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| Times Square, 1940 |
I don't know what Times Square will look like tonight, when the ball drops and 2021 arrives. The New Year arrives no matter whether people gather this evening or not.
I don't have great faith that the coming year will be better than year we've just experienced, but I am ready to face it. And I hope the coming year is better for you.
There's no doubt in my mind -- the Democrats cheated like hell in the election. There's also no doubt in my mind that Joe Biden is utterly unfit to be Leader of the Free World.
Still, the case before the Supreme Court brought by Texas almost certainly has to fail. If it succeeds, states can sue other states for things that happen within their borders. And federalism, attenuated as it is, would be dead.
We're in a bad place. Civil war is a distinct possibility now. Frankly, I'm afraid.
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Too many voters
Watch the turnout figures ‒ they can be a big giveaway.
You never get a 98% or 99% turnout in an honest election. You just don't.
Voting is compulsory in Gabon, but it is not enforced; even in Australia where it is enforced, where you can vote by post or online and can be fined for not voting, turnout only reaches 90-95%.
The main reason that a full turnout is practically impossible is that electoral registers, even if they are recently compiled, can rarely be 100% up-to-date.
Even if no-one gets sick or has to travel, people still die. And when a register is updated, new voters are keen to add themselves to the list.
No-one, however, has any great enthusiasm for removing the names of those who have died, and over time the number of these non-existent voters increases.
I once reported on an election in the Niger Delta where some areas had a turnout of more than 120%.
"They're very healthy people round here, and very civic-minded," a local official assured me.
But a turnout of more than 100%, in an area or an individual polling station, is a major red flag and a reason to cancel the result and re-run the election.
And there's this:
A high turnout in specific areas
Even where the turnout is within the bounds of possibility, if the figure is wildly different from the turnout elsewhere, it serves as a warning.
Why would one particular area, or one individual polling station, have a 90% turnout, while most other areas register less than 70%?
Something strange is almost certainly going on, especially if the high turnout is an area which favours one particular candidate or party over another.
Looking at you, Milwaukee. More, a lot more, at the link. Read it now while you can.
Ann Althouse asks a great question:
They want a gracious concession — after the counting and litigation — but they never mention how ungracious the Democrats were when Trump won in 2016. Did they ever concede that Trump won and stand back and acknowledge that he legitimately held the power of the presidency?
We all know the answer to that question. A few observations and a suggested to-do list:
It's clear how all this is going to end. As always, William Butler Yeats has the right description of the next Leader of the Free World:
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick
It's always been a con, a bait and switch. Joe Biden will get his name in the history books and his elevation should ensure his son won't end up in prison. That's good. But the goal has always been to get rid of the Bad Orange Man By Any Means Necessary.
Mission accomplished, I guess.
It's not going to go down smoothly, though. Even if you think Donald Trump has only built a cult of personality (and with a lousy personality to boot), it's a fundamental misreading of the man and his movement. He had four years to fight the Swamp, but the Swamp won. His acolytes will find another champion. I don't know who it will be yet, but I have a few guesses. And they will be back.
Some people are wondering why the professional Republicans aren't standing up for Trump. It's no surprise -- once you get to Washington, you get rich. Everyone in town is in on the graft in one way or another. Trump's greatest sin was not his bluster or his behavior in office. His greatest sin was that he told the truth about Washington. And for that, and his limited efforts to bring about reform, he needed to be destroyed.
Back to Yeats -- the poem I quoted is "Sailing to Byzantium." It opens with this famous line:
That is no country for old men.
Soon enough, that will become evident.
Writing at, of all places, Newsweek, Thomas Krannawitter gets to the nut of this election:
Arguably, the most important reason to reelect Donald Trump in 2020 is to remind Americans how elections should be decided. Right now, there are two large groups who think they—not us—should decide elections in America: violent, rioting, vandalizing mobs of progressives, and millions of unelected bureaucrats who now form what early progressives called the "permanent government."
Both need to learn a lesson. For the violent mobs: Elections should be decided by ballots, not threatening fellow citizens with bullets. We will not stand for it and you only strengthen our resolve.
Threats of violence if Trump wins are sufficient reason to vote for him.
To boot, unelected progressive bureaucrats—public employees, servants of the people—had the audacity to use the power of our government in an attempt to overturn our election results in 2016 simply because one of their own did not win.
Enough.
More, much more actually at the link. Read the whole thing.
Why do I believe Trump is going to win? Because enough people recognize the last four years have been less about Trump's policies than about the reaction to him.
I cannot recall a day in which some news outlet, somewhere, has excoriated the Bad Orange Man. I cannot recall a day when Chuck Schumer, or Nancy Pelosi, or some other grandee, has avoided a lectern. The signal to noise ratio is off the charts. We had this:
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| Ripping good |
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| Chickenshit Congressman eats chicken |
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| Not how you laid it out, Congressman |
Trump is a bullshit artist. The Democrats are liars. If the American people let the Democrats get by with their behavior without some form of reckoning, it's going to get really ugly.
A few disjointed thoughts. I have more, but we'll start here.
I haven’t voted for a Democrat for president in my lifetime. I have voted for Libertarians a few times and in 2016 I cast a write-in vote for my wife. Most of the times I’ve voted for a Republican, it’s been with limited enthusiasm.
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| Chin music |
I was Never Trump in 2016 because I thought he was a charlatan. When Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, who I knew was a charlatan, I was mostly amused. Still, at the point the election was decided, it was time to give Trump a chance, so I put the Never Trump stance away. In the four years since last Election Day, I have observed Trump’s presidency and have been amazed. He may sound like a carnival barker, but he’s actually kept his promises. And despite every obstacle and attack he’s faced, I strongly believe he will be re-elected on Tuesday. And yes, I plan to vote for Donald Trump. Donald Trump has all manner of uncorrected personality traits, but he’s far superior to his opponent.
The modern Democratic party is a hot mess, a septic tank gumbo of careerism, cronyism, corruption, and collusion. Its luminaries are uniformly appalling. Its standard-bearer is clearly demented – put him in a bathrobe and he’d be a modern-day version of Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, except without the artifice. Joe Biden was a plagiarizing buffoon in 1988 and he’s been on the slide ever since then, but the party apparat felt he was a better candidate than any of the others who were running against him. It's a stunning indictment of the Democratic Party.
Last time I picked Clinton to win. In 2012 I picked Romney to win. So this is probably Trump's kiss of death, but here goes:
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| Sweep the north |
A few particulars:
Another view, from our old pal Chuckwagon Boy:
Yet another view, this time from our man Picklesworth:
Most readers of this feature have long suspected Jeffrey Toobin of being a bit of a wanker. Apparently he took it to heart, so to speak:
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| Has a lot of pull |
A top US legal analyst has been suspended by New Yorker magazine after he exposed himself on a Zoom call.
Jeffrey Toobin, 60, also a prominent CNN commentator, has been in demand as the US election campaign intensifies.
The incident, first reported by Vice News, happened during an election simulation involving the New Yorker and WNYC radio last week.
Mr Toobin, in a statement to Vice, said: "I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera."
Not just exposing himself, though:
The New Yorker has suspended reporter Jeffrey Toobin for masturbating on a Zoom video chat between members of the New Yorker and WNYC radio last week. Toobin says he did not realize his video was on.
So what kinda Zoom call was this? Back to the second link:
Two people who were on the call told VICE separately that the call was an election simulation featuring many of the New Yorker's biggest stars: Jane Mayer was playing establishment Republicans; Evan Osnos was Joe Biden, Jelani Cobb was establishment Democrats, Masha Gessen played Donald Trump, Andrew Marantz was the far right, Sue Halpern was left wing democrats, Dexter Filkins was the military, and Jeffrey Toobin playing the courts. There were also a handful of other producers on the call from the New Yorker and WNYC.
I will say this: having the notorious lefty Jane Mayer pretending to be "establishment Republicans" isn't nearly as a big a stretch as one might think.
Okay, let's think about this. You had a bunch of big-shot writers LARPing on a Zoom call. The players (so to speak) are indulging in a strange fantasy ritual. And in the midst of this Toobin changed his surname into an Urban Dictionary verb. Just a reminder: these are our betters.
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| Too little, too late |
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| Feel the Bern? I don't feel much of anything |
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar ended her campaign for president Monday afternoon and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden, as the party’s moderate wing has started to unite in a bid to stop Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders from building an insurmountable lead in the race for the Democratic nomination.
Klobuchar made the announcement official at a Biden rally in Dallas, where former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg also made a separate endorsement of the former vice president at a restaurant before the event. Former presidential contender Beto O’Rourke also was expected to announce his backing of Biden.
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| Don't fall in love, fall in line |
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| It's who they are, it's what they do |
Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds military force and one of the most powerful figures in the Islamic Republic, was killed Thursday night in an airstrike in Baghdad, the U.S. Defense Department has confirmed. The strike drew a vow of "crushing revenge" from Iran and condemnation from Iraq's government.About the only way Trump could have been more direct would have been to take out the ol' Ayatollah himself. Maybe that's next. Stay tuned.
In a statement, the Pentagon said President Trump ordered the "decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel," accusing Soleimani of "actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region."
The Defense Department blamed Soleimani for the deaths of hundreds of Americans during the United States' protracted engagement in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. It said he was behind recent attacks on coalition bases in Iraq, including one on December 27 that killed an American defense contractor.
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| I should probably write something down |
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| Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends |
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| Shut up, low readership blogger |
