Things Will Play Out One Way or Another

I have questions. Plenty of them. I like to be able to predict the future, at least the immediate future, so I can make plans and be prepared.

But I do not know what will be the outcome of events on Wednesday, January 6^th.

Here’s what we can be fairly sure will happen. The House and Senate convene at 1:00 PM (EST). Vice-President Mike Pence presides at the counting of the electoral votes.

 

The VP-Dependent Scenarios

One unlikely scenario is that VP Pence looks at the dueling electors sent in from seven states, chooses which ones he prefers to count, and dismisses the others. It does appear that he is granted power to do that (Article 2, Section 1, US Constitution). And there is precedent. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both did it, both to their own advantage. If VP Pence chooses the Republican electors, rather than the Democrat electors who were certified based on fraudulent vote counting, then President Trump wins.

VP Mike Pence and President Donald Trump on election night 2020
screenshot image found here

Another unlikely scenario is that VP Pence looks at the Democrat electors sent in from the swing states where voter fraud is known to be rampant and refuses to count those votes, because they should not have been certified. The Republican electors from those states likely represent the actual will of the voters, but their votes were not certified. (Note: when Jefferson counted Georgia’s sketchy, uncertified votes, he chose to count them anyway, which he had authority to do.) Those states, then, have no electors in the count. If this happens for all of those states, no one gets 270 electors a majority of electoral votes.

I’ve heard two versions of what then happens. One is that, when no one reaches 270, then the House votes, one vote per state based on state delegation (majority of House members from that state). If this happens, President Trump wins, because Republicans hold a majority of House delegations.

The other version is that, once you take out the electors from those states, a majority is based on the remaining states. No House vote is needed. And Trump leads and wins.

These VP-dependent scenarios all seem unlikely, however, because VP Pence has not been doing any PR preparation, to show that he is considering such a move, and giving reasoning, such as the clear and overwhelming evidence of voter fraud in the contested states with dueling electors. To take upon himself the authority to declare the winner without laying the groundwork would look to half the country like he’s usurping authority, regardless of what is granted in the Constitution and the law.

 

The Congress-Dependent Scenarios

A likely scenario for Wednesday is that the electors from the contested states will be protested. In order for this to happen, one House member and one Senator must protest, in writing. This triggers a two-hour deliberation in the separate chambers, where the protesting representatives will be allowed to show their reasoning.

This is likely to happen, because we have, at last count, 100 Congressman, starting with Mo Brooks of Alabama, and 12 Senators, starting with Josh Hawley of Missouri, who have declared that they will protest the counting of electoral votes.

Protests have happened more frequently than we are usually aware. You don’t remember any? In a statement on Saturday (containing more that we’ll cover below), Senator Ted Cruz recalled some history:

At that quadrennial joint session, there is long precedent of Democratic Members of Congress raising objections to presidential election results, as they did in 1969, 2001, 2005, and 2017. And, in both 1969 and 2005, a Democratic Senator joined with a Democratic House Member in forcing votes in both houses on whether to accept the presidential electors being challenged.

The most direct precedent on this question arose in 1877, following serious allegations of fraud and illegal conduct in the Hayes-Tilden presidential race. Specifically, the elections in three states—Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina—were alleged to have been conducted illegally.

So, the protests have happened before. And protests that affect the outcome are not unprecedented.

Protests on Wednesday are highly likely to happen. The numbers involved—the number of states being contested, the number of House and Senate members protesting—are unprecedented. There is more reason to suppose these protests have merit than there has ever been. And the President has asked for Americans to show up en masse at the capitol to “encourage” the legislature to hear them loud and clear.

Then what? Two hours (possibly more) of deliberation in the separate chambers. It is unclear to me whether there are two hours granted for each protest—which could be a protest against a state’s slate of electors or a protest against each particular elector, or two hours to encompass all protests against any and all disputed electors. If there are multiple protests of two hours each, likely the process will not end on Wednesday.

We know how any presentation by protestors should go. Reasons for the protests should be presented to the body. Then there would be discussion and a vote to accept or reject the protestations. I have heard that the President’s team has a strong and succinct summary of the evidence of voter fraud in each state. If nothing else, this would be a great opportunity for the evidence to be presented to the American people, unfiltered by the media. For many people, this would be the first time such evidence would be brought before them. It could be so compelling that no one in their right mind would say, “That’s not real evidence, and it doesn’t matter.”

But in the House Nancy Pelosi still controls the rules. And, even though it is unpolitic, unethical, and obviously wrong before the American people, she may obstruct the presentation. Meanwhile, in the Senate, where Republicans theoretically have a majority, Mitch McConnell runs the meeting. A week ago, he was “discouraging” (threatening?) any senators from joining in the protests; without a single senator to join the protest of the House, it would amount to nothing and there would be no two-hour deliberation. But he has lost control of that possibility, now that multiple senators are joining. 

Again, if the senators are shown clear evidence of fraud in each of the contested states, showing that Trump was the clear winner and not Biden—and the American public has also seen that evidence—you might have a chance of persuading most of the Republican senators to do the right thing. Maybe even a few Democrats, if we dream wildly. But, then, we have senators like Mitt Romney (a huge disappointment) and Ben Sasse (formerly highly respected constitutional conservative) insisting that this is all Trump showboating because the outcome has already been announced and the courts already ruled. Except that this process is part of the announcement, and not a single court has viewed the evidence, let alone ruled on it. They are simply wrong, or disingenuous.

So we cannot trust the House or the Senate to overrule the claimed Biden victory, and both must agree with the protest for it to take effect.

If we had elected people who are serious about their oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States, we could guarantee another four years for President Trump, who I believe clearly won the actual popular vote and Electoral College vote by large margins.

 

The Election Commission Scenario

Senator Ted Cruz, R-TX
photo by Andrew Harnik/AP, found here

Senator Ted Cruz offers an additional alternative, based on what happened in 1887:

In 1877, Congress did not ignore those allegations, nor did the media simply dismiss those raising them as radicals trying to undermine democracy. Instead, Congress appointed an Electoral Commission-consisting of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices-to consider and resolve the disputed returns.

We should follow that precedent. To wit, Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission's findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.

Accordingly, we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given' and ‘lawfully certified' (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed.

The other 11 protesting Senators agree to this proposal. This is an interesting suggestion, politically. It gives the legislators something to vote for that tells their constituents, “I’m taking the allegations of fraud seriously,” without requiring the steel backbone required for actually overturning the media-declared Biden victory. It’s easier to obtain this vote for a commission.

The commission would presumably be appointed and begin its ten days on January 7^th, and finish by January 17^th, three days ahead of the inauguration. If the commission were to find enough evidence of fraud—and there is such evidence, already shown to state legislators in the contested states—then that announcement would allow the contested states to decertify their original electors and certify a new set of electors (actually, to certify the alternate Republican electors already sent).

Here’s the problem I have: who sits on this commission? How is that decided? And how can we possibly trust them? I can think of five senators I would trust; they are all Republican. I cannot think of a Democrat I would trust, and yet I recognize there would need to be someone. Presumably there would be three of one party and two of the other in each third of the commission. So, I’m guessing 3 GOP and 2 DEM senators, because Republicans hold the majority in the Senate. But, even so, do I get my choice? I want Ted Cruz to be one, but I would very much oppose my other senator, Cornyn, from being one of them. I haven’t heard much from Sen. Mike Lee since election day, but maybe I would trust him. Maybe Senator Lankford of Oklahoma. Maybe Sen. Josh Hawley, who was the first to stand up to protest.

The House would probably get 3 DEM and 2 GOP representatives, because the House has a Democrat majority. I would not trust any DEM. I might trust Rep. Mo Brooks, who was the first to stand up against the fraud. And then find the most honest and best at data science among the other 140 who protested.

Then there are the Supreme Court Justices—who refused the Texas case on standing, which is the same as saying, “We don’t want to hear the evidence because it’s a political hot potato, and we’re cowards.” I think we can trust Justices Thomas and Alito, who both saw the need to hear the case. I don’t know that I can come up with five I can trust. Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor are out of the question. So is Roberts. The five must then include Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, all Trump appointees but none of whom saw fit to hear the Texas case, or any other election fraud related case so far.

In other words, I don’t have faith in this commission. If it worked, it could be the singular best way to restore faith in the election process and outcome. But if it’s just a matter of partisans playing more politics while ignoring the evidence, then what recourse do the American people have left to them with only three days remaining until the inauguration of a dastardly corrupt and demented man whom the actual voters rejected in the election? I don’t see how such a person can rule over a free people who know the truth about him and his ilk—except by totalitarian force, which I imagine is the plan. And I just can't accept that as a possible outcome.

 

Other Notable Election News

Georgia Runoff

So, I don’t know what is going to happen on Wednesday. I also don’t know what is happening Tuesday in the Georgia senatorial runoff races. I don’t understand why we are assuming, first, that the November election was fair enough to actually require a runoff. If there were that many fraudulent ballots in Georgia related to the presidential race, why are we assuming the other races were left untouched? And if the same equipment is being used, why are we assuming we can trust the outcome of this runoff election?

Oddly, Facebook took down fundraising accounts for both GOP senator candidates, just the week before the election. An error in the algorithm, they said, as they restored the accounts with a mea culpa but no compensation for the lost critical fundraising time. Notably, I heard nothing about the Facebook algorithm affecting the Democratic candidates’ pages.

 

Georgia Hearing

Jovan Pulitzer at the Georgia hearing, announcing that the ongoing
election had equipment online and was easily hacked in real time.

Last week, during a legislative hearing in Georgia on election fraud, there were some fireworks. One testifier was a mathematician and data scientist named Jovan  Hutton Pulitzer. The main part of his testimony was about forensic examination of ballots. He believes that, given access to the actual paper ballots, or to a high-resolution image of the ballot, he can identify where that ballot traveled, how it was folded and unfolded, how it was fed into a counting machine—and how many times—and other data that would be pertinent. I’d heard him say this before.

But then he came back a little later in the hearing, just given a minute or two, to let the committee know that, that very hour, his team had found their way into the voting system, then ongoing for the early voting of the Senate runoffs, is how I understood it—and found those machines connected online, which is illegal for them to be at any time. There was two-way data exchange. And given that access, it was possible for a person to affect the outcome by changing votes.

This is huge. The committee sort of looked stunned, nodded, and said thank you and moved on. But that news has been reverberating. Whoever said those machines were never online lied. This is live evidence. He testified that his team has that access documented.

The rest of that hearing shows numerous other ways election fraud was committed, and how various forensic techniques have identified it. Pretty fascinating. I’m not sure what that committee plans to act on, but it was a good revelation of fraud, with some approaches we hadn’t seen before.

 

Georgia SOS Phonecall

President Trump on phonecall
AP photo found here

In other news, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the one who promised an actual audit but didn’t mean it, recorded a private phonecall with President Trump and others—and leaked it. In the phonecall, the President was pointing out that there is only a small margin of votes separating the winners, and there’s plenty of evidence to cover that distance. The leaked part is being spun as President Trump ordering the SOS to go out and scrounge up enough votes, inventing them out of whole cloth. And that’s the story the press is running with. I think we can be pretty sure that story is another lie from a liar, and that President Trump was saying—we don’t even have to prove all these many evidences of voter fraud; we only need this number. And we’ve got that and far more. 

 

Lawmakers Hear Evidence

Over the weekend, around 300 lawmakers from the six contested swing states were briefed on election fraud evidence by Peter Navarro, Rudy Giuliani, and John Eastman, and others. And the President also spoke to them. The website of Got Freedom? has catalogued the evidence as a resource to these lawmakers. Phill Kline, head of the Thomas More Foundation’s Amistad Project, hosted the call. He stated:

The integrity of our elections is far too important to treat cavalierly, and elected officials deserve to have all relevant information at their disposal as they consider whether to accept the reported results of the 2020 elections, especially in states where the process was influenced by private interests.

This could be helpful if Senator Cruz’s plan to have an electoral commission plays out. The state legislators will be aware of the evidence and will be prepared to act to replace electors at the appropriate time.

 

Odd Chatter

I’ve also been receiving plenty of chatter that, in this weird year, may be in the realm of possibility, but I find it confusing. Attorney Lin Wood put out a storm of tweets,  asserting things from Justice Roberts being involved in pedophile slavery to Jeffrey Epstein being alive and ready to spill the beans on a whole host of corrupt elites. I have a difficult time determining outright lies. Wood seems to me to be honest and God-fearing, so breaking one of the Ten Commandments with a blatant lie seems less likely than that he is deceived. Lawyer Robert Barnes thinks he’s been deceived. Could those things be true? I suppose. But just as likely is that those are disinformation.

The hope that there has been some big plan all along, just being allowed to play out seems less certain to me than praying for our political representatives to grow spines of steel and act according to the rule of law. But who knows? I keep reading and viewing those things. When/if I feel peace about them, I’ll let you know.

 

In the meantime, my continued prayer is that every single instance of voter fraud is uncovered (this seems to be happening), and that we will be able to root out the corruption from our government. I don’t know for certain that this prayer will be answered the way I envision and want. I do know that God is in control; He has a plan that I am only beginning to attempt to understand. And as long as I keep my connection to Him, life will go as it should.

 

 Sources Used Above, Plus a Few

·         “‘Massive Amounts of Evidence Will Be Presented’ on Jan. 6: Trump” by Jack Phillips for The Epoch Times, Jan. 1, 2021. https://www.theepochtimes.com/massive-amounts-of-evidence-will-be-presented-on-jan-6-trump_3640546.html

·         “Lankford: Proposed Electoral Commission Would Review 2020 Voting” by Zachary Stieber for The Epoch Times, Jan. 3, 2021. 

·         “Joint Statement from Senators Cruz, Johnson, Lankford, Daines, Kennedy, Blackburn, Braun, Senators-Elect Lummis, Marshall, Hagerty, Tuberville” on Sen. Ted Cruz’s website, Jan. 2, 2021. 

·         “LIVE: Giuliani Testifies—Georgia Senate Subcommittee Continues Hearing on Election Issues” The Epoch Times, Dec. 30, 2020. 

·         “6-Person Team Briefs Hundreds of State Lawmakers on Election Irregularities” by Zachary Stieber for The Epoch Times, Jan. 3, 2021. 

·         Got Freedom? evidence collection website 

·         “Trump Ga. Transcript Shows Case for Vote Fraud, President Acted Properly” Newsmax Wires, Jan. 3, 2021. 

·         Lin Wood’s tweet storm compiled on Facebook 

·         “Sen. Ted Cruz to Lead Senate GOP in Opposing Certification” Newsmax Wires, Jan. 2, 2021. 

·         “Georgia Legislative Hearing Analysis, Lin Wood’s Emergency SCOTUS Petition, Sen. Ben Sasse Statement” Robert F. Gruler, R&R Law Group, Dec. 31, 2020. 

·         “Jovan Pulitzer Reveals Live, Real-Time Hacking of Dominion Voting Systems at Fulton County Polling Station” by Niamh Harris for News Punch, Dec. 31, 2020. 

·         “Sidney Powell Releases a KRAKEN STORM!” Doug TenNapel on YouTube, Jan. 3, 2021. https://youtu.be/IYyvCzT0h50

·         “The [DS] Had Their Chance, Trump Ready to Go Sky Fortress Engaged” X22 Report, Ep. 2369B, Jan. 4, 2021. 

·         “Exclusive: Over 432,000 Votes Removed From Trump in Pennsylvania: Data Scientists Say” Facts Matter with Roman Balmakov, Jan. 4, 2021. 

·         “Ep. 42: Electoral CHALLENGES; Barnes' Twitter HACKED! WEAPONIZED Discipline? Lockdown HYPOCRISY” Viva Frei and Robert Barnes Livestream, Jan. 3, 2021. 

·         “Facebook Shuts Down Page for GOP Senate Campaigns Just Before Georgia Runoffs” by Zachary Stieber for The Epoch Times, Jan. 2, 2021. 

·         “Pence to Decide Race? Law Profs Say VP Allowed to 'Count' Electoral Votes” by Bob Unruh for WND, Dec. 8, 2020.         

Courage to Conserve Our Constitution

We’re in waiting mode. We might as well use this time for some pondering.

The next big date certain is January 6^th—well, actually, we’re also looking at January 5^th, which is the runoff election date for Georgia, where two senate races could determine the Senate majority. But on January 6^th, the Electoral College votes are opened, read, and counted. We’re used to thinking about that as a formality with an automatic outcome. But that has only been true for 75% of US presidential elections; the other 25% have been—otherwise. This one is going to be otherwise.

Seven states have sent two dueling slates of electors. How that is handled is, well, too complicated to predict. In a bit we’ll talk about the possibilities. But first I want to talk about a particular question—about what it is to be conservative.

Vice President Mike Pence
image found here

 

Conservatism Outside and Inside the Political Sphere

There’s an excellent article from Ted Noel at American Thinker, in which he’s going through some of the possibilities, and making a striking recommendation that we’ll talk about.  After he has laid out the situation, and just before offering a script for the Vice President to follow on January 6^th, he says this:

This leaves V.P. Pence with a dilemma. He is a gentleman who regards our governmental traditions with a degree of reverence, so he will be reluctant to take any bold action. But as an honorable man, faced with massive illegality, he must act to protect the law. 

When we talk about conservatism, outside of politics, it might be summarized as “a degree of reverence for traditions.” Conservatives are slow to make changes for the sake of change; they must know that the change will indeed be an improvement over the tried and true or even marginally successful but comfortable. Conservatives don’t throw babies out with bathwater. Again, speaking outside of politics, this may get conservatives the reputation of being stodgy, standing in the way of progress, or just being no fun. But also, they’re reliable, organized, logical, and deep thinking. A society may need new fresh ideas, but it also absolutely needs these reliable, careful deep thinkers.

When we talk about conservatism in the political sphere, and we’re in America, we are talking about conserving the Constitution. That is our basic law. It’s not, as Barbossa says of the code in Pirates of the Caribbean, “more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.” The Constitution isn’t a “living” document; it doesn’t change meaning based on who’s reading it or applying it on a given day. It doesn’t morph to meet societal whims. It isn’t intended to be “gray” or malleable. It is meant to stand firm as the law of the land.

That’s actually important. It might be going too far to say that voting was invented in America. But I think you can say that every country in the world that now chooses its leaders by vote rather than birthright does so because America set up a way for people to rule themselves. That means that even most of the tyrants of the world today hold fraudulent elections over which they control the outcome, so that they have a veneer of giving their people a choice.

 

What VP Pence Should Do

So what will VP Mike Pence do? Will his personal conservatism outweigh his political conservatism?

Earlier in his piece, Ted Noel phrases his January 6^th duties this way:

His task will be to fulfill his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and to ensure that the laws be faithfully executed. This is a high standard of performance, and V.P. Pence will have two choices.  He can roll over on "certified" electors, or he can uphold the law.

Noel is definitive on which Pence should do. I am also in favor of VP Pence protecting and defending the Constitution. I like Noel’s script for him. I’m not sure that is how things will play out. And, actually, no one is. Before we get into the complications, I’ll quote Noel one more time, on what is legally an election:

An election is a process of counting votes for candidates. Only valid, lawful votes may be counted. A valid lawful vote is:

•     Cast by an eligible, properly registered elector [voter] as prescribed by laws enacted by the state Legislature.

•     Cast in a timely manner, as prescribed by laws enacted by the state Legislature.

•     Cast in a proper form as prescribed by laws enacted by the state Legislature.

Any process that does not follow these rules is not an election.  Anything that proceeds from it cannot be regarded as having any lawful import.

Most commentators suggest that a process of collecting pieces of paper with marks on them is an election regardless of errors, omissions, and even deliberate malfeasance. This is a mistake. Imagine a golf tournament where every bad shot by one player gets a do-over, but the competing player has to follow USGA rules in detail. One player gets to drop freely out of hazards, but the other has to tackle every embedded ball as it lies. The result is a travesty.

The same thing applies to elections. If there are a handful of improper votes, we can suggest that there was in fact an election, perhaps tainted, but the election wasn't materially harmed. But when the people charged with managing the election decide to ignore the law, whatever process they supervise is not the process defined by the law. Therefore, it is not an election.

Noel says that the Vice President, as President of the Senate, has both the duty and supreme authority to determine whether to accept electors from a state. That is probably true. But it’s actually a difficult question. He leads us to articles he has referenced, written by Alexander Macris. Noel links to two. Macris himself links to an additional earlier one he wrote, plus a longish section of the US code in question. So, if you want to do enough reading to probably feel like an expert on the subject, here’s the list:

·         “It's for Mike Pence to Judge whether a Presidential Election Was Held at All” by Ted Noel, for American Thinker, Dec. 26, 2020. 

·         “If Chaos is a Ladder, America's Election Laws are an Elevator: Americans Don't Play by the Rules as Written and the Rules as Written Don't Make Any Sense” by Alexander Macris, Dec. 13, 2020. 

·         “Who Counts the Votes of the Presidential Electors?” by Alexander Macris, Dec. 7, 2020. 

·         “Can State Legislatures Appoint Presidential Electors? Yes they can, and don't let Lawrence Tribe persuade you otherwise” by Alexander Macris, Dec. 5, 2020. 

·         “State Legislatures Can’t Ignore the Popular Vote in Appointing Electors” by Lawrence Lessig and Jason Harrow for Lawfare, Nov. 6, 2020. 

·         3 USC 15: Counting Electoral Votes in Congress 

 

What the House and Senate Should Do

Another relatively likely scenario for January 6^th is that House and Senate members will object to particular electors, and then the bodies need to convene to discuss. The Ted Noel version says that won’t even be necessary with the VP plan. But, if the VP doesn’t toss out electors from states that shouldn’t have certified their electors, based on fraudulent elections, then the next step is for the protests of electors to happen.

Rep. Mo Brooks has announced his intention, and several dozen House members have announced their plans to join him. There must be at least one Senator to join in the protest. I suggested a letter to send them, in my December 22^nd post. 

LifeSite has a link where you have an easy way to contact your US Rep and both Senators with a message asking them to join in the protest of fraudulent electors. You can use LifeSite’s brief message or exchange it with one of your own.

 

Other News

Sidney Powell’s Report

Table of Contents page of Sidney Powell's Report
provided by Zenger News

Sidney Powell put out a 270-page document detailing election fraud, including evidence of overseas interference. The table of contents can give you an idea of what is contained. You can read the entire document here. 

The MSM narrative has been that there is no voter fraud, and there is rarely voter fraud, and there may have been some voter fraud but not enough to affect the outcome, and Sidney Powell has provided no evidence, and all the cases are being tossed out. And so forth. But the evidence is getting out there. What I began talking about in the days immediately after the election was, at that time, considered conspiracy theory; now it’s a collection of thousands of affidavits, videos, testimonies, and collected documents such as the Navarro Report, which is also included in this Sidney Powell report.

There is so much evidence of voter fraud that changed the outcomes in at least six states that anyone who says otherwise is a partisan liar or purposely ignorant. The real question now is what will be done about it. One thing is for certain: the American people cannot let this much fraud be shrugged off with a “We’ll just work harder to get out the vote next time.”

The opposition is now talking about the confusing procedures on January 6^th as an attempted coup by President Trump. Note that, whenever they accuse, it is because that is what they are doing. But there is some truth in the fact that a large segment of the American people will be upset either way. That’s why it’s important to show the fraud, so those who have been depending on MSM sources will come to realize that Biden was never elected, and to show support as people who actually voted for President Trump—which is a clear majority.

To that end, President Trump has invited supporters to come to the capitol on January 6^th for a peaceful protest. I think he needs to see that the people are behind him. Also, the legislators need to see that support, and there needs to be some visual display that even the MSM can’t hide or minimize.

I don’t know how big that gathering is going to be, but I have been seeing discussion on our Tea Party email list about people getting together to travel there for it. That’s about 1430 miles, 21 hours in a car. But there are people willing and excited to do that. (I’m not able to make the trip, but those who do, I hope you share a lot of photos of the historic day.)

 

Nashville Explosion

On Christmas day there was an RV that exploded in front of an AT&T facility in Nashville. There was an announcement ahead of time telling people to evacuate the area. So far it appears the only life lost was to the owner of the RV, a man named Anthony Quinn Warner. Motive is still unknown, although the man may have had issues with 5G. But the explosion did little damage to the building, and certainly not much to the 5G industry. It did temporarily take out communications in the surrounding area.

There are speculations. First was this one, on Facebook, saying it had to do with the audit of the Dominion voting machines. I’ve come across it from a couple of friends. One linked to a John Murphy, in Florida, a common enough name that I couldn’t identify him, so I’m not sure if it was initiated by him or simply passed along. Anyway, maybe. But there’s no corroborating info that any such machines were in the building and damaged. I’ll need to see more.

Last night Joshua Philipp went through the various possible motivations in his Crossroads Q&A.  He said at this point, early on, we don’t know enough, and we probably ought to be skeptical about any narratives coming out of the media. He offers pure analysis, just thinking through what is known, and suggests it is likely one of the following:

·         A crazy person who had something against AT&T, but wasn’t crazy enough to actually want to hurt anybody—which is kind of odd for an actual crazy person.

·         Somebody meant to destroy something at that facility, although it doesn’t look like it destroyed enough of the building to do that.

·         It was meant as a probe, to try to see what the protocols of reaction would be to an incident like that, shutting off communications, or destroying a communications facility—possibly ahead of a planned future incident.

So many things these days start out looking like conspiracy theories but turn out to be true that, who knows? It’s difficult to get to the truth. Nevertheless, we keep looking for truth, and trying to be wise and discerning in that search.

 

As for whatever is about to happen next week, I’m continuing to pray for our President to be guided, supported, and protected to do God’s will for our nation. And I’m praying for Vice President Pence, that he will have both wisdom and courage in the task before him. And I’m praying for members of Congress to have the fortitude to step forward and protect our nation against tyranny.

 

Additional Sources

Besides the above, you might want to watch/listen to the following additional sources:

·         X22Report.com  This website contains the originals, in audio and video versions. Some of these, particularly Ep. 2350, I’ve referenced before, in its YouTube form. It was the channel PinkAudioX, but this week it is GreenAudioX. Depending on format, or versions, the titles change. But there have been several the last couple of days, in each of which he goes over the Ted Noel piece in American Thinker, among other news:

o   “Jan 6th Comes into Focus, Patriots Prepare To Make Their Move” Ep. 2364, Dec. 28, 2020. 

o   “Patriots at the Ready” GREENAudioX Ep#2363B, Dec. 28, 2020.    He quotes the Ted Noel piece. He predicts that the Durham report with be actual indictments.

o   “Countermeasures in Place” GREENAudioX Ep#2363F, Dec. 28, 2020 (original Dec. 27).  He quotes Ted Noel piece, mentions Sidney Powell’s 270-page document.

o   “States Panic, Impossible to Clean” GREENAudioX Ep#2350F, Dec. 26, 2020. This is an older one, reposted as new.

·         “Ep. 41: Election Lawsuits; Lockdown Lawsuits; Coomer Defamation; Pardon Power & MORE!” Viva & Barnes, Dec. 27, 2020. 

·         “The FULL Snowden Interview” John Stossel, Dec. 21, 2020. 

 

Debate Scoring

I spent some hours yesterday doing data related to Wednesday’s Vice-Presidential debate. I’ll include some of that, but it requires only a quick summary.

Vice President Mike Pence won. Overwhelmingly.

Vice-Presidential Debate, October 7, 2020
screenshot from Fox News video

But, depending on which media you listen to, you might not know that—even if you did watch with your own eyes. The stories were about how Pence interrupted continually, and disrespectfully “mansplained” to the woman opponent. “Mansplaining” seemed to be the word that got sent to all outlets in some memo. Did you see him do that? Neither did I.

One of the things I looked at was the interruptions. You can see the chart below, if you care about the data. (I’m using this transcript from USA Today.) 

Harris enjoyed 9 uninterrupted 2-minute answers. Pence got only 4. The appearance was that he was going long, and that is why the moderator kept interrupting him. A closer look and that appears not to be so. Moderator Susan Page [a Democrat who is writing a biography on Nancy Pelosi] started interrupting him well ahead of the 2-minute mark most of that time, and would have spared him the negative appearance if she had signaled for him to wind up within 10 seconds, rather than breaking in. She almost never interrupted Harris, even though Harris went just as long or longer.

Pence did break in—but did not interrupt--during a particularly egregious lie, insisting he couldn’t let that stand. It was when Harris used the Democrat talking-point lie that President Trump had disrespected the military.

The Lies

Here is Harris’s lie—in the middle of her 2 minute and 22 second uninterrupted answer—and only after her full time does Pence breaks in to make sure he can respond.

HARRIS: And this is about a pattern of Donald Trump's, where he has referred to our men who are serving in our military, as suckers and losers. Donald Trump, who went to Arlington Cemetery, and stood above the graves of our fallen heroes and said, ‘What's in it for them?’ Because, of course, you know he only thinks about what's in it for him.

Pence has to correct that, so he insists on responding—against the refusals of the moderator:

PENCE: The slanders against President Donald Trump regarding men and women of our armed forces are absurd…. My son is a captain in the United States Marine Corps, my son in law is deployed in the United States Navy. I can assure all of you with sons and daughters serving in our military, President Donald Trump not only respects but reveres all of those who served in our armed forces, and any suggestion otherwise is ridiculous. Let me also say—

At this point the moderator stops him and lectures him on the rules. Seriously. A good moderator would have facilitated a response after such an accusation, not attempted multiple times to prevent it.

There were other egregious lies by Harris during the debate. The one that got me most upset was the answer to this question, asked directly by Pence, not the moderator, about whether a Biden administration planned to “pack the court” if Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court is approved; that is, add members of the Supreme Court in order to guarantee a partisan ruling forever forward. Harris fails to answer, but she does lecture us with this false history non-answer:

HARRIS: I'm so glad to have a little history lesson. Let's do that a little more. In 1860—

PENCE: Well, I'd like you to answer the question.

HARRIS: Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking. I’m speaking. In 1864, one of the, I think, political heroes—certainly the President, and I assume to you as well, Mr. Vice President—is Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was up for reelection, and it was 27 days before the election, and a seat became open on the United States Supreme Court. Abraham Lincoln's party was in charge, not only in the White House, but the Senate. But honest Abe said it's not the right thing to do. The American people deserve to make the decision about who will be the next president of the United States, and then that person can select who will serve for a lifetime on the highest court of our land. And so Joe and I are very clear: the American people are voting right now. And it should be their decision about who will serve on this most important body for a lifetime.

Pence called her on her deflection, adding,

PENCE: The people deserve a straight answer. And if you haven't figured it out yet, the straight answer is they are going to pack the Supreme Court if they somehow win this election. To the many people across this country: If you cherish our Supreme Court, if you cherish the separation of powers, you need to reject the Biden-Harris ticket come November the third and reelect President Donald Trump. We will stand by the separation powers and nine seats on the Supreme Court.

But I also want to call her out on the lie, because, as we’ve already covered, all 29 times a seat has opened up in an election year, the President made the appointment without delay. Let’s take a look at that 1864 election.  When a Supreme Court seat became open in October, just weeks before the 1864 election, the Senate was out of session, with members in their home states, campaigning; there was no one to send a nomination to—this is before telephones, cars, and airplanes. But Lincoln did encourage them to campaign on that issue. He would appoint a nomination the very first day the Senate was in session—and the Senate approved the nomination that day. There was nothing about, “Oh, let’s wait, because that’s the right thing to do.” That was simply a lie, prepared ahead of time, to deflect from a question she refused to answer.

One of the ugliest moments of the debate was having Harris lecture all of us about truth.

HARRIS: Let's talk about respecting the American people. You respect the American people when you tell them the truth.

And shortly later:                                                                                                                       

HARRIS: Well, I mean, I thought we saw enough of it in last week's debate, but I think this is supposed to be a debate based on fact and truth. And the truth of the fact is, Joe Biden has been very clear. He will not raise taxes on anybody who makes less than $400,000 a year—

PENCE: He said he’s gonna appeal the Trump tax cuts—

HARRIS: Mr. Vice President I’m speaking.

PENCE: Well—

HARRIS: I’m speaking.

PENCE:—it’d be important if you said the truth. Joe Biden said twice in the debate last week that he's going to repeal the Trump tax cuts. That was tax cuts that gave the average working family $2,000 in a tax break every single year—

HARRIS: That is— That is absolutely not true.

PENCE:—Senator, that’s the math.

When Harris says something is definitely truth and fact, expect to find ubiquitous footage of her or Biden declaring the exact opposite. Truth doesn’t matter to them; it is just a word they throw around because they think maybe it appeals to some voters.

One fact checker, Jacob Palmieri, detailed her debate lies, if you’re up to investigating them all: “WOW: 24 False or Misleading Claims Made by Kamala During the Debate.” 

The Data

Here are the time stats and interruptions, if you’re interested. It was a 90-minute debate, consisting of nine 10-minute segments on different topics of the moderator’s choosing. They were each to be asked questions for which they had two uninterrupted minutes to respond, following six minutes of discussion, with length of answers determined by the moderator.

Time ended up close to equal. Harris got 35 minutes 35 seconds; Pence got 33 minutes 54 seconds. Her time was much less interrupted than his. As I said, the moderator jumped in so frequently to stop Pence that it created the appearance that he was breaking rules when he was not. There was one response where she said she would give him one minute, and she jumped in at 40 seconds; he plowed ahead through her multiple interruptions and finished right at a minute.

I can’t find an instance when she interrupted Harris head of her allotted time.

 

Who	Time	Interruptions by moderator	Interruptions by opponent	2-minute answer	Shorter response
Harris	2:05	0	0	X
Pence	2:10	0	0	X
Harris	1:11	1	0		X
Harris	0:26	0	1		X
Pence	1:21	4	1		X
Pence	1:36	2	0	X
Harris	0:53	1	2		X
Harris	0:11	0	0		X
Pence	2:09	3	0	X
Harris	2:04	0	0	X
Pence	1:17	0	1		X
Harris	1:19	0	0		X
Pence	0:59	3	1		X
Harris	1:53	0	0	X
Pence	2:09	1	1	X
Harris	2:28	3	6	X
Pence	1:08	2	2		X
Pence	2:17	3	1	X
Harris	2:14	0	0	X
Pence	1:38	2	0	X
Harris	1:22	1	1		X
Pence	0:50	3	0		X
Harris	0:14	0	0		X
Pence	2:16	2	0	X
Harris	2:02	0	1	X
Harris	2:02	0	0	X
Pence	2:28	2	0	X
Harris	2:22	0	0		X
Pence	0:36	2	0		X
Pence	1:49	2	0	X
Harris	2:21	0	0	X
Pence	1:36	0	0	X
Harris	1:11	0	1	X
Pence	0:40	0	3		X
Harris	0:47	0	0		X
Pence	0:11	0	0		X
Harris	2:17	0	0	X
Pence	2:22	2	0	X
Harris	1:55	1	1		X
Pence	1:31	3	0		X
Harris	0:29	0	0		X
Harris	0:49	0	0		X
Harris	1:58	0	0	X
Pence	1:11	0	0	X
Pence	1:40	0	0	X
Harris	1:48	0	0	X

 

It was an interesting exercise. I like to know whether my perceptions are actually borne out by data. But all things considered, VP Pence held firm when he needed to, spoke when he needed to, and despite moderator interference came out appearing to be the gentleman that he is.

Other Observations

Harris has the disadvantage of being a dislikable human being. One of the men I talk with asked, really wanting to know, whether his perception of her was sexist or real. Because men get accused of being afraid of, or prejudiced against, any assertive female; it’s a landmine. Would he have thought she was simply a strong personality, if she were a male? No, I told him. Assuredly no. She is unlikable to all humans. That’s why she couldn’t even get the support of her home state long enough to hang in for the first primary state.

Women are often at a disadvantage vocally. A higher pitch can be harder to listen to in media. This is not always true. Some women have both soothing and interesting voices. That’s true for many in the media, including Hollywood media. Ellen Degeneres. Janeane Garafalo (until she stopped saying scripted lines and started saying political garbage, so I had to stop paying attention—and apparently so did everyone else). Both Deschanel sisters (totally different, both interesting). Megyn Kelly. Heather MacDonald. Condoleeza Rice. My BFF Sherri (who is not in media or politics, but still has a noticeably pleasant voice).

But Harris is particularly disadvantaged. Her nasal, sneering condescending tone is every bit as ugly as Hillary Clinton’s stilted harangue. And both have an especially annoying cackle in place of a laugh.

On the other hand, Pence, who had his own radio show, is especially advantaged vocally. Plus, he’s naturally a nice guy. And he happens to be smart enough to bring the facts to bear—another place where Harris is especially disadvantaged, not having lived a life that values truth or facts.

There was a standard look Harris used throughout the debate. It was easy to get a screenshot.

Kamala Harris during the debate
screenshots from Fox News video

Biden did himself—and his party, and the country—a disservice by limiting himself to intersectional criteria. There are only so many black females to choose from. And all the good ones for the country are Republicans.

He chose a black woman—because she was a black woman, not for any other qualification or characteristic. And even those are questionable. She is my color (I am of Scandinavian heritage). Literally, we appear to have the same amount of melanin in our skin. I haven’t compared us in person, but that is my perception. I have the also-unearned advantage of not descending from slave owners, as she did. Yet she’s promoting reparations for racism toward people of her skin color—but not mine. I’m supposed to feel guilty for my skin color—which is the same color as hers. And I’m supposed to pay those reparations. That’s how stupid that whole racist way of thinking is.

One thing we know from this debate: Trump is as well-supported by his Vice President as any I’ve seen in my lifetime; Pence is fully capable. He doesn’t inspire energy as the top of the ticket does; but he inspires confidence in every other way. Biden appears unable to carry on a conversation without someone in his ear telling him what to say. And he chose a VP candidate whom his entire party already rejected, and who is so corrupt and uninspiring that the very idea of her having to step in when he becomes incapacitated is horrifying.

Addendum

I listened to Steve Deace on Glenn Beck Radio this morning. Both of them were saying, by their experience, they know many people who didn’t vote for Trump last time (the two of them for example, and I’ll add myself) who are voting for him this time. But do they know a single 2016 Trump voter refusing to vote for him this time? I don’t. Later I followed that with a clip from Deace’s show, talking about polling, which is his specialty. Maybe I’ll cover this another day, but the idea that we’re being lied to by the media—not a new idea to us on our side—is appearing more blatant. Here’s what he said about the unbelievable polling we’re seeing, which I think will give you hope:

If you were to consider every other metric that matters when looking at an election environment—for example, look at the voter registration numbers, and it’s not just in Pennsylvania; this is going on across the country. If you looked at things like the NBA ratings, television ratings, tanking over wokeness. And that’s the most liberal fan base in American team sports, probably other than soccer. And even they don’t want to watch this stuff. Look at the falling unemployment rate. Look at all of those metrics. If you never looked at a single poll, and you just looked at every other metric that told you what was going on in an election campaign, you would think Trump is cruising to reelection. The only thing that says differently are the polls. Draw your own conclusion from there.

The lesson: don’t let the mainstream media tell you what to believe. Look elsewhere. And think for yourself.