Patterico's Pontifications

11/11/2020

More on Trump’s Refusal To Acknowledge Announced Election Results

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:16 am



[guest post by Dana]

In a follow-up to my post about Trump’s refusal to accept the election results, and the subsequent problems it is causing, I saw this:

Almost since Election Day, an increasing number of Trump advisers and allies have privately conceded that they do not think the president will win reelection, even if he pursues all legal options at his disposal. They have said they are simply trying to give Trump — a notoriously sore loser who has long fashioned himself a victim of nefarious forces seeking to undermine him — the time to come to grips with his loss, knowing he is likely to refuse to ever officially acknowledge the election results.

But the delay in a peaceful transition of power — whatever the justification — has potentially devastating effects, not just for Biden but for the nation.

“They all know he lost, and they are lying about it to protect his little feelings. It’s insane,” said Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist who led one of several outside groups working to elect Biden. “They’re all playing pretend because Donald wants a participation trophy, and there are real human consequences — not just to our democracy, but threats to individuals and their lives.”

Sigh…

Just yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo indicated that the State Department did not accept the election results either when asked about ensuring a smooth transition of power:

There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.

Today, however, in an effort to clarify his remarks, Pompeo again continued to sidestep acknowledgement of the announced results:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has rejected criticism of remarks he made Tuesday in which he said that the State Department would ensure “a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”

“There’s an awful lot of work to do. We’re reminding everyone that all the votes haven’t been counted,” Pomeo told “Special Report” host Bret Baier. “We need to make sure the legal process is fully complied with and then America will do what it does best. We’ll have a leader in the White House at noon on Jan. 20 and we will execute American foreign policy.”

“I am very confident that we will have a good transition, that we will make sure that whoever is in office on noon on Jan. 20 has all the tools readily available so that we don’t skip a beat with the capacity to keep Americans safe,” Pompeo insisted. “That’s what I was speaking to today. I think it’s important for not only the American people, but the whole world, especially our adversaries, to know that we will achieve this in a way that’s deeply consistent with the American tradition and keeps us all safe here at home.”

President-elect Joe Biden was asked about Trump’s refusal to accept the election results, and what his plan moving forward are:

Mr Biden was asked directly what he thought of Mr Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the election.

“I think it’s an embarrassment, quite frankly,” Mr Biden said.

After pausing, Mr Biden said “how can I put this tactfully”, before adding:

“It will not help the President’s legacy.”

Mr Biden said that he understood the sense of loss Mr Trump’s supporters felt right now.

“I think they understand that we need to come together. We need to pull the country out of this bitter politics we’ve seen,” he said.

Asked by a reporter what he would say to Mr Trump, Mr Biden said: “Mr President, looking forward to speaking with you.”

Mr Biden also said his transition team would not be taking legal action to try to force the Trump Administration to officially acknowledge him as the president-elect.

“I don’t see a need for legal action, quite frankly,” he said.

Of course, Trump has a history of casting doubt on elections when the results displease him. His aggressive pushback on the announced results is perfectly in character for him:

On election night in 2012, when President Barack Obama was reelected, Trump said that the election was a “total sham” and a “travesty,” while also making the claim that the United States is “not a democracy” after Obama secured his victory.

Trump even wrote on Twitter, “We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!”

And then in 2016:

When he ran to become the Republican Party nominee in 2016, he attempted to cast doubt on the election process. Trump said he did not lose the Iowa caucuses in 2016 to then candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, because he “stole it.”

“Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!” Trump wrote on Twitter at the time.

He also wrote, “Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.”

So in light of the polling below, I’m going to ask, where is the actual evidence of this and would the alleged evidence turn the election for Trump?:

Relative to my question, I’ll leave you with this:

How should we think of the state of play? Aside from the ordinary (and considerable) sting of a presidential loss, is there any objective reason for this extraordinary amount of hysteria? Is the election, in fact, being stolen?

The short answer is no. There is zero evidence of either fraud or other unlawful irregularity sufficient to cast the emerging result into doubt. That’s not the same thing as saying there has been no fraud. That’s not the same thing as saying there have been no unlawful irregularities. But we still can have confidence in the outcome.

[I] have no doubt that more allegations will emerge. In evaluating those claims, here’s a good rule of thumb—do not believe tweets or Facebook posts. Don’t take them seriously. Instead, look for evidence presented in sworn court documents.

There is a veritable army of GOP lawyers who are chomping at the bit to challenge these election results. If there is actual evidence of fraud substantial enough to alter the outcome of the election, those claims will not remain on Twitter. They will not remain on Sean Hannity or on talk radio. They will end up in federal court, where they’ll be exposed to a searching and critical inquiry. For you law geeks out there, look not to Twitter but to PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) to discern whether there is any merit to the most alarmist of claims.

Make sure to read the whole informative piece.

–Dana

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: I’ll just re-up this, from October 26:

So what happens now to the Republican party?

You might have guessed that Step One would be the recriminations, but it turns out to be Step Two. Step One is dealing with the claims of fraud. The most immediate issue: Trump has not conceded the election, despite the obvious lopsided results. Fox News and fever-swamp right-wing sites have come out with what they claim is clear evidence of fraud. CNN and the rest of Big Media purports to debunk these claims, and independent observers can see that while there are one or two possibly suspicious episodes, they are not nearly enough to have swung the election. No matter. Trump and his diehards spend weeks claiming that an investigation needs to be opened, and the drama occupies the country up to and even after the inauguration of Joe Biden.

It’s not like this reaction was unpredictable.

211 Responses to “More on Trump’s Refusal To Acknowledge Announced Election Results”

  1. Hello there.

    Dana (6995e0)

  2. More to the point: If there are actual misdoings that people observed, on a scale large enough to affect an election and in an age with ubiquitous hirez cameras, there will be more than just anecdotes and tweets.

    Sure, there are some elections that could be affected by a few rogue pre-canvassers, but anyything that could allow 10s of thousands of unlawful votes to be counted for a particular candidate would require a conspiracy large enough that word would get out.

    So. Trump has the perfect right to ask for recounts in several states, and if all of those recounts changed the results, he might be able to overturn the election. And pigs might fly. I don’t think it is evil of him to request those recounts, but claiming the election was stolen/rigged/false/etc IS evil, unless he has some serious proof.

    I think we have more proof that he’s evil.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  3. The GOP is making a serious mistake not cutting their ties to Trump. In part that’s because they hurt themselves cosigning his bullsh1t, but more in pumping up his martyrdom. They need to be PAST Trump, and what they are doing prolongs his influence.

    Fundamentally, Trump’s hold on the party has amounted to extortion. At some point you have to stop paying the Dane.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  4. I agree with #3, Kevin M. The longer this continues, the harder it will be for the GOP to remake itself into something reasonable and appealing to right leaning voters. Unfortunately, with Trump’s formation of a new PAC, I think he will have his hands in the pie for some time yet.

    Dana (6995e0)

  5. The baseless assertions that Trump lost due to wide spread fraud are hurting our our country, by destroying faith in the process. So far no solid evidence of wide spread fraud has been produced. When speaking under oath his lawyers make small claims about process issues that won’t impact the result.

    I’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating; the people that support Trump in this don’t appear to care about our country. The lack of patriotism is appalling.

    Time123 (52fb0e)

  6. @4, The GOP appears to be focusing on being the party of grievance and conspiracy theories. Their leader demands others join him in whining about things that apparently haven’t happened.

    Time123 (52fb0e)

  7. That stat, 86% of Republicans think the Biden didn’t win, that’s very disturbing. I don’t know how to rely on polls honestly, but I do know that a lot of people are happily harming this country because they are so scared of a democrat president. Ruining trust in elections is profoundly unpatriotic.

    Every election has some cheaters, and they should be found and put in prison, even though I’m sure they almost never actually change the outcome. We know some Trump fans and some Biden fans cheated because we’re talking about a few nuts out of tens of millions of people. It’s a certainty. But we also know who the winner is. We need to find some solutions here. Usually that solution is a good candidate conceding, considering their reputation and their nation’s safety. Up to now, with the exception of Al Gore, that’s been enough.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  8. And despite all of these accusations without actual evidence and their efforts to subvert our entire system of government, the GOP will still cry about the Democrats not reaching arcross the aisle once Trump is out on his ass.

    johnnyagreeable (c49787)

  9. On election night in 2012, when President Barack Obama was reelected, Trump said that the election was a “total sham” and a “travesty,” while also making the claim that the United States is “not a democracy” after Obama secured his victory.

    If you look at the Gallup approval chart, you see that Obama’s re-election was carefully managed. His approval never rose above 50% from March 2010 to March 2016, except for the 6 months around the 2012 election, where it spiked. It rose again in late 2016, but that didn’t help Hillary, even against trump.

    https://news.gallup.com/poll/125729/obama-job-approval-weekly.aspx

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  10. In the abstract, given the level of fear that many (including myself) had regarding a second Trump administration, I can understand how some might decide to take it on themselves to “help” our country rid itself of toxic leadership. The temptation is obvious.

    There might be some True Believers would would do the same for Trump but, by and large, they would not be in the position to do so. You do not frequently find Trump’s people in government service or volunteering for election duty.

    So, is it possible that some non-conspiracy of like-minded individuals shaded things Biden’s way (e.g. in heavily Democrat counties being lax about signature verification)? Sure. But no one will ever prove it. If it happened.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  11. The Dems, as usual, suck at messaging.

    Proxies should have been on every network hammering Pompeo, asking why he can’t say ‘Biden’ and ‘Next president’ in the same sentence, pointing out how laughable the election fraud nonsense is, and so on.

    They still think this is politics, not entertainment.

    john (cd2753)

  12. Good Summary of some of the details in Trump’s lawsuit in MI.

    https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1326591182059737089

    Time123 (235fc4)

  13. As Dana notes (in #7), any election in a country this size with using different balloting strategies, there will always be a few irregularities or (limited) examples of fraud, and we shouldn’t expect that it would be any different now. The Trump camp will seize on any anomalous irregularity they can find–no matter how isolated–and hold it up like a banner. But isolated instances don’t mean much. Unless they can demonstrate that fraud was conducted on an unprecedentedly massive scale–coordinated across several states–their bluster will just sputter out.

    Roger (bc4cba)

  14. What I find somewhere between sad and amusing is the claim by some, e.g. in Pennsylvania, that if one county helps voters correct ballots, and another doesn’t, that this in itself is unconstitutional and the solution is to throw out the ballots, which everyone agrees are the actual expression of the vote by the relevant voter, that have been corrected. As opposed to, you know, encouraging other counties to help their voters correct ballots.

    It makes voting a game where you hover over ballots to see if an address line is incorrectly filled out. The ultimate goal should be getting as close as possible to getting the actual expression of legal voters to count.

    In court the other day, a Trump lawyer admitted that he was making no claims regard fraud, but with a group of 500+ ballots simply saying that technical errors meant they all had to be jettisoned.

    What you are seeing in the last week is a determination by Trump supporters to turn every last irregularity and glitch into evidence of an overarching conspiracy, right up to the point that the lawyers have to face up to a judge.

    Victor (4959fb)

  15. So, is it possible that some non-conspiracy of like-minded individuals shaded things Biden’s way (e.g. in heavily Democrat counties being lax about signature verification)? Sure. But no one will ever prove it. If it happened.

    Even accepting it’s “possible”–because anything is possible; we could actually be the product of an alien’s simulation and not real–but even so it’s incredibly unlikely from an incentives perspective.

    Absent an actual conspiracy to rig an election, the individual fraudster has very little incentive to do so. The downside is massive if you get caught while the upside is non-existent unless tens of thousands of other people are choosing to engage in the same behavior.

    “The truth is that after decades of looking for illegal voting, there’s no proof of widespread fraud. At most, there are isolated incidents — by both Democrats and Republicans. Elections are not rigged.”

    -Ben Ginsberg

    johnnyagreeable (c49787)

  16. After pausing, Mr Biden said “how can I put this tactfully”, before adding:
    “It will not help the President’s legacy.”
    Mr Biden said that he understood the sense of loss Mr Trump’s supporters felt right now.

    Whatever objections I will have to Biden’s policies, there is something to be said for having a president with normal human empathy who recognizes the virtue of being tactful.

    Radegunda (20775b)

  17. HotAir excerpted a good op-Ed at the WaPo:

    How We Can Be Confident That Trump’s Voter Fraud Claims Are Baloney

    Mass voter fraud should be relatively easy to detect, even if it might be difficult to prove. Since we elect presidents through the electoral college, political operatives trying to nefariously produce a victory would focus on states critical to an electoral college majority. Thus, if fraud were behind President-elect Joe Biden’s win, we should expect to see significantly higher turnout increases in key states when compared to the nation as a whole. Furthermore, we should expect to see higher turnout increases within those states in Democratic areas than in Republican areas, since those regions are places where Democrats are more likely to be able to hide any stolen votes. Finally, we should expect to see significantly larger shifts in voter margins toward the Democrats from other, previous elections as the fraud alters the area’s normal voting patterns.

    None of these early warning signs of fraud appear in the results

    […]

    All three states’ results indicate what was to blame for Trump’s defeat: suburban vote slippage. Trump’s margin in the three suburban counties surrounding Milwaukee dropped from 104,500 votes in 2016 to 96,750 in 2020, even as voter turnout increased from 369,000 to 417,700 votes. He would have won Wisconsin had he won these counties and similar suburbs of Madison and Minneapolis by the same percentage margins he did in 2016. The same is true in suburban Detroit, which Trump lost by 69,000 votes in 2020 after losing it by only 5,500 votes in 2016, and suburban Philadelphia, which he lost by 188,200 votes in 2016 and 283,800 votes this year. Trump would be ahead in Pennsylvania by roughly 50,000 votes if he had lost suburban Philly by his same margins in 2016.

    This was not an isolated swing-state event, either. Trump’s suburban margins dropped in deep red non-swing states, such as Louisiana, Kentucky and Missouri, too. The president also did significantly worse in suburbs in deep-blue states such as Oregon and Washington. Trump’s plaintive cry toward the end of his campaign for suburban women to “please like me” is more indicative of why he lost than anything he says now about fraud.

    Read the whole thing, which goes into even more detail, if you have access to the full article. Even if urban areas tended to report last and have the largest chunk of blue votes, the places where the votes actually shifted toward Biden, compared to 2016, were in the suburbs, and it happened everywhere.

    Dave (1bb933)

  18. What we should take out of this, and what the GOP might be able to push through the coming Congress, is better handling of mail balloting which is currently based on procedures that worked with a few absentees, but does not scale well.

    To being with, “mail” is obsolete. Signatures are poor proofs of identities in general, and mass checking of signatures by people with little experience or training is worse yet.

    We need electronic voting and credentials that are cryptographically secure. Yes, I know that people don’t trust electronic voting because they can’t validate the system themselves, and fear that some mysterious clique of evil people has fixed the result. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

    The software world is divided into two camps: Proprietary OSes (Windows, Mac) and open source (*nix, Linux, FreeDOS, others). Make voting software open-source and there are enough people on all sides (particularly Libertarian) to validated it to death. Secret, proprietary code is not safer (Windows viruses make that clear). The protection is only of intellectual property, not the user.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  19. Maybe this is the proper thread for what I posted at the end of yesterday’s “immunity” thread:

    Right after an election whose results he won’t accept, Trump appears to be doubling down on pushing out officials who aren’t disposed to serve him personally first and foremost, and replacing them with loyalists. Esper pushed back against his worst ideas, including domestic use of the military, so he was booted and replaced by someone less qualified but Trumpier. There’s said to be a “loyalty-oath atmosphere” growing at the DoD:

    When Jim Anderson was fired yesterday as Acting Under Secretary for Policy, he was given a “clap-out” as he left the building. The WH called to request names of any political appointees who joined in so they could be fired.

    If that’s true — and I find it not implausible from this White House — shouldn’t we be concerned that there’s a whiff of dictatorship in it? Granted it’s several steps short of arresting people for failing to clap enthusiastically enough, or for appearing to be faking the required display of terrible grief upon Dear Leader’s passing. But I thought Donald Trump was supposed to be the most resolute guardian of our liberties. Or is he just cracking the eggs to make the Freedom Omelette?

    (And then I said something about Nero and Tacitus.)

    Radegunda (20775b)

  20. This election conspiracy theory is taking its place with all the other conspiracy theories out there: JFK, chemtrails, 9/11 inside job, etc. The problem is the internet allows these wackos to find an echo chamber and send out their dysfunctional song to the world. Paranoid idiots used to be shunned and had only their thoughts to keep them company. Now, they find an audience.

    Trump will end up going – but not quietly – into the night. Then Biden can begin the healing. And the leading. There are a lot of great speeches out there he can plagiarize so I have no doubt he’ll be successful on both counts.

    Hoi Polloi (66077a)

  21. That stat, 86% of Republicans think the Biden didn’t win, that’s very disturbing. I don’t know how to rely on polls honestly

    You probably shouldn’t. Their track records aren’t great these days.

    Hoi Polloi (66077a)

  22. Trump is acting like a bigger sore loser than Al Gore
    Rip Murdock (e4a538) — 11/11/2020 @ 11:07 am

    And like Al Gore, he’ll monetize this loss.

    Hoi Polloi (66077a)

  23. This election conspiracy theory is taking its place with all the other conspiracy theories out there: JFK, chemtrails, 9/11 inside job, etc. The problem is the internet allows these wackos to find an echo chamber and send out their dysfunctional song to the world. Paranoid idiots used to be shunned and had only their thoughts to keep them company. Now, they find an audience.

    Trump will end up going – but not quietly – into the night. Then Biden can begin the healing. And the leading. There are a lot of great speeches out there he can plagiarize so I have no doubt he’ll be successful on both counts.

    Hoi Polloi (66077a) — 11/11/2020 @ 11:07 am

    I think you’re very correct in this, and I liked the plagiarism joke. DCSCA should use it as an example on how to do it right.

    The thing I’d add is that Trump and GOP leadership encouraging this really gives it legs. There’s no legitimate reason to do so. There are plenty of corrupt reasons. It’s a shame the the GOP has again picked corruption as the way to go.

    Time123 (52fb0e)

  24. The Devil’s advocate in me keeps pointing out that I did not see how Trump could lose in PA after the early vote, given the number of mail ballots they said were outstanding. In that context I stand by that assertion, although it later turned out that the number of outstanding ballots was noticeably larger.

    If I was a Trump partisan, I would be suspicious of this, as it is exactly they way I’d expect fraud to happen — many extra mail ballots arrive, with a very high number of Democrat votes. The system we currently have is vulnerable to this kind of fraud as it has never been tested with mail ballots like this before, and the safeguards are IMNSHO lax.

    I don’t see how it would hurt to have neutral parties (and the FBI probably qualifies, not being a hotbed of Trump support), validate the provenance of these mail ballots in the most critical counties. If, say, Philadelphia County’s votes are aboveboard, we can stop there. If they are clearly fraudulent, or undocumented, or the dog ate their papers, we DO need to know that, too.

    I’d rather spend a few days checking all this out than spend 20 years arguing about it like with Florida 2000.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  25. And like Al Gore, he’ll monetize this loss.

    Maybe. I’d bet against the Novel Peace Prize and the Oscar though.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  26. *Nobel

    He may well get the Novel Peace Prize or the Noble Peace Prize.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  27. You probably shouldn’t. Their track records aren’t great these days.

    In this election, the polls were off by about 4-6%, depending on how you measure. (On the other hand, the polls nevertheless appear to have called the winner of 48/50 states correctly.)

    If only 80% of Republicans deny the outcome, instead of 86%, I don’t think it’s much less alarming.

    Dave (1bb933)

  28. I just saw another poll showing an overwhelming majority know Biden won:

    https://www.the-sun.com/news/1779179/80-percent-americans-accept-joe-biden-won-election/

    Hoi Polloi (66077a)

  29. As Dana notes (in #7), any election in a country this size with using different balloting strategies, there will always be a few irregularities or (limited) examples of fraud, and we shouldn’t expect that it would be any different now

    And this is one of the reasons WHY some form of the Electoral College system is necessary. So long as you have each county running their own election, there needs to be some system to normalize the results.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  30. What gets me about Pompeo is that he is WAAAAY smarter than Trump, with myriad accomplishments. He graduated first in his class at West Point, for example. Why he bows down to this muckheaded fool is beyond me.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  31. > neutral parties

    we’re past the point where that’s an option. the two sides could never agree on the neutral parties. one side starts mouthing off about how the allegedly-neutral parties aren’t, half or more of their fanbois believe it, and the alleged neutrality is no longer believed and the system is no longer credible.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  32. @27-
    He may well get the Novel Peace Prize or the Noble Peace Prize

    For what? It’s not like he ended a war (like T. Roosevelt) or anything. Getting a couple of non-frontline Arab states and a “s###hole” African country to recognize Israel hardly qualifies. Now if got Iran or Saudi Arabia to do so, or reunified the Koreas that would be something.

    Rip Murdock (e4a538)

  33. It makes voting a game where you hover over ballots to see if an address line is incorrectly filled out. The ultimate goal should be getting as close as possible to getting the actual expression of legal voters to count.

    No, it makes validating ballots in YOUR county a race-to-the-bottom if you want your voters to have as much influence as those in that other [awful] county.

    If the law says that the voter’s address must match, or must be a valid address, or mush be within the ballot’s various election districts, and you don’t enforce that, you are giving your county’s voters more of an edge than a county that’s following the law.

    If the law says the signatures must match, and you accept anything, claiming that their signature might have changed, not only do you give your county’s voters more of an edge than a county that’s following the law, but you are enabling fraud. Particularly if the state mailed out ballots to everyone on the rolls, some of whom are dead or have moved.

    TL;DR: If your county doesn’t follow the law, how is this not fraud?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  34. @31-

    Because Pompeo wants to run for President someday v

    Rip Murdock (e4a538)

  35. >>>He may well get the Novel Peace Prize or the Noble Peace Prize

    For what?

    Well, who knows. Those aren’t real prizes. He might also win “Best President Ever” from the Trump Organization Prize Committee.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  36. If, say, Philadelphia County’s votes are aboveboard, we can stop there.

    Clinton won Philadelphia County 82.5-15.4, with 707,631 votes cast (out of 6,115,402 statewide)

    Biden won Philadelphia County 81.2-18.1, with 708,953 votes cast (out of 6,779,262 statewide)

    So Biden won the bluest county by a smaller margin, and while turnout statewide was up 11%, turnout in the bluest county was up less than 0.2%.

    Source for 2016
    Source for 2020

    Dave (1bb933)

  37. But enough of the Devil’s Advocate. The bottom line here POLITICALLY is that the GOP is harming itself cosigning Trump’s BS. They need to get rid of the blackmailer, not give him yet another check.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  38. Of course, Trump has a history of casting doubt on elections when the results displease him.

    “Trump Russia Collusion”

    beer ‘n pretzels (042d67)

  39. Dana, here’s another piece that’s worth a full read. Dr. Hasen has been studying American elections for quite a while.
    BTW, I wonder if Dave knows the guy, being from UCI.

    Paul Montagu (77c694)

  40. The ultimate goal should be getting as close as possible to getting the actual expression of legal voters to count.

    Unless they wanted to vote for the Green Party.

    beer ‘n pretzels (042d67)

  41. Sorry if I missed it here or elsewhere but… how many Presidential nominees have lost the popular vote twice?

    noel (9fead1)

  42. Dave, I’m not arguing that Trump has a case, I’m arguing that there IS a clear test. The numbers you show indicate even more strongly that Trump is full of it, and are exactly the thing that GOP Senators should consider before they step any deeper in the muck.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  43. UPDATE BY PATTERICO: I’ll just re-up this, from October 26:

    So what happens now to the Republican party?

    You might have guessed that Step One would be the recriminations, but it turns out to be Step Two. Step One is dealing with the claims of fraud. The most immediate issue: Trump has not conceded the election, despite the obvious lopsided results. Fox News and fever-swamp right-wing sites have come out with what they claim is clear evidence of fraud. CNN and the rest of Big Media purports to debunk these claims, and independent observers can see that while there are one or two possibly suspicious episodes, they are not nearly enough to have swung the election. No matter. Trump and his diehards spend weeks claiming that an investigation needs to be opened, and the drama occupies the country up to and even after the inauguration of Joe Biden.

    It’s not like this reaction was unpredictable.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  44. Sorry if I missed it here or elsewhere but… how many Presidential nominees have lost the popular vote twice?

    Benjamin Harrison won in 1888 with 90,000 votes less than the incumbent Cleveland, then lost to Cleveland in 1892.

    And, strictly speaking, Adlai Stevenson and Williams Jennings Bryan both lost twice, although that’s probably not what you are asking.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  45. Kevin, there’s going to be 5 categories of things people will find.

    Errors; Clerk enters 81 votes when it was actually 82.
    sloppy work; 82 votes, 82 votes recorded but paperwork isn’t correct.
    small scale fraud; Joe fills out his senile grandmothers ballot in the way he wants.
    Fraud; Joe works at the clerks office and votes 300 times.
    Wide Spread fraud: Joe leads a conspiracy to add tens of thousands of votes in WI/PI/MI.

    I’d be shocked if 1-3 didn’t happen every election. There are just too many votes for them not to.

    There are cases of Fraud that happen, they seems to get caught when someone notices an irregularity in the voting pattern and investigates.

    I don’t think wide spread fraud has happened in decades, but i’m sure Trump and his moronic conspiracy theorists will use 1-3 as ‘evidence’ that wide spread fraud is happening.

    Time123 (235fc4)

  46. Paul, while Hasen is an expert on election law, he’s also a partisan Democrat, which became quite clear in 2000.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  47. Patterico, Your prediction was spot on. But I think Fox has done a better job at calling this stuff out as stupid then I expected.

    Time123 (235fc4)

  48. @39 Sucks when people investigate wrong doing and you’re corrupt.

    Time123 (235fc4)

  49. @46

    As I showed, Biden underperformed Clinton in Philadelphia, and Philadelphia underperformed the rest of the state in turnout.

    Stop lying.

    Dave (1bb933)

  50. BTW, it appears that the UNCOUNTED late-arriving ballot issue in PA amount to about 50,000 — slightly more than Biden’s lead. Since it is laughable that all (or even most) would be for Trump, the who argument about them is stupid.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  51. Hate Trump all you want (insecure men hate actual men), but is a banana republic, a second coming of the USSR or Venezuela worth it?

    Thank you for this reminder of the insanity of Trump’s True Believers. I doubt that Trump has ever gotten laid without money changing hands.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  52. @46, admit it, writing that is the closest you’ve come to feeling like a grown up all day.

    Time123 (235fc4)

  53. Clerk enters 81 votes when it was actually 82.

    There as actually a case that came up where a clerk entered something like 8100 when it was actually 810.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  54. @53, Totally disagree for 2 reasons
    1. I’m sure there’s been the implication that money would change hands in the future.
    2. 26 accusations of sexual assault.

    Time123 (235fc4)

  55. Fraud; Joe works at the clerks office and votes 300 times.

    The only conceivable frauds that could result in 10s of thousands of votes for one side would be someone in a highly partisan area allowing obviously fraudulent mail votes to be accepted, and for this to be repeated a number of times by like-minded individuals acting independently.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  56. He sued for a refund at least once, too.

    Dave (1bb933)

  57. “(insecure men hate actual men)”

    https://i.imgur.com/GLwoJaT.png

    Davethulhu (6e0d47)

  58. 1. I’m sure there’s been the implication that money would change hands in the future.
    2. 26 accusations of sexual assault.

    OK, money later in both cases. But money changed hands.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  59. You cucks seriously think this was not massive fraud when Biden underperformed Hillary everywhere except in cities where the vote counts stopped, observers kicked out, and hundreds of thousand ballots for Biden showed up at 5am?

    Then prove the fraud.

    Paul Montagu (77c694)

  60. @44 Trump’s tweets aside… what’s the harm to taking a closer look at the disputed election?

    Having recounts, recanvassing, etc… should be expected and be used to give MORE credence for the public.

    whembly (c30c83)

  61. If the law says that the voter’s address must match, or must be a valid address, or mush be within the ballot’s various election districts, and you don’t enforce that, you are giving your county’s voters more of an edge than a county that’s following the law.

    If the law says the signatures must match, and you accept anything, claiming that their signature might have changed, not only do you give your county’s voters more of an edge than a county that’s following the law, but you are enabling fraud. Particularly if the state mailed out ballots to everyone on the rolls, some of whom are dead or have moved.

    In the instance I am citing, some counties noted that people had provided problem addresses and gave the voters a chance to correct, provide the correct address and allowed that, verified, legal voter to actually cast the vote intended. Other counties didn’t.

    Some counties didn’t treat the whole thing as a game where we hope to catch an error so as to invalidate an attempt to vote. Others did.

    I gather the current Trump position is that the counties who are honestly attempting to get accurate legal votes should be punished, and the game playing counties rewarded.

    And to the extent that a state’s “law”, i.e. legislation as interpreted by courts, obsesses about technicalities not relevant to determining a legitimate voter’s intent in casting a legal ballot, then I think, as a matter of policy, it’s crap.

    Victor (4959fb)

  62. 60. Shorter: Incels

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  63. Never mind, looks like the troll was bounced.

    Paul Montagu (77c694)

  64. And to the extent that a state’s “law”, i.e. legislation as interpreted by courts, obsesses about technicalities not relevant to determining a legitimate voter’s intent in casting a legal ballot, then I think, as a matter of policy, it’s crap.

    And so, you would override that “crap” with your own personal standard? If tied for your crime, would you expect to be acquitted?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  65. Christoph is creepy.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  66. Y’all are celebrating the result because it benefits you

    No, actually, because it benefits the nation. It’s sad that Trump didn’t drop dead from a coronary in 2015, as we could have avoided this train wreck of an administration and not had Hillary’s train wreck either.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  67. Sorry I screwed up the numbering, but I have warned you guys that can happen when trolls are moderated. I tend to prefer blockquoting the portion of the comment I am responding to. That way even if the comment is deleted, people understand the context of my response.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  68. The person to whom you were responding is a far-right kook.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  69. It’s not too late to impeach Trump for treason against the United States.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  70. The person to whom you were responding is a far-right kook.

    NO!

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  71. More on Trump’s Refusal To Acknowledge Announced Election Results

    Read it out loud

    Patterico (115b1f)

  72. I would like to point out that there are separate issues here:

    A. Massive mail-in voting, as currently practiced, is susceptible to various frauds.
    B. Trump is asserting this happened but there really is no evidence, nor is there any strong indication. There were about 20% more ballots cast in this election mainly because voting was so easy. This happened in all areas regardless of partisan sentiment.
    C. Trump has a right to ask for a recount under the state laws in GA, PA and WI.
    D. The GOP itself will decide what happens here, and they are currently making decisions out of fear and cowardice.
    E. The nation is better off with Biden and divided government than with Trump and divided government.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  73. You cucks seriously think this was not massive fraud when Biden underperformed Hillary everywhere except in cities where the vote counts stopped, observers kicked out, and hundreds of thousand ballots for Biden showed up at 5am?

    Then prove the fraud.

    I have moderated that word. I’m kind of shocked I had not done so long ago.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  74. But I think Fox has done a better job at calling this stuff out as stupid then I expected.

    FOX is toeing the line their owners drew in the “do you want to still be employed” sand. Just look at Judge Jeannie who didn’t obey and got canceled (temporary or permanent?). FOX is owned by leftists who made money on being pro-Trump. Now they want to stay relevant in the market. FOX Broadcasting is owned by Disney.

    Marci (405d43)

  75. A. Massive mail-in voting, as currently practiced, is susceptible to various frauds.
    B. Trump is asserting this happened but there really is no evidence, nor is there any strong indication. There were about 20% more ballots cast in this election mainly because voting was so easy. This happened in all areas regardless of partisan sentiment.
    C. Trump has a right to ask for a recount under the state laws in GA, PA and WI.
    D. The GOP itself will decide what happens here, and they are currently making decisions out of fear and cowardice.
    E. The nation is better off with Biden and divided government than with Trump and divided government.

    All true.

    Also: Trump’s refusal to accept reality, while in keeping with the insanity we have observed for the past 4.5 years, is hurting the transition and is (like many things Trump does) a danger to national security.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  76. No Self-Respecting Lawyer Should Touch Trump’s Election-Fraud Claims

    Just for the record, I oppose blacklisting or doxxing attorneys representing Trump, but the should be called out if they violate their ethical obligations or violations of court rules.

    Rip Murdock (e4a538)


  77. “Will you urge your supporters to stay calm while the vote is counted, and will you pledge not to declare victory until the election is independently certified?” moderator Chris Wallace asked Biden.


    Yes,” Biden replied.

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/11/11/watch_in_debate_biden_promised_not_to_declare_victory_and_to_urge_voters_to_stay_calm_until_election_is_independently_certified.html

    Stay calm and let the process play out.

    Mattsky (55d339)

  78. Just for the record, I oppose blacklisting or doxxing attorneys representing Trump, but the should be called out if they violate their ethical obligations or violations of court rules.

    Rip Murdock (e4a538) — 11/11/2020 @ 12:24 pm

    I think if the president is making all this noise, it is right for a lawyer to bring them to a court to look at the evidence and give us a decision, even though I find the issue crystal clear. Yes the lawyers must behave ethically and with candor, but I do not think a lawyer taking on this case should be considered an enemy of the world or anything like Lincoln Project is doing.

    Lincoln Project is keeping the heat alive for fundraising. We’ve seen this many times. It’s shameful in my opinion.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  79. #57
    someone in a highly partisan area allowing obviously fraudulent mail votes

    One easy way to do it would be to do it in a state that doesn’t require signature verification.
    First you keep out poll watchers and move die hards into their own area then you dump or disqualify Trump votes and verify every Biden vote whether it has a signature, came in late etc.
    You add 5000 and drop 5000.

    Another way is to use a union to apply for, and distribute ballots to, all of the state run elderly care facilities and then do like the attractive lady from TX in the link above.

    Another source of fraudulent ballots would be same day voter registration to an address like large apt complexes or state run housing with hundreds or thousands of residences.

    Those housing projects are rich with mail in ballots. Pay the gang that runs the place to collect all the ballots. No one is going to snitch.

    As you can tell, I am solidly in the camp of people who:
    Think if we are going to do mass mail in votes from now on, we need to audit this election anyway and close any fraud loopholes. Maybe even enact a nationwide policy on same day registration, verification etc. (Why do Democrats insist on building a system with loopholes like same day registration with no id required built in?)
    Think Trump has a right to fuss, demand recounts, audits whether I like it or not.

    Last, the worst thing that can happen is that Trump flips PA and GA due to illegal ballots being counted (late ballots, no signature, harvested ballots in states with no harvesting laws etc.) and even that has a silver lining because in my view it would be better not set bad precedent on our first attempt at mass natiowide mail in.

    steveg (43b7a5)

  80. @71

    It’s not too late to impeach Trump for treason against the United States.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/11/2020 @ 12:11 pm

    Technically, congress can still do that even after Trump’s out of office.

    As a raw political event, democrats might get some GOP’er to play ball so that Trump is legally forbidden from running for office again.

    whembly (c30c83)

  81. I have to say, Biden is impressing me with his calm, business-like attitude and very measured words.

    Such a welcome (and overdue) contrast.

    Dave (1bb933)

  82. Technically, congress can still do that even after Trump’s out of office.

    As a raw political event, democrats might get some GOP’er to play ball so that Trump is legally forbidden from running for office again.

    whembly (c30c83) — 11/11/2020 @ 12:35 pm

    I didn’t know that. That’s pretty fascinating.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  83. @83 I hope Biden continually calls a lid from here on out, only doing minimal work as possible.

    whembly (c30c83)

  84. @76 Fox Corp, which includes Fox news is still owned by the Murdocks, not Disney. It spun off into it’s own thing when Disney bought most of the rest of the company, so it’s still owned by people of right wing inclination.

    Nic (896fdf)

  85. @84

    Technically, congress can still do that even after Trump’s out of office.

    As a raw political event, democrats might get some GOP’er to play ball so that Trump is legally forbidden from running for office again.

    whembly (c30c83) — 11/11/2020 @ 12:35 pm

    I didn’t know that. That’s pretty fascinating.

    Dustin (4237e0) — 11/11/2020 @ 12:37 pm

    It is.

    There’s no requirement for you to be *in office* in order to face impeachment hearings, nor is there any statute of limitations.

    whembly (c30c83)

  86. @86 Except that it’s Murddock’s kids who’s mainly running the show…and they’re definitely lefties.

    whembly (c30c83)

  87. I hope Biden continually calls a lid from here on out, only doing minimal work as possible.

    If you like your virus, you can keep your virus?

    Dave (1bb933)

  88. @88 James, the liberal one, resigned from Fox a while ago. Lachlan, conservative, runs it.

    Nic (896fdf)

  89. There’s no requirement for you to be *in office* in order to face impeachment hearings, nor is there any statute of limitations.

    It makes sense, I guess, since otherwise an official facing impeachment could avoid disqualification for future offices by pre-emptive resignation, ending the proceedings prematurely.

    Dave (1bb933)

  90. As noted on another thread- the goal is less the rule of law and more the administration of ‘justice.’ And it gets administered in mysterious ways over time. For instance, the first installment was this morning, as our defiant Captain, who has lost his command, bravely strode humbled and humiliated to then stand in the pouring rain, sans his brelly, at the Tomb-of-the-Unknowns-wreath-laying-ceremonies. A stiff salute; his beautifully treasured orange comb-over, lacquered in place- dripping wet. What courage. What imagery. What a show. Endlessly entertaining.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  91. 83.I have to say, Biden is impressing me with his calm, business-like attitude and very measured words.

    It’s called a stroke.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  92. The invertebrates in the GOP senate caucus are about as likely to impeach Trump as they are to walk on Mars.

    Dave (1bb933)

  93. Congratulations to Texas for being the first state to hit 1 million covid cases.

    Davethulhu (6e0d47)

  94. Let’s not forget it was HRC who very publicly barked ‘The Joe Show’ should not self-cancel and concede defeat if the tally went against him. Using Hillary’s own rationale against Joe is endlessly entertaining.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  95. It’s called a stroke.

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/11/2020 @ 12:58 pm

    Nope, no real indication he has any problem. He only comes out for ten minutes a day, but at least he is smart enough to not sound like a moron. Granted, I didn’t vote for Biden to destroy his side’s political movement so maybe I see things a little different.

    Biden is a better man than Trump, a better president, and it’s no real surprise this was the most decisive and common sense election outcome in about 100 years.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  96. @85. Five softballs from pre-selected press pals to avoid the rambling gaffes is the tip off. Any stress will run 220 volts through the damaged wiring of his 120 lines and short him out. Vlad knows it; Xi knows it. Jill knows it… And so does Kamala.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  97. @93 Is there a point when you plan to become a rational conversationalist again, or should we expect 4 years of the current trolling?

    Nic (896fdf)

  98. @97. Other than the two brain surgeries [that we know of], the rambling incoherent ‘you know the thing’ babbles when he goes off prompter and the obvious befuddlement when asked unscreened questions by the press.

    Yes. There is, Dustin.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  99. @99 What do you mean, “again”?

    Dave (1bb933)

  100. @99. On President Harris’ inauguration day.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  101. Rudy Giuliani does come up with some evidence but he has no idea of the (limited) scale of that.

    IN Wayne County Michigan they were running ballots through the scanners 3 or 4 or even maybe once 8 times.

    Probably in a white area.

    There’s cheating in Queens. (one phone call about the primary, and an article in the Jewish Press by a former Republican candidate for numerous offices.

    Of xourse big is petition fraud. and a bunch of ways of directing voters

    Sammy Finkelman (00fff5)

  102. Regarding Fox, I posted this in one of the older threads, but it’s good enough to repost in case anybody missed it:

    https://twitter.com/RiegerReport/status/1326314777539383296

    Dave (1bb933)

  103. @90 I didn’t know that. Good point then.

    whembly (c30c83)

  104. There;s this video of Biden some people are happy with in which Biden says they have a fraud department or something like that..

    Like the kind credit card companies have. He meant to prevent fraud! It’s not a confession!

    Sammy Finkelman (00fff5)

  105. @101. I’m on fire, Davey. 😉

    “Smokin’!!!!” – Stanley Ipkiss [Jim Carrey] ‘The Mask’ 1994

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  106. Biden is a better man than Trump.

    No. He’s not: he’s a politician.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  107. There’s a lot of talk going around about Democrats keeping lists of Trumpists and blacklisting them.

    On the one hand, that’s inherently bad when applied to run-of-the-mill Trumpists, and massively destructive to the nation.

    On the other hand, for elected and appointed officials at least, it seems blatantly obvious that if you’re willing to assist Trump in helping undermine confidence in our electoral system, you are definitionally a bad actor who is unfit for elected or appointed public office.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  108. …it’s no real surprise this was the most decisive and common sense election outcome in about 100 years.

    Love it when someone slams Reagan.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  109. @109. Flotsam. Look to lists of potentials for the Harris Administration.

    It’s coming.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  110. Five softballs from pre-selected press pals to avoid the rambling gaffes is the tip off.

    So basically catch him if you can? I think that was your argument for Trump getting away with stuff. Turnabout?

    Dustin (4237e0)

  111. On the other hand, for elected and appointed officials at least, it seems blatantly obvious that if you’re willing to assist Trump in helping undermine confidence in our electoral system, you are definitionally a bad actor who is unfit for elected or appointed public office.

    aphrael (4c4719) — 11/11/2020 @ 1:28 pm

    Well Pompeo is a traitor, Flynn is a traitor, Stone is a traitor, Graham and Cruz are at best liars.

    There are those who did their best, and those who have tried to screw the country to help Dear Leader.

    No. He’s not: he’s a politician.

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/11/2020 @ 1:24 pm

    Politician in a democracy who can talk like a decent man is clearly a better man than Trump could ever hope to be at this point. Trump is a sore loser who is wishing he was a dictator. He is, as you hoped, destructive to his own side, leaving what you knew it would: Biden.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  112. >Biden underperformed Hillary everywhere except in cities

    not actually true! Biden outperformed Hillary in the suburbs pretty much across the country.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  113. @23/26. He wants an Emmy.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  114. @102 So probably never, then? Sigh.

    @105 I had a memory of the flounce but had to check to make sure. 😛

    Nic (896fdf)

  115. Courtesy of the WaPo, some pretty amusing colloquy between judges and the occupants of the Trump clown-car:

    Another Trump lawyer, Jonathan S. Goldstein, was also grilled by a Pennsylvania judge this week. Under questioning, he acknowledged that, contrary to Trump’s claims about rampant voter fraud, he wasn’t alleging fraud in the 592 ballots he sought to disqualify in Montgomery County, Pa.

    Again, Trump’s lawyer strained to avoid directly answering the question but was ultimately forced to acknowledge it:

    THE COURT: In your petition, which is right before me — and I read it several times — you don’t claim that any electors or the Board of the County were guilty of fraud, correct? That’s correct?
    GOLDSTEIN: Your Honor, accusing people of fraud is a pretty big step. And it is rare that I call somebody a liar, and I am not calling the Board of the [Democratic National Committee] or anybody else involved in this a liar. Everybody is coming to this with good faith. The DNC is coming with good faith. We’re all just trying to get an election done. We think these were a mistake, but we think they are a fatal mistake, and these ballots ought not be counted.
    THE COURT: I understand. I am asking you a specific question, and I am looking for a specific answer. Are you claiming that there is any fraud in connection with these 592 disputed ballots?
    GOLDSTEIN: To my knowledge at present, no.
    THE COURT: Are you claiming that there is any undue or improper influence upon the elector with respect to these 592 ballots?
    GOLDSTEIN: To my knowledge at present, no.

    The Trump campaign also sought to temporarily stop counting some ballots in Detroit. It cited a GOP poll watcher who had said she had been told by an unidentified person that late mail ballots were being predated to before Election Day, so they would be considered valid.
    […]

    [JUDGE] STEPHENS: So I want to make sure I understand you. The affiant is not the person who had knowledge of this. Is that correct?
    HEARNE: The affiant had direct firsthand knowledge of the communication with the elections inspector and the document they provided them.
    [JUDGE] STEPHENS: Okay, which is generally known as hearsay, right?
    HEARNE: I would not think that’s hearsay, Your Honor. That’s firsthand personal knowledge by the affiant of what she physically observed. And we included an exhibit which is a physical copy of the note that she was provided.

    The two later returned to the point, after Stephens reviewed the note […]

    STEPHENS: I’m still trying to understand why this isn’t hearsay.
    HEARNE: Well, it’s, it, I –
    STEPHENS: I absolutely understand what the affiant says she heard someone say to her. But the truth of the matter … that you’re going for was that there was an illegal act occurring. Because other than that I don’t know what its relevancy is.
    HEARNE: Right. I would say, Your Honor, in terms of the hearsay point, this is a firsthand factual statement made by Ms. Connarn, and she has made that statement based on her own firsthand physical evidence and knowledge —
    STEPHENS: “I heard somebody else say something.” Tell me why that’s not hearsay. Come on, now.
    HEARNE: Well it’s a firsthand statement of her physical –
    STEPHENS: It’s an out-of-court statement offered where the truth of the matter is asserted, right?

    This seems like it must be pretty cringe-worthy stuff to any competent/ethical attorney.

    Dave (1bb933)

  116. @113. When you buy damaged goods, you rationalize the error of your purchase.

    No returns after the returns are in.

    You bought him; you own him.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  117. “A. Massive mail-in voting, as currently practiced, is susceptible to various frauds.”

    You mean ‘as practiced for the first time, in a short span of time, by snap court decision.’

    “B. Trump is asserting this happened but there really is no evidence, nor is there any strong indication. There were about 20% more ballots cast in this election mainly because voting was so easy. This happened in all areas regardless of partisan sentiment.”

    Are you confident in claiming that these ballots were indeed cast at a uniform 20% greater rate in all areas where allowed?

    “C. Trump has a right to ask for a recount under the state laws in GA, PA and WI.”

    And the right to ask for legal intervention by the DOJ where the states appear reticent toward following election laws.

    “D. The GOP itself will decide what happens here, and they are currently making decisions out of fear and cowardice.”

    Yes, they are AFRAID of staying silent and letting whatever procedural steals happen for the sake of peace, whatever that means. Investigating entrenched interests that have gotten away with verifiable fraud in the past is the leisure of cowards, I assume.

    E. The nation is better off with Biden and divided government than with Trump and divided government.

    For you, perhaps. For others, not so much. Your nation seems to be one mainly of takers rather than makers.

    The media won’t allow statistical evidence and sworn affidavits from American witnesses on-air but I suppose if we hire Fusion GPS to create a fake dossier full of questionable assertions and baldfaced lies about Russia committing election fraud they’ll accept it unquestioningly. Or we could use this opportunity to deal a massive blow to the less-and-less transparent Democrat vote fraud machine, which might actually be braver and bolder than sitting back, accepting the loss, and assuming the wire-pullers of the system will pull in our favor next cycle, after they’re done redefining sexuality or whatever it is they do.

    Fine Dawg (826cc7)

  118. Dave — the first set doesn’t bother me per se; the judge might well be asking a question that isn’t relevant to the argument being presented, and the attorney is trying to refocus on something relevant.

    the second one is hilarious and hearne comes off as either not understanding the hearsay rules or deliberately trying to get something in that he knows shouldn’t be let in.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  119. I’m on fire, Davey.

    Fact check: True
    .

    Dave (1bb933)

  120. Trump being even worse doesn’t magically make Biden better. Dave’s right that it’s refreshing Biden is showing a little compassion and intelligence, but let’s be honest, I’d expect that degree of competence from the customer service counter at Wal-Mart.

    It’s only neat in contrast. Biden’s getting good press because his wife hugs him on her own initiative. It’s going to get really annoying how often the show those halo pictures and fawn over him. Biden’s got a tough job to do. He promised he could do it so let’s not give him too much love until he actually does some of it.

    Trump will actively sabotage him in ways we cannot anticipate. He will destroy records, covert actions, sources, screw him in the press, make up lies, and of course not assist in a peaceful transition of power. There is no way around it. But Biden said he could handle the job, and we all knew that was the job: succeeding a traitor.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  121. 72,000,000 populist republicans, independents and trump democrats voted for the president. Never trumpers were only 10% of the republican party. Conservative libertarians have donor class cash to donate to their corporate stooges ;but can no longer buy elections for their running dogs. Trump populists have the votes to control the republican party now!

    asset (08a363)

  122. You bought him; you own him.

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/11/2020 @ 1:39 pm

    So be it, as I’ve said so often to you. I accept responsibility that between Trump and Biden, I choose biden.

    You, on the other hand, have called it glorious how destructive Trump was to his own side. As you know, that leaves Biden. I resorted to Biden. You intended him to be president.

    Keep deflecting if it makes you feel a little better. Keep saying glorious and talking about JR and Reaganomics and plagiarism. There is no way I’d have ever voted for Biden or not volunteered to work against him for a campaign, unless it was as you planned it to be.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  123. Trump populists have the votes to control the republican party now!

    asset (08a363) — 11/11/2020 @ 1:46 pm

    Because the rest of the party is so weak.

    Had we had a runoff in 2016, or a real primary and runoff in 2020, Trump would probably have lost. But it takes some spine to stand up to a bully. So yeah, you’re basically right.

    But also, Team D is moving to the right. All the former republicans might be voting in more democrat primaries if Team R doesn’t distance itself from Trump at this crazy moment. That’s very bad news for AOC. Both fringes were repudiated in the election. If it’s time for Texans to reclaim the democratic party, so be it.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  124. @116. Don’t bet against it, Nic: check the 2020 Social Security actuary longevity tables for a 78 year old Caucasian male –then overlay two invasive brain surgeries [that we know of.] Season it with the most stressful job on the planet [aside from motherhood]; add a pinch of Xi and Vlad for flavoring, then put it in the oven of domestic and international affairs, crank it up to 71 million degrees– and voila– President Harris casserole in 24 months.

    Ol’Joe turns 78 year old in less than 9 days.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  125. @124. I choose biden.

    Yep. You did.

    “He chose… poorly.” – Grail Knight [Robert Eddison] ‘Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade’ 1989

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  126. @123. Yep.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  127. @121. Ooooo, such warmth from you: ‘Feel the Bern,’ Davey.

    As JoeyBee’s Labor Secretary perhaps– a conservative ‘dream.’

    You bought him; you own him.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  128. Denial, defiance and defamation, that’s Trump’s habitual strategy or methodology.

    In following, allowing or embracing this methodology, the Republicans are as shameful as they are pathetic. Conspiracy theories will only take you so far in the fever swamp, where the quicksand runs deep.

    What the GOP (Gratuitously Obsequious Party) fears is losing Trump’s cult base. He did increase his popular vote margin, but still lost by about 5 million. The Trumpublicans need those votes to maintain control of the Senate, so they must at least pretend to support and defend Trump.

    It’s all about the Georgia runoffs, which may determine the majority in the Senate, at this point. There is a strong probability that the outcome will result in a tie, 50-50, with Vice-President Harris providing the tie breaker. That’s what Trumpublicans fear.

    The question no one is asking is, if there was widespread voter fraud, how did Trumpublicans gain seats in the House and (almost) maintain control of the Senate? The answer is, because the American people rejected Trump but wanted to restrain Biden from his leftist tendencies.

    The problem now is not so much the transition as it is forming a cabinet. Biden cannot raid the Senate for appointees, as Obama did before him, because the margin is too slim.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/10/biden-cabinet-house-democrats-435800

    He can’t cherry pick Representatives or Senators for his cabinet. It would risk losing the Congress.

    Biden has been around the block a few times. He lost his first two presidential races; in fact, he never won a primary until this year. But he knows Washington. He’s been a Senator and a Vice-President. He knows people. So the transition won’t be a problem for him; he knows who to call. The formation of a cabinet, on the other hand, is a problem, at least for the Democrats in Congress.

    Eventually reality will set in to the never-ending Trump campaign. There will be much recriminations, wailing and gnawing for teeth, but it will all be over soon. 12:00 PM, January 20, 2021, a new president will be sworn in. There is absolutely nothing Trump can do to prevent that.

    Trump will never concede. He will never admit to defeat. It’s just not in his psychopathology.

    Thus, he intends to sabotage the incoming administration as much as possible. That the GOP is participating in this disruption is evidence of its thralldom. It’s shameful, pathetic and disgusting. It’s also un-American and un-patriotic.

    This is your Gratuitously Obsequious Party in action. Worshipping a wannabe king. It’s sad and tragic.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  129. “He chose… poorly.” – Grail Knight [Robert Eddison] ‘Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade’ 1989

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/11/2020 @ 1:57 pm

    It’s interesting to me that you of all people are so motivated to blame Biden voters for all of Biden’s mistakes as president (all of which must be imagined) but you do this primarily when asked to take responsibility for your detailed plan for supporting Trump to create destruction on his side.

    You got what you wanted. That left only Biden as an option. I readily accept responsibility for paying the price to get rid of Trump. I said that before this became one of your memes, so you’re really plagiarizing me. At issue is whether you take responsibility. Do you? You never answer directly. You just go back to memes.

    😎

    Dustin (4237e0)

  130. @131. You either don’t know his 47 year record. Or worse: do.

    But voting for the known thief, creator of faked credentials and false career exploits speaks volumes for the so-called ‘law and order’ crowd.

    You bought him; you own him.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  131. speaks volumes for the so-called ‘law and order’ crowd.

    Can you explain what you meant by this?

    Dustin (4237e0)

  132. Dustin, Deezy-eska recently intimated that he drinks heavily while posting.

    The banality and repetitive nature of his posts are a lot easier to understand in that light.

    Dave (1bb933)

  133. 134. Pour it on, Davey!

    “I’m a drunkard.” – Rick Blaine [Humphrey Bogart] ‘Casablanca’ 1942

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  134. Del·phic
    /ˈdelfik/
    adjective
    relating to the ancient Greek oracle at Delphi.
    (typically of a pronouncement) deliberately obscure or ambiguous.

    May 31, 2017: Covfefe
    January, 2020: Covid
    Hmm!

    nk (1d9030)

  135. Hey that’s ok Dcsca. This is entertainment. Drink and be merry.

    But you never answered if you do accept the same kind of ownership you assign. You seem very eager to change the subject actually.

    Imagine what you’ll say if Biden screws up a crisis and a quarter million Americans die or something.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  136. Top Republican says an investigation of Wisconsin’s election is unlikely to take away Biden’s win in the state
    Wisconsin lawmakers plan to issue their first subpoenas in decades as part of an investigation into the Nov. 3 election, even as the top Republican in the Assembly acknowledges the probe is unlikely to change the outcome.
    …….

    Rip Murdock (e4a538)

  137. Can you explain what you meant by this?

    He meant that his instructions from Russia still are to denigrate Biden. And it makes sense. It’s not by any means the same as having a Putin stooge in the Oval Office, but it’s still something to have the new President’s image and moral authority tarnished even if only among more ons.

    nk (1d9030)

  138. Once we get through this administration I don’t think the secret service should protect Trump. The FSB can do it.

    But I am concerned about unrest in the next few months. We’ve all seen how Trump’s blogger fans promote the idea of civil war. We know Trump is replacing military and intel leadership with loyalists. Trump is aware he lost the election but is acting like he will not transition power.

    Maybe his betrayal just amounts to selling secrets a few million a pop for the rest of his life. Maybe it amounts to some Bannon inspired civil war effort. All I know is it’s a good time for people to stop and check themselves. We have it made here in the USA. It’s not utopia or anything. Plenty of bad people and hardship, but we really do have it made here.

    Some tough decisions need to be made about how to protect what we have.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  139. The Biden era excuses are already starting:

    Job growth will slow during a Biden presidency: The easy gains are almost gone

    The easy part of the job recovery will be done and dusted by the time President-elect Joe Biden moves into the White House, a key metric shows, leaving a particularly difficult environment for an administration seeking to right the economy.

    While the economic recovery tops Biden’s agenda, the torrid job gains of the past few months will inevitably slow, as they already have. There’s little chance that the loss in momentum will be the fault of the new president. Deeper economic trends are afoot.

    Job growth has decelerated every month since June, and there are signs from the hard-hit travel and restaurant industries that the fast-spreading novel coronavirus could put economic growth into reverse.

    So, Trump will be blamed for all the terrible job losses, and travel and leisure jobs are still in the toilet, but somehow Biden will be unable to fix that, even when the pandemic ends.

    Because reasons that clearly have nothing to do with his policy choices!

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  140. It’s fun on this blog to ridicule the Trumpkin clingers-on over the election result, but I’ve decided to take a different approach in my real-life interactions. Mockery will not win many converts. In fact, it might make the Trumpkins dig in even harder.

    I used the calm approach with my true-believer friend last night, and I like to think that he will slowly come around because I didn’t call him crazy.

    I know this approach will not come naturally to many of you because you’re so good at derision, but give it some consideration. You might just make a difference. The Butterfly Effect can be a real thing.

    norcal (a5428a)

  141. Once we get through this administration I don’t think the secret service should protect Trump. The FSB can do it.

    IIRC, Trump has his own protective detail and prefers that to the Secret Service anyway.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  142. Norcal–

    I use the (actually true) argument that Trump lost full party support because he was unable to deliver on his platform. Trump blamed that on the courts, Congress, etc, but his real problem was that he didn’t understand how the system worked and his attempts to go about things HIS way led to the legal and political reversals he experienced.

    His failed re-election, particularly his opposition to mail-in ballots caused his supporters to forgo the easier and surer methods of voting, and day-of numbers just never could match the turnout enabled by a month-long mail voting period.

    Shorter: His instincts were good, his tactics sucked, and so he was ineffective and lost.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  143. Kevin,

    That is an excellent point about mail-in ballots. If Trump had encouraged his followers to get everybody they know to use a mail-in ballot, it could have made a difference.

    I think Trump was doomed from the get-go because of his comportment. Had he changed to a more presidential manner when he assumed office he could have been successful, but that’s akin to asking, “What if the queen had a mustache?”

    norcal (a5428a)

  144. No, he has Secret Service. He tried to keep a handful of his “plumbers” and even put his bodyguard, Keith Schiller, who has since left, on the Oval Office payroll, but the Secret Service told them to just sit in the corner and be quiet until they’re sent for coffee and donuts relegated them to “more of a staff function than a security function”.

    nk (1d9030)

  145. @137. Dustin- what has been the consistent and ultimate objective: to neuter the modern ideological conservative movement into irrelevancy.

    That has been accomplished.

    Glorious.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  146. Sorry, norcal. NO TRUCE WITH TRUMPKINS! WOE TO THE VANQUISHED!

    Seriously, appeasement won’t work with Trump and his sadbois. “Burn it down” has been their slogan from the beginning, and they’ll only double down now that they cannot have their way. We have to put them down and keep them down. I don’t know that ridicule is as powerful a weapon as my late neighbor (that would be Saul Alinsky) claimed, but after my vote it’s the only arrow in my quiver.

    nk (1d9030)

  147. @145. “What if the queen had a mustache?”

    Chances are, she does; she turn 95 in April.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  148. @133. It should be self-explanatory. For starter, he quit because he was caught and exposed as a thief in ’88. Again, you either don’t know his 47 year record. Or worse: do.

    He’s all yours now.

    Enjoy. A few canned lines read off the telprompter every week for 47 minutes on the TeeVee.

    The Joe Show will make good sitcom until the ratings drop- when he does, it’s cancelled and replaced w/t West Wing drama, ‘The Kamala Konspiracy.” But hey, that’s showbiz!

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  149. It’s fun on this blog to ridicule the Trumpkin clingers-on over the election result, but I’ve decided to take a different approach in my real-life interactions. Mockery will not win many converts. In fact, it might make the Trumpkins dig in even harder.

    I used the calm approach with my true-believer friend last night, and I like to think that he will slowly come around because I didn’t call him crazy.

    I know this approach will not come naturally to many of you because you’re so good at derision, but give it some consideration. You might just make a difference. The Butterfly Effect can be a real thing.

    norcal (a5428a) — 11/11/2020 @ 4:09 pm

    It’s fun to point out reality to them. For me it’s an outlet too.

    but your advice is wise. Ultimately I voted for Biden to make the country less bad / better for Trump fans and foes alike. Ideally we could all work this out, partly by being nice, partly by listening.

    But before I can listen effectively, I really need, perhaps as a personal limitation, a reduction in BS. Trump lost. Maybe Trump fans think he shouldn’t have, but he did. Hard to talk about next steps when the news of the day is so crazy.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  150. That has been accomplished.

    Glorious.

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/11/2020 @ 4:31 pm

    Exactly. You wanted no option but Biden, and don’t own it. You’d rather blame people who really felt they had no option… an option you specifically intended to eliminate.

    I’d drink a little more though. You sound too lucid IMO.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  151. 137. Dustin (4237e0) — 11/11/2020 @ 2:46 pm

    Imagine what you’ll say if Biden screws up a crisis and a quarter million Americans die or something.

    He;s doing that, or wht he’s trying to do would do that. (if the virus isn’t on its way out by Jan 20)

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-focused-on-coronavirus-to-kick-off-transition-11604941891

    …Mr. Biden congratulated the scientists who had been working on the vaccine but said that mask wearing, social distancing and hand washing would be the best defense against the coronavirus until next year at the earliest.

    After the briefing, he said Americans needed to brace for a “very dark winter” as the pandemic continues.

    Mr. Biden said that the federal approval process for any vaccine would need to be grounded in science and be transparent so that Americans have faith that it is safe. “The challenge before us right now is still immense and growing,” he said, nodding to rising cases in the U.S. “The projections still indicate we could lose 200,000 more lives in the coming months, before a vaccine can be made widely available. So we can’t forgo the important work that needs to be done between now and then to get our country through the worst wave yet in this pandemic.”

    Biden is completely defeatist here, unnecessarily.

    He’s grasping at straws: Mask wearing, social distancing and hand washing. Hand washing!! Still!

    This disease isn’t transmitted by surface contact.

    Biden has gotten Governors to blame the population of their states if the disease spreads, and threaten to impose new, largely irrelevant, and certainly not evidence based, restrictions.

    Meanwhile, the solution is in our hands – antibodies, either from Regeneron or from Eli Lilly – what cured President Trump and Secretary of Housing Ben Carson – and smaller doses to prevent spread.

    All you have to do is take the fight out of the hands of these incompetent World War I generals running it now, who have a policy of freezing the “science” once it is established, however flimsily, and, after that making it very difficult to change. After all, lives are at stake!

    Sammy Finkelman (00fff5)

  152. Donald Trump appeared in public today for the first time in 6 days. He didn’t say anything – he speaks through Twitter.

    He and his wife Melania, and Vice President Mike Pence and his wife went in the rain to Arlington National Cemetery for some Memorial service. He spent ten minutes there, said nothing, but looked somber.

    Jow Biden went to a Korean War memorial in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

    Sammy Finkelman (00fff5)

  153. He speaks through Twitter:

    Donald J. Trump
    @realDonaldTrump
    1h
    Nobody wants to report that Pennsylvania and Michigan didn’t allow our Poll Watchers and/or Vote Observers to Watch or Observe. This is responsible for hundreds of thousands of votes that should not be allowed to count. Therefore, I easily win both states. Report the News!

    And I’m not supposed to mock this or the people who believe it?

    nk (1d9030)

  154. Just so you know what some people you might talk to, or who talk on the radio, are talking about.

    Joe Biden’s “confession.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGRnhBmHYN0

    Who found this video?

    Of course you have to understand what he means.

    Sammy Finkelman (00fff5)

  155. Nobody is stubborn about believing that sort of thing, but they might think you a bit of a fool.

    (actually only one person mentioned this claim that Biden admitted fraud. It is something real, but ripped out of context. She also had a new fare policy by the MTA wrong the other day. Whatever happened that day at one station they are not forcing people to pay with smartphones.)

    Mostly I get asked questions about the election.

    Sammy Finkelman (00fff5)

  156. #156
    That clip is funny because he looks down, checks notes, soldiers on like a sociopath.

    steveg (43b7a5)

  157. @152. Exactly. You wanted no option but Biden

    Wrong. But you go on believing that if it help you justifying your purchase.

    You bought him; you own him.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  158. I will.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  159. And I guess you won’t (take responsibility).

    Dustin (4237e0)

  160. State Department is preventing Biden from accessing messages from foreign leaders
    …….
    Traditionally, the State Department supports all communications for the President-elect, which is why many countries began sending messages to State over the weekend. But with Biden prohibited from accessing State Department resources by the Trump administration, because President Donald Trump refuses to accept Biden’s victory, dozens of incoming messages have not been received.

    Biden’s team is contacting foreign governments on their own and he has held numerous calls with leaders, including Germany’s Angela Merkel and Canada’s Justin Trudeau. But they are operating without the logistical and translation support that the State Department operations center provides.
    ……
    Biden is also being blocked from getting the same intelligence briefings as the President, known as the President’s Daily Brief, and should the Trump administration continue to block a typical transition close to Inauguration Day on January 20, there are concerns Biden’s administration will be playing catch-up the day he takes office.
    ……
    The calls taking place right now are not highly sensitive, and even during a well-oiled transition period they are not normally conducted on secure lines, multiple sources explained.
    …….
    Oh so petty.

    Rip Murdock (e4a538)

  161. Snell & Wilmer withdraws from election lawsuit as Trump contests Arizona results
    The largest law firm representing the Trump campaign or its allies in post-election litigation challenging votes in key states has withdrawn from an election lawsuit in Maricopa County, Arizona.
    …….
    Snell & Wilmer partners Brett Johnson and Eric Spencer first moved to withdraw on Sunday, a day after the case was filed. Johnson and Spencer did not respond to requests for comment. Snell & Wilmer chairman Matthew Feeney said the firm doesn’t comment on its client work.
    ……
    Snell & Wilmer, a Phoenix-based firm with about 440 lawyers spread across the western United States and Washington, D.C., was working on the Arizona case alongside Phoenix political law firm Statecraft. That firm, which declined to comment, is still representing the Republican challengers.

    An evidentiary hearing is set for Thursday in the lawsuit, which the Arizona Secretary of State described as a case of “grasping at straws” in a statement to Reuters.

    The plaintiffs are seeking an order requiring a manual review of purportedly overvoted ballots that were cast in-person. They’re also asking a judge to bar the certification of the vote until the review is complete.
    ……..

    Rip Murdock (e4a538)

  162. Detroit lawyers say fraud allegations based on ‘extraordinary failure to understand how elections function’
    ……..
    “Most of the objections raised in the submitted affidavits are grounded in an extraordinary failure to understand how elections function,” wrote attorneys for the city in a response filed Wednesday in Wayne County Circuit Court.
    …….
    The city also said that they explained their vote-counting process to Republican observers who had been trained by their party, and resolved any issues without challenges or complaints from those observers.

    A pro-Trump lawsuit against the city, filed by the Great Lakes Justice Center on Monday, was brought in part on behalf of observers who “did not operate through the leadership of their challenger party, because the issues they bring forward were by and large discussed and resolved with the leadership of their challenger party,” the city said.

    The complaints in the Great Lakes lawsuit were in fact not filed until after the vote count showed Democrat Joe Biden leading Trump in the Michigan count.
    …….
    The Great Lakes lawsuit claimed that election workers were told not to check signatures on mail ballots, that extra mail ballots were brought in and all counted for Biden, that election workers back-dated mail ballots so that they could be counted, and that they “used false information to process ballots” — such as adding birthdays in the year 1900 to some voter entries.

    The lawsuit also claimed election observers were blocked from watching vote-counting at key moments, that votes from ineligible voters were counted, and that a handful of city workers “coached” voters to cast ballots for Biden.

    The city of Detroit’s filing refuted all of these claims.
    ……..

    Rip Murdock (e4a538)

  163. Knowing Trump, it’s probably because he didn’t deliver the retainer or the check bounced.

    nk (1d9030)

  164. Regarding Fox, I posted this in one of the older threads, but it’s good enough to repost in case anybody missed it:

    https://twitter.com/RiegerReport/status/1326314777539383296
    Dave (1bb933) — 11/11/2020 @ 1:15 pm

    Who wouldn’t jump at another chance to luxuriate in the dulcet tones of Laura Ingraham?

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  165. Trump’s election challenge looks like a scam to line his pockets

    “They’re trying to STEAL this Election,” declared one such Trump campaign fundraising missive Wednesday afternoon. from “Donald J. Trump, President of the United States.” “I promise you my team is fighting the clock to DEFEND the integrity of this Election, but we cannot do it alone. We need EVERY Patriot, like YOU, to step up and make sure we have the resources to keep going. … Please contribute ANY AMOUNT RIGHT NOW to DEFEND the Election.”

    But at the provided link to the “OFFICIAL ELECTION DEFENSE FUND,” the legalese at the end says something rather different:

    Sixty percent of the contribution, up to $5,000, goes to “Save America,” Trump’s newly created leadership PAC. And 40 percent of the contribution up to $35,500, goes to the Republican National Committee’s operating account, its political (not legal) fund.

    Only after reaching the first maximum would a single penny go to Trump’s “Recount Account,” and only after reaching the second maximum would a penny go to the RNC’s legal account.

    Give ’til it hurts, patriots!

    After January 20, those golf junkets aren’t going to pay for themselves, and somebody has to support Melania in the style to which she has become accustomed!

    Dave (1bb933)

  166. So, what are the possible outcomes?

    1. Joe Biden is inaugurated on Jan 20th. The GOP has:
    A. Fought to the last man for Donald Trump and lies in tatters, with no one willing to trust them ever again.
    B. Decided after a time that backing Trump is a losing proposition and quite clearly broken with him. But only after significant damage to their standing.
    C. Come to their senses by mid-November and shut down the crazy people.

    2. Donald Trump is inaugurated on Jan 20th, amid fires, tanks and an outraged population, the last President of the United States.

    Take your pick.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  167. Kevin,

    I say it’s somewhere between B and C, but I’m not wise enough to know if it’s closer to B or C.

    norcal (a5428a)

  168. Fought to the last man for Donald Trump and lies in tatters, with no one willing to trust them ever again.

    What makes you think any of the 72 million people who voted for Trump after all that was revealed about in the last four years could be made to think less of the GOP by anything Trump does in his final 70 days?

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  169. *after all that revealed about him

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  170. lol

    *after all that was revealed about him

    (Now is there a way for me to misspell lurker?)

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  171. Trump’s National Security Adviser Tells Staff: Don’t Even Mention Biden’s Name

    “It’s like dealing with a lunatic on the subway. Everyone just kind of sits and stares ahead, pretends they can’t hear him, and waits for him to eventually get off. ”
    — GOP source close to the administration

    Dave (1bb933)

  172. @161. Your comment makes no sense; have steadfastly opposed and wholl despised only three U.S. senators in my lifetime.

    Joe Biden is one of them.

    You bought him; you own him.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  173. Biden names Ron Klain Chief of Staff.

    Klain along w/Joe and President Spock screwed up the H1N1 flu response.

    “We did everything possible wrong.”- Ron Klain

    Idiot.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  174. @159.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/joe-biden-memes-voting-record-policies-background-2020-election-a8830706.html

    https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/joseph_biden/300008

    From Jan 1973 to Jan 2009, Biden missed 1,781 of 14,556 roll call votes, which is 12.2%. This is much worse than the median of 2.0% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Jan 2009.

    Read’em.

    And weep.

    You bought him; you own him
    .

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  175. So, what are the possible outcomes?

    I see only two:

    1. Some time before January 20, an ambulance will take Trump to Walter Reed from which he will eventually be discharged to Mar-a-Lago to spend the rest of his days there fishing in the swimming pool with a rod and reel but no hook; or

    2. On January, Jared and Ivanka will lead Trump out of the White House, supporting him on either side, with his eyes glazed, his zipper open, and saliva drooling out of the corner of his mouth, and take him to Mar-a-Lago to spend the rest of his days there fishing in the swimming pool with a rod and reel but no hook.

    In his mind, it will be a neat trick to avoid prosecution for his crimes, but the joke will be on him, because he really will be too mentally incompetent to stand trial.

    nk (1d9030)

  176. On January *20*,

    nk (1d9030)

  177. #176

    Do those stats weed out the periods when he was ill for seven or eight months? Or his period following the death of his family?

    Appalled (d53fcd)

  178. It has been widely reported that current and former intelligence officials fear Trump could jeopardize national security by revealing secrets when he is put on trial.

    Fortunately, we already have a place for people like that. And it even has a McDonalds.

    Dave (1bb933)

  179. Hey! If the Democrats win the two Georgia seats, Kamala will in effect be the Senate with her one-vote tiebreaker. How cool is that?

    nk (1d9030)

  180. Appalled (d53fcd) — 11/12/2020 @ 5:33 am

    Do those stats weed out the periods when he was ill for seven or eight months? Or his period following the death of his family?

    From Jan 1973 to Jan 2009

    How many times was he ill for 7-8 months that it would make a difference between 12.2% and 2%? He’s been running a grift for several decades.

    How will that work as POTUS? He shows up for 2-3 days a week, the other days he’s resting, and we get explanations about how Biden doesn’t need to be the center of attention, etc. and that this is what true leadership looks like?

    frosty (f27e97)

  181. The New York Times ran two opinion articles on how an election is really stolen.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/opinion/sunday/stealing-elections.html

    This incldes preventing delivery of preprinted ballots, buying votes, creating extra voters

    This ugly history tells us some useful things about the present. First, stealing the vote itself takes an incredible amount of labor…. Such a crime takes a lot of work and leaves a lot of evidence.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/opinion/trump-voter-fraud-pennsylvania.html

    ….Fraud on a scale to affect a presidential election, or even to tip one state, would require planning, coordination, good luck and a high tolerance for risk. The chances of pulling it off are extremely slim.

    Such a nefarious plot would require the foresight, many weeks or even months in advance, to know to focus the effort on Pennsylvania. The plotters might hedge their bets by targeting multiple states, but that just makes the effort more expensive, risky and difficult…

    He then ales a little bit too strong of an argument:

    Suppose the conspirators somehow knew this year that Pennsylvania would be tied but for their efforts. For the sake of argument, let’s say they decided to marshal 62,000 fraudulent votes, roughly 1 percent of the 2016 total and twice the 0.5 percent margin that sets off an automatic recount. (Even that seems to cut things a little close.)

    How hard could it be to order up 62,000 illegal ballots?

    The chance that 62,000 Biden supporters in Pennsylvania would spontaneously vote with a second, illegal ballot, either in person or by mail, is effectively zero. It’s hard to believe any voters would expose themselves to the risk of felony prosecution, fines and imprisonment, with no knowledge of whether anybody else was doing so too, in order to bring the Democrats one vote closer to victory in Pennsylvania. A fraud of the necessary size would have to be organized.

    A certain percentage of people, given the chance, will, on their own, vote twice if they get a ballot for someone else who is deceased. That’s known. It is discovered in any good recount.

    Finally, what if the fraud mastermind is a county election official and just adds 62,000 Biden votes to the tally (or omits 62,000 Trump votes)? Election officials are partisans, of course, and they oversee the vote count.

    But most states allow partisan observers to monitor vote counting. Moreover, it might look a little suspicious if a county’s normal vote count is suddenly 62,000 larger or smaller. Tipping a presidential election at the counting stage would also require a lot of people acting in concert, organized a long time in advance.

    Now they add a claim that Joe Biden boasted about doing just that, just like he supposedly boasted about firing the prosecutor in Ukraine to stop an investigation

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGRnhBmHYN0

    The context probably would make clear what Joe Biden meant, if common sense wouldn’t do it.

    Sammy Finkelman (b78e49)

  182. an increasing number of Trump advisers and allies have privately

    @173: GOP source close to the administration

    @181: current and former intelligence officials

    @184: New York Times ran two opinion articles

    More quality reporting and anonymous sources.

    frosty (f27e97)

  183. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/11/2020 @ 11:04 am

    We need electronic voting and credentials that are cryptographically secure. Yes, I know that people don’t trust electronic voting because they can’t validate the system themselves, and fear that some mysterious clique of evil people has fixed the result. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

    No, it doesn’t have to be this way. That it is and no one seriously pushes some options here is one of the many things actually undermining confidence in the system. As it stands people only “trust” the vote when it goes their way and that is only going to get worse.

    I’d like something like blockchain or public key signing that would let me verify my vote.

    frosty (f27e97)

  184. For the good of the GOP, this is why Trump needs to be indicted next year for obstruction of justice and felony FEC violations.

    Paul Montagu (77c694)

  185. Forget “for the good of the GOP.”

    Let’s talk about “for the good of America.”

    Dave (1bb933)

  186. 187. frosty (f27e97) — 11/12/2020 @ 8:01 am

    I’d like something like blockchain or public key signing that would let me verify my vote.

    You;d have to reveal how you voted, if it was recorded incorrectly. But how would you know anyway?

    One reason given for the secret ballot is so that nobody would be able to prove how they voted (to prevent vote buying for instance.) Still worse, demand to know how you voted (possibly in family situations)

    Now vote buying is not a problem at the current time.

    Sammy Finkelman (b78e49)

  187. Sammy Finkelman (b78e49) — 11/12/2020 @ 9:03 am

    You;d have to reveal how you voted, if it was recorded incorrectly.

    Of course. That would be the point. If it were incorrect, you’d have to make that claim.

    But there are ways to set it up that would allow you to verify your vote without making it public unless you choose to. A person could also change their mind and claim it was incorrect to change their vote. I think there are options to mitigate that. But I’m not sure you have to make it public knowledge any more than a person’s health information has to be made “public”. And I care more about my personal health information than my voting record. At least I used to before political tribunals became a talking point.

    Now vote buying is not a problem at the current time.

    The issue of coercing a person to choose to reveal their vote is a valid point. Whether the risk of that, and whether that can be mitigated, is greater than the benefits is a reasonable question.

    frosty (f27e97)

  188. One reason given for the secret ballot is so that nobody would be able to prove how they voted (to prevent vote buying for instance.) Still worse, demand to know how you voted (possibly in family situations)

    Now vote buying is not a problem at the current time.

    Sammy Finkelman (b78e49) — 11/12/2020 @ 9:03 am

    I disagree. If I can get a mail-in ballot I could easily sell my vote. This anonymity concern is less important than the accuracy of the election, especially today since so many are voting remotely in some fashion.

    It’s all a distraction though. Trump lost. Either this is the most massive and secret conspiracy ever, or he lost. All the BS accusations about the election are sounding more and more absurd. Talking about fixing the elections right now distracts from the truth: Trump lost quite authentically and his refusal to concede and transition power is probably the worst thing he’s ever done, in a long line of terrible things. The GOP does not deserve to ever recover from this.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  189. Trump lost quite authentically and his refusal to concede and transition power is probably the worst thing he’s ever done, in a long line of terrible things. The GOP does not deserve to ever recover from this.

    Troof.

    Dave (1bb933)

  190. In his mind, it will be a neat trick to avoid prosecution for his crimes, but the joke will be on him, because he really will be too mentally incompetent to stand trial.

    The final scene in Godfather III?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  191. I’d like something like blockchain or public key signing that would let me verify my vote.

    As I said, cryptographically secure. Maybe Ron Rivest could head up a commission.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  192. For the good of the GOP, this is why Trump needs to be indicted next year for obstruction of justice and felony FEC violations.

    You’re about 3 days behind me on this. I would prefer that it was by a plea bargain (with the threat of jail) than by jail. You can run for President from jail (Eugene Debs did and got 3.4%). In a plea bargain, you can limit rights and STFU would be a necessary part with Trump.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  193. The final scene in Godfather III?

    I was thinking of Al Capone in a novel by Dashiell Hammett, but why not?

    nk (1d9030)

  194. You do not need a conspiracy, as such, to get 50,000 extra votes for your side in a large state conducting a mass mail election. All you need are 1) access to official ballots, and 2) an expectation that many fraudulent ballots will not be challenged by independent pre-canvassers.

    Of the two, the second is harder, and you will have to know something about the individual counties registrar staff to know where the fellow travelers are.

    But I think it can be done. Really the only way to detect it, should the pre-canvassers be as lax as you hope, is by unusually large vote totals in a given county. This election there have been some of those, but ascribed (probably correctly) to interest and the ease of mail voting.

    I doubt that this has been done in general, but maybe in a few cases. I just object to the notion that the system as set up now is secure. It is not.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  195. The irony is that Trump lost because he got his followers to spurn mail voting. So Biden had all of October to get out his vote, and Trump had November 3rd. Given the closeness of the race, even 2% more participation from Trump’s faction would have had him re-elected handily (again while losing the popular vote, but that’s as meaningful has who has the most hits in a baseball game).

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  196. Kevin, I think you underestimate the difficulty of the “access to ballots” part of your election fraud scheme,

    How do you reliably choose 50,000 people who you are sure won’t try to vote on their own?

    If they’re in cahoots, you could just have them vote legally themselves, so it only helps to steal the votes of people on the other side. The best way to proceed is probably to pick people who haven’t voted for a long time, if ever. But in a group of 50,000 the odds of some trying to vote still seem pretty high.

    Finding so many “zero-propensity voters” means you probably have to find them all over the state, not in a single county, and that means getting access to lots and lots of different ballots from all over, which will be mailed out all over, and returned all over.

    And in fact a number of states – including PA – automatically cancel voter registrations if not used for some period of time (over 1.2M PA voter registrations were canceled since the 2016 election). This is a wise policy that prevents long-inactive voters from being unwitting accomplices to fraud.

    Dave (1bb933)

  197. Rush Limbagh substitue hosts (Rush was last one Monday) talk lke they were certain the election was stolen.

    The Epoch Times, which is about as pro-Trump (it’s anti-Communist China, and associated with Falun Gong) has this as its Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2020 headlines

    2020 Elections

    ‘ELECTION FAR FROM OVER’

    .LAWSUITS AND RECOUNTS. Results of the Nov. 3 election are being challenged amid allegations of election irregularities in key swing states

    Also:

    2020 ELECTION

    Official Says Optimism Growing That Trump Wins Arizona

    By BOWEN XIAO

    Also on the far left column:

    It looks like a blank verse poem:

    On the
    General
    Election

    In this majestic universe,
    the communist devil
    is making trouble

    Fraud and corruption are
    harming agreat nation

    All the machinations
    make people only more
    despondent

    When will justice
    be upheld and ur
    conscience restored!

    Hongzhi Li
    November 8, 2020
    ________________________

    Mr. Hongzhi Li is the
    teacher and founder
    of the spiritual practice
    Falun Gong

    also a 4 paragraph editorial below the fold on the right:

    Why the Epoch Times Won;t Call the Presidential Race Until All Challenges Are Resolved

    Ther reason seems to be that it will be resolved in the courts.

    They have map. North Carolina assigned to Trump. Wisconsin and Georgia: recount. Michigan, Pennsylvania Arizona: Lawsuit. Nevada and Alaskan incomplete.

    Sammy Finkelman (b78e49)

  198. 201. The way that kind of stealing is actually done is they either wait until the polls are closed, or they ascertain that hey are dead. Or they invent people.

    Sammy Finkelman (b78e49)

  199. that’s nuts, Sammy.

    Also nutty: those Proud Boys that Trump likes so much. Their leader has decided the temporary fake leader is not white enough:

    Kyle Chapman, the founder of a “tactical defense arm” of the Proud Boys known for engaging in street violence, claimed in a message on the encrypted chat app Telegram that he has staged a “coup” against the current leader of the Proud Boys — a Black man named Enrique Tarrio.
    “We will confront the Zionist criminals who wish to destroy our civilization,” Chapman wrote after using other bigoted language. “We recognize that the West was built by the White Race alone and we owe nothing to any other race.”

    I guess he’s standing by on Trump’s orders. History will not look back saying we didn’t have some kind of warning.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  200. Giuliani describing an affidavit that described voting in MIchigan. Giuliani goes beyond what the affidavit means. But she describes entering false information in the QVF. (putting in people as registered who were not, not matching signatures)

    Sammy Finkelman (b78e49)

  201. Dustin @204 What is nuts? (The poem by the founder of Falun Gong?)

    Giuliani, claims he is not a right wing kook. He has a show on WABC radio 770 AM in New York weekdays from 3 to 4 pm, usually rebroadcast between 9 and 10 pm. At night it can be heard far away. Also probably online.

    Giuliani says 600,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were not properly signature matched (I think no Republican observers) and therefore they should all be disqualified. I mean that’s what he is actually saying.

    Sammy Finkelman (b78e49)

  202. Caller informs Giuliani of a video about Kentucky Gov race L Todd Wood interviewing Russell somebody.

    Giuliani says that’s another part of the case. “Sydney” is working on that. He’s working on illegally cast votes and he thinks he has enough to reverse Pennsylvania and Michigan.

    Sammy Finkelman (b78e49)

  203. Do those stats weed out the periods when he was ill for seven or eight months?

    Ill? Oh, you mean his brain surgery[s]. Look ’em up. The numbers, his voting record and sponsored legislation is all in the record. Something the press should have dug into– but didn’t. They were too busy digging into Trump.

    ‘You bought him; you own him.’

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  204. Dustin @204 What is nuts? (The poem by the founder of Falun Gong?)

    Sorry, you cross posted so it wasn’t clear. The certainty you described the guest hosts as having about a thing we all know just ain’t so. It’s nuts. It’s feeding nuts. It’s probably profitable.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  205. Ill? Oh, you mean his brain surgery[s]. Look ’em up.

    I’m not a medical expert, but it’s surgery. So what? He was pretty dumb before the surgery. Maybe it made it better.

    But if you want to think sick, think that during Debate 1, Donald Trump probably knew he had COVID while screaming like a moron at Biden for wearing the largest mask. Trump’s stupidity hurt a lot of Americans, but don’t ask his supporters to own their decisions. It’s always Biden’s fault now.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  206. Giuliani thinks a provisional ballot is when a person comes in to vote and they tell him he already voted, so that wold be somebody else voted in his name.

    o, It would be when he requested an absentee ballot and it wasn’t returned. Or he claims he registered.

    Guialiai says he hasn’t yet counted up enough votes to disqualify to flip Pennsylvania or Michigan

    He says 100,000 votes all for Biden and only for president were added between 4:30 and 8:30 am. He said they thouht there were no pollwatchers there but there were a few (2?) and when they could see votes they were on;y for Biden. (it won’t turn out to be that way)

    Now vote coaching in violation of law, yes.

    Sammy Finkelman (70818b)


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