Wife kitteh, perusing Facebook on her phone yesterday morning, came across a video of Stephen Colbert calmly and rationally discussing the election results wherein it looks like Joe Biden's team proved their competence at the mimeograph machine and were able to manufacture the votes he needed to, err, "win."
Anyway, it went something like this.
That's not too much of an exaggeration, either. He trotted out the well-worn bromide that all evil needed to win was to have good people do nothing. He shouted, through foam-flecked lips, that Trump was a fascist and that there were most certainly not good people on both sides. He went on like this for a while.
In short, dear readers, most of you are, well, to put it mildly, Ungeziefer, nur geeignet, um unter dem Jackboot der Menschen zerquetscht zu werden, die von einem gerechten Zorn erfüllt sind!
I've been maintaining for a while now that the progressives are convinced they are fighting hate and bigotry and this justifies the use of any means possible to defeat us subhuman vermin. That's just one of the reasons I'm convinced that rampant, large-scale cheating occurred in the election. There are tons more, but for the purposes of this blog post, Herr Colbert certainly managed to provide some decent proof.
Jeezey Moe, what a mess.
I've been maintaining for a while now that the progressives are convinced they are fighting hate and bigotry and this justifies the use of any means possible to defeat us subhuman vermin.
ReplyDeleteProgressives, for the most part, do not believe any means necessary should be taken. That does seem like a good description of what some people on the conservative end of the spectrum say, by certainly not all.
For the most part, progressives believe hate and bigotry come from misunderstanding and misinterpreting our experiences, and trusting flawed sources. You can't defeat that by force.
"I'm convinced that rampant, large-scale cheating occurred in the election"
ReplyDeleteWell, I suppose you can believe that if you want. Nobody is going to stop you. It seems to me that you will then also have to be convinced of a few other things, though:
1. The Democrats were able to mobilize an army of people to fill out hundreds of thousands, if not millions of fake ballots, while somehow not having anyone notice these people being recruited, doing the actual work, or suddenly ending up flush with cash after being paid off;
2. They managed to maintain such tight control over these people that none of them went out to bars afterwards, got drunk, and loudly bragged to anyone who would listen about how they helped steal the election (or, if they did, they were somehow immediately hushed up and bundled off before anyone noticed, and any law enforcement personnel were either kept from hearing it, or bribed/threatened to ignore it);
3. They completely cowed any law enforcement who might have been in a position to investigate or make arrests into completely pretending that nothing ever happened;
4. And yet, in spite of a practically supernatural level of competence in stealing the Presidential election, they were at the same time so abysmally incompetent that they were unable to steal a couple of Senate seats to get a majority, even though this would have only involved making a few extra tics on the ballots they were already faking up.
Of course, choosing to believe all of those things is really terrifying, since it elevates the Democrats from mere villains, to practically gods of organization. Do you really believe that?
Tim, yeah, I admit it has the same problem as all conspiracy theories, but there you have it. The data is insanely correlated. Here's a list of just some of the correlations.
ReplyDeleteI acknowledge the silly aspects of what I'm saying and I'm coming to the point where I'm not sure I care if it's true or not because there are larger forces afoot than just a bunch of venal fanatics. Debt and drugs being two of them, neither of which require a conspiracy.
I think my bigger problem is that this was perfectly predictable with a mass mail-in voting system. I saw this coming before it started. Now no matter which way it ends, half the country will feel like they were robbed and I won't stand in the way of a lefty screaming about it if Trump prevails in court.
Why did we do this to ourselves?
One Brow, I'll leave it to you to deconstruct White Fragility.
ReplyDeleteTim, in the parlance of soccer, I think this qualifies as an "own goal."
ReplyDeleteSigh.
K T Cat,
ReplyDeleteTim, yeah, I admit it has the same problem as all conspiracy theories, but there you have it. The data is insanely correlated. Here's a list of just some of the correlations.
Here's the first item:
New York, totally Democratic, had no problem counting its votes.
Texas, totally Republican, had no problem counting its votes.
It was the same story in every deep Red or Deep Blue state, regardless of size.
New York is still counting their votes, as is Texas. However, there aren't enough votes left to change the results of the major contests, so the media is not paying attention.
For the second item on that page, I regularly read progressives reminding people to observe social distancing and mask protocols. You may find this difficult to believe, but people don't always listen to good advice.
You can always dig hard enough and look intensely enough that, when you squint, you can find something wrong. That doesn't mean something is wrong.
I haven't read White Fragility yet. What did you think of it? Or, if you haven't read it, what does that book actually mean to you?
Regarding the "own goal", five of the six highlighted items in the box did not happen here.
Why did we do this to ourselves?
A large part is the degree to which we narrow our sources of information, or have them narrowed for us. If you have Netflix, check out The Social Dilemma. You are linking to RedState and PJ Media, but do you occasionally read Vox or The Slate? If you are really as concerned about what leftists think as you indicate, why not read them?
I get a steady dose of it all day at work, to say nothing of what I get through the TV and movies. I work at a large science and engineering firm and when we're not bashing straight, white men for racism and sexism, we're claiming that men can have babies. So, yeah, I'm pretty familiar with the whole racial grievance industry and it's claims.
ReplyDeleteAs for the election, the thing was designed for fraud. We can shop at Walmart, but we can't vote in person? We have to show our ID to buy beer, but not to vote? Please. And spare me the stories of disenfranchisement. This election is going to disenfranchise half the country, no matter which way it goes, because you can't prove that it wasn't done through cheating.
With the exact nature of all of the claims, I've lost interest. I'm a lot more interested in what this implies for the future. What kind of country do you have when so much faith has been lost in our institutions. Again, it's not about the validity of specific claims of cheating, it's the sense that our leadership and our institutions are constantly lying to us. It doesn't have to be true to cause serious damage.
K T Cat,
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly not my place to tell you how to lead your life, but even in my brief stay I've seen you worry about what liberals might justify to themselves, so I though you would want to find out.
No one was prevented from voting in person, they just weren't forced to. At least a dozen states (both conservative and liberal) have had some sort of absentee-on-request voting for decades, and fraud was never thought to be an issue in absentee balloting until 2020. You can't prove the 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004, 2000, etc. elections weren't won without cheating, either. You voted, your vote was counted, you exercised your franchise.
There are a lot of actors (foreign and domestic) that want us to loose faith in our government, for a variety of reasons. While you're getting fed a stream of voting fraud assumptions and concerns that progressives want to stamp our your freedoms and (if this applies) take your guns, many progressives are being fed notions that Trump will engage in some sort of military coup. If we are each being fed the worst about each other, and we don't act to break out of that, things will deteriorate. However, just as this is a cocoon each of us (in part) creates for ourself with our social media reactions, it's also one each of us will have to break out of for ourself.
I suspect that I might be a wee bit older than you and have seen a thing or two. I'll let your comment stand. Take care.
ReplyDeleteYou don't need an army of recruits, or a big, centralized organization to do vote fraud. It was a rather open point of humor for the Seattle folks who bought vacation homes in my home county, in Washington-- they'd mention they had to get back to Seattle in time to vote a second time, while they were dropping off the ballot for their house in our town. I've mentioned before that it's a regular human interest story for someone's dog to get a ballot, and a regular complaint for those who move around the Seattle blob that you can end up with a whole stack of ballots showing up in your mail box because of the post office forwarding, even when you're careful to update your voting record. (which SHOULD change where the state mails your ONE ballot, but somehow frequently doesn't, for years on end) In spite of that, you can look up the King County voting response rate, it's brag-worthy.
ReplyDeleteFor mass producing ballots-it only took me maybe two minutes to vote-- and I filled out all but two races on a two sided ballot. To fill out only one? I could do several a minute. This is a known problem in Washington state, indicated by only the votes someone bought being filled out.
You also don't have to manufacture physical ballots-- if you feed a pile through the counting machine several times.
Or you have the checkers do it, after the observers have been sent home; make them, or cure them, or "transfer damaged ballots" over, without the observers.
All of which have been reported to the law enforcement authorities, although not much reported on by the news.
The news which I stopped listening to when I found every single claim that they gave enough information to research was false, frequently in ways that there was no reasonable way to believe that one of the people involved in forming the half-truth did not know what they were doing and deliberately do so. For example, the article for the software error which switched several thousand votes over to Biden, when they were cast for Trump-- they claimed that the state's department of state had said it was a clerk's error rather than software malfunction or glitch.
As a matter of fact, they had said that a clerk had not updated the software. Which, while arguably an error by a clerk, is not what they implied and does not support their conclusion that other counties using the same system should not be checked.
At least a dozen states (both conservative and liberal) have had some sort of absentee-on-request voting for decades, and fraud was never thought to be an issue in absentee balloting until 2020.
Absentee balloting has been recognized as rich for fraud and abuse since at the very latest 2000, when even normal people found out that military ballots are regularly not counted. Don't get me started on how many people show up to vote in person and are informed they already voted by mail, even though they did not; I somehow voted by mail in the Navy, when they never managed to get a single ballot to me, and for extra fun on the verification issues I've heard from folks in Virginia that they were informed they'd voted in person when they went in to vote after work.
The phrase "vote by fraud" and "fraud by mail" were in use well before Colorado went all vote by mail, and that was 2013.
Foxfier: Got it. So you are going for Door Number 3, law enforcement has been completely cowed into ignoring or downplaying any evidence of election fraud.
ReplyDeleteWhich means that the election workers, election observers, and state election commissions are either all in on the fraud, or are being squelched by the police, prosecutors, and judges who are also either directly in on it or blackmailed/extorted into playing along. And the news media has decided that they would rather also play along than come out with a nice, juicy scandal that they could milk for months. If that's the world you think you live in (in which case, the legal system is so massively subverted that if you ever get in trouble with the law you'll just be doomed with no hope of justice), so be it.
K T Cat,
ReplyDeleteSince I'm 58, if you are older than I, I would say is is very likely by a wee bit.
I understand you not wanting to engage. Reading only those that agree with you is a powerful drug, but it is also the source of your fear.
Tim-
ReplyDeleteGot it, you cannot be bothered to read what is there and make a rational response, so you strawman out of it, and cannot even be bothered to make the strawman somewhat resemble what I wrote.
Either that, or you have absolutely no concept of the sheer scale of the number of moving parts and exactly how high trust our country is, much less how much the infamous "consent decree" harmed basic protections on voting rights.
If I'd been under the misconception that you were open to anything you did not wish to hear on this subject, I would be disappointed.
Foxfier,
ReplyDeleteIf there are as many ballots as you say going to people and those people are using them, the evidence will be in the voter rolls. Easy enough to get real proof.
There have been accusations, manipulated videos, and manufactured complaints of voting irregularities, but none of them stand up to a close look. For example, the software error was corrected by the normal processes, and not because of any complaint by outside observers.
In 2000, it was found out that military absentee ballots were treated just like all the other absentee ballots in Florida, in that those which were improperly filled out or attested to were being thrown out. A decision was made to exempt the military ballots from having the usual safeguards. So, are you suggesting that was the correct decision? Do you support relaxed standards on absentee ballots?
Yes, voting clerks do occasionally mark the incorrect name when voters come through. Human error happens. Again, not evidence of bias.
If there are as many ballots as you say going to people and those people are using them, the evidence will be in the voter rolls. Easy enough to get real proof.
ReplyDeletehttps://nypost.com/2020/11/02/dead-people-caught-voting-in-nyc-elections-records-show/
For example, the software error was corrected by the normal processes, and not because of any complaint by outside observers.
It was corrected because a Republican in the same area saw that he got fewer votes than immediate family members who voted for him.
In 2000, it was found out that military absentee ballots were treated just like all the other absentee ballots in Florida, in that those which were improperly filled out or attested to were being thrown out.
1) incorrect, the Gore campaign challenged to have them thrown out for not having postmarks, when military post did not regularly use those.
https://nypost.com/2000/11/20/team-al-defends-military-ballot-challenge/
2) I did not point to the challenges on ballots, I pointed to the ballots not being opened and counted at all if they were estimated to be unable to change the outcome. This resulted in some states requiring that they be counted, even if they couldn't possibly change the outcome.
Yes, voting clerks do occasionally mark the incorrect name when voters come through. Human error happens.
Maybe 20 years ago. These days, they scan your ID card to get the information, and then are supposed to verify it against your face, and then you verify it.
Again, not evidence of bias.
It was offered as evidence of fraud, not bias.
Foxfier,
ReplyDeleteMilitary people were expected to sign and date their ballots in lieu of post marks. The ballots in question were not properly signed and dated.
Maybe 20 years ago. These days, they scan your ID card to get the information, and then are supposed to verify it against your face, and then you verify it.
Not in O'Fallon, IL. I was sent a paper voter ID card in the mail, which was all I needed. Even then none of that scanning, etc. prevents them from crossing off the wrong line on the voting sheet.
It was offered as evidence of fraud, not bias.
So, this would be fraud that is not biased toward either side? Normally, I would have thought fraud implied bias.
So, looking at the NYPost cases, that's two ballots, at least one sent to a Republican address. Both cases are being sent to the DA for potential prosecution. Do you really think that high a percentage of the population died between sending out the ballots and them being returned? Further, isn't looking up the death indexes and purging votes from people who died before election day part of the process (that might vary from state to state)?
Military people were expected to sign and date their ballots in lieu of post marks. The ballots in question were not properly signed and dated.
ReplyDeleteYour memory does not match the reporting I linked about the lawsuit, from at the time. If you have support beyond your memory, go for it.
Not in O'Fallon, IL. I was sent a paper voter ID card in the mail, which was all I needed. Even then none of that scanning, etc. prevents them from crossing off the wrong line on the voting sheet.
...that neither connects to what I originally said, nor what you said in response to it, and barely connects to my response to your response.
So, this would be fraud that is not biased toward either side? Normally, I would have thought fraud implied bias.
What do your assumptions about what a things existence imply have to do with your prior claim that it didn't exist in a meaningful manner?
Do you really think that high a percentage of the population died between sending out the ballots and them being returned?
You should probably read the article, since this comment shows you didn't.
Foxfier said...
ReplyDeleteYour memory does not match the reporting I linked about the lawsuit, from at the time. If you have support beyond your memory, go for it.
I'm sure we are all shocked that the NY Post made a hash of their reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/20/us/counting-vote-absentee-ballots-military-ballots-merit-review-lieberman-says.html
Other military ballots throughout Florida were rejected because the voters were not recorded as having requested Florida absentee ballots. Federal law permits members of the military to use what is called a federal write-in ballot, but only if they requested, but did not receive, one of their home state's absentee ballots.
On Friday night, Democrats insisted that such write-in ballots be thrown out if there was no record of the voters' having asked for Florida absentee ballots, while Republicans insisted that they should be counted. Again, some counties decided the issue one way, and others the other way.
And still other overseas ballots were challenged, and sometimes rejected, for a wide range of other reasons, like not having the signature in the right place on the envelope, not being properly witnessed, or because the voter had sent in more than one absentee ballot.
...that neither connects to what I originally said, nor what you said in response to it, and barely connects to my response to your response.
I agree that your response about scanning an ID and having you scan an entry was not a good response to the notion of human clerks marking off the wrong line on a form.
What do your assumptions about what a things existence imply have to do with your prior claim that it didn't exist in a meaningful manner?
What's the point of fraud if it is not going to bias the election results in one direction or the other? Fraud for the fun of it?
It doesn't have much to do with the prior claim, I was just amused by your statement that "It was offered as evidence of fraud, not bias." was some sort of rejoinder. Voting fraud would be a subset of bias, so evidence of fraud is evidence of bias.
You should probably read the article, since this comment shows you didn't.
The article that listed a grand total of two examples on all of Staten Island, out of over a hundred thousand early votes? I mean, I didn't miss this part of the article:
The Staten Island Republican Party, which is closely scrutinizing absentee ballots, flagged the two records to The Post and is referring the matter to the police and Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon’s office.
Two examples in a hundred thousand from this close scrutiny. That's not enough to undo any state.
Your New York Times link is paywalled.
ReplyDeleteUsing the wayback machine, here is the intro:
Retreating under fire from Republicans, Florida's attorney general, a top ally of Vice President Al Gore, said today that local officials should count absentee ballots from overseas military voters that were thrown out because they lacked postmarks.
But the statement by Attorney General Robert A. Butterworth, Mr. Gore's state campaign chairman, may have less to do with votes than with cutting Democrats' losses in what they concede has been a losing public relations war. Republicans have accused Democrats of mounting a concerted effort to throw out as many military ballots as possible, because most of those votes were presumed to be for Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, not Mr. Gore.
County election officials who tabulated overseas ballots on Friday and Saturday rejected hundreds of military ballots for a variety of reasons. Republican criticism, though, focused particularly on what election officials said was the most common problem, failure to have a postmark. That seemed particularly galling to critics, since military mail can be sent without a postmark.
https://web.archive.org/web/20141013073239/https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/21/us/counting-vote-absentee-ballots-review-military-votes-florida-attorney-general.html
Which shows that the Post did not, in fact, make a "hash" of their reporting.
*****************
You seem quite interested in changing the subject when it comes time to support your assertions- and when you do attempt to respond, you get basic facts objectively wrong. Such as your attempt to frame the votes as people who died between getting their ballot and election day, when the two examples given were for people who had been dead for years.
Two examples in a hundred thousand from this close scrutiny.
Two examples in a single news story, found by people completely outside of the system, with very limited resources, in the face of public threats of government oppression by elected officials for the crime of publicly supporting the other side.
As usual, the argument goes from "there is no fraud" to "there isn't much fraud" and "the fraud doesn't matter."
KT, thought you might be interested in this article:
ReplyDeletehttps://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/11/means-motive-and-opportunity.html
Foxfier,
ReplyDeleteYour New York Times link is paywalled.
That's why I quoted it for you.
If your standard for accurate reporting is to take a multitude of reasons, and pretend there is only one, than what can I add expect I doubt you apply the same standards when you don't like the content of a news article.
In any case, back in 2000, it was Gore that was insisting that the law be applied to all ballots, and Republicans who were insisting that these ballots, which were supposed to be discarded under the law, be counted. Change the circumstances, flip the script.
You seem quite interested in changing the subject when it comes time to support your assertions- and when you do attempt to respond, you get basic facts objectively wrong.
Something we have in common, then.
Two examples in a single news story, found by people completely outside of the system, with very limited resources, in the face of public threats of government oppression by elected officials for the crime of publicly supporting the other side.
Two cases found by officials working for the Board of Elections (the "agency" referred to), and brought to the attention of the Post by the Republican party.
I have never said there was no fraud, I said the level of fraud was not an issue. As usual, the argument goes from "there was massive, undetected fraud" to "we can't rely on the agencies to find fraud" to "well, the government found this fraud, but there really is a lot of it they don't bother to check, somehow".
Foxfier,
ReplyDeleteWhile it's fine to read pieces you already know are going to agree with you, shouldn't you balance your information diet a bit? Much like only eating beef is bad for your body only reading conservative (or only liberal) blogs is bad for your mind.
That's why I quoted it for you.
ReplyDeleteAs I found when I took the effort to dig up a non-paywalled version, your quote was out of context.
If your standard for accurate reporting is to take a multitude of reasons, and pretend there is only one, than what can I add expect I doubt you apply the same standards when you don't like the content of a news article.
My standard for accurate reporting involves not looking at two different companies' articles that agree on a statement of fact, going down into one, and quoting it out of context to declare the first article to be bad reporting about that statement of fact.
While it's fine to read pieces you already know are going to agree with you, shouldn't you balance your information diet a bit?
Given your example of balance-- that is, reading an article that flatly states what you deny, then going down to find a section that is not entirely opposite of what you wish to believe-- I will decline such "variety." It has now been several days, and you cannot give substance to support your claims, only assertions, emotional appeals or attacks, and shifting goals.
There's no danger of someone reading in good faith being misled at this point, so I'm done hammering my head against this wall.
Foxfier,
ReplyDeleteAs I found when I took the effort to dig up a non-paywalled version, your quote was out of context.
Three full paragraphs don't make their own context?
My standard for accurate reporting involves not looking at two different companies' articles that agree on a statement of fact, going down into one, and quoting it out of context to declare the first article to be bad reporting about that statement of fact.
Apparently, you prefer reporting that is incomplete and offers a false perspective.
Given your example of balance-- that is, reading an article that flatly states what you deny, then going down to find a section that is not entirely opposite of what you wish to believe-- I will decline such "variety." It has now been several days, and you cannot give substance to support your claims, only assertions, emotional appeals or attacks, and shifting goals.
My original claims regarding Florida in 2000:
In 2000, it was found out that military absentee ballots were treated just like all the other absentee ballots in Florida, in that those which were improperly filled out or attested to were being thrown out. A decision was made to exempt the military ballots from having the usual safeguards.
1) "treated like all the other absentee ballots" -- verified
2) "those which were improperly filled out or attested to were being thrown out" -- verified
3) "A decision was made to exempt the military ballots from having the usual safeguards." -- verified
True, I did include that this meant some of the them were from a lack of a postmark, so my account was incomplete. But, since you have no problems with incomplete reporting by the NY Post, it's a little late in this discussion to pretend it was a problem.
There's no danger of someone reading in good faith being misled at this point, so I'm done hammering my head against this wall.
I agree. It's time you left this discussion. Thank you for the conversation.