Another COVID freak-out

I detect a pattern. Hysteria poses as science in order to exert control. It’s happened over and over again in this country, and many of the same people still fall for it. Are you deliberately misleading people when you spout off about how humans are destroying the planet with CO2? Most are not. Most have just fallen for the line that there’s a ‘scientific consensus.’ Of course, there is no such thing. Even if there were, consensus doesn’t equal science. Ask for people who believe in manmade global warming to provide proof and they can’t. They just fall back on the line of ‘scientific consensus.’

We saw the same thing with the ozone scare several decades ago. The world came together to sign the Montreal Protocol in 1987 to ban CFCs. However, in 1991, long before most countries phased in their bans, the thinning of the ozone miraculously stopped. We now know that things like volcanos are far more responsible than humans for any hole in the ozone. In fact, CFC gases are four times heavier than air, so it’s unlikely that anything humans have emitted from their air conditioners ever made it the nine to eighteen miles to the ozone layer. But we certainly freaked out.

We’re seeing the same thing with face masks. Masks are the new global warming. I remember when health officials told us under no circumstances were we to wear a mask. Mask Nazis were caught on camera screaming at mask-wearers in grocery stores. How quickly times changed. Suddenly the mask Nazis were screaming at people for not wearing masks.

Recently, a man claiming to have COVID spit at two ladies hiking outdoors in the mountains because they weren’t wearing masks. I know. It’s getting crazy. Do masks protect you from COVID? There’s no evidence of that. Do they keep you from spreading it if you have it? Little evidence of that either. A new Danish study showed that people wearing masks contracted COVID at a rate of about 2 percent. People without masks contracted COVID at a rate of about 2 percent.

We’ve seen COVID cases surging across the country in the expected second wave. We knew it was coming because we could see what was happening in Europe. The interesting thing is the surge is happening everywhere, regardless of mask mandates. Proponents of masks will pick and choose data to show mask-mandated areas are dealing with the second wave better, but that data changes daily, and it’s easy to freeze-frame your window of choice to make your case.

The state of Tennessee is buying ad time to run a PSA urging people to wear a mask. The ad features an elderly farmer who talks about never missing a harvest and never missing a Sunday church service. He also has high blood pressure and diabetes. He says he chooses to live his life, and that’s why he wears a mask. A more irresponsible public health message in the COVID era could not have been conceived. We all know that the people who are dying are the elderly and those with underlying health issues. This man checks all the boxes, yet he’s encouraging people like himself to continue to live their lives, but just wear a mask. Evidence shows a mask will do nothing to protect him from COVID.

A recent CDC study found 85 percent of people with COVID were wearing masks. Use your common sense. If you’re at risk of dying from COVID, stay away from others until this thing is gone. That’s the only thing that will protect you.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show, on SuperTalk 99.7WTN in Nashville. He's also co-host of The PodGOATs podcast and I'm Calling Bovine Scatology.

Beware the zealots

 

Zealotry is tearing this country apart. Extremists on both the right and the left make it nearly impossible for reasonable people to be heard. I’ve taken a lot of heat from my radio listeners for demanding proof that the election was stolen. It’s easy just to chant “Stop the Steal,” but it’s another thing altogether to prove it. There are too many who don’t want to wait for proof. They’ve already jumped to the conclusion that the election was stolen.

There are also extremists on the other side, some even reside at Fox News, who believe it’s necessary to qualify any allegation of voter fraud with the disclaimer “unfounded.” Eric Shawn at Fox News is the worst. When Christine Blasey Ford accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her, did Shawn and others qualify her accusation as “unfounded?”

We don’t yet know what transpired in the recent 2020 election. Social media censoring tweets and posts and news reporters discounting anyone who questions the results does not illuminate the issue. Nor does assuming the election was stolen without any hard proof.

Zealots illuminate the edges of insanity. In a way they do the rest of us a service by clearly showing where the side of the cliff is. That doesn’t mean the truth lives in the mushy middle. It means that reasonable people can stand just to the right or left of center and disagree, but disagree reasonably.

Most of the zealotry we’ve witnessed lately in this country comes from the left. Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and other radical groups seek to sow disunity while simultaneously calling for unity. Unity to them means you drop any opposition to them and acquiesce. 

Now the shoe is on the other foot. The aggrieved are now the 73 million people who voted for Donald Trump, and they’re expected to go quietly into the night. The Trump voters have reason to be angry. Make no mistake, there was voter fraud in the 2020 election. We have multiple instances of dead people voting. We have some counties where over 100 percent of the registered Democrats voted. There was fraud. The question is if there was enough voter fraud to overturn the results of the election. That remains to be seen.

Of Trump’s legal team, Sidney Powell has made the most compelling case. She has a sworn affidavit from someone who worked for the software company that supplies the software to the Dominion voting machines used in many states. This whistleblower says the developers built in a back door to allow tampering. If true, that’s a very serious accusation, but it’s going to take more than just that to prove voter fraud. If a back door was built in, you have to prove that someone used it. And you have to prove that they used it widely enough to change the results of the election. That’s a tall order. It doesn't help her case that the Trump legal team has now distanced itself from her. She either has the proof or she doesn't. Some aren't waiting around to see.

A woman called into my radio show suggesting it was time for “patriots” to do what the left has been doing and burn the country down. What the extremists on the left have been trying to do is destroy the country. Patriots—real patriots—should be trying to preserve it. You don’t preserve a nation by burning it down. Yes, I’m well aware of Thomas Jefferson’s quote that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Jefferson also meant that as a last resort.

This election process is not yet over. Lawsuits and recounts are as much of the process as the actual voting. If your side feels as if the election were not fair, they have the right to bring their grievances to election officials, and, if necessary, take their case to the courts. The highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, should now be beyond question to conservatives. With Amy Coney Barrett on the bench, the constitutionalists should expect a reasoned opinion from six of the justices. Since John Roberts has been questionable in recent decisions, they should at least expect five voices of reason. That’s a majority. If President Trump’s case reaches the Supreme Court, which it’s likely to do, and at least five justices don’t see enough evidence of voter fraud to overturn the results of the election then it’s over. There should be no blood in the streets. This is how our system works. If you truly believe that conservatives such as Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are in league with the left to steal the election then you are the textbook definition of a zealot.

It’s time to end zealotry and let the process play out. At the end of the process we’ll have the next president of the United States, and the republic will survive.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show, on SuperTalk 99.7WTN in Nashville. He's also co-host of The PodGOATs podcast and I'm Calling Bovine Scatology.

Voter fraud is real, and it should be investigated

The outcome of the 2020 election may still be in doubt—despite what the mainstream media tell you—but something that is no longer in doubt is that voter fraud is real. This narrative by the Democrats that voter fraud is a myth is, itself, a myth. We’ve always known it. Now we’re seeing it firsthand across the country.

The Heritage Foundation keeps a database of voter fraud cases from every state. All one has to do is click on a state and see the documented, litigated, prosecuted cases of voter fraud. Everybody from “Wormy” Hodge buying votes in Tennessee (yeah, that’s what he actually calls himself) to Harry Sandoe Maxwell in Pennsylvania. Maxwell was enlisting people to sign absentee ballots on behalf of dead people. Wormy was a deputy who was buying votes in the sheriff’s race. His man won, but was subsequently removed from office. Wormy got probation and community service. Maxwell got probation and a $500 fine. 

And that’s the problem. Even when people get caught they very rarely suffer the consequences. In other words, it’s worth the risk.

Attorney General Bill Barr instructed his department to investigate voter fraud in the 2020 elections “if there are clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State.” Democrats, of course, flipped out, as if Barr were intervening on behalf of President Trump. Richard Pilger, DOJ’s head of Election Crimes Branch, resigned in protest. It’s interesting to note that Pilger was neck-deep in the IRS scandal. Investigations revealed that he had conspired with Lois Lerner at the IRS to target Tea Party organizations. How in the world this guy was still at DOJ is a mystery, but his departure may actually open up an avenue for genuine investigations into voter fraud. And remember, Barr says they’re investigating only accusations that may affect the outcome of the election. Any other cases of voter fraud will be deferred until after this election is settled and certified.

So far the Republicans have collected 131 affidavits representing over 2,800 incidents of voter fraud. The left-wing media shout at them for proof, but they refuse to interview even one person who has filed an affidavit of fraud. James O’Keefe at Project Veritas has released at least two videos from postal workers who say their superiors were instructing their employees to back-date mail-in ballots that came in late to the day of the election.

Is all this enough to change the results of the election? Who knows? That’s why we need a full-scale investigation. The fact that the Democrats don’t want to see should tell you everything. Voter fraud is real, and voter fraud is real because it’s easy and basically without risk.

We have to make it where it’s not worth the risk. We need a federal law for federal elections. If the people in Monroe County, Tennessee want to let a guy off with a slap on the wrist for fixing a sheriff’s race then fine, but when it comes to elections that affect the rest of us there should be serious consequences. Congress should impose a minimum mandatory sentence of one year in jail for blatant voter fraud. I’m not talking about voting in the wrong district. I’m talking about willfully trying to change the outcome of a race. Then and only then will we put an end to voter fraud. The penalty has to make it not worth the risk. Maybe then we can restore the American people’s faith in our elections. 

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show, on SuperTalk 99.7WTN in Nashville. He's also co-host of The PodGOATs podcast and I'm Calling Bovine Scatology.