Authentication?

I saw a note that Senator Charles Grassley, 87, has tested positive for CCP virus. He is in quarantine. God speed his recovery.

He missed his first Senate vote in 27 years. After 8,927 consecutive votes.

It isn’t clear, but I think Judy Shelton’s nomination to the Fed was put on hold because Grassley’s vote would not be available. He must be on the Senate floor to cast a vote.

You have to wonder why it is, when all manner of people whose identity isn’t checked at all get ballots in the mail because of a pandemic, that Senators can’t vote over a secure face-to-face video connection. If you think about it, Grassley is pretty easy to recognize, and the NSA could agree not to hack the transmission. Grassley could even have some staffer hold up a copy of the Washington Post in the background to provide a time stamp and proof of life.

It would be different if a filibuster still required someone to stand and speak continuously, and if a filibuster was even in the offing. Neither is the case. So, as long as he is as mentally capable as Joe Biden, Grassley should be able to vote on Senate matters remotely. Some few of which are still important to the country.

What if a dozen Senators, or more, are capable of voting but denied the opportunity? Lacking a provision to continue the Senate’s business during a pandemic is a national security threat. Then again, so is the willy nilly mailing of ballots.

Mindate

Until Friday the word “mandate” meant a clear and convincing, if not resounding, message from an electorate. It meant full-throated approval of a candidate’s policies by a significant majority. Biden claims his “mandate” includes “action on COVID, the economy, climate change, and systemic racism.

With Joe Biden’s assertion that he has a mandate – though not a single state has yet certified a result and margins in key states are fractions of a percent; though his party experienced dismal results in the House contests; though control of the Senate won’t be decided until Georgia’s runoff election in December; though not a single state legislature changed hands – we are being treated to yet another Orwellian attempt to shift the meaning of a word 180 degrees.

Despite a years long investigation intended to prove Donald Trump is a Russian agent, despite an impeachment predicated on Trump asking a foreign government to investigate corruption involving prominent American politicians, for which compelling evidence was suppressed by the same media which waged unrelenting war on the President for four years, despite the Democrats’ refusal to ever accept the results of the 2016 election, despite corporate censorship by Big Tech, despite a politicized pandemic and associated massive unregulated vote by mail: Donald Trump received the second highest total popular vote in history, and increased the proportion of minority voters for the GOP.

Biden calls this narrow result a mandate. Despite, in addition to all the above, the highest number of suspect ballots in history, and secretive, irregular vote counting in solid blue Democrat cities with a long history of electoral fraud. Tammany Hall springs to mind.

Can it be proven that the fraud this year was sufficient to swing the election? Probably not.

Still, mailed ballots were discarded, and there are several witnesses claiming ballots which would have been ineligible were backdated. GOP poll watchers were prevented from observing ballot counting, even so far as blocking windows so the process couldn’t be observed at all.

We have the Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar’s tweet, “Using the title ‘President’ before the word ‘Trump’ really demeans the office of the presidency…” And the fact that “Election officials in Pennsylvania allegedly told Democrat operatives the names and contact information of voters whose ballots were rejected before the end of Election Day, which Republicans say violates state election laws.” They did that so Democrat ballots with errors could be ‘fixed.’

Then there’s the Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s thumb on the scale advice, “Need help with your mail in ballot, finding out where to vote, or something else?” Shapiro wrote on social media. “Call the @PADems Voter Assistance Hotline.” He also said, “If all the votes are added up in PA, @realDonaldTrump is going to lose..

He would have been well advised, as the chief law enforcement officer, to have inserted the word “legal” before the word “vote,” because the non-obvious part of that statement is the definition of “a vote.”

If there is a mandate from this election, it is to raise the integrity of our voting process at least to the level of Iraq in 2005.

As I say, the evidence is probably not sufficient across half a dozen or more states to prevent a Biden Presidency, but the damage done to confidence in the integrity of our political system is immense – and it’s Democrats who did it. They abandoned the appearance of propriety. And after their relentless, hysterical, false vilification of President Trump, who believes they wouldn’t cheat?

For the far left of that Party, chaos was the objective. Destroying the foundations of the Republic is the announced goal.

If Joe Biden does not forcefully make correcting this mess his number one priority, we will have a full answer about how he will govern.

Update: I forgot to add that this is why Trump’s suit(s) should go forward, to drag this walled section of the swamp into the sunlight. Yes, these will suits be further disruptive, but absent a correction we will be absent a Republic.

Dispatches from the NRA’s Kremlin office

NPR is all over it.

Caught in the intersectionality of Sen. Ron Wyden’s (D-Ore.) grandstanding, pervasive Russian collusion hysteria, and teenager induced attacks on civil rights, the National Rifle Association has revealed that it received contributions from individuals with some unspecified ties to Russia.

Might be US citizens living there. Might be Russian nationals living here. Might be Vladimir Putin himself. Who knows? We need to know the extent of this conspiracy.

OK: A total of 23 individuals have been identified.

They contributed a little over $2,500 to the NRA.

Since 2015.

Most of it was membership dues.

The usual suspects, like Everytown for Gun Safety and Media Matters, are outraged. But, for their main money-persons $2,500 wouldn’t even make a car payment – assuming Bloomberg and Soros, for example – didn’t just pay cash for Maseratis, Rolls, or Ferraris. Or armored Escalades.

Simultaneously, the Russians appear to have funneled several orders of magnitude more money into Green activist groups opposed to fracking and the building of pipelines.

But, don’t take my word for it. Here’s Hillary on June 18, 2014:

Clinton Talked About “Phony Environmental Groups” Funded By The Russians To Stand Against Pipelines And Fracking. “We were up against Russia pushing oligarchs and others to buy media. We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians to stand against any effort, oh that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem for you, and a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from Russia.” [Remarks at tinePublic, 6/18/14]”

There is other evidence of Russian interest in disrupting energy supplies, which should come as no surprise from a kleptocracy heavily dependent on oil and gas revenue. See here, here and here for Russian efforts to protect Gazprom revenues.

And, of course, the Russians also used Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to spread energy-guilt propaganda. It was a bigger effort than their campaign to disrupt our elections, which we know was a few million dollars. Scroll down here to see some of the Russian social media ads attacking pipelines and fracking.

The Left hasn’t complained about those ads because they like them. Even if they were interested in the Russian attempt to stifle US energy independence, they’d have a hard time finding it at NPR, where a search for ‘russia frack’ turns up 3 hits, none related to Russian interference.

Which of these stories seems more important for people to know about? I’m looking at you, NPR.

Good choice, Mitt!

You’ll find some of the few dollars the president has allowed me to keep in your campaign contribution fund today.

By choosing Paul Ryan you have demonstrated that you care about ideas. Or, can at least be influenced to appear to care about ideas. We will see which it is, and it matters very much.

You have called this a pivotal election. Indeed, it is. Picking Representative Ryan indicates you appreciate what “pivotal” means.

You have drawn a clear, bright line on the federal budget and entitlement reform. Resist any impulse to blur it. Your choice remains inspiring only so long as there is no prevarication and no obfuscation about the choice we face in November. There must be no quarter given the statists now scurrying for cover. To do so now will destroy your campaign. That’s the beauty of your choice.

It’s going to get even uglier than it has been, and we expect you to stay the course you have set. We know who built that.

This election is pivotal because ideas matter. That is the whole of it. People who care about the Founding Principles of the United States are awakening to an innate, fundamental and visceral commitment to those principles. They may not be able to articulate this, or relate it to their daily lives, but Paul Ryan can show them why it matters.

The general population’s ignorance of basic economics makes a campaign of ideas seem risky, but in our guts “we” know Obama is wrong. If “we” don’t know that, the Liberty experiment is over. Paul Ryan can show us why.

Thanks, Mitt, you’ve given us the battle we want to fight.

Life. Liberty. Pursuit of happiness.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Is the United States better off than it was 48 years ago?

Re-Declaration of Independence Day
– Tuesday, November 6, 2012 –

Memo to the San Francisco Chronicle

The other day you told us: Nancy Pelosi is perfect fit for San Francisco

The editorial went on to say she was also the best choice for the country. Apparently, all the stupid people do not see it that way. They do agree that Pelosi embodies San Francisco values, it’s why just 8% of independent voters view her favorably. My question is, “By what tortured definition of “independent” are these people describing themselves?”

Republicans Poised to Win Mid-Term Elections: Survey

Likely voters view Ms. Pelosi unfavorably by a two-to-one margin. Among independents, just 8 percent view the Speaker positively, compared to 61 percent who view her negatively.

Requiem for the Pelosi Democrats

“It’s been an authoritarian, closed leadership.”

Ms Pelosi will not be Speaker of the House in the next Congress. She has never been the speaker for Americans.