Here We Go Again

“New COVID variants… are spreading,” warns CBS.

“New variant drives up COVID-19 hospitalizations in New York,” reports Spectrum News.

“It may be time to break out the masks against COVID…” intones CNN.

“COVID boosters are still weeks away as cases surge in the U.S.,” shrieks Axios.

A certain Dr. Robert Wachter professes medicine at the University of California San Francisco. From whom:

Hospitalizations have not yet doubled, but I think they probably will, as the numbers lag a couple of weeks behind. It’s riskier that you will get infected now than it was a month or two ago, without question, probably twice as risky. If you’re trying to be careful, it’s time to whip out the mask again.

Adds cardiologist Dr. Eric Topol of the Scripps Translational Research Institute:

It doesn’t look good … in terms of the virus’ nonstop evolution. [The virus] keeps finding new ways to challenge humans, to find new hosts and repeat hosts, and it’s relentless.

Here We Go Again

We begin to harbor a suspicion.

A suspicion — that is — that authorities are preparing a COVID-era sequel.

A suspicion — that is — that facial masks, lockups and vaccine inducements are once again in prospect.

A suspicion — that is — that we are in for another sleigh ride.

We recently authored an article concerning “conspiracy theories.”

We hazard these reports will arouse and alarm the conspiracy theorist.

They will likely set him aflame.

He may shout, for example, that lockups will justify mail-in voting, waived signature verification and other lax voting procedures ahead of next year’s presidential election.

He will moan that these lax voting procedures benefit the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate.

He may shout that “Big Pharma” is the invisible hand behind it all — that it is yanking strings.

That is because large pharmaceutical firms will profit handsomely from booster shots and other medicines.

And these firms form a very heavy lobby.

These and other alarms he will pull. And why not?

Are his ventings not anchored in experience… partially at least?

We hazard they are anchored in experience — partially at least.

An Open Conspiracy

Time magazine published a 2021 piece citing the pandemic’s catalytic role in altering election law.

It claimed, for example, that:

COVID-19 erupted at the height of the primary-election season. Normal methods of voting were no longer safe for voters or the mostly elderly volunteers who normally staff polling places…

Mike Podhorzer (senior adviser to the president of the AFL-CIO)… marshaled the latest tactics and data to help its favored candidates win elections…

Podhorzer began working from his laptop at his kitchen table, holding back-to-back Zoom meetings for hours a day with his network of contacts across the progressive universe: the labor movement; the institutional left, like Planned Parenthood and Greenpeace; resistance groups like Indivisible and MoveOn; progressive data geeks and strategists, representatives of donors and foundations, state-level grassroots organizers, racial-justice activists and others…

These are not groups inclined to vote for Republican presidential candidates.

Why would they burn with such zeal to alter election law… if they did not believe it would benefit their preferred candidate?

More:

In March, activists appealed to Congress to steer COVID relief money to election administration. Led by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, more than 150 organizations signed a letter to every member of Congress seeking $2 billion in election funding. 

[The] National Vote at Home Institute… helped 37 states and D.C. bolster mail voting… 

In August and September, it sent ballot applications to 15 million people in key states, 4.6 million of whom returned them. In mailings and digital ads, the group urged people not to wait for Election Day. “All the work we have done for 17 years was built for this moment of bringing democracy to people’s doorsteps,” says Tom Lopach, the center’s CEO…

At the same time, Democratic lawyers battled a historic tide of pre-election litigation.

Again we ask: Why would Democratic lawyers pursue election law litigation with such heat… if they did not believe it would advantage their candidate?

“The Most Secure Election in History”

Time continues:

Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding.

In the end, nearly half the electorate cast ballots by mail in 2020, practically a revolution in how people vote. About a quarter voted early in person. Only a quarter of voters cast their ballots the traditional way: in person on Election Day.

Just so. Yet were the results “the most secure election in history?”

In 2005 former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker co-directed the Commission on Federal Election Reform.

This bipartisan bunch concluded:

“Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”

And as reported the Carter Center prior to the 2020 presidential election:

Because it takes place outside the regulated environment of local polling locations, voting by mail creates increased logistical challenges and the potential for vote fraud, especially if safeguards are lacking or when candidates or political party activists are allowed to handle mail-in or absentee ballots. 

Did not Mr. Mark Zuckerberg dispense some $400 million that enabled political party activists to handle mail-in or absentee ballots?

We are informed that he did.

Something Smells Fishy

Mr. Hans von Spakovsky — formerly of the United States Federal Election Commission member — said this about it:

[Zuckerberg’s donations] violated fundamental principles of equal treatment of voters since it may have led to unequal opportunities to vote in different areas of a state.

My reaction is that this was a carefully orchestrated attempt to convert official government election offices into get-out-the-vote operations for one political party and to insert political operatives into election offices in order to influence and manipulate the outcome of the election. 

This von Spakovsky fellow is of course Republican. Thus he is inclined against Zuckerberg.

Yet once again we ask: Why would Mr. Zuckerberg consecrate $400 million of his money to electoral purposes… if he did not believe it would benefit his preferred candidate?

He was, after all, a fierce critic of then-incumbent Trump. He had much heat against him.

Time Admits to a Conspiracy

Did mail-in voting, waived signature verification and other lax voting requirements determine the 2020 presidential election?

We do not know.

Yet our agents inform us of abundant evidence. Abundant evidence, that is, that negates the “most secure election in history” theory.

Again, we do not know if voting “irregularities” stacked high enough to determine the election.

But can you condemn the conspiracy theorist for harboring doubts — and for raising questions?

We are not certain you can.

Time itself validates and affirms him:

There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes… 

The secret history of the 2020 election… even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream — [was] a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.

If Time labels the thing a conspiracy… why can’t the conspiracy theorist?

And can you condemn him for harboring the suspicion that identical skullduggeries may tarnish the 2024 presidential election?

Again, we are not certain you can condemn him.

His fears may – or may not – find full excuse in the facts.

Yet there is sufficient evidence in back of him to empanel an inquiry.

A $5 Billion Jackpot for “Big Pharma”

Meantime, the conspiracy theorist rages that “Big Pharma” stands to profit royally from renewed COVID frights.

He would not be surprised to learn — then — that the United States government has awarded $1.4 billion to pharmaceutical firms.

This money is consecrated to the development of new vaccines and pharmacological treatments.

As reports CNN:

The funding is part of Project NextGen, a $5 billion government initiative to develop new and more durable vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus, which continues to infect, hospitalize and kill Americans more than three years after its emergence.

Can you condemn the conspiracy theorist for suspecting “Big Pharma” of yanking strings?

Where a fellow stands depends often upon where he sits, runs the phrase.

And “Big Pharma” sits upon a $5 billion COVID jackpot.

It has every reason to perpetuate the microscopic hysteria.

We had better cease airing the ravings of this conspiracy theorist.

And he begins to seduce us…