News Weakly - 10/31/2020

Election Integrity
A study from a group called "the Election Integrity Project California" has found that nearly 400,000 ballots have been sent to people who moved or died ... reviving the old, "Vote early; vote often" for perhaps 400,000 Californians. I've dismissed Trump's concerns about mail-in voting because we in Arizona have done it for a long time, but I'm wondering about "election integrity" for some of these other states that are just doing it now.

Sworn In
It struck me how appropriate it seemed to read that Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed and "sworn in" this week because of the volume of swearing from the opposition. When Obama thought to replace a Supreme Court Justice at the end of his time in office, the shoe was on the other foot. The opposition was opposed (go figure) while the Democrats were certain that it was the right thing to do. It's not now, of course, but it was for "their" guy. As the Washington Post opines, it's bad to be "out of step with the national consensus" ... as if there is such a thing. Apparently the court and all Republican values are, by definition, "out of sync with the national consensus." It has been my belief for some time that any so-called "national consensus" is a product of the media (like the Washington Post) as opposed to an actual "national consensus." Rep. Ilhan Omar said they should expand the court to "have the court better represent the values of the American people." I don't mean to diminish the notions of our media and legislative branch, but the point of the Supreme Court is not and never has been to "represent the values of the American people" or align with some "national consensus." It is to verify equal justice under the Constitution. Politics have nothing to do with it.

Truth in a Post-Modern World
There is a lie going around the Internet (like that's new information) about Biden. "Biden said that if he had been President, not one person would have died from Covid-19." Lie, lie, lie. He never said it. Why do they fabricate this stuff? Well, mostly because what he did say was, "If the president had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive. All the people — I'm not making this up, just look at the data." The error in the Internet story? He didn't claim that if he was president; he just claimed that any president doing his job would have prevented all deaths. In fact, no world leader has successfully prevented all deaths. "'I think it's impossible to say every life could have been saved,' Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security told Politifact." So Biden's claim that he would follow the science is a lie and his claim that Trump should have saved everyone is a lie and we're now relieved to find that Biden is, indeed, a lying truth-teller. Only in a post-modern society.

Worser and Worser
The Girl Scouts aren't getting it. They tweeted a congratulations to Amy Coney Barrett for being the 5th woman appointed to the Supreme Court. And the crowd went wild. Social media outrage forced the organization to delete the tweet. They complained that the Girl Scouts were about female empowerment (because a woman being appointed to SCOTUS was not). Highlighting, once again, the granularity of feminism (as well as others of these groups). "Yes, we support women, but only the right kind of women."

Don't Shoot the Messenger
I know. It's inconvenient. It might affect outcomes of elections and things like that. But there it is. In the midst of a COVID crisis, a massive economic downturn, and a massiver (I made that word up) "We hate Trump" campaign, the nation's GDP has jumped 33.1% in the 3rd quarter. Embarrassing to all the doom-and-gloomers.

The Religion of Peace
France is on high alert. First there was the teacher who was beheaded by a member of the "religion of peace" for using a controversial image of Mohammad in a discussion on freedom of expression. Then another member of that same "peaceful religion" attacked and killed three women in a church in Nice. Now the Muslim world is angry. "'Macron is leading Islamophobia,' said Dhaka demonstrator Akramul Haq. 'He doesn't know the power of Islam.'" That, of course, isn't a threat. They're peaceful Muslims. Burning Macron in effigy, attacking a French consulate in Pakistan, or advancing on the residence of the French ambassador to Lebanon aren't threats. They're the religion of peace Just ask them ... if you dare.

You'd Better Bee-lieve It
The Babylon Bee had to make hay with this. One headline read, "Democrats Ask ACB To Recuse Herself From Any Cases Involving The Constitution." This one was funny, too: "We Were Warned: SCOTUS Rules 6-3 That Voting For Biden Is Unconstitutional." Not to be outdone, Genesius Times offered, "In first act as associate justice, Amy Barrett mandates every woman have 10 children."

Must be true; I read it on the Internet.