[Genuine Realist]

[quote quote=4097]You failed to comment on the statesman like afternoon address by the President elect. What did you think of that. Did he inspire your confidence? Do you dare to dream? And between you and me, the self serving self enriching political “pros” have been stoking these fires since long before Trump came on the scene. To now play the “adults” in the room as their long term good work bears the expected fruit is rich indeed. Fascinating here though, is only one side of the aisle was outraged by the summer of violence and property destruction. Laughable, but the outrage only becomes bipartisan when they are attacked where they live. Welcome to the America you’ve created fools. I recall Nixon, an intern, endless accusations of racism, inciting confrontations with Trump administration staff, lies to sell policy, dossiers, the Kavanaugh hearings. Frankly, efforts now to avoid responsibility for what has been done by our “leadership” is repulsive to me. Not unlike 535 dissembling SF DA Boudins and his paroled felon and the two dead women on the street.[/quote]

I have had plenty to say about the earlier nonsense.

But this is about Trump, and inspiring a mob to attack a core Constitutional function. That’s the difference, and a big one. In short, apples and oranges.

So I  will call it sedition and he should stand trial for it. So should the antifa types, for what it’s worth, but that’s not quite the same as attacking the Constitution itself.

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

He crossed a line today, much to my surprise. I thought he had more common sense than in fact he has.

I’m not kidding about the comparison to Aaron Burr.

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

You always defend an incitement to riot (or solicitation to murder, etc.) case on the basis that the speech was misunderstood, not intended to incite, and so on. That would be Trump’s defense and maybe it would succeed.

But my prima facie case is built on two bases – first, there was language in Trump’s speech that suggested that the only response to the ‘threat’ was strength. This is still ambiguous, but in context it was fairly aggressive.

The other basis is the continued reiteration of the claim that the election was ‘stolen’, despite its complete untruth. Unlike the two Mortimer Snerds – dumb Trump stooges – that pollute the site with posts, I actually did read the pleadings and declarations of the first dozen or so lawsuits filed by Trump and the GOP. This was an unusual election, what with covid and the partisanship. It had to be  tested by litigation – and it was. The showings even the first suits were uniformly ludicrously inadequate – quintessentially lame.  They were rejected by every court, and rightfully so. I expected Trump would accept the fact that the election, albeit unusual, was a fair one. Not so. He has continued to file suits, wilder and wilder, and his claims about election steal have become more, not less, strident. I think a jury might take very seriously the theory that these wild lies are deliberately intended to undercut a fair election, and provide the predicate for a forcible seizure of power, albeit temporary.

FWIW, American elections are conducted by amateurs. What happens is that tens of thousands of precinct workers are recruited or volunteer. They’re ordinary citizens who staff the polls and are primarily interested in tallying the votes correctly. They don’t just sit there while some guy in a black mask stuffs votes into the box. Of course, when you have tens of millions of votes cast, you have some human error. But we are talking about the dozenses or hundreds, not the colossal effort in fraud that Trump implies.

The number of votes by mail, which is certain to increase, is exploited by Trump deliberately to fuel the faux outrage. These aren’t dumps. What happens is that the votes are not opened and counted until Election Day. It takes a long time to do that. That’s why you’ll see a candidate such as John James leading as 80 or 90 percent of the PRECINCTS report. But not all precincts are created equal. The ones that report early don’t have that much overhang. The ones that have a heavy number of absentee or votes by mail are counting the whole time, but it takes longer. This enables Trump to talk about a voting ‘dump’, which is nothing more than the ordinary delay of counting a lot of mail voters.

(D0 any of you who speculate on fraud ever consider the sheer mechanics of it? The number of man hours it would take, the personnel  . . . even the number of ballots? The actual operation of getting the ballots into the box? We are talking about hundreds of hours, whole office buildings, etc. The notion is farcical. In any case, in the 60 or so suits Trump has filed, he hasn’t shown any systematic fraud at all. As noted, the showings are pathetically inadequate.)

So, yeah, I have a case. I may lose it, but I’ve lost cases before. That’s secondary.What is essential is not to allow this to become part of the American political tradition. The ludicrous examples of Portland and Seattle, the notions that the First Amendment allows you to block freeways as a ‘protest’ is bad enough. A President of the United States urging his followers to disrupt the proceedings of the Electoral College is infinitely worse.

I try him for treason. I invoke Aaron Burr. I like my chances.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Genuine Realist.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Genuine Realist.

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

Oh, you understand fully.

The usual ‘tu quoque’ response. Poor Johnny One-Note.

 

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

The other prosecutorial theories were farcical.

But this is the Real Deal.  I am sure you see the difference.

You HAVE to prosecute. Not to do so is to accept the conduct as tolerable – and it isn’t.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Genuine Realist.

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

That litigation is a joke.

As even you should be able to see.

(Hint: there is a reason why this was filed five weeks after the election, rather than the next day.)

You are embarrassing yourself. If b that’s possible.

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

Lefty thread or not, there is not one case that Trump has filed that has made it beyond the allegation stage. Over and over and over these insinuations of major fraud turn out to be ridiculously overblown overhyped rumor.

Thus, the Arizona lawyers withdrew any claims of fraud. They wanted the record sealed so that the public wouldn’t know how absurdly small the number of contested ballots actually was. No such luck.

The guy who claimed that 24,000 ballots were harvested in Pennsylvania? Turns out he never saw anything, overheard a couple of supervisors talking.

All those miscounted votes with bad addresses? He hasn’t been able to produce any.

And on and on and on. Everywhere that Trump has been asked to put his money where his mouth is. . .  he isn’t got no money. Only mouth.

Plus none of you who believe this nonsense ever wonder what happened to the thousands of forgers and office workers it would take to pull off a fraud of the magnitude suggested.

But you will keep believing, won’t you?

Look. American elections are not conducted by a cadre of civil servants, but by volunteers from the community at large. You may know a couple. I sure do . They have politics, of course, but they are mostly salt-of-the-earth types interested in performing a thankless civic duty. This was a difficult election because of covid. But they pulled it off splendidly

It is also one thing to test the validity of ballots after an unusual election. It is quite another to keep shouting ‘foul’ after they have been tested, and it’s come to nothing.  Donald Trump is coming perilously close to going the Aaron Burr route.

(Rocky can now go back to snapping up every bit of speculation from the most rancid right wing sites, like a trained seal snapping up dried fish, and disregarding any reality that interferes with his preconceptions.)

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

Trump manages to go 100% on sooner or later turning on everyone who ever backed him.

I wonder when the bubble will pop and you’ll get wise to the nasty personality cult you’ve joined. He was a spoiled narcissistic billionaire five years ago and he is exactly the same man today.

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

This link describes Hopkins’s allegations in detail.

They are absolutely worthless.

The fact that Trump’s campaign is relying on this second hand wishy-washy hearsay speaks volumes.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Genuine Realist.

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

As I thought. Biden has a 55,000 vote plurality in Pennsylvania. Even if all 30,000 were cast for him,  he still wins.  Alito’s order segregating the ballots was one of the wisest in Supreme Court history.

He also has 290 Electoral College votes, out of 507 accounted for. Georgia and North Carolina are still in theory outstanding. Biden leads in Georgia by 24,000, a large enough margin to make it extremely unlikely that a recount will change anything. (The plain fact of the matter is that most poll workers are volunteers, salt of the earth types more interested in doing the job right than the outcome.) The largest swing ever recorded on a recount is 1100. Biden is going to win Georgia, too,which gives him 306, or more than enough even without Pennsylvania – which he will win.

You are following these suits very closely. You are thus aware that one after another, these claims of widespread fraud are being blown up as ridiculously petty. In Arizona, Trump litigators wanted the records sealed to prevent the public fr0m finding out just how few votes were actually at stake. The trial court wanted none of that, and revealed that the grand conspiracy involved 180 votes at most.That’s typical.

Trump has never looked worse. Even if he was confident of ultimate victory, common courtesy is to treat the announced winner with respect. The good of the country demands it. His level of denial approaches the psychotic. But he’s not psychotic. What he’s doing is deliberately winding up his supporters to believe in conspiratist nonsense, despite the utter absence of malfeasance and only the petty acts of nonfeasance you might expect in an election with over 150 million ballots. Human error does happen, but at too trivial a level to affect the outcome.

And you are falling for it,hook, line and sinker.  Don’t.

 

 

 

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Genuine Realist.

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

How many ballots are at issue?

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

Oh, I’m all for a peek. Me and Mitch McConnell. A really sane voice. It was a strange election,

But sooner or later, you gotta come up with evidence. As with the Russian collusion of yore, which was also believed by millions, there ain’t an iota.

My favorite to date is the two disappointed Republican Senators in Georgia demanding the resignation of the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is a REPUBLICAN, as is Kemp, the Governor, and Trump supporters.  He bluntly informed Perdue and Loeffler that though he was as disappointed as they in the result, the Georgian voting process was fair and transparent.

Cheer up. If Trump had pulled it off,  the Democrats would be doing the same darn thing, plus riots. That kind of world.

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

More than that, allegation after allegation, and not a shred of evidence. The Washington Post is headlining a retraction by some Pennsylania postal worker who claimed to the  press that ballots had been backdated, then backed off completely when postal inspectors showed up to interview him

25,000 nursing home ballots requested simultaneously? How would anyone know that? And if you do have evidence, why isn’t ii in the press release?

Give it up. Trump is history. I’m saddened for Lindsay Graham, who is a favorite of mine.

 

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

All Barr is doing is authorizing the opening of files.

I couldn’t agree more that it’s a good move to kill off conspiracy theories. Not ghat it will do much good.

I am curious how many of you know anyone who has actually done precinct work,

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Genuine Realist]

There certainly were poll watchers in Philadelphia.  There was litigation on the subject.

But what sorts of people do you think do this kind of tedious necessary work? The idiot millennials demonstrating on the street? Not hardly. Basically persons with basic bourgeois middle-road values, committed to the process not the outcome.

You think bias figures into the judgment as to whether a ballot has been fouled? Yeah, probably.  But that’s the kind of thing that goes on in every election. You are not going to have a national election without some human error. But the number of those errors is probably in the hundreds nationally.

Massive coordinated voter fraud? With votes subject to recount and review by litigation? And of course absolutely invisible. You need literally hundreds of people to pull it off, in the midst of a number of people who are taking time off from their lives to do this thankless job, solely in the interests of fair elections.

Give it up. I hope that sometime in the next few weeks the bubble pops and you see that you’ve been sucked into a personality cult these last four years.  Time to let it go.

 

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

[Author]

Posts