The Looming Constitutional Crisis
Robert S. Kagan writes in the Washington Post:
[A]bout these things there should be no doubt:
First, Donald Trump will be the Republican candidate for president in 2024. The hope and expectation that he would fade in visibility and influence have been delusional. He enjoys mammoth leads in the polls; he is building a massive campaign war chest; and at this moment the Democratic ticket looks vulnerable. Barring health problems, he is running.
Second, Trump and his Republican allies are actively preparing to ensure his victory by whatever means necessary. Trump’s charges of fraud in the 2020 election are now primarily aimed at establishing the predicate to challenge future election results that do not go his way. Some Republican candidates have already begun preparing to declare fraud in 2022, just as Larry Elder tried meekly to do in the California recall contest.
Meanwhile, the amateurish “stop the steal” efforts of 2020 have given way to an organized nationwide campaign to ensure that Trump and his supporters will have the control over state and local election officials that they lacked in 2020.
I’ve heard through my own grapevine that the scale of the operation designed to peddle lies about the last election (and thus potentially steal the next one) is staggering in a way that hasn’t really been reported in Big Media. Meanwhile, even the Cyber Ninjas (!) say Biden won in Arizona:
A monthslong hand recount of Maricopa County’s 2020 vote confirmed that President Joe Biden won and the election was not “stolen” from former President Donald Trump, according to early versions of a report prepared for the Arizona Senate.
The three-volume report by the Cyber Ninjas, the Senate’s lead contractor, includes results that show Trump lost by a wider margin than the county’s official election results. The data in the report also confirms that U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly won in the county.
Several states will likely be planning to do what they dared not do in 2016; namely, send two slates of electors to Congress: one the result of the voters’ will, and one hand-picked by Trumpy GOP legislators. It’s a very frightening scenario and I plan to have a lot more to say about it.
To me this is the number 1 reason not to support the GOP, and to consider supporting Dems. Not because dems are superior, but as a means to stop the GOP from actually destroying a 200+ year tradition of democratic rule. There have been cases of election fraud in the past, but this is a major political party laying the groundwork to openly steal elections int he future, all based on a lie about what happened in 2020.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:45 amI quote serious liberal journalist and honest guy Jim Schutze, the Mencken of Dallas Texas, with regard to elections — in 2017:
The county elections department as constituted was born in sin. Its structure is the result of a plot by Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price and the Dallas County Democratic Party to oust the former administrator because he was too honest.
The purpose of the Dallas County Elections Department is vote fraud. It is set up for vote fraud. The things the current head says in her defense are transparently laughable, unwitting confessions.
Gates is right and courageous to say so. The county is never going to clean it up. Don’t believe me? I have a test for them. Tell you in a minute. Meanwhile, the only way to get a clean election around here will be to get elections out from under the county elections department.
Should I believe Dallas is the only such county or city or that some miracle has occurred in the half decade since?
Should I suppose the party that screwed up their Iowa Caucus process can develop a trustworthy process for counting actual votes on a scale 1000 times larger?
Does hatred of Trump overwhelm any honest desire to improve election systems IN GENERAL?
pouncer (6c33cf) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:47 amBiden Now, More Than Ever!
Obudman (5a5600) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:49 amIf Donald Trump announces and looks like to be the nominee there will probably be third party candidates, at least one of whom will not be a joke, but you could still have a constitutional crisis.
One effect of Trump running would be to make Congress Democrat even if that’s not what many people voting that way really want.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:53 amOpposition to Trumpism doesn’t automatically translate into supporting any other candidate.
Rip Murdock (2c90e9) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:53 amPatrick
I think the argument later in the day will show that the Cyber Ninjas counted the votes and came up with more or less the same results as the general election. Then they will pivot to how many of those votes were fraudulent and why
steveg (e81d76) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:56 amIf Donald Trump announces and looks like to be the nominee there will probably be third party candidates, at least one of whom will not be a joke, but you could still have a constitutional crisis.
If that is true they better start organizing now, given the differing (and procedural difficulties) of ballot access.
Rip Murdock (2c90e9) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:56 am2. pouncer (6c33cf) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:47 am
They screwed it up, but it was obvious.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/24/2021 @ 9:09 amRip Murdock (2c90e9) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:56 am
For ballot access purposes, the beginning of March is not too late.
Getting money might be a problem. The candidate for president or vice resident will probably have to be a billionaire if they jump in that late.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/24/2021 @ 9:18 amOpposition to Trumpism doesn’t automatically translate into supporting any other candidate.
Opposition to Hillary was a significant contributor to support for Walker, Christie, Cruz… and finally Trump. Trump being the one Republican who would call a crook a crook. Takes one to know one, maybe, but still. At least Trump made no claim to the office he sought based on family connections, unlike the Cuomos, the Canadian Trudeaus, the Wyoming Cheneys, the Alaskan Murkowskis — At least the media hated nepotism enough to keep us all current with Jared’s escapades, unlike the time-delayed media embargo on Hunter’s missing gun, stray laptop, divorce filings, and all.
If you hate Biden and hope some candidate will go all in on eradication of the family, the entourage, and all the swamp, you might put your chips on Tulsi Gabbard. Good luck.
pouncer (6c33cf) — 9/24/2021 @ 9:19 amThe only thing is, there are clues that Trump will probably not run.
But he may endorse someone, and whoever he does endorse will be put on the spot.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/24/2021 @ 9:20 amMore from Kagan:
Rip Murdock (2c90e9) — 9/24/2021 @ 9:23 amThe real danger happens when states pass laws making the state’s presidential contest only advisory. Until that happens state is is probably not possible for legislatures to insert their own electors instead of those chosen by the people. Yes, they might try, but a Supreme Court that wanted to be more than Trump’s plaything would strike that crap down 9 zip.
Of course that might not matter.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 9:26 amIf you hate Biden and hope some candidate will go all in on eradication of the family, the entourage, and all the swamp, you might put your chips on Tulsi Gabbard. Good luck.
I don’t “hate” any politician. I don’t get that emotional about politics. I may oppose their policies and not vote for them, but I’m not emotionally invested in any cause.
For the record, I haven’t voted for a Presidential candidate for a very long time.
Rip Murdock (2c90e9) — 9/24/2021 @ 9:27 amThe david french kissers be in panic mode.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/24/2021 @ 9:29 amTo me this is the number 1 reason not to support the GOP, and to consider supporting Dems
If one says “I cannot support the GOP and must make sure that Trump, at least, loses decisively” then a better plan is to support the rise of a new center-right party.
Sure, it would lose. Sure it would result in the Democrats’ election by splitting the GOP vote. But afterwards you have something. A GOP that is, as some say, irredeemable, MUST be supplanted if we are to avoid a left-wing one-party state.
California is the model to avoid.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 9:30 amI should not have used the word fraudulent alone.
Fraudulent and contested?
An organized review would recount all ballots first, then begin review of individual ballots.
Its like counting rat turds per 100lbs of grain. First thing you do is re-weigh the grain shipment, then you begin the process of looking for turds. Then the dispute goes to turd? or not a turd? or even deeper to turd but not a rat turd.
steveg (e81d76) — 9/24/2021 @ 9:38 amI think it’s important to form a new broad-based center-right party in time to compete in a few places in 2022 with a few quality candidates. Perhaps in Kevin McCarthy’s district. Any success whatsoever could allow the kind of ballot access campaign that could make the party a player in 2024.
Sure it’s hard. But if people really think that Trumpism is going to doom the GOP, if not the country, then it’s necessary to try.
The press would love the story.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 9:40 amIf that is true they better start organizing now, given the differing (and procedural difficulties) of ballot access.
See here: https://ballot-access.org/
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 9:42 am“Meanwhile, even the Cyber Ninjas (!) say Biden won in Arizona”
Surely this settles the case now, right? The election wasn’t stolen from Trump by massive vote fraud, right?
Davethulhu (017f04) — 9/24/2021 @ 10:12 am@20 patience
give it five years
we’re still waiting for the russia collusion narrative to die
but if trump or any republican wins, it or something equivalent will be back and you’ll cheer it on
JF (e1156d) — 9/24/2021 @ 10:21 am“we’re still waiting for the russia collusion narrative to die
but if trump or any republican wins, it or something equivalent will be back and you’ll cheer it on”
Pathetic.
Davethulhu (017f04) — 9/24/2021 @ 10:26 amI think general improvements to elections are a great idea. But that’s not what they’re doing. The GOP is pushing audits and election reforms to fight the fraud they dishonestly claim happened in 2020. So they’re lying about what they want to do. Why should I trust their hidden intentions are beneficial when their stated intentions are a provable lie?
Further, the process they’re following doesn’t seem aimed at general improvement, it seems aimed at partisan advantage. That’s just part of politics and I’m OK with it.
What I’m not OK with are changes that will allow highly gerrymandered state legislature to overrule democratic votes.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/24/2021 @ 10:28 amI heard on the radio a talk show host claiming the audit came out with a conclusion tat there were 55,000 “potential” votes cast illegally, in violation of Arizona law. Probably mostly technical questions. So they still can claim things.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/24/2021 @ 10:31 am. The GOP is pushing audits and election reforms to fight the fraud they dishonestly claim happened
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/24/2021 @ 10:28 am
As Patterico says, there are efforts to set things up for next time. So this is bad.
There’s an attempt to turn the Republican Party into an analogue of the Communist Party of old. They have a long way to go, though, and probably can’t get there by 2025.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/24/2021 @ 10:33 am“Collusion” is like “orange man bad” and “no more mean tweets”. Intended to minimize Trump’s offenses. Putin does not collude with his orange catspaw. He just gives him his orders. And his orders right now, since he lost the election, are to create as much havoc in the American political process as possible. That it also satisfies the orange loser’s own inclinations is welcome but not necessary.
nk (1d9030) — 9/24/2021 @ 10:33 amThe Democrats in New York State are trying to do what the Democrats in Congress want to outlaw in reapportioning seats.
The 2014 constitutional amendment was designed to be thwarted in case the Democrats gained control of the State Senate – and they sent several constitutional amendments to the voters this November to really make gerrymandering easier
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/24/2021 @ 10:36 amKevin, fully support your comment in 16.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/24/2021 @ 10:37 amnk: “Collusion” is like “orange man bad” and “no more mean tweets”. Intended to minimize Trump’s offenses
Trump has his zombie horde trained well…they have a taste for it now….you ain’t trying if you ain’t cheatin’
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 9/24/2021 @ 11:06 amKevin’s eazy-peazy way to frustrate all gerrymanders: Multi-representative districts with each voter getting ONE vote.
Let’s say that each dictrict elects two representatives. If each voter only votes for one, then any large minority can elect someone. In a two-party system (which this would, btw, weaken) you would get one of each in most districts, with their tilt within their party representative of the district. It also tends to avoid racial gerrymandering.
As a bonus, more people have a representative they identify with, making disaffection less likely.
This is not to be confused with (ought to be illegal) at-large elections where everyone gets as many votes as there are offices and the majority’s slate wins all.
WHile there is some opportunityh to create districts that will elect two from the same party, it’s not clear that’s a good strategy. If it is, make it three offices per district.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 11:08 amNow, here’s the real question: Do the Democrats, who run the federal government and the state of New York, attempt to jail Donald Trump? Do they allow political considerations to guide this choice?
I think the answers are no and yes, respectively. They want the GOP destroyed and Donald Trump is their boy. Any damage he does to constitutional limitations is a plus, so long as they don’t get blamed for it.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 11:12 amAnd, if jailed, does the GOP still nominate him?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 11:14 amOT: Biden goes to war with his own agents over false ‘whipping’ allegations
Question: How would such agents (not on desk duty) be disciplined after the boss calls them out? HOw is this different from Trump making pronouncements regarding military trials?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 11:23 am*noW on desk duty
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 11:24 am@33 lawlessness on the border sanctioned and abetted by the executive branch for partisan political gain is not the sort of constitutional crisis we should care about
JF (e1156d) — 9/24/2021 @ 11:52 amCompared to what? 9 of the 10 poorest states are Republican, as are 99 of 100 poorest counties. California currently has the word’s 5th largest economy, and the nation’s biggest budget surplus, lowest COVID transmission rate, 2nd lowest COVID death rate. Best weather, most natural beauty, best marijuana industry, #1 state for college rankings, tech, entertainment, agriculture. Even homeless people flock to (or get shipped to California) because it’s better to be homeless in California that housed in sh**hole red states that rely on California tax dollars to stay afloat, awash in crap colleges, dying factories, obesity, opioid and meth addicts, illegal weed, high infant mortality, and high illiteracy rates.
What’s to be avoided is right wing media hacks who all own property in California, while brainwashing the rubes to fear California and clearly-superior Democratic governance.
DK (9a5256) — 9/24/2021 @ 11:56 amIt just proves that the Cyber Ninjas are agents of the Really Deep State.
Radegunda (93309b) — 9/24/2021 @ 12:06 pmTime123: I think general improvements to elections are a great idea. But that’s not what they’re doing. The GOP is pushing audits and election reforms to fight the fraud they dishonestly claim happened in 2020. … What I’m not OK with are changes that will allow highly gerrymandered state legislature to overrule democratic votes.
“Fraud” is the wrong word. The sane faction in the GOP (admittedly, a small one) is aghast at sudden rule changes in long-standing election practices that have not been considered and approved by the traditional, usually legislative, authorities. Drop boxes, drive throughs, election-day registration, etc. The AZ audit thing going on, for example, shows votes cast by voters who were not resident at their registered address during the weeks of early-plus-election-day voting. These are not necessarily “fraudulent”. But the decision whether or not to admit or reject such votes or voters based on the whims of clerks at the precinct level is a problem. Cities allow the practice while rural areas do not? A SERIOUS problem. The audit, so far, has not reported in enough detail to be sure. Admittedly the existing registration law may disproportionately affect renters more than home-owners. SO? Want the old-fashioned rules changed? Lobby the legislature and change them.
Another relatively sane objection the GOP and “fly over” states have to the Democrat party proposals in the dense, urban, areas they control is registering non-citizens to vote. Long term project by the Democrats. The county of San Francisco tried it in 2010. http://www.smartvoter.org/2010/11/02/ca/sf/prop/D/
The city of New York is trying it now.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook/2021/09/21/council-weighs-non-citizen-voting-494413
At least the proposals are done within the law. But the concept reveals that the idea of “one person, one vote” is not sacred to the people in charge in these cities. Citizens of Haiti or Mexico or Afghanistan who choose to vote-by-mail in the nations of their birth and official residence and choose to vote AGAIN in the US have, in my opinion, no justifiable claim on a power to nullify MY (one) vote. Do we allow rich citizens who have residences in both SF and NYC to vote in both municipal elections? In both state elections? Do the rich get to vote twice in presidential elections? The voter-registration process is supposed to prevent this. The AZ audit shows that protection is breaking down. Again, FRAUD isn’t the point. Trust in the process and its protections is the point.
pouncer (6c33cf) — 9/24/2021 @ 12:08 pmI’m not opposed to honest efforts to “improve election systems.” But Donald Trump and his cult followers poisoned the very idea of “election integrity” by lashing it to Trump’s pathologically narcissistic belief that he could not possibly lose a fair election–an idea he stated repeatedly before any ballots were counted–and taking the position that the only legitimate outcome was a win for Trump.
Some voices in the super-Trumpy “intellectual” right — perhaps realizing that the claims of a stolen election lacked an evidentiary basis — have expressed a “by any means necessary” attitude, starting from the premise that virtually all our public institutions are corrupt and need to be circumvented and/or crushed. I’ve also seen suggestions that it’s better if the wrong kind of people aren’t encouraged to vote.
When Republicans speak about election integrity and complain about fraud, I now have to view it more skeptically than I did in the past. It isn’t because of a blind “hatred of Trump,” but because I’ve watched and listed to him and his devotees. They have given me plenty of reason to doubt their motives.
Radegunda (93309b) — 9/24/2021 @ 12:31 pmWhy would it when even Trump-sycophant Senate Republicans confirmed in their report the Trump crime family colluded? Treason Trump publicly called for Russian hacking. His scampaign met with Russian operatives in Trump Tower to discuss “aoptions” (re: sanctions), and then as Russian election meddling ramped up, the GQP platform was altered in favor of easing Russian sanctions. His white nationalist advisor Bannon worked with his Russian spy campaign manager Manafort to coordinate Russian propaganda cyberattacks with Cambridge Analytica and the Kremlin. All this is documented in the Mueller report which too many didn’t read, instead falling for Trump and Barr’s no collusion-nobstruction spin.
DK (9a5256) — 9/24/2021 @ 12:32 pmWhich explains why nearly 70% of yt men voted for Trump while 90%+ of black people recognize the Trump threat from day one, because opposition to Hillary remains irrational and stupid, predicated mostly on yt male insecurity with powerful, unapologetically-ambitious women. To those demographics comfortable with matriarchy, Hillary remains either a policy rockstar or — at worst — boring and inoffensive. She was a far better applicant for the job than Trump was. She has been proven a Cassandra.
DK (9a5256) — 9/24/2021 @ 12:35 pmThe British bettors disagree with Kagan.
As I write, they give Trump a 35.4 percent chance of winning the Republican nomination, and two of his spawn 2.1 and 1.2 percent chances, which means that the chances of a Trump winning the nomination are less than 40 percent.
Now, why do the bettors think the odds are against Trump — and why are they willing, collectively, to put money behind their opinions? From following the chatter at Political Betting I would guess their thinking goes something like this:
It is even possible that Republican opponents of Trump will have figured out how to campaign against him. (It isn’t hard to think of tactics that have a good chance of succeeding.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 9/24/2021 @ 12:46 pm#37 Thanks for the smile, Radegunda.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 9/24/2021 @ 12:48 pm\
hahahahahaha
good one man
Dustin (150498) — 9/24/2021 @ 12:51 pmOff topic, but some of you may find this amusing, as I did: The Norks say the call to end the Korean War is “premature”.
(All right, bitterly amusing, but still amusing. Incidentally, I think Republic of Korea President Moon Jae-in was right to raise the issue, once again, if only for the propaganda gain.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 9/24/2021 @ 12:54 pmPouncer, You’re agreeing that there wasn’t fraud, which means that the changes you’re referencing didn’t result in fraudulent votes which would cancel out your legitimate vote.
Saying that you don’t like the way changes were made is a legitimate gripe, many were challenged in court and were legal but process improvement is fine.
But the GOP isn’t saying they want to do process improvement, nor are their actions aligned with that at this point.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/24/2021 @ 1:00 pmBreaking-
Biden decides it would be inappropriate to assert executive privilege in January 6 investigation
Rip Murdock (beeefc) — 9/24/2021 @ 1:48 pmHow can Kagan say there is NO DOUBT that Donald Trump will be the Republican candidate for president in 2024??
He’s pushing a story.
Maybe to sell something else.
Tell people their choices are limited.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/24/2021 @ 2:47 pmThe constitution and now the supreme court allows states to make it harder for people they don’t want to vote from voting. Also 18% of the population in 26 states control 52 of the senate seats. To top things off biden is a senile old fool disliked by the left of the democratic party as well as hated by the right. Biden did not win by 8,000,000+ votes he won by 43,000 votes in az, ga. and wi. combined.
asset (f2ae2b) — 9/24/2021 @ 2:58 pmDK (9a5256) — 9/24/2021 @ 12:32 pm
One time.
HHe asked them, in public, to find Hillary’s deleted emails,
Which everyone thought no longer existed at least on the Internet, although some of them may have ben preserved on Anthony Weiner’s laptop.
No, that;s what the Russians talked about when they found out too many people would be in the meeting.
The meeting was held because someone Trump knew said the lead prosecutor in Russia was going to leak something to them.
Becase it looked like Trump had a chance.
That’s a complicated story.
I think the Russians hoped Manafort would become a spy, but Manafort didn’t want to be. He did want money. Now Mike Flynn, he [probably really was a spy, recruited when he was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and that’s why Obama retired him. They can ask Obama why he didn’t do more. Of course he didn’t know for sure.
Listen Putin did not collude or conspire with Trump because since when would he take Trump into his confidence? What was Trump, Armand Hammer??
And that means Trump did not collude with Putin.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/24/2021 @ 2:59 pm@48 You know more then the 73,000,000 voters who voted for trump?
asset (f2ae2b) — 9/24/2021 @ 3:00 pmmadam secretary hillary rodham clinton who went into law because she flunked out of the academy of arts that please men failed to understand that a matriarch’s scepter is her femininity
or is it crown?
crook and flail?
whatever
to put it charitably, she was underqualified for the job
nk (1d9030) — 9/24/2021 @ 3:15 pmA question I ponder is whether Trump is a symptom or a cause. Was he uniquely able to draw cult-like devotion with professional wrestling rhetoric, or were there pre-existing cultural currents that somebody else would have eventually exploited?
I suspect the answer is both, but I’m not sure of the percentage breakdown.
Trump is really good at taking complex political issues and making them like a comic book, where he’s the hero going up against all kinds of nefarious characters. In a society where superhero movies rake in billions, and where the WWE Smackdown has been airing for over 20 years, Trump certainly has a gullible audience.
We should have better presidents than Trump or Biden, but Americans aren’t discerning enough to have them. There were several candidates in the presidential primaries, both D and R, both in 2016 and 2020, that were better than these two guys, but they didn’t get very far, did they? No, because too many primary voters are all too easily hoodwinked.
I’m in a position to emigrate. I’m retired, and have no obligations. If fringe elements on both sides continue to wield power, I’ll find someplace better.
norcal (b9a35f) — 9/24/2021 @ 4:26 pmA question I ponder is whether Trump is a symptom or a cause.
A boil on America’s butt from sitting around too much, eating too much, and not bathing enough.
nk (1d9030) — 9/24/2021 @ 4:42 pmGood one, nk. That sounds like it came straight from Mark Twain!
norcal (b9a35f) — 9/24/2021 @ 4:51 pmadios
mg (8cbc69) — 9/24/2021 @ 5:04 pm“actually destroying a 200+ year tradition of democratic rule.”
You forgot to capitalize a D there, that party has been running off of urban vote counting machines since the days of Boss Tweed.
“Putin does not collude with his orange catspaw. He just gives him his orders.”
Depend on the lawyer to pound the table on the stronger charge when he can’t even prove the weaker beyond conjecture and hearsay.
“according to early versions of a report”
lol, spare me, you journalistic paragon, you.
Cyber Fact-checker (5d32e7) — 9/24/2021 @ 5:51 pmIt is even possible that Republican opponents of Trump will have figured out how to campaign against him. (It isn’t hard to think of tactics that have a good chance of succeeding.)
Liz Cheney is offering one path: stake out the #NeverEverTrump ground and wait 8 years. Some day Trump will be unable to affect events and at that point being a toady might not be all that useful.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 6:00 pmIt just proves that the Cyber Ninjas are agents of the Really Deep State.
Double-secret RINOs.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 6:00 pmThe Norks say the call to end the Korean War is “premature”.
The war can end any Tuesday the US wants it to end.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 6:02 pmBiden decides it would be inappropriate to assert executive privilege in January 6 investigation
He’s not worried about living so long this comes back to bite him.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 6:03 pmIt’s been kind of fun watching Trump lose again.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/24/2021 @ 6:13 pmTime123: Pouncer, You’re agreeing that there wasn’t fraud, which means that the changes you’re referencing didn’t result in fraudulent votes which would cancel out your legitimate vote.
Time123: I’m saying “fraud” is the wrong word. I might also say the election wasn’t affected by murder. But that doesn’t mean the election results are legitimate. The (AZ, in particular, but I think US as a whole) election was not held in accordance with the written procedure laid out before the campaigns began.
You don’t get to arrogate agreement from my expressed concerns.
pouncer (6c33cf) — 9/24/2021 @ 6:30 pmPouncer, The courts have disagreed with you about if the procedures were correct or not. But leaving that aside, are you asserting that Biden’s margin of victory was comprised of votes that were not the expression of people with a right to vote? If so, what evidence do you base that on?
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/24/2021 @ 7:12 pmIt’s interesting that the news media is ignoring the release of the Jan 6 videos that the Dems tried so hard to suppress and which shows the ‘Insurrectionists’ less violent than the worst Black Friday shopping incidents.
https://nypost.com/article/black-fridays-most-gruesome-injuries-and-deaths-through-the-years/
Some have called Jan 6 worse than 2020’s summer of riots, arson, looting and murder. Some of the even-more-deranged have called it worse than 9/11.
Obudman (5a5600) — 9/24/2021 @ 7:37 pm@65 This one looks a bit worse the you described. Maybe the MSM isn’t getting this as wrong as you want to pretend.
https://twitter.com/zoetillman/status/1441387831004262408?s=21
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:06 pmWas the election stolen from Trump on November 3rd, or did he try to steal the election on January 6th? The answer to the question is indicative of a person’s susceptibility to gaslighting.
norcal (b9a35f) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:09 pmLooks like the ADVANCE INFORMATION was just advance disinformation, like all Democrat ops:
Since most of the actual collusion, mysterious total switching and shenanigans in Democrat districts of swing states happened around 1-2AM, it was obviously mostly stolen on the 4th.
That phrasing is exceedingly odd and sounds heavily workshopped by leftist lawyers who have predefined denial scripts set up to generate maximum misunderstanding on any public response.
Step one to dealing with other humans in good faith is using human words, not lawyer jargon written five steps in advance of the extremely limited-field argument you’d much rather be having to draw away from your massive failures elsewhere.
Anyway, REGARDING THE ARIZONA AUDIT AND JUST THE ARIZONA AUDIT:
-Logs produced by Maricopa County did not contain the Windows security logs-ie, the logs which would have actually tracked remote connections into the machines.
-Security logs set to maintain ONLY 20MB of data-anyone whose ever done disk cleanup on their windows device knows, system logs for a few months typically run into the hundreds of megabytes to the multi-gigabyte level.
-The oldest date in the windows security log was 2/5/21, nowhere near the relevant election time period.
-the EMSADMIN account overwrote the security logs on 2/11/2021. 3/3/2021, and 4/12/2021.
In short, all of the numbers the AZ central editorial is bragging about had no relevant or trustworthy chain of custody, and thus cannot be trusted.
That’s why most of the AZ editorial is just basically editorializing that IT’S ALL OKAY, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, THE NUMBERS THAT WE CAN’T TRUST ADD UP, PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS.
Count Cleaner (0e55f9) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:38 pmCount Cleaner (and all the other names you go by):
Why are you always so angry and negative? Have you ever tried interacting in a friendly manner?
norcal (b9a35f) — 9/24/2021 @ 8:43 pm“It’s interesting that the news media is ignoring the release of the Jan 6 videos that the Dems tried so hard to suppress and which shows the ‘Insurrectionists’ less violent than the worst Black Friday shopping incidents.”
I posted these the last time someone raised this talking point. Interested in your perspective.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/01/09/officer-crushed-in-door-capitol-riots-lemon-reaction-ctn-vpx.cnn
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/01/06/jim-himes-inside-washington-dc-protest-congress-electoral-college-vpx.cnn
Davethulhu (017f04) — 9/24/2021 @ 10:34 pmIt’s truthers all over again. Nothing has changed much since Jim Garrison.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/24/2021 @ 10:44 pmCollege Girls Porn Pics
zacharyif16 (720f07) — 9/24/2021 @ 11:59 pmhttp://alicia.moesexy.com/?maci
fraternity porn free porn gallery of little girls chloe and santa porn horny sex porn traier trash porn
how bout them pizzin rooski hookers, Kevin M. You protecting McCain?
mg (8cbc69) — 9/25/2021 @ 4:15 amIt would seem to me that a worthwhile ex-President would be showcasing his accomplishments while in office, and not whining about five-year old “injustices”. And so would his supporters. But when sour grapes is all you got, sorry whines (sic) is all you can serve.
nk (1d9030) — 9/25/2021 @ 4:42 amnorcal: “Was he [Trump] uniquely able to draw cult-like devotion with professional wrestling rhetoric, or were there pre-existing cultural currents that somebody else would have eventually exploited?”
I’ll continue to come back to ideological Talk Radio’s influence. It’s message has been consistently and unambiguously….hate liberals and liberalism and what they are doing to our country…..and hand-wringing frustration with the Swamp, which then built up the meme about the need for an outsider. This hit a crescendo during the Obama years….which was then reinforced by some GOP electoral success in Congress.
But the feverish anger and fear had to be channeled somewhere….and Trump saw the opportunity….mainly to build his own brand….but once there, to maintain attention on him and to retain power. Social media….and what I might call bubble media….has provided positive feedback where we have constructed opposite camps and an absolute toxic politics. Our government was set up for Congress to be the most active branch. Now nothing gets done in Congress….and everyone is breathlessly waiting for the next nuclear option to be used to push some agenda forward. With Congress paralyzed, the void has been filled by courts over-reaching and trying to solve problems best left to democracy…..and government by Presidential Executive Orders…..many pushing the boundary of what is Constitutional or wise.
So Trump is a grifter who took advantage of a deteriorating situation…to seize attention….and continue to fan the flames and maintain the focal point of discussion. As much as I would want to deperately move on….Trump still dominates GOP politics……with new candidates pledging fealty and right-wing media making any opposition unwelcome….and seemingly unpatriotic or disloyal….we’re stuck. There are information sites out there that will rationalize anything…some commenters here bring examples daily….hoping that the next what-about will convert the skeptical.
By attacking the legitimacy of media and letting “news analysis” (read gossip) metastasize….we can’t even agree about what are facts…let alone what they mean. Everything that falls outside what we believe…like Jan 6th….is spun away. I just don’t see how it gets fixed before something truly awful happens…..how’s that for optimism!?
AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 9/25/2021 @ 4:52 am“ A draft copy of the 2020 Maricopa County election audit has been leaked to KJZZ, a Phoenix-based radio station.
The validity of the draft report they obtained was confirmed by audit spokesman Randy Pullen, who said, “It’s not the final report, but it’s close.”
The media is already spinning the findings of the audit.
“The partisan review of Maricopa County’s 2.1 million ballots cast in the 2020 election found a vote count nearly identical to what the county had previously reported,” CNN reported. Like other liberal outlets, CNN focused on the results of the hand-recount part of the audit. As we know, hand recounts may account for slight discrepancies in counting but do not address irregularities or potentially illegally cast ballots.
So, let’s look into what the audit actually says.
What has been found is both encouraging and alarming,” the report summary reads. “On the positive side there were no substantial differences between the hand count of the ballots provided and the official canvass results for the County.”
The summary continues:
However, while it is encouraging for voters, it does not allay all of the concerns:
None of the various systems related to elections had numbers that would balance and agree with each other. In some cases, these differences were significant.
There appears to be many ballots cast from individuals who had moved prior to the election.
Files were missing from the Election Management System (EMS) Server.
Ballot images on the EMS were corrupt or missing.
Logs appeared to be intentionally rolled over, and all the data in the database related to the 2020 General Election had been fully cleared.
On the ballot side, batches were not always clearly delineated, duplicated ballots were missing the required serial numbers, originals were duplicated more than once, and the Auditors were never provided Chain‐of‐ Custody documentation for the ballots for the time‐period prior to the ballot’s movement into the Auditors’ care. This all increased the complexity and difficulty in properly auditing the results; and added ambiguity into the final conclusions…”
Read it all:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/09/24/ignore-the-msm-heres-what-the-2020-maricopa-county-election-audit-actually-says-n1481090
Colonel Haiku (951ecf) — 9/25/2021 @ 5:49 amIt’s truthers all over again. Nothing has changed much since Jim Garrison.
Next thing you’re going to tell us, Kevin, is that Al Capone’s hitmen didn’t run every red light, mow down pedestrians, and drive their car through the front window of the garage on St. Valentine’s Day 1929.
We already know that half a dozen Capitol police are being disciplined for the pussy-ass way they interacted with the invaders, some even taking selfies with them. But any straw for a flailing orange.
nk (1d9030) — 9/25/2021 @ 6:02 amMy relatives are convinced the AZ audit found massive fraud that proved Trump was robbed. We are in big trouble.
@76. All that stuff has been fact-checked and explained. For example:
Claim: “There appears to be many ballots cast from individuals who had moved prior to the election.”
EXPLANATION:
1) Military and overseas voters can cast a “federal only ballot” despite living outside the U.S. The address tied to their ballot would be their prior address in AZ.
2) People are allowed to move from one house to another (or even one state to another) in October and November of an election year (yes, shocking!). If the driver’s license address matches the voter registration address, they are still allowed to vote.
3) For the November General Election Maricopa County had 20,933 one-time temporary address requests. In addition, snowbirds and college students tend to have forwarding addresses when they are out of the county.
4)Mail-in ballots are not forwarded to another address.
Each one of those claims is addressed and explained.
Problem is, facts really do not matter in matters of Faith and religion. What matters is Faith. These folks want to believe, and so do believe, and we’re in big trouble.
JRH (52aed3) — 9/25/2021 @ 6:39 amThe explanatory stuff is from Maricopa CO. twitter feed.
JRH (52aed3) — 9/25/2021 @ 6:40 amSpeaking of explanations. One claim I’m seeing a lot is that there were 17,322 “duplicate votes” in AZ. Apparently some guy named Dr. Shiva is making this claim. If you remove the duplicates, then it proves Trump won. So says the claim. Can anyone explain this to me or point me to an explanation? Cheers.
JRH (52aed3) — 9/25/2021 @ 7:14 amMike Lindell moves the “reinstatement” goalposts again — now Trump will be back by Thanksgiving
………
On Tuesday, however, Lindell made an excited announcement that his mysterious legal team has fast-tracked internal research, claiming that its thus-far-imaginary Supreme Court case is now ahead of schedule.
“This is the big announcement, everyone,” Lindell proudly told Steve Bannon on the latter’s “War Room: Pandemic” podcast. “I made a promise to this country that with all the evidence I have that we would get it to the Supreme Court, and I predicted they would vote 9-0 to look at the evidence.”
………
“Originally, I had hoped for August and September. I asked all the lawyers just yesterday,” Lindell said. “We are taking this case to the Supreme Court before Thanksgiving. Now maybe Fox [News] will report that today.” That aside was a reference to the pillow king’s feud with Fox News, which has generally ignored his recent claims and refused to cover his August “cyber symposium” in South Dakota.
“This evidence is 100% non-subjective evidence,” Lindell continued, “and that the Supreme Court, they’re going to vote 9-nothing to take it in. We will have this before the Supreme Court before Thanksgiving. That’s my promise to the people of this country. We’re all in this together. We worked very hard on this!”
Late on Tuesday night, Lindell redoubled his Turkey Day promise. “I talked to all the lawyers today,” he said on his Frank Speech website. “One hundred percent we are getting this before the Supreme Court before Thanksgiving. That is locked in stone, everybody.” He went on to claim that the case will be the “most important case to our freedom in history.”
Lindell has not released or filed any documents intended to support such a hypothetical case, nor has he explained what legal mechanism he believes might allow the Supreme Court to take action on his unfocused claims of election fraud.………
Rip Murdock (beeefc) — 9/25/2021 @ 7:17 am…………
Then again, he didn’t say Thanksgiving of what year.
But they didn’t prove anything. They just made allegations, which have been fact-checked.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/25/2021 @ 7:29 amThis was debunked months ago. The manual recount settled any complaints about the election software.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/25/2021 @ 7:58 amDr. Shiva is the crank who claimed he invented e-mail and whose statistical analyses about vote fraud were thrown out of a Georgia courtroom, and perhaps others. And he was fact-checked on the duplicate ballots.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/25/2021 @ 8:09 amThe supporters of trumps big lie don’t care about the truth any more then they care about the country. They’re pathetic.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/25/2021 @ 8:10 amTrump on what would prevent 2024 bid: ‘I guess a bad call from a doctor’
………
Trump, who has openly flirted with launching another presidential campaign while so far declining to reveal his plans for 2024, was asked by television host David Brody what might prevent him from running again.
“Well, I don’t — I guess a bad call from a doctor or something, right?” Trump said on “The Water Cooler” show on Real America’s Voice.
“Things happen. Through God, they happen,” he added. “But I feel so good.”
……..
During the interview Friday, Trump also vowed to “do whatever is necessary” to shield documents from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump has pledged to fight subpoenas for testimony from his former aides by attempting in part to invoke executive privilege, despite no longer being president.
Rip Murdock (beeefc) — 9/25/2021 @ 8:45 am……….
From Trump’s lips to G0d’s ears.
About a week ago Rep Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH)….who voted for impeachment….decided he will not run for re-election. A 37yr-old cuban-american, college football hero, with an impressive resume….chased from the GOP because even if he survived the primary challenge….simply did not want to go back and serve in a Trumpified GOP House majority (hello Paul Ryan). A majority likely defined by the singular purpose of emphasizing whatever personality-driven focus that Trump wants. This is the sort of insular and manic GOP that some here support…by actively excusing or rationalizing every Trump tittle or passively musing “Who’s better!?” (thankfully not our host or Dana). What’s left is for the rest of us to watch and learn….and understand what went wrong so it can be corrected in the future. At some point this all crumbles…..because it’s grounded on lies and ignorance….but it is fascinating to see how many good people have been corrupted by its allure. It’s certainly instructive about confirmation bias and the general ambivalence….even antagonism….toward the truth.
But a day of commenting without the headache inducing DCSCA……GLORIOUS!
AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 9/25/2021 @ 9:54 amno kidding, AJ.
Dustin (c67fdb) — 9/25/2021 @ 10:02 amI 2nd Dustin’s comment.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/25/2021 @ 10:07 amAnthony Gonzalez has no district to run for reelection in, and he knew it when he voted for impeachment. Ohio is one of the states that lost a Congressional district after the census, and it was Gonzalez’s. Put not your trust in politicians who find virtue when they have lost their rice bowl.
nk (1d9030) — 9/25/2021 @ 10:15 amWhat’s left is for the rest of us to watch and learn….and understand what went wrong so it can be corrected in the future.
I guarantee the neocons and the Bush Republicans will learn absolutely nothing from this, primarily because they think it’s anyone else’s fault but their own. They’ll hold everyone else accountable but themselves; they’ll blame everyone else but themselves. They don’t have the capacity for humility, self-awareness or self-reflection necessary to learn lessons. It’s “talk radio,” it’s “Trump,” it’s “tribalism,” it’s anything other several decades worth of venality, corruption, lies, and failures, all in the service of enriching themselves at the expense of American citizens, while wrapping themselves in the flag and claiming that what they’re doing is actually patriotism.
Why should the GOP base place any sort of credibility on anything on what these guys should offer? The national debt has gone up exponentially in the last 40 years; we have a massive surveillance state, aided and abetted by Gilded Age-style trust, whose primary goal is eliminating whatever privacy we have left and silencing opposition through the destruction of their livelihoods; a gutted manufacturing base that’s made us reliant on a foreign adversary for most of our goods; prioritizing corporate farmers over small farmers, and global megacorps over family-owned businesses; billion-dollar bailouts for financial institutions that committed outright fraud and threatened to take the country down if the American taxpayer, and their grandchildren, didn’t make them whole again; a CENTCOM AOR that’s either back to where it was 20 years ago, or is actually worse off; no pushback whatsoever against the cultural Marxism that’s destroyed the ethic of civic nationalism which acts as a bulwark against the very divisiveness you claim to be abhorred by, including longtime friends and family members disowning each other; a gutted, corporatized military that’s more invested in social engineering schemes than winning wars, led by social climbers, buttsniffers, and virtue-signalers instead of warriors; a devalued dollar that becomes less so by the day; the nation’s cathedral institutions dominated by the very left-liberal people who despise the GOP base and want to see them humiliated and their children brainwashed, with your own blessing.
Don’t blame the party’s working- and middle-class members for finally realizing that Megacity One/Two Republicanism hasn’t actually helped them in any way over the last 40 years, and looking for someone, anyone, who might throw them some sort of lifeline.
You want to know why you’ve been rejected? Because your political class sucks, and you’re too arrogant to admit that you’ve actually done anything wrong.
Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 9/25/2021 @ 10:42 amFWO, so the alternative to all the meany Republicans of the past is to follow Trump and go with his nationalist populist xenophobia? There are no other options?
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/25/2021 @ 11:44 amFWO, so the alternative to all the meany Republicans of the past is to follow Trump and go with his nationalist populist xenophobia? There are no other options?
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/25/2021 @ 11:44 am
Like I said, and as you so aptly demonstrate, the neocons and the Bush Republicans take no responsibility for their failures, or practice a modicum of self-examination as to why they’ve been rejected. It’s always someone else’s fault. They’re blameless, victims of forces beyond their capability to wrangle. And when those failures are pointed out, they deflect and erect strawmen rather than take responsibility.
Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 9/25/2021 @ 2:30 pmThink of them and their lefty mentors with the same generous spirit as they do of people who voted for Trump.
Colonel Haiku (951ecf) — 9/25/2021 @ 2:57 pmFWO, sounds as if you like Trump because supporting him expresses the anger and resentment you feel towards the previous leaders of the GOP. That’s as valid a reason to support a candidate as any other. It’s not one I share. But it’s as valid as any other.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/25/2021 @ 3:05 pmAs long as it’s Kamala or her Vice President counting the Electoral Votes in January 2025. John Eastman has already written the scenario for them.
nk (1d9030) — 9/25/2021 @ 3:17 pmMike Lindell moves the “reinstatement” goalposts again — now Trump will be back by Thanksgiving
It doesn’t work that way. Even if Joe Biden confessed he stole the election on live TV in the Well of the Senate, the actual election was over on Jan 6, 2021. No way that Donald Trump is declared the victor and reinstated.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/25/2021 @ 3:56 pm“Why are you always so angry and negative? Have you ever tried interacting in a friendly manner?”
Why did you feel the need to post an all-purpose reply that contained neither a response nor a rebuttal? Excessive friendliness is the mark of liars, con men, and deliberate time-wasters.
“This was debunked months ago. The manual recount settled any complaints about the election software.”
No such ‘debunking’ occured, lazy linker.
All the article at the links does is, like so many other articles regarding electoral fraud, is baldly repeat ‘there is no evidence that’ prior to the beginning of every sentence and offered nothing but the testimonies of reporters, the least trustworthy class of people who have every incentive to lie for the powerful to keep their access.
And it contains this gem:
“Although the Board of Wayne County Canvassers initially deadlocked 2-2 in its Nov. 17 vote to certify, later in the same meeting, members voted 4-0 to certify”
Yeah, I watched that, the video feed cut out right after they announced and as soon as it came back they suddenly had a new vote. Not suspicious at all.
Anyway, this Michigan article and the people defending it share the same qualities as the original PREBUNKING of the Arizona audit: taking quotes out of context, rebutting questions not central to the main question of whether the electoral process was trustworthy, offering the testimony of extremely compromised and suspicious individuals with a strong interest in thwarting meaningful discovery as gospel truth, and studiously avoiding talking about anything other than ‘DID THE VOTE TOTALS MATCH’ instead of ‘CAN WE TRUST THE VOTE TOTALS AND THE PROCESS THAT PRODUCED THEM?”
When I hear sentences like “The audit found that Maricopa County overwrote the entire activity log in its Election Management System” my attitude toward ‘no evidence that’ turns extremely and justifiably violent. It’s almost like you yourselves are attempting to overwrite the evidence by generating piles of denial scripts! People do eventually come to resemble their tools, I suppose.
This studiously and quite frankly openly conspiratorial avoidance of any responsibility for the most important questions voters want to ask is the real reason for the constitutional crisis, not any ‘foreign interference’ or ‘insurrection’ or ‘nationalist xenophobia’.
Twenty Meg Log (c344a2) — 9/25/2021 @ 5:10 pmEpic comment at 75, AJ. I found it enlightening. Thanks.
I think you’re right about talk radio and social media bubbles. Many people love the good feeling that comes from being on a certain “team”, and getting their viewpoints confirmed over and over.
That doesn’t work for me. I like reading things that challenge my thinking. That is why I come to this blog. I hear differing opinions here, and my viewpoints have changed over time.
norcal (b9a35f) — 9/25/2021 @ 5:12 pmFalse alarm is what Trump does best. And mostly is too. A false alarm.
nk (1d9030) — 9/25/2021 @ 5:14 pmExcessive friendliness is the mark of liars, con men, and deliberate time-wasters.
Excessive friendliness? Once you get to friendliness, you can start to worry.
I’m sorry, whatever your name is, but you come off as a Franks Burns style crank. Lashing out appears to be your stock-in-trade. Just settle down and have a normal conversation. I’ll bet you’re capable of it. You seem like an intelligent guy. Perhaps you don’t realize that your style precludes meaningful discussion. When I read your comments all I can think of is “seething”.
I think our host is welcoming of different opinions as long as people remain civil. Your use of multiple names suggests that you have previously crossed the line in a big way. Why don’t you try a different tack? You might be a happier person doing so.
norcal (b9a35f) — 9/25/2021 @ 5:34 pmKevin M (ab1c11) — 9/25/2021 @ 3:56 pm
I think everyone here knows that.
Rip Murdock (beeefc) — 9/25/2021 @ 5:35 pmFWO, sounds as if you like Trump because supporting him expresses the anger and resentment you feel towards the previous leaders of the GOP. That’s as valid a reason to support a candidate as any other. It’s not one I share. But it’s as valid as any other.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/25/2021 @ 3:05 pm
Considering I laid out all the GOP’s failures over the last 30-40 years in pretty explicit detail, the notion that this is nothing more than simple emotional dislike, and no other reason whatsoever, doesn’t really hold water.
Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 9/25/2021 @ 6:37 pmFWO, I didn’t mean to imply it was just an emotional reaction and dismiss it because of that. I was trying to summarize and acknowledge that your stated preferences are a valid choice.
Sorry my comment came across insulting when it wasn’t intended that way.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/25/2021 @ 7:14 pmSorry my comment came across insulting when it wasn’t intended that way.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/25/2021 @ 7:14 pm
No worries at all, I understand it wasn’t meant to be insulting.
I do think there’s a tendency in recent times, and I suspect it has to do with the increasing rates of mental illness, free-floating anxiety, and the mainstreaming of reliance on therapists, that any kind of expression of negativity is rooted in some past trauma that needs to be recognized and purged. I got into it with one of my far-left childhood classmates and acquaintances recently on social media over gun control, and his tack in response to my counter-argument that provided very specific examples of where he was mistaken, as well as his general condescending attitude, was to label me “long-winded” (a rather ironic insult, considering his pretensions towards being educated) and ask “who hurt me” that would cause me to not fall in lock-step with his own political views.
I guess he figured that since neither of us were in the “popular crowd” in middle school and high school, that I should have naturally gravitated towards far-left progressivism rather than conservatism, and decided that my views were based on past trauma, rather than a principle arrived at through study and examination. The former is easier for him to grasp since he can dismiss opposition as unthinking and reactionary, the latter less so since it would rely on him to critically examine his own biases.
Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 9/25/2021 @ 7:55 pm53. norcal (b9a35f) — 9/24/2021 @ 4:26 pm
Noting was original with him – he tapped into thngs that had been said on talk radio, but what was original withhim was taking it into policics. He observed that ot many people knew how to argue, or knew too many facts anyway. He took positions that nobody else took – and all his primary opponents would neither agree with him nor argue cogently with him. (sometimes they quibbled on the practicality of some of his ideas, like Mexico paying for the wall, but never on the principle.)
He showed them up.
He also won mostly closed primries, especially in states in wich Republicans always lost elections.
It’s not a majority. But the other candidates have flaws.
It takes awhile to get to know someone. The biggest problem is that we have de facto, an extremmely limited pool of possible candidates – maybe 400 in all – and that no one can jump in late when some candidates falter and they are eliminated too easily.
Fpr the nomination, it almost always is limited to those who have apossibility of wining on the first ballot. Candidacies are not combined.
The root cause if campaign finance “reform” which does not allow a group of millionaires to jump start a campaign. Like they did in 1968.
Because they QUIT
So what if Marco Runio lost the Florida primary. Kasich was much weaker.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/26/2021 @ 6:45 am105 Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 9/25/2021 @ 7:55 pm
WEll, it couldn’t be that what he held was not obviously right, and you weren’t evil. so that was what was left as an explanation. It might be also that he detected an element of sadism or unconcern in them.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/26/2021 @ 6:48 amI think everyone here knows that.
Really?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/26/2021 @ 8:19 amWho said that the “neocons and the Bush Republicans” took no blame for “their failures”? I’m sensing you’re just making that up.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/26/2021 @ 8:55 amAs a person who voted for Bush twice and who lost my confidence in 2006, I have no problem blaming Bush for the foreign policy disaster that was the Iraq invasion and post-invasion screw-ups. Who else is there to blame for that?
Well, yes, that happens when you’re channeling your feelings and not engaged in any facts, TML. In-person voters in AZ received a paper ballot printout to check their votes and then dropped them in a box at the precinct. Mail-in ballots were signature-verified. There is no evidence of breaches in chains-of-custody with either. The fact that there was practically no difference in the count of the paper ballots and the machine counts is testament that there was no funny business with the machines or software. This is basic stuff.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/26/2021 @ 9:02 amIf the election were stolen by having the counting system or some other form of electronic chicanery you would find a disconnect between the paper ballot count and the electric count. As no such disconnect exists we can safely conclude that the election wasn’t stolen in that way.
The fact that people are ignoring that is pretty good evidence they’re selling something and you can calm down.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/26/2021 @ 9:08 am111. Time123 (9f42ee) — 9/26/2021 @ 9:08 am
Noble gold? Investments in waterfront housing? Food that doesn’t spoil for 25 years?
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/26/2021 @ 9:14 amFWO: “decades worth of venality, corruption, lies, and failures, all in the service of enriching themselves at the expense of American citizens….we have a massive surveillance state, aided and abetted by Gilded Age-style trust, whose primary goal is eliminating whatever privacy we have left”
So, how would you grade Trump….because he’s ostensibly the front-runner that the GOP wants to push forward in 2024 (who exactly is calling for Bush)? How did Trump do with debt….even before Covid? Did he make it a priority or was he perfectly fine with large tax cuts, more military spending, and more immigration spending….with zero proposals on reducing spending? How did Trump do with his own bailouts, specifically farmers that were hit by his “easy-to-win” trade war? How innovative was his “new” NAFTA that carved out a few goodies for a couple of favored industries and otherwise was about the same as “the worse agreement ever”? How well has China done when we dropped TPP? Did Trump move to eliminate the surveillance state or did he really not talk about it? Are we any better off with regards to N. Korea or Iranian nuclear ambitions?
It seems that you want to talk about 2007…except its 2021…..and the GOP is currently incoherent. It tip toes around white supremacists and seems to be hoping that there will magically be more old white guys to fill up the party. We can’t have a nominee that believes that it’s all about him….that is ill-informed, ethically challenged, and consumed by conspiracies….and seems willing to drag the Constitution into the gutter…to keep power to keep himself and his sons out of prison. It’s frightening that your response to the current situation is sadly…. BUT BUSH!
AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 9/26/2021 @ 1:30 pm“If the election were stolen by having the counting system or some other form of electronic chicanery you would find a disconnect between the paper ballot count and the electric count. As no such disconnect exists we can safely conclude that the election wasn’t stolen in that way.
The fact that people are ignoring that is pretty good evidence they’re selling something and you can calm down.”
Incorrect. There was doubt on the authenticity of both the provenance of the paper ballots and the electronic records. This is the second time you’ve offered poorly sourced denials as evidence.
“In-person voters in AZ received a paper ballot printout to check their votes and then dropped them in a box at the precinct. Mail-in ballots were signature-verified.”
Stating what the ideal procedures would be does not in fact verify that these procedures were in fact followed.
“The fact that there was practically no difference in the count of the paper ballots and the machine counts is testament that there was no funny business with the machines or software. This is basic stuff.”
I found no such evidence of that in the audit report. Are you just reporting the pre-audit numbers as gospel, like you’re some sort of authority who I should trust? Are you reading from a script? Is that the script?
All anger at this obvious fraud, the obvious attempts to distract and deflect from even this half-assed audit in a nominally Republican area, and all options are on the table. It’s beyond obvious that the conversations being held by lefties and necons is utterly without good faith or any actual concern for anything other than restating their preprogrammed scripts.
Pre-check Numbers (a0b43d) — 9/26/2021 @ 2:05 pmAJ, I think you’re misreading FWO. He’s not saying trumps good at those things. He’s saying that the Bush didn’t fix them and didn’t fight the culture war. So there’s bo upside in a Bush like candidate. Trump may be bad at them but he at least makes culture war noises.
Time123 (a5c040) — 9/26/2021 @ 2:11 pm“The fact that there was practically no difference in the count of the paper ballots and the machine counts is testament that there was no funny business with the machines or software. This is basic stuff.”
Pre-check Numbers (a0b43d) — 9/26/2021 @ 2:05 pm
If they would have found a discrepancy, they would have said so.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/26/2021 @ 2:35 pmTime, the President acting like a radio talk show host…..and opining on cultural stuff….doesn’t actually accomplish much. It fires up the base….but it does it for both sides. The President has to represent all of the country and fastidiously choose when he will use the bully pulpit to address a wrong…while understanding that he is the Chief Law Enforcement Officer for the country. The problem with Trump is that it was like he thought he was perpetually on The View….and felt like he had to air every grievance…no matter how small and petty…which diminishes the office and wastes opportunities. Further, when the President does come out against something like police protests….he should do so with well thought out policy and analysis…you know…like a leader attempting to persuade people and win the moral high ground. Trump was fine with just aggitating the situation….playing to the base and shrinking his tent. Obama failed many times in this regard as well….but it doesn’t somehow rationalize Trump.
No one is calling for a Bush-like candidate……just…as a start…anyone better than Trump. The GOP needs to get back to offering conservative solutions and competent governance. Biden is the best GOP recruiter right now. The GOP does not need PT Barnum….or a Vince McMahon showman. They need someone who can lower the rhetoric and act the adult. I want to respect my President…and hear wisdom is his (or her) words. Why is that outlandish?
AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 9/26/2021 @ 2:41 pmYou’re burden-shifting, PCN. I don’t care what you trust or not, it’s about what you can prove, and you haven’t proved the existence of serious fraud. You’re making the accusation, so it’s on you to back it up.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/26/2021 @ 3:34 pmCyberNinjas reported the actual results of their “audit”, and Biden widened his vote margin by 360. They pointed out 55k ballots with the potential for fraud, but they actually did not unearth any illegal ballots. Their $6 million “expose” was a dismal failure for Trump.
You can feel that there was “obvious fraud” all you want, but you need real evidence, and you’ve produced none. If you want to talk about “obvious”, the obvious reason you haven’t found serious fraud is because isn’t any, and there isn’t any because Trump has been feeding you a pack of lies, and you’re the gullible fool swallowing them.
Trump may be bad at them but he at least makes culture war noises.
1. The noises did no good.
2. Most of what he did was counter-productive.
Example: When the issue of Islamic refugees came up, he loudly opined that he didn’t want any of those terrorist, um, Muslims here. Then he tried to announce a “moratorium” on immigrants from Muslim countries, pretending he did mean Muslims, because that would be wrong.
Didn’t work and his big mouth undercut what might have been a good policy had someone less bigoted made it. And this happened again and again. Bowe Bergdahl owes his freedom to Trump’s big mouth.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/26/2021 @ 4:13 pmIt might be also that he detected an element of sadism or unconcern in them.
It’s more that he was projecting his own neuroses, rather than examining the argument logically.
Who said that the “neocons and the Bush Republicans” took no blame for “their failures”? I’m sensing you’re just making that up.
I said it, and I stand by it. Look how bent out of shape you got when I provided that laundry list–your first reaction wasn’t to admit, “Yeah, that was definitely on them, and we’re still paying the price for it,” or try to argue to the contrary. You erected a strawman.
It’s frightening that your response to the current situation is sadly…. BUT BUSH!
It’s a lot more frightening that you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that all the failures of the Bush administration and the neocon-led GOP is what ultimately led to their rejection by the GOP base.
The GOP needs to get back to offering conservative solutions and competent governance. Biden is the best GOP recruiter right now.
And right there is why the GOP is in the position it is. “Conservative solutions and competent governance” shouldn’t require a massive corporatized surveillance state, it should require enforcement of anti-trust legislation to mitigate crony capitalism and privacy degradation. It shouldn’t require bailouts of megabanks that commit securities fraud and blackmail the country to restore their balance sheets, it should require CEOs and executives in prison. It shouldn’t require 20-year overseas nation-building projects, it should require spending that money on American infrastructure and public spaces. It shouldn’t require open borders, it should require strict immigration controls and cultural assimilation. It shouldn’t require disengagement from the cultural and political sphere out of a misplaced sense of conflict avoidance, it should require a robust defense of the nation’s history and heroic figures. Look at the panicked reaction by the left to the right’s pushback against cultural Marxism in primary and secondary schools–the last thing these people want is the right abandoning its “I’m not corrupt enough to be civically engaged or run for local offices” pretense and creating cracks in the left’s monopoly on the political-administrative complex.
Get back to what? The GOP was rarely, if ever, there to begin with.
Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 9/26/2021 @ 4:52 pmFWO, what are you afraid that the government is looking at? I think Google is probably collecting far more detailed data on you…to focus their advertising. It sounds paranoid….do you know anyone whose life has been invaded and disrupted because of purported government surveillance? I don’t…there’s a much higher risk from identity thieves….and cyber criminals.
I’m also curious what your solution to the financial meltdown of ’07-08 would have been? Simply saying “do not bail them out” is not the end of the story, though some in Congress did favor that approach. A complete loss of confidence in the financial markets could have brought on panic….more bankruptcies…..and chaos…maybe a depression. Congress could not risk people’s investments and security to settle a score. As a side note at the time, Trump favored the bank bailout (see Larry King Apr 15 2009).
As per the culture war, this seems to be the big pre-occupation of many on the right…..as if dividing the country even further…..with maybe more violence….will make this a better country. Yes, there are things we disagree with. I find renaming military bases absurd…and removing statues generally misguided (although if local communities want to remove statues from state properties, I have less problem with that….as I do believe in federalism). But I’m also a Constitutional Textualist…and believe the federal government shouldn’t be in the business of weighing in on transsexuals, gay marriage, abortion and the many other myriad of issues that you appear to want the President to meddle in…so you can sleep at night. Hey if Massachusetts wants to be a liberal hell hole…and San Francisco filled with people defecating in the streets….that’s what local control is all about. Provide a different local vision. MYOB.
There is so much more to life than to be worrying that someone disagrees with you about liberties and the scope of local government. Right now the federal government has to get to a place where it has some ability to reign in spending….while addressing the long-term viability of medicare and social security. We are toying with a financial cliff because of unwavering belief in the dollar….transsexuals playing softball seems a peculiar attention distractor…..
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 9/26/2021 @ 5:47 pmFWO, what are you afraid that the government is looking at? I think Google is probably collecting far more detailed data on you…to focus their advertising. It sounds paranoid….do you know anyone whose life has been invaded and disrupted because of purported government surveillance? I don’t…there’s a much higher risk from identity thieves….and cyber criminals
I’m sorry, is it not “conservative” any more to raise concerns regarding the 4th Amendment? Is this the old neocon “if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t be worried” excuse? Are you okay with James Clapper outright lying about the government spying on American citizens? Is that a “conservative” value?
Here’s a news flash–the government and Big Tech are not separate entities. The CIA has a venture capital arm called In-Q-Tel that’s been investing in these companies for at least 25 years. Google’s search engine development was funded by them, as was Google Earth, which was built from Keyhole’s Earth Viewer software (as was Rob Painter, a Keyhole executive who ended up on Google’s board after Google purchased it, who just happens to be a front man for the CIA). Facebook was nothing more than a crummy MySpace clone until it Zuck got angel investment from Peter Thiel and Jim Breyer; Thiel’s Palantir was an In-Q-Tel project, and Breyer has long been known as a front man for the intel agencies and DoD through Accel Partners.
These companies are big BY DESIGN, because they serve the purposes of the security state. It’s the FBI’s library checkout database, which was exposed by the New York Times in 1983, applied on a world-wide scale.
I’m also curious what your solution to the financial meltdown of ’07-08 would have been? Simply saying “do not bail them out” is not the end of the story, though some in Congress did favor that approach.
Yeah, it is, actually. Why should they have been made whole by my not-even-born grandkids for the fraud they committed?
A complete loss of confidence in the financial markets could have brought on panic….more bankruptcies…..and chaos…maybe a depression.
You know what causes a “complete loss of confidence”? Lying about the value of your securities and paying the ratings agencies to prop up that lie.
Congress could not risk people’s investments and security to settle a score. As a side note at the time, Trump favored the bank bailout (see Larry King Apr 15 2009).
Give me a break. NO ONE who caused the financial crisis paid for what they did. You know who did? Everyone who lost their job, had their pensions nuked, lost their businesses, committed suicide or saw their health deteriorate after being financially ruined. And who gives a rip if Trump favored it, other than the NeverTrump Republicans? They should have been allowed to fail irrespective of who supported bailing them out.
But I’m also a Constitutional Textualist…and believe the federal government shouldn’t be in the business of weighing in on transsexuals, gay marriage, abortion and the many other myriad of issues that you appear to want the President to meddle in…so you can sleep at night. Hey if Massachusetts wants to be a liberal hell hole…and San Francisco filled with people defecating in the streets….that’s what local control is all about. Provide a different local vision.
The problem with Massachusetts and San Francisco being leftist cesspools is that their ideology doesn’t remain confined to Massachusetts and San Francisco. You shrink from a conflict that’s been going on for decades, but sooner or later, you’re going to either have to put some skin in the game and put your beliefs on the line.
There is so much more to life than to be worrying that someone disagrees with you about liberties and the scope of local government
On the contrary, if you’re not invested in the life and culture of your own community, you effectively cede it to people who end up practicing iconoclasm and cultural subversion. School boards, city councils, planning committees–these are places where not only our the bones of our communities, but the more intangible cornerstones of our culture and civic/national identity are built, rebuilt, and reinforced day after day, year after year, decade after decade. I have nothing but contempt for so-called “conservatives” who do nothing but loudly complain about how their community is run, but always act as if they are above it all and refuse to get involved to fix it. People like that are nothing but big-talking, blustering cowards. As much as I disagree with the left, I can at least respect that when they see something they want reformed to their liking, they get involved and work their butts off to make it happen, and they never, EVER stop until they get their way.
Gramsci recognized it. Marcuse recognized it. That’s why they proscribed subverting and overturning the “hegemony” of capitalism through cultural pillars such as the schools, because they recognized that local institutions were what reinforced that culture and kept communism from taking root.
We are toying with a financial cliff because of unwavering belief in the dollar….transsexuals playing softball seems a peculiar attention distractor…
The fact that you think both battles can’t be fought at the same time is ultimately why the “this isn’t the hill to die on!” neocons got kicked to the curb–because there wasn’t a hill that they weren’t willing to retreat from.
Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 9/26/2021 @ 7:13 pmMore misdirection, more misinterpretation:
“If they would have found a discrepancy, they would have said so.”
They said far more than enough to cast doubt on any numbers, and found far more than enough to cast doubt on the result no matter what actions are taken. A hand recount of previously-spoiled, duplicate, and otherwise fraudulent ballots, is not the most important part of an audit, so there’s no basis for comparison. These attorneys’ definition of basic terms are getting about as soft as their definition for ‘vaccine’, which is only to be expected of people seeking to excuse criminally treasonous activity.
When the state certifiers say “No duplicates” and the audit finds 34,000 of them, a large majority of which came in after November 3 in what may be kindly termed as “dumps”, there’s no basis to trust the public officials in charge of the numbers.
Nothing has been ‘debunked’, nothing has been ‘resolved’, you are not entitled to ‘alternative facts’ or ‘sudden alternative opinions’ regarding election security or the tampering with elections computer equipment pursuant to a subpoena (and you know damn well every liberal lawyer here would be all over anything similar from Trump, though there’s quite a lot of comparisons to make with Russia’s recent elections that they seem to have yet to comment on. Guilty consciences made them forget all about Helsinki, eh?)
Miraculous Indulgence (d6257b) — 9/26/2021 @ 7:47 pmYou’re moving the goalposts, FWO. First you say that neocons and Bushies didn’t accept blame, now you’re saying they weren’t contrite enough. Talk about strawmen. I’ll also note that you said you stood by your claim, but you provided zero evidence in backing it up. So yes, I’ll say it again: You’re making it up.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/26/2021 @ 9:55 pmWhat’s your proof that these ballots were “previously-spoiled, duplicate, and otherwise fraudulent”? The best that CyberNinjas could muster was that there was the potential for it, but they actually found nothing.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/26/2021 @ 10:51 pmWe are now in “Coincidence!? I think not!” territory.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/27/2021 @ 12:50 amKevin, it’s been there for a while. No evidence of fraud. Not even a small scheme that managed to steal a few dozen votes. Just questions the don’t answer and the assertion that fraud exists in that uncertainty. I said “don’t” on purpose,
Time123 (a5c040) — 9/27/2021 @ 3:38 amSince several of the questions have explanations.
You’re moving the goalposts, FWO. First you say that neocons and Bushies didn’t accept blame, now you’re saying they weren’t contrite enough. Talk about strawmen.
There’s no goalpost-shifting here at all, Paul. I’m very consistent in criticizing the neocons and the Bush Republicans for not accepting any responsibility for their failures.
I’ll also note that you said you stood by your claim, but you provided zero evidence in backing it up. So yes, I’ll say it again: You’re making it up.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/26/2021 @ 9:55 pm
Someone doesn’t appear to understand the fallacy of proving a negative. You can’t refute a single item in there, so you put strawmen and you deflect, and you simply end up proving what I originally said about the neocons not learning any lessons from their screwups, or how that led to Trump snatching the party right out of their hands.
Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 9/27/2021 @ 4:08 am“If they would have found a discrepancy, they would have said so.”
A discrepancy between the number of ballots reported cast or counted by machine in any precinct, and the number of paper ballots from that precinct. Every ballot must be attributed to a registered voter – although they are supposed to be secret at the individual level the ballots are not secret at the precinct level – which means batches of something like 200 votes.
That means no ballot box stuffing, unless false ballots are substituted for real ones.
Miraculous Indulgence (d6257b) — 9/26/2021 @ 7:47 pm
Your issue is different – it has to do with spoiled or possibly substituted ballots. It’s not clear what they are talking about. It probably does not show any possibility of being organized. Now if a voter spoiled a ballot cast in person, he or she could void the original and get another.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/27/2021 @ 4:11 amNobody I know in Toronto voted for Biden. If there was no fraud, then how come President Trump lost, eh? You have no answer for that, do you?
nk (1d9030) — 9/27/2021 @ 4:11 amSomeone doesn’t appear to understand the fallacy of proving a negative. You can’t refute a single item in there, so you put strawmen and you deflect, and you simply end up proving what I originally said about the neocons not learning any lessons from their screwups, or how that led to Trump snatching the party right out of their hands.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/27/2021 @ 4:15 amNo, you made a claim, FWO, and you can’t or won’t back up your statement. Simple as that. I’m not interested in the rest of your litany, because it’s arm-waving rant.
I think it was likely the other way around. They recounted officially valid ballots. What else? None of them showed any signs of having been added en masse.
The previously-spoiled, duplicate, and otherwise invalid ballots were probably noted separately.
Does that mean mathematically?
I don’t know what you are talking about, It would be repeated far more if they found that there was a real problem.
Again, if you have double ballots, you have a discrepancy. A ballot can be described as duplicate if it is attributed to an particular voter and that can only happen at the submission stage. Another way is if the ballot cannot be read by the machine, and a duplicate is created. That poses some problems but the original was evidently kept and no changes found.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/27/2021 @ 4:21 amIt is sometimes possible to determine who an individuak voted for (although in probably every state
steps are supposed to be taken to orevent that.
It happened in the case of primary vote this year by New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s son because he was the only voter registered who cast a ballot at his election district (NY name for precincts)
He lived in Gracie Mansion but his father (and I assume mother) was registered at his old Park Slope address in Brooklyn.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/27/2021 @ 4:27 amPaul, we could have everybody in America line up in person, put their hand on the Bible, Torah, Koran, and a box of Barilla, and tell us how they voted, and this sock puppet (and I do believe that there is just one sock puppet with a VPN and a multitude of alias) will still insist that there were irregularities because the spaghetti wasn’t cooked and that casts doubts on the editions of the Bible, Torah, and Koran too.
nk (1d9030) — 9/27/2021 @ 4:32 amFWO: I’m still not seeing the practical….the operational….concern about surveillance. I do want the government trying to ferret out the next 9/11 attack….or thwart the next Stephen Paddock…and solve crimes. Obviously there are lines….and yes the 4A is alive and well. But nothing you mention directly impacts my life….it does not stifle free speech and the expression of unpopular ideas…and it does not prevent me free movement….and my ability to exercise my other rights such as self protection etc. Imagining something is different than confronting a real threat. To have a slippery slope, you have to at minimum show a changing grade….I don’t think you’ve made that case.
“You shrink from a conflict that’s been going on for decades”
Some battles are worth the fight….many of them are exaggerated and used by politicians to stay in power. Is CRT an existential threat? Parents should always be aware of what is going on in the classroom….what is appropriate and age appropriate. But this is not a wide-spread problem by any measurable metric….or even one that I see as looming or growing. The same with transsexuals. Pushing young confused teens to make irreversible changes to their bodies is monstrous….and pushing for honesty about the number of trans that regret their transition is appropriate….but have we solved all of the big societal problems that we are now free to focus Congress on THIS. Again, this is wee small stuff that absent media would likely touch 1% of our lives.
You still do not appreciate what the continued ratcheting of the rhetoric has done to civil society. Your solution is to up the volume and compel other people to accept your conclusions….and that will fix the toxicity in our politics. Our Constitution is predicated on compromise…..all the checks and balances are designed to get people to sit down and hammer out deals where both sides get something. Reagan and the ’80’s is a perfect example of this….as the GOP never controlled the House yet Reagan scored many conservative legislative victories. I’m not for capitulation on things that matter….but getting back to common purpose and creating a functional environment for governance. Trump is the antithesis of this. People have turned politics into their dramatic entertainment…sport if you will….rather than how we come together to solve collective action problems. Both sides are to blame….but whichever side pulls us out of the current paralysis…will earn good will. I would rather see an effort to try that instead of banging our heads against the wall…and thinking harder will somehow change the result….
AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 9/27/2021 @ 4:52 amCompletely disagree with this. I have a right to privacy. If the government wants to read my mail (electronic or otherwise) they need a good reason and i want a process in place to protect my rights.
Time123 (b8ca43) — 9/27/2021 @ 6:33 amThis is an end in itself..
The thing about surveillance is that the person who truly amped it up was Obama, as well documented by Edward Snowden’s leak, not Bush.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/27/2021 @ 7:16 amOn neoconservatives: The system swallowed another long comment of mine, and I don’t have the time to recreate it today. But if you are interested in the subject I would suggest reading the Wikipedia entries on the two publications most associated with neoconservatism: The Public Interest and Commentary. In that order.
You may, having read those entries, find it hard to recognize the neoconservatives in the many attacks the Factory Working Orphan makes on them.
(In foreign policy what distinguishes them is their fierce anti-Communism and their support for Israel. I don’t know whether he objects to the anti-Communism, the support, or both.)
And, like me, you may wonder why he gives them so much power, now. To begin with, the last president to pay them much attention was George W. Bush, and he lost control of Congress in the 2006 election and left office in January 2009, more than 12 years ago.
If he believes the neoconservatives are still running things, I think the Orphan should tell us who he thinks they are, and how they are doing it.
(Full disclosure, I subscribed to both publications for years, and still have some back copies.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 9/27/2021 @ 8:01 amPaul Montagu – I recommend Edward Jay Epstein’s book on Snowden, “How America Lost Its Secrets” to you — and to almost everyone else.
Fun fact: At one point, Snowden adopted “Wolfking Awesomefox” for a screen name.
(Epstein’s earlier books are also worth reading, in my opinion.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 9/27/2021 @ 8:10 amTime: “If the government wants to read my mail ”
But that’s the thing, who is saying that the government is reading your email? I’m not ambivalent on the subject….and agree that there should be probable cause for a judge to authorize collection on an individual. I’ve not tracked a lot on large meta data collection….Prof Orin Kerr….is a 4A expert that used to post at Volokh.com…he might be a good source on the topic. I’ll try to read more when I have a chance
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 9/27/2021 @ 11:15 amKidnapping, assassination and a London shoot-out: Inside the CIA’s secret war plans against WikiLeaks
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 9/27/2021 @ 11:23 am138. Jim Miller (edcec1) — 9/27/2021 @ 8:01 am
Probably both. And the war on terror as well. In fact, any attempt to oppose evil anywhere outside the United States.
Maybe inside as well – it just has not become a practical issue. But I can see people like that opposing efforts by the federal government to help combat crime in Democratic controlled cities.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/27/2021 @ 11:38 amCome to think of it, there are people opposed to that – they want to cut off anti-crime money if those cities refuse to co-operate in enforcing anti-immigration laws.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 9/27/2021 @ 11:44 amNo, you made a claim, FWO, and you can’t or won’t back up your statement. Simple as that. I’m not interested in the rest of your litany, because it’s arm-waving rant.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/27/2021 @ 4:15 am
You don’t prove someone NOT saying something, Paul, and you keep deflecting because you know you can’t defend a single item I listed there. Simple as that.
You still do not appreciate what the continued ratcheting of the rhetoric has done to civil society. Your solution is to up the volume and compel other people to accept your conclusions….and that will fix the toxicity in our politics.
But nothing you mention directly impacts my life….it does not stifle free speech and the expression of unpopular ideas…and it does not prevent me free movement….and my ability to exercise my other rights such as self protection etc. Imagining something is different than confronting a real threat. To have a slippery slope, you have to at minimum show a changing grade….I don’t think you’ve made that case.
On the contrary, the government using Big Tech’s capabilities to spy on you does impact your life. One can’t claim to be a “principled conservative” and support the government using these companies to spy on Americans, especially when they are lying that they’re doing it.
You still do not appreciate what the continued ratcheting of the rhetoric has done to civil society. Your solution is to up the volume and compel other people to accept your conclusions….and that will fix the toxicity in our politics.
The “toxicity” is a direct result of two opposing sides fighting to determine whose ideological vision will be the cultural status quo of this nation for roughly the next generation or two. If you are appalled by kids being brainwashed into thinking they’re the opposite sex, then that is absolutely a hill to die on, as is the indoctrination of cultural Marxist shibboleths in school curriculums. Like I said, the left is freaking out about the pushback against this because it’s their disciples who dominate these local government entities, as they always do when the right shows any inclination to vigorous resist their agenda.
If he believes the neoconservatives are still running things, I think the Orphan should tell us who he thinks they are, and how they are doing it.
No, Jim, I said that the reason they aren’t running things anymore is because of a long record of foreign and domestic policy failures and the continual selling out of the GOP’s conservative base, and the country as a whole, for short-term political gains. You’re erecting a strawman because you also can’t similarly defend their record.
Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 9/28/2021 @ 7:27 pmI agree with FWO on this.
Time123 (213142) — 9/29/2021 @ 3:36 amYou’re eliding, FWO. You can’t find one necon who has said that Bush and “neocons” took no blame for their “failures”. You’re making sh-t up.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/29/2021 @ 5:16 amFWO: “the government using Big Tech’s capabilities to spy on you does impact your life.”
Shouldn’t if I’m not breaking the law. We voluntarily choose to use the internet and cell phones. Both produce data that can be legally requested in an investigation. Internet searches can also be lumped in with metadata requests that are not specifically targeting you. Step one, understand that. Step 2, be mindful of what data you are putting out there not just for government to see but internet sites and ambitious hackers who can track your IP address. Step 3, use technology that can limit your vulnerability….and certainly understand the limitations of surfing “anonymous”. Would I prefer that every government request be accompanied by a warrant? Probably, but I’m also not seeing a lot of cases where this is being abused. I don’t feel a compelling urge to protect terrorists, criminals, and child pornographers.
AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 9/29/2021 @ 6:34 amFactory Working Orphan – Here are three simple questions for you:
1. Who are the neoconservatives you criticize so sharply?
2. Do you oppose their fierce anti-Communism, their support for Israel, or both?
3. Since you believe they have been out of power for years, why have who those who replaced them been unable to cure the ills you believe they caused?
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 9/29/2021 @ 6:39 amJim, I would add another question for FWO: Who did he vote for president in 2016 and 2020.
Paul Montagu (1888f5) — 9/29/2021 @ 8:01 amYou’re eliding, FWO. You can’t find one necon who has said that Bush and “neocons” took no blame for their “failures”. You’re making sh-t up.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/29/2021 @ 5:16 am
You’re constructing strawmen again, Paul. That’s known as “making sh-t up.” Here, I’ll lay out your political class’s failures once again, since you didn’t bother reading it and offered up your first strawman in response:
Shouldn’t if I’m not breaking the law.
That’s hardly the point, and you know it. You’re just repeating the old neocon “if you don’t have anything to hide, it’s not a big deal if the government is spying on you!” saw. It’s a garbage principle and hardly worth chalking up to “conservative” values.
1. Who are the neoconservatives you criticize so sharply?
2. Do you oppose their fierce anti-Communism, their support for Israel, or both?
3. Since you believe they have been out of power for years, why have who those who replaced them been unable to cure the ills you believe they caused?
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 9/29/2021 @ 6:39 am
1) Pretty much all of them that were the party’s leading lights from the roughly end of the Reagan era up through 2016.
2) I pointed out their failures above. You just don’t want to face up to them.
3) If only it was that easy to fix 25 years or so of multiple policy failures across the board.
Jim, I would add another question for FWO: Who did he vote for president in 2016 and 2020.
Paul Montagu (1888f5) — 9/29/2021 @ 8:01 am
Neither was Trump, both times.
Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 9/30/2021 @ 7:50 pmWhat conservatives are not pro law and order? Conservatives are not pro national security? There’s a lot of extrapolations that must happen before my “private” internet browsing history is being collected and associated with me….without any probable cause. Saying that the government has massive capabilities does not actually prove that they are abusing individuals or using personal data in a malicious manner. Otherwise it’s just more Chicken Little
AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 9/30/2021 @ 9:39 pmNo, FWO, you’re still eliding. You made a claim and you continue to not back it up. You’re just making generalized meaningless statements.
Eliding again. I didn’t ask who you didn’t vote for, I asked who you did.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/30/2021 @ 10:38 pmThere’s a lot of extrapolations that must happen before my “private” internet browsing history is being collected and associated with me….without any probable cause. Saying that the government has massive capabilities does not actually prove that they are abusing individuals or using personal data in a malicious manner
Post-Snowden, any kind of claim like this really doesn’t hold water anymore.
No, FWO, you’re still eliding. You made a claim and you continue to not back it up. You’re just making generalized meaningless statements.
No, that laundry list of the neocons failures was pretty specific, Paul. That’s why your first response was this nice little false dichotomy:
instead of a robust defense of the neocons’ record during that period. You know they screwed up, and rather than acknowledging it outside of Iraq in a later comment, you deflected.
Heck, all I have to do is go through this thread to see apologists for the bank bailout and current surveillance state alone. Paulson still thinks the bank bailout was justified. Idiots like Max Boot and Tom Nichols whine that we’re still not wasting money and lives in Afghanistan (as did numerous commenters here).
If you think that laundry list isn’t factual, feel free to refute it. But you can’t, so you won’t.
Eliding again. I didn’t ask who you didn’t vote for, I asked who you did.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 9/30/2021 @ 10:38 pm
If it wasn’t Trump either time, what does it matter?
Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 10/2/2021 @ 7:10 amI asked you a specific question, FWO, and you continue to not answer it. I can only conclude that you’re making sh-t up.
Why are evading a basic question? One more time: What were your presidential votes in 2016 and 2020? What are you so afraid of?
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 10/2/2021 @ 7:16 amI asked you a specific question, FWO, and you continue to not answer it. I can only conclude that you’re making sh-t up.
Yeah, you tried to deflect because you can’t defend your side’s record, nor do you even bother trying. I’m certainly not answering that stupid false dichotomy you offered up, because it wasn’t worth responding to.
Why are evading a basic question? One more time: What were your presidential votes in 2016 and 2020? What are you so afraid of?
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 10/2/2021 @ 7:16 am
Certainly not you, Paul. The mere fact that you can’t defend your own side’s record is damning evidence enough.
Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 10/3/2021 @ 5:03 pm