It seems there’s nothing in the last 5 years that is overly shocking any longer; our threshold for the “gasp” is much higher than it used to be. As usual, this last week has been no exception.
First – the Trump lawsuits are, IMO, most likely going nowhere of any major consequence, at least in changing outcomes. But what are they basing their lawsuits on? It seems their arguments are against the software used for vote tabulation, and the ability for that technology to be tampered with. Perhaps that’s an overreach on conspiracy theory in many people’s minds, yet isn’t it strange that Dominion Voting Systems, the biggest of the 3 platforms, was the subject of a harsh investigation by… wait for it … Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Ron Wyden in late 2019. All senators, all Democrats. They, along with NBC News, noted that it had well-documented lack of security and a great deal of Chinese components suspected for breach risks. Then it was disclosed that Dominion has worked closely with Smartmatic (another election company), whose CEO (Malloch-Brown) is a good buddy of Soros (Trump ultra-hater), and even called Soros his “landlord” for his 5 bedroom home in Westchester County, NY. And, of course, Soros is a major ($20M) contributor to the Tides Canada Foundation (BLM Support Fund creator and ACORN funder), which is located just down the hall from Dominion in the Toronto office. Suite 360 – Tides; Suite 370 and 200 – Dominion. All coincidence, I know.
No need to leave Joe out of the fun – in just the last few post-election days we learned that his cancer foundation (Biden Cancer Initiative) that he and his wife established in 2017 was staffed with several Obama Administration cancer task force and cancer initiative staffers, took in $4.8M in contributions, spent $3.0M in salaries for these staffers and others (charity president was paid $429K in 2018 alone, while others were well into the $250K+ range), spent over $140K on travel, and over $800K on conferences. NOT ONE PENNY went to grants or research. The charity said their goal wasn’t to give out grants but to instead find ways to accelerate treatment for all. It’s done apparently none of that, either. And with Joe in campaign mode, the charity is all-but-shutdown, although it’s still a legal entity. Thank goodness they also got Jimmy Gomez (a Black Eyed Peas member and cancer survivor) to also be on their board. And we’re just hearing about these disclosures now? Is anyone surprised?
And why is it that this weekend, as a pro-Trump and peaceful rally was going on in D.C., that a competing BLM/Antifa counter-protest was also happening in D.C. which turned violent? Who reported the commercial-grade fireworks shot into a covered restaurant, with fleeing patrons, including a couple attacked by following protestors? And right across the street from that, a 60-year-old man getting on his scooter was struck from behind and then stabbed. Who reported that? 5 guesses on who didn’t report it. And the video shows at least 10 media cameras staged there filming the whole event… yet it wasn’t aired on mainstream.
And through all of this, Pfizer announced a 90% effective vaccine outcome and is moving to EUA approval, with an estimated 20M+ doses ready in December and each month following, with distribution set up already… And today Moderna announced a 94.5% effective vaccine, even more shelf-stable, also ready for final EUA approval, and distribution also already set-up with 20M+ more doses being added to the mix. All thanks to that evil “Operation Warp Speed” that Gov. Cuomo (D-NY) has all but said he doesn’t trust any of this if it came from a Trump initiative. He wants the distribution to wait until Biden is in. Seriously? The entire review panel are recognized experts, and the vaccines are getting sign-off and acceptance across the board.
My opinion on all of this is pretty straight-forward: Rioters should be dealt with harshly, swiftly, and aggressively. Period. If someone’s feelings get hurt and it’s seen as not politically sensitive enough because we didn’t “talk to them first” to bring the situation … that they caused … under full and lawful control, too bad. Go to Starbucks and get over it. That should have been a consideration when they first took to the streets and started beating people, looting businesses, and destroying property. As I’ve said in the past, the further we get away from lawful conduct, the more painful it will be to return to it. Here we are.
On the vaccine – sorry, but Trump did break through a mountain of red tape to get this done in, yes, record time. His handling or mis-handling of masks, shutdowns, etc. – many people have many opinions on this (including Cuomo, who said months ago that it was a great Federal response – but now it’s suddenly a disaster that Trump caused), and I won’t weigh in on that except to recommend that people look at the complete set of events, including travel restrictions (widely panned by the president-elect and other leaders) mobilizing military hospital assets and DPA-driven ventilator production, etc., before arm-chair quarterbacking an opinion based on media and campaign rhetoric. On the vaccine completion and proactive production and extensive distribution – he facilitated and/or created the environment for good things to happen, and it did. He gets that win.
And then we had the nerve to add yet another hour to 2020 a couple weeks ago when we changed our clocks…
