I thought of taking my text today from the Gospel of Mark, 6:38-42. It is one telling of the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. Jesus finds himself in the desert attended by some 5,000 followers. They need to eat, but there are only five loaves of bread and two fish. Nevertheless, Jesus bids everyone sit down “in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties.”

And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all.

And they did all eat, and were filled.

Just a day or two back that seemed like a good analogy for what just happened with the ballots in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. Donald Trump was racing ahead just about everywhere. Midnight came, the polls turned into pumpkins, and lo! the miracle! Ballots by the thousands and tens of thousands suddenly appeared. And guess what? They all had Joe Biden’s name on them. According to the World’s Greatest Psephologist Nate Silver™, a tranche of 23,377 ballots suddenly appeared in Pennsylvania in the wee hours. All of them were for Joe Biden. All of them. What are the odds of that?

Well, miracles will happen. A lot of that sort of miracle happened in this election season.

The Gospel of Mark notes that, after the 5,000 dined, 12 baskets full of bread and fish fragments were collected.

It is not said whether they began to stink after a few days.

But there is no doubt that the fish story of Joe Biden’s miraculous ballots stinks to high heaven.

I know that pointing that out is a free ticket to the gallery of conspiracy theorists. Back in October 2016, Barack Obama upbraided Donald Trump for suggesting that the election might be rigged. Impossible, said Obama. “There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America’s elections, in part because they are so decentralized. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances that that could happen this time.”

Of course, that was before the 2016 election, which everyone knew Hillary Clinton would win. So Obama went on to say that, should Donald Trump win, “it would be my expectation of Hillary Clinton to offer a gracious concession speech and pledge to work with him in order to ensure that the American people benefit from an effective government.”

What a card!

Anyway, after the election, it was a different story—or at least a different reality. Forget about gracious concessions and working together for the common good. Now it was a full-court press to delegitimize the Trump Administration. It was the framing of General Mike Flynn, the Russian collusion delusion, the Mueller witch hunt, impeachment follies, and more.

Before the election, Obama said, “we recognize that there is something more important than any individual campaign, and that is making sure the integrity and trust in our institutions sustains itself.”

Afterward . . . well, we all know what happened afterward.

A Crisis of Legitimacy

How are you feeling about the “integrity and trust in our institutions” now, in particular, the integrity of our elections?

I feel pretty badly about it. Many people, including many friends, have or are just about to make their peace with the idea that Joe Biden won the election. As I write, the Associated Press and other Democratic mouthpieces in the media world have just announced that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Of course, their saying it’s so has as much official standing as my saying that my Uncle Jack won, and I don’t even have an Uncle Jack. But everywhere you can see a rush to normalize a very abnormal process. Republicans, many of them, are scurrying to “find common ground,” “affirm the process,” etc.,

I am not of their company. I suspect that this election was illegitimate, that it was rigged. Indeed, I suspect that it is a good illustration of the useful rule of thumb that things are always worse than you think.

On Thursday, I wrote a column explaining why I thought Joe Biden didn’t bother to campaign, not really. I said that it was because he knew that the fix was in, that he had it in the bag. I mentioned the collusion of the pollsters on the run-up to the election, the media, and various bureaucratic operatives who fabricated ballots.

I still think all that helps explain the sudden appearance of surprise ballots for Biden. Perhaps it also explains the computer “glitch” in the software used to tabulate votes in a county in Michigan that sent “at least 6,000 Republican votes to Democratic candidates.” At least.

And have you noticed how all such “glitches” operate in one direction only: to benefit Democrats? The county in question swung back to Republicans after the mistake—if it was a mistake—was discovered. Apparently, 47 counties in Michigan use the same software. Are all those results being scrutinized? They should be.

Hammering the Vote

But I didn’t know the half of it. It was not until yesterday that I was introduced to the data manipulation tools The Hammer and Scorecard.

I suspect you’ll be hearing a lot about both of them in the coming days—assuming of course that Google, Twitter, and other such media outlets allow you to hear about them.

“The Hammer” is “a counter-intelligence surveillance program used to spy on activities on protected networks (like voting machines) without detection.” It was originally developed after 9/11 to monitor international threats and to spy on potentially hostile actors abroad.

“Scorecard” is “a vote-manipulation application that changes votes during transfer.” According to the Wentworth Report, it is

the least detectable form of election manipulation because it works during data transfer between voting stations and data storage hubs. Unless both sides are looking for irregularities, it’s impossible to catch. If nefarious forces had people on one side or the other (or both) during data transfer, it cannot be exposed.

I understand that this sounds like a plot gimmick from a spy thriller. But when a witness as credible as Sidney Powell claims that up to 3 percent of the pre-election vote may have been altered by these tools, I think it is worth investigating.

Nor is she alone. Thomas McInerney, a highly decorated former Air Force General, agrees with her. Joe Biden had “such a relaxed schedule” during the campaign “spending most of his time in his basement,” McInerney said in an interview, because he knew that the Dems would “tip the election through” through the use of The Hammer and Scorecard.

McInerney explains further the origins and deployment of the software here, at the American Report, and here with Steve Bannon. The bottom line was adumbrated on November 2, on the website NOQ. “The deep state has a plan in place to steal this election by altering votes in key swing states. And if Trump challenges the fraud, he will be condemned for ‘refusing to accept the outcome’ of the rigged election. This is the narrative trap that has been set by the treasonous mainstream media.” Tinfoil wingnut conspiracy theory? Maybe. That’s the trouble. We may never really know.

Two parting thoughts to ponder. During the campaign, Joe Biden bragged that he had put together “the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.” Perhaps he wasn’t exaggerating.

Finally, although apocryphal, this observation, widely attributed to Joseph Stalin, gets to the nub of our current travails. “It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” It is worth bearing that in mind.