“Everyone is in favor of free speech… but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.” ― Winston Churchill
I hear Senate incumbent Raphael Warnock (D, GA) says challenger Herschel Walker (R, GA) will not be able to cope with the cognitive demands of being a Senator.
What is Warnock’s opinion of John Fetterman’s Senatorial capability? Was he ever asked?
Should Mehmet Oz have used this tactic against Fetterman in PA?
If not, why not?
If she were serious, and constrained by logic, she would be supporting some voting process which would:
2) Ensure ballot integrity. Meaning a) no illegitimate vote (see 1) is counted, b) polling places are closely monitored by both major parties without interference, c) voting machine software is open source, d) no unsolicited mail in ballots are sent (for example, to the P.O Boxes of vacant lots), e) ballot harvesting is outlawed, f) military ballots are counted, if properly postmarked, in any state where the number of military personnel could potentially change the outcome, even when delivered a month after election day.
That would be, literally, a good start on stopping ‘election theft.’ The only thing on that list about which reasonable might disagree is voter ID.
Therein lies a problem. Some of the people putatively portrayed as reasonable by the legacy media (Stacy Abrams, Joe Biden), still invoke Jim Crow laws as a reason to suppress the votes of living citizens by insisting deceased and/or non-citizens have a right to dilute legitimate voter rolls.
We are substantially past the Jim Crow era.
On the other hand, we are not past ballot fraud. Technology and the relaxing of ballot verification have made it easier than ever. No one worried about ‘election theft’ would countenance it. Much less promote it.
I won’t go into the simple utilitarian argument that voter ID is a much smaller threat to the Republic (it is not a Democracy) than violating the other restraints I have mentioned. You could look this up and form your own opinion.
Given Hillary’s history, do you think her advice is credible? Or is it partisan political maneuvering and personal spite?
Let’s hear your proposal, Ms. Rodham. Does it involve Sid “Vicious” Blumnenthal as Federal Election Czar?
The pre-theft of election plots, like suppression of the Hillary email story, and the Hunter Biden laptop story, is left to another post.
Facebook and YouTube continue to bury, or outright ban, well founded commentary on CCP virus public policy and the myriad election irregularities of which the Uniparty disapproves.
They aren’t alone. Amazon has banned books. Twitter banned all mention of Hunter Biden’s laptop, including suspending the New York Post‘s account.
That ban arguably lasted long enough to affect the election, and now that we know Hunter Biden has been under Federal criminal investigation since 2019 for his foreign business dealings, it seems like Twitter, et. al., should have some accountability.
The article slice below is behind a paywall. I think Glenn Greenwald is worth the less than a buck a week as an honest liberal entrepreneur. You pay as much for the CNN/MSNBC/CBS/PBS/ABC/NBC channels on your cable.
Some of what he writes is public. A link appears in TOC’s blogroll under Glenn Greenwald.
Greenwald left The Intercept (he was a founder) because they spiked an article he wrote about Hunter Biden before the election. That’s when I checked out his independent gig on Substack.
Greenwald (this one is paywalled) provides a gimlet eyed view:
The revelation that Hunter Biden is being criminally investigated for his business activities in China came on Monday from the investigative target himself, and he predictably and self-servingly depicted it as just a narrow probe about his “tax affairs” by the U.S. Attorney for Delaware. As I wrote last night, that by itself would be significant enough — the documents published in the weeks before the election by The New York Post contained ample information about exactly that matter, yet were widely repressed by a union of mainstream news outlets, the intelligence community and Silicon Valley based on propaganda and lies. But new reporting suggest the investigation has been far broader.
“The federal investigation into President-elect Joe Biden’s son Hunter has been more extensive than a statement from Hunter Biden indicates,” Politico reported Monday night. Specifically, “the securities fraud unit in the Southern District of New York also scrutinized Hunter Biden’s finances”; “investigators in Delaware and Washington were also probing potential money laundering and Hunter Biden’s foreign ties”; and “federal authorities in the Western District of Pennsylvania are conducting a criminal investigation of a hospital business in which Joe Biden’s brother James was involved.” CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz added that “at least one of the matters investigators have examined is a 2017 gift of a 2.8-carat diamond that Hunter Biden received from CEFC [China Energy’]’s founder and former chairman Ye Jianming after a Miami business meeting.”
We’re slipping into fascism backwards. One normally thinks of the formal government (Mussolini comes to mind) as the instigator of fascism*, but in the current case it’s most certainly rent-seeking large corporations leading the charge. And that goes far beyond our cybernetic overlords. It’s also Maim Scream Media™, academiots, and corporate whores mau-mauing the swamp dwellers.
Of course, Antifa and the present cadre of BLM have raised mau-mauing to an actually dangerous level with arson, looting, assault, and murder. They would be the brownshirts.
Then, there’s this:
Hunter Biden Email Reportedly Names Kamala Harris, Others as Key Contacts for ‘Joint Venture’ With China Energy Co
Perhaps Eric Swalwell could do with a serious “debriefing.”
*That definition is fatally flawed because it includes a mention of capitalism, but the misunderstanding is pervasive. Free markets are required under capitalism. Fascism precludes free markets.
Not quite a year ago, three US Senators and a Representative were sufficiently worried about the integrity of US voting technology – “an integral part of our nation’s democratic process.” – that they wrote to the private investment firms owning majority shares in the three largest voting machine vendors: Dominion, Hart InterCivic, and Election Systems & Software.
These were Senators Elizabeth Warren (MA), Amy Klobuchar (WI), Ron Wyden (OR), and Representative Marc Pocan (WI). Senator Warren has posted a copy of the letter on her official website, here.
The letter goes on to say:
“Election security experts have noted for years that our nation’s election systems and infrastructure are under serious threat. In January 2017, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security designated the United States’ election infrastructure as “critical infrastructure” in order to prioritize the protection of our elections and to more effectively assist state and local election officials in addressing these risks. However, voting machines are reportedly falling apart across the country, as vendors neglect to innovate and improve important voting systems, putting our elections at avoidable and increased risk. In 2015, election officials in at least 31 states, representing approximately 40 million registered voters, reported that their voting machines needed to be updated, with almost every state “using some machines that are no longer manufactured.” Moreover, even when state and local officials work on replacing antiquated machines, many continue to “run on old software that will soon be outdated and more vulnerable to hackers.”
In a separate letter (March 2018) Senators Klobuchar and Jeanne Shaheen (NH) had written to the 3 election equipment vendors (as distinct from the investment firms):
“Recent reports of U.S. IT and software companies submitting to source code reviews in order to access foreign markets have raised concern in Congress given the sensitivity of the information requested by countries like China and the Russian Federation. As such, we write to inquire about the security of the voting machines you manufacture and whether your company has been asked to share the source code or other sensitive or proprietary details associated with your voting machines with the Russian Federation.”
The letters’ signatories are all Democrats.
My point is not that this is proof even Democrat legislators think the 2020 election was sufficiently fraudulent to justify overturning it.
It is that we have every reason to be alarmed about voting machines running Windows 7 in 2020 (11 years after Microsoft support ended), hardware consisting partially of Chinese parts, and whose software source code has been shared with Russia and China: Combined with a completely unprecedented number of mail in ballots one of the election contestants predicted would show their candidate a winner late in the count after trailing significantly. They were accurate. Perhaps presciently, in a year where every pollster overestimated their prospects.
A relatively minor effect? We can no longer even discuss voter ID. What does ID matter when only the rubes will even register to vote? Can you ID a voter whose signature on a mail-in ballot isn’t checked, or forged by a ballot counter? Can you ID a voter who may merely be a hidden algorithm or a Chinese hack? We need at least to think our elections matter.
That’s the point Warren, Klobuchar, Wyden, Shaheen, and Pocan were making.
Rasmussen’s poll tells us 30% of Democrats believe “it is very likely (20 percent) or somewhat likely (10 percent) that it [the election] was stolen.” This must be addressed. Even if 90% of that 30% approve of the theft. Especially then.
That 47% of all voters think Trump was robbed… that this percentage of the electorate can even contemplate this question should alarm us all even more than the possibility alarmed the letters’ signatories. All of whom are Democrats.
If there was ever an issue calling for bipartisanship; if there was ever an issue squarely within the purview of government regulation – this is it. Democrats and NeverTrumpers who contend that Trump’s refusal to concede until all legal remedies have been explored is an international embarrassment to the United States miss the mark. Our election process needs to be fixed. Our election machines need to be as hardened as our missile silos. At minimum, Trump’s suits should look at accomplishing that.
If no other outcome from the legal disputes over this election are forthcoming, EVERY American should wish that the real problem is solved. The embarrassment is that we can’t vote as believably as third world satrapies.
It’s not Trump’s apparent loss that rankles so much as it is the demand we uncritically trust the ballot counting in Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Atlanta. Or else we’re deplorable, though I guess we are anyway.
Finally, if you think the concern over Chinese parts in American voting machines is a piffle, you should read this. If the Chinese are building backdoors into your “smart” doorbell, a soft target, please consider the value of backdoors into your electronic election systems. And combine that with the level of incompetence and overt deception we’ve seen in those conducting elections at the precinct level.
Most of the people demanding that Sidney Powell produce potentially witness endangering evidence, outside the courtroom, right now; are the same ones who insist, in spite of clear evidence to the contrary, that Hunter Biden’s laptop is Russian dezinformatsiya. They are the same people who suppressed that story.
It has been just three weeks since the election. Recounts are still going on. If the allegations have any truth, the story will be very complex. Let’s remember it took Al Gore 37 days to concede after withdrawing his first concession in 2000. The only deadline is the day the Electoral College votes.
And, as Democrat Speaker of the House Tom Foley and George Mitchell, the Senate Democrat leader, said in a 1991 joint statement:
“These allegations [fake news about a 1980 deal with Iran to keep American hostages until after Carter lost] are both persistent and disturbing. We have no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, but the seriousness of the allegations, and the weight of circumstantial information, compel an effort to establish the facts.”
(This is often misquoted as, “Even though there is no evidence, the seriousness of the charge is what matters. The seriousness of the charge mandates that we investigate this.“. Which is a pretty good paraphrase, nonetheless.)
Democrats applied this same logic to the Steele dossier. The differences are that they were the source of the dossier, they were the source of leaking it, and they insist to this day it was true – despite evidence from their own Special Counsel.
I don’t want to believe in massive election fraud either, but over the last 5 years the Democrat leadership have demonstrated they are capable of such a conspiracy.
Nearly a Third of Democrats Believe the Election Was Stolen From Trump.
I saw a note that Senator Charles Grassley, 87, has tested positive for CCP virus. He is in quarantine. God speed his recovery.
He missed his first Senate vote in 27 years. After 8,927 consecutive votes.
It isn’t clear, but I think Judy Shelton’s nomination to the Fed was put on hold because Grassley’s vote would not be available. He must be on the Senate floor to cast a vote.
You have to wonder why it is, when all manner of people whose identity isn’t checked at all get ballots in the mail because of a pandemic, that Senators can’t vote over a secure face-to-face video connection. If you think about it, Grassley is pretty easy to recognize, and the NSA could agree not to hack the transmission. Grassley could even have some staffer hold up a copy of the Washington Post in the background to provide a time stamp and proof of life.
It would be different if a filibuster still required someone to stand and speak continuously, and if a filibuster was even in the offing. Neither is the case. So, as long as he is as mentally capable as Joe Biden, Grassley should be able to vote on Senate matters remotely. Some few of which are still important to the country.
What if a dozen Senators, or more, are capable of voting but denied the opportunity? Lacking a provision to continue the Senate’s business during a pandemic is a national security threat. Then again, so is the willy nilly mailing of ballots.
Until Friday the word “mandate” meant a clear and convincing, if not resounding, message from an electorate. It meant full-throated approval of a candidate’s policies by a significant majority. Biden claims his “mandate” includes “action on COVID, the economy, climate change, and systemic racism.”
With Joe Biden’s assertion that he has a mandate – though not a single state has yet certified a result and margins in key states are fractions of a percent; though his party experienced dismal results in the House contests; though control of the Senate won’t be decided until Georgia’s runoff election in December; though not a single state legislature changed hands – we are being treated to yet another Orwellian attempt to shift the meaning of a word 180 degrees.
Despite a years long investigation intended to prove Donald Trump is a Russian agent, despite an impeachment predicated on Trump asking a foreign government to investigate corruption involving prominent American politicians, for which compelling evidence was suppressed by the same media which waged unrelenting war on the President for four years, despite the Democrats’ refusal to ever accept the results of the 2016 election, despite corporate censorship by Big Tech, despite a politicized pandemic and associated massive unregulated vote by mail: Donald Trump received the second highest total popular vote in history, and increased the proportion of minority voters for the GOP.
Biden calls this narrow result a mandate. Despite, in addition to all the above, the highest number of suspect ballots in history, and secretive, irregular vote counting in solid blue Democrat cities with a long history of electoral fraud. Tammany Hall springs to mind.
Can it be proven that the fraud this year was sufficient to swing the election? Probably not.
Still, mailed ballots were discarded, and there are several witnesses claiming ballots which would have been ineligible were backdated. GOP poll watchers were prevented from observing ballot counting, even so far as blocking windows so the process couldn’t be observed at all.
We have the Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar’s tweet, “Using the title ‘President’ before the word ‘Trump’ really demeans the office of the presidency…” And the fact that “Election officials in Pennsylvania allegedly told Democrat operatives the names and contact information of voters whose ballots were rejected before the end of Election Day, which Republicans say violates state election laws.” They did that so Democrat ballots with errors could be ‘fixed.’
Then there’s the Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s thumb on the scale advice, “Need help with your mail in ballot, finding out where to vote, or something else?” Shapiro wrote on social media. “Call the @PADems Voter Assistance Hotline.” He also said, “If all the votes are added up in PA, @realDonaldTrump is going to lose..”
He would have been well advised, as the chief law enforcement officer, to have inserted the word “legal” before the word “vote,” because the non-obvious part of that statement is the definition of “a vote.”
If there is a mandate from this election, it is to raise the integrity of our voting process at least to the level of Iraq in 2005.
As I say, the evidence is probably not sufficient across half a dozen or more states to prevent a Biden Presidency, but the damage done to confidence in the integrity of our political system is immense – and it’s Democrats who did it. They abandoned the appearance of propriety. And after their relentless, hysterical, false vilification of President Trump, who believes they wouldn’t cheat?
For the far left of that Party, chaos was the objective. Destroying the foundations of the Republic is the announced goal.
If Joe Biden does not forcefully make correcting this mess his number one priority, we will have a full answer about how he will govern.
Update: I forgot to add that this is why Trump’s suit(s) should go forward, to drag this walled section of the swamp into the sunlight. Yes, these will suits be further disruptive, but absent a correction we will be absent a Republic.