It’s the night before Halloween and all through the District of Columbia, plywood is being placed on shop and bank windows. Not because people fear  rampaging trick or treaters but because in a few days we will have our national election and those who don’t think they’ll like the results are preparing mayhem again. If local businesses believed polls saying Biden has it in the bag, I doubt they’d be doing this. I suppose you might argue they fear joyful riots because Biden won. I think it more likely the senescent Biden will lose and the businesses here fear a continuation of the left’s bullying and temper tantrums. Indeed, on a stupid pretext (as usual) the riots have already begun here with 14 injured policemen and  more damaged businesses, businesses already reeling from the consequences of our blinkered mayor’s lockdowns. 

There are many demonstrations planned for the nation’s capital in the coming week.

Here are the plans and the sponsor of one of them: “DC Action Lab/Public Citizen is taking place at Freedom Plaza, Lafayette Park, McPhearson Square, Farragut Square between Nov. 11 through Nov. 23. It's a free speech demonstration against the election results.” DC Action Lab’s website describes itself as “a worker-owned collective of experienced organizers trying to build a world based on equity, justice, and sustainability.”

Another group, Shutdown DC, also plans huge rallies in the Capital on Election Day.  In a stunning example of projection in support of the Democrats, the party that for four years plotted to remove a duly elected president, it describes the motive for its planned disruption:

Shutdown D.C. still expects 10,000 people, as it indicated in its permit. It’s now calling for members of multiple groups to meet at Black Lives Matter Plaza on Election Day with plans to continue the event throughout the week.

“We are concerned like many people that (President Donald) Trump may try to steal this election,” said Kaela Bamberger with Shutdown D.C. “He’s given us a lot of evidence to indicate that he has no problem trying to confuse the results or prematurely declare victory. At Shutdown D.C., we’re preparing to be able to mobilize quickly in D.C. if he should attempt to do so.”

The group, initially organized in 2019 in response to the call for climate change, and took part in global climate strikes in an effort to shut down traffic and block intersections in D.C. last year.

Bamberger said the group intends to make its voices heard if the democratic process is undermined.

Nancy Pelosi surely seems to be planning a coup by street riots. Otherwise how to explain this:

I feel very confident that Joe Biden will be elected president on Tuesday whatever the end count is. But on the election that occurs on Tuesday he will be elected on January 20th. He will be inaugurated president of the United States.

I read these plans and Pelosi’s threat as recognition that, like myself, these people do not believe polls indicating Biden will win.

I know many of us are anxious about the results -- even without the pending threat of continuing violence. Along with partisan censorship by the Silicon Valley platforms, the propagandizing in the media has been worse than I can recall.

In the Federalist, Mollie Hemingway lets us count the ways they do it. I urge you to read it all. Here is a brief summary.

They overemphasize polls to express “deep-seated media bias... in the hope that the polls might move public opinion rather than reflect it.” (Mickey Kaus has long referred to such polls and media treatment of them as “hamburger helper polls”). 

“They  are downplaying Trump’s record of accomplishment and the enthusiasm he has from voters.” (If you are paying attention, thousands of people travel for many miles and stand in long lines to attend his many rallies while actual crowds of attendees at the few Biden or Harris “rallies” are almost nonexistent. )

Hemingway is right that the president’s biggest successes have been in foreign policy. (That’s probably because the White House has the freest hand here -- there's not much a leftist judiciary or Congress can do to interfere with his peace and trade agreements.) She notes how he “eroded ISIS’ territorial gains,” rewrote bad trade deals, reshaped alliances in the Middle East (successfully gelding the corrupt Palestinian Authority and limiting Iran’s options), he’s compelled NATO members to start paying their end of the deal -- all of which the media has kept hidden. Just as they’ve buried his successful policies “marked by significant growth of the economy”.

Of course, I could be wrong. People could choose a weak, demented Biden who promises us a cold winter, energy shortages, tax increases, more lockdowns and mask mandates, increased crime and collusion with the Chinese thugs, and who says “America is dead,” instead of a candidate promising a sunny, prosperous future. But I don’t think I am.

Neither, it seems, does Mark Levin, who tweeted: 

Will Joe Biden accept the results of the election? Why does he have 600 ambulance-chasing lawyers ready to sue?  Why is he being told not to concede?  Why is his party suing in battleground states to change election laws and extend voting beyond Election Day?  Why didn’t his party accept the 2016 election results?  Why did his party impeach the president over nothing?  As for a peaceful transition of power, why are his voters rioting?  And why do his supporters keep threatening violence if Trump wins?

Don’t you hate the fraudulent media in this country?

And then there are the effects  of COVID-19, much politicized by the Democrats, the media, Dr. Fauci, the WHO, and the CDC. 

If you want to see the mechanics of how the CDC tallies up its statistics, Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, opens the door on their Dilbert-like operation.

@ScottAdamsSays

For a laugh, see how the CDC estimates the number of regular influenza deaths. It's so absurd they can't even describe it coherently.

Check it out -- It’s mindboggling folderol. If, by chance, you hope to see any meaningful statistical work by the CDC, you will quickly be disabused of that notion when you read this. I’m sticking with honest analysis by better thinkers which reveals that the mortality rate from COVID-19 is not far different than an rigorous tally of mortality by other flus. (CDC admits that many young  people have died of suicide and drug overdoses as a result of the lockdowns, and  their mortality rate would seem to be higher only because of government action in response to the new flu.)

In July, the director of the CDC confirmed the higher suicide rates connected to the lockdowns -- I cannot imagine this trend has diminished as schools remain closed and lockdowns continue in many areas of the country:

Center for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield said in a Buck Institute webinar that suicides and drug overdoses have surpassed the death rate for COVID-19 among high school students. Redfield argued that lockdowns and lack of public schooling constituted a disproportionally negative impact on young peoples’ mental health.

"But there has been another cost that we’ve seen, particularly in high schools," Redfield said. "We’re seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID. We’re seeing far greater deaths from drug overdose that are above excess that we had as background than we are seeing the deaths from COVID. So this is why I keep coming back for the overall social being of individuals, is let’s all work together and find out how we can find common ground to get these schools open in a way that people are comfortable and their safe."

Roughly 146,000 people have died from COVID or COVID-related causes in the U.S., according to CDC data.

The most recent publicized federal data records 48,000 deaths from suicide and at least 1.4 million attempts in 2018. In 2019, almost 71,000 people died from drug overdoses.

[snip]

Historical trends give reason to believe the suicide rate may rise due to extenuating [sic] circumstances caused by COVID-19, including unemployment and social isolation. For example, in the year after the Great Recession in 2008, the rate in America was 6.4 percent higher than expected. While the rate didn’t’ “skyrocket,” as some have predicted it will this year, the coronavirus pandemic and economic shutdown has dealt a worse blow to the U.S. psyche.

Thirty to 40 million jobs have been lost to the economic shutdown, compared to 2.6 million in 2008.

Maybe the Democrats and their media running dogs thought it was brilliant to overplay the threat of COVID in an attempt to destroy the economy and with it the President’s re-election chances. But the economy is fast rebounding in an astonishingly swift recovery -- 33.1% growth in GDP for the third quarter of this year, the best GDP growth in history -- and it appears they’ve terrified their supporters more than their opponents.

As Don Surber notes: 

I offer a few items for thought, beginning with the laugh of the day.

Jason Miller tweeted, "Just spoke with a smart Dem strategist who is upset with the media’s suppression campaign against Biden voters. Dems have spent months scaring voters away from in-person voting & are now realizing they need those votes, and media COVID fearmongering isn’t helping matters...

"Additionally, these possible Biden voters just aren’t that excited to go stand in line for him, on top of the media-driven COVID in-person voting fears. Massive enthusiasm disadvantage for Biden camp heading into Election Day is a problem -- the Red Wave is coming!"

A few weeks ago, I had minor eye surgery and had to go through a COVID test, a temperature reading, hand sanitizing, and masking for a  ten-minute procedure. Disgusted with all these theatrics, I asked the doctor how long he thought we’d have to endure this nonsense. He responded “November 4th.”

Be of good cheer.