Trump Baseless Claims of Vote Fraud Constitute an Existential Threat to the United States

Eric Weinstein has never supported Trump. In a recent Tweet he has stated: "I couldn’t vote DJT because of the daily negative effect he has on our national culture." That said, some Trump supporters are among the many people who follow Weinstein (through his writings and through his excellent podcast, "The Portal"). Today Weinstein wrote a series of Tweets to Trump supporters. I don't know that Weinstein's fear about the football is substantiated, but it is something that occurs to me repeatedly and makes me nervous.

Even if misuse of the "football" is not a legit fear (yet), I do think that the delta between Trump's vote fraud allegations and proof of such a fraud is a well-substantiated existential threat, proof that Trump is willing to put his enormous fragile ego ahead of the safety of the United States. Trump is recklessly trying to stir up (through misinformation) a mob of 70M people in an attempt to circumvent the rule of law. How are Trump's lies on "election fraud" not treasonous, especially given that MIT studies have shown that lies spread much fast than the truth on social media?

I write this article knowing that many people on the political right are passionately seeking the reelection of Trump or at least they are passionately opposed to Joe Biden and the political left. I'm firmly convinced that most people don't support Trump because he is a "racist," as many of the left claim (any of us who actually personally know even a few Trump supporters know this). There are many reasons to be apprehensive about Joe Biden (I write this having voted for Biden over Trump, who I also see saw as an existential threat to the United States based on many things he has done over the past 4 years). Those legitimate fears about Biden (see below) are dry tinder that Trump is exploiting through his baseless claims of election fraud. This is a precarious moment for the United States.

Here is the dry tinder that could ignite the "mob" of 70 million. There are dozens of reasons other than "racism" that convinced millions of people to vote for Trump (or to vote against Biden):

Continue ReadingTrump Baseless Claims of Vote Fraud Constitute an Existential Threat to the United States

U.S. Department of Education is Being Taught to Abolish U.S. Society

Here's the latest chapter in Woke indoctrination of federal employees, reported by Christopher Rufo. View the actual training documents in the comments:

If you were told to throw away your (workable but imperfect) car and buy an entirely new one, you would demand to know the details about the new car before throwing away the old one.

It is stunning to see that Woke ideology urging professionals at the Department of Education to do the opposite regarding the current social order.  This class is urging the audience to simply abolish society and have faith that something new and better will rise in its place. No details, no safeguards, no respect for traditions that have worked reasonably well, no assurances for the safety for people during the transition, no assurance that we won't be plunged into a society dominated by warlords imposing their will capriciously, a society much worse than our current situation. There's no consideration that we might possibly be able to reform the current imperfect society from within the current structure, reform that the U.S. Constitution invites in orderly fashion by the amendment process. This class is rife with vague terms and empty promises that would amount to a revolution that would lead to an unknown and violent place. It is specified to be a society in which people will be categorized by "race" and judged by skin color (and other immutable characteristics), as though it makes sense to judge each other by immutable characteristics. This is what is passing as education for our educators at the Department of Education these days.

Continue ReadingU.S. Department of Education is Being Taught to Abolish U.S. Society

Greg Palast Discusses the Many Big Problems with Mail Voting

Greg Palast is keeping me up at night. Here's an excerpt from his discussion with Mike Papantonio:

Papantonio: Let’s start with the elephant in the room, the vote by mail. A lot of developments there in the past few days. Tell us what this administration's done and give us the whole Greg Palast vote by mail 10,000 foot, so we can move on to the next question. What's your take?

Palast: Wow. Okay. Here's the problem. 22% of all mail in ballots don't get counted. That's an MIT study. That's not Greg Palast. A one in five ballots is junked. Now, how does that happen? One in 10 people never get their ballot who've asked for them. By the way, that’s why we had those long lines in Georgia, those are African Americans in Atlanta who never got their mail in ballots, but it requested them. Including, by the way, the husband of the head of the ACLU in Georgia. So people don't get their ballot, that's number one. And number two, once you send them in, one in 10 is junked for any type of reason. Anyone can challenge your ballot in America. They don't like your signature, you didn't put your middle initial when you signed and you registered with the middle initial. Postage due cost a hundred thousand votes in 2016. 3.3 million ballots in 2016 that were mailed in were never counted…

Papantonio: What we have here is an election that's tightening up. The Democrats thought they had the leisure of Biden's double digit lead. It's shrinking as we speak. It’s shrinking in states that really matter, swing States. But the Democrats, I literally heard James Carville say, well, Biden can just stay down in the cellar and he's going to win this election. Doesn't that sound a lot like what they were talking about with Hillary Clinton? So I wonder, the vote by mail could be important. How safe is vote by mail? How safe is it?

Palast: Not in the least and this is the big problem. Because you can have all these jerks in Hawaiian shirts, the Boogaloo Boys, the Proud Boys, they're going to go in… Trump’s calling for 50,000 volunteers. It's not an intimidation army. People have that wrong. The real danger’s that are going to go in and say, I don't like that signature on that ballot. That ballot was taped shut instead of a sealed shut by licking the envelope. I'm not kidding. And if you think it's just Republicans who do that, in New York this past last week the Democratic Party challenged the counting of 28,000 mail-in ballots, — the Democratic Party. Once they established that precedent, how many ballots do you think Trump's people will challenge? How many millions I should say. So it's not safe to mail in your ballot.

Continue ReadingGreg Palast Discusses the Many Big Problems with Mail Voting

The Problem With Our Political Primaries

I will vote for Biden/Harris even though there is no rational way to justify how Biden should be the Democrat nominee. He is cognitively rickety and burdened with a long history of being on the wrong side of history (albeit with some notable positives). Today, Joe Biden is not among the best and brightest. I will vote for him anyway because Trump is much worse in terms of factual understanding, moral character and temperament. That said, what we're about to witness leading up to November is Kabuki Theater rather than a meaningful election because the corrupt primaries set the stage. But how did we get here, again? How dysfunctional were the primaries? Is there any expectation that the 2024 presidential primary will better reflect the will of the voters? No way, unless we dramatically reform the system from the bottom up.

Eric Weinstein nailed it on Episode 37 of his excellent podcast, "The Portal." I have taken the time to transcribe Eric's introduction to this episode. High school teachers should throw away their Civics coursebooks and start the court by making Eric's statement required reading:

Hello, it's Eric with a few thoughts this week on the coming US election before we introduce this episode's main conversation. Now, I should say upfront that this audio essay is not actually focused on the 2020 election, which is partially concluded, but on the election of 2024 instead. The reason I want to focus on that election is that precisely because it is four years away, we should know almost nothing about it. We shouldn't know almost anything about who is likely to be running or what the main issues will be. And we should be able to say almost nothing about the analysis of the election. Unfortunately, almost none of that is true. Now, obviously, we can't know all of the particulars. However, we still know a great deal more than we should. And that is because the ritual is not what many suppose it to be: a simple nationwide open contest to be held on a single day after several unrestricted long form debates with unbiased rules enforced by trusted referees.

What is most important is that prior to the 2024 election, there will have to be an appearance of a primary election. So what actually is a primary election and what function does it serve? It's hard to say, but if you think about it, this is really the awkward disingenuous and occasionally dangerous ritual by which a large and relatively unrestricted field of candidates needs to be narrowed to the subset that is acceptable to the insiders of the parties, their associated legacy media bosses in the party mega-donors. Now the goal of this process is to--in the famous words of Noam Chomsky--manufacture consent from us, the governed, so that we at least feel like we have selected the final candidates who, in truth, we would likely never have chosen in an open process. I've elsewhere compared this ritual to the related process referred to by professional illusionists as "magicians choice," whereby an audience member is made to feel that they've selected something like a card from a deck out of their own free will, but that the magician has actually chosen from a position of superior knowledge and control long before the trick has even begun.

In the modern era, of course, consent has become a much more interesting word, especially of late. And perhaps that fact is important in this context too. The constellation of issues carry over surprisingly well. To bring in more terminology from the national conversation on consent, the party rank and file are groomed, if you will, by the party-affiliated media as to who is viable and who should be ignored and laughed at through a process of what might be termed political negging. The candidates are also conditioned by being told that they can only appear in party-approved debates, which must be hosted exclusively by affiliated legacy media outlets, which emphasize soundbites and theatrical gotcha moments over substance, despite the internet's general move towards in-depth discussion made possible in large part by the advent of independent long-form podcasts like this one. Thus, both voters and candidates are prevented from giving informed and uncoerced consent by the very institutional structures most associated with democracy itself.

Continue ReadingThe Problem With Our Political Primaries

Resigning Psychologist: Anti-Racism Replaces Science at the Academic Excellence National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC)

Russell Warne has resigned from NAGC. He explains:

[A] recent turn of events has made me unable to continue to be part of NAGC. On July 14, 2020, the organization’s board announced its “Expanded Vision for NAGC.” This document is the board’s plan “to confront systemic racism and advance equity for Black students in gifted education.” While I support diversifying gifted programs and providing educational opportunities to children from all demographic groups, this document sacrifices open scholarly inquiry on the altar of social justice activism.

Continue ReadingResigning Psychologist: Anti-Racism Replaces Science at the Academic Excellence National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC)