DEMS OPPOSED TO VOTING MACHINES

“He said, she said.

“It turns out that your opinion about Dominion Voting Systems depends not only on who you are but when you’re asked.  If you zip way back to December 2019, then, if you are Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, or Amy Klobucher, you are very worried about their security.

“Back then, these high-minded public servants wrote letters warning that these widely used voting systems were “prone to security problems.”  “We are particularly concerned,” they wrote, that “voting machines and other election administration equipment, ‘have long skimped on security in favor of convenience’.”

“That was in December of last year – the good old days when NBC, for example, warned about “Chinese parts” and “hidden ownership” of the machines.

“Chinese manufacturers,” they noted, “can be forced to cooperate with requests from Chinese intelligence officials to share any information about the technology and therefore pose a risk for US companies,” not to mention “the concern of machines shipped with undetected vulnerabilities or back doors that could allow tampering.”

“As I say, that was a year ago.

“Today, post Nov 3, 2020, you don’t hear the Democrats worrying out loud about the security of the machines that counted (not to say manufactured) the votes that led to Joe Biden’s apparent victory.

“On the contrary, to raise questions now about Dominion Voting Systems and the software that powers them, as Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, and others have done, is to obstruct “democracy” and promulgate “conspiracy theories.”

“Zip back to 2006, and you find CNN running stories about how vulnerable electronic voting systems are to interference and hacking.  Back then, the watchword was “Democracy for sale.”

“It was all especially worrisome since the machines are used in some 2000 counties across 30 states.”  (“Recounts needed to settle Dominion’s Role, and the Election.” Roger Kimball, The Epoch Times, 11/25/2020).

The 2020 presidential election is unlike any before and requires unprecedented measures to protect it, our republic, and our future.

The degree and scale of voter fraud was unprecedented. In swing states, President Donald Trump had large leads on election night.  Then, late at night counting was stopped while election observers were ushered out.  And then, huge, statistically impossible vote dumps occurred, giving Joe Biden the lead.

This pattern, which occurred only in the states where Biden had to reverse the results, and hadn’t occurred in previous elections, points to a coordinated effort to steal the election.   (The Epoch Times, 12/14/2020)

“Who was not stunned to learn that as Trump seemed to be pulling ahead in the voting count on Nov. 3, suddenly, around midnight, the vote counting appeared to stop in the crucial swing states, and we were told it would begin again early the next morning? Why the halt?”  (Pat Buchanan, 12/11/2020)

“Can a nation so distracted, so divided, so at war with itself continue to meet all of the duties, obligations and commitments that are ours as the self-proclaimed ‘leader of the free world’?”  (Pat Buchanan, 12/15/2020)

The federal government’s distribution of COVID relief funds over the past year has been disastrous. As Bloomberg reported in October, the Small Business Administration (SBA) “gave out $10,000 grants to almost anyone who asked.”  From fraudulent applications to identity theft, billions of dollars are believed to have been stolen.  However, criminals were not the only ones to benefit from governmental incompetence; federal COVID relief has also helped prop up extremist organizations with long-held ties to violence. The amounts may be small, but the examples are shocking.   (MEF, 12/7/2020)

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BENEFITS OF FURTHER MIDEAST PEACE – Jared Kushner scores late-term wins for Israel, upending expectations.

President’s son-in-law was widely mocked in the US but made historic breakthroughs in the Middle East, with four Arab countries recognizing the Jewish state within months
by Shaun Tandon and Francesco Fontemaggi, 13 Dec 2020, Times of Israel

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United Arab Emirates is getting top-of-the-line fighter jets. Morocco is winning recognition for decades-old territorial claims. And Sudan is coming off the US terrorism blacklist. The Arab nations are suddenly achieving long-sought goals after agreeing to normalize ties with Israel, in a last-minute triumph for the unorthodox diplomacy of outgoing US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Widely mocked for more than three years as a boyish lightweight, who was best known for his famous wife, troubled property deals and his father’s stint in prison, Kushner is scoring historic breakthroughs lauded by Trump’s base with four Arab nations since.

. . . Veterans of Middle East diplomacy agree that Kushner moved nimbly after the United Arab Emirates first signaled its willingness to recognize Israel. “He had the authority; he was smart enough to develop personalized relations. I think he clearly deserves some credit for taking advantage of what the landscape showed was possible,” said Dennis Ross, who served as Bill Clinton’s Middle East envoy. (MORE — https://www.timesofisrael.com/jared-kushner-scores-late-term-wins-for-israel-upending-expections)

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POTENTIAL SECURITY SCANDAL INVOLVING US CONGRESSMAN ERIC SWALWELL

This scandal involves a Chinese spy named Fang Fang (aka Christine Fang) who posed as a student in the San Francisco area and raised money for Swalwell’s first campaign for Congress, was placed as an intern in his Washington office and had a personal, possibly romantic, relationship with him. 

The FBI became so concerned about Swalwell’s ties to Fang that they gave him a “defensive briefing” on her in 2015. Shortly thereafter, Fang fled the U.S. for China after she learned she was being investigated by the FBI. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Swalwell have tried to downplay this story.  Swalwell says it happened many years ago and he severed all ties to Fang in 2015 after the FBI briefing.   (Fred Fleitz, Foxnews, 12/14/2020)  (See article “Afterthought” at end of blog.)

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BREXIT END GAME

“As an uncompromising Brexiteer, I believed from the very start that the only true Brexit was a no-deal Brexit.

That’s because iron logic always meant that any deal the UK might strike with the EU would keep the UK tied to it in some way. 

The reason for that is the premise upon which the EU is based. In essence, it is a protectionist bloc which, acting as a European super-state subsuming its 27 member countries, will resist anything that puts it at an economic disadvantage. 

It is therefore particularly sensitive to competition, particularly since it is itself so vulnerable. That’s because it’s trapped by its regulations, laws and bureaucratic rigidity into a permanent state of economic sclerosis and inability to respond flexibly to any shocks to the system — of which there are plenty. Its internal economic pressures are therefore dire and its long-term future unsustainable. In short, it’s an economic basket-case.

By contrast, the UK is innately nimble and flexible. It has the ability to adjust its financial and monetary levers to respond to shocks to the system. Its deep commitment to true liberty, so poorly understood in continental Europe, means it is far less regulated and therefore more entrepreneurial and potentially dynamic. And it commands the supreme global advantages of the English language, and in the City of London the world’s pre-eminent financial hub. 

Without minimizing the UK’s undoubted weaknesses, all these advantages mean that, unshackled from the EU, it stands poised to become a supreme competitive threat to its neighbors just across the English Channel — a threat that the EU has explicitly recognized and sworn to negate.

As indeed it must. That’s why it was always the case that the EU would never make any concessions to the UK that would place the EU at a disadvantage. That’s why it was always the case that the terms of any such deal would always be to the UK’s disadvantage. 

And that’s why the words that must strike deep dread into the heart of every true Brexiteer are “A deal now looks more likely . . . ”   (“The Brexit end-game,” Melanie Philips, 12/11/2020)

Scotland can’t afford to remain part of the Union from The Spectator magazine UK:  21 Nov 2020 by Andrew Wilson:  a former SNP MSP & author of the party’s recent ‘Growth Report’

Tony Blair’s biggest achievement was delivering a referendum that unified Scotland behind devolution and gave all parties a stake in its success. Boris Johnson is wrong to say it was ‘a disaster,’ but in being wrong is helping precipitate the logical next step: independence. The opinion polls that show a growing majority for Scottish independence will mystify those who believe the lazy, metropolitan idea that independence is an emotional fantasy — all Braveheart, Bannockburn and bagpipes. How, they ask, could a band of Caledonian romantics ever convince the canny Scots to opt for such a thing?

But what if the case for independence was a highly sophisticated position advocated by one of the most popular political leaders in the world? It is now supported by 64 per cent of those aged under 65, according to one of the latest polls. The Spectator, while founded by a Scot, has never supported the idea of his homeland’s independence. But its readers rightly pride themselves on reading different points of view. I seek not your support but your understanding as I try to explain what is really going on here.

The problem for Scotland is that it cannot afford to remain on the UK’s glide path. Staying in the Union is riskier than independence. Voters can see that.

In his outstanding book The Levelling:  What’s Next After Globalisation, the Irish author Michael O’Sullivan points out that in 1924 Argentina was three times wealthier than Japan but is today half as rich. His point is that countries can make colossal strategic errors. The UK has been in a slow descent for some time now. It used to be the richest country on Earth, but currently sits in 21st position in the IMF rankings, and Brexit is hastening the drop. Why should Scotland now buckle in and continue to not enjoy the ride?   (“Scotland can’t afford to remain part of the Union,” Andrew Wilson, a former SNP MSP, The Spectator, 11/21/2020)

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FIGHT AGAINST ISLAMIC SEPARATISM

On October 2, President Emmanuel Macron delivered a “Fight Against Separatism” speech to the French parliament, announcing stricter measures to crack down on the growing influence of what he called “radical Islamism” among France’s Muslim minority, proportionally the largest in Western Europe. This ideology, he said, has “a proclaimed, publicized desire, a systematic way of organizing things to contravene the Republic’s laws and create a parallel order, establish other values, develop another way of organizing society which is initially separatist, but whose ultimate goal is to take over [the Republic] completely.”

Macron’s proposals include abolishing home-schooling, closing down independent schools, devoting more resources to policing and courts, bringing community language teaching under the control of the state, restoring policing in Muslim-majority zones, which he acknowledges has been let slide, reversing ghetto­ization, preventing radical takeovers of Muslim organizations, and rolling back sharia creep, such as the public cafeterias which now offer only halal-compliant menus, and the separation of sexes in public swimming pools.

(Mark Durie is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum, founding director of the Institute for Spiritual Awareness, and a senior research fellow of the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam)

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CHINA ASSERTING ITSELF IN CARIBBEAN

• China also seems to have a military agenda in the Caribbean region . . .  Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe already is on record expressing China’s willingness to deepen military cooperation with Caribbean countries. Of more concern to US security interests is the ongoing seaport expansion project in the already commercially important port at Kingston, Jamaica, as well as the port at Freeport, Bahamas, China’s possible new base of operations 90 miles off the US coast.

• China is clearly not a government that honors its agreements . . .  The US can ill afford any Chinese drive to place under threat any Western Hemisphere country, much less the United States.

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SWAZI LEADER DIES OF COVID

Ambrose Dlamini:  Eswatini’s (Swaziland) PM dies after testing positive for Covid-19

The government of Eswatini says Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini has died, four weeks after he tested positive for coronavirus.  A government statement said Dlamini, 52, died on Sunday afternoon in hospital in South Africa.  No cause of death was mentioned, but Dlamini had recently been receiving treatment for Covid-19 in South Africa.  Dlamini had been prime minister of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, since October 2018.  The tiny landlocked country in southern Africa is one of the last absolute monarchies in the world.

With a population of about one million, the country has recorded 6,768 coronavirus infections and 127 deaths linked to the pandemic, according to the health ministry.  Dlamini announced he had tested positive for coronavirus on 16 November. At the time, he said he was asymptomatic and was feeling well.  A few weeks later, on 1 December, the Eswatini government said Dlamini had been moved to a hospital in South Africa, with the aim of fast-tracking his recovery.  But on Sunday the government said Dlamini died “while under medical care in a hospital in South Africa,” without giving more details. “Government in collaboration with the family will keep the nation informed of subsequent arrangements,” Deputy Prime Minister Themba Masuku said in the statement. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55297472)  

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SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

ELECTION 2016

In their infinite wisdom, the United States’ Founders created the Electoral College to ensure the STATES were fairly represented.  Why should one or two densely populated areas speak for the whole of the nation?  The following list of statistics has been making the rounds on the Internet.  It should finally put an end to the argument as to why the Electoral College makes sense. 

Do share this.  It needs to be widely known and understood. 

• There are 3,141 counties in the United States. 
• Trump won 3,084 of them. 
• Clinton won 57. 
• There are 62 counties in New York State. 
• Trump won 46 of them. 
• Clinton won 16. 
• Clinton won the popular vote by approx. 1.5 million votes. 
• In the 5 counties that encompass NYC, (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Richmond & Queens) Clinton received well over 2 million more votes than Trump.  (Clinton won 4 of these counties; Trump won Richmond) 
• Therefore these 5 counties alone, more than accounted for Clinton winning the popular vote of the entire country. These 5 counties comprise 319 square miles. The United States is comprised of 3,797,000 square miles.  When you have a country that encompasses almost 4 million square miles of territory, it would be ludicrous to even suggest that the vote of those who inhabit a mere 319 square miles should dictate the outcome of a national election. 
• Large, densely populated Democrat cities (NYC, Chicago, LA, etc.) DO NOT and SHOULD NOT speak for the rest of our country! 
• And . . . it’s been verified and documented that those aforementioned 319 square miles are where the majority of our nation’s problems foment. 

PILGRIMS NO FUN

“James I had thrown his weight behind Anglicanism, which in tone, vestment, and ritual was modeled closely on Rome. Down at the other end of the Protestant spectrum lay the gloomy Puritans, straitlaced and austere, rabidly opposed to any form of religious ostentation, convinced that pleasure was the invention of the Devil.   Fun-loving James despised them and would, he gloated, harry them out of the land.  Many, most notably the Pilgrims Fathers, took him at his word and abandoned England to settle in the New World.”   (“Great Feuds in history,” Colin Evans, 2001, page 29.)

1949 LETTER FROM ALDOUS HUXLEY TO GEORGE ORWELL

“Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful.  My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World.  Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.”  (Letter from Aldous Huxley to George Orwell – 1949)

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TO THE POINT

• Eton College teacher loses dismissal appeal — An appeal panel has ruled that Eton College’s dismissal of a teacher was justified. The headmaster of the institution said that there are “limits to the freedoms that teachers have.” Will Knowland, an English teacher at the prestigious school, was sacked earlier this year for gross misconduct after recording a lecture in which he questioned “current radical feminist orthodoxy”.  (The Week, 12/15/2020)
• Campaigners call for reusable face-masks – Calls are rising for a switch to reusable face coverings after it emerged that more than 100 million disposable masks are binned in the UK every week. Research for the North London Waste Authority found that nearly 70% of those who wear disposable masks are unaware they are single-use plastic. “Whether they are binned or littered they will damage the environment,” a spokesperson for the NLWA said.  (The Week, 12/15/2020)

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LESSON FOR THE US FROM A CENTURY AGO

1936 was a long time ago.       

Before the American president became the “leader of the free world”, the King of England held the most important position on the planet.    The British Empire was at the height of is territory and the king was Head of State.

It had been almost a thousand years since England had three kings in one year, yet it happened in 1936.   “The year of the three kings” began with King George V on the throne.  His death at the end of January saw his son David become king as “Edward VIII”.   Before the year was out David would abdicate in favor of his brother, George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth II.

Abdication is such a rare event that many books have been written on the abdication.    The circumstances made if quite different from the last time there were three kings in one year (1066).  This is because the abdication was about a woman, an American divorcee (twice) from Baltimore.  Her name was Wallis Warfield Simpson.   The king is Head of the Church of England.  At the time, the church did not allow divorce.

In hindsight, a lot more is known.   Mrs. Simpson was having an affair even when dating the king, which might have compromised national security.  But, worse still, the king had definite Nazi sympathies, and would likely have compromised the nation’s security at a time when Germany posed a major threat to the United Kingdom.

The famous entertainer Noel Coward suggested at the time of the abdication that “a statue should be erected to Mrs. Simpson in every town in England for the blessing she has bestowed upon the country” (Great Feuds in History, Colin Evans, page 146). 

As I said, the abdication was a very long time ago.  But there’s a serious lesson here for Americans.  Just as England had a king who was a Nazi sympathizer, is it possible that the US could have a president working for communist China? 

Joe Biden seems to have extensive ties with the Chinese.  His son Hunter has been involved in questionable business activities with the Chinese and other foreign powers.  Certainly, on his salary of the last 50 years (he entered Congress in 1972), he could not afford the 10,000 square foot house he lives in.   

As it says in I Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”   He would not, of course, be the only member of Congress tempted by money.

Betrayal at the highest level is not inconceivable.