more here)  Check the plot below.

The 2020 death count was extrapolated from 2,033,736 total deaths by 24 September 2020.  The daily average to that date of 7,588 deaths times 365 days gives this year’s total of 2,769,620.  (Say, that our end of year spike is higher than the computed average, and the mortality curve just keeps following the set trend.  Then the point made here still holds regarding the overall mortality impact of C19.)

So why are deaths going down in 2020, the year of our historic pandemic, during which people are running around screaming insane warnings, locking everything down, keeping immune kids from being educated, and destroying millions of small businesses?  Easy answer – gross ignorance and evil political agendas.

Some other factors are contributing to lowering the death rate include the decrease in people seeking medical aid from healthcare professionals as they hunker down and try to protect themselves from C19 infections.  According to government figures (as reported here many times) medical mistakes kill over 250,000 Americans year-in year-out.  It’s one of our leading causes of death, so if you stay out of hospitals and clinics, and don’t let them get their hands on you, there’s a better chance that they won’t getcha.  And more people will keep living at the end of the year.

The bottom line of my screed is that we have been fed wagon loads of bullshit about this pandemic, its morbidity and mortality, its virulence, effective therapeutics, public response policies, etc during the past year.  And all we’ve managed to do is cripple our economy, ruin countless lives, and abandon our freedoms to power hungry politicians, for what?  To save lives?  Not really.  Now what are you going to do about it?

[8dec20 update] It appears that CDC does publish various versions of data on the same topics.  I received an appreciated email from a reader who makes this point clear with CDC data that supports (calls out?) my above comment about the trendline being maintained even with an appropriate population-relative increase in the 2020 deathcount.

[9dec20 update]  The Democrats' idiots delight continues in Sacramento in coming up with insane and insaner response policies to the pandemic.  Now even some members of the Lockdown Luminaries are beginning to evince doubt in both their policies and the tortured 'logic' that has given rise to them over the past months.  Here's 'I'm Not Sure We Know What We're Doing,' Says a Newly Skeptical California Lockdown Advocate that indicates against all hope that there is a ray of sanity that might be leaking into the deep dark depths of Gavin's mind.

In the Wake of the Lying Leftwing Lamestream

George Rebane

The country continues to suffer under the devious reporting of the lamestream media.  The progressive propaganda outlets regularly output two important types of lies (here) in their published content.  The first type is not reporting certain information critical for readers' decision making, the second type is outright false/fake news, in other words making statements that are blatantly false.  As readers have been advised for years in these pages, our Fourth Estate is dead but not buried.  It continues to live and thrive in a zombie-like existence, first impeding, then devouring the nation’s ability to think critically.  Two examples follow.

The lamestream elected Biden.  This conclusion is supported by more than several years of witnessing anti-Trump lies in every dominant leftwing news and entertainment media outlet – most of the them have been detailed and debated in these pages.  But a post-election poll provides, perhaps, the clearest evidence of that. (here)  About 17% of Biden voters – an outcome changing percentage - would not have voted for him had they known a number of salient facts about him and his record as a politician – all of these facts were prominently absent from the lamestream’s content during Biden’s candidacy and purposely subverted after he received the DNC’s imprimatur.  RR’s liberal commenters have provided reams of additional evidence of that as they regularly accuse me (and other better-read commenters) of making up stuff that is already known nationally, but not through the ‘information’ channels they regularly consume.

Then there’s withholding critical information on various proven effective Covid-19 (C19) therapeutics, this because a more successful approach at early intervention could have markedly changed the course of the disease for the better.  Specifically, I’m talking about the suppression of fluvoxamine, ivermectin, and hydroxychloroquine as safe, proven drugs for early intervention. (here)  Instead, the Democrat politicians and their lamestream lackeys made clear on the daily national news that such drugs were risky and not to be trusted.  The latter on the basis that the Trump administration was an early promoter of these medicines.  Because of that the nation’s healthcare clinicians took the legally less risky route and eliminated wholesale prescription of these medicines to early-stage patients.  Instead, all this supported the continuation of command/control unproven dicta of lockdowns, social distancing, and masks.  Even herd immunity was denied and Operation Warp Speed denigrated as being ineffective in combatting C19.  Because of that criminally misguided messaging, thousands of additional people died who could have been helped by vigorous intervention with these proven medicines.  But the progressive narrative was saved, and worth every life sacrificed in its service.

Voter Fraud 3.0 … until the fat lady sings

George Rebane

President Trump’s Executive Order #13848 may be the real bombshell of this election as it is brought to light in the Foreign Policy section of the White House website.  It is titled ‘Notice on Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect To Foreign Interference In or Undermining Public Confidence In U.S. Elections’ (here)  The enforcement of this EO will make more people culpable for aiding and abetting foreign interference to undermine public confidence in the 3nov20 election than we can count.  What I find intriguing is that this EO was explicitly continued on 10 September 2020.  (H/T to two RR readers)

Here is what one blogger, a Mr Rip McIntosh, who soberly advises his readers to check out this fairly breathless commentary on the potential impacts of EO #13848 before swallowing it hook/line/sinker – I advise RR readers to do the same and inform all of us if/where they may see this issue reported.

Following the science, really? (updated 12nov20)

George Rebane

[This is the updated transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 11 November 2020.]

‘We follow the science’ has been heard across the land for some months now, mostly from shady politicians, but also from politicians of all shades.  This pompous and gratuitous claim is put out primarily to shut off further debate about whatever issue that is sheltered under the science umbrella.  The politician or media talking head knows that his audience is woefully unprepared to understand, let alone contest, any proposition so couched.

The effectiveness of this kind of communication hinges on the level of numeracy enjoyed by our population at large.  Numeracy is the mathematical partner of literacy.  Numeracy is the analog of literacy - communication by letters and words - in the sense that the numerate person can understand every day issues involving arithmetic calculation, basic logic, chance, utility, elements of finance, graphical presentation of information, the scientific process, and ability to think critically.  As a person does not have to be a professional wordsmith to be literate, then also a person need not be a professional in the mathematically based disciplines to be considered numerate.  Numeracy is just another arrow, albeit a very important one, that an educated person has in his quiver.  Innumeracy, like illiteracy, is the converse of having such tools at your disposal.

Adult innumeracy is the longstanding and silent scourge of our country and of our times as confirmed by longitudinal surveys done by the Dept of Education.  Americans are overwhelmingly innumerate, with about 1 out of 20 of us having the skills of a numerate layman.  In a liberal democracy the importance of voter numeracy is based on a simple truth – ALL social issues in our community and across the land are significant only because of their descriptive numbers.  And without the ability to process those numbers, we really don’t understand the issue and can only emote about it.

Voter Fraud 2.0 … until the fat lady sings (updated 15nov20)

George Rebane

To describe what is going on with this election as hanky-panky is to diminish what appears as the first verifiable assault on the seminal institution that we use to maintain our democratic republic – the right and practice of franchised citizens to regularly impact the governance of their country.

Evidence is pouring in from all quarters about voter fraud, evidence that has been filed by poll workers, poll watchers, and witnesses who have provided sworn affidavits and statements – punishable as perjury if falsified – of a wide spectrum of illegal and criminal activities taking place at polling places and vote counting centers.  Enough of this has been happening to cause the DoJ to order all US attorneys across the land to begin investigating these allegations.

Last night on FN Tucker Carlson went through a litany of some of the evidence that the US attorneys will be looking at (here).  (Odd that FN has pulled this commentary from its site.)  You don’t have to be a fan of Carlson to note the factual content of his commentary, confirm it yourself, and compare it with what you’ve seen on the lamestream.  An important part of the data that is now a matter of record is the history of grossly inaccurate polling results with which the country has been blanketed in the weeks leading up to the election.

It turns out that the polls across the board were grossly wrong in favor of Joe Biden.  The more important impact of such erroneous polling was how they influenced the vote.  University of Michigan (here) and McGill University (here) have done studies of this which delineate how polls favoring this or lambasting that affect voter attitudes.  In America our polls were off, sometimes hundreds of percents and of opposite polarity, for electoral contests ranging from the president to the states’ down-ticket candidates and issues.  And for some odd reason, they were overwhelmingly in error toward the Left.  This was similar to the late-discovered ballots and mail-ins arriving at vote counting centers that defied voting demographics, voting history, and elementary statistics in their one-sidedness (more here and here).  And we haven’t yet come to the vote changing software (here) that people have alleged was used (and exposed unintentionally on CNN (here) where Trump’s vote count goes down the precise amount that Biden’s went up before the cutaway from the scene).

All the Dems and lamestream outlets are ostracizing the closer examination of this election's fraud, claiming that, no matter if true, none of what has been reported is enough to change the election's outcome.  That in itself may well be false because the actual validations and recounts have not been completed.  But the logic of the admonition itself is grossly faulty, for it assumes that all the fraud discovered to date is all that there is.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  (For the technically inclined, consider the individual allegations as a sequence of events in a minimally known process.  Then compute the probability that the process ended with its most recent event.  To help you do this Download TN2011-1_DiscreteEventR-Gprobs )

The greater impact of this on our institutions and ultimately on Americans’ trust in their country’s electoral processes is summarized by Victor Davis Hanson (here).  The bottom line is that we are done as a liberal democracy once the people no longer believe in elections or that their legal votes matter.

[11nov20 update] There is now a chorus of commentators on various media outlets (yes, even some liberal ones) who correctly opine about completing the investigations of the numerous reported election irregularities and alleged voter fraud around the country.  What our Left predictably pooh-poohs as rightwing sour grapes, and tells to “suck it up” and get on with it will not work in the country’s longer-term polity.  We have lost faith in the election process as it now stands.  There are at least half of us in America who want the reported incidents of malfeasance resolved, one way or the other, before trust is restored in our elections.  A democratic republic cannot continue to function under liberal governance once its elections are seen by a major fraction of its citizenry as corrupt and corruptible.  The natural progression of such a state of affairs is to a strong-arm autocracy.

The truth of the matter, not considered by today’s light thinkers, is that the Left will be equally put out again when they lose another major election.  I say ‘again’ because they were maximally put out for years after Hillary lost in 2016, and showed the country how they could disrupt, not only the duly elected administration, but also the rest of the federal government.  These progressives and their militant radicals not only rejected the legitimacy of the election, they also rejected the findings of the many subsequently launched investigations that failed to find their claimed faults – and they hold these beliefs to this day.  For them, the Republicans remain guilty as alleged.

So yes, we have to let Team Trump and the other involved federal and state level investigative agencies complete the process to either sanitize the recent election, or declare that it was not soiled in the first place.  At that time we’ll all have to suck it up, bid good-bye to Donald Trump, and accept Joe Biden as our new fearless leader (while continuing to keep a gimlet eye on the sumbich until his influence peddling family affairs are resolved AND he renounces the emerging communist wing of the Democratic Party).

[15nov20 update]  Now we have a fairly complete recounting of the provenance of Hammer/Scorecard and how it came to be applied to the current election.  The testimony is "according to whistleblower Dennis Montgomery, who was granted immunity by the DoJ and the FBI for exposing illegal US domestic surveillance."  (H/T to reader and more here)

Voter Fraud … until the fat lady sings (updated 9nov20)

George Rebane

'We don't want to go where you want to take us.' - the fundamental reason for no possibility of common ground.

The uncensored part of the web is buzzing about developing evidence on how the Trump vote scorecard got hammered during the past week.  Actually, a whistleblower has come forward who describes the use of two data manipulation programs, Hammer and Scorecard, that have been used internationally and were used to modify data during transmission from the voting precincts to the central vote collecting servers.  This cleverly designed software modifies data on the fly during transmission so that the process is essentially undetectable under normal circumstances.  FB’s Lou Dobbs with Flynn lawyer Sydney Powell and Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch broke the story here.

Here are some initial factors that bear on the entire investigation into what may turn out to be the largest national voter fraud case in history.  A lot is developing.

1. Statistically impossible tranches of uncounted votes, ALL favoring Biden, turned up during the week to make Trump’s lead vanish. I pointed out early that this was statistically impossible; now this argument is being picked on the national conservative media.  The lamestream, of course, continues to be silent.
2. The DoJ and FBI have finally become involved in these investigations.
3. The continued silence of the Republican Party on the matter is puzzling. The most influential sites of potential voter fraud are in the battleground states – Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan – all of which have both of their legislative houses controlled by Republicans.  These legislatures have the power to investigate and determine the make-up of the electors who will represent the states in the Electoral College.
4. The Hammer and Scorecard whistleblower has been identified and will aid in the investigation. Apparently the vote transmission logs exist for the node-to-node data pathways, and they can be forensically examined by our intelligence services for any hanky-panky that the vote counts may have suffered in transmission.

Our readers will, of course, look into this and also provide reports which I’ll summarize here.  

[Update] That all such discoveries as Hammer and Scorecard may have no effect on the conduct of national affairs is to me very likely, given, say, the impact of three major issues – 1) the Joe Biden video of firing the Burisma investigator, 2) the total denial and burial of the Hunter Biden influence peddling emails, and 3) the months-long allegations of C19 response mismanagement by Trump.  The proper (and historical) treatment of any one of these by our Fourth Estate would have instantly, and I do mean instantly, derailed the Harris/Biden campaign.

Our nation ignoring the clear video evidence of Joe admitting and bragging about how he got the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the Burisma corruption scandal fired, while son Hunter sat on the company’s board collecting millions, is both astounding and terrifying.  Why?  Because it illustrates the level of ready belief and sanguine compliance to which the overwhelming fraction of Americans have been reduced.  Without interest or thought, these millions of fellow citizens will literally believe anything that the lamestream puts out.  And if these leftwing outlets refuse to report it, then it simply doesn’t exist in their world of managed and lightly exercised thought.

That manner of practicing democracy was further abetted by the ignoring then denial of the confirmed HunterB laptop and tens of thousands of culpatory emails which outlined the years of influence peddling by the Biden family.  And finally, the nothing-burger of dunning the nation’s C19 response which clearly had the largest impact on the sheeple.  It was blared out by all media channels daily, and accepted as gospel here and abroad without a shred of evidence.  The sheeple were told that science speaks with one consensual voice, and that politically correct voice (no matter how much it varied over the months) confirmed the president’s mismanagement that was the sole cause of hundreds of thousands of preventable C19 deaths.  The simple allegation, repeated thousands of times, was enough - no further evidence was and still is necessary.  And they all believed; not only that, but also that JoeB had a plan to fix the whole thing once he was voted in.

These three shameful episodes delineating our decline are sufficient evidence for me to believe that, no matter the ultimately demonstrated veracity of voter fraud, America has entered the epoch of nationalized voter manipulation that makes possible nationalized voter fraud.

[More update]  And here are couple more of some curious coincidences that now seem to be pouring in.  It was really a miracle that 450,000 more votes were discovered in battleground states, all of them for Joe Biden - whouda thought?  When you're popular, you're popular.  This little piece was reported this morning on FB by Sydney Powell on Maria Bartiromo's program (here).  And wait, don't go away.  Another coincidence has Gateway Pundit reporting that "Nancy Pelosi’s Chief of Staff Is Chief Executive and Feinstein’s Husband a Major Shareholder at Dominion Ballot Counting Systems" (here).  Things are getting curioser and curioser.  Now if you don't want to hear about any of this, may I suggest going to any lamestream outlet. (H/T to reader)

[9nov20 update]  President Trump’s Warp Speed vaccine development program announced first fruits from Pfizer and BioNTech, these are the first two pharmas completing successful testing and now apply for final FDA approval before its distribution.  Other pharmas working on C19 vaccines will soon follow.  This development is historic beyond compare, and exceeds even the most optimistic predictions when the administration’s program was announced – Even Dr Fauci opined that nothing could be expected before 18 to 24 months (compared to the approx. 10-year normal development time).  All pro-American people are cheering as they welcome this sea changing news for our country and the world.

All except Bumblebrain Biden and minions who rushed out to attempt a pre-emptive public statement and launch what we may expect for some time to come as the first edition of Biden’s Bamboozle Bullshit.  He let the us know that the country’s real response to C19 will start after he is sworn in, citing his newly formed C19 committee that will “follow the science”.  The clear message throughout his blurb was that nothing has been done to date, and the steps he outlined will save us all after they are implemented during his administration.

The hogwash was obvious to all who know what Trump has done, and that Biden’s proposals are literally nothing new.  He gave the most passing mention to the coming vaccine and was only concerned about its equitable distribution.  His newly discovered solution to preventing C19 spread continues to rely on masks and social distancing.  Actually, Bumblebrain has now also discovered that the feds can’t mandate national mask wearing, that has to be done state by state.  No apologies for the contrary bullshit he and Kamala spewed during their campaign.  As usual, he took no questions and hustled out immediately after his prepared remarks.  The “Biden Plan” is literally nothing more than a belated and partial implementation of what the Trump administration already has in place – and the nation’s double dummies continue to lap it up.

The one who really blew the Democrats’ cover about Covid this morning was Gov Cuomo.  He made it clear that the most important thing about the vaccine was its politically correct distribution to the poor, minorities, and tribes.  His message was that until such “equitable” distribution means were in place, the vaccine should be withheld – it don’t matter how many people would die in the interval.  Readers will recall that I presented the correct Democrat pre-election (now pre-inauguration) utility function for their public policies – minimize economic growth and maximize C19 deaths.

I fear for our beloved Republic (updated 7nov20)

George Rebane

With the election over and unknown thousands of votes yet to be discovered, counted, and adjudicated, we have entered a virgin and wild land untrammeled in our history.  Having arrived therein, today we are literally a polarized population of pioneers who see the other as savages to be subdued.  Common ground for launching a healing dialogue was forsaken long ago.

Reminding readers that these pages contain ‘Observations and Interpretations from the Last Great Century of Man’, we now begin in earnest to witness and partake in our country’s dissolution – the Great Divide has arrived, what remains is how we can go forward to a mutually satisfactory political solution that describes the form and functions of a newly divided continent.  If we cannot resolve this peacefully, then we may have our country’s first true civil war in which both sides wish to take over and rule the entire land.

History students understand that the conflagration of 1860-65 was not a civil war, as it is erroneously described today.  In reality it was a War for Southern Independence launched by secessionist states that had no desire to ‘take over’ the United States of America.  Were violence to be our fate, then one can foresee a similarly purposed conflict with the Right wanting to secede, and the Left opposing secession with the force of arms.  That is a political asymmetry the Left has refused to acknowledge, as it vigorously opposes its natural outcome.

The Right wants to live in a land where it can practice its values of liberty, freedom, enterprise, and capitalism.  The Right has no desire to force other people to adopt their values and mores.  The Left, as the perpetual hatchery of totalitarian regimes, will force everyone it can control to adopt and practice its ideology, even if that necessitates a vast gulag and re-education camps.  The Left has demonstrated again its perennial practice of soiling its existing nests, and then emigrating to unspoiled regions and communities to repeat the process.  There is no evidence of emigrations in the opposite direction; the people of the Right continue to escape to a shrinking collection of unspoiled pastures with the vain hope that they will not be followed.  It is anyone’s guess how long this pattern of migrations can continue.

The election of 2020 is yet to be decided, but the outlook for Republicans does not look good.  I assess President Trump’s chance of being re-elected at less than 5%.  The only hope for America dodging the fundamental transformation bullet for the near term is that Republicans retain the Senate, and that SCOTUS will revert to a strong constitutionalist bench in adjudicating the blizzard of cases it will encounter.  With a Republican Senate under Majority Leader Mitch, we can hope for blockage of the most egregious socialist GND legislation that will issue from Speaker Pelosi’s House.  Under the Harris/Biden administration gridlock will be good.

What disturbs (terrifies?) me the most is the fraction of the electorate that support a fundamental transformation of our Republic from the historical country of Makers to a country of government promoted Takers.  This is the key attribute that illustrates our divided house, and therefore portends the Great Divide.  None of our leading thinkers ensconced in their Institutions of Thinking has a clue on how to stop the ever-widening chasm so well illustrated this week, let alone providing even a rough outline for bringing us back close enough to preserve the Union.  I say this because the Takers have been taught to believe that the only means to reduce their pain – real, imagined, or self-inflicted – is to have government take more from the Makers.  As has been shown in so many other countries passing through socialism, there always comes a time when the Makers quit making.

The 2022 election will respond to whatever pain the Democrats inflict on the country.  Even though fewer Republican Senate seats will be up for grabs, the solution of inducing more Makers to make more is not on any progressive horizon.  If the Senate flips to the dark side, then Nellie bar the door; even a conservative SCOTUS on the way to the packing house will be of no help.  This election, now going for the bumblebrain and socialist-in-waiting, demonstrates that we Americans no longer have the collective wisdom to preserve our liberties or our land of the free.  Once a political monopoly is established at the federal level, it will take the country down the trail so visibly blazed by California and its like-minded coastal calamities.  What happens then is anyone’s guess, but for sure it will not be pretty.

During this tendentious week, my final wish is that President Trump will act presidential when this election’s dust settles.  And if he must depart, that he does so with newfound dignity and decorum, that were it practiced more frequently during his years in office would have guaranteed him a second term.

[7nov20 update]  "Joe Biden is Elected the 46th U.S. President"

Misguided Public Safety Power Shutoffs

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 28 October 2020.]

Dear Gov Newsom – This is an open letter to you from an old and very disgruntled citizen who has spent the last 63 years of his life in this beautiful state.  During these decades I went to school, earned my living, raised my family here, and watched the steady decline of a once golden state.  And I can attest that it truly was the Golden State because I was there.

Today, after decades of a virtual political monopoly in Sacramento, our state has landed on the bottom of the barrel with several other equally discredited states.  We purposely raised our taxes to the highest levels, became the leader in regulatory burdens heaped on our businesses and homeowners, and are now the hands down mecca of the nation’s welfare recipients – one out of three live here.  We lead the nation in the number of homeless, and invite their filthy tent favelas that now stretch from the coastal cities to the Sierra foothills.  Our food and fuel prices have sky rocketed to the highest in the nation.  Our roads, bridges, and other infrastructures are in third-world disrepair, public employee pensions are unfunded to the tune of unpayable billions, and businesses and middle-class taxpayers are departing in droves to greener pastures.

Add to this California’s highest electricity costs and disastrous power outages that now resemble the availability of electricity in second and third world countries, and you almost have the complete picture of where we are today and the direction we’re headed tomorrow.  (more here) And that, because the state’s legislative and regulatory pipeline is chuck full of a lot more of what already pains us.  But governor, this is just a short summary of California’s deficits and decline, about which long and detailed books have been written.  On top of all this, the state’s political leaders and bureaucrats have created a problem that’s even more up close and personal, one that affects all Californians, especially those of us who live in the rural counties.

Journalism’s unstoppable ‘Leftward Ho!’

George Rebane

[Apologies for the late posting of this commentary.  My writing workflow always has several pieces in concurrent development, and sometimes one of them with time-dependent content gets overlooked for too long, but one that I still want to have archived as part of RR’s record.]

California’s passing of a racial diversity law that prescribes the composition of boards of corporations headquartered in the state.  This new legislation, now signed into law, is one the most blatant racist mandates by government that the morals-bleating Left have imposed on residents.  (more here)  This law joins the gender-biased legislation that requires female representation on boards and takes another step away from merit-based make-ups of publicly traded corporate boards.

There is no question that such laws continue to hobble the engines of wealth creation in California, but wealth creation has never been the objective of socialist governments.  The state has assumed the mantle of leadership in the Union for destructive collectivist initiatives designed to fundamentally transform America from a capitalist economy and society to one of comprehensive government planning and control.

Along this road to autocracy, we encounter questions raised for years on RR.  Now others are beginning understand the societal benefits of more culturally coherent societies, as we witness the daily destruction of every aspect of America’s traditions, cultural values, and institutions (more here).  Our Fourth Estate has long abandoned their traditional role in bringing reliable and timely news to their audiences.  They all are invested in one or the other side of a terminally polarized citizenry, and there is less and less of the ‘other side’ remaining in the cadre of media outlets.  No conservative broadcast outlets remain.  There is only Fox News which used to be a solidly “fair and balanced” outlet that also gave conservative voices a podium.  That stance is now fading as FN succumbs to the fear of being left behind in the virtue signaling competition, as it includes ever more liberal talking heads and left-tainted news copy.  When Rupert made his liberal son Lachlan CEO of Fox Corporation that owns FN, he started revamping both the Fox News and Fox Business cable outlets.

A Purposely Politicized “Pseudo-pandemic”

'A nation ignorant and free, that never was and never shall be.'  Thomas Jefferson

George Rebane

Today reporting on the corona or Covid-19 virus (C19) resembles a chaotic cacophony.  I wanted to pull together some salient factors that help me sort things out in this blizzard of mostly junk journalism, agenda driven by election year politics.  So, with apologies where needed, I offer the following potpourri.

We have analyzed the science and response policies invoked by the C19 outbreak twenty ways from Sunday, and the evidence continues to mount that this year the globe has been subjected to a “pseudo-pandemic” driven by politics and political/ideological agendas.  The science behind C19 is complex and has been mostly banished to be brought up when a political statement needs some additional support.  Then the science is almost always misrepresented or abbreviated beyond recognition (more below).  And there’s the real problem, the science is beyond the attention spans and comprehension of 99.99% of the people who just listen to the loudest and oft repeated voices.

More registered than residents (updated 20oct20)

George Rebane

Here’s one hot off the press.  ‘New Data Analysis Finds 353 Counties With 1.8 Million More Registered Voters Than Residents’.  It appears that this is just the tip of the ‘voter irregularity’ iceberg.  There are 3,141 counties in the US, and these 1.8M 'ghost voters' are concentrated in just 353 or 11% of them.  Awake (not woke) readers recall that county, hence state, elections have been flipped and/or decided by just a few thousand voting this way or that way.

The registration data came from the American Community Survey section of the US Census Bureau.  In LA County alone, there are more than 1.5M ‘inactive voters’ who have now received ballots which could literally be voted by anyone.  But, as I said, this is just the tip.  Last year it was found that 372 US counties had more registered voters than they had voting age residents.  Included in these, no doubt, we today have eight states – Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont – that have statewide registered voters that total to more than 100% of their states' voting age residents.

Tom Fitton, president of the non-profit Judicial Watch, said, “This data highlights the recklessness of mailing blindly ballots and ballot applications to voter registration lists. Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections.”  Of course, all this remains a SNEP (q.v.) issue to all Americans left of Chief Justice John Roberts.  Not to worry, what could go wrong?

PS.  Oh yeah, 'Pennsylvania Rejects 372,000 Mail-in Ballot Applications, as Voters Err'.

[20oct20 update] The non-partisan, non-profit Election Integrity Project has been monitoring California elections for some years now.  This year its work is really cut out for them and all volunteer poll watchers across the nation.  In California, as usual, we suffer the most from every progressive policy foisted on the state’s citizens (note, I didn’t say ‘residents’).  The EIP has discovered that California’s SecState has mailed out 440,000 ballots that, at best, are identified as “questionable” for a number of reasons (more here).  On the road to making this November’s election the nation’s first intentionally corrupt national vote, our SecState Alex Padilla has instituted new regulations to make this election the most opaque in the state’s history.  The EIP finding ‘With a One-Two Punch, CA Secretary of State Destroys Election Transparency’ details the ongoing corruption of this year’s universal mail-in ballots will be handled, and how observation of the handling procedures will be thwarted.  The evil party at work.

Corporatist Censorship in Full Bloom

"The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."  Vladimir Ilich Lenin

George Rebane

There is no longer any reason to deny the death throes of the First Amendment.  The country’s Left, working hand-in-glove with its media, public education, and corporatist lackies, has won the Newspeak and censorship wars.  This morning we heard from FN and Politico that President Trump’s Twitter account has been “suspended”. (here)  Why?  Well, our chief executive dared to point out the burgeoning Hunter Biden email scandal that the New York Post uncovered and dared to publish.  (more here)  Of course, the NYP had its social accounts quickly taken down as the lamestream media pitched in to try and kill the story.

These are just the latest in a rapidly growing trend of social media companies censoring any and all content that goes counter to the Left’s narrative of the country’s ills which require its prescribed fundamental transformation of America.  The alarums, now being raised here and there by opposing voices, point to this avalanche of avaricious one-sided virtue signalers.  However, these voices are getting little or no traction in the public square.  The careful media consumer already has seen FN, that formerly stalwart bulwark of 'fair, balanced, and unafraid' news, begin its quiet ‘go along to get along’ with the loud voices of the Left.

Nevertheless, some worthies are not giving up without a fight.  Evidence that FN is not yet fully committed to the devil’s den, it has posted ‘Ex-Facebook honcho Tim Kendall says Big Tech is a “threat to democracy”, calls for social media reform’. (H/T to reader)  Therein Kendall makes the point that big tech is engaged in a “global assault on democracy”.  He has produced ‘The Social Dilemma’, a film streaming on Netflix, in which he and other epiphanied high tech execs give their versions of the deluge of fake news, misinformation, and behavior modifying stimuli that pour out of the web pages of today’s social media giants.

“There are studies that show false information or fake news spreads six times faster online than accurate information. The attention-based business model of social media companies perpetuates outlandish, extreme, and controversial content that tends to receive more clicks and views. Content laced with misleading information that undermines faith in elections and other institutions vital to democracy is particularly dangerous for our society. In the near term, everyone should tune out the noise online and vote with confidence, whether by mail or in-person, and participate in this crucial democratic process.”

Before the metastasis of this communications cancer, we already witnessed corporatists willingly sell socialists the rope with which America's capitalists will be hanged.  Today this enterprise has expanded to corporatists vying with each other to hand that rope gratis to our country’s comrades.  

Unreasonable Partisan Fears

"We have nothing to fear but those who live in fear." – BH, RR reader and contributor

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 13 October 2020.]

Our Left has been telling Republicans for years that Democrats are the party of intellectuals and the highly educated.  Republicans are viewed by the Left as mostly Bible-thumpin’and gun totin’ knuckle-draggers, categorized simply as those ‘irredeemable deplorables’ on our political landscape.  Among the many deficits allegedly shared by those on the Right is their disdain for science, which the Democratic Party claims is the guiding star for their public policies and gives imprimatur to the pronouncements of their elites.

The strongest substance for that belief is the oft-cited ratio of white college graduates who claim party affiliation.  The Atlantic sits solidly on the throne of leftwing wisdom and light, from whence it advises us that ‘America Is Divided by Education’, and asserts that “the gulf between the party identification of white voters with college degrees and those without is growing rapidly. Trump is widening it.”  Actually, there is no evidence for that, and the National Center for Educational Statistics has shown a growing fraction of those of all races and ethnicities who obtain bachelor’s or higher degrees (here).

What really is more than puzzling is the lack of published numbers on party totals of those who have a 4-year college degree or higher.  It is well known that Democrats enjoy higher percentages of black and Hispanic members, but we don’t know how many of these with college degrees make up or contribute to each party’s cohort of the well-educated (more here ) .  The best we can tell from Pew Research is that “about a third (34%) of those with a college degree or more education identify as Democrats, compared with 24% who identify as Republicans.”  Note that this doesn’t answer what fraction of Democrats v Republicans have a college degree or more.  (more  here and here)

So, let’s attempt to leapfrog this gap in our knowledge and find out how the parties react to the most up-to-date science regarding Covid-19.  The World Health Organization has recently concluded that lockdowns as a pandemic response don’t work, and instead do great damage to the poorest segments of the world’s population.  This conclusion was amplified by last week’s publication of the Greater Barrington Declaration drafted by health scientists from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford, and co-signed by thousands of professionals from all walks.  Its authors cite extensive clinical evidence to confirm the WHO conclusion, and strongly recommend that all nations immediately stand down from their ineffective and insane lockdown policies.  Even more strongly, they conclude that the additional deaths and morbidities, on top of the economic disasters caused by such policies, actually constitute “crimes against humanity” of the kind last litigated in Nuremberg in 1946.  (more here and here)

For reasons we don’t have time for here, the leftwing news outlets have covered none of this.  And apparently the country’s declared Democrats don’t look much beyond what they are told on MSNBC, CNN, et al.  So, when Gallup assembled a recent panel for a survey on how men and women of both parties view and respond to Covid-19, they discovered and published some interesting results which reflect on the educational levels as characterized by Democrats.  (see Addendum)

Gallup asked the panel questions about ‘concern over catching the virus’, ‘concern about exposure at work’, ‘avoiding going to public places’, and so on.  They concluded by asking who would be ‘ready to return to normal activities right now’.  Overwhelmingly, the results indicated that Democrats were significantly more fearful of the pandemic than Republicans, and women of both parties were more hesitant than men to interpret the science news that went counter to that released within the Democrat narrative about proper responses that recommend ongoing lockdowns, widespread social distancing, and perpetual wearing of masks.  Given the widely published mortality statistics, the presented results do not bode well for the party that claims to be more educated and attuned to the findings and contentions of science.

These conclusions explain why people in liberal states like California continue to be both docile and sanguine about their states’ ongoing draconian Covid-19 response policies - policies no longer supported by scientific consensus or internationally reputable scientists and clinicians.  It is clear that America’s public policy responses to this pandemic have been completely co-opted to serve greater political agendas in this election year.

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the addended transcript of this commentary is posted with additional data and relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

[Addendum]  Here is the table of compiled results by Gallup showing how respondents felt about loosening up on Covid-19 response policy protocols.

‘Crimes Against Humanity’ (updated 11oct20)

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”, Richard Feynman

George Rebane

Almost everything you’ve heard about Covid-19 (here also C19) from politicians, the media, and publicized scientists and clinicians is wrong.  Here at RR, early on I started looking at the pandemic with a gimlet eye.  I did this as a science professional and a longtime student of how politics and scientification have been illicitly cohabiting for decades, to the point that today it’s difficult to tell which is the john and which is whore.  The C19 pandemic has brought it all together, and now invites serious review of the disease, its hysterical public response policies, and the real prophylaxis and collateral damage that has resulted from the variously implemented policies.

For the better part of this year we have been subjected to pronouncements delivered from on high about C19's sacrosanct ‘science’, and the irrevocable wisdom of ‘following the science’.  All this as if science was a singular, unitary, and all-illuminating oracle speaking to us from Olympus in a clear and unambiguous voice.  Nothing could be further from the truth, and over the months more and more serious and credible people are beginning to find their voice and speak out against such specious beliefs.  For openers, I suggest that readers begin with ‘What the pandemic has taught us about science’ by Matt Ridley, MP in the House of Lords, that appears in the 9oct20 WSJ.

The levels of clinical, scientific, and political fraud launched at global populations is of historical proportions.  It may be argued that never before have so many billions of humans been so thoroughly bamboozled by their political leaders, abetted by a willing media citing grant-sucking scientists, go-along healthcare professionals, and profit-motivated pharma.  This has reached levels which have invited a German-based investigative committee headed by Dr Reiner Fuellmich to launch a multi-national class action suit, making the case that such cynically enforced policies have caused enough death and destruction worldwide to amount to a ‘crime against humanity’, a charge last litigated in Nuremberg in 1946. (H/T to reader)

Fuellmich gives an extensive presentation of cited data and information about the advent of C19, its history, and reactions to this corona virus.  In it he presents data and information (prepared for the lawsuit) about the characteristics and progress of the disease that I venture few of us know.  The video of the presentation takes a better part of an hour, but the educational takeaway is well worth it for those concerned about our governments’ reactions, and the continuing diktats of its truly insane response policies.

One of the strong points Fuellmich brings out is the testing scam based on the widely used PCR-based diagnostic test that produces essentially worthless results as it is applied here and abroad.  For a broader look at how our FDA views the C19 tests and testing landscape, you can visit their website here.

Finally, of the hundreds of clinicians, scientists, and public health professionals who have looked askance at the governments’ dealings with the C19 pandemic, three internationally prominent scientists in the field gathered last weekend in Great Barrington, Massachusetts to draft a declaration and give interviews (here) on the planet’s misguided responses to the virus.  Drs Martin Kuldorff, Sumetra Gupta, and Jay Bhattacharya, professors respectively at Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford Universities, came together to put their appeal to sanity out in the public with their ‘Great Barrington Declaration’ which I reproduce in its entirety below.

Scattershots – 6oct20 (updated 9oct20)

George Rebane

Trump’s C19 infection and hospital visit is now providing the Democrats and their lamestream lackeys their latest ration of rage.  Everyone of them with access to a mic or website is lambasting the president on why and how his encounter with the virus came about and was then dealt with.  In their eyes it was all wrong and laden with conspiracies.  Everything from when was the last negative test recorded, to super-spreading WH events, to how sick did the president really get, to the Walter Reed physicians are lying or at least prevaricating about his current condition, to … , and even that he took his mask off too soon when he stood on the WH balcony after returning home.  If we didn’t have so many double dummies registered to vote, the whole exercise by the Left would be patently silly, but unfortunately that is not the case.

Fake drivers licenses from China as reported (here) by FN – “In the first six months of 2020, Customs and Border Protection officers seized nearly 20,000 counterfeit U.S. driver’s licenses at Chicago’s O’Hare airport alone, according to a report.  The 19,888 licenses and other fake documents were included in 1,513 overseas shipments, mostly from China and Hong Kong, CBP said, according to FOX 5 in New York City. Others were from South Korea and Britain.  Ralph Piccirilli, CBP’s acting area port director in Chicago, called the counterfeits (made mostly for people in their twenties) ‘very realistic.’”  The add-on to this report is that the names on the licenses are phony, and yet all are registered to vote as Democrats.  For some odd reason, this news is not reported on MSNBC or CNN.  [7oct20 - According to a number of news and fact-checking outlets, the names are indeed phony, but there is no substantiating evidence that those phony names are registered to vote.]

'Polling Phollies' was a piece I posted on 4 September 2016 in the throes of the last election season.  It bears reading again in light of the feverish debate we are once more engaged in our Sandboxes.  From this commentary you can download a paper I wrote to clarify the error bounds on poll results.  The overlap of these error bounds are especially relevant when the polls return two-candidate results near the midpoint or 50-50 ratios.  For those who can understand the material, it should really take a lot of steam out of the results constantly reported and debated in the current comment streams.  But I think those comments may satisfy a different purpose than enlightening their readers.

[7oct20 update]  ‘Schools Tackle Racism’  Evanston, IL racist school superintendent Devon Horton is giving a dose of “equity for Black and brown students, for special education students, for our LGBTQ students”, by letting them have first dibs on limited classroom seating.  The rest can attend online.  He’s doing this because “a disproportionate number of Black and Latino students are struggling in school and it is that struggle—not their race—which will get them priority.”  Such an assessment, on its face, is both racist and false.  In Evanston schools these minority students have received the same educational advantages as everyone else.  They are doing poorly only because they are NOT “struggling” as so many minority students struggling to learn have successfully demonstrated across the country.  Horton’s racist claim is that these students need special dispensation because they have a learning deficit apparently due to their skin color or sexual preference (special education kids are a different story).  Upon closer examination, it is again culture that determines kids’ - minority or otherwise - attitude toward education and learning, racist school policies will not. (more here and here)

What is a nation?  Samuel Stone of the Charlemagne Institute takes a good cut at an answer (here) that more than less ties with what I have proposed in Rebane Doctrine.  Stone starts by correctly positing that ‘nation’ is one of the words that today has lost its meaning; not that people can’t point and say ‘that’s a nation’, but because they can’t give it a literal definition.  One of the main determinants that a nation must have is a defined territory with secured borders within which its state (i.e. government) is sovereign.  He then goes on to cite our Founders and their political philosophers about the shared traits of a people which comprise, occupy, and own the nation – traits like a common history, values, beliefs, traditions, language, … .  And under it all is a foundation of justice as “the end of government” (Federalist 51).  However, that view of justice must be held in common by the citizens of a nation; multiple or polarized views of justice in a land cannot hold it together.  In our scripture (Mark 3:25, et al) Jesus said it best, “If a house is divided against itself, it cannot stand.”

[9oct20 update]  Today’s Nevada County’s Covid count is reported by the crack journalists at The Union.  From its front page we learn that there have been 20,735 recorded cases of the infection this year, with 18 cases currently active.  Two of these remain hospitalized, with the C19 body count that now stands at eight.  These numbers are mainly worthless, save the number who have died.  Presumably, the dead were correctly diagnosed and counted.  But given the real nature of the disease, and its wholesale misrepresentation that has led to an historical international panic, the recorded and currently active cases are totally unreliable, therefore meaningless.  The number hospitalized speaks only to the misunderstanding by local health officials about susceptibility to and the virality of this latest form of a corona virus, and their consequential draconian measures against our local businesses.  Bottom line, there is even less there to worry about C19 than meets the eye.  More on this later.

America’s Economic Recovery Narrative

George Rebane

The Dems are trying to bolster their Big Lie about Trump’s disastrous economy by pointing out that growth measures are slowing down.  (For you techies this is appealing to earliest derivative of a function that makes your case; in this case it’s the second derivative of, say, job creation or GDP, since the first derivative is still positive.)  For the nation’s innumerates, citing such data may well make a cynical impact that serves to detract from Trump’s luster, because most such folks have no means to understand what’s happening or scope out the real nature of the Big Lie.

The anti-Trumpers are communicating that since the cited growth metric is slowing down, the economic recovery is not going to happen, and therefore it illustrates another failure of the Trump administration.  What the masses miss is that we are witnessing a natural progression that describes countless dynamic processes native to our universe, economic recoveries being among them.

All complex processes that transit from one level to another higher (or lower) one start their journey slowly, then pick up speed until they reach about the mid-point of their destination level.  After that they start slowing down and decreasing their growth rate until the metric levels off and the recovery is over.  When plotted, such a process traces out a curve (function) called a ‘sigmoid’ which I’ve drawn in Figure 1 below.

In the figure we see a typical sigmoid representing the growth of some metric like employment or consumer confidence during a recovery.  It starts off slowly, reaches its maximum growth rate around time t_A at level A which is about half way to its destination level B.  At t_A the growth curve starts bending down (the second derivative turns negative) while still growing, until it flares out at level B.  This traces out a typical sigmoid of natural growth.  A similar sigmoid may represent a decreasing metric - say, unemployment rate (here) – that starts out high and then decreases while picking up speed, and again flaring out at the bottom near an unemployment rate that results at what is known as the ‘full employment’ level.  

For those wanting a closer look at sigmoids and their role in describing Covid pandemic processes, I refer you to my post on the topic, ‘Sigfor: A Data Driven Pandemic Response Policy Evaluation Tool’.

The alternative to the sigmoid that comprises the Dems’ Big Lie here is that they are telling their constituent naïfs that a recovery looks like what is shown in Figure 2 above.  Here we see the recovery rate curving ever upwards and increasing its pace until it hits its destination ‘recovered’ level and slams to a halt right then and there (technically a ‘hard limit’).  No real process behaves like that.  They all slow down before reaching their ‘saturation level’.  But a factual explanation like that does not serve the Left’s national narrative, so the Big Lie continues to be broadcast day in and day out during these weeks before the election.

Another of the many ways the Dems are misleading the American public is lying to them that we know how C19 behaves, and therefore we know how to respond correctly to the pandemic – a response about which they remain silent.  The truth is, as witnessed by the president’s C19 diagnosis and treatment now transferred to the Walter Reed Medical Center, that we are still learning.  The president is at Walter Reed because he is the nation’s high value patient and his response to the disease is still unknown.  Therefore, he needs to be within minutes of the treatments that the nation’s best clinicians can administer as they are already giving him drugs that have yet to clear Phase 2 testing.  The risk related probabilities dictate that he should be given this treatment before it even enters Phase 3 trials in order to provide him with the most effective response known to date.

The dastardly Democrats deny this truth, and continue to tell their dimwit constituents a story about Covid response possibilities that is pure fantasy and fiction.  They do not care about how many additional lives such perfidy will eventually cost, nor the impact it will have on our economic recovery and the livelihoods of millions of Americans.  The Democrats’ bet is that they and their lamestream lackeys will be able to successfully blame it all on President Trump.  That is the choice that we face in November.

Democrat 2020 Platform – The Disaster Revealed

George Rebane

Well, here it is boys and girls, the ‘2020 Democratic Party Platform’.  It is a stark blueprint for ending the United States of America; it outlines much more than just the ‘fundamental transformation’ that Obama sought to bring about.  In short, realizing its provisions will be the first step in a two-step trip to our communist future.  The programs outlined will fail utterly, leaving the country devastated and bankrupt.  Into the ashes will ride a man on a white horse who will promise the Marxist utopia, to arrive right after his party will ‘crack a few eggs’ that inevitably need cracking.     Download 2020-07-31-Democratic-Party-Platform-For-Distribution

I received the following summary of the platform’s contents, which you can verify yourself as you go through this 92-page roadmap to the United Socialist States of America.  Regarding the long-awaited agenda of America’s socialists, our wait is over – the DNC has spoken.

*Universal healthcare and Medicaid for all Americans and illegal aliens. (Pg 61)
*$15 minimum wage
*Immediate citizenship for illegals (Pg 63)
*Free college (Pg 65)
*Forgiveness of student loans (Pg 71)
*Eliminate border walls and Immigration Enforcement (Pg 62, 64 & 65)
*Make Washington D.C. the 51st State.
*Abortion for “all women & girls.” (Pg 83)
*$70 trillion Green New Deal, where the USA would be “net-zero greenhouse gas by 2050.” But CLOSE all coal & natural gas power plants by 2035. By 2030 all new construction in the USA must be net-zero greenhouses.
*Create a U.S. Agency for Global Media “to ensure that only accurate information is reported in the news or on the internet.”
*Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement
*Create a new federal agency of 100,000 people to trace every American.
*Immediately restore voting rights for convicted felons.
*Provide funding to facilitate vote-from-home and mail-in-voting.
*Create a new Federal Credit Bureau (to replace Equafax, et al), and require banks to use this new credit reporting service that will be set up to assist low-income people in buying houses and cars.
*Make gun manufacturers responsible and liable for how their guns are used. (Destroy gun manufacturing)
*Declare and treat drug use as a mental illness instead of an illegal activity.
*Declare the support for the Rights of BLM, Multi-gender, and preferential treatment for gays wanting to immigrate to America. (Pg 63)

[Addendum]  Compare the 2020 Democratic platform with Yoram Hazony's essay on Marxism and today's neo-Marxism - 'The Challenge of Marxism' - a must read for anyone wanting to talk intelligently about what is happening today in America.

Evil – a timely reflection

Do not scorn an evil though small, for it never comes singly, but in battalions, as does joy; good fortune and bad concentrate where they are already thick.  Gracian #254

George Rebane

History records that when Christian knights subdued Jerusalem during the Crusades, they slaughtered most, if not all, of the then resident Muslim population, including women and children.  And we are all witness to the killings of thousands of innocents in the 9/11 attacks by devout Islamist fanatics.  Neither the perpetrators, planners, nor their supporting populations considered these acts as anything other than carrying out the will of God; most certainly neither side considered the massacres to be evil acts.

Yet in the eyes of the targeted populations, these and many more such acts were the very embodiment of unspeakable evil.  And the belief systems that spawned them to be wellsprings of irredeemable evil, that were nevertheless confirmed in their respective canons and credible visions wherein God directed and gave imprimatur to the mass killings.

Countless other such historical narratives can be presented to abet the conclusion that evil is almost entirely in the eyes of the targeted recipients and sympathetic observers.  In a broader sense, we may conclude that evil is really culture dependent and/or culture specific.

Today we see more examples of such relativistic expressions and interpretations of evil.  They continue to be a global phenomenon and an historical constant.  Consulting dictionaries gives us lame meanings that should not inflame any sensibilities, but nevertheless cannot help but corroborate the above interpretation.

From Dictionary.com - Evil (adjective) 1. morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.  2. harmful; injurious: evil laws.

From the Random House Dictionary of the English Language – Evil (adj) 1. Morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked.  Evil deeds, and evil life.  2. Harmful; injurious.  Evil laws. … 4. Due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character.  An evil reputation.

From the Oxford English Dictionary – Evil (adj)  A. Antithesis of good in all its principal senses.  1. Morally depraved, bad, wicked, vicious.  2. Doing or tending to do harm, hurtful, mischievous, prejudicial.

All the definitions appeal to the violation of morals which are overwhelmingly determined by culture (e.g. cultural mores), and therefore relativistic, in the eye of the beholder, etc.

When we bring this understanding to today’s polarized America, we run head on into the political attribution of evil by our Left.  Democrats are now on a growing public record of defining Trump and all those who support him and his policies as being evil.  That is their core, and to date, only argument as to why the president should not only be denied a second term, but also be prosecuted for crimes claimed and yet to be claimed.  In sum, he is fundamentally evil, and a good person opposes evil with no further argument or evidence needed – the constant chorus of its attribution should be more than enough to indict, convict, and punish.

In the eyes of the Left, we who oppose BLM, Antifa, et al - the new radical organs of the Left and the Democrat Party - are of necessity painted with the same broad brush.  We too are of the deplorably irredeemable cohort of evil people in the land already blemished by indelible racism, prejudice, white privilege, and social injustice to the very marrow of our bones.

This sentiment is not reciprocated per se by the Republican Party.  The country’s political representatives of the Right today are a timid bunch, that has pretty much lost its way and will to fight in the ongoing chaos.  As an institution it doesn’t know whose ass to kick or kiss, a deficit not shared by its audacious and blustering fearless leader who can still be taunted off-message in a heartbeat by any unsubstantiated charge or even a randomly tossed ad hominem.

I, on the other hand, have no such inhibitions, as RR readers with functioning memories will attest.  (e.g. search ‘The Liberal Mind’ category with ‘evil’)  Along with a number of conservative commentators, I long ago concluded that the Democratic Party, as embodied by its leadership, is an evil and anti-American institution.  And I readily acknowledge that my perspective on evil is not some assessment from Mt Olympus, but one that also succumbs to all the culturally adorned attributes outlined above.  Of course, I don’t value all cultures equally, and consider my own to be the custodian of more goodness and light by far than most others on the planet.  I am among those who do not necessarily want to impose their own culture on others, but I will willingly fight to maintain the right to practice it with other like-minded people.

So from that standpoint, the question arises about America's socialist leadership.  Are these Democrats intrinsically evil in that they recognize the harm their public policies will do to America and its people, as they continue to pursue them for their own political and personal benefit?  Or are they true believers, and therefore as tragically ignorant as their grass roots constituents – all those who oppose meritocracy, free enterprise, open markets, minimally regulated capitalism, smaller government, ownership of private property, lower taxes, and abundant liberty to pursue happiness?

In the final analysis we can ask what difference does it make in how we respond to those who seek to diminish our freedoms, fortunes, and futures.  Whether they deprive us individually while they devastate the country with intentions good or ill, either will produce the same end state.  Socialism in America will not stop with the mild-mannered versions in the EU that have been anchored by capitalist America.  When America succumbs to socialism, with no other great nation to anchor us, our nation will inevitably slide into tyranny.  The governance promised by Democrats will be indifferent to their kind of evil - either will equally will herd us into a draconian land in which all will suffer.