Donald Trump's Election Loss, Coronavirus, Aliens, And Bitcoin - 2020 News Year In Review

What a year 2020 has been. Let's review: Donald Trump lost the popular and electoral vote, and yesterday the electoral college finalized Joe Biden's win, making him the next President of the United States. On the same day, William Barr announced he will be departing from his role as US Attorney General, effective December 23rd.

In large part, the election was a referendum on the Trump administration's handling of the COVID19 pandemic, which has claimed more than 300,000 American lives so far. Yet it was also a referendum on Washington "outsider" Donald Trump's handling of power, and of his attacks on his critics and enemies, none of which ended up going to prison under either of Trump's two Attorney General picks - Jeff Sessions, and his replacement, William Barr.

While it is true that Joe Biden's son Hunter is now under investigation for some of his prior financial dealings, that was an investigation with years' old origins, and to say that Hunter Biden was one of Trump's main targets would be to re-write history.

No, it appears Sessions and then his replacement Barr both completely ignored Trump's attempts to instigate a thorough investigation into the Clintons and their Foundation, and Barr neglected to make the public aware before the November election that Hunter Biden had become the subject or target of an investigation.

The coronavirus pandemic was a devastating black swan event, not only for Donald Trump's populist political ambitions, but for the nation's economy as well.

Somewhere between 30 to 40 million Americans remain underemployed or unemployed as a result of the pandemic, many college campuses have come to a standstill, air travel is down more than 90 percent from pre-pandemic volume, close to 20 percent of small business owned restaurants have permanently closed, and a looming utility bill and rent payment delinquency threaten to make millions of Americans homeless in the weeks ahead.

Branded "sleepy" and overly afraid of the coronavirus by Trump's campaign, Joe Biden's careful, succinct, serious messaging around COVID19 turned out to be exactly what the public wanted, while Trump's bravado and frequent departures from orthodox science... at one point even drawing on inspiration from the My Pillow Guy, a former drug addict and TV infomercial entrepreneur with no known medical background, for possible COVID cures...

At the time, to many conservatives Trump's approach to the coronavirus seemed efficient: by treating each state differently based on its case trajectory, states with few infections could continue to do business without as many restrictions imposed on their residents. Yet, with the benefit of hindsight, that approach now seems to have been disastrous: a strong unified federal push to contain the virus, back in the Spring when policymakers wanted to "slow the spread," could have altered the nation's fate.

Instead, a piecemeal approach that was at times chaotic essentially pitted the states against each other for access to PPE and high-cost medical supplies including ventilators. And the simple fact is that citizens travel between states frequently, rendering the varied policy approach disastrous. In one instance, for example, it is believed more than 300,000 infections came from a single biotech conference held in the Boston area earlier this year. The conference attendees went home to their respective states, taking COVID with them.

A second round of stimulus which is nearing approval in Congress has no individual payment component, instead focusing on the paycheck protection program and relief at the business level, which is precisely the opposite of what many policymakers say is needed right now. Direct payments to Americans, as Canada has been giving to their citizens for months now, will be required in order to bolster the economy, according to some experts.

Some estimate it could take up to $4.5 trillion in additional relief to fully protect the economy against a continued pandemic slide.

Aliens

In the midst of Trump's surprise election loss and the national disaster instantiated by COVID19, many were distracted from one of the most intriguing news stories of the year, if not all time.

Israel's former space security chief gave a major magazine interview, in which he revealed that the US government, as well as Israel's government, had begun to collaborate with an advanced alien race. This race has some kind of presence beneath the surface on Mars, according to the Israeli bureaucrat.

Simultaneous to that announcement, scientists disclosed they had discovered evidence of a "cosmic superhighway" of sorts winding throughout the solar system, which would appear to allow objects including spacecraft to move to the outer edges of the solar system in a fraction of the time previously believed possible. These "space manifolds," as the scientists call them, leverage the immense gravitational fields of Jupiter and other large planetary bodies. https://www.fulcrumnews.com/blog/2020/12/12/space-manifolds-discovered-throughout-solar-system

Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency

Another overlooked story of 2020 was the mainstreaming of Bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies. PayPal just weeks ago turned on the ability for their millions of users to buy/sell Bitcoin, Ether, and Litecoin on their platform.

As of writing this post, one Bitcoin trades for around US $19,400.

Pandemic uncertainty, as well as more people at home using the Internet for commerce, could be responsible for the jump in public interest.

Trust FULCRUM In 2021

Whatever the new year brings, FULCRUM will be there. 2021 will be our fifth year as a news organization and we thank all of you who have been along for the adventure thus far. In Star Trek, the missions were meant to last five years, and it does feel in a way like we've traveled the galaxy together - from Pizzagate and Epstein Island, to the rise of Bitcoin, to the election of Trump and subsequent loss of Trump to Joe Biden - we've covered the big stories that matter, decisively and early, when others were afraid or uncertain.

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