Well, The Dirty Dozen and An Affair to Remember
For a parallel to the AZ audit . . . perhaps Plan 9 from Outer Space
A Rachel Maddow video, so technically it’s biased, but it’s basically a synopsis of the letter that the House sent to Cyber Ninjas demanding documents
That remains to be seen.
This, too, remains to be seen. I’m not holding my breath.
The Republican party can’t be saved at this point. The only question is whether they take the whole country down with them. I’m about 50/50 on this question.
I am deathly afraid that in the not so distant future, the MAGA hoard, along with key appointments in State Houses will have nullified tens or hundreds of thousands of votes in Democrat leaning cities in key states, and we’ll be welcoming Donald Trump II into the White House in 2025. They’re already planning this in plain view.
Well I have been wrong every time I predicted they would do something smart and behave like educated human beings. I still HOPE this dystopian future does not befall us but I am not likely to be foolish enough to discount it the way I have been. If they do get - - that guy back and give him the power he craves, won’t they be surprised when he abandons them, throwing them under the bus the second they are done installing him?
Even if by chance I am right (about due don’t you think?) and the senate will not accept their shitty results and tries to hold them accountable — some crazy extremest like Wendy Rogers will make the point moot ( by arming a nuclear bomb, jumping on it like she wants to ride a horse, launching it and riding toward the ground waving her hat in her hand until it detonates! I used to think she was too crazy and extreme for the party to unleash outside of AZ but Georgia proved me wrong (along with Colorado and Florida). Apparently there is no such thing as “too crazy” or “too extreme” for national politics.
Ms. Maddow is opinionated, but she does report facts! Her shows may only tell one side of a story but at least she does not make ship up out of thin air. I didn’t used to like her but she sure has grown on me in the last few - - - times when I decided to live in reality.
I honesty believe Maddow could debate the entire lineup of Fox personalities (excepting Chris Wallace who knows up from down) and wipe the floor with them - as long all participants have to state facts that can be collaborated.
I bet she would take the challenge too (if impartiality could be guaranteed). I suggest this, everyone sits on a chair in Dr. Evil’s lair- Maddow on one side, as many FOX drones as they can muster on the other side. If any one on either side of the table utters any unverifiable fact the floor opens up and they sucked down into a tortuous death. After two hours of debate, if both sides still have participants at the table, the winner will be decided by a panel of dozens of scholars who are experts in some field and have been peer reviewed at least half a dozen times. Or if one side no longer has any debaters, it goes to the last woman standing.
The content of the report reminds us that there are still a few adults within our government. I would love to see these lying assholes held accountable for their flat out lies. It would be great for our entire nation if as soon as you made an outlandish claim in public you were given twelve hours to provide scientific level proof of your claim or you had to shut the fuck up for a full month (first offense). Second offense, six months in minimum security and no contact with any living creature except mice and lizards. That would give MTG, the Colorado one . . Bobert (or is that a Dilbert character?) and others pause.
I heard of one guy who brazenly claimed the Cyber Ninjas “audit” might report no fraud! Boy, that guy was certainly misguided to say the least!
I know I already commented on this but the idea is haunting me.
I keep underestimating these people, I keep telling myself and others that the powers that be will not allow it to go that far, that life is too good to sacrifice it all for an ideology (and a stupid one at that- disclaimer: I am stating an opinion here, but in a just world I believe it could be easily proven to be factually true).
Then I remember that right before the Renaissance and the Reformation, when the religious right held too much power- things went to hell in a hand basket (to coin a phrase)^^ and the mighty city of Rome had more feral cats than it did people. In the future will the Capitol Building and perhaps the White House be ruins because they took blocks and stones to build other things after the fall?
^^ For the sake of those who may misunderstand – I know I am not coining a phrase. This is how I make fun of myself when I rely upon a cliche` too often.
Elected officials upholding their oaths and doing their jobs saved US democracy last year. In the interim red state legislatures and Republican apparatchiks have been busily transferring the powers to administer elections to the legislatures and away from the people whose first loyalty is to fair democracy.
They aren’t hiding the plan and if/when it’s implemented it will be done with the full approval of GOP voters. And the Supreme Court.
So today while I was running errands my response to the absurd “call” of Ms. Rogers occurred to me:
Since I us unable to celebrate my birthday this year in the manner I wished due to lock downs and mask mandates, I hereby “call” on the State of Arizona to declare next Saturday to be February 18th so justice can prevail! That will force the United States to also declare July 24th as February 18th.
Obviously, all freedom loving nations will also join in our heroic and just do-over of February 18th. Only freedom hating commie pinko Socialist nations will refuse to declare next Saturday the Eighteenth of February. Those countries will have an inaccurate calendar that day (and possibly forever depending on how we go forward after Saturday- will Sunday be July 25th as it would have been, or will the 24th be moved to Sunday and all days push forward one day?)
As far as I can reason my call for a second February 18th is a valid and meaningful as Wendy Roger’s call to recall electors and hold another election for an election that has already been certified.
As long as the Arizona Senate is changing reality - - - what would you like to call for? A solid month of full moons? A border wall around Florida paid for by Cyber Ninjas? Please feel free make your call to action here.
Why aren’t the fake news media like CNN, Fox, OAN and Breitbart covering this explosive news?
Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America
07/16/21
Fox News and other media outlets incorrectly side with the outdated and terrible Maricopa County Election Board to report no fraud found in the Presidential Election. They spew the gross misinformation purposefully put out by the county and the Associated Press, and IGNORE the very important Arizona Senate’s hearing yesterday, which showed 168,000 fraudulent ballots printed on illegal paper (unofficial ballots), 74,000 mail in ballots received that were never mailed (magically appearing ballots), 11,000 voters were added to the voter rolls AFTER the election and still voted, all the access logs to the machines were wiped, and the election server was hacked during the election. They sided with the County and not the brave Arizona Senate who is fighting for the people of Arizona. The same anchor at the desk the night Fox called Arizona for Joe Biden now wants you to believe there was no fraud. The anchor was Bret Baier. Thankfully, Arizona has strong State Senators willing to fight for the truth. Senator Wendy Rogers says “I have heard enough. It’s time to decertify this election.” Senator Kelly Townsend said the fraud was so bad “I want to see indictments.” Senator Sonny Borrelli says “I’ve seen enough evidence to challenge the validity of the certification of the Maricopa County Election results.” Arizona shows Fraud and Voting Irregularities many times more than would be needed to change the outcome of the Election.
I am not shocked that #45 finds these findings groundbreaking and substantive. I am also not overly surprised that low level boot lickers are supporting him further. (Personally, I cannot wait to hear about illegal paper.)
I will be surprised if the legislature (specifically Senate President Fann) and Cyber Ninjas themselves are not named in a lawsuit brought by the Maricopa County election officials and possibly Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
As everyone but me predicted, the MAGA’s are using these highly questionable claims (that will without doubt render down to procedural mistakes and innuendo) to further the claims about the 2020 election. What a remarkable clusterfuck this is turning out to be!
My biggest shock is that I cannot find any of these claims referenced in the few “news” sites he doesn’t claim are fake. Maybe I need to go to Alex Jones site to get the real scoop. Or, has the deep state gotten to him too?
I wonder if they have grasped the concept of “If I tell lies and harm a private company, I will get my ass sued off, and will not get to keep the money I grifted from the MAGA rubes.”
It’s all about the money.
Politico has a pretty good debunk of these new claims.
It’s mostly the same old gaslighting that they used back in November and December.
The “discrepancy in mail-in ballots” talking point ignores the fact that early voting is technically in-person absentee voting, using absentee ballots - but those absentee ballots aren’t recorded as being mailed.
The “voters that didn’t appear on the rolls until Election Day” are voters that cast provisional ballots - if you go to vote and there’s a problem with your registration ( or another issue, often it’s a person that requested and received an absentee ballot but decided to vote in person) you cast a provisional ballot. After the election, your vote will be counted once it’s been determined that you’re eligible and your name is added to the rolls at that point.
The same old bullshit… frankly, if that’s all they could come up with this election must’ve been the cleanest ever.
Close, but if one was to use this to try to convince a Fraudist that it explains the discrepancy, they would probably tear it apart by maintaining that with over 2 million voters, only having 47,000 voters vote early doesn’t make a lot of sense. It is a bit more complicated than that.
My understanding is that in Arizona, absentee voting and early voting is the same thing. That is, to participate in early voting, you request an absentee ballot, fill it out, and return it. If you request it to be mailed, they mail it to you. If you request it in person, they give it to you. Regardless, when you request an absentee ballot and one is provided, that is recorded in a EV32 file, which records the name, DOB, Voter Registration, address, and probably a bunch of other stuff. You can either return it by mail, or deliver it in person. When the ballot is returned, that is recorded in a EV33 file.
These EV32 and EV33 files are used by the political parties in their Get Out The Vote (GOTV) campaigns. That is, they are able to contact the voters who have requested a ballot, but have not returned it, to remind them to return it. The thing is, the deadline for getting a ballot mailed to you is 11 days before the election, so the EV32 file does not contain information from voters past this date. If a voter misses the deadline for requesting a ballot by mail, they can still pick up one in person (but this does not get recorded in the EV32 file).
The deadline for receiving the ballots is one day before the election, so names are being added to the EV33 file up until that date. A voter who picked up a ballot in person after the deadline to mail them out, and returned it (as would happen if they voted early in person, after the deadline for mailing them out), their information would appear in the EV33 file but not the EV32 file. It would appear there were a bit over 47,000 voters who did this.
What gets me about this is that the Liaison between the Az State Senate and the Audit team was Ken Bennett, who was Secretary of State for Arizona for the 2012 and 2014 Federal elections. You would think that he would know these little quirks of the Arizona election code and could have informed the Audit team that they were making a false assumption when they tried to use these files to account for the number of ballots sent out vs. those received. He was there at the hearing, but said nothing. I guess it’s possible to be the SOS and not fully understand every little nuance of the election code, but he certainly would know who to talk to in order to verify (or not) if this discrepancy was significant (you know, act as a Liaison, what he was getting paid to do). The fact this did not happen is just another indication that neither the audit team, nor the Az State Senate have done any due diligence in any of this.
And, for all the noise that was made over the servers, passwords, and other networking issues with the voting machines, I would think they would have reported the actual results of their hand-count (which they drug out for months). That is, all these machines do is read the ballots and tabulate the results. If these machines were somehow compromised so that they were counting Trump votes as Biden votes, the hand-count would have shown that. If the hand count matches the machine count, that would prove that there was no problem with the machines. Now, the hand count is the most labor-intensive part (and likely the most expensive) of the whole audit. Why did they not report the results?
Because they match up almost perfectly with the machine counts and thus undermine the whole fraud narrative?
I am certain this is correct. If they found actual miscounts anywhere that would have been the headline.
Instead they created a headline that does not reflect the true nature of the results but gives cause to stir up the easily fooled (otherwise known as “the base”). When they quietly retract their outrageous claims no base will be notified. Unbelievably they are sticking to playing to the base yet again.
Also, my claim above that Zeno’s Paradox would play a role seems to be outdated or perhaps never applied. I believe the GOP is half what it once was (although the remaining half more than makes up for the diminished numbers with static and noise). But they are not halving with every bad decision as I had predicted. Apparently I was in the last group to defect after the Senate refused to convict during the impeachment. (And I was so positive the party would halve then halve again.)
Assuming this report is true-
and assuming he stays on this message for a full week or more^^ and perhaps other FOX News personalities also say vaccines are okay but not mandatory, we can see if they convert any MAGA never vaxers. If FOX News says it is okay to vaccinate and 33% to 50% of MAGA;s then vaccinate can we at least agree these people let others think for them?
Further, I predicted if they get those first few to turn it would be huge wave because the others would want to join the NEW bandwagon (perhaps: this is TRUMP’S vaccine- why is Biden taking credit for it?!?!). Plenty of opportunity for me to be wrong on multiple levels here! I hope he sticks with this new message and gets other anchors to join in also.
^^(which seems likely- I wonder if a loved one of Murdoch or some other mucky duck at FOX had a loved one suffer or die from CORVID recently)
They finally realized it was mostly Trumpers that are dying now.
AIUI, the objections aren’t about the accuracy of the counts. The hand count audits have pretty much universally agreed with the machine-generated reporting and the Ninjas know they don’t have a case there.
Instead, the “charges” being investigated are that Dem apparatchiks – right under the noses of Republican poll officials, Republican poll watchers and Republican elected officials – slipped in hundreds of thousands of fraudulent ballots. Ballots signed with dead people’s names or ballots just made up and manufactured in Chinese ballot factories.
Yes, it’s complete bullshit.
In a recent post in my neighborhood’s Nextdoor feed, someone who was sounding off on the fact that some local HOAs have employed traffic cameras to catch speeders – just like the CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY would do!!!11! - and mention was made of the fact that “Biden’s vaccine” almost KILLED the poster!!!11!
I kind of cocked my head at that one. I thought the butthurt was that Trump created the vaccines and that Biden was taking all the credit.