The Fat Lady Has Sung, the 2020 Election Is Over

 

The Fix Was In

The Supreme Court of the United States has decided not to take up the lawsuit Texas initiated against the “battleground” states despite its clear constitutional issues. For anyone who doesn’t know, the US Constitution requires that the selection of the Electors that will vote next Monday be managed by the various state legislatures. IOW, it’s solely up to them to define the election rules in their states. There is no mention of that process being changed by the governors, secretary of states, or even the state’s courts to do such things as redefine the requirements that the ballots must meet, such as postmarks or signatures. On the basis of the facts, Texas had a case and the court should have ruled in its favor.

But the facts didn’t matter.

So, What Did Matter?

Let’s face it… there are those in the leadership of the Republican party who fear ever upsetting the applecart and allowing the voters see how much fraud there has been in the process ever since Nixon had the 1960 election stolen by thousands of dead voters in Illinois. For them it’s far more important to maintain the illusion that the election process is valid and cannot be stolen. Since it’s Donald Trump who is the victim here, it’s fine to have a “senior statesman” like Joe Biden take the White House. They know him well and can work with him. BTW, the other victim here is the truth.

Anything Else?

Then there’s the matter of the fear factors. The power players in both the Republican and Democratic parties fear several things:

• They fear the extreme leftists who have shown they can and will loot, riot, and burn down businesses if they don’t get their way.

• They fear that Trump might prevail in exposing the behind-the-scenes dealing that places family members of elected officials into lucrative positions so foreign funds and lobbying dollars can be funneled into their pockets. Joe Biden isn’t the only person to become a multi-millionaire on a senator’s salary and own multiple mansions.

• They fear that their own parties may yet turn on them. In this age of the “cancel culture” no one is truly safe. Things that were said or written decades ago can be found and presented out of context to prove that they weren’t always enlightened and totally correct in their beliefs. And with today’s technology, “deep fakes” are an ever present danger. 

What Don’t They Fear? 

They certainly don’t fear us common folks. 

We poor, trusting members of the hoi polloi are supposed to believe everything reported by the mainstream media, buy the advertised products, enjoy the sports spectacles, and leave governing to the experts who know better than we how to live our lives.

During Trump’s presidency the Republicans have repeatedly shown that they aren’t willing to keep their campaign promises. They honestly seem to prefer to be kept out of power and to blame the Democrats for their failures. Having control of the presidency as well as both houses of Congress meant they had to tread carefully and find ways to blame the Democrats for filibustering or otherwise preventing them from fulfilling those inconvenient promises that they never believed in themselves. 

IOW, most elected Republicans seem to be far more liberal than the voters back home. They regard themselves as being better educated and understanding better how to run the country. When Barrack Obama said of us working-class folks, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations" he revealed what many in the leadership of both parties believed.

Donald Trump has been the first president since Ronald Reagan to keep his promises. I hope he’ll find ways to continue making a difference and serve to inspire other honest people to reclaim our government from the self-appointed elites who gave us the debacle of the 2020 election.

What If the Curve Cannot Be Flattened

What if everything we've been trying in order to "flatten the curve," to contain or defeat COVID-19 has been pointless and ineffective because the virus behaves in ways that other viruses have not? As an example, contact tracing works wonderfully well with viruses that are passed through intimate, sexual contact with other people. But what if COVID-19 cannot be traced that way?

What I'm asking is how do you track and control a virus that doesn't cause symptoms for several days after contracting it... and what if 86% of those who do get it never have any symptoms? How do you corral that? And the only contact needed between a host and a new victim can occur at a distance of a few feet... or even by touching something a host has sneezed or coughed on hours, or even days, earlier?

If you're wondering about the 86% figure, that's been known since April and was published in the peer-reviewed professional journal, Science, in May 2020. It's the reason we cannot contain the virus; no one believes they're sick (no symptoms at all!) and so unknowingly pass it on. We can scan everyone entering a building with a fever scanner and make them wear masks, but it's too little too late. This virus isn't going away unless, as we have with influenza, convince enough people to take the vaccine when it becomes available that it fades into the background. Indeed, we may end up needing new vaccines for new strains of it just as we do with influenza each year.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/13/science.abb3221

The good news is that at least 2 unusually effective vaccines are on the horizon. On this Thanksgiving weekend, I hereby thank those that have worked so diligently on the vaccine and those who cut through the red tape to make it possible.