THE GASLIGHT ELECTION

 

[Published on Newsmax]

2020 is the single most important election since 1860.

This is not hyperbole.  The future of America’s representative democracy is at stake.

The Left plans to change fundamental policies that will cripple earnings and economic vitality.  More ominous, the Left is planning to change the rules that have governed America since 1789.  Their sole purpose is to achieve permanent power.

More frightening is that these threats are being successfully hidden from the electorate.

America’s news media took a sharp left turn in the 1960s.  During the 21^st Century, what is considered the “Mainstream Media” (MSM) dropped all pretense of being professional journalism.  They are overtly the Left’s propaganda arm.  “News anchors” and talk show moderators are no longer selected from working reporters, but from career political operatives.  The result is an echo chamber of anti-Americanism, and now anti-Trump.

This Leftist echo chamber now dominates over 95 percent of television, radio, print, and digital “news”. Except for a handful of conservative radio personalities, Fox Cable news shows, and blogs, the Left’s echo chamber shapes an alternate reality that may propel the Democrats into the White House and a Senate Majority.

The classic 1944 movie “Gaslight” is about a diabolical villain who creates an alternative reality to drive his victim insane to reap riches.  The term “Gaslighting” is based on this process of creating a fraudulent reality so the victim makes wrong decisions to their detriment.

That is what 2020 is about.  It is the Gaslight Election.

Since the Summer of 2016, the Left’s echo chamber has created a narrative, fueled by the bogus Steele Dossier, that Russian leaders are puppeteers controlling Trump and his inner circle.  Wild assertions went unchallenged.  A fake whistle blower, coached by Congressional Democrats and shaped by secretly backdated regulations, launched a reckless Impeachment. 

While the entire scheme of lashing Trump to Russia, and then Ukraine, was exposed as a fraud, the Left’s echo chamber barely reports it.  In fact, most of the echo chamber reprises Russia, unchallenged, whenever it can.  Tragically, Judicial Watch has had to sue Trump agencies to force the release of exculpatory information.  Career bureaucrats have successfully delayed these facts from entering the public domain.

At the same time, former Vice President Biden is on video bragging about doing exactly what was the basis of Trump’s Impeachment to laughter and applause by the Washington, DC elite.  Efforts to hold Biden accountable have been thwarted by FBI and intelligence officials for years.  The Lefts’ echo chamber remains silent.  It is just as important to not report something.

The Lefts’ echo chamber also set the ultimate trap for Trump’s re-election.  COVID-19 remains Trump’s Achilles Heel because scary and highly inaccurate models generated by the Imperial College on March 16, 2020 forced America’s economic suicide.  The Left’s echo chamber demanded that Trump shut down his booming economy to prevent millions of deaths.  The model turned out to be fundamentally flawed.  Now the Left’s echo chamber blames Trump for this year’s economic downturn. Leftist Governors use their independence under Federalism to enforce draconian lockdown measures not based on current science.  This slows the economic recovery through election day.

Biden, Harris, and their media allies, wear masks every time they are on camera.  They wear masks when they are outdoors and over thirty feet from others.  No science or health organization recommends this.  It serves as a symbol for COVID-19 remaining a dire threat and Trump is to blame.  The Lefts’ echo chamber makes no effort to question this shameless propaganda ploy.  Instead it promotes it.

The Left creates visual equivalency by providing only tight shots of Biden and Harris at their podiums, ignoring the fact that less than ten people are in the audience.  Trump’s 20,000+ rallies are either not covered at all or show only tight podium shots.  Biden’s countless lies about his attending Black churches and colleges, his groundless assertions, and his fiction about awarding medals, remain unchallenged.  His radical agenda for the Green New Deal, tax increases, and aggressive gun control goes unreported.  Alternatively, debunked accusations, like Trump hating the armed forces, dominate news cycles.

The Left over-samples registered Democrats, sometimes over 50% to only 38% or less for Republicans, to generate polls showing Biden trouncing Trump.

The Left’s Gaslight Election may succeed because over 50 million have early voted, just as facts about the Biden family’s foreign influence peddling is slowly seeping out.  Congressional Republicans’ glacial investigative pace enables the Left’s reality.

 A Democrat sweep in November will be tragic for everyone except the liberal elite. Trump’s tax cuts will be erased, and new taxes added.  Four years of regulatory relief will evaporate.  All of Trump’s government reform Executive Orders will be voided within hours of the Inauguration.  Gun control will rapidly expand. The 1619 anti-American indoctrination curriculum will be forced into every classroom. Illegal aliens will be granted wholesale amnesty and added to the voter rolls.  American energy independence will vanish, and Americans will suffer from the absurd policies that have made California the land of rolling blackouts.  Hollywood and Sports celebrities will roar back into prominence, virtue signaling Americans about race relations and carbon footprints.  

Worse, all investigations of Biden, Obama, Clinton, and the Deep State will end within hours of a Biden/Democrat victory, extinguishing any hope that truth will prevail.

PLACE YOUR BETS!

 

[Guest Contributor - Donald G. Mutersbaugh Sr.] 

Well, it’s official: I can’t take it any longer! Ever since Hiden’ Biden has come out of his basement bunker and hit the road, the lies have become more egregious and frequent. Being a true blue American and trying to adapt to this new environment of falsehood has been excruciatingly painful.

I keep seeing these false news reports and polls and can only think one of two things. Either the Main Street media has completely underestimated the intellectual capacity of the American people or the American people have completely lost their collective minds. I see one poll that is completely contradictory to the rational man’s intellect – and I think okay, I’ll give them that one. Then on the next one I see another pole that is also completely upside down to reality, and I think – what in the world? So, you can imagine my angst when I see a whole page of completely irrational and completely incorrect conclusions about who is ahead of whom!

For example, somehow the Main Street media presents a “poll” that shows the people prefer Biden over Trump when it comes to law enforcement and nobody questions whether this flies in the face of reason. All of the cities that are burning and being destroyed are controlled by Democrat mayors and governors – doing nothing but defunding the police apparatus and reallocating the funds to other social endeavors – such as bailing out rioters. And need I mention that over 855,000 members of various police departments, sheriff departments, and the National Association of Police Organizations have endorsed President Donald Trump because they know he has their backs?

If you look at the various Main Street media polling websites, Biden almost is invariably ahead of everything except economics – they haven’t figured out how to credibly lie about that one yet! And recently – and reluctantly – these entities have had to concede that the race is tightening. I would submit that it was never as bad as they presented. Sure, Joe Biden could have been ahead in various issues at one time or another. But to somehow suggest that President Trump (e.g.) has not handled the coronavirus pandemic as best as any human could have done given what we knew and when – and even more ridiculously then submit that somehow Biden could have done better – puts all logic and understanding on its head! If that were true, then the Democrat party should get hammered on two points: first, what could they have done (give me something) that would have ameliorated the circumstances faced with this rogue virus from China? Second, if they really did have a better solution, time phased, according to what we knew and when – for them to withhold solutions that might’ve been better is treasonous in my mind because thousands of people have died needlessly. This has been a media driven story together with its perceived failure.

So, let’s take a look at the polling process. The polling organizations apparently refuse to update their models to reflect all kinds of changes in the way things are predicted. They apparently have never heard of such statistical concepts that validate data such as confidence intervals, correlations, and standard error. The data just doesn’t make sense. I’ve said in previous blogs that there have been several paradigm shifts in the electorate; I don’t really see any of these new variables incorporated in the results they produce. Even more worrisome is the way they choose their statistical sample; these supposedly random samples they use have allegedly been skewed by some of their sampling techniques. For example, several polls have been taken where the population sampled consisted of (e.g.) 25% Republican and 75% Democrat; how can you not get a skewed answer? (“Of course, the important question for pollsters who want to accurately reflect the partisan composition of the country is not “Are there more Democrats than Republicans?” but rather “What is the correct ratio of Democrats to Republicans?” The answer to this question depends, in part, on whether we are talking about the general public, the smaller subset who are registered to vote, or the even smaller group of people who are likely to vote in a given election (“likely voters”). Evidence suggests that the Democratic advantage is somewhat narrower among registered voters than the general public – and often even narrower among likely or actual voters.” https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/25/why-public-opinion-polls-dont-include-the-same-number-of-republicans-and-democrats/)

Then there is margin of error. Consider, “The concept of polling rests on the assumption that the opinions of the people sampled in the poll accurately represent the distribution of opinions across the entire population, which can never be completely true. The “margin of error” describes the uncertainty that comes from having such a small sample size relative to the size of the population. In general, the more people are surveyed, the smaller the margin of error. But this doesn’t take into account another key source of error called “biased sampling”. The fact that a poll samples a lot of people does not mean that it does so in the truly random fashion that would be needed to extrapolate results to the larger population. Unfortunately, many polls fall victim to a number of biases that significantly skew their results despite their small margin of error. The most common bias, known as convenience sampling, occurs when pollsters select people to survey using a convenient, but not entirely random, strategy.

“Another possible source of polling error is known as volunteer bias, wherein the people who volunteer their opinions to a poll do not represent the distribution of the entire population….

“Another tactic is for a pollster to copy off its neighbors…. The cheap polls may “herd” off stronger polls, tweaking their results to match them. This can make them superficially more accurate, but they add little value. Where there are better polls available, the cheap poll duplicates the results already in hand. Where there aren’t, the cheap poll may stray far from an accurate and representative sample of the race. Then there are the companies that have cheated in a much more explicit way: by fabricating data. There is strong evidence … there are more firms out there like them.” https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/where-are-the-real-errors-in-political-polls/

Trust me when I say the more you understand about the way these polls are conducted, the more you would be willing throw them in the trash – because that’s all they’re worth. Granted, as we draw closer to the actual election day, the polls will probably be more accurate. There are obvious reasons for that, but I’ll leave it to the reader to discern for themselves the overall topic of polling.

I needed to provide this background to get to the bottom line: what if you had to wager a substantial sum of money on who is going to win based on these polls? Would you do it? I know I wouldn’t! Instead, I would go to my favorite bookie and see what the odds were on each candidate! So, let’s look at that data over a comparable timeframe.

There are several websites that facilitate online wagering on election outcomes. The thing that is interesting to follow are the odds (over time) for each outcome – specifically, who is going to win the race for presidency? I looked at several websites, and several predicted that President Trump would win. Some said that he would lose to Biden, and in others the odds were even. One thing that was true for most of them was that the odds had switched from Biden winning to Trump winning and in all cases the odds were narrowing. One website even predicted that Trump would lose the popular vote, but the Republicans would win the election. Wouldn’t it be great if Trump lost the popular vote in two consecutive elections, but won the presidency in both cases (Electoral College outcome – there are odds on this, too!)? 

One other note on this is: “What does this mean for Donald Trump in 2020? As mentioned earlier, Donald Trump [sic] is no longer the bookmakers favorite to win the 2020 election. However, in 2020 Donald Trump has accounted for 53% of all bets placed in the US election betting market. In the last month, his dominance of the betting market has increased to 59%. Therefore, if the recent trend of political betting events were to continue, we’d expect Donald Trump to win the 2020 US Election despite the odds suggesting otherwise.” https://www.oddschecker.com/us/insight/specials/politics/20200813-2020-us-presidential-election-odds-betting-history-suggests-donald-trump-will-beat-joe-biden

All of my life I have been advised that whenever I wanted to know the answer to something, always follow the money. Which do you think is going to be more reliable: fake news that generates pats on the back and an at-a-boy in the newsroom or somebody who actually has to be right in order to put food on the table? My final advice is: when you see a headline that says “Biden ahead by six points” is throw the paper in the trash and go look at a couple of gambling websites – see what the odds are and in which direction they are trending. You may even want to place a bet while you’re there!

Donald G. Mutersbaugh, Sr. earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland and his Master of Business Administration degree from Mary Washington College. He is the former Associate Administrator of Information Resources for the U.S House of Representatives under Speaker Newt 

WHY 2020 IS SO IMPORTANT

 

[Published on Newsmax]

Anyone still doubting what will happen if the Democrats take the White House and the Senate this November need to look at what just happened in Virginia.

In November 2019, Democrats won the governorship and control of both houses of the state legislature for the first time since 1993. While they had a 10-seat majority in the House of Delegates, their margin in the State Senate was a razor thin two seats.

As 2020 dawned, the newly sworn-in Democrats moved with lightning speed on a broad legislative front. It was a relentless Leftist Juggernaut.

During the 60-day legislative session, Democrats passed 1,900 bills. The governor signed every one of them into law.

Every Leftist dream came true.

First came eviscerating gun rights. The gun control bills were so groundbreaking, Gov. Ralph Northam held a special signing ceremony. The bills expanded background checks to include private sales, created severe penalties for leaving firearms near children, including inside a private home, limited handgun sales to one a month, and created red flag laws.

More importantly, new laws empowered local governments, as Virginia is a "commonwealth," to regulate the possession, carrying, storage or transport of firearms, ammunition, components or any combination of those things, and to ban guns in public spaces, including public buildings, parks, recreation centers and during permitted events.

This included authorizing local governments to establish stricter gun laws than exist at the federal and state level.

A second wave assailed Virginia history and culture. Lee-Jackson Day was eliminated as a state holiday. All protections for Confederate monuments ended.

Then came social legislation. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), long past its ratification deadline, was ratified anyway, providing the 38th state needed for final adoption. A hoped-for court challenge will try to overturn precedent and force the ERA into the Constitution.

The "Virginia Values Act" added sexual orientation and gender identity to all Virginia anti-discrimination laws. It granted the attorney general the power to take action against anyone "engaged in a pattern or practice of resistance" to the rights guaranteed by the new laws.

Abortion rights were dramatically expanded, rolling back existing provisions including a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, ending a requirement that women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound and counseling, eliminating the requirement that abortions be provided by a physician, allowing nurse practitioners to perform them and ending building code requirements on facilities where abortions are performed.

Virginia's felony larceny threshold was raised from $500 to $1,000. Sponsors stated this will lead to fewer Virginians with felony convictions on their records.

Possession of marijuana was decriminalized and replaced with a $25 civil penalty.

The minimum wage went to $9.50 per hour. This will increase to $11 in 2022, $12 in 2023 and by another $1.50 in 2025 and 2026.

Virginia increased its gas tax 5 cents a year for two consecutive years.

A new tax on plastic bags was established.

Finally, they changed the rules for voting. Virginians no longer need to show a photo ID in order to vote, and they no longer need to provide an excuse to cast an absentee ballot.

Virginia became part of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, awarding the state's electoral votes to the national winner of the presidential popular vote, instead of the state's own popular vote.

Democrats have an even longer wish list at the national level, including the "Green New Deal," raising taxes and the minimum wage, and national gun control measures.

They are invoking racism and atoning for the 1619-based "America is a slave nation," to promote reparations and other laws that will eliminate America as we know it. The Left wants to erase freedom of speech in favor of "woke" sensibilities and political correctness and, of course, erase the right to bear arms.

The biggest national movement is to end "institutional racism" and "white privilege" by eliminating the Electoral College, make U.S. Senate seats based on population, granting statehood to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and packing the Supreme Court. 

Every one of these "reforms" is designed to solidify the Left's power forever.

The only thing standing in the way of Democrats recreating the Virginia Juggernaut at the national level is the U.S. Senate's filibuster.

The crusade for ending the filibuster is already underway. Even though it has been integral to the Senate since its founding, it is being portrayed as a recent racist manifestation.

The filibuster is the only protection for minority rights in Congress. Both parties embrace it as they know one day they may be out of power and need it.

The Left is banking on the November election giving them eternal power.