"A Look to the Heavens"

"No, hamburgers are not this big. What is pictured is a sharp telescopic view of a magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628, a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep galactic portrait puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, The Hamburger Galaxy.

The tantalizing island universe is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo. NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local Universe with two other large spirals M65 and M66 in a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for the extended flare and warp of this spiral's disk.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170503.html

"One Summer Night..."

"One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space. Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. My companion and I were alone with the stars: the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will."

- Rachel Carson

"The Trick..."

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable,

or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.”

- Carlos Castaneda

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field "

"White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field" 

 "Coming down out of the freezing sky

with its depths of light,

like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,

it was beautiful, and accurate,

striking the snow and whatever was there

with a force that left the imprint

of the tips of its wings - five feet apart -

and the grabbing thrust of its feet,

and the indentation of what had been running

through the white valleys of the snow -

and then it rose, gracefully,

and flew back to the frozen marshes

to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,

in the blue shadows -

so I thought:

maybe death isn't darkness, after all,

but so much light wrapping itself around us -

as soft as feathers -

that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,

and shut our eyes, not without amazement,

and let ourselves be carried,

as through the translucence of mica,

to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,

that is nothing but light - scalding, aortal light -

in which we are washed and washed

out of our bones." 

- Mary Oliver

"The Ways We Miss Our Lives..."

"A sad fact, of course, about adult life is that you see the very things you'll never adapt to coming toward you on the horizon. You see them as the problems they are, you worry like hell about them, you make provisions, take precautions, fashion adjustments; you tell yourself you'll have to change your way of doing things. Only you don't. You can't. Somehow it's already too late. And maybe it's even worse than that: maybe the thing you see coming from far away is not the real thing, the thing that scares you, but its aftermath. And what you've feared will happen has already taken place. This is similar in spirit to the realization that all the great new advances of medical science will have no benefit for us at all, thought we cheer them on, hope a vaccine might be ready in time, think things could still get better. Only it's too late there too. And in that very way our life gets over before we know it. We miss it. And like the poet said: The ways we miss our lives are life."

- Richard Ford

The Daily "Near You?"

Yerevan, Armenia. Thanks for stopping by!

"Not Much Mental Distance..."

“A man who has blown all his options can't afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can't afford to admit - no matter how often he's reminded of it - that every day of his life takes him farther and farther down a blind alley. Very few toads in this world are Prince Charmings in disguise. Most are simply toads, and they are going to stay that way. Toads don't make laws or change any basic structures, but one or two rooty insights can work powerful changes in the way they get through life. A toad who believes he got a raw deal before he even knew who was dealing will usually be sympathetic to the mean, vindictive ignorance that colors the Hell's Angels' view of humanity. There is not much mental distance between a feeling of having been screwed and the ethic of total retaliation, or at least the random revenge that comes with outraging the public decency.”

- Hunter S. Thompson

"F**kery Is Afoot"

"F**kery Is Afoot"

by Larry Correia

"I am more offended by how ham fisted, clumsy, and audacious the fraud to elect him is than the idea of Joe Biden being president. I think Joe Biden is a corrupt idiot, however, I think America would survive him like we’ve survived previous idiot administrations. However, what is potentially fatal for America is half the populace believing that their elections are hopelessly rigged and they’re eternally f**ked. And now, however this shakes out in court, that’s exactly what half the country is going to think.  People are pissed off, and rightfully so.

Before I became a novelist I was an accountant. In auditing you look for red flags. That’s weird bits in the data that suggest something shifty is going on. You flag those weird things so you can delve into them further. One flag doesn’t necessarily mean there’s fraud. Weird things happen. A few flags mean stupidity or dishonesty. But a giant pile of red flags means that there’s bad shit going on and people should be in jail.

"If you think this is all a coincidence you’re an idiot. 

These are statistical impossibilities." 

- https://t.co/dmnSIJgnC5

- Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 6, 2020

Except for in politics, where apparently all you have to do to dismiss a bunch of red flag is be a democrat and mumble something about “fascist voter suppression” then you can do all sorts of blatant crime and get off.

I’ve been trying to keep up with the firehose of information about what’s going on during this clusterf**k of an election. Last night I was on Facebook talking about the crazy high, 3rd world dictatorship level voter turnout levels in the deep blue areas of these swing states was very suspicious. Somebody gas lighted me about how “I’d have to do better than that”, so this was my quick reply, listing off the questionable bullshit I could think of off the top of my head:

The massive turn out alone is a red flag. But as for doing better…

• The late night spikes that were enough to close all the Trump leads are a red flag.

• The statistically impossible breakdown of the ratios of these vote dumps is a red flag.

• The ratios of these dumps being far better than the percentages in the bluest of blue cities, even though the historical data does not match, red flag.

• The ratios of these vote dumps favoring Biden more in these few battlegrounds than the ratio for the rest of the country (even the bluest of the blue) red flag.

• Biden outperforming Obama among these few urban vote dumps, even though Trump picked up points in every demographic group in the rest of the country, red flag.

• The poll observers being removed. Red flag.

• The counters cheering as GOP observers are removed, red flag.

• The fact that the dem observers outnumber the GOP observers 3 to 1, red flag (and basis of the first lawsuit filed)

• The electioneering at the polls (on video), red flag.

• The willful violation of the court order requiring the separation of ballots by type, red flag.

• USPS whistleblower reporting to the Inspector General that they were ordered to backdate ballots to the 3rd, red flag.

• The video of 2 AM deliveries of what appear to be boxes of ballots with no chain of custody or other observers right before the late night miracle spikes, red flag.

Any of those things would be enough to trigger an audit in the normal world. This many flags and I’d be giggling in anticipation of catching some thieves. And it isn’t that I have to do better. I’m just an gen pop observer who happens to be a retired auditor with a finely tuned bullshit detector. This is going to the courts.

So now I want to delve into some of these some more. The problem is that there’s a ton of info swirling around, some good, some crap. It doesn’t help that reporters are usually dishonest or not very bright and absolute trash at presenting data. Part of our problem is Big Tech is actively stomping on stories that make their guy look bad. (while compiling these I discovered that several of the links I’d looked at yesterday had been vanished by Facebook or Twitter)

For the last four years half the country was all “Trump is illegitimate! He’s not my president! He stole the election!” so on and so forth, and that was all based upon nebulous ideas about “Russian Interference”, The Russian Interference mostly boiled down to them buying ads on Facebook, or having fake bots trolling on Twitter last time. This time the actual giant megacorporations, Facebook, Twitter, and Google themselves have actively censored stories in order to protect their candidate. So you think after this pile of suspicious election clusterf**ks that makes the game look totally rigged, the other half of the country is going to accept Joe Biden as legitimate? Oh hell no.

When you are auditing you see mistakes happen all the time. Humans make errors. Except in real life, mistakes usually go in different directions. When all the mistakes go in the same direction and benefit the same parties, they probably aren’t mistakes. They’re malfeasance.

Let’s go back a bit to before election day to see why people would be suspicious that the game has been rigged. Most of the mainstream polls were utter garbage, off by what I believe to be the largest amounts ever in all of American history. Of course, this thing that surely demoralized the right and helped the left raise funds was just an innocent sampling error rather than a purposeful sampling bias… uh huh.

Then in the weeks leading up to the election, Big Tech and the media had a concentrated censorship effort to stop what was probably the juiciest October Surprise in modern history. But them silencing major newspapers and US Senators was just a mistake in their innocent efforts to “fact check”. 

Then on election day, states like Florida that were obviously swinging hard for Trump with no possible mathematical way for Biden to come back, the news wouldn’t call for Trump. States where it was still clearly up in the air just based on even the most cursory of statistical analysis (Arizona) they called for Biden ASAP. But that was just innocent mistakes, and not an attempt to set the narrative of inevitable Biden victory by major media.

When Trump pulled ahead in the midwestern swing states by what were starting to appear to be insurmountable amounts, they suddenly threw the brakes on the counts. (my favorite part of this was when it looked like Trump was going to win, the Chinese Yaun crashed, which is pretty telling about just how shitty a candidate Joe Biden is) Okay, suddenly stopping all those counts seemed a little weird, but most of America went to bed thinking that this was a close race, with Trump in the lead in the EC.

Then we woke up in the morning, and everybody saw the 538 graphs showing a massive middle of the night spike for Joe Biden, with almost zilch in corresponding votes for Trump. Now, one of those got walked back as “typo”. (again, funny how all these “mistakes” keep going in one direction) but the damage was already done, and all of a sudden most of America was paying a whole lot more attention to places like Wisconsin and Michigan than we usually do. That’s how flags work. And it turned out that single six figure typo was only one of many statistically improbable Biden vote dumps to come.

Now, all of my liberal acquaintances were quick to dismiss these, with some gas lighting about how it was just deep blue inner cities votes coming in, and of obviously they’re going to vote for Joe Biden… Except that is them deliberately missing the point. It isn’t that Biden won those, it is that he won them with statistically improbable amounts.

I don’t know what the current numbers are now, but as of yesterday morning the Wisconsin Midnight Mystery Dump was something like 98.4% for Joe Biden. That’s better than the bluest of blue cities manage. That’s better than Biden did in DC. I saw one 28k dump yesterday (I want to say it was 538 talking about PA) that was listed as ALL for Biden. That’s basically statistically impossible.

In a small populace, you can get 100% of the vote. However the larger the sample, the more likely there will be dissenting votes. Even in the bluest of blue areas or reddest of red areas, somebody is going to be a cranky dissident, or an old person is going to fill in the wrong circle. When you get into the hundreds or thousands yet maintain that kind of perfect ratio, basically impossible.

Plus we are supposed to believe that Joe Biden, the guy barely campaigned, who got like 12 sad looking people to his rallies, was more popular than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? This election was just that much more special? Uh huh… Except that these few battleground state blue cities vote ratios don’t match up with other blue cities around America, where it appears Trump’s support among every demographic group other than white males went UP.

Then people were quick to dismiss these statistically improbable spikes with “of course the mail in voting favors Biden, republicans vote in person.” Yes, but they don’t favor Biden with these kind of ratios anywhere else in America. The ratios are more like 60-40 or 70-30. But 97-3? Oh f**k no. So either Biden is a better campaigner to the inner cities (though he rarely left his basement) than the eloquent messianic figure of Barack Obama, or there’s something fishy going on here.

Now, as a suspicious auditor type who spent a lot of hours looking for f**kery in complex systems, my gut tells me fake ballots were getting dumped into the system to make up the difference. And oh look, here is a giant pile of red flags indicating that’s the case.

Yesterday there was a meme going around about how Wisconsin had something like 90% voter turnout, and how this was 20 points higher than usual, and it how it would also be one of the highest voter turnouts in all of American history. If Wisconsin was at 90% that beats the highest national number in all of American history by EIGHT points. And that was 1876 (which was legendarily fraudulent by the way).

Except, this is the problem with using memes to make your argument, it was only partially accurate, and the previous Wisconsin numbers were cited one way, and the current year was calculated a different way. (don’t feel bad, I fell for that one too, and as an accountant, that’s SO ANNOYING). When most people think of voter turnout, they think what percent of registered voters vote. But because Wisconsin has same day voting (a gift for fraudsters) their prior year percentages were votes compared to eligible population (that’s so goofy). But it meant the meme was comparing apples to oranges. So the leftists immediately jumped on that error to dismiss the idea that there was anything weird about how many people turned out to vote this time.

HOWEVER, that’s useless obfuscation. Because if you calculate the number the same way that most Americans do, their turn out was still like 90%, which is a rate normally reserved for dictators (that combined with the vote ratios would have made Saddam Hussein blush). I had one liberal guy point out that notoriously corrupt Seattle also gets 90%… which doesn’t exactly help his case.

Because here’s the kicker, the high turn out is the average for the state, but when you drill down on the source of these statistically improbable blue vote dumps, they’ve got districts with TWO HUNDRED PERCENT TURN OUT. That’s over 200%. There’s 7 over 100%, and a ton of them in the 90s. 

Now the quick liberal dismiss explanation for this is that Wisconsin has same day registration (again, a fraudsters dream) and thousands of people ignored months of TV and social media beating them over the head to get registered to vote, and just decided to do it at the last minute because Biden is just that awesome/Trump is just that bad.

Except if you’re an auditor, when you see super suspicious spikes like that in certain places, the first thing we think is that’s the place where you’ve got somebody over the controls colluding. So that’s where you go to fabricate your bullshit.

200% turn out is f**king insane. Same day voting or not. That’s madness. When I was looking into this stuff I pulled a HuffPo article about the 2012 election and how it was controversial that some Madison ward had gotten 119% turnout. 

Oh, but wait, there’s more. A whistleblower has come forward from a Michigan post office saying that they were given ballots on November 4th, and ordered to post mark them to election day so they would still be valid.  That is so insanely illegal. When the reporter called the postal supervisor who gave the order and asked about it, he immediately hung up.

Now, on this one, liberals were quick to dismiss it because it was from Project Veritas. (who they hate, and say cherry picks their investigative reporting, yet they keep winning all the lawsuits against them) However, the very next video was the response from the US Postal Inspector General (or whatever his title is, I can’t remember) about how they are investigating, so this wasn’t just some crank going to a reporter, it’s been passed up the chain of command. It’s an actual whistle blower.

I had someone else try to dismiss this one as innocent, because the post office accepting these late ballots had no way of knowing who they voted for so it would balance out. That’s is so naïve its cute. Of course they knew who the ballots were for. They were probably dropped off by people they were colluding with. You don’t commit felonies for clueless strangers because you feel sorry they got their votes in late.

A quick note on collusion because I mentioned it a couple times now. Collusion is the key to successful fraud. Systems have controls and checks in places, so the best way to circumvent them is to team up with somebody over one of those controls and exploit the gap. That’s fraud 101. Which is why you go to the post office your buddy runs to drop off your illegal late emergency Save Biden ballots. Or you go to the ward your buddy the poll worker is running the log in book to same day register all your imaginary friends.

Speaking of the imaginary vote, this one is actually hilarious. Democrats are quick to say all votes must count, which apparently includes people who are 118 years old.  All those little fraud schemes come in from various directions, except the fraud numbers add up quick in a tight race. However, if you are behind by hundreds of thousands of votes in the middle of the night it requires some audacious level f**kery, which brings us to a red flag you can see from space. The 4 AM Biden Miracle. Here is an account from somebody at the counting center. 

This is the third link I’ve had to pull for this one, because Facebook keeps killing the others. Listen to the whole thing. Because after the statistically impossible votes came in, they had to toss a bunch of the GOP judges out of the building because of Covid.

Remember what I said about collusion? If you’ve got the actual system with the controls on your side, you can basically do any outlandish bullshit you feel like, and the only way you are going to get stopped is by an outside power (hence the multitude of lawsuits we’re going to see over the next few days).

Another thing you learn to spot when people are fraudulently manipulating data, is the mission-oriented spikes. On this one I’ve seen a few links, but the data has been so in flux that I’ve not been able to confirm it, but supposedly a bunch of the sudden Biden spikes weren’t just statistically improbable, they also voted for president but not the down ballot races. Now, lots of people will vote for president but don’t care about down ballot. However, when you get a pile of those in a row, that suggests somebody in a hurry filling out the mission critical bubble and then moving down stack, assembly line style.

There was also video taken of one guy delivering these mystery ballots to the counting center in the middle of the night (unloading them from a white van into a little red wagon) the link I used yesterday had been deleted by YouTube but I found this new one (can’t stop the signal, Mal)  Gee whiz. I can’t imagine why mysterious boxes are being moved into this supposedly secure voting facility in the middle of the night with no observers or chain of custody.

And there’s more. They just keep coming. Yesterday morning I saw a small article about a republican official calling shenanigans on the voting in his small county, which went overwhelmingly Trump last time, and how it appeared the votes tallied weren’t even enough to account for his immediate family. Of course he got laughed at by caring liberals. Fast forward a few hours and it turns out that the voting program was faulty. Worse, the same broken ass software was apparently used in 33 other counties. Hmmm… Again, with all these magical errors in these swing states all going in one side’s favor.

Then there’s SharpieGate, but I’ve heard so much conflicting stuff about that one, with sharpies actually working fine in the scantron machines, that I’m not putting much stock in that one yet. There’s a lawsuit already though, so it’ll be interesting to see what new information comes out.

Here’s another thing you learn about auditing. The more chaotic the system, the more chances for fraud. So when you come across a system that is extra chaotic on purpose, that tells you that the people running it want it that way for a reason. And the flags just keep coming in. This is going to be way worse than Florida in 2000.

What happens now? Beats me. It goes to court, and then the real question becomes how much spine the republicans have to actually fight. In previous years I’d assume they’d be a bunch of spineless chickenshits and wimp out like usual, but I’m not so sure this time. I don’t know if or how any of these will pan out, and without access to the real data, all I can do is guess.

I can say without hesitation though, that f**kery is afoot, and if an actual real investigation happens they’ll be able to prove it. Only this is politics, so who knows. The only thing I do know for certain is that this election is so f**ked up it is just going to make America’s two halves hate each other even more."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

○

Related:

"Trump Says He'll 'Never Give Up Fighting' For Americans, 

Urges 'Full Transparency' In Vote-Counting"

"Biden Campaign Threatens To 

'Escort Trespassers From The White House'"

"How It Really Is"

 

"America’s Succession Battle Continues"

"America’s Succession Battle Continues"

By Bill Bonner

SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – "What a jolly week! The whole world has been on the edge of its chair. Here, on the frontier of civilization in Northwest Argentina, our neighbor reported: “I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. to see who your next president will be.” As of this morning, we still don’t know for sure who will get to boss us around over the next four years. But the spectacle has been entertaining…

Each country… each era… needs its unifying myths and rituals. Pharaoh was a god. Louis XIV exercised the “divine right” given to him by God Himself. And now, when all the votes are finally counted, recounted, hidden under the table, and miscounted… either Donald Trump or Joe Biden will be crowned by the voters.

Succession Battle: Succession has always been a dangerous time. Even in the time of Pharaoh and divinely appointed kings, being next in line was no sure thing. Often, the obvious successor was judged incapable or unreliable by the insiders. So they looked around for a replacement. Then, too, a cousin or an uncle might present himself – backed by his own army – claiming he was promised the crown. Often, the power struggle was bloody.

Edward the Confessor, King of England, but who lived most of his life in Normandy, France, died in 1066 without an heir. Three claimants to the English crown came forward. Harold, King of Norway, said he was the rightful ruler because of a deal made between his father and King Harthacnut of England. William, Duke of Normandy, meanwhile, claimed that Edward had promised him the crown. But Harold Godwinson, Earl of Essex, probably the most logical claimant, was quickly proclaimed king and crowned by the Archbishop of York.

The Norwegians invaded, and were beaten by the newly crowned King of England. Days later, William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, landed with a force of knights drawn from Normandy, Flanders, and Brittany. The rest, as they say, is history – including the massacre of a substantial part of the English population, along with the expropriation of vast estates by the Norman warriors, some of which remain with their descendants to this day.

Biggest Disappointment: But investors today do not seem much concerned about a succession battle. A hung election? A civil war? Bankruptcy and hyperinflation? COVID-19 on the rampage? What? Me, worry? No matter what happens, investors seem to think “the system” will continue. By Thursday’s close, the Dow had gone up almost 2,000 points this week alone.

That, of course, is the biggest disappointment to us. There is now little chance of a conservative revival. And almost no chance that the spend, spend, spend… borrow, borrow, borrow… print, print, print tendencies of both parties will face any real opposition. Even if he loses, Donald Trump proved that he has the support of about a third of the voters. And even though many Republican politicians are distancing themselves from his election fraud charges, it is likely that the Republican Party is still the Party of The Donald…

What this means is that there will be no challenge to the prevailing jackassery, neither from the Right nor the Left, Republicans nor Democrats. Neither will there be any challenge to the foreign wars… nor to the domestic spend-a-thon or the Fed print-a-thon that support them. The Federal Reserve is “printing” about $11 billion per day… Come Hell or high water, Biden or Trump, Blue or Red… that will continue.

Sure, the two parties will argue over the terms of their socialized medical system. Yes, they will get into scrapes about Supreme Court appointees, the Second Amendment, transgender rights, DEA (diversity, equality, accessibility), and reparations… But it won’t be guns… bathrooms… bribes… or giveaways that wreck the nation. Nope. It will be the old-fashioned, tried-and-true society-wrecker – spending more than you can afford and making it up by printing fake money.

Long-Term Trends: All we can do is try to protect ourselves. The idea of the Trade of the Decade is that trends take time, and you only really make money (or protect your wealth) when you are on the right side of them.

We have many colleagues who like to trade options, for example. The nice thing about them is that you can make fairly small bets, with limited downside. Occasionally, you will hit the jackpot. It can be exciting and engaging… like all forms of gambling. But, in our opinion, it’s not a way to make a fortune, build up your retirement savings, or protect your wealth. It’s only by making big, bold, long-term investments, and sticking with them, that you can come out seriously ahead. There are three reasons for this…

First, the Efficient Market Hypothesis is close to correct. It tells us that it is very hard to “beat the market.” You never know which direction Mr. Market is going. And you never know which stocks (or other investments) will be favored by future developments. Further to the point, we started our publishing business more than 40 years ago. We’ve worked at it 10 to 12 hours per day… ever since 1979. And yet, can we tell if business is going to be better or worse next year? We cannot. Every year is a surprise. How, then, would an outsider have any idea?

Here and Now: Second, we are all victims of the here and now. One of the surprising conclusions of market research is that most investors do not do as well as “most investors” are supposed to. The stock market may double, but the typical amateur investor is likely to get only half of that. Why? Because he reads the paper… watches Jim Cramer on TV… or follows the advice of his stockbroker. He is in the here and now, where everybody tells him to act… to buy whatever is hot now… or he will “miss the boat.”

Alas, whatever is “hot” is usually already overpriced. The insiders get in early. Experienced, serious researchers buy in soon after. By the time the amateur investor gets wind of it, it is usually too late. He is not actually investing in a business at all; he is simply buying an existing investment from a shrewder investor who is selling out! And then, even if it is a good investment, the sirens bid him move on – to the next “hot” investment – at the worst possible moment.

(This “here and now” phenomenon seems to take more time now that Robinhooders are in the markets. They tend to buy “momentum” stocks… including some of the worst companies on Wall Street. Stocks that should have already crashed are still going up. But we assume that, eventually, they will all lose a lot of money.)

Patience: Third… Markets, sectors, companies – none of them turn on a dime. The best investments are not flashes in the pan. They are companies that grow, month after month… compounding your money over many years. Companies take decades to perfect their products and their marketing strategies. It takes decades, too, for management and employees to learn the particular skills necessary to make them work.

Again, drawing on our own experience, we worked for 25 years before ever making a real, accrued, after-tax profit. But relatively few investors have the patience to wait that long. The financial press and Wall Street always encourage you to act… to get out of slow-moving investments… and take advantage of the latest fads and fashions.

Top Performers: One of our favorite studies of investor behavior came from the Fidelity Mutual Funds group. The company wondered which of its customers had made the most money. They separated them by age, sex, and account size. But what they discovered was that the best performers had none of those things in common. Instead, the distinctive feature common to the best performers was that they all lacked, shall we say, “animal spirits.”

That is, they were all dead. But their accounts had not yet been closed – and often remained open for decades. Resting among the shades, they were never tempted by TV. No brokers called them with hot tips. No gossip reached them. They traded neither in nor out. They sought neither to improve their returns nor to impress their neighbors. They paid no commissions. They did nothing… and their accounts rose.

Trade of the Decade: Our Trade of the Decade is intended to imitate a deathly state… without actually dying. We take a guess about what we think may go up… and what may go down. We make our trade. And we forget about it for 10 years. What do we buy? What do we sell? And how have our “Trades of the Decade” worked out over the last two decades? We’ll take up these questions next week…

But we’re setting aside Monday to pay homage to Donald J. Trump. Stay tuned…"

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"Here's Our Historical Analogy Menu: Rome, the USSR or Revolutionary France"

"Here's Our Historical Analogy Menu: 

Rome, the USSR or Revolutionary France"

by Charles Hugh Smith



"There's a definite end of days feeling to the euphoria that the world didn't end on November 3. And what better way to celebrate the victory of what passes for normalcy with a manic stock market rally? It's as if everyone knows there is no returning to the good old days of a well-oiled Imperial machine chewing through any and all obstacles, and this realization is so frightening that the need to pretend everything is fine, just fine, overwhelms the last remaining ties to reality.

And since there's a brief intermission between gladiator battles while the Coliseum attendants remove the fallen heroes from the last entertainment, let's play the historical analogy game: which collapse will America track most closely? Rome circa 475 AD, the USSR circa 1989, or Revolutionary France circa 1789?

I'm tempted to include China's Song Dynasty circa 1276 AD, but the analog of the Mongol invasion isn't a likely fit. The Khmer Empire circa 1350-1430 AD and the Mayan Civilization in the 9th century might be excellent analogies but not enough is known about these complex declines to make an analogy more than guesswork.

Rome, the USSR and Revolutionary France are all compelling analogies due to the hubristic cluelessness of their fractured elites as the pretensions of stability collapsed around them. Even though Nero didn't actually fiddle while Rome burned and Marie Antoinette didn't gush "Let them eat brioche" when notified that the peasants had no bread (or more accurately, could no longer afford it), these myths are handy encapsulations of the disconnect from reality that infested the elites in the last years before the deluge of non-linear chaos overwhelmed the regimes.

While historians gather evidence of tipping points such as pandemics, ecological damage, invasions, droughts, inflation, etc., the core dynamic is ultimately the loss of social cohesion within the ruling elites and in the social order at large.

As a generality, the permanence of the status quo is taken for granted by elites, who then feel free to squabble amongst themselves over the spoils of wealth and power. Distracted by their own infighting, the elites are blind to the erosion of the foundations of their power. As coherence in the elites unravels, the ties uniting the elites with the masses unravel as well. One camp within the elites recognizes the danger and seeks reforms, but the reforms are too little, too late, and in any event, the elites who cling most ardently to the past stability fight the reform movement to a standstill.

As social cohesion unravels, systems that once seemed immutable (i.e. linear) suddenly display non-linear dynamics in which modest changes that would have made little difference in the past now unleash regime-shattering disorder.

So take your pick, America: what's the closest analogy? A sclerotic Politburo of elders living in the past, an elite fiddling while the nation disintegrates, or an elite so out of touch with reality that it claims inflation is zero while the populace can no longer afford bread?

They all lead to the same destination:"

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"With or Without"

"With or Without"

by Jim Kunstler

"The matrix of interests, parties, and people styling themselves as The Resistance, who tried unsuccessfully to cough up Donald Trump like a hairball for four years, may finally succeed by harvesting the magical crop of mail-in ballots delivered by unicorns in the gathering darkness this post-election week of mathematical wonders.

America walked wide-eyed into this signal institutional failure, the one that lowers us to the level of places in the world where the loincloth is a business suit and the only instrument of persuasion is a machete. The Attorney General, Mr. Barr, warned the country months ago in so many words that mail-in voting would invite massive fraud, and so it has gone, but exactly as predicted, in plain sight, shamelessly.

The Resistance dared to work this operation because there were no consequences to their previous seditions and felonies. Nobody ever answered for the many crimes of RussiaGate (and possibly never will). The lying slattern Christine Blasey Ford slunk back to her cushy life in California with a big GoFundMe bundle after defaming Judge Kavanaugh. Eric Ciaramella and his UkraineGate accomplices, IC Inspector General Michael Atkinson and Col. Alexander Vindman, never even faced an inquiry over their janky scheme. Judge Emmet Sullivan still refuses to follow the DC Circuit order to close the General Flynn case. Rep. Adam Schiff never paid any price for knowingly lying his ass off, nor did The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg are allowed to suppress the news and deform the public conversation because they’re more important than the rest of us, and they know better, too.

No consequences for these actors in a rough and dirty game, but great consequences for the USA - a now lethal loss of faith in the essential fairness of American life and the institutions that were created to insure it. Shame on us for letting it get this far.

Mr. Trump is a fighter, and some kind of battle will go on from here, but he doesn’t appear to have much help while the ballot mills still grind away his leads in several swing states. The whole wicked business is pretty sure to end up in the US Supreme Court, one way or another, and maybe that’s where some line can finally be drawn against the brazen bad faith that played out in the election, even as the forces of Lawfare go to work in the statehouses, attempting to engineer electoral college slates. They’ll have the assistance of state secretaries-of-state and state attorneys general elected with funding from various George Soros activist groups. I doubt The Resistance wants this thing to end up in House of Representatives, because the peculiar math involved in that remedy could hand Mr. Trump the win there.

Sometime after this weekend, the news media will start a drum-banging campaign to convince the nation that the charismatic Joe Biden is president-elect, no matter how inconclusive the outcome actually is or how many procedural and judicial hoops it has to pass through before reaching a definitive conclusion. What if, during this murky period of litigation, the story of the Biden family’s exploits in global influence-peddling somehow re-enters the public arena, despite the best efforts of the news and social media to bury it? What if, during this period, Joe Biden himself is named by federal attorneys as a “target” in the already-opened investigation of his son Hunter’s, and brother James’s, overseas money-laundering op? It would be hard to keep that out of the news. What if the issue comes up of Joe Biden being a national security risk because of that grifting? Would he be allowed anywhere near the White House?

By the way, I’m not referring just to China and the deals that Hunter was chasing in 2017 when Joe Biden was out-of-office, but also of Ukraine in 2014, during and after the “color revolution” arranged by John Kerry’s State Department with help from George Soros’s Atlantic Council, when Veep Joe Biden was the official “point man” for US policy there and Hunter was installed on the Burisma board of directors for a cool $85,000-a-month, an arrangement that ran for years and netted him millions. The reason the investigation was opened in the first place was because there is hard evidence of a Biden family money-laundering trail through the Baltic States and Cyprus. And there is a lot of hard evidence of how all this worked on Hunter’s laptop. And there are the two interviews that erstwhile Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski did with the FBI only a couple of weeks ago. Do you suppose that all of that is just going to the dead-letter office? I wouldn’t.

Couple more things. First, what do you get with Joe Biden and the Democratic Party running the US government? Official suppression of free speech and official management of the news? Official cancel culture? Official race hustling and gender identity struggle sessions in the federal agencies? Campaigns against “whiteness?” Endless lockdowns and a new round of global misadventures in “nation building?”

Then there is the question Joe Biden’s physical and mental ability to serve in office. Even the Democrats understand that he’ll be shoved aside probably early in his term under the 25th amendment (or perhaps with a simple resignation, if he doesn’t want to put the country through another wringer). They knew that all along, you realize. Leaving Kamala Harris in the oval office, a candidate so visibly unpopular that she dropped out of the primaries before the Iowa caucuses.

One other thing: whoever occupies that office beginning in 2021 is going to face an overwhelming economic crisis. Oil production, which stood just under 13 million barrels-a-day at its peak November, 2019, is down over 2 million barrels a day now, and will be sinking to about 7 million barrels-a-day in 2021, which is far short of what we use. Shale oil is a bust. It costs too much to get out of the ground and the companies that put their mojo into shale can’t make any money at it, and can’t pay off their loans, and won’t get new loans to continue operations. So, the whole industry is going to shit. Oil is what has supported the US economy for a hundred years, and it’s over. Our attempt to compensate for that quandary by borrowing more and more money at every level is also drawing to a close. It will break the bond markets, the dollar, and the banks. This is the essence of the long emergency and we’re entering the heart of the storm now.

It will require a pretty thorough rearrangement of life in our country, mainly in downscaling everything we do and re-localizing productive activity as much as possible. This has absolutely nothing to do with race-and-gender issues or any of the other ideological horse-shit that has preoccupied the Left for more than a decade. They will never wrap their minds around it. They will only respond by creating more unnecessary mischief here and probably overseas in their panicked desperation. A demoralized American people will finally see the mind-f**ing they’ve been subjected to and will rise to save themselves from the ground up, with or without their government."

- https://kunstler.com/

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 11/06/2020"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 11/06/2020"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

"I am hearing a lot of folks saying it looks like Donald Trump has lost. Trump has already won. President Trump said in a press conference on Thursday that there is “lots of litigation coming” and also said, “We will win easily.”

This massive voter and election fraud revolves around the tens of millions of ballots that were sent out all over the country with zero controls or any way whatsoever to verify their legitimacy. Mickey Mouse can vote in this election, and probably has a hundred times over. In Michigan alone, more than 138,000 ballots, all for Joe Biden, were dropped off in the middle of the night. Trump says fraud on this scale has never been seen before in the history of the United States. The fraud is so big it cannot be covered up and will be revealed, and when it is, Trump will be declared the winner.

There was a red wave so huge that it defeated the massive voter fraud operation, and the Dems had to stop the count on Election Night to figure out how they can cheat Joe Biden in the rest of the way. I repeat, it’s not going to work. Trump will get a second term, and everyone needs to keep their faith and not fall for the ongoing psyop by big media, big tech and big money."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he talks about

 biggest election fraud in history and how it will be defeated.

"Stock Market Meltup; Uncertainly Ahead; 2020 Crisis; Federal Reserve Magic Tricks"

Jeremiah Babe,

"Stock Market Meltup; Uncertainly Ahead; 

2020 Crisis; Federal Reserve Magic Tricks"

"Americas Economy Is Doomed: $27 Trillion National Debt Condemned US Growth For Decades"

"Americas Economy Is Doomed: $27 Trillion National Debt

 Condemned US Growth For Decades"

by Epic Economist

"America's economic future is doomed: the alarming labor market crisis and the enormous national debt will compromise the U.S. economic progress for decades. Experts are signaling the effects of the current economic collapse will be seen until 2050 due to reckless monetary policies that have condemned our economy to eternal debt. While investors say despite who takes the lead of our nation, more easy money will have to be unleashed in the markets to alleviate the damages experienced this year, portraying the American never-ending cycle of debt creation. In this video, we gathered the latest data which shows that many aggravating determinants are still unfolding and this crisis is far from over.

2020 has been a decaying year for the U.S. economy and any prospects of ending it on good terms have been smashed, and it’s hard to foresee whether the economy will be able to gain any traction soon. For that reason, Moody's Analytics and CNN Business developed the Back-to-Normal Index (BNI), which found the economy is operating 20% below where it was when the crisis burst - a very long way from normal levels. 

Their analysis linked confirmed infection rates with unemployment rates across states, and an increase in registered cases lead to fewer jobs and higher unemployment one month later. Now that the cold season has been limiting consumer spending, and more lockdown restrictions were issued, this will impact business owners ability to stay in business, which will then, translate into more bankruptcies, business closures, and another surge in unemployment rates. 

Another round of lay-offs will put the labor market in a very critical position, fueling a job crisis that will only grow as the economic outlook gets tougher, which means it may linger for years. Economists predicted the US economy would add 600,000 jobs in October, and the unemployment rate was expected to drop to 7.7%. However, when new data was released last week, it crushed all expectations, showing private employers added only 365,000 jobs in October. Meanwhile, the escalating number of workers that have exhausted their state benefits and rolled onto alternative government programs emphasizes that there's no escape for the economy other than the issuance of more federal aid. 

While the administration and Congress fail to come to terms on providing more help to those who were hit the hardest by this downturn, the economic deterioration continues to expand. At this point, there's no other alternative to lessen the damages experienced this year than the agreement on a legislation to provide substantial additional fiscal support, including more aid to the unemployed, small businesses, the airlines, state and local governments and a long list of others. Without these additional funds, the already fragile recovery threatens to come undone. Until then, much could wrong, driving the economy off the proverbial rails.

The constant need for further federal assistance describes how the current monetary policies have trapped the U.S. economy in a never-ending cycle of debt. In order to save the economy, the Federal Reserve has to print more and more money to keep the markets heated and prevent a social calamity. However, the unprecedented amount of unfounded cash injected in the markets has not only enabled investors greedy behavior since they know they will always be saved by the central bank, as it also exacerbated the level of national debt. 

Whoever takes the lead of our nation will not be able to avoid a policy of growing debt, but will likely encourage it even further. And America is far from alone in this downward journey, which means several other global superpowers are also drowning in debt, so the foundations for the next great global financial and economic crisis have been already laid out and this is only the first stage of the crisis. Experts say that by 2050, the U.S. public debt will be equivalent to 195 percent of its GDP

The continuous debt enhancement will lead to permanent budget deficits, gradually leading the United States into a very dangerous territory. That's why many are warning about the next Global Financial Reset, since there’s a need to shift to a new, possibly digital monetary regime, with China as a front-runner, issuing the digital yuan, and the Fed announcing plans to release digital dollars. If global leaders fail to handle their nation's mounting debt, default could drastically limit the ability of governments to address urgent concerns and that would lead to a global economic collapse."

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Yanni, "World Dance"

Yanni, "World Dance"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“What makes this spiral galaxy so long? Measuring over 700,000 light years across from top to bottom, NGC 6872, also known as the Condor galaxy, is one of the most elongated barred spiral galaxies known.

The galaxy's protracted shape likely results from its continuing collision with the smaller galaxy IC 4970, visible just above center. Of particular interest is NGC 6872's spiral arm on the upper left, as pictured here, which exhibits an unusually high amount of blue star forming regions. The light we see today left these colliding giants before the days of the dinosaurs, about 300 million years ago. NGC 6872 is visible with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Peacock (Pavo).”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160426.html

"Killing Our Dreams"

"Killing Our Dreams"

by Paulo Coelho

"The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the Good Fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don’t want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those who are engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what’s important is only that they are fighting the Good Fight.

And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams – we have refused to fight the Good Fight.

When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That’s when illnesses and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat – disappointment and defeat – come upon us because of our cowardice. And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death. It’s death that frees us from our certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of our Sunday afternoons."

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

"Now What?"

"Now What?"

by Brian Maher

"The American people spoke on Election Day. But what did they say? We tune out the ambient noise, cup our ear... and lean in for a closer listen. Yet two days later their message remains garbled, jumbled, indecipherable. The static may not clear for days… or potentially weeks.

Four “battleground” states have yet to declare a definitive winner - Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia - and North Carolina. Certain media outlets placed Wisconsin and Michigan in Biden’s pocket yesterday. But the incumbent stands defiant on his rock, shaking his fists and yelling his war shouts. He has, for example, demanded a recount in the Dairy State of Wisconsin. Why? Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager: "There have been reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties which raise serious doubts about the validity of the results."

As Josef Stalin probably never said… “It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes!” We allege no impropriety in Wisconsin or any other united state of course. We retain the truest faith in the pristinity of American democracy… and the saintly virtue of its election officials. Do not dare mention Chicago and its former Mayor Daley - we will not listen!

The president has also filed suit against Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia for counting “illegal votes.” He further retains faith that Arizona is not yet lost. Results released today in fact reveal he has closed in on the challenger.

Can he chase him down ultimately? We do not pretend to know. This we do know: The winner must collar 270 electoral votes. Mr. Biden has 264 by the scruff - at least to our understanding. That is, he is six votes short of the grail. The president - at 217 electoral votes - requires something approaching a royal flush to retain it. Thus the challenger enjoys a drastically shorter route to victory… assuming present results withstand legal challenge.

A winner has yet to be announced, it is true. Yet we can announce a definitive election loser - or losers: Pollsters. Many had Mr. Biden trouncing the president by high single-digits. Trump stood only a 10% chance of victory, some suggested. He may lose yet. The election nonetheless turned out being a nail-chomper, a near-run thing.

For months Jim Rickards argued these polls to pieces, insisting they gave false positives for Biden. He stands vindicated in the overall. It is true, Jim predicted a slender Trump victory. Yet he did grant the authentic possibility of a Biden win: "My models project that Trump will win, but I'd be the first to admit that the uncertainty factor is high, and a Biden victory is certainly possible. Too many variables are involved this year to draw a decisive conclusion. I was more confident of a Trump win in 2016 than in this election."

A cowardly hedge, an artful dodge, a craven attempt to have it both ways? In our telling, no. Jim had to navigate hair-thin margins in key states. A nudge here, a jostle there could swing the entire vote. To anticipate them all is to anticipate the course changes of a flitting fly, numbers issuing from a random number generator, the precise number of lies emerging from Congress any given day. It cannot be done. Yet Jim came nearer than most. And he may yet hit bullseye. But now the all-important question: What next? Jim gives his answer below. Read on."

○

"Where Do We Go From Here?"

by Jim Rickards

"We're in the wake of one of the closest elections in U.S. history, at least in the Electoral College count. Joe Biden will win the popular vote count by 3 to 4 million votes. That was totally expected and is irrelevant. Presidents are elected by the Electoral College, not by the popular vote. So, let's turn our attention to that and see where things stand.

Despite the drama and anticipation, the 2020 electoral vote was playing out very much as the 2016 electoral vote played out through the late hours of Election Day and into the early morning on November 4. It’s still playing out today, two days after the election.

Tuesday night a key state evidently flipped. Arizona, which Trump won in 2016, was declared for Joe Biden. That put 11 electoral votes in Biden's column and subtracted 11 from Trump's 2016 total. That wasn’t fatal for Trump in itself, but it made his path to victory far more difficult. Arizona was called prematurely. There were too many outstanding votes to call it for Biden. Biden may end up winning Arizona, but it’s likely to be very close when all votes are counted. Trump may even win.

Alaska goes to Trump. Wisconsin and Michigan have been declared for Biden, although the Trump campaign has issued legal challenges in both states, as well as Pennsylvania. Putting the remaining undecided states to one side, that leaves the Electoral College at Biden 264 - Trump 217 as of noon today. That includes putting Alaska in Trump's column. That call is not official, but no one doubts Trump will get Alaska.

It takes 270 to win. Biden needs six electoral votes to reach 270, assuming the results stand. Trump needs 53. Here are the remaining undecided states as of now and their electoral votes: Georgia (16), North Carolina (15), Pennsylvania (20), and Nevada (6). If Biden wins Nevada alone, it would bring him to 270 electoral votes, even if he loses Arizona and Pennsylvania.

So, the math and the map are pretty simple. Assuming Biden’s victories in Michigan and Wisconsin stand, one more state gets him to 270 electoral votes and is the next president. Game over. If Trump wins Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania he gets to 268 electoral votes and still needs to pick up either Arizona or Nevada.

Trump is clinging to small leads in Georgia and North Carolina and has a more substantial lead in Pennsylvania. Biden is clinging to a small lead in Nevada. The problem is that all of those states have districts that have either not reported yet or have uncounted ballots from a combination of mail-in ballots that have to be counted by hand. Excuses vary from a burst water pipe in the counting center (Atlanta, Georgia) to a public employee day off (Nevada), to small districts just not doing their job (Wisconsin).

Some of these results may be finalized today, but some will not. We may not know results from Nevada or Pennsylvania until Friday. Here are the two critical scenarios:

• Biden holds Arizona and wins Nevada. Result: Biden wins.

• Trump gets Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Nevada or Arizona: Result: Trump wins.

Events are changing in real-time. Of course, other paths are possible, but the above scenarios are the key outlooks.

I'm not aware of any forecaster who said the presidential race would come down to Arizona or Nevada, but there we are. Now we need to recall Yogi Berra's immortal advice: "It ain't over 'till it's over."

The electoral vote scenarios would only apply if there's no litigation, fraud or theft. Unfortunately, all three are in play. When you are stuffing the ballot box, you first wait to see what the "regular" vote is so that you know how many votes you "need" to push your candidate over the top. That seems to have happened. In Wisconsin, over 100,000 Biden votes appeared seemingly out of nowhere on a flash drive delivered by hand from a Democratic district. That put Biden ahead in Wisconsin, but litigation will follow.

Likewise, a huge "absentee ballot" dump appeared in Michigan that heavily favored Biden. The absentee ballot level greatly exceeded past elections raising suspicions of fraud. (Absentee ballots are different from "mail-in" ballots in the sense that they are handled directly by town clerks rather than mass counting centers making them more subject to litigation). Again, litigation is in the works.

Numerous irregularities have been claimed in Pennsylvania. Of course, Philadelphia is notorious for electoral shenanigans, so challenges there cannot be ruled out. Possible legal claims on mail-in ballots in all of these open states include: late postmarks, late receipt, missing postage, missing signatures, non-matching signatures, illegible ballots and more.

Even if all of the ballots are finally counted, some states are likely to be so close that state law will allow for a recount. Wisconsin, for example, will have a recount. Other states will likely follow. Remember Florida in 2000 and the infamous "hanging chads?" Get ready for that times six.

This is just the beginning of a new and more uncertain phase that could go on for weeks. Meanwhile, there are some things we know with much higher certainty. The Republicans have retained control of the U.S. Senate, and Mitch McConnell will remain Majority Leader. That's important. McConnell will act as a wall to prevent adding Puerto Rico and Washington DC as states (giving Democrats four more Senators) and will put an end to packing the Supreme Court and abolishing the Electoral College.

It also means the end of progressive ideas such as the New Green Deal and free everything. Republicans had a lot of Senate seats to defend this year and will have far fewer to defend in 2022. The Republican majority in the Senate may hold until the 2024 election. So, even if Biden wins, his agenda does not.

Similarly, the Republicans picked up at least six seats in the House of Representatives. That's not enough to regain the majority, but it is enough to improve cooperation with the Senate. Democrats lost a number of seats they expected to hold, especially among so-called "moderate" Democrats. The remaining moderate Democrats will not want to lose their seats in the 2022 midterm elections.

That may be enough to nudge some Democrats to work with Republicans and form a moderate working consensus on key issues. The bottom line is that the Republicans have strengthened their hand in the Congress. If Biden wins the White House, the Congress will act as a brake on the progressive, radical agenda. Checks and balances work after all.

There are lots of other presidential scenarios that are more extreme than those described above. Here's a sample that we'll update once the open states are declared:

• Some states may not be able to certify any electors by the statutory December 8, 2020 "safe harbor" date. If that happens, those states could lose their electoral votes. This radically changes the 270 vote threshold.

• Some states may certify two slates of electors; one from a Democratic governor and one from a Republican legislature in the same state. This happened in 1876. This type of dispute could easily go to the Supreme Court.

• So-called "faithless electors" could switch sides in the December 14 Electoral College vote. That's rare but has happened before. Again, a Supreme Court challenge seems likely.

• In an extreme case, if the Electoral College cannot choose a president, there will be a "provisional election" in the Congress in early January. The Senate picks the Vice President and could choose Mike Pence. The House picks the President, and it votes according to delegations, not individual members. Right now, Republicans have a majority of the state delegations even though Democrats have a majority of the members. In this scenario, the House could choose Donald Trump even if Trump loses the popular vote and trails Biden in the electoral vote. This happened in 1824. Remember, as Yogi said, "It ain't over 'till it's over.”

- dailyreckoning.com

"I Would Rather..."

"When a bull is being lead to the slaughter, it still hopes to break loose and trample its butchers. Other bulls have not been able to pass on the knowledge that this never happens and that from the slaughterhouse there is no way back to the herd. But in human society there is a continuous exchange of experience. I have never heard of a man who broke away and fled while being led to his execution. It is even thought to be a special form of courage if a man about to be executed refuses to be blindfolded and dies with his eyes open. But I would rather have the bull with his blind rage, the stubborn beast who doesn't weigh his chances of survival with the prudent dull-wittedness of man, and doesn't know the despicable feeling of despair."

- Nadezhda Mandelstam