With a month to go, I am cautiously optimistic that the American public will reject the cynical, dishonest, undemocratic candidacy of Kamala Harris and the inexcusable Tim Walz. I am pessimistic about the nation avoiding another Electoral College-elected President who trailed in the popular vote.
Right now, it sure looks like this is where he are headed, and such an unfortunate result will almost certainly spark violence, again give Democrats an excuse to deny Trump’s legitimacy as President, lead to further assaults on the Constitution (which Democrats increasingly want eliminate or marginalize), and guarantee another four years of escalating unethical, divisive, dangerous partisan warfare. Trump, of course, will not help matters as he will not be able to resist gloating and trolling, as is his pattern. Great. I can’t wait.
The popular vote/ Electoral vote conflict is almost entirely California’s fault. Harris votes will overwhelm Trump votes by nearly 2-1 in our most populous state, and that is because California has become more of a cult than anything else. Its voters are bat-crazy over climate change hysteria, increasingly don’t like enforcing laws, sympathize with shop-lifters, extol illegal immigrants, and enable censorship. Significantly, California is the only state seriously contemplating the very unserious, irresponsible and racist policy of reparations, even though slavery was never legal in the state. On my cognitive dissonance scale, winning the popular vote in California is an indictment, not an accomplishment.
In other matters…
1. How is this news to anyone? An unethical James O’Keefe undercover mole managed to secretly record an MSNBC producer boasting about how MSNBC is actively working to help Harris win. In other news, he said that fish swim and December 25 is Christmas. A similar recording from a CNN, ABC, CBS or NPR producer (or a Washington Post or New York Times editor) might be a bit more valuable, though not by much.
2. Confronting my biases again…Yesterday I had to order platters of food for my wife’s memorial event next Saturday. The middle-aged woman I dealt with at Safeway was alarmingly dead-eyed. There was a disconcerting delay in responding to everything I said. And I found myself thinking, “These are the people the two parties are fighting for now. Morons. They are almost certainly the majority in this country, and their lack of intellectual curiosity, critical thinking skills and civic engagement is why our republic works as badly as it does. Mostly they follow their peer groups, you know, barely thinking mobs, without deep thought or questions.
I know: this is an elitist attitude, and I try to suppress it. The woman deserves respect, all of her rights, and to be happy and as successful at her chosen endeavors as possible. But boy, what anchors on society such people are…
3. Gee, who could have foreseen this happening? The New York Times’ “As America’s Marijuana Use Grows, So Do the Harms” begins…
In midcoast Maine, a pediatrician sees teenagers so dependent on cannabis that they consume it practically all day, every day — “a remarkably scary amount,” she said.
From Washington State to West Virginia, psychiatrists treat rising numbers of people whose use of the drug has brought on delusions, paranoia and other symptoms of psychosis.
And in the emergency departments of small community hospitals and large academic medical centers alike, physicians encounter patients with severe vomiting induced by the drug — a potentially devastating condition that once was rare but now, they say, is common. “Those patients look so sick,” said a doctor in Ohio, who described them “writhing around in pain.”
As marijuana legalization has accelerated across the country, doctors are contending with the effects of an explosion in the use of the drug and its intensity. A $33 billion industry has taken root, turning out an ever-expanding range of cannabis products so intoxicating they bear little resemblance to the marijuana available a generation ago. Tens of millions of Americans use the drug, for medical or recreational purposes — most of them without problems.
But with more people consuming more potent cannabis more often, a growing number, mostly chronic users, are enduring serious health consequences.
I argued against the movement to make pot as legal, available and socially sanctioned as alcohol for decades, knowing it was losing battle, but correctly pointing out that nothing good would come of pending legalization while the negative effects would be long-term and massive. Oh—the Times has no way of knowing that Americans who use the drug routinely do so “mostly without problems.” This is a remnant of the pro-pot propaganda the media endorsed to bring us to this point…and there is no going back.
4. I just saw Trump surrogate Corey Lewandowski literally refuse to respond to Fox media critic Howard Kurtz’s question about whether it was appropriate for Trump to call Harris “mentally impaired.”
A. Lewandowski wasn’t even clever about it: he just started talking about something else.
B. What a repellent character he is: I had forgotten. How hard could it be for Trump to find spokespersons who don’t look like a character from “Night on Bald Mountain” in “Fantasia”? Irritating voice and speaking style, unfriendly, a face for radio. Yecchh.
C. It was an easy question to answer: Harris’s socialism and values are extreme and un-American, and there is good reason to question the intellectual stability of anyone who holds such views. Sure, it was just an ad hominem attack, unethical and unseemly, but then, that’s Trump.
5. Good. Four collegiate women’s volleyball teams have forfeited games against San Jose State University, which has a trans, biological male, Blaire Fleming, on its roster. This is the only way this unethical, dangerous, extreme LGBTG agenda-driven development in women’s sports will end: female students, women athletes (like the Olympic’s female boxers), coaches, parents and administrators need to stand as a united front against biological males competing in women’s sports.
Ethics Alarms 
“On my cognitive dissonance scale, winning the popular vote in California is an indictment, not an accomplishment.”
Priceless!
PWS
The popular vote/ Electoral vote conflict is almost entirely California’s fault. Harris votes will overwhelm Trump votes by nearly 2-1 in our most populous state, and that is because California has become more of a cult than anything else. Its voters are bat-crazy over climate change hysteria, increasingly don’t like enforcing laws, sympathize with shop-lifters, extol illegal immigrants, and enable censorship.
How did California’s voters become this way?
I blame Governor Moonbeam… I mean, Governor Brown. Although really, this is just an excuse to link to a relevant Dead Kennedy’s song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIqESwzCGg4
3. And then there’s legalized cell phone gambling. How does gambling benefit any part of society other than the bookmakers? I think the detrimental effects of legalized cell phone gambling will be as devastating as those of legalized pot.
Advertising revenue. Probably billions of dollars worth.
Which translates into higher rights payments from the networks to televise sporting events.
Which translates into higher salaries for poor starving baseball players. Thank goodness they won’t have to panhandle at traffic lights just to pay the rent.
Jack wrote:
“Good. Four collegiate women’s volleyball teams have forfeited games against San Jose State University, which has a trans, biological male, Blaire Fleming, on its roster.”
Yes, but unfortunately, they are justifying it on the basis of “safety.” Safetyism is a dangerous rat-hole used to justify everything from denial of free speech and association to abrogation of the Second Amendment. It should not be used in this case. Has everyone already forgotten the excesses of the recent pandemic in the name of “safety?”
Competitive fairness is the only way to attack this dangerous trend. Yes, safety is an issue but raising it in this controversy is treacherous and counterproductive.
Maybe it’s an effective tactic, Glenn. It turns one of the left’s shibboleths against the left. A sort of checkmate. The left doesn’t do “competitive fairness.” They don’t even do competition. “Competitive fairness” is just a white supremacist construct used to oppress marginalized communities.
Heh. Perhaps you’re right.
I was really upset about the marijuana legalization. It was passed as ‘medical marijuana’. Well, that was garbage and any rational discussion of it was shot down by the marijuana supporters and the media. When the ‘medical marijuana’ idea was brought forward, I wondered what were the benefits. I found that Marinol had been reduced to a Schedule 3 drug and wondered why don’t they just use that? I mean, is pharmaceutically pure and predosed and easily prescribable. Then I found that you are allowed to drive trucks while on Marinol and that got my interest.
Then I found the key part they leave out. The medically active dose of THC is nonintoxicating. That’s right. If they get high, is not medical marijuana. That is why you can operate heavy equipment on Marinol. The research on ‘medical marijuana’ found that ‘patients’ preferred to smoke marijuana rather than take Marinol. The #1 reason given was that ‘they didn’t get high’ on Marinol. Well, I wasn’t aware that the point of ‘medicine’ was to get you high.
Then I found out that the studies had been rigged. There is no glaucoma benefit, THC is really bad at controlling pain. The only thing it is good for is nausea. Then you find that the marijuana harm studies were also rigged. They all showed connections to depression, schizophrenia,etc. It is all explained away by ‘those people were already predisposed to it’. What that means is that they would not have developed it if they didn’t do marijuana, but not everyone who does marijuana will develop it.
When this bill came up for a vote, I told everyone I knew to vote against it. Almost all of them ignored me, saying ‘If what you were saying were true, the news would have told us’. They said this even though there were some schoolteachers in town campaigning for medical marijuana and stating that they would sell it to their students at school. (Reason to homeschool #63,925) After the ballot intiative passed, those same people were upset about what happened and I reminded them of what I had said. They all were so blinded by the authority of our local news, that they still couldn’t believe they were lied to.
So what happend? A vape shop in my town started selling marijuana to minors after they applied to be a dispensary. They were caught, but they still got their dispensary license! We currently have over 50 marijuana dispensaries in my town. We have 4 pharmacies. The state agency that is supposed to regulate the industry wasn’t functioning after 3 years of funding. The head of the agency stood before the legislature, high as a kite, and said “Well, you know, we found that, like, getting a testing lab accredited is, like, really haaarrrd.” Chinese and Mexican crime organizations moved in and dominate the growing industry. After a tornado hit a grow operation, the sheriff found a bunch of workers on site, being held as slaves to work. Marijuana addiction is now rampant. Good job everyone!
That’s a post in itself, Michael. Whew! A cautionary tale. Thanks.
Yeah, that gets a CotD nomination from me as well. I’m passing this to someone I know that supports legalization, even though he would never use it himself.
Astounding.
Great post. As a migraine sufferer, the supposed nausea and pain effects had me really interested in MM, these symptoms are extremely bad for some of my attacks. Of course, fire and smoke would never jive with the photophobia and olfactory sensitivity.
Did have to take some ondansetron once, which I understand is safe enough to be an over-the-counter medication administratively, but never will be sold that way because of fears it’d be used to avoid medical attention nausea symptoms might otherwise require.