Prepare for a filthy election

Have you committed the sin of optimism vis-a-vis Biden's chances of winning this thing? Naughty, naughty!

As penance, check out this podcast interview of election hacking specialist Jennifer Cohn on Gaslit Nation. I can't oversell this interview: It's the single most important podcast on the internet right now. Download it NOW. Listen ASAP.

Cohn offers evidence that the 2016 election was rigged by pro-Trump forces. The current election systems are actually far more vulnerable than they were then.

Much of what Cohn says buttresses one of my long-held Theories of Trump: He established control over the Republican party through the ultimate form of kompromat. He knows the GOP's dirtiest secret -- the party's history of election manipulation. In other words, the rigged elections that gave us George W. Bush also made the Trump nightmare possible.

I think the Bush family would love to denounce Trump loudly and explicitly, but they dare not.

Yes, yes -- I admit it: The polling looks good right now. Nine points up in Pennsylvania? Not bad! But do these numbers justify the sin of optimism? No.

When you look at these battleground state polls, keep one key fact in mind: We're in trouble if the spread is less than five points. Jennifer Cohn spells it out: In order to keep the election results plausible, the "official" tally must not differ too drastically from the polling. If Trump is five points down, he's close enough.

Cohn also makes a point that I should have made years ago: No evidence demonstrates that speaking realistically about election rigging depresses voter turnout. We who believe that election-rigging is real are forever being silenced and censored, because the Powers That Be believe that honest speech will keep people away from the voting booth.

That claim is just not true. Besides, I don't see how we can solve the problem unless we talk about it.

Where'd the money go? Hilariously, the Trump campaign has run out of cash in the home stretch, despite raising a billion dollars early on. No need to ask where the money went: It's obvious that the sticky-fingered T family scooped every last crumb out of the cookie jar.

It's also obvious that Trump would never have pilfered so much if he were genuinely worried about losing this election.

With the money gone, he can't afford to run teevee commercials in key states. But does he need to? Probably not. Trump knows that the upcoming Big Smear will bring him close to the 50 percent mark in the battlegrounds. Election "nudging" will take him over the 50 yard line.

Besides, teevee commercials are not as important as they used to be. When it comes to political propaganda, the real action is online. Trump's Russian pals are doing the heavy lifting there.

Identifying QAnon: A good friend to this blog directed my attention to this odd but intriguing piece by game designer Jim Stewartson, who claims to have identified the man behind QAnon. Stewartson thinks that Q is "a racist pig farmer named Jim Watkins," the person behind 8kun, the successor to the neo-fascist board 8chan.

I have to give Stewartson credit: He actually descended into that odious demimonde and infiltrated the QAnon cult. Unfortunately, he doesn't offer a whole lot of evidence to support his identification.

I remain enamored of, though not wholly convinced by, my own little theory. In previous posts, I have posited that Q is a group effort headed, or at least initiated, by Peter Debbins, the cyber guru and Russian spy who burrowed deep into Ameican military intelligence.

If Stewartson should happen to see these words, I hope he'll check out this lecture by Debbins, which I call "How to use the internet to become a James Bond supervillain." To understand the full import of what Debbins says, you have to research his various reference points, particularly the theories of Rene Girard.

One problem with the "Watkins as Q" theory is that Stewartson doesn't explain why Q would be so obsessed with Michael Flynn. My "Debbins as Q" theory does explain that factor: Both Flynn and Debbins have strong links to the Institute of World Politics. It is very likely that the two men have met.

Speaking of Pizzagate: The theory has gone European. Why on earth did the Q fanatics become so obsessed with pizza?

Catholicism has become a plural noun. The Catholic church -- unlike, say, the southern Baptists -- has always had wings. But the liberal and conservative wings have grown so far apart that they might as well belong to different birds.

In other words, we now have two Catholic churches.

Here's a message from the good one about the bad one.

I raise my voice in fervent opposition to the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast's scandalous offer of an award to Attorney General Barr for his "exemplary Christlike" behavior. I urge the group to immediately rescind their inivtation, and I urge anyone reading this to join me. https://t.co/W6o8MOWQGj

— Sister Helen Prejean (@helenprejean) September 8, 2020

What is Christlike about a Catholic believer using his discretionary power as Attorney General to undertake a series of speedy federal executions? In contrast, those in power before him for 17 years chose not to seek death.

It has been solely at the direct command of A.G. Barr that five human lives have already been snuffed out, and two other persons—William LeCroy and Christopher Vialva—await almost certain death in a couple of weeks.

What is so grievously scandalous about bestowing a "Catholic" award on this man, so keen to kill criminals under his jurisdiction, is that his attitude and behavior so flagrantly contradicts Catholic teaching. The Church vigorously opposes government killing without exception.

Pope Francis recently updated Catholic teaching on the death penalty, stating that, in light of the teachings of Christ, this deliberate taking of life is "an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the human person."

I'm deeply convinced that Jesus himself, the "Christ" in whose name the award is to be bestowed, who taught us to go beyond "an eye for an eye" and to love and forgive our enemies rather than kill them, has my back on this one.

I urge anyone reading this, Catholic or not, churchgoer or not, to oppose this use of religious symbolism—an award for "Christlikeness"—which will only serve to legitimize government cruelty and killing.