51 Comments

1: On names of Black women outspoken on the right- in academia; ask Candice Owens.

2: On Dr. Carol Swain and Islam, I hate censorship. Bronze-age rules of ancient past and corresponding etiquette by today’s standards are relevant to us Muslims. Unless Swain is Muslim, there are no such rules that apply to her. This means she and all other non-Muslims are entitled to 20th and 21st century freedom standards. That includes freedom to draw cartoons, speak words and write words. I want to thank all non-Muslims who do free work to enforce my religion’s sharia to non-Muslims. And no, I will not be returning the favor by enforcing rules of non-Muslim religions. So, maybe you should recalculate cost/benefit ratio. My knowledge base comes from experience with Islam as a convert, random interaction with other Muslims and random luck in encountering information. Non-Muslims are not non-informed but lack the privilege I have as Muslim to confirm the story from an inside view. Too many Swains are unfairly criticized for alleged “Islamophobia”.

3: On voting- I am a data guy and a computer guy who really wants us to get the voting thing right. I am waiting for Amazon to deliver book and Amazon emails me every time a minor change or status update occurs. Why can’t voters have an “atm receipt” with tracking number per vote?

5: On voting and Covid, I wanted Covid experts to hold a video recorded panel to discuss Covid risks of indoor voter precinct exposure and to explore outdoor make-shift precinct possibilities. I wanted competition and prizes for best and cheapest design. I was frustrated that such an obvious discussion was avoided and that CDC, State and local authorities told us nothing about in-person voting risk level.

6: I hope Brooks is right about failure to tamper with elections. I wanted a fix after hanging chads, mis-aligned checkbox to name and untrue “Jews for Buchanan” in Miami.

7: On federal vs. state: Yes federal to abolish Jim Crow. No federal to fix “voting” problem that is fake.

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insurrection - a violent uprising against an authority or government

Not exactly a stretch. It's actually kind of mild.

cult - a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing

I guess we can't use that word either.

Context: In 2016 this nation elected Donald Trump. We gave a man like that the Gold Codes.

For this reason alone I maintain that the die was cast long ago. I have held onto very little hope about America since that night. (In other words, if that made sense to us, all bets were off.)

If you're a loyal Republican, I don't care how many legitimate criticisms/condemnations/etc. you can harp on about "the left"/"the Dems"/etc., you will never--caveat: never say never--get that albatross off your neck. You might as well just accessorize around it. There was/is something fundamentally ____--I don't wanna say "crazy", since we're having so many issues with words these days--about giving a man like Trump that kind of power. But we did.

Was there ever a reason to think Donald Trump would gracefully concede defeat after an official loss? No. Floyd or no Floyd, Russiagate or no Russiagate.

Side thoughts: The George Floyd protesters/rioters/arsonists--again, whichever word works for you--were like nothing I had ever seen. (I don't think I'm alone in that.) But it's interesting how *few* people died (11 Americans, if I Googled correctly? The overwhelming majority on the BLM side.)

The Rodney King riots/protests/uprisings/hell-raising saw 60+ deaths straight-up, and they were nowhere near as populated or sustained.

Of course I don't recall seeing even one Biden placard/sticker/button on display during the unrest, but whatever.

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Carol Swain, amazing person. Maybe she is just to sweet? Tough to criticize and tough to popularize?

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Those wondering what a potential future conflict might look like should read the excellent book "Unanticipated Consequences" By John Ross.

You can download the PDF for free now because the original physical book is pretty hard to get.

https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Uploads/129/Media/Unintended_Consequences.pdf

Basically targeting of government officials by citizens. Good marksmen can easily make shots off 500+ yards, with many hitting 1000 yards+

This type of targeting could be effective even if just one by a handful of individuals. Moreover, as we've seen from school shootings, there are copy cat effects. So once this thing got started it could quickly spread.

Anyway, I can't recommend the book enough. It starts off a bit slow, but really gets going, and it has a strong historical aspect to it with some of the history of guns and gun control.

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Danger of future elections-- the outcome will not be objectively clear because the process for vote-counting is clouded in so many ways by Democrats. This must change. I don't like the outcome of the Biden election. My objection is NOT that Trump lost because he was Trump. My objection is that voting process did not treat all candidates fairly. Had Biden won, I would hate the outcome (for reasons that are all too clear now), but I would have supported the simple idea: Biden Victory --- if the process was clear and without dispute in each state. It was not.

Unfortunately, my objection is that Trump may not have lost...and Biden may not have won. The vote count and the voting process were compromised in several states. Thus, certifying a Biden Victory was a lie, or at best, a confirmation that vote-counting process in several key states tipped the election to Biden, while so much empirical evidence remains in doubt. .

Integrity of each vote must be sustained..

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Dear Glenn, off topic here: I’d love to see a deep dive on the “John Lewis Voting Rights Act” now before Congress, maybe with an invited guest or two. The politicization of the legislation, and of the history of voting rights, is neglected by current media, IMO. It’s complicated. We need help.

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Dr. Loury, you may see this too late, but I'll try anyway.

Next week's guest has a new piece out including this:

"But while quantitatively less destructive, the January 6 riot is qualitatively different from much of the race riots and from sometimes racially motivated street crime. Attacking the processes and symbols of democratic government has the potential to crater all of American society. If the juvenile vandalism of January 6 was far from realizing that potential, it nevertheless represents a dangerous impulse. It is not inconceivable that that impulse will play out again, especially given the persistent belief of many Republican voters that the 2020 election was stolen. It is also not inconceivable that Democrats will be next to use force in the hope of reversing an election. They have already threatened elected officials in their homes and used mob tactics to protest unwanted Supreme Court confirmations."

Aren't the Democrats/leftists also already using violence and the threat of violence to influence juries, judges, prosecutors, and city officials? And didn't the stores board up their windows in November 2020 in case *Trump* prevailed? Where does the primary threat of violence truly reside?

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author

Thanks, Substack Reader. I had, indeed, already seen this from HMD and will pursue it with her in our interview this afternoon!

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US relative decline compared to the rest of the world is accelerating. US Tribal conflict does not appear to have reason or season.

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Some random thoughts. Politics ain’t beanbag said Mr Dooley back in the 1870’s I believe. I almost sure that 45 out of 47 European countries , the same ones that progressives hold up as examples of the type of social welfare state they want , require foto ID to vote and have limited mail in ballot access. Florida , after the 2000 hanging chad fiasco , changed it laws and procedures so that ballots are secure and results are known before midnight. Remember, it is one of the few states in two time zones. I thought Glenn was going to suggest we have 24\7 365 voting. Sort of like all news all the time.

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The events of Jan 6 were not a coup or an insurrection but they were an effort to overturn the results of a lawful election via violence.

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Actually I think the real effort to overturn the election was the Eastman Memo, and Greenbay sweep plan. All they needed was for Mike Pence to not do his duty, and we could have been in real trouble.

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Enjoyed the conversation. I had some thoughts regarding the Civil War comments.

I originally learned about Prof. John McWhorter through the Great Courses regarding Language Families. I had also listened to Prof. Gary Gallagher with UVA who taught Civil War history on Great Courses. I remember Prof. Gallagher making a statement that no one in the 1850s was expecting a war to be right around the corner. Yet, there were a series of events leading up to it. Examples include Compromise of 1850, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Bleeding Kansas, caning of Senator Charles Sumner, and John Brown's Raid. Everything was moving slowly up until the election of Lincoln, and then things moved very quickly.

The craziest part about the Civil War audiobook were a few interesting comments made regarding the election of 1860. I believe this audiobook was several years old when I was listening to it. Prof. Gallagher makes a comment that the election of 1860 was very different than "today." Stating that in "today's" elections, it doesn't really seem like there is that much difference at all between the two candidates. "This was not the case in 1860." If that audiobook was recreated today, would Prof. Gallagher make those same comments?

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Great convo. A couple thoughts:

-Actual election integrity is achievable if we do what virtually everyone else in the world is doing: voter ID, and VERY limited mail-in voting with strict signature matching. Paper ballots w/ sequenced water marks would be nice too. It’s ridiculous, offensive, and way more than a little disingenuous to suggest that those who favor election integrity are seeking to suppress minority votes, but it’s par for the course for the techno-oligarchy who are holding the strings for this puppet show.

-At this point it’s a little absurd to talk about “Insurrection Day” without demanding greater transparency from federal authorities about the role played by the FBI and/or other alphabet agencies in fomenting, directing, and executing the riot that took place at the Capitol. Darren Beattie at Revolver News and Julie Kelly of American Greatness have done a particularly noteworthy job of raising questions that demand answers.

-The common thread in all of this is the reality that those powerful elites who would transform global society and undermine national sovereignty in favor of “stakeholder capitalism” as imagined for decades by the World Economic Forum and their ilk MUST actively promote the balkanization and fragmentation of the American electorate by demonizing the half of the country that clings to old notions of patriotism, liberty, capitalism, and personal agency. All of these core tenets of Americanism are persistent impediments to the “Great Reset” agenda to exert total control over humanity and usher in authoritarian rule by stateless corporate monopolies (please do your own research if that sounds as wacky to you as it does to me writing it).

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Jan 12, 2022Liked by Nikita Petrov

Mr. Loury, I think either you or Mr. McWhorter, or both of you together, should try and go on Joe Rogan or Lex Fridman. I really think you guys would benefit a lot but more importantly I think the world would benefit a lot from that.

I understand the desire to not go on them as well. Joe Rogan is actually very politically non-aligned, like you guys, on his last podcast with Jim Gaffigan he said he is a huge fan of Barack Obama, and has said the same thing many times (although you may not like Obama, my point is, he is actually non-aligned even though you may not consider him smart or intelligent) and has expressed support for Bernie Sanders before.

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I am listening to Joe’s interview with General H.R. McMaster and Glenn Loury was specifically mentioned. About 1 hour, 39 minutes into the podcast.

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Wow. Link. Gen McMaster is one of my favorite people.

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I’m not sure if that specific part of the podcast is available on YouTube, but below is the Spotify link for the entire podcast.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2zVnXIoC5w9ZkkQAmWOIbJ

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I don't understand "the desire not to go on" Joe Rogan or Lex Fridman. Is it because readers of Glenn's Substack consider themselves superior to Rogan's or Fridman's audiences? I suspect Glenn may be politically homeless at this point, but I have a sense that John may still be clinging to the Dem party as somehow "better than" something, I don't know what, but something that the legacy media tells him to identify with Donald Trump.

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I think the desire to not go on would come from just maybe fear of poking the big-media bear of labelling them as alt-right people. Like maybe they kind of want to be a little under the radar. I think it's a personal decision. They have families and friends and personal lives. If it's not broke, don't fix it. Elon Musk is now basically now attacked by the alt-left maybe because of that or maybe because of his tweets.

I also think Glenn and John may not know Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman that well. They may not have time to watch multiple 1-3 hours podcasts. And instead of trying to convince them that their smart, it was better to convince them that they have sincere intentions.

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"And there would be nothing anyone could say to convince them otherwise, nothing anyone could say to convince them that Democrats had won the election next time." True ... and False

Good but not great notes by Glenn about voting process issues, especially signature verification & mail-in ballot receipt. Previous talk has included the good and important point that every voter can get valid ID - and oppose the Dem insistence that Blacks are too... (implicitly stupid? lazy? disabled?) obstructed by White racism to get valid ID.

Still it's missing the key issue - how to stop fraud?

Election fraud is possible, and terrible. We need rules to stop it.

Whatever rules we have to stop fraud will, sometimes, stop legal voters from having their votes count, when those voters violate the rules. Voting without ID, without matching signatures, sending in a ballot after the deadline.

Following the rules means the votes that don't follow the rules are NOT counted.

Dems call this voter suppression - but it's actually only suppression of illegal voting. Stopping Mickey Mouse from voting. "Count all votes" means that Mickey Mouse can vote as often as he wants, and they all count.

NOT FAIR.

Best solution: Paper ballots only, by legal voters with valid ID, all votes on Election day. Very limited mail-in ballots, must be received on or before Election day, with signature verification. Precinct based voter rolls.

If this honest election rules were followed, John would find the vast majority of Reps who don't trust 2020 election results would accept the results. But not following reasonable rules against fraud means fraud IS more likely, and will be suspected.

Nobody knows how many fraudulent ballots were in 2020 - but the media has strongly avoiding answering the questions about how many questionable ballots were cast in each state

-- (more details...)

How many votes in AZ were counted that did NOT follow all the rules? In GA, PA, other states?

See this CBS story of "no fraud" Biden wins AZ by more than 45,000. Yet with questions on: "the signature verification process, voter roll maintenance, cybersecurity procedures and preservation of evidence."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arizona-election-review-maricopa-county-results-report/?ftag=YHF4eb9d17

It notes a problem: "The report said the firm used a commercial public database to try to match information about voters."

Why should either side accept the other side winning if there is NOT a gov't public database about who the voters are, and where they live?

Here's the Maricopa county response to the audit report, essentially saying the audit claims of problems are wrong.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21080894-maricopa-county-analysis-of-senate-review-cyber-ninja-report

On p.2 of the pdf, they rebut the claims about EMS database of images being deleted, they note at the bottom that the security log automatically logs all actions, and factory settings set the storage limit of 20 megabytes.

Their last sentence is "No logs were intentionally deleted".

It's not so easy (in Slovakia) to get the Cyber Ninja report, but there is huge media obfuscation. Here's the Cyber Ninja rebuttal to the official's claim that the report is bad:

https://www.independentsentinel.com/cyber-ninjas-debunk-maricopa-countys-audit-response/

"Intentional execution of scripts to ensure that log entries were not retained

Maricopa blames factory settings for the deletion of security log files. In fact, the County had full control and authority to modify default parameters and the retention period should have been set for 22 months.

Furthermore, “the response by Maricopa County does not address the fact that a user leveraging the ems admin account deliberately and purposely executed a script that checked the accounts for duplicate passwords 38,478 times. This deliberate execution of the script occurred over three days, specifically on 2/11/21 there were 462 log entries overwritten, on 3/3/21 there were 37,686 log entries overwritten, and on 4/12/21 there were 330 log entries overwritten. Given that Maricopa County knew that the setting on the log retention was limited to 20MB, the act of executing these scripts had the effect of deliberated ensuring that the Windows security logs covering the dates of the General Election would not be available for review.”

I'm sure you, like me, can't go deep enough to get the truth. But this looks, to me, like officials covering up their own NOT following the rules. Any time you have rules and a situation that LOOKS like the officials are not following the rules, will, and SHOULD, make the losing side suspect fraud.

America needs a fraud free election. Ain't getting there by supporting Mickey Mouse voting. like the Dems demand.

America also needs an FBI that know who Roy Epps is, and what he was doing Jan 5 & Jan 6.

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It does not matter what happens electorially, the majority of the GOP is going to believe whatever Donald Trump tells them is true. There is zero evidence that fraud impacted the results of the 2020 Presidential election, but 70% of Republicans believe so. Why? Because Trump says so. There is always a tiny amount of electoral fraud, but no more this year than any other. Just because you can imagine it might have happened doesn't mean that it did.

Reducing electoral fraud and improving the integrity of our voting process is great. It won't convince the true believers no matter what. If Trump loses again in 2024, Republicans will cry that the election is stolen even he loses again by M votes and 72 electoral votes.

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Jan 12, 2022·edited Jan 12, 2022Liked by Glenn Loury

This is part of a longer video that posted 22 hours ago.

Wish you two were running the USA.

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I think you greatly underestimate the significance of the Dems' Russiagate hoax and what it says about the Dem party and its allies, i.e., elements of the so-called deep state, virtually all of the legacy media, and the social media giants. Russiagate wasn't just another political "dirty trick." Besides destroying Donald Trump's presidency, Russiagate caused half of the electorate to suspend reason and glorify liars, and it put us on a collision course with a nuclear armed power. Now virtually the whole world (except the remaining, thoroughly propagandized members of the Dem cult) knows the US is run by dishonest, power-hungry people who are out of control. What reason would you offer voters, i.e., the little people, to regain faith in our institutions?

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You mean the lies that led to the Iraq War, Iran-Contra, the CIA-Crack-Cocaine drugs to our own people to fund the Contras, Iran-Contra, the Gulf of Tonkin .... did not already teach you the lesson that American foreign policy is run by out of control violent sociopaths who will do anything and kill anyone for power?

Better late than never I guess.

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Jan 13, 2022·edited Jan 14, 2022

For some of these right wingers, it’s only now dawned on them now that they see a target on their backs. They had no problem when it was muslims, Marxists or just about anybody seen as unAmerican or a threat.

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Jan 13, 2022Liked by Glenn Loury

Marxists are a major threat to every country in the world.

So are violent extreme Islamists. They have killed over a million liberal muslims in the recent past. They they continue to slaughter liberal muslims on a daily basis.

The USA doesn't have time for tribal conflict. US share of global income and wealth are dropping fast. The rest of the world is rising. AI is coming. Fused AI/brain interface intelligences are coming. Brain electro therapy and brain sound therapy is coming. Biochemistry and genetics are coming. Higher bandwidth, cheaper energy, cheaper transporation is coming. China is coming. Extreme Islamists are growing stronger and coming. Organized crime is growing stronger (including in Mexico) and coming.

Why can't we remember that that we are one family with one heart? Why can't we act as one?

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Dangerous Marxists/socialists are the reason you have a weekend, they’re the reason your children aren’t working in factories and instead are getting an education, they’re big part of why civil rights legislation was passed… I can go on.

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Tom, the descendents of the hundreds of millions of people killed by marxists all around the world would be saddened to hear someone say something like this. Marxism = imperialism.

Fabian socialists made Asians and Africans dirt poor for a long time. The Asian/Irish/Chilean economic miracles came in part from rejecting fabian socialism.

Americans need to stop being so America ethnnocentric and learn from foreigners. Foreigners have much to teach Americans.

El Monstro, the Drumpf, both parties and the political class in general are causing great harm through their irrational, senseless, meaningless pointless tribalism and ethnic cultural rivalry.

[I think that many non woke or woke light liberals, leftists and progressives are a positive force for good. They are not marxists.]

The rest of the world is rising fast. Does the USA want to have 1/2 the per capita income of South Korea two generations from now? If not, the USA needs to change course ASAP.

The USA might have the largest national debt as a percentage of GDP inclusive of unfunded liabilities of any major country on earth that is upper middle income or developed. Laurence Kotlikoff estimates that the USA would need 8% of GDP in additional revenue indefinitely to remain solvent.

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It is certainly true that totalitarianism in all its form, including Communism has led to millions dead. So has colonialism, including especially the Western variety. Read up on the Bengal famine of 1943 for a particularly nasty and recent example. Famines in India increased after British colonialism. Most governments have blood, a lot of blood, on their hands. The US is no exception. We killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Middle East over the last 20 years on wars that don't seem to have accomplished anything.

Mao starved millions due to his misguided ideology. I think every American knows this. Almost no one knows that fewer Chinese have starved in the last 70 years than in the 70 years before Mao. Does that make him a good guy? No of course not. But like most things, the answers are more nuanced than most people are willing to think about.

Who is responsible for the millions dying of hunger this year? I am not sure, but you can't really pin it on the almost powerless Communists, except in those few countries where they hold any sway.

Starvation and extreme poverty have been on the decline. This is a great achievement of technological progress but even more, the spread of democracy throughout the world. It turns out that governments responsible to their people don't starve them to death. The rollback in democracy that is happening to a slight degree worldwide is the biggest risk to humans everywhere.

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What exactly does this have to do with my comment? I started out by making a point that the security state has a long track record of persecuting people affiliated with “unamerican” groups or ideologies. To which you respond with what seems like an attempt to justify it, are you a fan of McCarthyism, Guantanamo bay perhaps?

As far as my response to you, I’m trying to show that we’ve had these spooky Marxists and socialists in our politics for a long time (MLK was a socialist). If you’re response to that is to bring up communist brutality and accuse us of ethnocentrism… well not to be the whataboutery guy, but I hope at the very least though understand the US is an imperialist power, with quite literally millions of dead innocent civilians in its hands since WWII.

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Did you see? 10 of the Oath Keepers have been charged with seditious conspiracy. Still think they are heros?

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When you stop trying to overturn lawful election results and instead resort to sedition. When you stop supporting that traitor Trump. If you loved your county you would try and win an election instead of stealing one.

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Not a fan of Drumpf. But I would not call Drumpf or any of the major US political leaders "traitors." I think if we lower the temparature, the Drumpf's popularity would fall, and more conservatives and republicans would stand up to him.

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