All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Gray Lensman]

Can you elaborate?

Do you think there's massive organized fraud? If so, what evidence is there and why haven't people in Trump's orbit made a better case for it?

Or is it something else, like a departure from agreed-upon rules?

No one backing Trump gets to complain about breaking unwritten rules. That's Trump's MO - if it isn't written down it doesn't count, and if he can make holding him to it to expensive to enforce, then it isn't written down.

[CSTowle]

Lord knows the military has stolen all the elections prior to this one by letting service members vote by mail.

Oh, wait, you're just spreading more conspiracy theory bulls*** that I can't believe this forum tolerates you doing.

But...this is different. Trust me.

The problem I have with the people who complain about mail-in ballots, or voting machines or whatever excuse they want to conjure to justify their belief that the guy they love lost is that whenever there are serious proposals to make voting more transparent, trackable/verifiable, and easier to do they talk about "States Rights" and leaving the Federal Government and country-wide standards out of it. Never mind that the last time this guy brought the subject up I replied with several widely talked-about suggestions to make voting better and his first response was "we don't necessarily want voting to be easier". Because people voting and voting accuracy/legitimacy isn't the goal here. Their team winning, whatever that takes and whoever gets screwed in the process, is.

[worstblogever]

https://www.*********.com/election_h...cb6b2afab.html

I'm so sorry, WBE. I hope your liver can endure a little longer, though.

Oh lord. I'm going to have to un-retire her profile.

But...this is different. Trust me.

The problem I have with the people who complain about mail-in ballots, or voting machines or whatever excuse they want to conjure to justify their belief that the guy they love lost is that whenever there are serious proposals to make voting more transparent, trackable/verifiable, and easier to do they talk about "States Rights" and leaving the Federal Government and country-wide standards out of it. Never mind that the last time this guy brought the subject up I replied with several widely talked-about suggestions to make voting better and his first response was "we don't necessarily want voting to be easier". Because people voting and voting accuracy/legitimacy isn't the goal here. Their team winning, whatever that takes and whoever gets screwed in the process, is.

By most accounts, the 2020 election was the most secure in recent history, and that's even with all the supposedly "less secure" mail-in ballots Republicans are so whiny about.

[babyblob]

But...this is different. Trust me.

The problem I have with the people who complain about mail-in ballots, or voting machines or whatever excuse they want to conjure to justify their belief that the guy they love lost is that whenever there are serious proposals to make voting more transparent, trackable/verifiable, and easier to do they talk about "States Rights" and leaving the Federal Government and country-wide standards out of it. Never mind that the last time this guy brought the subject up I replied with several widely talked-about suggestions to make voting better and his first response was "we don't necessarily want voting to be easier". Because people voting and voting accuracy/legitimacy isn't the goal here. Their team winning, whatever that takes and whoever gets screwed in the process, is.

This right here. If voting was easy then everyone who has the right will be able to do it. And as was said on Fox news. That would lead to chaos as the wrong kind of people would be voting in elections. I wonder what group these "Wrong kind of people" belong to.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Oh lord. I'm going to have to un-retire her profile.

My condolences to your liver.

By most accounts, the 2020 election was the most secure in recent history, and that's even with all the supposedly "less secure" mail-in ballots Republicans are so whiny about.

If Qpublicans complained so much about mail-in ballots, they can just blame their god emperor Trump for that. Because of Trump's horrendous handling of the virus in 2020, that drove scores of people, myself included to eschew polling places in favor of the safer option of mail-in ballots.

[Tendrin]

Oh lord. I'm going to have to un-retire her profile.





By most accounts, the 2020 election was the most secure in recent history, and that's even with all the supposedly "less secure" mail-in ballots Republicans are so whiny about.

Paul Lepage and Michelle Fiore. Did we travel back in time to 2012?

[worstblogever]

Paul Lepage and Michelle Fiore. Did we travel back in time to 2012?

I forget which Republican defender tried handwaving away a lot of profiles with the defense of, "Well, you can see a lot of these people getting voted out in primaries or being forced to resign. The GOP takes care of its fringe elements..."

Not only has the fringe turned into the main fabric, there's bits of fringe like LePage and Fiore they cut away over the past seven years that they're sewing right back into their kooky quilt. And they're not the only names I'm seeing resurface... Matt Salmon is back again, for one.

[Xheight]

I had a big response typed out to this and then I realized that I'm only giving you the attention you desperately crave.
It's not my job to pointlessly argue with you about basic human sympathy or ethics or morality. Either you're feigning these opinions for attention or you genuinely believe this garbage because you're an awful person.

You are entitled to think that I am an awful person as a point of our pluralist society but that is just it - what you call basic sympathy is more programmatic than your opinion and has become policy and law erasing needed harsh realities or in other cases like that of Covid just replacing one harshness with another. Further, It is not that I need the attention but that the alternative ideas of what is "good" for society be aired in this forum to hold off, as some one else put in it The Closing of the American Mind

[Xheight]

How, exactly?

Do you even comprehend the logistics that would be required for such massive voter fraud?

And we don't have complicated systems of mass distribution and manipulation? I guess that whistle blower at FB is just a crank too?
We know that very sophisticated data science and mail marketing people worked, like SKDK, for the DNC and the Biden Campaign. As we know from Bush v. Gore close elections are the easiest to turn.
Looking for bags of fake ballots is distraction from an more elaborate tweak of the system.

[JackDaw]

And we don't have complicated systems of mass distribution and manipulation? I guess that whistle blower at FB is just a crank too?
We know that very sophisticated data science and mail marketing people worked, like SKDK, for the DNC and the Biden Campaign. As we know from Bush v. Gore close elections are the easiest to turn.
Looking for bags of fake ballots is distraction from an more elaborate tweak of the system.

Of course, every Presidential candidate run by either the Democrats or Republicans is going to use sophisticated data analysis and manipulation techniques to try to win votes.

That’s not “stealing” the election…unless you accept every election in last 100 years has been stolen. The Donald and his supporters will have used those manipulation techniques just as much as Joe and his team. In that regard both sides were on a level playing field.

The election was only stolen IF a great many fake votes were cast, or the votes cast were deliberately miscounted. The Donald’s team has thrown plenty of money at trying to establish that, and has failed repeatedly.

If you really think court after court is biased against the Republican cause…then please tell us the reasons for that belief.

[Tendrin]

If you really think court after court is biased against the Republican cause…then please tell us the reasons for that belief.

"My guy didn't win and I hate Democrats" is about it.

[Xheight]

Can you elaborate?

Do you think there's massive organized fraud? If so, what evidence is there and why haven't people in Trump's orbit made a better case for it?

Or is it something else, like a departure from agreed-upon rules?

As my son might put it there are so many "sus" aspects that some are just blind alley waste of time, money and energy intentionally. If you Blue team this after Red Teaming the Legal challenges you can deploy your assets to waste time and blunt calls for evidence. We know the DNC did a red team conference in the summer that was reported in the MSM. Lessons learned from Marc Elias' work for the Democratic National Committee in 2016 took the suit on Machine counts and Mail ins and set up the pawns in the elaborate campaign. Then we have the much cited and circular "The Secret Bipartisan Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election | Time" https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ which talks about the PR to inoculate the Mail in vote from critique.
Key figure there Mike Podhorzer shows up again in recent data science debates among DNC polling predictions which points to the fact that the campaign was not just about PR but tactical lawsuits and flooding election balloting zones. (look at how Greens were closed out this go round)

This is the short version. Look I don't think Trump or his people have the brains or the operation to counter it and it would take a well funded investigation to set out to delegitimize our election system and who has the stomach to do that.

meanwhile in the disinformation age

Alleged irregularities in Dominion Voting Systems machines used in the Nov. 3 election were a large part of the “Stop the Steal” movement which contended President Donald Trump actually won the election by a landslide.
As the Jan. 20 inauguration loomed, the very mention of Dominion Voting Systems was regarded as “unhinged.” In fact, those raising such claims have subsequently been branded “domestic terrorists” and several alternative media operations reporting on those claims have been silenced by legal threats.
Countering those claims of Dominion irregularities every step of the way was Democrat Party attorney Marc Elias.
Now, the shoe is on the other foot. Elias is alleging voter machine discrepancies in a close New York congressional race in which the Republican candidate has the lead.
In New York’s 22nd Congressional District, Republican Claudia Tenney leads Democrat Anthony Brindisi by 125 votes.
“In this case, there is reason to believe that voting tabulation machines misread hundreds if not thousands of valid votes as undervotes, and that these tabulation machine errors disproportionately affected Brindisi,” Elias, of the D.C. firm Perkins Coie, said in a Monday court filing - February 4, 2021

I wonder where the million dollar defamation suit by Dominion is?

[JackDaw]

This is the short version. Look I don't think Trump or his people have the brains or the operation to counter it and it would take a well funded investigation to set out to delegitimize our election system and who has the stomach to do that.

So it’s obvious that the Democrats won the Presidential election by cheating but nobody in the Republican Party has the brains, motivation or money to do anything about it??

[Xheight]

Of course, every Presidential candidate run by either the Democrats or Republicans is going to use sophisticated data analysis and manipulation techniques to try to win votes.

That’s not “stealing” the election…unless you accept every election in last 100 years has been stolen. The Donald and his supporters will have used those manipulation techniques just as much as Joe and his team. In that regard both sides were on a level playing field.

The election was only stolen IF a great many fake votes were cast, or the votes cast were deliberately miscounted. The Donald’s team has thrown plenty of money at trying to establish that, and has failed repeatedly.

If you really think court after court is biased against the Republican cause…then please tell us the reasons for that belief.

I mostly agree with you excepting one crucial point the already exceptional case of a Covid election which allowed for bullet-proofing the mail-in votes that were harvested. Technology, as we have seen across our experience, has a very clear capacity to create an un-even playing field particularly when access to those technologies are not pluralistically distributed. It is this aspect which horrifies me most not Biden's inflation but a collection of like-minded techies deciding who best is going to protect their interests.

[Xheight]

So it’s obvious that the Democrats won the Presidential election by cheating but nobody in the Republican Party has the brains, motivation or money to do anything about it??

Well they are to the extent they can take the tech out of it with knocking back the Covid emergency provisions but it is like end-running an entire industry like Hollywood. Establishment Republicans are faced with the Baby for the Bath water scenario and that's why they are saying that was then but let us go back to pre-Covid.