No Way Out

For John, BLUF:  John, just like that Irish Funderal Director dismissed you as a Yank, the Woke are dismissing you as white.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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How bad minorities became ‘white’

Here is the sub-headline:

Black and Latino Trump voters have been accused of suffering from ‘multiracial whiteness’.

From Spiked, by Assistant Editor Fraser Myers, 20 January 2021.

Here is the lede plus two:

One of the more remarkable results of the 2020 election was that Donald Trump increased his support among non-white voters.  Even some of the hardcore Trumpists who stormed the Capitol – whose faces now adorn the FBI’s ‘wanted’ posters – were black and Latino.

Given that Trump is regularly derided as a racist – a white supremacist, even – this demands an explanation.  ‘What are we to make of unmistakably white mob violence that also includes non-white participants?’, asks Cristina Beltrán from New York University in the Washington Post.  She argues that we need to think in terms of ‘multiracial whiteness’.

Whiteness, Beltrán says, is the ‘politics of aggression, exclusion and domination’.  And multiracial whiteness ‘reflects an understanding of whiteness as a political colour and not simply a racial identity’.  It is a ‘discriminatory worldview in which feelings of freedom and belonging are produced through the persecution and dehumanisation of others’.

It seems we are setting the nation up for a contest between Caucasians and all others.  This is complicated by some of the "all others" identifying with the Anglo-Saxon political outlook of the Caucasians.  This is likely to not end well.

One of the things I am not seeing is the articulation of an end state, a final outcome.  It looks like conflict from now until the sun burns out, unless, of course, there is abject surrender of the Caucasians.  However, to whom do they surrender and are there terns being offerred.  For sure I don't see a Grant at Appomatix situation.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Bad Counting Diminishes Our Reputation as a Nation

For John, BLUF:  Yes, this is almost a week old, but it is still on topic, since several States still haven't achieved settled vote totals.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The U.S. Inability To Count Votes is a National Disgrace. And Dangerous.

Here is the sub-headline:

Nations far poorer and less technologically advanced have no problem holding quick, efficient elections.  Distrust in U.S. outcomes is dangerous but rational.

From Greenwald at Substack, by Reporter Glenn Greenwald, 4 November 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

The richest and most powerful country on earth — whether due to ineptitude, choice or some combination of both — has no ability to perform the simple task of counting votes in a minimally efficient or confidence-inspiring manner.  As a result, the credibility of the voting process is severely impaired, and any residual authority the U.S. claims to “spread” democracy to lucky recipients of its benevolence around the world is close to obliterated.

At 7:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, the day after the 2020 presidential elections, the results of the presidential race, as well as control of the Senate, are very much in doubt and in chaos.  Watched by rest of the world — deeply affected by who rules the still-imperialist superpower — the U.S. struggles and stumbles and staggers to engage in a simple task mastered by countless other less powerful and poorer countries: counting votes.  Some states are not expected to finished their vote-counting until the end of this week or beyond.

The same data and polling geniuses who pronounced that Hillary Clinton had a 90% probability or more of winning the 2016 election, and who spent the last three months proclaiming the 2020 election even more of a sure thing for the Democratic presidential candidate, are currently insisting that Biden, despite being behind in numerous key states, is still the favorite by virtue of uncounted ballots in Democrat-heavy counties in the outcome-determinative states.  [One went to sleep last night with the now-notorious New York Times needle of data guru Nate Cohn assuring the country that, with more than 80% of the vote counted in Georgia, Trump had more than an 80% chance to win that state, only to wake up a few hours later with the needle now predicting the opposite outcome; that all happened just a few hours after Cohn assured everyone how much “smarter” his little needle was this time around].

Further on Mr Greeewnwald wrote:

After the pervasive voting problems in the 2018 midterms, I wrote an article with my Brazilian colleague Victor Pougy describing the extraordinary speed and efficiency with which Brazil — a country not exactly renowned for its speed and efficiency — counts its votes.

Brazil is not a small country. It is the fifth most-populous nation on the planet.  Although its population is somewhat smaller than the U.S.’s (330 million to 210 million), its mandatory voting law, automatic registration, and 16-year-old voting age means the number of ballots to be counted is quite similar (105 million votes in Brazil’s 2018 presidential election compared to 130 million votes in the 2016 U.S. presidential election).  And on the same date of its national elections, it, too, holds gubernatorial and Congressional elections in its twenty-seven states.

And yet Brazil — a much poorer and less technologically advanced country than the U.S., with a much shorter history of democracy — holds seamless, quick vote counts about which very few people harbor doubts.  The elections are held on a Sunday, to ensure as many people as possible do not have work obligations to prevent voting, and polls close at 6:00 p.m.

For the 2018 presidential run-off election that led to Jair Bolsonaro’s victory, 90% of all votes were counted and the results released by 6:00 p.m. on the day of the election: the time the last state closed its polls.  The full vote tally was available within a couple of hours after that.  The same was true of the first-round voting held three weeks earlier — which also included races for governor, Senator and Congress in all the states:  full vote totals were released by computer shortly after the polls closed and few had any doubts about their accuracy and legitimacy.

That is an indictment for sure.  This election is an embarrassment to our nation.  Specific examples of vote counting, like Philadelphia, PA, is especially embarrassing.  Worse, it is a slap in the face from Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and his apparatchiks.

Then there was the tampering with the information available to the voters by social media.  This says that social media is part of a partisan press and does not deserve exemption from being sued.

We need to get back to honest elections.  Gsining office is not more important than personal integrity.  In addition, throwing the bums out does not justify cheating to achieve that goal.

And, no, I am not advocating a voting age of 16.  I would like to return to 21.  As for Sunday voting, that would be fine with me.  Mail-in voting is fine, but the envelope has to be returned by the day before the election.  No late ballots, no excuses.

Regards  —  Cliff

Stealing Elections

For John, BLUF:  I just received an EMail from Mr Jon Rainwater, Peace Action, asking for peaceful protests tomorrow in honor of the election outcome as reported.  Mr Rainwater is apparently unaware of the fact that a lot of his fellow Citizens think there has been fraud in the vote counting.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Don't Forget LBJ's Election Theft

Here is the sub-headline:

The mainstream pro-Biden media is poking fun at Donald Trump’s suggestion that there could be fraud involved in the post-election receipt of mail-in ballots.  Apparently they’re not familiar with the election-theft case of Lyndon Johnson, who would go on to become president of the United States.

From Zero Hedge, by Mr Jacob Hornberger, 5 November 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

The entire matter is detailed in Robert Caro’s second book in his biographical series on Johnson. The book is entitled Means of Ascent.

Johnson election theft took place in 1948, when he was running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate against Texas Governor Coke Stevenson, one of the most admired and respected governors in the history of the state.

There is little doubt that LBJ played hard ball.  Otherwise, we might not have had the Civil Rights legislation of the mid-1960s.  But, that does not justify the fact that he stole an election.

As to the 2020 Election, Mr Rainwater may well be correct, that the ballot counting was all on the up and up.  However, if it was not, and it was reasonable to expect Mr Rainwater to understand that, then it is reasonsble to dismiss Mr Rainwater as a partisan hack and a fraud.  Or, at least, suffering from a serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Stupid Ones, Per MIT

For John, BLUF:  Washington is such a cesspool.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Because it is important I am just quoting the whole thing from Law Professor and Blogger Ann Althouse:

MIT prof Jonathan Gruber is sorry he was transparent about the lack of transparency in getting Obamacare passed.

He wants us to know that he was speaking at an academic conference and "off the cuff," when he said:

This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes.  If [Congressional Budget Office] scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.  Okay, so it’s written to do that.  In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in -– you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money — it would not have passed… Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.  And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.  And it’s the second-best argument.  Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.

He wants his old lack of transparency back. He revealed what he liked so much about it.  Now, why can't he have it back?  Well, Professor Gruber, it just doesn't work that way.  Once you've let us see that you mean to deceive us, we won't get fooled again.  Oh... unless you're right, and we really are stupid.

Yes, apparently amongst the Professors at MIT the ends justify the means.  How disappointing.  Sort of like Professor Martin Heidegger.

Many Comments.  Here is one:

Mr MIT from Boston actually just admitted the Dem Congresspersons that voted for an unread bill were the stupid ones, and the Tea Party uprising that he distains as uneducated, racist, right wingers was 100% right when it understood the bill from the gitgo and rebelled.

Hat tip to Ann Althouse.

Regards  —  Cliff