Last week, many of us expressed alarm over a statement by former President Trump that we might have to “terminate” constitutional rules in light of the release of the Twitter files. He has now denied saying that but repeats that the disclosures should mean that the election is “redone.” There are no constitutional Mulligans in presidential elections.
There is a legitimate demand for an investigation into this scandal and censorship that clearly had some impact on the close election.
However, while I have been a vocal critic of Twitter and the full mobilization of media, political, and corporate interests against Musk, any suggestion that constitutional rules could be terminated or suspended is both dangerous and demagogic.
For that reason, I was glad to see Trump walking back the statement but there remain deeply troubling aspects to the continued call for the election to be “redone.”
On Monday, Trump insisted that he does not want to “terminate” the Constitution:
“The Fake News is actually trying to convince the American People that I said I wanted to ‘terminate’ the Constitution. This is simply more DISINFORMATION & LIES, just like RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, and all of their other HOAXES & SCAMS.”
However, the earlier posting was unequivocal in stating that the Twitter disclosures “allows for the termination of all rules … even those found in the Constitution.”
As I stated at the time, there is no basis for termination or suspension of constitutional rules in such a case. Moreover, the misconduct of one company would never be accepted by a court as grounds for retroactively reevaluating a presidential election two years later.
Notably, there was ample evidence of raw fraud in states like Illinois that may have given Kennedy his victory over Nixon. However, the election was not “redone” in light of those allegations.
In his latest posting, Trump repeated that
“steps must be immediately taken to RIGHT THE WRONG…Simply put, if an election is irrefutably fraudulent, it should go to the rightful winner or, at a minimum, be redone … Where open and blatant fraud is involved, there should be no time limit for change!”
Putting aside the clarification on the call for termination of such rules, there is no basis upon which a court could order an election in 2020 to be “redone.” The implications of such a power are chilling. Such judicial intervention could be used by judges to “redo” future elections when they disapprove of a candidate or party. It is an invitation to judicial activism and would be destabilizing for our constitutional system as a whole.
It is unclear what Trump is now demanding. Should a court declare him the winner and order the start of a new four-year term — negating the 2024 election? Would the court order a vote in 2022 and then another vote in 2024? None of that is even remotely possible on a legal basis.
Moreover, before declaring that the election is to be “redone,” the court would have to not only find that the company engaged in election fraud but that such fraud was determinative or decisive in the election. How does it do that? There were a myriad of issues pushing voters that year. A court could not say with any sense of confidence that Twitter’s conduct determined the outcome.
My concern is that such postings create a false impression for citizens that such a “redo” is possible. It fuels extraconstitutional demands on our system. We have the oldest and most successful constitutional system in history because it is not subject to such improvisation or impulse.
Besides, there is a practical redo in the works. Trump is already running in 2024. We do not have to “undo” 2020 when the public will have a renewed chance to vote for Trump in 2024.
Unfortunately, even if a “redo” was somehow allowed, it doesn’t change the fact that the mechanisms are still in place that would allow the Democrats to steal it a second time.
The Dominion servers are still operational and open to hackers.
The Voter Rolls are still packed with hundreds of thousand dead voters.
The Mules are still free and escaping justice, so they’ll be able to once again stuff ballot boxes.
Dishonest Democrat operatives are still working precincts, spoiling Republican ballots and recounting heavily-favored Democrat ballots over and over.
This is understandable; the court would not be able to justify retroactive action in this case.
However, why did the Court deny challenges to the election that seemed legitimate in 2020, vs. 2000 when the court did elect to hear challenges and settle the matter? There were laws adopted without the involvement of state congress; there was ballot harvesting done illegally; there were election counts shielded from the public eye with plywood for God’s sake.
You say there is nothing in the US Constitution to allow for a “redo”. Then perhaps there needs to be something amended into it that will allow, not so much for a redo, for a dismissal from office and a hand over of power to the rightful winner… If not… The Constitution is broken.
I agree with your legal premise [Fruit of the Poisoned Tree]. Everything that followed this fraud should be nullified and the only Institution qualified to exercise this response is the military.
“You say there is nothing in the US Constitution to allow for a “redo”.”
Which fact proves that this case is not even a constitutional issue.
A presidential election redo is an issue for federal courts. Is one warranted? If so, how should it be conducted? Federal courts have been involved in federal elections countless times, including for redos. I fail to see how a presidential election redo is any different from those other cases.
Using this logic, if someone gets caught stealing something, you just have to let them keep it.
Comparing this with JFK elected over Nixon, but then forget to mention they murdered JFK.
The FBI influenced the 2020 election for Trump’s opponent.
If that is not grounds for an election redo, then there is no such thing.
And if you believe that those are *not* sufficient grounds, then you are endorsing a one-party police state. (For the factually impaired: The FBI is America’s federal *police*.)
Do you believe that the 2016 election must also be done over because the FBI influenced it against Clinton (it was very explicitly against their policy to announce the investigation of Clinton unless they were going to bring charges, but Comey announced it anyway)?
And just what did the FBI say in 2020? You’ve been asked before, but you never quote them. We know what Comey said in 2016.
“Do you believe . . .”
Yes, no, maybe. Either way, it’s irrelevant to the validity of my arguments about the 2020 election. (But, then, you already knew that.)
“And just what did . . .”
Not interested in a discussion with those suffering from self-inflicted blindness. Nor in yet another of your rabbit holes.
Get a conscience — earn the right to have discussions with civilized people.
I have a conscience and a right to have discussions with civilized people.
“it’s irrelevant to the validity of my arguments about the 2020 election”
It’s relevant to whether your beliefs are consistent or inconsistent.
As for 2020, you believe something about the FBI in 2020, but you can present no actual evidence for it.
The FBI perpetrated the Russia Hoax among many other conspiracy theories against Trump since 2016 and still ongoing.
Who needs Watergate when you have a Deep State DOJ run by Globalists supporting DEMS and RINOs? Plus a Federal Judicial.System that buries Seth Rich, Epstein, Clinton email crimes, Epstein’s pedophile clients and terrorizes a former POTUS for 6+ years yet ignores the Biden Crime Family therefore directly impacting elections for 6+ years strictly in favor of Democrats and RINOs…
“Get a conscience”
Sam, ATS has no place to put a conscience. You are making some excellent points.
“You are making some excellent points.”
Thank you.
Precedent? – https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-02-20-1994051024-story.html
What members of the Trump cult don’t understand is that THIS is why they keep losing. So long as elections are “rigged” only when your side loses, Republicans will continue to underperform. Cut the Trump anchor, put out a policy platform, and get back to sanity. Hell I might even start voting conservative again if that happens.
The fact that the left has gone ballistic now that the FBI can’t tell Twitter what to do is proving that the left is corrupt. Cheating on elections, and prosecutions that are political is the left of today.
Where is JFK? He no longer exists in today’s Democrat Party.,
Republicans have a perfectly good platform – and Voters agree with it.
Of the top 10 things voters cared about in 2022, 9 were essentially GOP platform items.
Abortion was the only issue that polled away from Republicans.
Republicans have been at a disadvantage in elections through my entire life.
Though the reasons change over time.
The left driven polarization of the country creates problems for republicans – no republican will even get heard by significant portions of the country – because the left controls the lionshare of media and social media.
The reason that the left is whigged out over Musks control of Twitter is that Musk is actively seeking to depolarize Twitter
The left is terrified of the possiblity that ordinary voters might hear more republican voices.
The left has controlled most of the media for most of my life – but it has never tilted so bat$hit far to the left as it does today.
Republicans had more money in the past. They do not today. Democrats have locked up nearly all the large individual and corporate donors.
It is a rare election today where democrats do not have a 2:1 funding advantage
Democrats contol the SOS and often the governorship, as well as the major city in each purple state, Combine that with mailin voting. ballot harvesting and it is increasingly difficult for Republicans to win elections in purple states.
HOWEVER one of the things we saw in 2022, is that Republicans are turning several Blue states purple.
The difference between this election being a red Tsunami and a red fizzle is miniscule in terms of the number of votes.
Democrats have gotten very good at winning by hook or crook in historically contested states – though the momentum is against them.
GA will likely turn Blue soon, but the Rust Belt is turning red. It is only a question of time.
And NY, WA, OR, are now purple states – maybe deep purple, but no longer Blue, and NV is turning red.
Eventually Republicans will win – because the democrats rigging of elections only works for close elections.
Eventually republicans will win – because Democrats are on the wrong side of lots of trends.
Eventually republicans will win – because democrats are their own worst enemy.
Or perhaps the democrats have better platforms than the Republicans. You are the minority party for a reason
“Or perhaps the democrats have better platforms than the Republicans. You are the minority party for a reason”
I can not make sense out of your response.
Maybe I need to use the word policy rather than platform.
Again in pre election polls amercians overwhelmingly agreed with republicans on 9 of their top ten concerns.
In many cases by as much as 80%.
No one can doubt that the 2022 election demonstrates that Republicans need to figure something out.
It is possible that the answer may be as simple as how to lie and cheat better than democrats.
Though I would prefer they found a better way.
What is NOT true is your claim. Outside of abortion – not just a majority but a supermajority of americans values are in alignment with republicans and at odds with democrats.
There is a reason why nearly everyone was predicting a red tsunami, not a red fizzle.
The predictions may have proved wrong but the basis for that prediction is not.
Whatever the reason that only 5M more people voted for republicans than democrats, it was NOT policies.
The one clear lesson of the election is republicans do NOT need to fix their policies.
Republicans won the popular vote in 2022 – by YOUR definition they are the majority party.
Based on the popular vote they should have had about a 20 seat majority in the house,
and they should have picked up atleast 1 and possibly 2 senate seats.
There will be lots of efforts to figure out why that did not happen.
But your claim that republicans are a minority party is clearly false
Yep, give us more transgenderism. We love it.
If only democrats would run on unlimited immigration, millions of illegals flooding the border, out of control inflation, crashing 401Ks, favoring enemies over countrymen, selling off the emergency oil supply to China. THAT platform?
You might vote conservative? No thanks.
Dont vote conservative if that bothers you.
I have not voted for Trump yet.
But for god sakes do not vote for the left wing nut fascists who think 1984 is a howto manual not a warning.
Do not bring the cultural revolution to the US.
As another poster has noted, it is really really really disturbing to arive 70 years in the future to discover that Drunken Sen. Joe MacCarthy was right. The marxist 2.0 left is the most dangerous political virus ever.
MacCarthy was Wrong to stiffle free speech – I keep telling myself that. I keep reminding myself that It is NOT OK to go where he went, where today’s progressives are, just because they are a political mind virus that everyone under 30 and far too many over had lost any immunity too.
But just as he predicted, they took over our schools and infected our children and are destroying everything they touch.
I believe when you have more votes than voters, it’s a BFD.
Under the current system we have, if there is clear evidence of broken election laws are broken and voter fraud has occurred, we have no choice but to allow the certification of the election. Once the election is certified there is no redo and even if broken laws a d voter fraud occurred, we have no choice but to accept the fraudulent outcome – at least on the federal level. Its an insane situation that incentivizes fraud
On the contrary, “if there is clear evidence of broken election laws are broken and voter fraud has occurred,” states can refuse to certify and Congress can refuse to certify.
What’s the penalty for perjury in court? What’s the penalty for fraud in the marketplace? What’s the penalty for professional/political defamation? What’s the penalty for obstructing justice in an election? What’s the penalty for tampering with evidence in an election? What’s the penalty for conspiracy to collude with governmental agencies for the purpose of corrupting and nullifying an election? What’s the penalty for defrauding America? What’s the penalty for the Obama Coup D’etat in America that fearsome federal prosecutor, John “Dudley Do-Wrong” Durham, was blind and oblivious to. What’s the penalty for treason, by definition, against the Constitution, America, etc., etc., etc.?
Oh, yeah, nothing!
How much perjury, fraud, false defamation and malicious prosecution has Real President Donald J. Trump demonstrably suffered at the hands of the antithetical, anti-Constitution, anti-American, low and high criminal communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) in America?
Not to worry; the communists are importing 2 million Haitian, East Timorese, Nicaraguan, Syrian, Honduran, African, Salvadoran, Cuban, Mexican, etc., new voters per year, which is erasing Americans from political office and the country (“We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants…,” said Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, who promotes replacing Americans with foreigners rather than American babies from American women). It is likely, there will never be another American elected to the presidency.
Abraham Lincoln, with a whopping 38.9% mandate, called for a Mulligan for America, a haymaker for America. “Crazy Abe” Lincoln threw out the Constitution, seized power as a mad, tyrannical dictator, started an unconstitutional war against a sovereign foreign nation, committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and killed 1 million Americans, all due to his childish tantrum over labor laws that were evolving out of existence, being extant for 250 years and, to a high degree, considered normal within the context of the era. “Crazy Abe” was a great guy, right? President Trump didn’t kill 1 million Americans like “Crazy Abe.”
Joke Biden and the Biden Crime Family have destroyed Trump’s perfect economy, imposed the final solution to those pesky Americans, “replacement,” and delivered to the Biden family multiple colossal fortunes of dirty “laundered” money.
Trump is a relatively innocuous victim who had the country running so perfectly that the global Deep Deep State and its close allies in China released “China Flu, 2020” a few short months before his landslide reelection.
Oh, heck no, Real President Donald J. Trump doesn’t deserve a constitutional Mulligan.
Trump doesn’t deserve a Mulligan because he was a non-politician who was not owned by anyone and he was on the verge of exposing and bringing down the Deep Deep State “Swamp.”
The Deep Deep State “Swamp” didn’t like that idea at all.
I have often wondered if a President is legally elected, but it turns out he is ineligible to be so as he does not pass the born as a US citizen constitutional test, serves several years, then is everything he has done illegal? He would/could have injected many things into our country that may be destructive. As in eliminating our liberties, etc.
Dear Donnie, you lost. You list the house, the senate and the presidency. You “lost” some of the most classified documents that country could have. And now your “candidate” lost the Georgia senate race and you “lost” in a NYC court room.
I’m tired of the winning. NOT!
I don’t know, even if it were possible to do a re-do on the 2000 election, this past midterms pretty much showed that the dems have killed this country. If you are willing to elect a non communcative stroke victim as a senator, then there is just no hope.
“constitutional rules in such a case.”
The hand-waving and deflections are infuriating.
The equation is simple: (Constitutional) law + facts.
And the question is simple: Where does the Constitution speak to the facts of this case?
Sadly, Trump has lost it. The 2020 election was in fact stolen but primarily through news suppression, unrelenting congressional investigations, phony impeachments, false news and collusions with the MSM, and being undermined by the deep state, especially the FBI. Disgusting, despicable, and a real threat to democracy. But Trump fell for every single trap laid for him by his relentless and unethical opponents. Fighting back in a methodical discipline manner and focusing on the future is just not in his DNA. He simply lashes out regardless of what the consequences are . He is incapable of learning from the past to improve his electability. It is very dispiriting because I agree with 80 percent of his policies and .0001 percent of the current President’s policies. I am very fearful he either will be nominated and lose or not get nominated and take his core support out of voting. But in someway he is typical of the modern republican party that is now spending more time fighting between themselves as to who should be Speaker as well warring between House members and the Senate leadership. This all bodes very badly for the future
Alank wrote: “The 2020 election was in fact stolen but primarily through news suppression, unrelenting congressional investigations, phony impeachments, false news and collusions with the MSM, and being undermined by the deep state, especially the FBI. Disgusting, despicable, and a real threat to democracy.”
Ach, what total nonsense.
What you describe are the very things that got 11 million more voters to show up and vote for Trump in 2020 than did in 2016.
No non sense. Maybe not an outright steal but if you think that election was free and fair then you would be a satisfied voter in Belarus.
AlanK wrote: “if you think that election was free and fair…”
I did not say anything to suggest that election was free and fair. What I said was that you are complaining about the very things that led to Donald Trump getting 74 million votes in 2020. That is 11 million more than Trump got in 2011 and a whole a lot more votes than any presidential candidate got in any election before 2020. Without the phony accusations and revealed corruption of the DNC, FBI, Media and Intelligence Community that would not have happened.
I do believe twitter was in part responsible for trump’s loss – not because of anything twitter suppressed but because of all the things twitter allowed Trump to tweet at 4 o’clock in the morning. Just as the DNC, FBI, Media and Intelligence Community buffoonery encouraged voters to show up to vote for Trump, Trump’s own tweet storm buffoonery encouraged even more voters to vote against him.
The whole narrative that if only people had known about Hunter and his laptop is absurd. Voters knew the Biden’s were corrupt and that Joe was a walking zombie but the only thing most of them cared about was voting Trump out of office. And that large number of voters wanted Trump gone not because of anything the DNC, FBI, Media and Intelligence Community did but because what they saw Trump do and say.
You are free to believe as you please but your arguments are self contradictory.
You claim that you think Trump last because of what he tweeted.
While concurrently arguing that social media got Trump 10M more votes.
Which is it ?
I would like to hear your argument,
But I am expecting one that is consistent with demonstrable facts.
There is evidence that the NY Post story would have cost 6-10% of democratic votes.
Something like 0.14% is all that was needed to flip 2020
Is there evidence that Trump’s midnight tweets cost votes ?
John Say wrote: “You claim that you think Trump last because of what he tweeted.
While concurrently arguing that social media got Trump 10M more votes.”
Which is it ?
That is a good attempt at mangling what I said.
I said Trump lost because more people voted who hated Trump than voted for Trump. All told there were almost 30 million more people who voted either for or against Trump. Who Trump was running against became pretty much irrelevant.Trump’s opponent could have been Al Capone and Trump would have still lost.
Trump’s midnight tweets and the rest of the circus that swirled around Trump’s reality TV show of a presidency didn’t cost him a single vote. That is because his supporters refuse to consider that they are being duped. Trump’s opponents also refuse to consider that they are being duped. neither side wants to believe the whole thing is being staged solely for the benefit of the one party that is in control. The victory for the one party was that the got almost all voters on either side to vote for things they did not believe in.
“I said Trump lost because more people voted who hated Trump than voted for Trump.”
Your remarks are above. I do not think I misread them, but I appologize if I did.
Regardless, what you are saying now is clearer.
“All told there were almost 30 million more people who voted either for or against Trump. Who Trump was running against became pretty much irrelevant.Trump’s opponent could have been Al Capone and Trump would have still lost.”
And yet that is not what the polls show. In an election where a 22,000 vote swigh would have tied the election and a 45,000 vote swing would have resulted in a Trump victory 6-10% of democrats depending on the specific poll say that would have voted against Biden or not voted at all, had they known about the NY Post story.
“Trump’s midnight tweets and the rest of the circus that swirled around Trump’s reality TV show of a presidency didn’t cost him a single vote.”
Again that is NOT what you argued above. I am having a great deal of sense finding logical consistancy in your assertions.
You openly contradict yourself from paragraph to paragraph.
In YOUR oppinion why is it that some people hate Trump ?
is it or is it not his rhetoric ?
I am not trying to understand what you actully think – and I honestly can not tell from your posts.
“That is because his supporters refuse to consider that they are being duped.”
How are the being duped ? More so than any president in my lifetime, possibly ever Trump delivered on most of his promises.
He delivered on promises I wish he had not.
I do not agree with everything Trump says, I do not like some of the things he promises.
But I KNOW that if elected in 2024, he will do what he promises.
I KNOW exactly what I will be getting.
That has never been true of any president in my lifetime, possibly ever.
I think it is precisely because they were NOT duped that Trump voters are incredibly loyal.
One of the HUGE problems the GOP faces is that Trump brought 6-8M votes to the party. Most of these people who either never voted before or voted for democrats. These people are Trump Voters. most of them are not voting for Pence or Rubio or DeSantis.
Given enough time the GOP may eventually convert them from being Trump voters to being Republican voters,
But that is not happening instantly.
You are correct that Trump comes with baggage – there are people who vote specifically against him.
More so than any other prior candidate. But still an actually small fraction of democratic votes.
Further the overwhelming majority of anti-Trump voters – they are he actual dupes. The will easily be persuaded to be Anti-Cruz voters, or Anti-DeSantis voters.
Just look at the left mobilizing against Musk – you would think Hilter just took over Twitter, not a successful moderate american who was a democrat until recently and was the darling of the left until he started speaking a few truths they do not want to hear.
Regardless, of the left can churn up copious boiling vitriol of Musk they can do so regarding anyone.
John Say asked: “In YOUR opinion why is it that some people hate Trump ?”
I couldn’t tell you.
What I can tell you is that I have never encountered or heard of a Biden voter who primarily was voting for Biden. In my experience, they were all just holding their noses and voting against Trump. I can also tell you that roughly 30 million people voted in 2020 that didn’t vote in 2016. there were also about 4 million that did not vote in 2020 but did in 2016 so a net gain of ~26 million. Most of those vote for Biden but 11 million voted for Trump.
The Trump presidency was all about rabble rousing and the numbers given above are conclusive proof that indeed the rabble was roused. Arguably, the 2020 election was the largest turnout in history for the US.
Now as i said I don’t know what’s going on inside the heads of the 30 million rabble that were roused for the 2020 election but I’m pretty sure the staged battle between Trump and the so called “Deep State” is key to understanding why those 30 million voted in 2020, but couldn’t be bothered to vote in 2016.
That’s right, I’m saying the conflict between Trump and the DNC, FBI, Media and Intelligence Community was a choreographed performance designed to rabble rouse and not do much else. The object was to get people suckered into cheering for or cheering against Trump. There is no doubt that goal has been achieved.
For the Biden voter, the four years prior to Nov. 2020 was a roller coaster ride of being repeatedly told that Trump was about to be led away in handcuffs only to find out a little while later that the end of Trump all fell apart. They voted in 2020 to finally make that happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppGj5FOFckM
For the Trump voters it was also a roller coaster ride of one week being told Trump was done for and the next that he had once again wiggled free to fight another day. It was like watching a 1950’s TV cowboy show where the plot was always a weekly cliff hanger.
So that’s how I account for the historic 2020 turnout as a referendum on Trump. Voters had been trained for 4 years to cheer for or against Trump and this was there opportunity to make their cheering count.
Now you come along and say if they had just changed the script a little Trump might have won. Maybe so, but I don’t think they care who won. I have my doubts that even Trump cared if he lost. He gets to continue playing the part either way.
You want to play “what if?”. What if they had run Trump against a candidate that somebody wanted to vote for?
Aside from claims that somehow Trump failed with respect to Covid which should be dead as a door knob at this point,
I am not aware of any credible claim that Trump was not a competent president – by far the most competent of the 21st century based on actual performance.
I used competent specifically. Trump was NOT a great president. But 21st century presidents have been abysmal. And Biden is striving to knock Buchannon out of the record books as worst president ever.
If you want to be critical of his public persona, his style,his combativeness – feel free.
I do not think that is at all important, but others can, that is just how it is.
I value competence over style.
But I would note regarding style and pretty much all the standard complaints about Trump.
In one form or another those are always true of EVERY republican presidential candate.
Not because something is wrong with republicans, but because that is how the left with the increasing complicity of the media, and social media does to every single republican all the time.
John McCain was painted as a hard right evil nazi. Mitt Romney as a radical nazi.
Right now DeSantis is the lead alternativ to Trump.
Is there any rational person that expects DeSantis to be portrayed by the Media any differently than Trump ?
Put simply, Democrats, the media, the left are all going to lockstep paint ANY republican candidate in exactly the way they paint Trump.
You say that the Trump presidence was this rollercoaster waiting for Trump to be lead off in handcuffs.
AGAIN – why would that be different from ANY republican ?
There was absolutely no substance to the collusion Delusion.
There is nothing that the Left/Media/Deep State did to Trump that they can not repeat with any other republican.
Absolutely the media and the left created expectations in people that made absolutely no sense at all from the very beginning.
Regardless, they succeeded. And the only reason they MIGHT not succeed again with another republican is because you can only cry wolf so frequently.
I would note that they tried the same thing with other republicans in 2022.
What are you expecting ? That the left will change their stripes ? That the media is going to actually like some republican that is no practically and the far left ? The only time the left, democrats, the media are not calling any given republican a hateful, hating hater, is for the few moments that person is criticizing someone they hate more at the moment.
The whole Trump thing was the left, the media democrats parroting two minutes of hate out of 1984.
They can emanuel goldstein anyone – if you let them.
I would note that Biden is not substantially different from Trump in persona.
He says stupid and offensive things. He is horribly inarticulate in his word choices.
He is combative, he attacks people.
If Biden had run for president as republican he would get every single criticism that Trump has.
I would note that Trump NEVER wiggled free.
There NEVER was any substance to any of the attacks on Trump.
What surprises me is how easily mislead so many people were.
You do not have to like Trump to grasp that of every single 2016 candidate left and right the LAST person Putin wanted as president was Trump.
BTW this is true of pretty much ALL the stupid claims those on the left make about EVERYTHING.
The HB laptop was OBVIOUSLY not “russian disinformation” – that claim was absurd.
It was also obviously not hacked – though that should not matter.
The more recent Trump is an antisemite. I personally find that hillariously stupid. Absolutely someone F’d up letting Fuentes into MAL.
But honestly – Trump is drowning in Judiasm. His daughter converted, his son-in-law is jewish. Orthodox Jews voted for him in droves, he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, he negotiated the only significant mideast peace deal since Carter.
All this does is prove how easily the media can manipulate people
But the reality is that Biden has far less links to the Jewish community than Trump.
You should note a theme – any paint that can be applied to Trump can just as easily be applied to Biden.
Grow up. Every single thing that Bothers were told is some reason they can not vote for Trump, will be recycled for ANY republican candidate.
and Could – if Republicans played that game be used just as well against democrats.
John Say wrote: “You say that the Trump presidence was this rollercoaster waiting for Trump to be lead off in handcuffs.
AGAIN – why would that be different from ANY republican ?
There was absolutely no substance to the collusion Delusion.
There is nothing that the Left/Media/Deep State did to Trump that they can not repeat with any other republican. ”
_____________________________________
That is your stated belief but it simply does not square with the facts and the evidence
take the Michael Flynn case as an example…
Charges were brought against Flynn with zero evidence that he had done anything to break any law. The entire case was based on Mueller and Flynn asserting to the court that Flynn had lied to the FBI. And then in part because there was zero evidence to support the case Trump jumped in the day charges were filed to punctuate the phony story that flynn lied to the FBI.
https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/pres-trump-says-he-fired-flynn-for-lying-to-pence-and-the-fbi-1108420163773
Never mind that there was zero evidence (other than Flynn’s sworn statement) and that the two FBI agents that interviewed Flynn had repeatedly asserted that Flynn had not lied. Never mind that the FBI had released a public statement (before the Trump administration appointed Mueller) that a careful investigation of Flynn had shown that he had broken no laws.
So eventually , the phony charges against Flynn collapsed as they were designed to from the start.
So no, this would not happen to any other President (regardless of party). Trump has a unique ability to run a con effectively.
The Flynn case is not the only example of phony charges that ended up being-nothing burgers that came from the Trump Administration.
Read the Mueller report. Every accusation of obstruction in the Mueller report is based on information from anonymous sources in the Trump WH leaked to newspapers (usually the NYT or WAPO) and the newspapers and media did their part in the con by whipping up the hysteria and declaring it was the “end of Trump” and “the walls were closing in”. This roller coaster ride of phony charges that came out of the Trump W.H. , then reported breathlessly by the media and then always subsequently evaporated, went on for years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppGj5FOFckM
It boggles my mind that some people believe this operation was run by Democrats, they ignore the fact that all the phony evidence came entirely from Republicans appointed by the Trump Administration. Even Mueller’s paltry evidence of Russian collusion came from statements (mostly hearsay) of Trump minions.
So your evidence that The treatment of Trump by the left is unique,
is their treatment of Flynn which is the same ?
You have alot of interesting comments thoughs and arguments, and I appreciate them.
But the Trump is actually a crypto member of the Deep State is less credible that the leftists apologia for their widespread immorality.
I honestly am not even interested in arguing this Trump is the leader of the deep state claim.
Some things are too absurd.
And I get way more than my share of absurd from Gigi, and Svelaz, and DM.
John Say wrote: “So your evidence that The treatment of Trump by the left is unique,
is their treatment of Flynn which is the same ?”
Flynn’s “treatment” (as you call) was entirely by the hands of the Trump Administration. The prosecutor was a lifelong Republican appointed by the Trump DOJ. The defendant who supplied the only evidence in the case was also a Trump appointee. And even the judge that initially accepted the guilty plea was a Republican appointee.
Because you keep insisting his “treatment” came from the left, you have made it clear you are willing to turn a blind eye to facts you don’t like.
Many on the left (due to their very similar corrupt nature) are as willing as you are to turn a blind eye to facts and thus cheered for this obviously bogus prosecution. That is not in any way legitimate defense for your corrupt willingness to go along with false narrative because the truth would contradict your partisan beliefs.
Sullivan was appointed to the DC court by Reagan – that is a local court, not a federal court.
He was appointed to Federal court by Clinton.
You separately refer to “the defendant” and Flynn,
Flynn was the defendant.
I would further note that Both Flynn and Flynn’s attorney where very active in Trump’s 2020 election challenges.
Your story here gets more convoluted by the minute.
From what I can tell you have Trump framing his own National Security Advisor who then participates in this bizarre Kubuki theater and then participates in Trump’s election challenges.
Sorry, not buying it.
More like a bad LSD trip than anything else.
John Say wrote: “From what I can tell you have Trump framing his own National Security Advisor who then participates in this bizarre Kubuki theater and then participates in Trump’s election challenges. ”
What I did was present the facts and then you came up with the above conclusion from those facts.
You still are just making excuses for why you choose to turn a blind eye to these facts because the true facts don’t fit your story.
What is clear in looking at the complete court documents in U.S. v Flynn is that there never was a viable case of Flynn lying to the FBI. And yet both the Prosecutor and defendant showed up in court saying Flynn lied to the FBI. And then 3 years later both the prosecution and defense showed the court the evidence (that both the prosecution and defense had possessed from the start) that made it clear there never was a case against Flynn.
Now I think you will agree with me that the case against Flynn was a fraud, but that fraud would have been tough to pull off without the help of Flynn and Trump.
So what might Flynn and Trump get out of this? Well it should be obvious that the revelation that Trump and his minions are being unfairly attacked by fraudulent prosecutions would certainly gain a lot of votes for Trump in 2020. It would be especially effective if for years the public is told “over and over” that the “walls were closing in” and the prosecutor was close to bringing about “the end of Trump” and then in the run up to the 2020 election it is revealed it was all a nothing-burger.
Facts lead to conclusions consistent with those facts.
It is called logic.
“What I did was present the facts “
What Jinn did was present false assumptions. Those false assumptions don’t fit Jinn’s false conclusions. Then Jinn adds more ‘facts’ that are obviously false.
Jinn likes playing these games and used to do them under a few other names.
I am not engaging Jinn further on this. Liek George he makes some very well thought arguments that are worth reading.
But he also has some positions that are nearly as antifactual as those on the left.
I can for now ignore the small amount of crazy on the right – because it is impotent.
Nothing Jinn or George argue – even if it was actually correct, is ever going to gain power within government.
While the idiocy of Svelaz or GiGi could easily turn into federal law.
They are crazy and dangerous.
Nick Fuentes may be crazy, but he is not a fraction as dangerous as those on the left.
I get along with lots of crazy people in my life.
It is the dangerous ones I am concerned about
The actions sound like a ruse.
I do not care. As I said, he is often intelligent, and he is not currently dangerous.
There is no reason to engage.
Those on the left here are rarely intelligent and definitely dangerous.
This postion is incredibly important.
I have said repeatedly that I have disagreements with Trump and republicans.
But wrong is not the same as dangerous.
There is no consequential danger from the right or far right or whatever today.
Had Trump been Wrong about election fraud,
Had the J6 protests been an Actual insurrection, Had they intimidated congress into refusing to certify,
thrown the election to congress and by some miracle Trump won.
That would still have been perfectly constitutional.
Though I would note the odds against that were a million:1
Better results would have been the Cruz plan – congress votes to give the NG 10 days to hand count the ballots in 6 swing states.
From what I can tell today – Biden still would likely have won, though I think GA might have flipped. and maybe another state.
But Trump would not have won a hand recount because the problem with the election was not counting ballots.
It was accepting fraudulent ballots ,and that can not be fixed by a recount.
But the point is the worst the right can possibly do – is not really that dangerous.
Winning elections by fraud is actually dangerous – but the left has fought like hell to preclude anyone seriously looking for fraud,
Something we should ALWAYS do.
Stiffing political speech is ALWAYS dangerous.
Sam wrote: What Jinn did was present false assumptions.
Nope your statement is false.
It is a fact that Mueller was a life-long Republican. Its a fact that Mueller was appointed by the Trump DOJ to investigate any links between Russia and the Trump campaign.
It is also a fact that in the U.S. V Flynn case there was no evidence initially presented to the court other than the sworn statement of Flynn that he had lied to the FBI. Years later both the Prosecution and defense presented the evidence to the court that showed Flynn had not lied. The prosecution was a fraud as the evidence that was revealed in the end showed.
The Flynn case was always unbelievable. Flynn had no motive to lie to the FBI and he was answering questions about a phone call that he knew the FBI had recorded. It made no sense that he would lie in those circumstances.
At the time the court accepted Flynn’s guilty plea the unbelievable case was made more believable by Trump tweeting that he had fired Flynn in part because he lied to the FBI.
https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/pres-trump-says-he-fired-flynn-for-lying-to-pence-and-the-fbi-1108420163773
Feel free to try to refute any of those facts.
“It is a fact that Mueller was a life-long Republican.”
Has nothing to do with bias against Trump. Start with that. The rest of your comment is a jumbled mess. Clean up your brain’s thinking process before posting junk.
“Clean up your brain’s thinking process before posting junk”
I simply posted some facts which apparently you don’t like so you call them junk.
Would you prefer a presentation of “alternate facts” that say the Mueller investigation was created and run by Democrats?
Junk is junk. That you didn’t learn it when you were here last under this name or your others is your problem. Anyone with a brain can see that what you write is junk.
Trump’s performance as president got him more votes.
The news medias supression of conservative voices and truth allowed democratic ranting and media propaganda to gin up democrat votes.
Regardless, you do not have the democacy you claim to love, when one party controls what people are allowed to be told.
John Say wrote: “one party controls what people are allowed to be told.”
That statement is correct. All one has to do is look at how that one party has managed the information available to the American public about Ukraine to see that when that one party wants to suppress information it can do so very effectively.
I hate to be the one to tell you, but the story that we have two parties engaged in mortal combat against each other is another example of how the one party pulls the wool over your eyes.
The story that Trump was engaged in mortal combat with the deep state is also about pulling the wool over your eyes.
See, the big problem with the story that the DNC, FBI, Media and Intelligence Community are not allowing us to be told information in order to negatively affect Trump’s political prospects is that we are actually being flooded with that information. The FBI has investigated every presidential candidate in the last 80 years. The only reason this is the first time you heard anything about it is because the one party that rules wanted you to hear about it. They want you to believe the story that Trump is engaged in battle with the deep state.
Jinn;
There have always been two parties in conflict. That fundamental conflict has been over power and nothing else.
Today we see a national political realignment. For the people in the country that realignment is significant.
For some leaders on either side that realignment is significant. For most of those in either party it is just about who will hold power.
The corruption of both parties is independent of the war of ideas that is taking place within the same context.
I do not personally adhere to either party, or to either the old or new ideologies that each part reflects.
That does not change the importance of things I stand for, and things I stand against. Nor does it change the way the world actually works.
I stand for individual liberty – even though that is often messy, and free people sometimes do bad things.
Unfree people do bad things too – more.
“The FBI has investigated every presidential candidate in the last 80 years.”
True in general, but not in scale.
“The only reason this is the first time you heard anything about it is because the one party that rules wanted you to hear about it.
They want you to believe the story that Trump is engaged in battle with the deep state.”
False, the reasons for what we have now, is that while presidents have gotten elected promising to challenge the powers that be. They keep office by staying in the good graces of the powers that be.
Clinton, Bush, Obama made many of the same promises that Trump did.
They barely even pretended to keep them.
John Say: “False, the reasons for what we have now, is that while presidents have gotten elected promising to challenge the powers that be. They keep office by staying in the good graces of the powers that be.
Clinton, Bush, Obama made many of the same promises that Trump did.
They barely even pretended to keep them.”
Yup
Trump was a lot better at pretending, but you are a sucker to believe Trump is not in the good graces of the powers that be
If Trump was in the good graces of the powers that be – he would be president.
Even the posers that be do not want Biden – he is a complete disaster.
I beleive it is Obama that said “do not underestimate Biden’s ability to F’k thinks up”
Now it is the country.
“The FBI has investigated every presidential candidate in the last 80 years.”
“Investigated” is a far cry from *influenced*. In this case, as the good little Praetorians and propagandists that they are — they *influenced* the 2020 election (in cahoots with Twitter and Facebook). The *law enforcement* agency tasked with protecting the integrity of our elections, corrupted our elections. And now who is going to protect us from our “protectors?”
The FBI’s actions, in bed with democrats, are those of a one-party police state.
“Investigated” is a far cry from *influenced*. In this case, as the good little Praetorians and propagandists that they are — they *influenced* the 2020 election (in cahoots with Twitter and Facebook).
Sure they influenced the election. They influenced by making the investigations publicly known which in turn angered many people and induced many millions of voters to vote for Trump.
Its ludicrous to believe that the Strzok and Page were the first federal law enforcement to say such things (or worse) about a politician. Its just the first time you were allowed to eavesdrop on what law enforcement say in private.
Its ludicrous to believe the story about the Carter Page FISA warrant when 3 years earlier Edward Snowden had revealed that the FBI no longer needs permission to tap into any telecommunication they want because the government now has the hardware installed in every telecom company and that means they can tap any communication they want without telling anybody.
“The FBI’s actions, in bed with democrats, are those of a one-party police state.”
Let me remind you that Mueller was appointed by the Trump administration (the day after Trump met personally with Mueller to vet him). Every prosecution that Mueller undertook had to be first approved by the Trump DOJ. Mueller has been a life long Republican snd so were the DOJ leadership, but you are trying to argue that it was all run by the Democrats. Your argument is ludicrous.
“Every prosecution that Mueller undertook had to be first approved by the Trump DOJ.”
That is false. You clearly do not understand how a SC works.
The rest of your comment is wildly off-topic. The “influenced” I’m referring to is the FBI colluding with Twitter, et al, to fix the 2020 election.
Sam wrote:
“Every prosecution that Mueller undertook had to be first approved by the Trump DOJ.”
That is false. You clearly do not understand how a SC works.
__________________________________________________________
I know what Mueller and Rosenstein testified to Congress about how it worked.
And I have also read the statutes that explain how it works.
If you got something else describing how it works feel free to provide it.
Absolutely there is a difference between influenced and investigated.
and that is important.
But it is also true that FBI is intrusively investigating things it has no business in.
This is typical of the left – and it plays into the power grabbing needs of the deep state which is why they are such a perfect and dangerous fit.
The goal of the deep state is NOT to purse the objectives of the left, it is to protect and grow its own power.
But the synthesis of the deep state and the left is strong – because both like more government power.
I can not imagine any basis in the world that the FBI belongs involved in whatever happens at a school board meeting.
Even if an actual riot broke out – that would be a matter for state and local law enforcement.
We do not need an FBI with its fingers in ever pie.
Frankly there is extremely little ACTUALLY criminal conduct that is the business of the FBI.
Even the interstate aspects of some crimes – honestly can be better addressed by cooperation between states.
I would note that the FBI is frequently NOT involved in lots of cases that we like to think of as FBI cases.
I have seen lots of criminal cases that involved crimes sprees across multiple states or even the kidnapping of children and crossing state lines that are handled completely by local police – not even state police from each jurisdiction.
The FBI should be radically scaled back and their mission narrowed – not just because they have become politicized, but because they are bloated. Frankly we should be debloating all of government.
Anyone still paying attention to Trump as anything other but a distraction really needs to check themselves, left or right. This is how they destroy us – dividing us over an individual that has very little relevance but to incite that division. He isn’t going to get the nomination. Give him your attention at your own peril and your own waste of brain cells and energy you could have used for something more useful. Republicans: get over it. Leftists: maybe try addressing reality for once in a half a century, and you wouldn’t have to cheat, buy, and lie your way to prominence. Trump is a clown, slap on him the red nose, and forget about him.
Next up….Skull & Bones war monger Ron DeSantis?
Jon, congrats for going as far as you’ve gone in recent months for calling out the clown car aspects of trump’s schtick. I see you on that. I did get a chuckle over you reaching back to 1960 to for an example of possible electoral malfunction though when there are much more recent examples in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004…
Let’s just stipulate that any claim trump has to electoral malfunction did not stand up to review, either practically or legally. Trump’s claims, in other words, got total exposure and totally died in the light of exposure.
But congrats on taking a step in the direction of your friend Barr who read the writing on the floor a good while back.
Turley says: “There is a legitimate demand for an investigation into this scandal and censorship that clearly had some impact on the close election”, and then later on says that no court could ever determine that the outcome in 2020 would have been different if Twitter had published whatever the Republicans wanted published. Then, there’s the fact that alt-right media DID publish it, along with allegations that it proved there is a “Biden crime family”. Where’s the “clear” proof of “impact” of Twitter declining to publish the salacious and clearly, at the time, questionable information Giuliani came up with on the hard drive? Did you forget all of the carnage Trump caused in this country–the mishandled and lled-about pandemic, daily new records of deaths and infections, trade war with China, unemployment above 10%, schools, businesses, factories and restaurants closed down for about 2 years, insults to our EU and NATO alllies…the list goes on and on. Trump never broke a 50% approval rating in 4 years’ time, which still stands as a record in modern politics. Trump was a failure, and America had enough of him. Did you forget the protest rallies after the Electoral College results showed he managed to cheat his way into office? I participated in one of them in the ruby-red state where I live.
Just like the whining last night on Fox that Walker could have won but for….more money spent…blah, blah, blah, Republicans always ignore the obvious: the people have spoken–Georgians didn’t want Walker–they chose Warnock. The people chose Biden over Trump, who wasn’t going to win in 2020 regardless of the Hunter Biden laptop–all polls predicted the outcome. This is just more denial.
Shut-Up the results are in, that’s the lefts moniker until it’s not.
Voter registration and the means of voting (mail-in, early, no identification etc.) are suspect and without a question unverifiable. Requiring me question the veracity of the final vote. Under our current system it is practically impossible to overturn results once they have been posted. Yea sure, you can request a recount, but if the ballots are suspect how could you ever identify legitimate or illegitimate votes? The Courts have a tendency to defer to certified (that’s the key word isn’t it “Certified” by whom) results in short order, not wanting to delay results. Making any challenge to legitimacy useless because there is no way for the public to remove an illegitimate.
You’re going to have to move off your belief that the reason to question the vote is because your candidate lost then. You’re uneducated in the means of verifying an election and you’re being dogwalked by your cognitive dissonance.
The reason to question the vote is because, in the past two years we have vaporized a perfectly functional in person voting system that has worked for more than a century and replaced it with a disastrous mess that makes to disaster of 2000 look like a dream.
For most of my lifetime we knew the results of the election on election night, often by prime time, nearly always by midnight.
It is not difficult to run an election and count the vote.
But it can be made incredibly difficult and democrats – first in the name of covid, and with stupid claims of voter supression, and in order to secue the couch potato vote that they have been after for decades has mangled the crap out of our elections.
It should be noteworthy to everyone that Republicans actually did pretty well in MOST blue states – states that are using the same voting systems that they have used for decades. Republican did not win some of the long shots thy hope to win, but they did better than expected in places like NY, OR, WA.
The allegations of rigging are primarily in the same places that were corrupt in 2020.
And infact in 2022 the problems were WORSE. Maricopa county in AZ might as well have poured gasoline all over itself and lit a match. Lots of us are pretty sure there was massive corruption – but the alternative is an unherd of an absolutely intolerable degree of incompetence.
One want to revive the TX vs. PA lawsuit from 2020 into TX vs. AZ, and basicially say that the rest of the country has a right to have places like AZ conduct elections that are not total disasters.
After the 2022 election 80% of americans want the vote counted on election day – not this multi week long election contests.
There are a large number of historical indicators of election fraud.
2020 had all of them.
2022 actually had them worse.
If you want to beleive there was no fraud – fine, but I think something like 79% of people think Arizona was stolen in 2022.
Again maybe it wasn’t – but it was an absolute disaster.
Our elections are getting WORSE not better.
And whether you like it or not, this is going to blow up in your face sooner or later.
I suspect Lake’s odds in AZ at this point are tiny. But ask yourself what happens if she turns up proof that the On Demand Ballot Printers in Maricopa county were sabotaged ?
Did that happen ? I do not know. But why would I trust the same people who deliberately supressed the NY Post story in 2020, Silenced anyone who tried to report the truth. and used a basis they KNEW was a lie at the time ?
Do I think people who would lie, cheat, act immorally to win an election,
would lie, cheat, act immorally to win an election ? Of course I do, that question answers itself.
I am using the ODBP’s in AZ as an example – the problem you have is that ANY instance of significant fraud by democrats anywhere that comes to light until elections are no longer close again will be viewed – not just be republicans but much of the country as proof of EVERY claim of election fraud by democrats through to 2020.
You get caught ONCE it is game over.
And you are already in trouble – because the twitter files prove that the left will do ANYTHING to win an election.
When ANYTHING includes supress, censor and silence the truth. It also includes election fraud.
People beleive the left will commit election fraud, all they need is acceptable prrof they DID.
I don’t care how many people ‘think’ Arizona was tampered with– we have a staggeringly uneducated public in many respects. Besides, the cyber ninjas came in and did full review baby…all good!!
Re your talking point (one of them in your typically trumpian tactic of flooding the zone with unsupported material) the reason elections are determined fully is due to republican legislatures limiting the ability of their states being able to count early votes early. Full stop.
Many states have very efficient mail in vote options for decades now. In fact R’s used to own the practice basically. It was an R strength. Only with covid did D’s begin to heavily utilize it.
The cyber ninjas review which was fought tooth and nail did NOT find all good.
It literally found problems with almost 50% of Maricopa County Ballots.
They found plenty of evidence of actual fraud as well as possible fraud.
But as is typical with the left – they did NOT find evidence that DVS equipment threw the election – even though there were all kinds of DVS equipment problems.
And the take away for those on the left is all is good.
The cyber ninja report describes a very badly run election with many possible avenues for fraud, and proof of small scale fraud.
All was definitely NOT good.
It would be beneficial if you could write clear sentences.
Blaming republicans for election rules that are REQUIRED unless you want massive fraud, is stupid.
You can not count mailin votes and early votes until AFTER the polls close, because you MUST have a Last in First out system or people can vote multiple times easily and you can not fix it.
If you have multiple means of voting you will ALWAYS have one of two things – an open door to large scale fraud, or long delays as ballots are tediously counted. Which opens the door to injecting the right number of ballots.
“Re your talking point ”
otherwise known as FACTS.
“one of them in your typically trumpian tactic of flooding the zone with unsupported material”
If anything I have said is in error – show that. Proving a single error in my arguments not just refutes them, but seriously undermines my credibility.
Conversely just insulting me and my arguments undermines yours.
“Full stop.”
Full error.
“Many states have very efficient mail in vote options for decades now.”
Mailin Voting is ALWAYS a problem. That is not new.
SOME states have had some form of mailin voting as an option for sometime.
Nearly all of those are states that have not seen a close election in decades.
The brennan center is actually correct – election fraud is relatively rare.
The reason that is rare, is that there are actual requirements for successful election fraud at any scale.
The first is the election must be close. No matter how good you are at fraud, the odds of getting caught increase exponentially with the scale of the fraud. No one will even Try election fraud in a race that is going to be won by 10pts.
The vast majority of places that have mailin voting prior to 2020 have not had a close election in ages.
I would further note that Mailin voting, early voting and absentee voting are not the same thing – though many states are calling their absentee voting system mailin voting, or used a proper absentee system to play word games to get mailin voting in 2020.
To be clear – everything except limited absentee voting for cause and inperson voting are a bad idea and violate most states constitutional requirement for secret ballot elections.
I have no idea what “efficient” means to you. It is efficient to just dump a bunch of fraudulent ballots into a hopper.
I do nto care much about efficiecy. In fact I am opposed to most government efficiency.
The Nazi’s showed us all efficient government. I want most everything government does to infringe on peoples rights to be inefficient.
I would further note that those states that you celebrate that have mailin voting operations predating 2020 do not allow ballot harvesting, and do not have people knocking on voters doors while ballots are in the mail trying to coerce or induce them to vote.
Further they do not also have in person voting early voting drop off on election day voting. absentee voting.
It is not possible to make mailin voting secure, but it is possible to make it less bad than it is. And most of those states that had mailin voting did so. Vote exclusively by mail. Do not allow campaign workers to come to peoples homes while ballots are out, do not allow ballots to be dropped off. Have rigorous signature matching, and chan of custody. There are a number of other technical measures that can be employed to reduce the oportunity for fraud but you will ALWAYS have two serious problems.
if ballots are in the hands of voters outside of the supervision of election workers:
Voters are subject to being coerced or induced into voting a specific way.
There are allegations that some group seeking to elect Ilhan Omar was paying $300/ballot for votes for her.
The evidence is pretty credible – but that is not the point. Whether that claim is true or not – if you have ballots roaming free – voters will be bought. If you doubt that you just need to look at voting in the 19th century. A current price of $300/ballot would be consistent with what was routinely being paid in parts of the 19th century.
Even keeping campaign workers from homes is not sufficient protection. In the era of the internet and sell phones, photos can be taken of ballots and envelopes and voters paid using that proof of a vote.
One of the reasons you must vote at a polling place is so that you can not be paid or threatened.
We already know that people are routinely paid for signatures on petitions or to gather voter registrations.
Why would we beleive that people will not get paid for voting now that that is possible ?
Mostly I do nto beleive that is happening on any scale YET. But I guarantee you that if you keep this up it will.
But the next problem is forgery and ballot injection.
Once blank ballots are out in public they can easily be counterfeited and anyone with access to voting records – which are public records can forge ballots for people who did not vote in the past and drop them in the mail – or better still at a ballot box.
But even if you thwart that – which is near impossible,
you still have the problem that if you end up with more ballots than voters – i.e. Someone has somehow injected ballots you not only do not but can not have the checks in place to catch and correct that. With in person voting the only way to inject ballots is for election workers to do so.
So if the numbers do not match – you know the issue is with election workers.
Do you know why Costco checks peoples purchases on the way out the store ?
Most people think it is to thwart shopplufting – that is not the most important reason.
It is to stop “shrinkage” – Because store workers know that all customers are checkecked, they know that shortages will be blamed on employees. Walmart loses more out the backdoor than the front door.
Mailin voting creates the same backdoor/front door problem.
I would asume that you know this – but your a left wing nut so probably you do not, Every location in 2020 where fraud is alleged also has more ballots counted than voters who voted. There are other possible explanations, But it does not matter. No count from any precinct anywhere ever should be accepted unless the total number of ballots is less than or equal to the number of voters. No matter how you voted.
But that is not done. As with AZ 2020 and AZ 2022 – we tolerate badly conducted elections and pretend that there is no fraud.
Maybe there is not – but if you conduct an election badly – then you void all the fraud detection measures that you have.
Regardless, if you want an election that people can trust the first rules is KISS – Keep it simple stupid.
The goal is not to make it easy for voters and provide a bazillion different ways to vote. Elections are not about the convenience of the voter, they are not “Have it your way”
Vote entirely in person on election day. Or if you must entirely by mail with short voting window. Not both.
Do not ever use ballot drop boxes for any reason at all.
Do not use multiple ways of voting – every additional method exponentially increases the complexity and the process of he likelyhood of error and error increases the likelyhood of fraud.
” In fact R’s used to own the practice basically.”
False and I am not republican. Some republican states have had some Mailin voting, and some republicans have advocated for it,
But the practice is most strongly pushed by Democrats.
But I do nto care – it is a bad idea no matter who came up with it.
The Bushies foist computer voting terminals on us with the HAV act.
I fought those agressively and after 20 years they are MOSTLY gone.
“It was an R strength.”
Igonorance of history – the primary Mailin voting states are WA, OR, and CO before 2020 – those are all blue states.
“Only with covid did D’s begin to heavily utilize it.”
Again more ignorance of history.
In general Republicans have favored absentee voting – typically this is where a voter goes to the courthouse before the election, votes exactly like at the polls, but then seals their ballot in an envolope like mailin voting – except that like in person voting their ID is checked at the courthouse.
A few states – WI as an example – allow election workers – and only election workers to hand carry ballots to shut ins, and then vote much like an absentee ballot.
Regardless, every single method of voting you allow complicates the counting process.
One of the reasons for the massive delays in NV and AZ – was because if you allow multiple methods of voting, You must count all votes of one method, before you can move to those of another method. This is so that you can catch instances where people vote more than once.
Most states prohibit that, But it happens anyway. Regardless, if you pre-coount mailin and absentee ballots – what do you do if a voter subsequently shows up at the polls to vote ? Most precincts do not and can not check if you already voted – that means you will end up with two ballots and both will be counted. Once a ballot has been removed from a mailin envelope – it will be counted, and you can not subsequently remove if if you find an error. Many errors were found on AZ 2020 envelopes ballots that should not have been counted. But you can not match an envolope back to a ballot – that violates secret ballot constitutional requirements.
You will note in 2022 many states did not take as much time as AZ or NV to count the vote – that is because most of them did NOT do rigorous checking for multiple votes from the same person. Often election officals claim they do – but they really cant. Without spending a great deal of time processing each ballot you can not prevent duplicates – and if you can have duplicates you can have large scale fraud.
I can go on and on.
The fact is most people – most legislators, are ignorant of the complexity of trustworthy fraud free voting.
It is not possible to make mailin voting even a fraction as secure as inperson voting.
But if you must have mailin voting – then have ONLY mailin voting. No drop boxes, no ballot harvesting, no campaign workers knocking on doors. Get rid of voter registration entirely. Require voters to request a ballot to be mailed to them for Each election, and require them to use some ID verification like the IRS is now using for efiling taxes. Keep the window in which Ballots are out short and do not accept ballots without postmarks or after election day.
“we have a staggeringly uneducated public in many respects.”
Obviously more educated than you. You do not even actually know Cyber Ninja’s findings.
Have you read their report ?
Regardless, our elections must work with the voters we have – educated or not.
“Trust me” is NOT good enough
“Trust experts” is NOT Good enough.
When voters do not trust government – what you get are what we are seeing in China and Iran.
If as you claim voters are uneducated – then your voting system must not only work for those uneducated voters.
But they ,must BELEIVE that it is fraud free.
One of the stupidest arguments about 2020 is the problem is with “election deniers” – Total crap.
The DUTY to conduct an election that people trust rests with government.
If large numbers of voters do not accept the results – then the election was not conducted well enough.
https://youtu.be/fm3nQPOWycI
The duty to conduct an election that people trust and to prove to people – even “deniers” that the election you conducted deserves Trust rests with the govenrment NOT with those questioning the election.
It is possible to conduct elections that can be trusted.
That we don’t is in itself proof that those in power for some reason do not want trustworthy elections.
“[T]here is no basis upon which a court could order an election in 2020 to be ‘redone.’” JT)
This baffles me.
There is a long history of courts ordering a new election, precisely in “such cases.” And there is oodles of scholarship on the “when and how” to do so. It’s called:
“A redo election, also known as a revote or special election remedy, is the process of voiding election results and holding a new election.[1]” (https://ballotpedia.org/Redo_election)
Is the argument against a “redo” that too much time has passed?
There has never been a re-do election for President, and neither the US Constitution nor federal law specifies that a re-do election for President is possible or the context in which one would occur, unlike the state laws that specify this possibility and the context for lower level offices. Every single re-do election has involved a geographic entity that’s much smaller than the U.S., such as a single federal congressional district, a single state legislative district, or a single county.
“Every single re-do election has involved a geographic entity that’s much smaller than the U.S. . . .”
So what?
Mutatis mutandis.
So those are possible because state constitutions / state legislation enable them.
Again: neither the US Constitution nor federal law specifies that a re-do election for President is possible or the context in which one would occur, unlike the state laws that specify this possibility and the context for lower level offices. The Electoral College already voted and Congress already certified the EC vote. That’s the end of it, just like the state or local certification of any other election.
“[T]hose are possible because state constitutions / state legislation enable them.”
Try again. There have been *federal* election redos, And many of those you cite were in fact court-ordered.
“[T]either the US Constitution nor federal law specifies that a re-do election . . .”
Finally, someone states the truth. And *that* is precisely my point (or, rather, three points):
1) There are *no* constitutional rules governing a presidential election *redo*.
2) In such a case, that’s why we have a judiciary — to adjudicate what to do. In other words, Trump deserves a day in court — in light of the new evidence and for the purpose of whether there should be a presidential election redo. (Deflectors: Save your breath about the previous court cases. Those are irrelevant to the facts of *this* case and *this* remedy.)
3) Given 1), Trump’s call to suspend the Constitution (in order to hold a presidential election redo) is strange. There are no such rules in the Constitution, and thus no need for a suspension of the Constitution. You do not need to suspend rules that don’t not exist.
When I read the word basis written by a lawyer I think of grounds or a legal reason that would be required to justify a new election. Simply put Trump has not satisfied the legal basis to establish grounds to call for a redo election. He would have to prove sufficient fraud in a court of law that would have swung the election in multiple jurisdictions. Practically, a redo election could be called for a state or county but this would have to be done and won in several jurisdictions to advance to the federal level. Unless it were possible to prove massive fraud across a wide swath of the country. This is almost impossible by Constitutional design and he hasn’t done it yet.
But I could be wrong
The argument is primarily that the Electoral College already voted and Congress already certified the EC vote.
“The argument is primarily that . . .”
So because the jury has already decided, you just ignore new evidence — and let the victim rot in jail?!
(Besides, unless I missed something, that is not JT’s argument.)
Sam,
First, I agree with you emotionally on this issue. But, I think the problem would be that the Electorial College has voted. Remember, the president is voted in by them, not the voters. They do not have to vote the way the popular vote goes. Since I am a believer in the E.C. I don’t know how you get around that issue.
“I don’t know how you get around that issue.”
Neither do I. But that’s what the federal courts are for. Incidentally, there is already precedent for court-ordered, post-certification election redos. (See the list i cited, above.)
Additionally, that is not JT’s argument. Neither is it the “argument” being made by the fury-driven. They all keep chanting: Trump wants to suspend the Constitution! And yet there’s this uncomfortable fact: There are no rules in the Constitution that speak to a presidential election *redo*.
“I agree with you emotionally . . .”
This is not an issue of emotions. It is an issue of facts, Constitutional law, election integrity, and justice.