Newsom Survives: California Gov. Gavin Newsom appears to have beaten back a recall effort, winning more than 64 percent of the vote.

  The election had been portrayed as a “life and death” battle against “Trumpism” and far-right anti-vaccine activists.

  About two-thirds of California voters are Democrats, so it would have been a shocker if Newsom had lost. The governor said, “I’m humbled and grateful to the millions and millions of Californians that exercised their fundamental right to vote and express themselves so overwhelmingly by rejecting the division, by rejecting the cynicism, rejecting so much of the negativity that’s defined our politics in this country over the course of so many years.”

Pre-Election Fraud: Radio host Larry Elder, Newsom’s leading opponent out of 46 candidates, surprised supporters by conceding. “Let’s be gracious in defeat,” Elder said two hours after polls closed. “We may have lost the battle but we are going to win the war.”

  Only on Monday, Elder was protecting himself claiming he could lose only through massive vote fraud. He posted an appeal describing  “the twisted results of this 2021 Recall Election” even before the polls had opened. 

  Also before the vote, Elder said, “Statistical analyses used to detect fraud in elections held in 3rd-world nations (such as Russia, Venezuela, and Iran) have detected fraud in California resulting in Governor Gavin Newsom being reinstated as governor.” 

  Elder said, “The primary analytical tool used was Benford’s Law and can be readily reproduced.”

  Benford’s law, originally published in the 1930s as “The Law of Anomalous Numbers,” is a mathematical theory about the distribution of digits in a set of data numbers. It basically says that the leading digits in a collection of data sets are probably going to be small.

  It’s the stuff that fascinates mathematicians and all you need to know is that it has about as much to do with polling and election results as the law of right turn on red.

Everything’s Fine: After the January 6^th Capitol insurrection US Gen. Mark  Milley, told Chinese Gen. Li Zuocheng that American democracy was not melting down and the US would not attack China as a ploy to keep Donald Trump in the presidency.

  This news comes according to “Peril,” a new book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. They report that Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Li that, “We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”

  But Woodward and Costa also report that Milley laid down the order with his senior officers that no one launches a missile without his consent.

Another One Bites the Dust: Conservative radio host Bob Enyart, the pastor of the Denver Bible Church who refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19 and fought mask mandates, has died of the disease at 62. 

  Enyart had described himself as a “America’s most popular self-proclaimed right-wing, religious fanatic, homophobic, anti-choice talk show host.” During the height of the Aids epidemic he used to read off the names of the dead while playing the Queen rock song “Another One Bites the Dust.”

  Enyart and his wife refused to get the Covid vaccine. He successfully sued the state over mask mandates and capacity limits in churches. He called government officials who promoted face masks “Nazis” and “mask-mandating control-freak bureaucrats.” He that face masks restrict oxygen and lower IQs.

  Fred Williams, Enyart’s co-host on the Real Science Radio show, said in a post,

“Bob Enyart was one of the smartest, and without question, the wisest person I’ve known.” 

  White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci says more than 99% of recent COVID-19 deaths in the United States have been people who were not vaccinated.

The Obit Page: Norm McDonald, one of the more beloved comedians in the history of NBC’s Saturday Night Live, has died at age 61 after a 10 year fight with cancer.

  With a dry and often deadpan delivery, McDonald was on SNL from 1993-98, and was one of the sharpest wits to host the Weekend Update news segment. He was merciless on the subject OJ Simpson during the former football star’s trial for the murder of his wife. An example: “After grizzly photos of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson were shown in court, OJ turned his head away and wept. It was at that moment that he realized he would never be able to kill her again.”

  McDonald later said he was fired from SNL because OJ was good friends with NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer.

The Spin Rack: The poverty rate in the US fell almost two percentage points last year because of government pandemic aid, according to the Census Bureau. That supports President Biden’s push for a greater government safety net. — Haiti’s chief prosecutor says there’s evidence linking the acting prime minister to the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse last month and ordered him not to leave the country. — Wildfires are now threatening California’s Sequoia National Park and its giant trees. — Some of Broadway’s biggest shows, including “Hamilton,” “The Lion King” and “Chicago,” reopened last night after pandemic closures.

The Gossip:  The celebrity news and gossip outlet TMZ, has been sold by Warner Media to Fox Entertainment, which would be a more appropriate parent. The price was $50 million

  TMZ is the operation that reports on what people like Megan Fox, Machine Gun Kelly, Haley Bieber, the Kardashians, and Chance the Rapper were wearing last night, as well as who they’ve been sleeping with.  

  TMZ takes its name from what used to be called the Thirty-Mile Zone around Hollywood in which the rules of the studios governed movie-making. It was founded by Harvey Levin, once a local news reporter in Los Angeles, who made a television industry of celebrity gossip.

  The lead story on their website this morning; Former “Smallville” actress Allison Mack has begun her prison sentence for her part in the NXIVM sex cult.

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