Howard Husock explains why he will be voting on Election Day. In a column at City Journal,Mr. Husock's column
starts off (h/t Stephen Green at Instapundit):
Voting Alone : Why I won’t be
casting my ballot early—and why you shouldn’t, either.
Even as the presidential campaign
continues, an estimated 6 million Americans in 27 states have already voted.
Early voting is now a fact of electoral life. I will not be joining in the
habit, however—and I urge you not to do so, either.
Voting early is akin to boxing
referees declaring one fighter the winner on points halfway through the
bout—not knowing that a knockout punch was on its way. It may be hard to
imagine what revelation about the candidates, at this point, would make much of
a difference. But history has demonstrated such possibilities.
Even before the Hunter Biden laptop made its way into the headlines.The rest of Mr. Husock’s column is here.
Mark Steyn weighed in on this insane election cycle, censorship in the media, the “useless political party,” and more. He begins:
If anybody is around to write
history in a generation or two, October 14th 2020 will go down as the first day
of a new Year Zero. Yesterday, with less than three weeks to go in a national
election in a settled democratic society with an ostensibly free press, the
woke billionaires of the social media cartel decided to freeze and/or cancel
the Twitter/Facebook accounts of the President's press secretary, the Trump
campaign, Republican Senate candidates and Republican House members.
So America is now formally a
one-party state, at least as far as fair access to media platforms is
concerned.
He ran an image of what looks to me like an old mimeograph machine.
Mark concludes:
What's next? And by
"next" I mean Wednesday November 4th. Look for more woke pressure on website
registrars and banks and credit card companies to cease doing business with
Breitbart and Daily Caller and, well, me:
A couple of years back I used a
phrase, not entirely in jest, on one of ourClubland Q&As with reference to the death of the
big, messy, sprawling, decentralized internet of the turn of the century that I
miss so much since it was replaced by a tyranny of ever more doctrinaire and
capricious thought commissars. And I said that one day we'll be disseminating
SteynOnline via the last rusting Xerox machine in the woods. Well, the day of
the last rusting photocopier in the woods is heading towards us very fast.
Eight years ago conservatives blew
$1 billion trying to drag Mitt Romney across the finish line so that he could
become president and spend the next four years screwing us over. Imagine what
that billion dollars could've done starting an alternative to PayPal or
Facebook...
If Lindsey Graham and Martha
McSally and the Republican Senate survive on November 3rd, so be it. But those
of us who've expended our energies dragging this useless political party across
the finish line every two years need to get serious about redeploying our fast
depleting resources into fighting on the turf that matters. We are well past
the eleventh hour.
Mark’s full column is here.And I wonder if any in Congress – or on the state and local levels -- are
able to move the GOP party back to core conservative values.President Trump is one man, and he’s been up
against both parties in the swamp that is DC.
There was a Trump auto rally today in Cleveland, not that you would have known about it if you were checking cleveland.com. An eyewitness reports that the parade stretched out over more than a mile on westbound I-90. Fox 8 posted a video. (The video will pop up if you don't have an ad blocker.)
Alan Bergstein column at American Thinker today is titled “It’s
Starting to Look Ugly for Democrats.”It’s
hard to know for sure.Most of the
alternative media sources that I go to are split between predicting a Trump landslide and
a Biden landslide.Jokers in the deck
include missing ballots, fake polls, outright voter fraud and ballot
harvesting, and ongoing attempts to undermine election deadlines, voter ID
requirements, and so on. Anyway, here is Mr. Bergstein’s conclusion:
The foundation of Biden's campaign
is cracking. Something drastic has to be done, now at the finish
line, to panic the voters, to short-circuit the voting process, to divert
voters' attention, to basically destroy the election and eventually declare the
outcome null and void. How to do this and what to expect in the days
ahead? Nothing's off the table for the radical left.
Look for those vandalous thugs in
the armies of the BLM and Antifa, who, in recent years, were in Spring
Training, to be called out in the next two weeks to strike fear into the hearts
of America. If polling places were to be vandalized and destroyed
prior to November 3, could there not be a demand by the Schumers and Pelosis to
call the election null and void due to "the denial of voting
opportunities"? If vehicles toting completed ballots were
hijacked, what then of a reliable count? Do you recall the two Black
Panthers in Philadelphia during the 2008 voting process who physically and
verbally intimidated voters in front of a polling station to vote in support of
Barack Obama? They were exonerated by Obama's wing man, Eric
Holder. It worked then for the Democrats, and look for more like
that to occur by November 3.
The Democrats cannot afford to lose
this election. If they do, they have no one else to blame but their
leaders. The effrontery to all of us to put an obviously ailing and
incoherent Joe Biden for the top spot and for the V.P., Kamala Harris, who
couldn't even carry her own state in the primaries, indicates their lack of
judgment. They are at wit's end and will risk the destruction of the
nation to regain power. They are capable of anything. And
that's scary. Watch out!
Rick Moran at PJ Media reported that “Dr. Fauci Tells
American To Bite The Bullet and Sacrifice Thanksgiving":
First, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield warned that sharing
Thanksgiving dinner indoors with a group of loved ones was very, very
dangerous. Now, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Mendacious Midget™,
is joining the chorus. In an interview with Norah O’Donnell on CBS News, the
media darling said the following about the holiday:
That is unfortunately a risk, when
you have people coming from out of town, gathering together in an indoor
setting. It is unfortunate, because that’s such a sacred part of American
tradition — the family gathering around Thanksgiving. But that is a risk.
Given the fluid and dynamic nature
of what’s going on right now in the spread and the uptick of infections, I
think people should be very careful and prudent about social gatherings,
particularly when members of the family might be at a risk because of their age
or their underlying condition… You may have to bite the bullet and sacrifice
that social gathering, unless you’re pretty certain that the people that you’re
dealing with are not infected.
JD Rucker at NOQ Report weighs in on the final run-up to the election.He
opens with a photo of the Biden-Harris campaign event in Arizona:
Nobody showed up. That’s not
hyperbole. There weren’t hundreds or dozens or even a few supporters there.
They had literally ZERO fans come out for their first official joint campaign
event.
Trump supporters have all the
enthusiasm, but Biden supporters have election fraud on their side. Over the past few weeks, I collected links to reports on voter
fraud, ballot irregularities, mis-directed ballot applications, etc. in
various states, including Ohio.As of
today, I have collected more than 30
reports. So now back to Mr. Rucker:
There has never been a more
important election in any of our lifetimes. Both sides feel this way and are
putting everything into helping their ticket win. Conservatives recognize the
dangers a Biden-Harris presidency represents, so we’re doing everything we can
to spread the truth. Leftists deny their own prosperity before the COVID-19
lockdowns and refuse to see the progress we’ve made in recent months. They’ve
allowed their Trump Derangement Syndrome to supersede logic while suppressing
their doubts in the efficacy of a Biden-Harris administration. But suppressing
doubts does not equate to enthusiasm. That’s why images and videos like these
exist, and why nobody in mainstream media is willing to talk about it.
Even knowing the truth, we cannot
assume that everyone else knows it. We have to continue to press the issue on
packing the courts, Russiagate, Hunter Biden’s crimes in Ukraine, Kamala
Harris’ radical progressivism, and Joe Biden’s fading mental acuity. Mainstream
media may be a joke to many of us, but their reach is still strong. Big Tech is
fighting the truth as well, which is why stories like these must be shared far
and wide.
It is incumbent on patriots to keep
fighting the good fight for President Trump on behalf of this nation.
Everything political is at stake right now. We cannot let the left and
mainstream media hide the truth.
We are witnessing jaw-dropping
censorship on Big Tech media of the Joe/Hunter Biden scandal.We are also witnessing the lockdowns on
Twitter or Facebook accounts including those of the White House Press Secretary
Kayleigh McEnany, Sebastian Gorka, and even the Trump campaign.Pass on these links wherever you can,
especially this one to Sundance at Conservative Treehouse.
Yesterday’s link was to Victor Davis Hanson’s “The Fragments of A Civilization” and a section subtitled “Sleepwalking to the Revolution.”Today, Ron Lipsman at American Thinker expands
on that theme and summarizes what conservative Americans are up against with
the Progressive left.In “The Revolution
the US Is Experiencing, and What If It Succeeds?,” he concludes:
Two final thoughts. First, even if
by some miracle, the Dems do not take control of the Presidency and both Houses
of Congress in January, it is just a matter of time until they do. The flood of
illegal immigration and the brainwashing – in school and by the media –
continue unabated. It is inevitable that conservative America will be reduced
to a voting minority. And then the revolution will be unstoppable.
On the other hand, perhaps I am
underestimating the strength, character and wisdom of the American people. I
recall vividly the fear I felt in 1967 and 1968 when American cities were
burning, a savage war tore at the very fabric of our society, riots determined
the selection of a president, and we seemed on the cusp of revolutionary
change. It didn’t happen. The good sense of the American people prevailed as we
restored order and proceeded to rely on our traditional beliefs and values to
right the ship. Perhaps we shall again.
Mr. Lipsman’s article is here.Some of the comments published with the
article are perceptive, if rather depressing.
Destruction, from The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole
(1836). Image via Wikipedia
The great Victor Davis Hanson published a piece at National Review Online, a site that I
don’t generally visit. However, his essay, “The Fragments of A Civilization,”
was linked on some of the aggregators, and it is worth a read.He takes on Hillary, the Russia hoax, the Mueller
investigation, the 2020 debates, Joe Biden’s virtual campaign, and more. His
essay closes with:
To paraphrase Sophocles, 2020 saw
many strange things and nothing stranger than peak Trump derangement syndrome,
COVID-19, a self-induced recession, our first national quarantine, and riots,
looting, and arson, all mostly unpunished and uncontrolled, in our major
cities.
So we are in revolutionary times,
even as we snooze about a recent systematic effort, hidden with great effort by
our own government, to destroy a prior presidential campaign and transition,
and now a presidency.
We are asked to vote for a candidate
who will not reveal his position on any major issue of our age, because he
feels to do so would enlighten the undeserving electorate and thereby cost him
the election. So we continue to sleepwalk toward a revolution whose architects
warped our institutions in 2016–2020, and they now plan to alter many of them
beyond recognition in 2021.
Translated, that means that they
don’t regret what they did in 2016–2019, only that they belatedly got caught
for a brief time.
And so by changing the rules after
2020, they are vowing never ever to get caught again.
More
than 500 years ago, Christopher Columbus’s intrepid voyage to the New
World ushered in a new era of exploration and discovery. His travels led
to European contact with the Americas and, a century later, the first
settlements on the shores of the modern day United States. Today, we
celebrate Columbus Day to commemorate the great Italian who opened a
new chapter in world history and to appreciate his enduring significance
to the Western Hemisphere.
When
Christopher Columbus and his crew sailed across the Atlantic Ocean on
the Niña, Pinta, and Santa MarÃa it marked the beginning of
a new era in human history. For Italian Americans, Christopher Columbus
represents one of the first of many immeasurable contributions of Italy to American
history. As a native of Genoa, Columbus inspired early immigrants to
carry forth their rich Italian heritage to the New World. Today, the
United States benefits from the warmth and generosity of nearly
17 million Italian Americans, whose love of family and country strengthen
the fabric of our Nation. For our beautiful Italian American
communities — and Americans of every background –Columbus remains a
legendary figure.
Sadly,
in recent years, radical activists have sought to undermine Christopher
Columbus’s legacy. These extremists seek to replace discussion of his
vast contributions with talk of failings, his discoveries with atrocities, and
his achievements with transgressions. Rather than learn from our history,
this radical ideology and its adherents seek to revise it, deprive it of any
splendor, and mark it as inherently sinister. They seek to squash any
dissent from their orthodoxy. We must not give in to these tactics or
consent to such a bleak view of our history. We must teach future
generations about our storied heritage, starting with the protection of
monuments to our intrepid heroes like Columbus. This June, I signed an
Executive Order to ensure that any person or group destroying or vandalizing a
Federal monument, memorial, or statue is prosecuted to the fullest extent of
the law.
I
have also taken steps to ensure that we preserve our Nation’s history and
promote patriotic education. In July, I signed another Executive
Order to build and rebuild monuments to iconic American figures in a National
Garden of American Heroes. In September, I announced the creation of the
1776 Commission, which will encourage our educators to teach our children about
the miracle of American history and honor our founding. In addition, last
month I signed an Executive Order to root out the teaching of racially divisive
concepts from the Federal workplace, many of which are grounded in the same
type of revisionist history that is trying to erase Christopher Columbus from
our national heritage. Together, we must safeguard our history and stop
this new wave of iconoclasm by standing against those who spread hate and
division.
On
this Columbus Day, we embrace the same optimism that led Christopher Columbus
to discover the New World. We inherit that optimism, along with the
legacy of American heroes who blazed the trails, settled a continent, tamed the
wilderness, and built the single-greatest nation the world has ever seen.
In
commemoration of Christopher Columbus’s historic voyage, the Congress, by joint
resolution of April 30, 1934, modified in 1968 (36 U.S.C. 107), has
requested the President proclaim the second Monday of October of each year as
“Columbus Day.”
NOW,
THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America,
by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws
of the United States, do hereby proclaim October 12, 2020, as
Columbus Day. I call upon the people of the United States to observe
this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities. I also direct that
the flag of the United States be displayed on all public buildings on the
appointed day in honor of our diverse history and all who have contributed
to shaping this Nation.
IN
WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this ninth day of October, in the
year of our Lord two thousand twenty, and of the Independence of the United
States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.
Over 18,000 (and growing) medical
public health scientists and medical practitioners have signed the Great Barrington Declaration, pleads
with the various governments around the world to end the lockdowns and open the
economy. As of right now, over 166,000 members of the general public have also
signed the petition.
Here are some key points:
Current lockdown policies are
producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. ...
Keeping these measures in place
until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the
underprivileged disproportionately harmed. ...
Fortunately, our understanding of
the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more
than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for
children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including
influenza. ...
Those who are not vulnerable should
immediately be allowed to resume life as normal ...
Schools and universities should be
open for in-person teaching.
Extracurricular activities, such as
sports, should be resumed.
Young low-risk adults should work
normally, rather than from home.
Restaurants and other businesses
should open.
Follow the science? Everyone knows
why the democrat states continue the lockdown, long past the curve being
flattened back in April, which was the original goal.
Number one. How incredible was Vice
President Pence last night? He was stand-up-and-cheer outstanding. It was just…
it was great.
And number two. I’m thrilled to
announce that our commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump, will be right
here tomorrow hosting the largest virtual rally in radio history. Be sure to
tune in. You don’t want to miss this. It will be special. And I am really
looking forward to it.
Now, later today, folks, we’re
gonna be posting more details on the Rush Limbaugh website and on the Rush
Limbaugh Facebook page. So keep a sharp eye out there. And you know what?
There’s gonna be a special in-box set up for you to send your questions for
President Trump. So be thinking of things you’d like to ask him today, and then
get ready for the largest virtual rally in radio history tomorrow.
Oh — and, folks, thank you again
for all of your continued prayers. I am so moved by your support. You know that
I know and believe that they work. And I cannot tell you how appreciative my
family and I are for all of you. Thank you, again, very much.
Greater Cleveland area listeners can tune in on Friday at noon to WTAM Radio 1100.
Justin Haskins is, I think, rightfully concerned about the
November elections – at all levels.His column at Townhall ("America Is Headed For A Voter-Fraud Nightmare in November") concludes:
Never before has America’s
political class so willingly and eagerly marched the country toward predictable
and preventable chaos. Mail-in balloting is, in fact, not a truly secure way of
holding an election. Even if large-scale fraud does not occur, the perception
will be that it did, and that should have been enough for politicians concerned
about voters’ faith in the election process to enact policies that would have
encouraged in-person balloting, a much safer route.
Unfortunately, that did not occur,
so unless it’s a total blowout on Election Day, it seems inevitable the country
is on the road to disaster. When we get there, Americans should know who to
blame.
That would be the political class – D’s for aggressively
pushing mail-in voting (and attempting to extend the deadline for counting ballots well past Election Day) and R’s for not aggressively pushing back.Our household will be voting in person on
Election Day. Mr. Haskins's column is here.
CDC recently updated estimated infection fatality rates for
COVID. Here are the updated survival rates by age group:
0-19: 99.997%
20-49: 99.98%
50-69: 99.5%
70+: 94.6%
Remember also that 94% of the fatalities had other
morbidities, such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, according to
the CDC.
If you are old like me, or our overweight President, you
face a greater risk, but, for most people the chances of dying from COVID-19
are minimal. Yet, we are destroying the lives of children by keeping schools
shut down for most of the year. We are destroying countless small businesses
for a virus that is less deadly than the flu. We have shut down live sports and
entertainment for no good reason.
We all know of people who have died with COVID-19. But we
know of far more people who have died from other causes, such as traffic
accidents, drowning, murder, cancer, heart disease and so on. The problem is we
not balancing out the risk factors.
For example, we lose 37,000 people a year in traffic
accidents. From 1899 to 2013, it is estimated 3.6 million people died in
traffic accidents. Unlike COVID-19, people will continue to die in traffic
accidents for the foreseeable future. If we cut the speed limit to 15 mph and
require vehicles to be limited to a top speed of 15 mph, we would just about
eliminate those deaths. But society won't do that. The convenience and time
savings from much higher speed limits outweigh the risk of dying in a traffic
accident.
The treatment the President received was little different
from that received by most hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The only difference
was that he was given an experimental therapeutic that is not yet approved for
general use. Our healthcare system has learned a lot since March and the death
rates are dropping as better therapies are used to treat patients.
It should be lots of fun
drunkblogging the three of them butting heads, and so I do hope you’ll tune in
for it on the PJM homepage at about 8:45 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday.
Overnight someone erected a massive Trump sign on the hills along the 405 Freeway in the Sepulveda Pas. According to local media “the sign supporting President Trump faced northbound lanes near Getty Center Drive. The white lettering appears to be around 10 feet tall and mimics the style of the landmark Hollywood sign.”
And this brings us to Democrat
projection. Since the impeachment hearings last January, Democrat lawmakers and
aligned media have been pushing the claim that Trump will refuse to accept the
election results if he loses. Just as Trump is repeatedly asked whether he
condemns white supremacists, he and his campaign advisors have been asked
repeatedly by reporters whether he intends to concede if the results of the
election are not in his favor. At Tuesday’s debate, Wallace continued the
practice. He asked the candidates to pledge to accept the election results.
Biden quickly agreed. Trump refused
to play the sucker’s game.
The President noted that the
Democrats still haven’t accepted the results of the 2016 elections and tried to
oust him from power through false allegations of collusion with Russia that
Clinton invented while working with Russia. He also pointed out the ease with
which mail-in votes can be, and allegedly already are being falsified by
Democrats.
It is impossible to know how the
election will pan out or when, if ever, the true results will be known. What is
clear however is that if you want to understand who the Democrats are and what
they are doing, all you need to do is look at what they are accusing Trump and
his colleagues of being and of doing.
October 31: Absentee / Mail-In Voting Ballot Deadlines
November 3: Election Day
For what it is worth, our household plans to vote in person on Election Day. If you are concerned about safety, make plans to go with family, neighbors, and friends.
Specifically, we spoke about the
rise of Mask
Empire.
I tried explaining that world
renowned scientists—as opposed to career bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci—have
demonstrated repeatedly that masks, particularly the kinds of cloth and
surgical masks that have become a daily feature of the general public, are
ineffective in preventing people from getting infected with COVID-19.
Masks can even be dangerous, both vis-Ã -vis COVID, as well as with
respect to the exacerbation of other health issues.
In fact, even some of these bureaucrats
have, at one time, conceded the truth of the science behind COVID and masks.
. . .
Anthony Fauci himself
remarked in March,
on the eve of the peak of The Virus:
“There’s
no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of
an outbreak wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it
might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection
people think that it is.”
. . .
Face masks can pose health risks.
. . .
The bottom line is this:
The science, as the left likes to
say, is settled. Masks, particularly of the kind that are in vogue among
the public, are theater. For the elites that mandate their use, they are
a means to augment their power and exert control over the masses.
Read all about it here.And right on cue over at cleveland.com, we have today’s headline:
Gov. Mike DeWine says Ohioans will wear masks for years, after new
study finds just 1.5% of state had coronavirus antibodies in July
Who Could Blame It: Biden 'Build Back Better' Sign Commits Suicide
During Rare Campaign Appearance
Almost buried amidst all the post-debate commentary was one
short video of Joe Biden making a speech earlier today in Cleveland.As if to serve as a metaphor, his “Build Back
Better” sign fell off the lectern. The big drop happens at :27 or so. (The
video is not coming up in any searches, so click here and scroll down.
Most of us will be watching this evening's debate on TV or on livestream . . . assuming the debate actually takes place. Good news, though. You don't have to watch it, since Mr. Vodkapundit will be live drunkblogging it. Here's his announcement from PJ Media:
Programming note: Come back to the PJ Media homepage tonight at about 8:45pm Eastern/5:45pm Pacific for the Official VodkaPundit Debate Drunkblog.
A group of voting-rights activists
has suffered a legal defeat in their attempt to challenge Ohio's system of
verifying signatures on absentee ballot applications.
A federal judge has ruled Ohio’s
system of verifying signatures on absentee ballot applications is not
burdensome enough to be struck down as illegal, rejecting arguments made by a
coalition of voting-rights groups that sued the state.
U.S. District Judge Michael Watson
wrote that while Ohio’s signature-matching requirements impose a
“moderate" burden on voters, they have other options to cast a ballot if
their vote is improperly rejected, including casting a provisional ballot on
Election Day. He agreed with Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose that the
state has a legitimate interest in promoting an orderly and secure election,
justifying that burden.
. . .
Watson’s ruling is technically just
an early loss for the voting-rights groups, which could continue to seek a trial
or appeal to a higher court. But it makes it significantly less likely their
case will succeed, especially given that the election is only 37 days away.
