Many years ago, just short of four of them for those of you engaging in pedantry on this wonderful Thursday morning stationed at the end of November, 2020, I laid out a direct rebuttal to burgeoning claims that a certain brash asshole had cheated in order to win the 2016 Presidential election.

In general, I called Bullshit.

Just as a fair warning to those of you who choose to read the rest of this post, you may want to have Funk & Wagnalls at the ready for reference purposes (and porpoises).  I didn’t get out of the lead without using the likes of ‘pedantry’ and ‘burgeoning’, and it is a weekday morning where I tend to use more of the bumpy parts of my brain while the smooth ones remain in respite.  That being said, I anticipate the presence of challenging vocabulary in the following diatribe.

Stand by.  The dog makes no distinction on whether today is a normal workday, a Saturday, or a holiday.  As such, I need to go walk her.

Okay, I’m back.  That dog is 14 years old and still gives my left arm plenty of resistance training whenever she puts me in tow.  

Here’s an amusing, pre-diatribe tidbit to file away in your own personal reserve of occasionally useful knowledge.  According to the internet, the status of Funk & Wagnalls is listed as ‘defunct’.   

I’ll pause a moment and let you, my beloved reader, construct an updated moniker for the legacy of Isaac Kaufmann Funk and Adam Willis Wagnalls.

Now that you’re sufficiently bemused, let’s move on.

In May, 2017, a special counsel was selected to look into the premise that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the election.

To that point, there was no evidence that cheating had even occurred.  In response, I asked a series of questions which were designed to help me and everyone else understand the nature of the crime. 

1. How did they do it?
2. Did they hack into the computerized voting systems used in the rust belt where Clinton was supposed to win?
3. Did they hack any of the computerized voting systems used in the 2016 election?
4. Did they pay the electorate to lie to pollsters to give Hillary a false sense of security so that she would campaign less where she needed to?
5. Did they use four legged voting booths?
6. Did they hack the emails of high ranking officials in the Clinton campaign or the DNC and release evidence of bad behavior on Clinton’s part to the public?

Keep in mind that by the time the question of collusion came under investigation, six months had passed since the 2016 election.

Six months.

If cheating had taken place, why weren’t those questions asked by others immediately after the results of the election became clear?

Why didn’t the Clinton campaign and the DNC let loose the hounds of litigation in the rust belt and all of those other critical states to challenge or otherwise forestall the certification as Donald J. Trump as the winner?

The reason lies in the evidence. 

There was no evidence a crime had been committed.

There were no stories about voting systems being compromised.

There were no affidavits sworn under penalty of perjury that shenanigans had taken place during the ballot counting process.

Years later, some of the same questions are being asked about 2020, and they started getting asked within 24 hours of election day.

Why is that? 

The reason lies in the evidence as it did four years ago.

Something just didn’t seem right about this one, and questions need to and already have been asked.

1. Why did the counting seem to stop during election night when the poll results were coming in?
2. Why were the results in so many states in flux for days/weeks after the election?
3. How does the top of the ticket lose an election while the down ballot selections did pretty well?

Those are at least the questions I asked less than week after election day.

Sports metaphors, you’re up in five…

Why isn’t Biden or the DNC addressing questions of voter fraud in the wake of his presumptive win of the Presidency?

Just in October, Joe Biden informed us that his consortium had put together an organization to combat voter fraud.  Now I’m willing to say that it’s easy to take his botched delivery of that announcement out of context, much in the same way Trump was taken out of context when he talked about disinfectant light being used to combat COVID.

Based on what happened during the election this year, combined with the collective refusal of Biden and the DNC to address the credible allegations of voter fraud, I’ve got to wonder about the components of that voter fraud organization.  Lance Armstrong, members of the 2017 Houston Astros, that guy that was deflating footballs for Tom Brady, the 1919 Chicago Black Sox, some of the East German Olympic athletes, and featured players from the George Mitchell report all come to mind.

Okay, maybe not the Black Sox.  They were accused of losing on purpose.

Here’s the problem.

If Biden prevails, his presidency will be accented with an asterisk.  That’s a promise and not a prediction.  I know this because I plan to incorporate one in every single post where I have to refer to him as the President.   

If Biden should pursue all of the allegations of cheating on his behalf that his colleagues, co-conspirators, and legion of uncircumcised Philistines did against Trump in the wake of the 2016 election, then I’ll reconsider.  If it can be demonstrated to me that the win was honest, I’ll reconsider.

Otherwise, look for the asterisk.

If Trump prevails, his presidency will also be accented with an asterisk.  It just won’t be delivered by the Blogger Laureate here at TharpSter.Org.  Instead, it will be incorporated by his detractors who will accuse him of packing the courts (including SCOTUS) with illegitimate picks to favor him in the election. 

That’s a prediction based on how W was treated as a result of winning in 2000 by way of a trip to the Supreme Court.

Irregardlessly, consider this.

The general mindset around this 2020 fiasco is that we have to get this right, and we have to get it right now. 

The right feels that ‘Merica can’t let Biden get away with cheating to win an election.  The consequence is that our electoral systems will be irreparably harmed for years to come.

The left feels that ‘Merica can’t let Trump get away with stealing an election out from under a duly elected candidate.  The consequence is that our electoral systems will be irreparably harmed for years to come.

No win scenario much?

The system is already screwed. 

We just don’t seem to fully realize it yet.

11/28/2020 Post Diatribe –

Just to be fully transparent, I composed the previous 1100 words of verbal brilliance on Thanksgiving morning while Wifey whipped up some taters and prepared the dinner rolls.  It would be another 24 hours before I dispatched it to a loving network of computers designed for information interchange and the sharing of pictures of nekid ladies. 

Later in the day on November 27, after my treatise on being screwed had been communicated to an audience wider than the personalities residing rent free in my head, the President echoed one of my sentiments.