I have been struck in my reading of the media, in conversations with people in the City and elsewhere, as to how the topic of COVID-19 has suddenly disappeared from regular conversation. It is true that the UK came out of lockdowns a bit earlier than some other countries. It is true that the embarrassments of the Boris Johnson Downing Street machine meant that Mr Johnson was afraid to reimpose any controls given that no-one would take him seriously. (One reason I am very sad about the passing of the late P J O’Rourke is the sport he would have had the expense of various governments over such hypocrisies). Even so, it is striking how fast Russia’s attack on Ukraine was able, in a flash, to take the bug away. Gone. Kaput. This is a virus that seems to know the news agenda. Amazing.
But we should not forget the past two years or more of lockdowns, of the pettiness, the bullying, the hysteria, the use of fear, the “what we can get away with”, the suspension of civil liberties, the North Korean-style worship of “Our NHS”, and indeed, we shouldn’t overlook the heroism of medical staff who dealt with the crisis particularly in the early months when the full nature of this bug was unknown. We should not forget China’s refusal to enable a clear analysis of what caused this shitshow, or its bullying of those who asked questions, of the biases of the World Health Organisation, the questionable actions and financial involvements of people such as Anthony Fauci in the US and the unease in asking if this bug came from a lab. We should not forget the shenanigans over PPE contracts in the UK, the frauds over loans to businesses, the cowardice and horribleness of the teaching unions and damage to education. We should not forget the stoicism of lorry drivers, supermarket workers, farmers, delivery drivers and logistics workers. We must not forget how parents could see what their children were learning online, and were shocked.
We must not forget these things.
We must not forget these things.
“We” will not.
Nor will “we” forgive
A line has been crossed & the covenant between the government & electorate completely smashed
It’s not a nice thing to wish for, but it would be very healthy for human civilisation if vaccine side effects properly start taking off in a way that makes it obvious that it’s the “vaccination” that is the cause. That will expand the ‘we’ from our relatively small group to a much greater proportion of the body politic.
I’m doubtful that will happen though. Although side effects are massively high relative to most vaccines, they aren’t yet at the stage where most people know somebody that’s had a bad and lasting effect. (I only know one – pericarditis. He’s out of hospital now.) And no doubt the authorities will do their best to blame future health issues on Covid.
There is a claim floating around out in the ether that, in the USA, in the second half of 2021, excess deaths among millennials increased 84%. This is not the first signal from life insurers, that there is something amiss. I hope this isn’t true; we’ll just have to wait and see if actuaries emerge to present any evidence. I don’t think it can be hidden from them.
The relationship between population and government is one thing, but I find it more worrisome how much more it affected the relationship between sides.
Covid-fighting split so many people in what looks to be an irreparable fashion – families, friends, workforces, classes, races – that I doubt our future ability to work together at all, and we do need some of that simply to administer things.
The scariest part is that, for much of the time, we on the side of the Great Barrington thinking were (are?) a distinct minority.
How do we move forward with such people – who make up the bulk of our population – who were so easily spoofed, and then, when they were no longer spoofed, kept up the pressure well into the realm of bad faith?
And why do we always have to be the ones to forget and forgive?
Scroom.
Sorry to be a nag about this, but here goes……
What about the harm to children? Will they get away with that? Maybe this is not an issue in the UK as it is in Canada and the US, where it was more extreme, pathological, almost. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed some statements claiming that masking young children is harmless, that children are resilient. Why all of a sudden, has this question emerged? It’s like they are trying to get out ahead of any back lash. These comments have been very dismissive. They assert that there are no studies, that show masking is harmful to children, but include no stats, no mention of variables like age, or the number of hours of exposure, etc…. Frankly I don’t see how such studies would be ethical, so I doubt that any such studies have been conducted.
This is not my field. I came to review the literature on Reading Science and reading disabilities because I have a dyslexic grandchild. I don’t want to over generalize to all children, but based on my reading, masking of young children is not compatible with the Reading Science. It seems obvious to me that masking would disrupt the acquisition of Phonemic awareness skills in vulnerable children, maybe all children. Phonemic awareness deficits are highly correlated with reading disabilities including dyslexia. These skills are foundational to speech and reading. Let’s just say I would not permit masking of Pre-K children in my family.
One thing i shall not forget is how (northern) Italy, Britain, and NY State did so much worse than many if not most other countries in the 1st wave, and nobody wondered why.
The US Constitution was intended to, among other things, protect minority populations against a tyranny of the majority. The majority in the US, the Courts, the Feds, State governments, elites of all stripes were fine to just toss that idea out wholesale: suspend Constitutional protections, allow State Governors to do anything they like. I will not forget that.
As “dmj” says, “A line has been crossed & the covenant between the government & electorate completely smashed”. Completely agree!
Although “we” will not forget, the “we” is a minority, maybe even, God help us, a small minority. So, yes, we will not forget but that will do no good unless we convince more of the majority that serious mistakes were made, life-saving information suppressed, crimes committed.
I’m afraid NOTHING will be learned except by our enemies who now know how to tailor the next bio-attack to take maximum advantage of our seriously stupid response. The Putins, Xis, and their ilk are a lot things, mostly pure evil, but they are not stupid.
By the way, is the Wuhan lab still conducting the research that almost certainly caused this? Are other labs around the world?
The post above is excellent about things we should not forget, but I’m sad to say that I am pretty sure we will forget them.
At the moment nearly all the news is about Ukraine. Sometime in the future nearly all the news, which we are supposed to take seriously, will be about something else. I don’t know what that’ll be; it could be about asteroid strikes, a bloom of plankton carrying a new pathogen, a problem arising from civil unrest in cities attributed to rising air pollution from fossil fuels etc.
None of these things need to be real.What they will all have in common is that they are supposed to be frightening and they will lead to loud and repeated calls for the government to take action, allegedly in order to protect the people.
Some people, I am not one of them, think the MSM doesn’t deliberately tell untruths, but it’s beyond doubt that they choose to keep some things out of the news.
I don’t think any of the things in the article above will be widely discussed.
And for the millions who don’t care about the news there will be one or more of a murder/kidnapping/passionate love affair as a story line in a popular soap opera.
A few decades ago a major topic of conversation was ‘Who shot JR?’. Sometghing like that could easily keep discussion and analysis of the official response to Covid out of the public consciousness.
Exasperated:
The CDC has recently lowered the standards for child speech development; one Karen Vaites has been twittering about it.
GregWA: By the way, is the Wuhan lab still conducting the research that almost certainly caused this? Are other labs around the world?
The answer to that is almost certainly “yes” with the caveat that the Wuhan facility has been moved to give the impression that it no longer operates.
Forget what things, Johnathon?
‘ Even so, it is striking how fast Russia’s attack on Ukraine was able, in a flash, to take the bug away.’
Striking? Only if you know no history. Failed tyrants, ‘leaders’, divert and distract their citizenry by manufacturing an external conflict.
In better times, the Russian invasion of Ukraine would have played out in the media for a few days, then become background noise, exchange of diplomatic notes, recalled ambassadors and some huffing and puffing at the UN, but it has been turned into a Cecil B DeMille epic by impotent Western leaders just as the truth dribbles out about their CoVid Calamity.
What is striking, is that anybody finds this striking and that so many are joining in the PutinManBad angst-fest rather than keeping focus on the wrongdoing of our own tyrants. The same OrangeManBad crew who lumbered us with Biden.
Neither should we forget all those people who claimed that all the restrictions on our freedoms were here to stay and wouldn’t abate after the pandemic did.
They’d stay unless there was push back, which there was, no thanks to submissive cucks like you. And in *many* places, they *are* still in effect (just try overseas travel), not that any of the restrictions made a blind bit of difference.
I have been beating that drum for a very long time, so my view is better late than never. Putin has always been a serious threat.
I am quite capable of keeping more than one idea in my head at a time & facing more than one enemy at a time.
In the USA, it was the hospitals, the corporate chains, that were the ENFORCERS for BIG PHARMA and BIG MEDICINE and BIG PUBLIC HEALTH. The government’s financial incentives put them under enormous pressure to comply with the government’s protocols, pressured by their investors, Wall Street, the major retirement funds. They were making money hand over fist from malpractice and tinkering with the data. They persecuted and harassed their medical personnel to comply, threatening their livelihoods and licenses, subjecting them to smear campaigns. In Maine, a judge ordered a prominent doctor to undergo a mental health exam. .
Understandably, some who looked the other way were true believers. But there had to be a subset of doctors who knew they were with holding life saving treatment, despite the suffering, and who actually did harm (Remdesivir, ventilators) to patients, at the behest of their employers.
There are heroes, who did their best to circumvent the threats, the pressure, and the obstacles to provide adequate treatment for their patients.
Consider too, how the authorities persevered when their restrictions were way past their “sell by” date.
“A line has been crossed & the covenant between the government & electorate completely smashed”
Which is why my care for whats happening in Ukraine is of minuscule proportions. ‘But we must help them!’ Who is this ‘we’ kemo sabe? Just 3 months ago you wanted me rounded up and placed in a camp for not wanting the covid vaccine, now its all ‘we must help’?
No chance. You declared me an outsider to society, and society can go whistle for my assistance in anything it wants to do from here on.
Hugh re: lowered CDC standards:
This is a comment from the Althouse blog on a masking thread.
https://llamblab.haskins.yale.edu/our-team/
This bit of research is compatible with other reading I have done.
My scriptural knowledge is a little rusty but aren’t the four horsemen supposed to work in tandem (although appearing at different times) expect more variants and future lethal vaccine to be developed (The First Horseman) while the second is currently the ‘flavour of the month’ with the wholly corrupt Mainstream media
Covid 19 was created and released (accidently or not) from the lab in Wuhan in the People’s Republic of China in 2019.
The research was supported by Peter Daszak of the “Eco Health Alliance” and “World Health Organisation” (WHO) who was, in turn, backed by the United States government bureaucracy (Tony Fauci and co) who support other such research establishments around the world.
The Communist Party dictatorship in China and their puppet the World Health Organisation (led by a Marxist Doctor of Philosophy – not of medicine) at first denied there was any threat to the world – as did Tony Fauci (who was denying that there was any threat to the United States as late as January 2020 – he was desperate to cover himself and his associates).
When it became obvious that large numbers of people were dying the “international community” stopped saying that Covid 19 was not a danger and started demanding demented “lockdowns” instead – such “lockdowns” having been “war gammed” in exercises in 2019 (BEFORE the pandemic).
The lockdowns did not “save lives”, as can be seen by comparing countries that did not “lockdown”, such as Japan or Sweden, with countries that did “lockdown” such as the United Kingdom and the United States. But the lockdowns were highly effective in destroying small business enterprises and concentrating the economy under vast Corporations such as Google and Amazon in “partnership” with governments and other “stakeholders” (see Agenda 2030). For example, in California (the most populated American State) some one third of the independent small business enterprises that shut down did not reopen – this appears to have been the goal of the “lockdown” exercise.
At the same time (March 2020 onwards) every Early Treatment option for Covid 19 was systematically SMEARED internationally – the objective seeming to be to justify lockdowns and also to get Emergency Authorisation for a mass injection program at a later date.
Vast numbers of people were allowed to die in various countries, such as the United States, who could have been saved by Early Treatment – see such works as “Overcoming The Covid Darkness” by Dr Brian Tyson and Dr George Fareed.
This was well known to the American establishment as it was brought to their attention by United States Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin – but they did not change policy, they responded by SMEARING Senator Johnson.
Countries that did not smear Early Treatment, such as the Dominican Republic, has a vastly lower Covid death rate.
There has also been, in various countries, a weird cloth mask policy – first really pushed in the Czech Republic (which has one of the highest Covid death rates on the planet), as if a cloth mask could stop a virus – rather than being like an effort to stop insects with a chain link fence. It is now clear that this international mask campaign is really about political theatre – rather than health.
As for the mass injection policy in the United States – the Pfizer, and other, injections do NOT (as the American establishment repeatedly claimed) prevent people getting Covid 19 or passing on Covid 19. Although the AZ injection campaign in the United Kingdom may indeed have reduced the Covid death toll among the old and fat with compromised lungs (such as me).
The American government also falsely claimed that the Pfizer, and other, injections carried no risks at all (was totally safe) – and tried to cover up health problems caused by the injections (including deaths) – in an incredibly dishonest government and corporate media campaign.
The big lesson of Covid 19 is two fold – do not trust what governments and “Woke” corporations (such as Google) say – and the distinction between governments and vast “Woke” corporations has been undermined by many years of “Cantillon Effect” monetary policies, that have led to vast “Woke” corporations being joined at the hip with governments in international governance “partnership” and “stakeholder” relationships.
For example, “Black Rock” now has TRILLIONS (yes TRILLIONS) of Dollars worth of investments under its control and has an intimate relationship with the Federal Reserve – and is happy to use “Davos” style ideas such as “public private partnerships” (for example seen in the recent “Infrastructure” Bill passed in the United States) to use Eminent Domain (what is called “compulsory purchase” in the United Kingdom) to take property away from individuals and families – “paying for” said property with increasingly devalued fiat “Dollars”.
It does not really make sense to treat such entities as Black Rock, or Google, or Amazon (and on and on) as independent private business enterprises – as they are in “partnership” with governments.
For example, as stated above, Black Rock has essentially unlimited “cheap money” from the Federal Reserve (and it already controls investments worth TRILLIONS of Dollars) – one can not really “compete” with Black Rock, and they are quite happy to use government “men with guns” (to use Paul Krugman’s words) to get individuals and families to hand over their homes and land to Black Rock and other vast “Woke” corporations (in return for increasingly devalued fiat “Dollars”).
“You will own nothing” is clearly the plan – “and you will be happy” really needs the words OR ELSE… added to it.
Covid 19, even if it was an accident, was ruthlessly used to push this agenda – the agenda of governments and vast “Woke” corporations controlling life in line with Agenda 2030 (including its pro censorship “cultural” aspect).
The virus (whether it was accidently released or not) was produced in the Chinese lab, the research that created it was backed by the United States government, Early Treatment was systematically smeared (thus meaning vast numbers of people died who could have been saved), and medically useless policies were pushed such as mask mandates and LOCKDOWNS – which did NOT “save lives” – but most certainly did benefit vast “Woke” corporations such as Google and Amazon who are “partners” and “stakeholders” in plans for international governance.
Still we must look to the future – the future of “Climate Lockdowns” (John Kerry and co are busy working on this), and a collapsing economy making people unable to pay Property Taxes (and other taxes).
If people can not pay Property Taxes (or inheritance taxes [or estate taxes] – inheritance tax not being a big problem for immortal corporations) they loose their land and homes – without much need for Eminent Domain.
“You will own nothing” means you, the ordinary people, will own nothing.
Two centuries ago the French socialist Saint-Simon pushed the idea of Big Business (led by Credit Bubble banks – rather than money lenders dealing in Real Savings) introducing Collectivism – in the name of “science”.
This would be the “science” of the Francis Bacon (New Atlantis 1610) sort – with people punished for stating scientific truth (such as that the Earth goes round the Sun – Sir Francis Bacon wanted to punish people for saying that), but with “science” being a sort of magic word justifying tyranny.
Early Treatment for Covid 19? How dare you mention that, you disgusting person.
Lockdowns to get rid of nasty little family owned private property? Excellent! That is just what we want for Agenda 2030 “Stakeholder Capitalism”.
Remember the Great Reset is a Paranoid Conspiracy Theory – unless it is the title of Dr Schwab’s latest book, in which case it is “policy” and must be followed whether you like it or not. “This was agreed more than 30 years ago – Agenda 21, now moving on to Agenda 2030”, but you said it was all legally NONbinding – “oh do not be silly – it was legally nonbinding, till we made it legally binding with national and local regulations on land use and other matters”.
And as we have now moved from an “Cantillon Effect” to, essentially, a “Cantillon Economy” (with Credit Money expansion concentrating economic power in the hands of governments and the vast “Woke” Corporations) we are well on the way to the dream of Saint-Simon and others.
I think it will be a nightmare rather than a utopia – but then I am a nasty old reactionary.
As for the “hysteria” and “panic” – that did not happen by chance. Many governments (including our own) have Behaviour Modification teams (“Nudge Units”) – they worked hard and well, in order to produce the hysteria and panic.
A false choice is offered – either direct force (“do what I say, or be punished”), or people being “Nudged” (conditioned – their thinking and behaviour “modified”).
Option number one – open tyranny. Option number two – disguised tyranny.
Remember every fashionable philosopher taught from the last few centuries (I mean – still taught in the universities now) denies the human person (the soul – in the Aristotelian sense) even exists.
They have no problem violating something (human personhood – the “I”, moral agency) which they do not even believe “really” exists.
John B writes: Striking? Only if you know no history. Failed tyrants, ‘leaders’, divert and distract their citizenry by manufacturing an external conflict.
I know plenty of history, enough to also be unimpressed by faux disdain for those angry at a sovereign nation state being invaded on bogus pretexts.
The conflict wasn’t “manufactured” by the West: are you really claiming that the West deliberately sought to plunge the World economy into danger for, er, well what, exactly? This is the sort of tinfoil hat mindset that alas, is as much a part of the Right as it is on the Corbynite Left (in fact, the two have more in common than either might want to admit.) There is little evidence that the West expected Putin would invade all of Ukraine until the last few weeks; the CIA and others have shown themselves to be incapable of doing a lot these days. Your faith in the skills of certain governments is touchingly naive.
In better times, the Russian invasion of Ukraine would have played out in the media for a few days, then become background noise, exchange of diplomatic notes, recalled ambassadors and some huffing and puffing at the UN, but it has been turned into a Cecil B DeMille epic by impotent Western leaders just as the truth dribbles out about their CoVid Calamity.
In “better times”. You mean, back before modern media coverage, when atrocities got committed and no-one apart from a few gave a shit? You prefer that do you? Several million refugees, the destruction of a country of 45 million – just a small issue, no more than a few paragraphs in the Daily Beast? Really?
As Perry has stated, it is entirely possible to accept that our own governments have acted poor and that the regime of a country like Russia has done so. The amazing power of that little word, “and”. Try using it more. It is liberating.
I cannot deal with this imbecility any longer. This is simply intellectual and moral degeneracy, masked in the supercilious tones of a sneering sixth former trying to sound cool.
We have seem to have got on to the Ukraine.
Would I have voted for President Z. in 2019? No I would not – as I thought his claim to be a “libertarian” to be false (and he soon dropped it – declaring himself to be a man of the “creative centre” like Mr Blair or Mr Trudeau – pass the sick bag Alice), but about 75% of Ukrainians did vote for him and (unlike the American 2020 Presidential Election) the Ukrainian election WAS NOT RIGGED.
And, contrary to the nonsense, there was a pro Russian Party in the Ukrainian Parliament – they are not pro Russian now, because Mr Putin has invaded the Ukraine.
Did various people in the Western establishment want Mr Putin to invade – so they could have a scapegoat for their own failed wild spending policies, and a bogeyman to justify yet more statism? Well perhaps so – but Mr Putin STILL INVADED.
Mr Putin made a decision to invade – and he invaded, and lots of Ukrainian people have been killed.
That some people in the West may (may) privately be delighted by what they publicly deplore really is neither-here-not-there.
Mr Putin invaded – he made the decision.
Mr Putin has been murdering people for years – including in the United Kingdom.
I am sick and tired of people pretending Mr Putin is a conservative.
“No abortion in Russia” – it has one of the highest abortion rates in the world.
“No Cancel Culture in Russia” – all dissenting media was closed down, and various dissenters have been murdered (that is “cancel culture” of a very final sort).
“No LOCKDOWN in Russia” – yes there was, and it was extreme.
“No injection program in Russia” – oh yes there is.
And on and on.
Many people, including friends of mine, are so desperate for an alternative to the dying West that they have created a Mr Putin in their minds who DOES NOT EXIST – who is nothing like the real Mr Putin.
Mr Putin is not an alternative to the dying West – please understand that.
People who clutch at Mr Putin are like a drowning man – clutching at a poisonous snake.
People who clutch at Mr Putin are like a drowning man – clutching at a poisonous snake.
SQOTD.
Back on topic: I think some policymakers are, indeed, “pleased”, for want of a better word, that the Ukraine war has started because it has removed awkward questions about the handling or mishandling of the Wuhan bug. They must hope that the longer the horrors in Ukraine go on, the more that memories of the virus and the lockdowns will fade. If blogs such as this have a function, it must be to ensure that as much as possible is done to stop that amnesia.
Anyone within range of a Russian ICBM.
Yes Bulldog Drummond – Mr Putin did threaten the West with nuclear war.
He did that because of the treaties we signed with the Ukraine when they gave up their own nuclear weapons. The United Kingdom, and other nations, gave their word that they would defend the independence of Ukraine.
We have now broken our word – Mr Putin has invaded Ukraine and we have not declared war. We have not declared war because of, quite understandable, fear of nuclear war.
A grim moment – but an understandable one.
And a reminder that we must never give up our own nuclear weapons in return for the promise of other countries that they will defend us.
Johnathan Pearce – it is not “just” Covid, millions of dead because of an artificially “enhanced” virus and the deliberate smearing of the Early Treatment that could have saved most of the people who died. Although if this not mass murder – it is certainly very close to it.
The international establishment need a scapegoat (as bogeyman) for the consequences of their present and future economic and social policies.
Mr Biden is senile – but the evil men behind him are not, they know perfectly well that their policies will cause terrible poverty (and much death), how to escape the blame for these consequences, and keep enough people voting Democrat? After all one can not do everything with ELECTION FRAUD – some people must actually vote Democrat.
Step forward the wicked fool (and he is both) V. Putin.
Now the international establishment have the perfect bogey man to blame all the consequences of their own policies on.
“You are on the street and starving – oh that vile Mr Putin! But we will HELP YOU with free food and a bed in a hostel – just vote for the left….” Mayor Curley of Boston was doing this sort of thing more than a century ago – the more poverty he caused (with his taxes and regulations) the MORE support he got, because he could pose as the “helper of the poor”. And the cause of the poverty? Oh that was the evil “British” (who had not ruled in Boston for more than a century).
In local government it is called the “Curley Effect” – create mass poverty, and INCREASE your political support by depicting yourself as the helper of the poor. This is about to be done all over the West – with “Putin” rather than “the British” presented as the cause of the poverty.
I repeat – Mr Putin is a wicked, blood drenched, fool, he has given the international establishment exactly what they wanted.
If anyone thinks I am exaggerating – then observe the mid term elections in the United States.
Everything will be blamed on “Putin” and “friends of Putin”. Not the Federal Reserve, not the Biden/Harris Administration, certainly not the Woke Corporations (with their endless “cheap money” subsidies from the Federal Reserve and the Credit Bubble banks – and their war against ordinary people, who are “racists” and-so-on).
The media is already starting this.
Which is why I keep warning people NOT to give the establishment any ammunition – say nothing that could be presented as “pro Putin”. He deserves to be condemned in the harshest terms – so condemn him in the harshest terms.
What appears in the news, is what it is convenient should appear in the news. 1984 explains this reasonably well.
My current favorite “memory hole” item, now that the Russkies have invaded Ukraine, causing Germany to reverse decades of energy policy in about twenty minutes, is this little gem :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfJv9QYrlwg
I feel sure that those Germans sniggering at the ignorance and naivete of the Orange Man are hoping that it does not become convenient for the news to show their sniggering.
Lee Moore – just today I met a young chap in charge of an art display at a local park.
Chancellor Merkel of Germany – brilliant. President Trump – Orange Man Bad. Lockdowns – saved lots of lives. Masks – great idea. Government spending – more, more, more, the Tory government (under which government spending has exploded) is very MEAN, and is killing people with its “cuts”.
And Amazon was quite right to bugger up the Wheel of Time (although he has not read Robert Jordan’s books) and will be quite right to bugger up the Second Age of Tolkien as well – anything else is anti women and anti black.
I thought the young man, although friendly and polite, was the perfect stereotype of the modern educated classes – but, no doubt, he thought I was a perfect stereotype as well. A fat, greedy, Tory Jew – no doubt an “ist” and a “phobe” of every type, who eats babies for breakfast every day.
He is mistaken – I only eat babies for breakfast six days a week, not seven. Everything else is correct.
It’s important to document as much as possible.
I am not exaggerating – Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if “Merkel was still Chancellor” – not if President Trump was still in office, if Chancellor Merkel was still in office.
That is what the young, and the not so young now, are educated to believe.
Yesterday I heard someone on GB News (GB News – supposedly the conservative television station) saying that President Trump was removed from Twitter and Facebook for “repeated disinformation”.
Would this “disinformation” be that there was always Early Treatment for Covid 19 (which there was – and which the bureaucracy deliberately smeared and obstructed), or would the “disinformation” be that the 2020 American election was rigged – which it was.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook knows the 2020 Presidential Election was rigged because he spent almost half a BILLION Dollars helping rig it.
That money was not spent on political advertising Johnathan Pearce – that money was NOT spent on trying to convince American citizens to vote for Mr Biden.
No Johnathan Pearce – that money (and money from other “Woke” Oligarchs – if we can call Russians “Oligarchs” then we must call the American rich-in-politics by the same word) was spent on the mechanics of vote counting and so on. And if anyone makes the excuse “he did it via charitable foundations” I will reach through the computer screen and strangle them.
What sort of BANANA REPUBLIC allows private Oligarchs, such as Mr Zuckerberg, to fund the voting and vote counting process in key areas of the country.
The 2020 United States Presidential Election was rigged.
There was NO rigging of the election- because the Senate result would also have been rigged! Both Trump and Biden were deplorable candidates, and I wish that there had been better candidates from both parties, or a lesser-government candidate from any of the libertarian alternatives. If you believe there was rigging, then present the proof, and take it to court, and see if a jury accepts your version of events. Until then, I’ll assume that Biden did win the election as fairly as any other President, and be grateful that my country (Australia) has a Westminster system of government.
Question- why did the politician cross the road?
Answer- because most politicians are chickens, and that’s what a chicken would have done!
With the money Z spent on buying the vote counting infrastructure in several states, he could have provided secure and valid voter ID for most everyone lacking it across the country.
Nicholas’ argument is worthless. There were 33 regular senatorial elections at the same time as the 2020 presidential one, plus two specials. Except in Maine, the winning party in every one of those elections was also the winning party in that state’s presidential election. This result is obviously consistent with honest elections in some states and corrupted elections in other states, and of course says (if possible) even less about elections in states with no senatorial election at all.
We’ve had four years of Trump and a year plus of Biden – time enough for even a severe TDS sufferer to review the equality implied in that statement.
I have said it before and I’ll say it again. Trump may be a loud mouthed egomaniac with the kind of taste you’d expect from a New York real estate tycoon and TV personality. He did several questionable things in office and trusted a number of dubious characters in his administration (e.g. Nikki Haley, John Bolton). That all said he also happens to be the greatest US president for decades (admittedly low bar) and one of the bravest of all time (trying to think if a president ever entered office with so much elite,bureaucratic,media and cultural power directed against him).
Biden is an infinitely more reprehensible character.
My hairdresser.
Sorry, Niall. Not convinced. America is a society that likes litigation- so if the results were so obvious, wouldn’t there be Republicans still taking matters to court? And I’ve always thought that Trump would never accept that he was beaten, whatever the result. Perhaps Presidents should only have one term in office, and then an immediate term in jail!
Nicholas Gray – the courts refused to even hear the cases.
For example, you do not seem to know that about half the Attorney Generals in the United States took the matter to court over, for example the mass mail-in ballots (which broke the Elections Laws of the very States that did them) yet the Supreme Court refused to even hear the case.
And it was NOT a case of sour grapes – because cases were brought BEFORE the election, and the Supreme Court refused to hear those cases either.
As for “jail” – how about one member of the “Cabal” (to use the word of Time Magazine – and they intended it as PRAISE), Mark Zuckerberg.
Mr Zuckerberg spent almost half a Billion Dollars on the election – not on advertising to try and convince Americans of the wisdom of voting for Mr Biden (an obviously senile man who spent most of the election campaign hiding from voters – an odd way to “campaign”) no, Mr Zuckerberg spent the money on something else.
He spent his half a Billion Dollars on the voting process and the counting of votes – in key areas.
Did you know that “Unlicensed Joker”? Would you like Mr Zuckerberg, and a few other people like him, to control the voting process and the counting of votes in AUSTRALIA?
With each day that passes it becomes harder (not less hard – harder) to accept what was done – the placing of Mr Biden as “leader of the free world” regardless of how people really voted.
Comments such as yours are incredibly provoking.
“Why did they not rig United States Senate elections as well?”
In Georgia – THEY DID.
The United States Senate changed hands – this was NOT the doing of the voters, and it came in spite of establishment Republicans (such as Mitch McConnell) being told that the operation was just directed at “getting Trump out” and that their power would not be touched.
The trouble with doing a deal with the Devil, throwing someone else under the bus, is that you then can not complain about other things that are done.
Paul is ‘provoked’ by Nicholas’ comments; I am amused – the more so as the ‘unlicensed joker’ appears to be serious, 🙂 while continuing to offer arguments that are blatantly worthless. It’s a case study in TDS.
I don’t recall anyone here ever offering Trump’s opinion as evidence in and of itself, ever writing, “It must have been stolen because Trump said so!” There has been some mockery lately of Biden’s growing habit of adding “on the word of a Biden” to his assertions – as if that were worth something, rather than a warning to be cautious, given Biden’s decades-long record of lying, plagiarism and corruption, often with a crass obviousness unusual even in politics. We have the word of a Biden that it was not stolen (except on the notorious occasion when he praised the Democrats for creating the “most extensive and inclusive vote-fraud organization in American history”) but I assume Nicholas can see that that is not in and of itself evidence that it was (except on the said notorious occasion, of course, where the hasty and self-contradictory MSM explanations are available to those who wish to accept them, but the question of ‘in senility veritas’ should for completeness be weighed).
As for Nicholas’ impression that electoral efforts have ceased, that merely tells me he has ceased to follow them (insofar as he ever did). Nothing can make anyone see who has decided in advance to keep his eyes shut (or to get his information only from sources that will do it for him) – but some humour can be extracted from the situation.
We have our own version of Zuckerberg, called Clive Palmer. He keeps spending billions, without gaining votes. As for not wanting to see what is there, the converse is true, persistently seeing what is not there because one believes it is.
UJoker:
Imagine a US system of voting where, for two months, people walk past a big barrel, day or night, and drop a colored rock into the barrel signifying their vote. No lists of voters, no one watching. You could do that as many times as you liked.
After the rocks are counted, how do you then “audit” the results? You can’t. Even if you catch Ukrainians and Syrians and Canadians who have walked past and dropped multiple rocks, how do you pull out just the rocks they dropped? You can’t. The rocks are just rocks – no names on them.
That’s essentially the system put in place in several US states, very shortly before the 2020 federal election, by Democrat election boards and state officials.
You can then try to take this problem to a federal court after the fact, but it’s none of their business, because we have no federal Constitutional Right To Vote (which would have made it the fed court’s business).
The States determine their own manner of voting for president. If a State legislature desired, it could cancel voting and have the governor decide which Presidential candidate got that State’s electoral votes. That’s why all of the fed courts said “go away” to people trying to contest the election through them.
Several of the State courts in those affected states have now said, yep, those new rules broke the rules, and they’re overturning those changes. But even they can’t (or, more likely, simply won’t) do something as drastic as overturn the state’s 2020 vote results. They’re going to fix the problem, but in the future.
We got scammed, but in a quite intelligent way. We should have been challenging those vote-procedure rules before voting, but they were instituted right before the election and we missed the huge effect they would have on the results.
For the next election, there will be hordes of lawyers (in State courts) watching for changes to election laws that once again allow non-valid-voters to throw as many rocks into the barrel as they want. But the Democrats succeeded in making the 2020 election unauditable, and then they stole it.
And so here we sit, knowing that we got many more rocks out of certain areas then we should have, but unable to complain about it legally. Our fault. We let them steal it.
Niall pedant Kilmartin notes that, while they did indeed succeed in making a vast amount of fraud unauditable, both last September’s Arizona audit and the recent Wisconsin audit found enough to reverse the result many times over, and the latter called explicitly for the decertifying of the state’s 2020 electoral college vote (the former, IIRC, was held under some kind of promise that it would report, but not speak of consequences). I am of the opinion that a similar audit is feasible in Georgia and Michigan, and I strongly suspect in Pennsylvania too.
Obviously, you know as well as I or better, bobby, that more courage in the relevant legislatures than we have yet seen, and then the will and skill to defeat the powerful opposed forces, would be needed for that to happen – after which making it take effect would be a whole further task.
Niall K, I believe that what has been found in the instances you cite is that the processes did not allow for sufficient security to call the results valid.
What they lack is a conclusion that says “these X votes for Biden were invalid and should not be counted, and thus the result is actually ____” What they can now say is that “X number of votes should not have been allowed”, which is not the same as saying “X number of votes, which were for Biden, should not have been allowed.”
bobby pedant-in-his-own-right b says that a true audit allows for correction, and not merely cancellation, because our system in all respects lacks the will or courage to take the huge step of simply voiding a Presidential election once results are announced unless we can show that the invalid votes went one specific way. And that’s what we cannot show, not in Wisconsin or Arizona or anywhere.
We’re like people who now realize we’ve been scammed, and can prove it, but the money transfer has already hit the Caymens and the scammers are gone. There’s no remedy left to us but to do better in the future.
Despite the bizarreness of the comparison, I make the wild guess that Nicholas is referring to the Australian businessman and United Party founder called Clive Palmer. Other Clive Palmers on the web seem even less likely.
The analogy between the two might strike the uninitiated as coming somewhat from a distance. What is not distant, by contrast, is the same worthlessness of the argument that was so evident in earlier comments. Clive Palmer is very rich (from businesses unconnected with social media) and spent a lot of money on advertisements in the 2019 Australian election but his self-founded party did very poorly against the standard ones so … it is at this point that the point becomes a tad obscure. 🙂
Firstly, the analogy would be somewhat less distant if he had been the Australian mainstream media darling in that election, but my very slight research does not strongly support this.
Secondly, if Clive Palmer instituted many changes to electoral processes in politically-friendly Australian locations just before the 2019 election, these changes being justified as making voting more accessible but having the effect of undermining laws against vote fraud, then the analogy would not be quite so distant. However as my (admittedly, very slight) study indicates he was the creator of his own party, I do not see where he would get the complicity from in-place office holders that would let him do that. Also, in 2019 there was no pandemic with which to justify aggressive, last-minute legislature-bypassing changes to voting procedures. I’m not clear where Clive would have found his panic emergency justification for rushed alterations to the system of voting even if he had local officials on-side.
Thirdly, I thought Australian voting methods were determined centrally, not locally, so it seems that local influence would have been of limited value unless Clive also had a good deal of influence in the Australian parliament in order to alter electoral processes openly, so as to use these changes to elect enough MPs that his party was largest and he became prime minister – bit of an “opening instructions inside” problem for him. It’s not clear to me why a parliament filled with the MPs of other parties would cooperate with him in that.
Lastly, the British-style electoral system under which he fought the election is unlike the US presidential one. In Britain, localised usurpations of the electoral process cannot have impact beyond their own seats. The ‘family monitored’ voting observed in London’s Tower Hamlets constituency may ensure the election of an MP acceptable to the dominant figure in each family there, but it cannot affect other seats. I was under the impression Australia is much the same. So if US 2020 methods had given Clive the ability to dump whatever extra votes he wished in a few areas, it would not have done that much for him.
The point bobby b (March 15, 2022 at 8:36 pm) is making (IIUC) is that protecting the secrecy of the ballot demands a post-hoc breaking of traceability between the evidence that a specific legitimate voter voted and the evidence of what the vote cast was. For example, IIRC, in 2008, Democrat Al Franken defeated his Republican rival for senator by some 300 votes in an election where 1000+ unlawful votes were cast by felons. As the vote ratio from that group was known, it was statistically clear that the fraud swung the election, and it was also clear that the facilitators were motivated by that conviction, but a judge refused to invalidate on the grounds that the specific votes could no longer be identified and motives were not dispositive so it could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt that a most unlikely group of felons had not voted against the expectations of those who arranged it, and so not altered the result. (I think the judge phrased it differently. 🙂 )
In 2020, the Democrats were obliged to use areas where they were very much in control, and at the end to use post-election heavily-skewed vote dumps with collateral comorbitities, so Niall statistician Kilmartin is of the opinion that provable inversion of the result is possible. However bobby b, lawyer, knows whereof he speaks in his comment. The Wisconsin audit reported that the result was unsafe and should be decertified. That is the kind of thing that is provable beyond reasonable doubt. Either you add the word ‘statistically’ to the phrase ‘provable beyond reasonable doubt’ or you have a hard row to hoe to not merely decertify but make a reverse of a result (instead of e.g. a fresh election) be provable beyond reasonable doubt.
Over and above the provable fraud, it is as obvious that the Dems did far far more as it is as that Putin commanded the murder of certain journalists – and, in the same technical legal sense, as unprovable.
You do. There is only the “technical legal sense” in a court (when a court operates correctly.) 😉
. . .
He did. I like your way better.
At the end of the day, the result is that the lawsuits and tests and audits that UJoker seeks are not even possible.
I take all your points, bobby b (March 16, 2022 at 12:12 am). Just for completeness, I vaguely recall reading that US courts have allowed statistical evidence (e.g. Benford’s Law) in fraud cases in the past. If you happen to know more or know better, by all means say. And if you have many more urgent matters to attend to, or indeed simply to comment on, I quite understand – thanks for the info to date.
This discussion has made me resume a long-neglected task to find out more about the UK situation. I know UK courts allow statistical argument in a sense. For example, what it means to get a one-in-a-million match of genetic material for a guy you arrested who owned the murdering knife, had motive and was seen in the area, is not the same as what it means to start at the toe of Cornwall and work up the UK testing everyone you meet until the first one who has a one-in-a-million match. Courts allow lawyers to explain the difference to juries. Any UK-law-informed commenter is most welcome to tell me more if they wish.
Well, that is a sad case, bobby b! I thought that chads and Gerry-manders were the only things wrong with the electoral system! So nobody can know if results are rigged or not? And America is supposed to be a shining light on a hill?
bobby b – the mass mail in ballots (with no real proof they came from voters) WAS challenged before the vote.
The Supreme Court (John Roberts and co) REFUSED TO HEAR THE CASE – that is when I knew “the fix was in”, the establishment (including the RINO part of it) had decided that “Trump must go” and they did not care what the voters thought.
Nor is there much need for statistical evidence – there were many sworn statements from witnesses, those sworn statements were also ignored.
Nicholas (Unlicensed Joker) Grey – “And America is supposed to be a shinning to be a shining light on a hill?”.
Due to the wonders of modern technology I watched Republican poll watchers being abused (and even laughed at – by “public servants”) in real time in November 2020. I could not help them – I was thousands of miles away, and I have no power.
It struck home for me because I have been involved in British elections since 1979 – even when I was suspended by the Conservative Party I had to be called in for the 2019 election count as I was the Election Agent (it was my name on all the legal documents – so I had to be at the count, even though I was not a member of the party).
So when those poor American people had the election stolen right in front of them it was PERSONAL for me.
Then, on January 6th 2021 (again by the wonders of modern technology) I got to watch Ashli Babbitt die.
Part of me died to.
“Forgiveness” – I can not forgive, because the crimes were not committed against me. So I am unable to forgive them.
I will never forgive the establishment for what they did – because I have no right to forgive them. Justice cries out for the punishment of the establishment.
I suppose I am very much a “Tolkien Dwarf” on such things.
The idea the Federal Courts can not oppose election corruption rather ignores the 14th Amendment.
State Legislatures often did NOT change election laws anyway – for example they did not in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which was rigged on an absurd scale.
As for Mr Clive Palmer.
Imagine Mr Palmer coming along and saying – “I will not spend any money on election advertisements and stuff like that – I will just spend money on the voting process, and the counting of votes, because I am a nice person”.
That, Nicholas Grey, is what Mark Z (and others) did – via the “charitable trusts” they created.
What would you do if someone tried that Australia?
The enormity of it – the sheer CHEEK of it.
Mr. Marks: The USSC will generally defer on election themes to the States, as it should. In the case where a 14th A challenge arises, the USSC CAN make a ruling in a clear case, if it has the political will to start taking sides. But equal protection is at best a weak argument where the Constitution hands election discretion to the States.
The Roberts Court has no such political will. It has fear, mostly – fear of packing, fear of being unpopular. If it can leave such an issue to the States, it will. This is not a brave Court.
“This is not a brave Court”
I should add to the above: And that’s generally a good thing. Brave courts find new rights and penumbras.
Because of the way that laws and regulations were changed immediately prior to the 2016 election, no one can know – with mathematical certainty – if the results of that election were rigged. We’re addressing that, and hopefully that one election will simply end up as a good lesson for us.
Stats evidence is certainly allowed in US courts (as of about 30 years ago.) Disparate impact discrimination is built almost entirely on stats. As you mention, DNA tracing is also stats-based.
But for a subject as central and as divisive as election law, statistical proof is a long way from acceptance. Your example of Franken’s election was apt – common sense (and stats) says that that final vote dump was clearly what brought him over the line. But it is such a loaded political question that I doubt we’ll see an election voided or overturned based upon it. Some things can be proven in court based entirely upon circumstantial evidence. Other, more serious, issues require direct evidence. Elections will always, I think, require a more concrete form of proof than stats. It’s more akin to the criminal law burden of proof – beyond a reasonable doubt – than it is to the civil law burden of proof – more likely than not.
I beg to disagree: the burden of proof MUST be on the people who count the votes. They must prove *beyond reasonable doubt* that fraud was not possible. If they can’t, then they should be shoved into gas chambers. (Can you tell that i am tired and irritable right now?)
Of course, there is a sense in which every court that ever advised a jury to convict or not ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ or ‘on balance of probability’ is using a statistical, probabilistic standard, and it would be in logic absurd to reject something whose degree of unreasonableness to doubt was robustly quantifiable. However as usual I do not doubt that bobby b’s delineation of legal thinking is accurate and is a burden, over and above the political one.
However FWIW (and alas our discussions have indicated the limits of what it is worth to date) it is (well known to be, by now 🙂 ) my opinion that one can know beyond reasonable statistical doubt as regards the stealing of the electoral college – and this knowledge is distinct from the way one knows from the peculiar overnight shenanigans in six key states in the same way one knows that Putin compassed certain murders in the UK. It would not be rational to base one’s politics on the assumption that Putin is innocent of those murders, and similarly it would not be rational to base one’s politics on the assumption that Zuckerberg, Biden and the rest of the ‘cabal’ that ‘fortified’ the election (their terms) were not using ‘fortify’ as a euphemism for ‘fraud’ – a sort of password by which to communicate that certain things are politically correct and are to be asserted in that light.
By way of comparison, it is easy to show that the stealing of the popular vote may have happened, but it is not possible to show whether it happened or whether it didn’t beyond reasonable statistical doubt (at least, I do not yet know otherwise and do not expect the ability to know to arrive anytime soon).
I apologise for my part in going off-topic in this thread and will try and be quieter now, at least till a more appropriate thread appears, either at my hands or someone else’s. (But if anyone else has further info on what we’ve discussed, don’t let me stop you.)
No disagreement. If I were king, it would be so. I’m just describing what is.
Imagine Scenario A: The Fed Court examines competent evidence that clearly shows that these specific four boxes of ballots were tampered with. Because a timely challenge was raised, those boxes remain segregated from the rest of the ballots, and those contained ballots, by rule, should be discarded. The count of ballots in those boxes is heavily in favor of Trump, and are sufficient to give him the win. The Court does what it is supposed to do and discards those boxes’ contents, and Clinton wins.
And Scenario B: Trump wins by count, but a lawsuit is filed alleging that, statistically, it is entirely improbable that he really did prevail in X County. No other evidence is shown that any votes were invalid or that anyone voted illegally. Without X County, he loses. The court agrees that it is unlikely that he really won in that county, and overturns the election.
I would be much more willing to accept such an overturned result if the legal case made for it depended on factual evidentiary findings (Scenario A) than if it were based on statistics (B). Scenario B is the stuff of civil wars – especially since the justification for a statistical treatment and ruling could be massaged to a partisan advantage much easier than could a fact-based decision.
Lower-stake controversies are well-suited for statistical treatment. Presidential elections – not so much.
(I’d apologize for length and OT too, but . . . nah. 😉 )