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Ruth King

The Election – and the Wait Not daring to breathe… in case it jinxes the swing states yet to call. Katie Hopkins

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/11/election-and-wait-katie-hopkins/

This the hard bit—the wait.

Sometimes I think I can hear my friends across the pond holding their breath, collectively, not daring to breathe or move or eat in case it somehow jinxes the swing states yet to call.

I dare not text anyone, because I just don’t see how words are going to help right now. Only a win will make this stop.

Trump has called it already. The President of Slovenia has even sent his congratulations, and yet the noise from my radio and TV tells me that the media are launching an all-out assault to ensure the win is not given.

I cannot tell you how many times our State Broadcaster (the BBC) has “plotted the Biden path to victory” on the irritating tech toy they insist on using, but it is countless, as if by plotting his path to a win they can make viewers believe it so —and bring down the will of the American people.

And when my children ask me “Who won?” I can’t bring myself to say it is undecided. Or to report that it is “too close to call” or “all the votes haven’t been counted yet.” None of that rings true to me. I think of all the faces I have met at Trump rallies and Republican events over the last few months, and I know they are the truth of America.

Mad About Election Chaos? Blame Dems’ Fraud-Prone Vote-By-Mail Scheme

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/11/05/mad-about-2020-election-chaos-blame-dems-fraud-prone-vote-by-mail-scheme/

s many feared, the election has ended, but it isn’t over. Ballots are still being tallied, and races in Nevada and Pennsylvania remain up in the air. Even when finished, there will be angry disputes. The counts will go on, but even when done they’ll be litigated for months. Blame the Democrats’ vote-by-mail scheme for the election chaos.

Fed up with riots, demonstrations, nonstop name-calling and demonization of political opponents, Americans speak longingly of a clear result to our elections that would let us all get on with our lives.

It wasn’t to be in 2020. Costly, and no doubt lengthy, legal challenges await. It may yet even be discovered that there was massive electoral fraud.

For this, you can thank mail-in voting, which the Democrats pushed as part of their “make every vote count” campaign (not to mention, of course, the four-year hate-affair the unhinged left in the Democratic Party conducted with President Donald Trump).

As has been noted repeatedly, expanding mail-in voting under the pretense of making voting easier during the lockdown was always spurious. We saw just how deceitful that was this week when the Centers for Disease Control told those with COVID-19 to go ahead and vote in person – just be careful.

So much for: “We have to vote by mail to keep people safe.”

Of course, voting by mail is fraught with potential for fraud, something that has been demonstrated by numerous studies.

How big is the problem? The federal Election Assistance Commission found that, between 2012 and 2018, 28.3 million mail-in ballots went unaccounted for. That’s equal to missing roughly 20% of “all absentee ballots and ballots mailed to voters residing in states that do elections exclusively by mail,” a recent Real Clear Politics piece noted.

If a Won Election Is Not Reported, Is It a Won Election? By David Solway

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2020/11/04/did-the-tree-fall-trump-wonbut-n1125734

Everyone knows the old teaser: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? The answer turns on the concept of “sound.” There will be sound waves, of course, but “sound” depends on the human ear registering and interpreting the kinetic energy released by the falling tree. So, no, it doesn’t make a “sound”—and if one is not present, or is not paying attention or is distracted by other considerations, one will not know whether the tree has fallen or not. But if one takes a walk through the forest, one may note the fallen tree and arrive at the proper conclusion. It fell, sound or no sound.

The analogy with the current electoral muddle is obvious. Everyone knows that Donald Trump has won the 2020 election. Everyone knows that electoral tampering has been massive and ubiquitous, and that a fair vote would have borne landslide numbers for the president. Everyone knows that ballot harvesting, mail-in voting, and extended vote tallying for an indefinite period after the polls close, when new ballots are miraculously found and illegible or absent postmarks are ignored, is the broad, well-trodden path to electoral fraud. And everyone knows that the fix was in from the start. 

Suddenly, all the Democrat-run swing states need to stop counting ballots for awhile By Monica Showalter

/11/suddenly_all_the_democratrun_swing_states_need_to_stop_counting_ballots_for_awhile.html

Is the U.S. on track to see its first election utterly stolen in front of its eyes? The way Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez used to do it in the face of huge, huge enthusiastic crowds protesting against him back in Caracas? 

How else to explain strange doings like these?

Michigan, too, needs some extra time to count the ballots. And so does North Carolina. And so do all of the states where Trump was running ahead — Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan… The counting suddenly shut down. Arizona went down a suspicious 90 minutes before the announcement that the state had flipped to Biden.

Mark Steyn has some brutal observations here, emphasis mine.

2.40am The President entered to the familiar strains of “Hail to the Chief”, which seemed very consciously chosen. His remarks were brief, but this line struck me:

I said, ‘What happened to the election?’ ‘It’s off…’ All of a sudden everything just stopped.

Indeed. The election special mysteriously ground to a halt. Trump could reasonably have expected to be giving his victory speech right now, had not Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina all decided to have an early night and resume in the morning, or afternoon, or next Tuesday.

There is great peril in that.

US Formally Exits Paris Accord, a Global Pact Aiming at Climate Change

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-formally-exits-paris-accord-a-global-pact-aiming-at-climate-change_3565268.html

BERLIN—The United States on Wednesday formally left the Paris Agreement, fulfilling an old promise by President Donald Trump. The global pact was forged five years ago aimed at curbing the potential threat of climate change.

The move, announced by President Donald Trump and triggered by his administration a year ago, has no immediate impact on international efforts to curb the threat.

There are 189 countries that remain committed to the 2015 Paris accord, which aims to keep the increase in average temperatures worldwide below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), ideally no more than 1.5C (2.7 F).

Many scientists claim that any rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius could have a devastating impact on large parts of the world, raising sea levels, stoking tropical storms, and worsening droughts and floods.

The Paris accord requires countries to set their own voluntary targets for reducing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. The only binding requirement is that nations have to accurately report on their efforts.

The United States and China are the world’s largest emitters of heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide and its contribution to cutting emissions is seen as important, but it is not alone in the effort.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has said he favors signing the United States back up to the Paris accord if he turns out the winner for the 2020 presidential election

College Board to End Partnership With Chinese Regime Amid Concern About Foreign Influence By Cathy He

https://www.theepochtimes.com/college-board-to-end-partnership-with-chinese-regime-amid-concerns-of-foreign-influence_3565537.html

The College Board, a nonprofit organization that administers AP and SAT exams, said it will end its partnership with a Chinese government agency at the end of the year amid growing concern about the Chinese regime’s influence in the U.S. education system.

The decision follows an Oct. 26 letter from seven Republican senators to College Board CEO David Coleman asking him to explain the group’s financial relationship with Hanban, an office under Beijing’s ministry of education that’s responsible for overseeing Confucius Institutes around the world.

Confucius Institutes have been criticized for spreading Chinese propaganda and suppressing topics critical of the regime under the cover of a language and culture program.

The senators also asked whether the Chinese regime has influenced test development and guest teacher programs in the United States.

In its response, the College Board said it has received an annual grant from Hanban since 2006 to “support the teaching and learning of Chinese language and culture in U.S. schools,” but won’t continue that relationship with Hanban after their agreement expires at the end of this year.

“2020 is the final year in which the College Board will receive or pursue any grant funding from Hanban,” College Board Senior Vice President Elissa Kim wrote on Oct. 30.

Trump Won Highest Share of Non-White Vote of Any Republican Since 1960, Exit Polls Show By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-won-highest-share-of-non-white-vote-of-any-republican-since-1960-exit-polls-show/?utm

President Trump has won the highest share of non-white voters of any Republican presidential candidate since 1960, according to preliminary results from Tuesday’s election.

Roughly one quarter of non-white voters cast their ballots for Trump, according to an Edison exit poll. If the poll is an accurate reflection of final results, Trump will have won over more non-white voters than any Republican since Richard Nixon, who won 32 percent of the non-white vote in 1960 but lost to John F. Kennedy. Trump will also have improved on his performance in the 2016 election when he won 21 percent of the non-white vote.

Democrats have attacked Trump as racist, including during the 2016 and 2020 elections. In the wake of the George Floyd demonstrations in late May, Democrats lashed out at Trump’s opposition to removing monuments of Confederate figures and the Confederate flag from public spaces, and have repeatedly invoked Trump’s 2016 comments in which he warned of Mexican “rapists” illegally crossing the border. The president has also opted to call coronavirus the “China virus,” which has unnerved Democrats concerned about anti-Asian racism.

However, the Edison poll showed that support for Trump rose among African Americans, Asians, and Latinos. In particular, 18 percent of black men voted for Trump in 2020 compared with 13 percent in 2016, and black women increased support for Trump from 4 percent in 2016 to 8 percent in 2020. Trump also roughly doubled his share of gay voters.

When Vote Fraud Is Claimed, Question Always Is: Did It Make a Difference? By Andrew C. McCarthy see note please

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/11/when-vote-fraud-is-claimed-question-always-is-did-it-make-a-difference/

HUH? FRAUD IS FRAUD REGARDLESS OF ANYTHING ELSE!!!!! RSK

On the matter of vote fraud, there is law and there are facts. We’ll hear plenty about fraud, but we’ll have to remind ourselves to ask: Did it make a difference? Even if the Trump campaign has potential claims in law, they would collapse if, as a matter of fact, they would not affect the outcome of the race.

Pennsylvania, which I’ve discussed extensively over the last three weeks, is a good example.

As repeatedly recounted (most recently, in Wednesday’s column), the state supreme court, by fiat, ordered a the three-day extension of the November 3 Election Day deadline for the state’s receipt of mail-in votes — i.e., until close-of-business November 6. I believe this was an unconstitutional usurpation of the state legislature’s power to set the rules for elections. If so, that would give the Trump campaign a basis to seek the Supreme Court’s intervention. Indeed, four justices on the high court were poised to grant a stay against the state court’s order in mid-October; and just last week, three of those justices induced Pennsylvania to agree to segregate the ballots received during the three-day extension, anticipating that the Court might review the matter on an expedited basis after Election Day.

A Pelosi-Schumer Defeat The GOP seems to have held the Senate and gained in the House.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-pelosi-schumer-defeat-11604533926?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Besides media pollsters, the biggest immediate election losers on Tuesday were Democratic Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Americans diminished Speaker Pelosi’s House majority and appear to have kept Republicans in control of the Senate as a brake on the left’s agenda.

The biggest news is that Mitch McConnell is likely to return as Senate Majority Leader to torment Democratic dreams for two more years. The GOP lost seats in Colorado and Arizona but gained one in Alabama. Republican Senators Joni Ernst in Iowa, Susan Collins in Maine and Steve Daines in Montana prevailed, and Thom Tillis is leading in North Carolina.

Democrats poured literally hundreds of millions of dollars into races against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and in Kentucky against Mr. McConnell that they lost by double-digits. Democrats seem to believe their own progressive pieties that money is destiny in politics.

Democrat Gary Peters will likely hold onto his seat by a hair, but Iraq war veteran John James outperformed President Trump and made a Michigan Senate race competitive for the first time in many years. The two races in Georgia could head to runoffs in January, but Republicans will be favorites.

To Cope With Covid, the World’s Poor Need Debt Relief This economic crisis is even harder than usual for the worst-off. Concessions from creditors can ease recovery.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-cope-with-covid-the-worlds-poor-need-debt-relief-11604535612?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

The Covid-19 pandemic has taken lives and disrupted livelihoods in every corner of the globe. It has knocked more economies into simultaneous recession than at any time since 1870. According to World Bank estimates, in its first year it may push up to 150 million people into extreme poverty, ending two decades of steady progress on poverty reduction.

The current crisis stands in contrast to the recession of 2009, when much of the damage fell on financial assets and advanced economies were hit harder than developing countries. This time the economic downturn is much broader and deeper, and it has had an outsize impact on the poorest countries and the poorest people within each country, adding to inequality. It has hit workers whose jobs are unsteady or undocumented, and many of the most vulnerable.

The World Bank Group has moved rapidly to deploy its full financial capacity. We are on track to commit a record $160 billion over 15 months, and 40% of this amount was committed in the first six months. Our funding helps developing countries tackle the health, economic and social impacts of the pandemic. But even with the World Bank Group delivering massive positive net flows, the poorest countries need much more help.

For the most impoverished countries, the crisis and associated economic shutdowns came at a moment of particular peril. In 2019 almost half of all low-income countries were assessed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to be either in debt distress or at a high risk of it. With the pandemic, the debt burden has gotten much heavier due to the devastating contraction in output, remittances and family income across the developing world. If this mounting debt goes unaddressed, it could lead to a lost decade for the world’s poorest people.