Evans Announces 2020 Senate Bid, Leads with Push for Ranked Choice Voting
By Cory Allen Heidelberger on 2018-11-15
In 2016, thanks to the all-too-briefly enacted Initiated Measure 22, we had two gubernatorial candidates declare less than two weeks after the election. Dusty Johnson got in early, too, even though IM 22 had nothing to do with the big federal financing he’d need for his run for Congress. I was just thinking this morning that we’re a week and two days from last Tuesday’s debacle and nobody has declared for 2020 yet.
Enter my indomitable friend Kurt Evans, who bounces right back from a thin 1% vote tally for his Libertarian bid for Governor to declare he’s running for Senate against Mike Rounds* in 2020… as an independent!
Kurt Evans
Yesterday I updated my voter registration to reflect no party affiliation. Today I’m announcing my independent campaign for the U.S. Senate in the 2020 election cycle.
Contrary to what this decision might suggest, I still feel deep loyalty to both the Constitution Party and the Libertarian Party. I hope each is able to regain its official party status in South Dakota and nominate a U.S. Senate candidate of its own [Kurt Evans, e-mail to Dakota Free Press, 2018.11.15].
But here Evans is, already advocating for the very specific policy proposal of ranked choice voting:
I’m also calling on South Dakota legislators to enact “instant runoff” ranked-choice voting, which will ensure no candidate wins a taxpayer-financed election with the support of fewer than half of the voters [Evans to DFP, 2018.11.15].
Evans contends that ranked choice voting will help level the playing field for independent and alternative-party candidates:
Ranked-choice voting would undermine the argument that a vote for a non-major-party candidate is a wasted vote, which would allow minor parties and independent candidates to build support on a more level playing field. It would also counteract political polarization by encouraging major-party candidates to seek out coalitions beyond their respective bases and by reducing their incentives to distort each other’s positions [Evans to DFP, 2018.11.15].
Kudos to Evans for not letting another election loss get him down and for launching his campaign not with some scurrilous attack on the incumbent (and not for lack of grounds for attacks on the do-nothing Trump enabler currently in office) but with a specific policy proposal meant to promote voter rights and broader participation in elections.
*Update 2018.11.16 06:48 CST: Candidate Evans notes correctly that freshman Senator Rounds has not yet officially declared a desire to graduate to a sophomore term.
Mr. Evans’s regular, correct, and long-standing use of the HTML <blockquote> code distinguishes him from every other candidate on this year’s statewide ballot. It certainly distinguishes him from tech-non-savvy Mike Rounds.
Rorschach
2018-11-15 18:42
Evans likes to be the spoiler for Democrats. Worked for Tim Johnson. Didn’t quite work for Billie Sutton. Why not try again?
Get in line, Ror—no Dem has declared yet, so Evans can argue that the Dem who enters late is trying to be the spoiler to keep Mike Rounds in office. :-D
grudznick
2018-11-15 19:24
Mr. H, was there something bad I said that you blocked me? I was complementing Mr. Evans, whom I respect as a gamer.
grudznick
2018-11-15 19:24
Who, perhaps. Who I respect.
jerry
2018-11-15 19:49
Democrats have had 4 years to find a candidate to take on smilin Mike, that person should have already been making waves. Maybe Democrats hope that Ravensborg will finally get the goods on ol’ Mikey and his EB5 shenanigans to put the boy in the hoosegow. In the meantime, Mr. Evans will try to out right flank Mikey, should be interesting… if he gets some money behind him. Mikey claims to have at least 9 million in his war chest and that is before the lobbyists fall all over him with gold.
Debbo
2018-11-15 20:26
Jerry, I enjoy your use of sarcasm.
“Maybe Democrats hope that Ravensborg will finally get the goods on ol’ Mikey and his EB5 shenanigans to put the boy in the hoosegow.”
Charlene Lund
2018-11-15 21:48
Kurt Evans is a political crackpot!
Wonder if the Repubs paid him to run in the Gov. race to lose the election for Billie Sutton?
I was just thinking this morning that we’re a week and a day from last Tuesday’s debacle and nobody has declared for 2020 yet.
A week and TWO days. I needed time to think this through. :-)
Enter … Kurt Evans, who bounces right back … to declare he’s running for Senate against Mike Rounds …
Has Senator Rounds declared? I wanted to give him a chance to bow out gracefully. :-)
In October 2015, [Evans] decided to cancel that [independent] bid, only to return in July 2016 to carry the Constitution Party’s banner in an unsuccessful effort by that party to place a candidate on the U.S. Senate ballot.
The legacy media totally ignored the story, but the Constitution Party was denied ballot access for the 2016 U.S. Senate race based on Republican-backed statutes that were declared unconstitutional later in the same lawsuit.
“Rorschach” writes:
Evans likes to be the spoiler for Democrats. Worked for Tim Johnson. Didn’t quite work for Billie Sutton. Why not try again?
If South Dakota legislators heed my call and—as Maine has—enact ranked-choice voting, then the last-place candidate’s votes will be reallocated to those voters’ second choices, and being a “spoiler” will become impossible. Follow this link for more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcGGH7E_vNk
“grudznick” writes:
I was complementing Mr. Evans, whom I respect as a gamer.
Who, perhaps. Who I respect.
subject/object, he/him, they/them, who/whom
I respect he? No, I respect him. Your original use of whom was correct.
Charlene Lund writes:
Kurt Evans is a political crackpot!
One of my least favorite things about politics is being called names by strangers, but kudos to Charlene for at least using her real name.
Wonder if the Repubs paid him to run in the Gov. race to lose the election for Billie Sutton?
Alas, they did not, but if any of them think I should be reimbursed, I’d take their phone calls.
TAG
2018-11-15 23:03
Awesome! I’m glad that Kurt is promoting the use of Ranked-Choice Voting in South Dakota. It’s time SD is actually on the vanguard of a positive trend, instead of the last state to adopt things, like Medicaid expansion, pot legalization, Trader Joe’s, mullets,… well. Maybe we are on the vanguard of something.
Even if it gets dismissed as too radical, at least it gets the idea out there, and talked about. Go Kurt!
I’m glad that Kurt is promoting the use of Ranked-Choice Voting in South Dakota. It’s time SD is actually on the vanguard of a positive trend, instead of the last state to adopt things … Go Kurt!
One “TAG” gives me enough encouragement to endure a hundred Charlenes. Good thing, too, because sometimes that’s the approximate ratio. :-)
David Bergan
2018-11-15 23:15
I love ranked choice voting. Gives voters more power… The power to say, not only do I like Adam best, but I also like Ben better than Chuck.
Thus the elected officials better represent the will of the voters. This is definitely a tier-1 issue for me.
A potential trouble is that a matrix of ovals clutters the ballot too much for elderly voters. My solution for that would be to give voters the option of either using a ranked-choice ballot or a regular one-vote ballot.
The other solution would be electronic voting… where it is easy to make a user interface that prompts voters to keep picking governors until they’ve all been ranked. But electronic voting introduces other challenges…
Ranked choice voting… can we get a constitutional amendment?
Kind regards,
David
jerry
2018-11-15 23:22
Besides Ranked Choice, what else ya got Mr. Evans? How do you differentiate from Mike?
Debbo
2018-11-16 00:21
Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth and I think a few other burgs in Minn use RCV. There were some naysayers complaining that it would be too hard, confusing, elderly couldn’t do it, etc.
Mpls was first and they were zealous about educating folks, running practice ballots in the paper, offering community education meetings, and finally, having well educated election officials in every polling place.
The first election was okay. Since then it’s been smooth sailing and very well liked. We’re trying to get it spread statewide.
TAG
2018-11-16 06:17
Kurt, if you want to go all “ACLU” with your campaign, here’s another acronym to consider: EDR, or, Election-Day Registration. It’s a way to make voting easier, not harder.
Right now most states require voter registration between 2 and 4 weeks prior to an election. 17 states allow EDR, but 4 of them are neighbor-States to SD, interestingly. It would be hard for Steve Barnett to claim that it’s not feasible in our rural state.
Basically it allows people to register or update their registration right at the polling place. It’s such a simple solution that other states should have to justify NOT offering it. Studies estimate a 3% to 14% increase in turnout, and the actual difference between current EDR states and the others is 10-14%.
So simple it’s stupid
TAG
2018-11-16 08:34
Cory: “It certainly distinguishes him from tech-non-savvy Mike Rounds.”
Mike Rounds doesn’t have to be tech-savvy when he can count on his political allies to unethically out critics and opponents through “doxing”. By posting this, I’m probably on some kind of clickrain “watch list” now…..
Besides Ranked Choice, what else ya got Mr. Evans? How do you differentiate from Mike?
The most important difference between Senator Rounds and me is probably that I intend to keep my promise to support and defend the Constitution by opposing cloture on any legislation that violates the Fourth Amendment right to be secure against warrantless government seizures of our personal information.
Mr. Evans, with all due respect, you do know that South Dakota just elected a man who completely ignored the Constitution with his allegiance to a Russian Spy. Here, in South Dakota, we care little about what the Constitution stands for or even what it actually is. When you ask many here about that piece of paper, they will only rant about the 2nd Amendment, that is as far as they go. Try it sometime, I have. It disappoints me of that, but we are rudderless when it comes to what governs us and why. Try asking that question to someone watching Fox. You’re gonna have to work harder, but if you can swing it, that would be a good thing.
No blockage intended, Grudz… but I received a couple of comments that appeared to confuse another handle with your e-mail. Did you type the right name?
Evans differentiates himself from Mike Rounds by commenting on this blog. In a head-to-head race, that might be enough to make me vote for Evans over Rounds. Openness.
Evans’s dogged discussion of Republican hypocrisy on basic Constitutional issues like search and seizure could get some traction. But it will only get traction against the Rounds media-money machine if Evans raises some money to travel and advertise.
At the secretary of state’s website, Shantel Krebs had written:
Pursuant to SDCL 12-5-1.5 and 12-1-3, two political parties lost party status on November 14, 2018.
On November 15, I’d written:
… I still feel deep loyalty to both the Constitution Party and the Libertarian Party. I hope each is able to regain its official party status in South Dakota …
Today Richard Winger writes:
… the Secretary of State has e-mailed that … the Libertarian Party is on the 2020 ballot.
Hey Cory, this is difficult and more than a little embarrassing, but apparently I’ve inadvertently cried wolf again, and I feel like I owe you an apology. I’m suspending my 2020 Senate bid, and while I’m not ruling out resuming it at some later date, it seems unlikely that I will.
The root of the issue is that I’m thinking journalist Bre Payton was murdered in a black op conducted by Five Eyes intel agents, and I don’t know what I should do about it. I’m being ignored by several nationally prominent journalists who profess to be Christians, and although I’m not suicidal or anything, I’ve been getting progressively more depressed.
I guess the situation has forced me to stop and take inventory of how much my past political endeavors have cost me, and how little progress I’ve actually made.
I’m honestly thinking it would take the agents who arranged Bre’s death less than a week to arrange mine. They could make it look like a suicide, or an accident, or natural causes, and no reputable journalist would likely even question it, at least publicly.
So anyway, I doubt most people are going to take me seriously about this, and I’m emotionally exhausted, and I’m out. Thanks for everything you’ve done for me over the years.
Aw, Kurt—national journalists aren’t paying attention to any South Dakota candidate for Congress right now. Don’t let that get you down!
Now, clinging to the edge of the rabbit hole, and not knowing anything about Bre Payton, I’ll offer these questions to pull you out of your hole… or, even if I can’t keep you on the campaign trail, at least convince you not to worry down this hole:
1. Why would anyone interested in stifling reform voices kill Bre Payton and not more prominent or influential individuals? For instance, if there’s a hit list, why would you be higher on it than, say, me?
2. What evidence supports your hypothesis that her death was not from natural causes?
3. If you were a threat to whoever you think killed Bre Payton, don’t you think you’d be dead by now?
Porter Lansing
2019-03-02 08:33
It’s the weather! Most of you have never lived a continuous decade in a mild climate. If you had, you’d realize what this winter is doing to the good people who’ve had to endure it. Your blood gets thick and your tolerance gets thin. It’s why it would be much better to have your legislative session in the summer, when new ideas flow freely. There aren’t a dozen farmers in the session, anyway. Just ask yourself, “When was the last time it was above freezing for three days in a row?”
Porter, I’m not sure where your question came from, but… would we see the characteristics you impute to cold-climate cultures among the Inuit? the folks in Edmonton and Winnipeg? The Finns, Swedes, and Norskies?
The root of the issue is that I’m thinking journalist Bre Payton was murdered in a black op conducted by Five Eyes intel agents, and I don’t know what I should do about it. I’m being ignored by several nationally prominent journalists who profess to be Christians, and although I’m not suicidal or anything, I’ve been getting progressively more depressed.
Cory writes:
Aw, Kurt—national journalists aren’t paying attention to any South Dakota candidate for Congress right now. Don’t let that get you down!
Neither my requests for attention nor my depression had anything to do with my Senate candidacy. I’d barely given a thought to the campaign since I first heard Bre was in a coma.
Why would anyone interested in stifling reform voices kill Bre Payton and not more prominent or influential individuals?
Few if any journalists posed a greater long-term threat than Bre did to expose the corruption of James Comey and his cult followers in the FBI. Having said that, the decision to kill her may have been motivated more by passion than by reason.
For instance, if there’s a hit list, why would you be higher on it than, say, me?
I’m trying to expose them. Why would you be on the list at all?
What evidence supports your hypothesis that her death was not from natural causes?
She was a healthy, vibrant 26-year-old who contracted a mild case of the H1N1 flu virus from some unknown source and then dropped to the unresponsive brink of death literally overnight before reporting any advanced symptoms.
Charlotte Triggs and Adam Carlson of People magazine write:
Payton’s family told Inside Edition that the exact details of her death from the H1N1 virus, better known as the swine flu, remain unclear: She had seemed fine while with loved ones for the holiday, and then somewhat unwell, and then she was dead.
Payton grew nauseous the night after Christmas, according to her family, and her roommate found her unresponsive in her bedroom the following morning, Dec. 27.
She never woke up — and died on Dec. 28.
“Something occurred over that 12-hour period, between 9:30 at night and 9 o’clock in the morning. It didn’t seem like she was that sick,” dad George Payton told Inside Edition.
“The doctor doesn’t actually know … what caused all of it,” he said, “and we may never know.”
Cory asks:
If you were a threat to whoever you think killed Bre Payton, don’t you think you’d be dead by now?
I believe Five Eyes intel agents have been deliberately infecting specific individuals with COVID-19, including Tom Hanks and Rudy Gobert, and I believe anyone who tries to expose them is risking his own life and the lives of his loved ones.
Well, Kurt if you really believe this about 5 Eyes it seems mighty strange for you to try to expose them on DFP and risk your own life and the lives of your loved ones.
I believe Five Eyes intel agents have been deliberately infecting specific individuals with COVID-19, including Tom Hanks and Rudy Gobert, and I believe anyone who tries to expose them is risking his own life and the lives of his loved ones.
Rand Paul was worshiping Aqua Buddha, when he caught it, or else when he was at CPAC, which is more or less the same.
“The strangest episode of Paul’s time at Baylor occurred one afternoon in 1983 (although memories about all of these events are understandably a bit hazy, so the date might be slightly off), when he and a NoZe brother paid a visit to a female student who was one of Paul’s teammates on the Baylor swim team. According to this woman, who requested anonymity because of her current job as a clinical psychologist, “He and Randy came to my house, they knocked on my door, and then they blindfolded me, tied me up, and put me in their car. They took me to their apartment and tried to force me to take bong hits. They’d been smoking pot.” After the woman refused to smoke with them, Paul and his friend put her back in their car and drove to the countryside outside of Waco, where they stopped near a creek. “They told me their god was ‘Aqua Buddha’ and that I needed to bow down and worship him,” the woman recalls. “They blindfolded me and made me bow down to ‘Aqua Buddha’ in the creek. I had to say, ‘I worship you Aqua Buddha, I worship you.’ At Baylor, there were people actively going around trying to save you and we had to go to chapel, so worshiping idols was a big no-no.” The Atlantic 8.9.2010
Does anyone else find it suspicious that the first household-name celebrity reported to have contracted COVID-19 was Tom Hanks, arguably the biggest household-name celebrity in America?
Does anyone else find it suspicious that the first household-name athlete reported to have contracted the virus was Rudy Gobert, the very NBA player who’d mocked the league’s COVID-19 “distancing” policy by lightheartedly dragging his fingertips along the microphone at the end of a media availability?
Does anyone else find it suspicious that the reports of those two men contracting the virus came out at essentially the same time, triggering widespread shutdowns and panic?
Does anyone else find it suspicious that the first U.S. senator reported to have contracted the virus was Rand Paul, the only senator to vote against the initial COVID-19 relief package, and a medical doctor, and a lifelong enemy of intel agency power grabs and abuses, whose father Ron Paul, also a medical doctor, had publicly argued that the COVID-19 panic could be a hoax?
Does anyone else find it suspicious that only three South Dakotans over age 70 have tested positive for COVID-19, and they include (1) prominent Christian legislator Bob Glanzer, who’d initially expressed skepticism about the threat posed by the virus, and (2) his wife?
Does anyone else find it suspicious that, eight days after she’d published a story about the bureau’s “garbage reputation” in December 2018, 26-year-old FBI critic and rising-star journalist Bre Payton contracted a mild case of the H1N1 flu virus from some unknown source and then dropped to the brink of death literally overnight before reporting any advanced symptoms? She died the following day. The doctors couldn’t explain how H1N1 supposedly caused the brain damage that killed her, but a massive social media campaign smeared her as an “anti-vaxxer” and blamed her for her own death.
Remember that as of yesterday, with the outbreak well underway, only one in 5,000 people in the United States had tested positive for COVID-19. The virus appears to have chosen its first round of victims very carefully.
I suspect the places where COVID-19 is spreading faster than other cold and flu viruses are mainly the places where Five Eyes intel agents are spreading it intentionally.
Debbo
2020-03-27 12:38
Nope. But I do find you amazingly bizarre, yet mildly entertaining.
Don’t stop.
David Bergan
2020-03-27 12:47
Hi Kurt,
Did any of your suspicious COVID cases (i.e. Hanks, Gobert, Rand Paul, Bob Glanzer, Glanzer’s wife) make a statement that they contracted the virus in an unusual way?
B) Is it possible that those who had an attitude that COVID is not serious, took fewer precautions to avoid it? I mean, I hear that lung cancer rates are high among those who think there’s no proven link between smoking and lung cancer…
Kind regards,
David
grudznick
2020-03-27 13:02
Mr. Evans, don’t listen to out-of-state name-callers. You are indeed amazingly bizarre, which is why you and grudznick get along so well, and you are WILDLY entertaining.
jerry
2020-03-27 13:07
Kurt Evans, does anyone like you, find it suspicious that John Thune suddenly flew from Washington to Sioux Falls because he was feeling a little sick. Then said that he didn’t take a Covid-19 test because he is John Thune (freedom first/snark). Why would he do that…you may wonder, suspiciously.*
*Please check grammar, spelling and the use of punctuation points….grade accordingly
What David said. Darwinism is not a moral theory, but it does explain certain epidemiological phenomena. We don’t need a conspiracy to target incautious people. Incautious people will incur harms all on their own.
Did any of your suspicious COVID cases (i.e. Hanks, Gobert, Rand Paul, Bob Glanzer, Glanzer’s wife) make a statement that they contracted the virus in an unusual way?
My understanding is that none of those four men has any idea how he contracted it.
Is it possible that those who had an attitude that COVID is not serious, took fewer precautions to avoid it?
Of course, but I haven’t seen evidence that Hanks, Paul, or Glanzer had an attitude that COVID-19 wasn’t serious. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that out of the top 200 household-name actors, 100 U.S. senators, and thousands of South Dakotans over age 70, those three were the worst hand-washers in their respective groups. (Paul is an eye surgeon, but for the sake of argument …)
Of the select group of symptomatic and high-risk individuals who qualify to be tested for COVID-19, roughly 5 out of 6 have tested negative. It would still be quite a coincidence that none of these guys contracted a cold or flu virus besides COVID-19.
jerry
2020-03-30 00:30
Where is the link for the “roughly 5 out of 6 have tested negative”? Paul is apparently, a dirty rat that even his family thinks is a dirty rat. No amount of hand washing would ever fix that in his family’s “eyes” which are more than 5.
David Bergan
2020-03-30 08:31
Hi Kurt!
Of course, but I haven’t seen evidence that Hanks, Paul, or Glanzer had an attitude that COVID-19 wasn’t serious.
I thought your contention on March 27 was that Gobert, Rand Paul, and Bob Glanzer were among those who “mocked”, “expressed skepticism” and considered the virus a “hoax”.
Conspiracy narratives are created by cherry picking, which is what I think you’ve done. There are many other Oscar-winning actors who do not have COVID. If any one of those had contracted the disease, like, let’s say, Dustin Hoffman, you could have made the same claim. Out of a sample size of tens, nay dozens… someone is going to get sick simply by coincidence.
Or what if no Oscar-winning actors contracted COVID, but a novelist like Steven King did? Pivot the conspiracy in that direction because that’s where the anecdotes lead.
Among the disease-skeptical crowd, the same argument applies. How many people publicly called the COVID panic some form of overreaction? Thousands, by my lights. Did they all get sick? No. Did some of them get sick? Yes. Are you factoring in the still-healthy deniers like Trump, Rush, Hannity, Ingraham, Trish Regan, Kevin Stitt, and Bolsonaro?
A good analogy to consider is birthday paradox. With 365 days in the year, intuition suggests that it would be unlikely for a classroom of 30 to have two students who share a birthday. However, the math is clear that when there’s 23 individuals in a group there’s a 50% chance that there will be a pair who share a birthday… and at a size of 30 the odds are greater than 70%.
Statistics aren’t always intuitive, but they explain reality better than cherry picking.
As of 9:20 this morning, there had been 141,232 positive COVID-19 test results reported in the United States, and 710,346 negatives. That’s a ratio of 5.03 negatives for each 1 positive.
Bob Glanzer’s son has given Avera his consent to place a “do not resuscitate” order for Bob.
There are about 900,000 people in South Dakota, and 105 of them are in the state legislature. Based on those numbers, the likelihood that one of the state’s first two terminal cases would be a member of the state legislature by random chance was well under 1 in 4,000.
I knew Bob personally. He was a friend of my late father and a deeply devoted Christian, and I’ve wept several times.
bearcreekbat
2020-03-30 10:57
Debbo, I tend to agree with your assessment. But in light of the warning to Trump conspiracy theorists by Dr. Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor at Syracuse University who teaches digital ethics, I would simply urge Mr. Evans and other conspiracy theorists to reflect on the harm that such theories can cause and proceed with some caution.
. . . [M]isinformation campaigns during a pandemic carry a unique danger because they may sow distrust in public health officials when accurate information and advice are crucial. . .
“. . . conspiracy theories can kill,” she said.
bearcreekbat
2020-03-30 11:28
My source for the above Dr. Phillips quote is a non-paywall Yahoo report about a paywall N.Y. Times story:
Sorry about your friend. As of 9.20 this morning, we don’t know, of the less than 1,000,000 tests done, how many were done multiple times on the chosen wealthy, i.e. sports figures multiple times and politicos multiple times. We also don’t know how many were done on folks who have died during this time frame.
1 in 4,000 is not such a good risk, which is the same odds of flipping heads on a coin 12 times…assuming your thumb can take it. Who would’ve thunk it that heads of state would become infected…what are the odds of that, and yet, here we are.
jerry
2020-03-30 11:57
As of March 28, 2020. Very good link, but our state is still not even close to where we need to be and are not testing like what needs to be done. We still don’t know that actual deaths because we did not test them or those that were around them.
“As of March 28, exactly four weeks after the FDA loosened the rules for testing, the United States still performed only 2,250 tests per million — two-thirds of what South Korea did almost three weeks earlier. The death toll in the United States was 2,198 — and climbing rapidly.” Washington Post 3.30.20
Using the Puerto Rico formula (trumpian favorite) you can see that trump claimed 67 deaths while officials on the ground, tallied 2,975. That difference is about 47 times difference. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45511865
This makes the total of deaths in South Dakota, presently to be 47 and nationwide, today, officially about 2,300, which means factually over 100,000 using the Puerto Rico formula. So, there ya go. A proven formula from a trumpian disaster to another one. trump, himself says that 100,000 deaths means not to bad.
I suspect they’re the result of black ops conducted by Five Eyes intel agents.
jerry
2020-03-31 00:11
Dude, Stop doing crack.
grudznick
2020-03-31 00:14
My friend Mr. Evans is a clean cut individual. He does not do crack or the demon weed.
David Bergan
2020-03-31 06:52
Hi Kurt!
We’ve seen these mysterious COVID-19 outbreaks centered around religious gatherings
I suspect you’re cherry picking again. The article mentioned several gatherings where COVID was spread: a funeral, a Biogen conference, a 40th birthday party, a hospital, a jury trial, and a sheriff’s office.
The fact is that the people at that rural Georgia funeral got sick. One explanation is that they were poisoned by evil spies. Another explanation is that a normal guest at the funeral had contracted COVID, but before showing symptoms, he or she spread it to the bereaved through the hugging and kissing that went on there.
Given all that we know about the stealthiness of COVID, why do you choose to infer it’s spreading by malicious, rather than natural means?
… your obsession with an account of how rapidly H1N1 killed [Bre Payton] in the prime of life, as though there was something unusual about it, is getting really weird… H1N1 is particularly hard on healthy young adults, who succumb to the cytokine storm produced by their own immune systems. That’s why they need flu shots, and at the first sign of flu should be seen by a physician, tested, and started on Tamiflu.
Bre Payton reported mild nausea in an evening phone conversation and then dropped to the brink of death literally overnight. She subsequently tested positive for the H1N1 “swine flu” virus, but the doctors couldn’t explain how it supposedly caused the brain damage that killed her, and the suggestion that there was nothing unusual about her death is far beyond “weird”…
Anne’s take is apparently that Payton should have “started on Tamiflu” at 3 a.m. so she wouldn’t be comatose at 9.
Yesterday KELO-TV reported:
The coronavirus is wreaking havoc on the Glanzers’ extended family as well. [South Dakota state legislator Bob Glanzer’s niece] 51-year-old Mari Hofer, a teacher at James Valley Christian School in Huron, died suddenly on Saturday. The family is waiting for her COVID-19 test to come back to see if it was the cause…
[Glanzer’s son] says his 51-year-old cousin who died over the weekend was active and didn’t have any known underlying health conditions.
Again, the family is still waiting on tests to see if the cause of death was coronavirus.
“With the things that she had, we assume that’s probably what it is. Just the fact that earlier in the day, she and I were texting and joking and then at 7 o’clock [on Friday] she goes to the hospital and by 2 a.m. she goes to Sioux Falls and by 3 o’clock she’s gone. This is nothing to mess around with.”
TOM GLANZER ON THE SUDDEN DEATH OF HIS 51-YEAR-OLD COUSIN, MARI HOFER
Tom says his cousin, Mari, died a few doors down from his father in Avera’s ICU. Tom says he is finding strength through his faith to deal with all this.
What are you going to do if elected to bring high paying jobs back to S dakota .Or just say you want them and do nothing like the legislators and lobbyists to keep low paying jobs in the state.Thank you Kristi for the pass out of state to good jobs.
Not the independent campaign, but I’ve rejoined the Libertarian Party, and I’m in serious discussions about seeking its 2020 U.S. Senate nomination. Don’t expect me to announce on April Fools’ Day.
This post seems to be getting suppressed farther and farther down the list of search results every time I google it.
Mr. Evans, I am sorry to hear you are considering the Party’s senate nomination. grudznick would muchly prefer to be your Lt. Governor candiate, should you run for Governor. If you can create a Lt. Senator position, I would take that too, or just name me your chief of staffings.
It feels to me like it’s 9-11, and planes have struck both Twin Towers and the Pentagon, and everyone is amazed at the run of bad luck. I never thought 9-11 was a Five Eyes black op, but I also never thought it was just a coincidence.
The mother of three laid down for a nap Friday evening after complaining of heartburn. But when she woke up, she couldn’t breathe.
“You wouldn’t have known anything different from any other day,” said her husband Quint Hofer.
Mari worked remotely on Friday as a third-grade teacher at James Valley Christian School, since school was closed amid the COVID-19 pandemic. She cooked and cleaned the house like normal, too…
The relatively healthy 51-year-old told her husband she had trouble breathing just before 8 p.m. on Friday and needed emergency care.
Quint, 51, helped her change into slippers, walk down the stairs and help her into their car…
As he met a nurse dressed in personal protective equipment in the ambulance bay, she commented on Mari’s discolored lips before rushing her inside. That was the last time he saw his wife.
Despite being intubated, put on a ventilator and health workers performing CPR for over an hour, Mari died at 2:55 a.m. on Saturday after being airlifted from Huron to the Avera McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls — less than six hours after calling for help.
It’s interesting that the Argus link includes the word crime. Even the most elderly and vulnerable victims of COVID-19 doesn’t suffocate that rapidly, and “heartburn” isn’t one of its symptoms.
grudznick
2020-04-02 21:56
Mr. Evans, are there places in Spearfish where you and could have a socially distanced breakfast, I mean where you can’t sneeze on my eggs and taters, but we could chat about your upcoming election attempts? grudznick would like to sign up and be on board, if you promise to not overgod like Mr. Howie did.
More than 7,000 people die per day in the United States. Fewer than 6,000 deaths here have been linked to COVID-19. That’s not even one person out of 50,000. A typical U.S. flu season kills five times that many.
Factor out the black ops, the mass panic, and the undercounting of total cases, and COVID-19 itself is just another bad cold.
Just a bad cold? You’re a science teacher, right? Certainly you understand that the raw number of deaths does not describe how deadly something is. I mean fewer than a dozen people die to shark bites each year… that doesn’t mean it’s safe to swim with Great Whites.
When you compare deaths to infected, covid kills significantly more than a cold or flu. And the number of both infected and killed is increasing exponentially… doubling every 2-3 days. Covid killed 968 in the US yesterday. Want to guess how many will die next Thursday?
Kind regards,
David
jerry
2020-04-03 08:48
Kurt, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=149&v=0CNZYtzCUXk&feature=emb_title here is a hero getting a hero’s send off for saving the lives of those he is responsible for. Your silliness certainly is not leadership and furthermore, shows lack of responsibility and care for those you would represent. That responsibility and for that matter, empathy, is what you must have to be a public figure. Sorry, work on it.
I think this Captain’s courage should make us all proud of who we have leading our women and men in harm’s way.
bearcreekbat
2020-04-03 12:15
NPR has a recent report that confirms much of David’s comment at 2020-04-03 at 06:53. NPR compares COVID 19 to the flu and reports that:
Degree of mild vs. severe cases
. . .20% of COVID-19 patients . . . are serious enough to get sent to the hospital. That’s about 10 times more often than flu. . . . for the 2018-19 flu season . . . — the rate of hospitalization [with flu] is far lower: 1%-2% of cases, according to the CDC. . . .
Length of hospitalization
. . . [when] a serious case of the coronavirus is hospitalized, the average stay is 11 days, . . . — about twice as long as the five- to six-day average stay for flu. . . .
What percentage of the population will get each virus?
. . . In the U.S., . . in recent years about 8.3% of the total population get sick from flu each season, a CDC study found; including people who carry the flu virus but show no symptoms, that estimate ranges to up to 20%. . . .
. . . March 16 from Imperial College of London predicted a worse-case scenario in which 81% of the U.S. population could get infected over the next few months, if no actions were taken to slow or contain the spread of the virus. . . .
Death rate
. . . In the U.S., seasonal flu kills 1 in a thousand people (0.1%) who get sick from it . . .
. . . By contrast, COVID-19 is currently estimated to kill at least 10 people per thousand infected (1%). “It’s about 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu,” . . . .
Five days ago, in a previous comment above (2020-03-30 at 09:53), I’d written:
Bob Glanzer’s son has given Avera his consent to place a “do not resuscitate” order for Bob.
There are about 900,000 people in South Dakota, and 105 of them are in the state legislature. Based on those numbers, the likelihood that one of the state’s first two terminal cases would be a member of the state legislature by random chance was well under 1 in 4,000.
I knew Bob personally. He was a friend of my late father and a deeply devoted Christian, and I’ve wept several times.
For anyone who hasn’t heard, Representative Glanzer passed away yesterday evening. He’d had a cold for several days before we knew whether COVID-19 was spreading in South Dakota. Within hours of his positive test result becoming public, he suddenly began to suffocate and was hospitalized in critical condition.
Of the thousands of South Dakotans over age 70, the first three to test positive for COVID-19 included Bob and his wife.
Legendary 90s musician Joe Diffie also announced his positive test result publicly and suddenly became critically ill. It seems to me that the virus has been killing prominent individuals at a rate higher than that of the general population, which has been roughly 1 in 50,000.
Also five days ago, in a previous comment above (2020-03-30 at 23:56), I’d written:
Here’s some news from South Dakota’s initial COVID-19 hot spot in Beadle County. The county has still only had 21 positive test results, with 18 documented full recoveries and at least two deaths.
The Beadle outbreak seems to have suddenly appeared out of thin air and disappeared into thin air just as suddenly, much like the initial COVID-19 “cluster” centered around that religious group in South Korea.
jerry
2020-04-06 12:20
Mr. Evans, that’seems to be a word to the wise, stay out of church and you will be saved.
The majority of coronavirus fatalities so far in Chicago have been black residents, even though black residents are not a majority of Chicago’s general population.
David Bergan
2020-04-07 12:14
Hi Kurt,
Would you mind connecting the dots for me, please? You sound confident in this plot, and I don’t feel like I fully understand it.
When and why did Five Eyes agents start killing the citizens in their own countries? How do we know that they are doing that? Why are they tanking their own countries’ economies? Why are they protecting India and sub-Saharan Africa? What do they have against Christianity? What do they have against Bob Glanzer?
And how do we know that Five Eyes is behind this and not the masons, the Bilderberg Group, Opus Dei, ISIS, Spectre, Al Queda, Nambla, the Illuminati, the Babylonian Brotherhood, North Korea, David Geffen, or extra terrestrials?
I’m planning to reply to the preceding comment from David, but not today.
In a previous comment above, I’d written:
Here’s some news from South Dakota’s initial COVID-19 hot spot in Beadle County. The county has still only had 21 positive test results, with 18 documented full recoveries and at least two deaths.
The Beadle outbreak seems to have suddenly appeared out of thin air and disappeared into thin air just as suddenly, much like the initial COVID-19 “cluster” centered around that religious group in South Korea.
I’ve just checked the Beadle County numbers again, and the nineteenth full recovery has been documented. That’s 21 positive tests, 19 full recoveries, zero cases still active, and two deaths.
I’ve suspected for well over a year that Bre Payton was deliberately infected with H1N1, but that the primary cause of her death was actually cardiac glycoside poisoning.
Now I suspect that Bob Glanzer and Mari Hofer were deliberately infected with COVID-19, but that the primary cause of their deaths was actually cardiac glycoside poisoning.
It would obviously be helpful to discuss these suspicions with the doctors involved.
A few weeks after Bre Payton turned 18 years old in 2010, she posted the following quote on social media:
Christ was killed for us. His death has washed out our sins & disabled death itself. That is what has to be believed.
After Bre died, I showed that post to her mom, and her mom included it when she spoke at Bre’s funeral. It seems like a fitting way to remember Bre on Good Friday.
Now I suspect that Bob Glanzer and Mari Hofer were deliberately infected with COVID-19, but that the primary cause of their deaths was actually cardiac glycoside poisoning.
Tara Volesky asks:
why would you suspect that Kurt?
I’m not planning to go into the details today, but mainly because of the circumstances surrounding their deaths and their reported symptoms.
Enter my indomitable friend Kurt Evans, who bounces right back from a thin 1% vote tally for his Libertarian bid for Governor to declare he’s running for Senate …
The last four years have proven I’m neither “indomitable” nor Cory’s friend.
grudznick commends Mr. Evans for being a gamer. His God loves a gamer, and a fellow who does not get bitter over his election loss.
I, for one, look forward to his ongoing campaign and his quotes of others and responses to those quotes here on your blog, Mr. H.
Good on you, Mr. Evans.
Mr. Evans’s regular, correct, and long-standing use of the HTML <blockquote> code distinguishes him from every other candidate on this year’s statewide ballot. It certainly distinguishes him from tech-non-savvy Mike Rounds.
Evans likes to be the spoiler for Democrats. Worked for Tim Johnson. Didn’t quite work for Billie Sutton. Why not try again?
Get in line, Ror—no Dem has declared yet, so Evans can argue that the Dem who enters late is trying to be the spoiler to keep Mike Rounds in office. :-D
Mr. H, was there something bad I said that you blocked me? I was complementing Mr. Evans, whom I respect as a gamer.
Who, perhaps. Who I respect.
Democrats have had 4 years to find a candidate to take on smilin Mike, that person should have already been making waves. Maybe Democrats hope that Ravensborg will finally get the goods on ol’ Mikey and his EB5 shenanigans to put the boy in the hoosegow. In the meantime, Mr. Evans will try to out right flank Mikey, should be interesting… if he gets some money behind him. Mikey claims to have at least 9 million in his war chest and that is before the lobbyists fall all over him with gold.
Jerry, I enjoy your use of sarcasm.
“Maybe Democrats hope that Ravensborg will finally get the goods on ol’ Mikey and his EB5 shenanigans to put the boy in the hoosegow.”
Kurt Evans is a political crackpot!
Wonder if the Repubs paid him to run in the Gov. race to lose the election for Billie Sutton?
Cory writes:
A week and TWO days. I needed time to think this through. :-)
Has Senator Rounds declared? I wanted to give him a chance to bow out gracefully. :-)
The legacy media totally ignored the story, but the Constitution Party was denied ballot access for the 2016 U.S. Senate race based on Republican-backed statutes that were declared unconstitutional later in the same lawsuit.
“Rorschach” writes:
I didn’t spoil the 2002 election. Follow this link for more information:
https://twitter.com/KurtEvans2018/status/1059699957333139456
If South Dakota legislators heed my call and—as Maine has—enact ranked-choice voting, then the last-place candidate’s votes will be reallocated to those voters’ second choices, and being a “spoiler” will become impossible. Follow this link for more information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcGGH7E_vNk
“grudznick” writes:
subject/object, he/him, they/them, who/whom
I respect he? No, I respect him. Your original use of whom was correct.
Charlene Lund writes:
One of my least favorite things about politics is being called names by strangers, but kudos to Charlene for at least using her real name.
Alas, they did not, but if any of them think I should be reimbursed, I’d take their phone calls.
Awesome! I’m glad that Kurt is promoting the use of Ranked-Choice Voting in South Dakota. It’s time SD is actually on the vanguard of a positive trend, instead of the last state to adopt things, like Medicaid expansion, pot legalization, Trader Joe’s, mullets,… well. Maybe we are on the vanguard of something.
Even if it gets dismissed as too radical, at least it gets the idea out there, and talked about. Go Kurt!
“TAG” writes:
One “TAG” gives me enough encouragement to endure a hundred Charlenes. Good thing, too, because sometimes that’s the approximate ratio. :-)
I love ranked choice voting. Gives voters more power… The power to say, not only do I like Adam best, but I also like Ben better than Chuck.
Thus the elected officials better represent the will of the voters. This is definitely a tier-1 issue for me.
A potential trouble is that a matrix of ovals clutters the ballot too much for elderly voters. My solution for that would be to give voters the option of either using a ranked-choice ballot or a regular one-vote ballot.
The other solution would be electronic voting… where it is easy to make a user interface that prompts voters to keep picking governors until they’ve all been ranked. But electronic voting introduces other challenges…
Ranked choice voting… can we get a constitutional amendment?
Kind regards,
David
Besides Ranked Choice, what else ya got Mr. Evans? How do you differentiate from Mike?
Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth and I think a few other burgs in Minn use RCV. There were some naysayers complaining that it would be too hard, confusing, elderly couldn’t do it, etc.
Mpls was first and they were zealous about educating folks, running practice ballots in the paper, offering community education meetings, and finally, having well educated election officials in every polling place.
The first election was okay. Since then it’s been smooth sailing and very well liked. We’re trying to get it spread statewide.
Kurt, if you want to go all “ACLU” with your campaign, here’s another acronym to consider: EDR, or, Election-Day Registration. It’s a way to make voting easier, not harder.
Right now most states require voter registration between 2 and 4 weeks prior to an election. 17 states allow EDR, but 4 of them are neighbor-States to SD, interestingly. It would be hard for Steve Barnett to claim that it’s not feasible in our rural state.
Basically it allows people to register or update their registration right at the polling place. It’s such a simple solution that other states should have to justify NOT offering it. Studies estimate a 3% to 14% increase in turnout, and the actual difference between current EDR states and the others is 10-14%.
So simple it’s stupid
Cory: “It certainly distinguishes him from tech-non-savvy Mike Rounds.”
Mike Rounds doesn’t have to be tech-savvy when he can count on his political allies to unethically out critics and opponents through “doxing”. By posting this, I’m probably on some kind of clickrain “watch list” now…..
“jerry” asks:
The most important difference between Senator Rounds and me is probably that I intend to keep my promise to support and defend the Constitution by opposing cloture on any legislation that violates the Fourth Amendment right to be secure against warrantless government seizures of our personal information.
https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/954340750682095618
https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-iv
Mr. Evans, with all due respect, you do know that South Dakota just elected a man who completely ignored the Constitution with his allegiance to a Russian Spy. Here, in South Dakota, we care little about what the Constitution stands for or even what it actually is. When you ask many here about that piece of paper, they will only rant about the 2nd Amendment, that is as far as they go. Try it sometime, I have. It disappoints me of that, but we are rudderless when it comes to what governs us and why. Try asking that question to someone watching Fox. You’re gonna have to work harder, but if you can swing it, that would be a good thing.
No blockage intended, Grudz… but I received a couple of comments that appeared to confuse another handle with your e-mail. Did you type the right name?
[Grammar: “I was complimenting Mr. Evans, whom I respect.”]
[compliment: say nice things about; complement: complete, bring to perfection, enhance, form a right angle with]
[whom: objective case (“You respect whom?” “I respect him.; who: subjective case (“Who respects me?” “He respects you.”).]
Ravnsborg, get the goods? On a fellow Republican? On anyone? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Evans differentiates himself from Mike Rounds by commenting on this blog. In a head-to-head race, that might be enough to make me vote for Evans over Rounds. Openness.
Evans’s dogged discussion of Republican hypocrisy on basic Constitutional issues like search and seizure could get some traction. But it will only get traction against the Rounds media-money machine if Evans raises some money to travel and advertise.
At the secretary of state’s website, Shantel Krebs had written:
On November 15, I’d written:
Today Richard Winger writes:
That was fast. :-)
I tip my hat to you, Kurt! That’s worth a new post!
Hey Cory, this is difficult and more than a little embarrassing, but apparently I’ve inadvertently cried wolf again, and I feel like I owe you an apology. I’m suspending my 2020 Senate bid, and while I’m not ruling out resuming it at some later date, it seems unlikely that I will.
The root of the issue is that I’m thinking journalist Bre Payton was murdered in a black op conducted by Five Eyes intel agents, and I don’t know what I should do about it. I’m being ignored by several nationally prominent journalists who profess to be Christians, and although I’m not suicidal or anything, I’ve been getting progressively more depressed.
I guess the situation has forced me to stop and take inventory of how much my past political endeavors have cost me, and how little progress I’ve actually made.
I’m honestly thinking it would take the agents who arranged Bre’s death less than a week to arrange mine. They could make it look like a suicide, or an accident, or natural causes, and no reputable journalist would likely even question it, at least publicly.
So anyway, I doubt most people are going to take me seriously about this, and I’m emotionally exhausted, and I’m out. Thanks for everything you’ve done for me over the years.
Aw, Kurt—national journalists aren’t paying attention to any South Dakota candidate for Congress right now. Don’t let that get you down!
Now, clinging to the edge of the rabbit hole, and not knowing anything about Bre Payton, I’ll offer these questions to pull you out of your hole… or, even if I can’t keep you on the campaign trail, at least convince you not to worry down this hole:
1. Why would anyone interested in stifling reform voices kill Bre Payton and not more prominent or influential individuals? For instance, if there’s a hit list, why would you be higher on it than, say, me?
2. What evidence supports your hypothesis that her death was not from natural causes?
3. If you were a threat to whoever you think killed Bre Payton, don’t you think you’d be dead by now?
It’s the weather! Most of you have never lived a continuous decade in a mild climate. If you had, you’d realize what this winter is doing to the good people who’ve had to endure it. Your blood gets thick and your tolerance gets thin. It’s why it would be much better to have your legislative session in the summer, when new ideas flow freely. There aren’t a dozen farmers in the session, anyway. Just ask yourself, “When was the last time it was above freezing for three days in a row?”
Porter, I’m not sure where your question came from, but… would we see the characteristics you impute to cold-climate cultures among the Inuit? the folks in Edmonton and Winnipeg? The Finns, Swedes, and Norskies?
I’d written:
Cory writes:
Neither my requests for attention nor my depression had anything to do with my Senate candidacy. I’d barely given a thought to the campaign since I first heard Bre was in a coma.
Few if any journalists posed a greater long-term threat than Bre did to expose the corruption of James Comey and his cult followers in the FBI. Having said that, the decision to kill her may have been motivated more by passion than by reason.
This is from 2017:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/06/09/federalists_bre_payton_comey_a_spineless_weasel_who_has_a_history_of_manipulating_the_media_to_cover_his_own_tail.html
This is from ten days before her death:
https://thefederalist.com/2018/12/18/comey-fbis-garbage-reputation-everybodys-fault-mine/
I’m trying to expose them. Why would you be on the list at all?
She was a healthy, vibrant 26-year-old who contracted a mild case of the H1N1 flu virus from some unknown source and then dropped to the unresponsive brink of death literally overnight before reporting any advanced symptoms.
Charlotte Triggs and Adam Carlson of People magazine write:
Cory asks:
Obviously I don’t.
Here’s the link to the People magazine article I’d quoted above:
https://people.com/politics/meghan-mccain-husband-remember-bre-payton/
I believe Five Eyes intel agents have been deliberately infecting specific individuals with COVID-19, including Tom Hanks and Rudy Gobert, and I believe anyone who tries to expose them is risking his own life and the lives of his loved ones.
Indeed Kurt Evans and these eyes will never be free. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJmYUmrnP0o
Well, Kurt if you really believe this about 5 Eyes it seems mighty strange for you to try to expose them on DFP and risk your own life and the lives of your loved ones.
Snicker snicker
Yesterday I’d written:
Today:
Yes, of course he does:
https://mobile.twitter.com/danpfeiffer/status/1241808282789928967
Rand Paul was worshiping Aqua Buddha, when he caught it, or else when he was at CPAC, which is more or less the same.
“The strangest episode of Paul’s time at Baylor occurred one afternoon in 1983 (although memories about all of these events are understandably a bit hazy, so the date might be slightly off), when he and a NoZe brother paid a visit to a female student who was one of Paul’s teammates on the Baylor swim team. According to this woman, who requested anonymity because of her current job as a clinical psychologist, “He and Randy came to my house, they knocked on my door, and then they blindfolded me, tied me up, and put me in their car. They took me to their apartment and tried to force me to take bong hits. They’d been smoking pot.” After the woman refused to smoke with them, Paul and his friend put her back in their car and drove to the countryside outside of Waco, where they stopped near a creek. “They told me their god was ‘Aqua Buddha’ and that I needed to bow down and worship him,” the woman recalls. “They blindfolded me and made me bow down to ‘Aqua Buddha’ in the creek. I had to say, ‘I worship you Aqua Buddha, I worship you.’ At Baylor, there were people actively going around trying to save you and we had to go to chapel, so worshiping idols was a big no-no.” The Atlantic 8.9.2010
Does anyone else find it suspicious that the first household-name celebrity reported to have contracted COVID-19 was Tom Hanks, arguably the biggest household-name celebrity in America?
Does anyone else find it suspicious that the first household-name athlete reported to have contracted the virus was Rudy Gobert, the very NBA player who’d mocked the league’s COVID-19 “distancing” policy by lightheartedly dragging his fingertips along the microphone at the end of a media availability?
Does anyone else find it suspicious that the reports of those two men contracting the virus came out at essentially the same time, triggering widespread shutdowns and panic?
Does anyone else find it suspicious that the first U.S. senator reported to have contracted the virus was Rand Paul, the only senator to vote against the initial COVID-19 relief package, and a medical doctor, and a lifelong enemy of intel agency power grabs and abuses, whose father Ron Paul, also a medical doctor, had publicly argued that the COVID-19 panic could be a hoax?
Does anyone else find it suspicious that only three South Dakotans over age 70 have tested positive for COVID-19, and they include (1) prominent Christian legislator Bob Glanzer, who’d initially expressed skepticism about the threat posed by the virus, and (2) his wife?
Does anyone else find it suspicious that, eight days after she’d published a story about the bureau’s “garbage reputation” in December 2018, 26-year-old FBI critic and rising-star journalist Bre Payton contracted a mild case of the H1N1 flu virus from some unknown source and then dropped to the brink of death literally overnight before reporting any advanced symptoms? She died the following day. The doctors couldn’t explain how H1N1 supposedly caused the brain damage that killed her, but a massive social media campaign smeared her as an “anti-vaxxer” and blamed her for her own death.
Remember that as of yesterday, with the outbreak well underway, only one in 5,000 people in the United States had tested positive for COVID-19. The virus appears to have chosen its first round of victims very carefully.
I suspect the places where COVID-19 is spreading faster than other cold and flu viruses are mainly the places where Five Eyes intel agents are spreading it intentionally.
Nope. But I do find you amazingly bizarre, yet mildly entertaining.
Don’t stop.
Hi Kurt,
Did any of your suspicious COVID cases (i.e. Hanks, Gobert, Rand Paul, Bob Glanzer, Glanzer’s wife) make a statement that they contracted the virus in an unusual way?
B) Is it possible that those who had an attitude that COVID is not serious, took fewer precautions to avoid it? I mean, I hear that lung cancer rates are high among those who think there’s no proven link between smoking and lung cancer…
Kind regards,
David
Mr. Evans, don’t listen to out-of-state name-callers. You are indeed amazingly bizarre, which is why you and grudznick get along so well, and you are WILDLY entertaining.
Kurt Evans, does anyone like you, find it suspicious that John Thune suddenly flew from Washington to Sioux Falls because he was feeling a little sick. Then said that he didn’t take a Covid-19 test because he is John Thune (freedom first/snark). Why would he do that…you may wonder, suspiciously.*
*Please check grammar, spelling and the use of punctuation points….grade accordingly
What David said. Darwinism is not a moral theory, but it does explain certain epidemiological phenomena. We don’t need a conspiracy to target incautious people. Incautious people will incur harms all on their own.
David Bergan asks:
My understanding is that none of those four men has any idea how he contracted it.
Of course, but I haven’t seen evidence that Hanks, Paul, or Glanzer had an attitude that COVID-19 wasn’t serious. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that out of the top 200 household-name actors, 100 U.S. senators, and thousands of South Dakotans over age 70, those three were the worst hand-washers in their respective groups. (Paul is an eye surgeon, but for the sake of argument …)
Of the select group of symptomatic and high-risk individuals who qualify to be tested for COVID-19, roughly 5 out of 6 have tested negative. It would still be quite a coincidence that none of these guys contracted a cold or flu virus besides COVID-19.
Where is the link for the “roughly 5 out of 6 have tested negative”? Paul is apparently, a dirty rat that even his family thinks is a dirty rat. No amount of hand washing would ever fix that in his family’s “eyes” which are more than 5.
Hi Kurt!
I thought your contention on March 27 was that Gobert, Rand Paul, and Bob Glanzer were among those who “mocked”, “expressed skepticism” and considered the virus a “hoax”.
Furthermore, it’s incorrect to assume that doctors automatically have good hand hygiene. To the contrary, it’s a documented problem that 2/3 of doctors do not wash their hands as often as they should. And even more mind-boggling, according to the CDC, the “lowest adherence rate (36%) was found in intensive-care units”.
Conspiracy narratives are created by cherry picking, which is what I think you’ve done. There are many other Oscar-winning actors who do not have COVID. If any one of those had contracted the disease, like, let’s say, Dustin Hoffman, you could have made the same claim. Out of a sample size of tens, nay dozens… someone is going to get sick simply by coincidence.
Or what if no Oscar-winning actors contracted COVID, but a novelist like Steven King did? Pivot the conspiracy in that direction because that’s where the anecdotes lead.
Among the disease-skeptical crowd, the same argument applies. How many people publicly called the COVID panic some form of overreaction? Thousands, by my lights. Did they all get sick? No. Did some of them get sick? Yes. Are you factoring in the still-healthy deniers like Trump, Rush, Hannity, Ingraham, Trish Regan, Kevin Stitt, and Bolsonaro?
A good analogy to consider is birthday paradox. With 365 days in the year, intuition suggests that it would be unlikely for a classroom of 30 to have two students who share a birthday. However, the math is clear that when there’s 23 individuals in a group there’s a 50% chance that there will be a pair who share a birthday… and at a size of 30 the odds are greater than 70%.
Statistics aren’t always intuitive, but they explain reality better than cherry picking.
Kind regards,
David
https://covidtracking.com
As of 9:20 this morning, there had been 141,232 positive COVID-19 test results reported in the United States, and 710,346 negatives. That’s a ratio of 5.03 negatives for each 1 positive.
Bob Glanzer’s son has given Avera his consent to place a “do not resuscitate” order for Bob.
There are about 900,000 people in South Dakota, and 105 of them are in the state legislature. Based on those numbers, the likelihood that one of the state’s first two terminal cases would be a member of the state legislature by random chance was well under 1 in 4,000.
I knew Bob personally. He was a friend of my late father and a deeply devoted Christian, and I’ve wept several times.
Debbo, I tend to agree with your assessment. But in light of the warning to Trump conspiracy theorists by Dr. Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor at Syracuse University who teaches digital ethics, I would simply urge Mr. Evans and other conspiracy theorists to reflect on the harm that such theories can cause and proceed with some caution.
My source for the above Dr. Phillips quote is a non-paywall Yahoo report about a paywall N.Y. Times story:
https://news.yahoo.com/single-gesture-behind-trump-fuels-162348470.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&uh_test=1_02
Sorry about your friend. As of 9.20 this morning, we don’t know, of the less than 1,000,000 tests done, how many were done multiple times on the chosen wealthy, i.e. sports figures multiple times and politicos multiple times. We also don’t know how many were done on folks who have died during this time frame.
1 in 4,000 is not such a good risk, which is the same odds of flipping heads on a coin 12 times…assuming your thumb can take it. Who would’ve thunk it that heads of state would become infected…what are the odds of that, and yet, here we are.
As of March 28, 2020. Very good link, but our state is still not even close to where we need to be and are not testing like what needs to be done. We still don’t know that actual deaths because we did not test them or those that were around them.
“As of March 28, exactly four weeks after the FDA loosened the rules for testing, the United States still performed only 2,250 tests per million — two-thirds of what South Korea did almost three weeks earlier. The death toll in the United States was 2,198 — and climbing rapidly.” Washington Post 3.30.20
Fact Checker from Washington Post https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_arjED6ohg&list=PL8QBkS_wk32U4bxlNx2PNEUFFAWb_xfCB
Using the Puerto Rico formula (trumpian favorite) you can see that trump claimed 67 deaths while officials on the ground, tallied 2,975. That difference is about 47 times difference. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45511865
This makes the total of deaths in South Dakota, presently to be 47 and nationwide, today, officially about 2,300, which means factually over 100,000 using the Puerto Rico formula. So, there ya go. A proven formula from a trumpian disaster to another one. trump, himself says that 100,000 deaths means not to bad.
Has Evans backed outa this one yet?
We’ve seen these mysterious COVID-19 outbreaks centered around religious gatherings in South Korea, Britain, and the United States:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/days-after-a-funeral-in-a-georgia-town-coronavirus-hit-like-a-bomb/ar-BB11VJoW
I suspect they’re the result of black ops conducted by Five Eyes intel agents.
Dude, Stop doing crack.
My friend Mr. Evans is a clean cut individual. He does not do crack or the demon weed.
Hi Kurt!
I suspect you’re cherry picking again. The article mentioned several gatherings where COVID was spread: a funeral, a Biogen conference, a 40th birthday party, a hospital, a jury trial, and a sheriff’s office.
The fact is that the people at that rural Georgia funeral got sick. One explanation is that they were poisoned by evil spies. Another explanation is that a normal guest at the funeral had contracted COVID, but before showing symptoms, he or she spread it to the bereaved through the hugging and kissing that went on there.
Given all that we know about the stealthiness of COVID, why do you choose to infer it’s spreading by malicious, rather than natural means?
Kind regards,
David
At 1:54 p.m. on Friday, Anne Beal wrote:
Bre Payton reported mild nausea in an evening phone conversation and then dropped to the brink of death literally overnight. She subsequently tested positive for the H1N1 “swine flu” virus, but the doctors couldn’t explain how it supposedly caused the brain damage that killed her, and the suggestion that there was nothing unusual about her death is far beyond “weird”…
Anne’s take is apparently that Payton should have “started on Tamiflu” at 3 a.m. so she wouldn’t be comatose at 9.
Yesterday KELO-TV reported:
I’ll concede to Anne that suspicious deaths like these are slightly less unusual than they used to be.
What are you going to do if elected to bring high paying jobs back to S dakota .Or just say you want them and do nothing like the legislators and lobbyists to keep low paying jobs in the state.Thank you Kristi for the pass out of state to good jobs.
So, still not resuming the campaign?
Cory asks:
Not the independent campaign, but I’ve rejoined the Libertarian Party, and I’m in serious discussions about seeking its 2020 U.S. Senate nomination. Don’t expect me to announce on April Fools’ Day.
This post seems to be getting suppressed farther and farther down the list of search results every time I google it.
https://www.c-span.org/person/?kurtevans
Mr. Evans, I am sorry to hear you are considering the Party’s senate nomination. grudznick would muchly prefer to be your Lt. Governor candiate, should you run for Governor. If you can create a Lt. Senator position, I would take that too, or just name me your chief of staffings.
It feels to me like it’s 9-11, and planes have struck both Twin Towers and the Pentagon, and everyone is amazed at the run of bad luck. I never thought 9-11 was a Five Eyes black op, but I also never thought it was just a coincidence.
These guys probably had a lot to do with it. They always seem to be able to muck things up while stealing social resources they think should only be for them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/coronavirus-retreat-california-harbor-wealthy
Yesterday the Argus Leader reported:
It’s interesting that the Argus link includes the word crime. Even the most elderly and vulnerable victims of COVID-19 doesn’t suffocate that rapidly, and “heartburn” isn’t one of its symptoms.
Mr. Evans, are there places in Spearfish where you and could have a socially distanced breakfast, I mean where you can’t sneeze on my eggs and taters, but we could chat about your upcoming election attempts? grudznick would like to sign up and be on board, if you promise to not overgod like Mr. Howie did.
More than 7,000 people die per day in the United States. Fewer than 6,000 deaths here have been linked to COVID-19. That’s not even one person out of 50,000. A typical U.S. flu season kills five times that many.
Factor out the black ops, the mass panic, and the undercounting of total cases, and COVID-19 itself is just another bad cold.
https://www.genesismedical.org/resources/coronavirus-resources
Hi Kurt,
Just a bad cold? You’re a science teacher, right? Certainly you understand that the raw number of deaths does not describe how deadly something is. I mean fewer than a dozen people die to shark bites each year… that doesn’t mean it’s safe to swim with Great Whites.
When you compare deaths to infected, covid kills significantly more than a cold or flu. And the number of both infected and killed is increasing exponentially… doubling every 2-3 days. Covid killed 968 in the US yesterday. Want to guess how many will die next Thursday?
Kind regards,
David
Kurt, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=149&v=0CNZYtzCUXk&feature=emb_title here is a hero getting a hero’s send off for saving the lives of those he is responsible for. Your silliness certainly is not leadership and furthermore, shows lack of responsibility and care for those you would represent. That responsibility and for that matter, empathy, is what you must have to be a public figure. Sorry, work on it.
I think this Captain’s courage should make us all proud of who we have leading our women and men in harm’s way.
NPR has a recent report that confirms much of David’s comment at 2020-04-03 at 06:53. NPR compares COVID 19 to the flu and reports that:
In a previous comment above (2020-04-01 at 14:34), I’d written:
The post to which I was referring was the Dakota Free Press blog post on which we’re commenting here (https://dakotafreepress.com/2018/11/15/evans-announces-2020-senate-bid-leads-with-push-for-ranked-choice-voting/).
Apparently the “http” link (https://dakotafreepress.com/2018/11/15/evans-announces-2020-senate-bid-leads-with-push-for-ranked-choice-voting/) had completely disappeared from Google’s search results, and the “https” link had been somewhat difficult to find, ranking eighth or ninth on the list after an extra see-more-results click.
The “https” link is still difficult to find, but as of today, the “http” link has reappeared in the top spot on the list.
David Bergan writes to me:
The number of deaths something causes is one of multiple valid descriptors of how deadly it is.
The number infected is difficult to estimate, and so is the rate at which it increases, especially if many of those infections are deliberate.
Not at all, but I’d be happy to hear your prediction.
Five days ago, in a previous comment above (2020-03-30 at 09:53), I’d written:
For anyone who hasn’t heard, Representative Glanzer passed away yesterday evening. He’d had a cold for several days before we knew whether COVID-19 was spreading in South Dakota. Within hours of his positive test result becoming public, he suddenly began to suffocate and was hospitalized in critical condition.
Of the thousands of South Dakotans over age 70, the first three to test positive for COVID-19 included Bob and his wife.
Legendary 90s musician Joe Diffie also announced his positive test result publicly and suddenly became critically ill. It seems to me that the virus has been killing prominent individuals at a rate higher than that of the general population, which has been roughly 1 in 50,000.
Also five days ago, in a previous comment above (2020-03-30 at 23:56), I’d written:
COVID-19 “clusters” and “super-spreading events” continue to target religion:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/at-least-70-people-infected-with-coronavirus-linked-to-a-single-church-health-officials-say/ar-BB12973o
Hi Kurt,
I’m sorry for your loss.
Kind regards,
David
Thanks, David.
Here’s some news from South Dakota’s initial COVID-19 hot spot in Beadle County. The county has still only had 21 positive test results, with 18 documented full recoveries and at least two deaths.
https://doh.sd.gov/news/Coronavirus.aspx
The Beadle outbreak seems to have suddenly appeared out of thin air and disappeared into thin air just as suddenly, much like the initial COVID-19 “cluster” centered around that religious group in South Korea.
Mr. Evans, that’seems to be a word to the wise, stay out of church and you will be saved.
The majority of coronavirus fatalities so far in Chicago have been black residents, even though black residents are not a majority of Chicago’s general population.
Hi Kurt,
Would you mind connecting the dots for me, please? You sound confident in this plot, and I don’t feel like I fully understand it.
When and why did Five Eyes agents start killing the citizens in their own countries? How do we know that they are doing that? Why are they tanking their own countries’ economies? Why are they protecting India and sub-Saharan Africa? What do they have against Christianity? What do they have against Bob Glanzer?
And how do we know that Five Eyes is behind this and not the masons, the Bilderberg Group, Opus Dei, ISIS, Spectre, Al Queda, Nambla, the Illuminati, the Babylonian Brotherhood, North Korea, David Geffen, or extra terrestrials?
Kind regards,
David
I’m planning to reply to the preceding comment from David, but not today.
In a previous comment above, I’d written:
I’ve just checked the Beadle County numbers again, and the nineteenth full recovery has been documented. That’s 21 positive tests, 19 full recoveries, zero cases still active, and two deaths.
I’ve suspected for well over a year that Bre Payton was deliberately infected with H1N1, but that the primary cause of her death was actually cardiac glycoside poisoning.
Now I suspect that Bob Glanzer and Mari Hofer were deliberately infected with COVID-19, but that the primary cause of their deaths was actually cardiac glycoside poisoning.
It would obviously be helpful to discuss these suspicions with the doctors involved.
why would you suspect that Kurt?
A few weeks after Bre Payton turned 18 years old in 2010, she posted the following quote on social media:
After Bre died, I showed that post to her mom, and her mom included it when she spoke at Bre’s funeral. It seems like a fitting way to remember Bre on Good Friday.
I’d written:
Tara Volesky asks:
I’m not planning to go into the details today, but mainly because of the circumstances surrounding their deaths and their reported symptoms.
Cory had written in November of 2018:
The last four years have proven I’m neither “indomitable” nor Cory’s friend.