November 11, 2020

"As the weaknesses of President Trump's legal cases to overturn Joe Biden's win become clearer, Republicans are talking more about the Electoral College..."

"... hinting at an extreme last-chance way for Trump to cling to power.... In this long-shot scenario, Trump and his team could try to block secretaries of state in contested states from certifying results. That could allow legislatures in those states to try to appoint new electors who favor Trump over Biden.... Trump has not directly said he would pursue this strategy. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo each noted on Tuesday that the election results don't become official until electors cast their votes next month...." 


It's very hard to imagine such a thing happening, but the Biden side needs to be prepared as long as Trump keeps the uncertainty alive, tormenting them. 

Axios has quotes from "one lawyer familiar with the process" — the process, not the Trump insiders who are planning to do anything like this, just the existence of this strange, mind-bending path to victory. 

This lawyer observes that Trump may be trying to "scare the living bejeezus out of everyone." Good guess. 

What is the argument that Trump ought to be doing what he can to calm us? I hear Biden and his people telling us they want to bring calm to the country, but they're declining the opportunity to just be calm themselves until the state officials certify the results of the election.

Personally, I feel calm about waiting for that. Why isn't that okay? It seems to me that as long as they choose to pressure Trump to concede before the vote certification, they're forfeiting the high ground of calmness above all, and I'm not going to worry about Trump's pot stirring. 

263 comments:

1 – 200 of 263   Newer›   Newest»
Oso Negro said...

One of a great series of "Why doesn't Donald Trump do what is convenient for Democrats?"

I'm Full of Soup said...

What a BS article

Mr. O. Possum said...

If our ancestors had worried about calmness, they would not have crossed oceans in small ships, cleared forests, fought Indians, or gone west.

tim in vermont said...

"But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo each noted on Tuesday that the election results don't become official until electors cast their votes next month...."

Dum dum dummm🎶

Michael K said...

I think the electors for Pennsylvania might be certified by the legislature as I think the ballots were not separated as required by the USSC. Trump might still win AZ. That's about as far as I can go. The Democrats are just too good at election fraud. I'm sure it was stolen but have my doubts it can be proven.

tim in vermont said...

Those statement by McConnell and Pompeo are all the proof anybody needs to see that a conspiracy is afoot to undermine our democracy by slavish adherence to our constitution. The PRESS picks the winner!

narciso said...

The wisconsin leg isnt reliable, they barelly challenge governor cadaver.

stevew said...

I am calm, calmly observing and waiting for the process to play out. No one makes me calm, nor does any news. I am the source of my calm. Why aren't Biden and the Democrats calm? One answer is that they have something to hide that they fear will be exposed by the process the President is pursuing. So they are not and cannot let themselves be calm. They must try to stop the process.

rehajm said...

Personally, I feel calm about wading into the appointed electors fight, provided there's convincing evidence of widespread fraud. Democrats have endorsed electors changing the outcomes of elections on virtually no evidence. These lefties rightly point out our system provides contingency plans in case the first line of integrity is compromised...

narciso said...


Another example


https://mobile.twitter.com/vickimckenna/status/1326531159770140678?s=21

tcrosse said...

Trouble sleeping? Try Melatonin. It's cheap. It's natural. When you wake up refreshed all the worrisome stuff will still be there, but at least you'll have slept.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

LOL MSM keeps trying to fuck that chicken. Hey Axios! Guess what? Biden is not the official winner "yet" and might not ever be. Maybe you should share that with your gaslighted readers sometime. There's 1000 times more evidence of democrat collusion with election judges than Trump collusion with Russia ever had. No "times" is the wrong operator here, since anything times zero is zero, so maybe 10,000 more believable affidavits than the Resistance ever had. Yeah that's better.

Quayle said...

A world where someone’s benign or nefarious speculation becomes your reality is near to a living hell.

Howard said...

Nobody knows how to put butts in the seats like Donald j Trump. I can't wait to see his new television network.

Leland said...

"Republicans are talking more about the electoral college"

This only serves to remind me that while Hillary supposedly conceded the election; members of her campaign worked with Jill Stein to contest various election results, ran a campaign to convince electors they didn't have to be faithful to their state but to the popular vote, and even after Trump triumphed at the electoral college; continued to have various states change the selection of electors to not be based on the state popular vote but the national popular vote. Lets not forget, there is a reason a place like 538 exists.

Elliott A said...

Why would Biden's team raise money to fight Trump's lawsuits if there is no "there" there.

I Callahan said...

Why aren't Biden and the Democrats calm? One answer is that they have something to hide that they fear will be exposed by the process the President is pursuing. So they are not and cannot let themselves be calm. They must try to stop the process.

stevew makes the point I've been trying to make all along: If there is no question Trump lost and Biden won, why on earth are the Dems (including the resident lefties here) so quick to comment and cast doubt? If I were a Dem and that sure of myself, I'd sit back and say "Go ahead, Trump, knock yourself out". Yet NONE of the lefties are doing that. They're constantly trying to knock the process - the legal maneuvers are baseless, weak, etc.

They have something to hide because they're acting like they have something to hide.

Amadeus 48 said...

Let's see. Yesterday Axios told you that Trump was despondent. Now he's desperate. Maybe even manic. He's torturing the Democrats.

1. They deserve it.
2. I doubt the veracity of Axios.
3. I, too, am calm.

John henry said...

Cause nobody would ever NOT accept the results of a pre-election, would they? Nobody even THOUGHT about trying to stop Candidate Trump in the electoral college in 16, did they?

Nope. No talk of that at all. Not even whispers. Right?

And I call what happened last week a "pre-election" because it is not really an election. Certainly not for president.

The only election that matters is the one that takes place in December.

If it takes some ugly, but legal, thimble rigging of the election to keep PDJT in office, I am fine with that.

"Never give a inch!" (sic)

John Henry

Readering said...

Biden seems pretty calm to me.

Amadeus 48 said...

So much fury and hysteria by the press! They'd be better off pushing investigations to remove any doubt. It worked like a charm when Mueller looked at Trump for two and a half years and could not find anything.

Kevin said...

Shorter Axios: Holy crap our web traffic is down now that people aren't logging in every day to learn how Trump is COMMITTING TREASON!

Howard said...

Elliot you should just go back into the woodwork. That's the most retarded comment written on a blog with mostly retarded comments

DavidUW said...

Well, there's no court that will overturn the results of the fraudulent election, so it's obvious the only way for Trump to win is to make the case to the state legislatures via the courts that the election was so broken it cannot be used as the basis for selecting electors.

Skeptical Voter said...

The writer of the article--and the Dems--are suffering from an extreme case of "that was then and this is now". Heck, Team Trump hasn't even gotten to the SCOTUS yet--he's slower than Gore.

Amadeus 48 said...

"Biden seems pretty calm to me." Yeah. Or is that catatonic?

tim in vermont said...

"Biden seems pretty calm to me”

Biden likely has no clue what is really going on. He is a shadow of his former less than impressive self.

wendybar said...

Who reads this crap. No wonder why Americans are so dumb and brainwashed.

Amadeus 48 said...

"he's slower than Gore." So is the vote counting.

You can feel the hustle, can't you?

hombre said...

Readering said...
“Biden seems pretty calm to me.”

Democrats and the language, eh. Earlier, “Silence is violence.” Now, “nearly comatose” is “calm.”

narciso said...

Well we havent even finished the count in all states.

RMc said...

I have a sneaking hunch that a news outlet that says things like "republicans are hinting at an extreme last-chance way for Trump to cling to power" may not be completely unbiased. (Call me crazy.)

tim maguire said...

"As the weaknesses of President Trump's legal cases to overturn Joe Biden's win become clearer...

Some of Trump's team are people I have been following for a long time. One of them, Ron Coleman, I've paid attention to for almost 20 years for reasons that have nothing to do with politics. I don't get the sense from any of them that they think they are fighting for an unjust cause.

I don't think Axios has the slightest idea what they're talking about. They are just another set of clowns poisoning social media.

Amadeus 48 said...

"That's the most retarded comment written on a blog with mostly retarded comments."

Howard suffers a moment of self-recognition.

narciso said...

When do they ever, thats why they along with mediamatters got the ppemoney.

narciso said...



Sure thats legit

https://mobile.twitter.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1326284558522863617

tcrosse said...

I tremble to think what Trump might say in his concession speech, should he choose to make one. I do not expect him to lead us in Kumbaya.

Amadeus 48 said...

By the way, Hillary's "concession" didn't stop a recount in Wisconsin, where Trump picked up a few votes. They thought about redoing Michigan, too, but the Detroit precincts were such a mess that they realized nothing good was going to happen. Pennsylvania was out of reach, and there were 50,000 votes for Hillary in Philadelphia that Team Hillary weren't sure were real.

NYC JournoList said...

Axios is prepping the battle space. The Great Elector Fight of 2020 is coming. The part of the story for the history books is not yet written. We have not yet begun to fight. BTW, did anyone see that the postal worker who spoke to Project Veritas claims the WaPo reporters declined to talk to him even as the wrote an article that he had recanted? If true, clearcut loss for them if he sues.

Michael K said...

Blogger Readering said...
Biden seems pretty calm to me.


Me too. Others have pointed out why.

DINKY DAU 45 said...

rump's debt, greed, and loose lips raise security concerns after office
Duration: 02:12 9 hrs ago
looks at Donald Trump's history of leaking American secrets while in office, and the other motivating factors beyond Trump's sloppiness with national security that raise concerns that he'll keep America's secrets after he leaves office.

Readering said...

Jim Geraghty at National Review tracking election lawsuits around the country. So far Zilch for Trump.

Sally327 said...

I was calm before the election, when I didn't know who would win, and I'm calm now after the election, when I still don't know who won except I'm figuring the Democrats presumably gamed this thing out to include how to maneuver around whatever moves Trump would make after the media called the election for Biden. There's planning and then doing the crime and then there's figuring out how to get away with it.

Maybe that's what the New Yorker simulation was all about when Toobin got caught masturbating. Helping to figure out the post-election defense for the Democrats.

Dave Begley said...

"Trump and his team could try to block secretaries of state in contested states from certifying results. That could allow legislatures in those states to try to appoint new electors who favor Trump over Biden...."

This is inaccurate regarding the law. The state legislatures have the plenary power to select the electors to the Electoral College, Art. 1, Sec. 2. The Secretaries of State don't have that power.

While Ann finds that hard to imagine, I don't at all. Litigators litigate and they will put on evidence in federal courts and also before the legislatures in the states where fraud exist.

As much as we all appreciate Althouse, she's not a litigator.

This election was stolen via fraud. I'm confident Trump will win in the Electoral College.

Robert Cook said...

"Some of Trump's team are people I have been following for a long time. One of them, Ron Coleman, I've paid attention to for almost 20 years for reasons that have nothing to do with politics. I don't get the sense from any of them that they think they are fighting for an unjust cause."

Few people (possibly none) ever see their own cause as unjust (or unjustified). The more righteous one believes one's cause to be, the greater likelihood one will stop at nothing, even willingly committing atrocities, in furtherance of the cause. Human history, ancient and recent, tells the tale.

cornroaster said...

If state legislatures refuse to confirm slates of electors, and as a result no candidate receives enough electoral votes, the Constitution then has the House of Representatives vote, with the delegation for each state getting one vote. Thus, if the Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin legislatures would refuse to confirm Democratic electors, there is a possibility of the election going to the House.

tim in vermont said...

The closest thing I could find in the article to support the part about their being a “weak” case is this:

The lawyer, who requested anonymity to speak about the scenario, said Trump's team now appears to be trying to throw enough dirt at the process for counting late ballots to argue that accurate results can't be ascertained.

That’s the whole categorization of “the lawyer” that he is a lawyer.

And it’s complete bullshit that it’s all about late ballots.

Listen to Trump’s Nevada lawyer interviewed on Fox, it’s not about late ballots

https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1326212982083293185

This is Pravda level fuckery with the facts.

Mattman26 said...

"Extreme last chance" my ass. State legislatures determine the allocation of electors. It's in the, y'know, the thing.

I would be pleasantly surprised if any of these legislatures had the stones to do it, but holding some hearings and concluding, "Our state's voting and vote-counting mechanisms are a giant clusterfark, and therefore we are taking it upon ourselves to allocate our electors as we see fit," makes all the sense in the world.

tim in vermont said...

"Few people (possibly none) ever see their own cause as unjust (or unjustified). The more righteous one believes one's cause to be, the greater likelihood one will stop at nothing, even willingly committing atrocities, in furtherance of the cause. Human history, ancient and recent, tells the tale.”

Right, the person who never wonders if maybe they are wrong, usually are, Robert.

Mattman26 said...

I had a Lyft ride last night with NPR on the radio. They reported that Biden indicated Trump should concede now so as not to damage his legacy.

My eyes rolled so hard I thought they might fall out.

Quayle said...

I'm looking forward to President Biden's Middle-east Peace Plan.

tim in vermont said...

"Howard suffers a moment of self-recognition.”

Actually, if you read the comment in question, this may have been one of Howard’s lucid moments.

hombre said...

The axios article is just a perpetuation of four years of calumny directed at Trump as part of the leftmediaswine’s political warfare against him.

One can hardly expect them to be excited about more cheating, grifting and corruption from the Dems. Trump is the excitement. Will he be allowed to continue exposing the swamp from the White House or will he have to find other means?

This is not particularly well-written, but it makes the case nicely: https://americanmind.org/features/get-ready-for-a-fight/trumps-greatest-achievement/ .

The “lefting” of Fox News creates possibilities for President Trump to get some payback by creating or financing a new alternative for 70 million people who can no longer be duped. The popular commentators at Fox, Trumpers all, are multimillionaires who can afford to buy out of their contracts. Nobody watches Fox for Bret Bauer or the blondes.

Readering said...

Trump opposite of calm. Many experts have pointed out why (and predicted he would take the results this way).

tim in vermont said...

Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a September 2020 study revealed that 353 U.S. counties had 1.8 million more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens. In other words, the registration rates of those counties exceeded 100% of eligible voters. The study found eight states showing state-wide registration rates exceeding 100%: Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Fuel for fraud. All of these registrations sitting there, just waiting for somebody to vote in their names.

Greg The Class Traitor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quayle said...

"Maybe that's what the New Yorker simulation was all about when Toobin got caught masturbating. Helping to figure out the post-election defense for the Democrats."

Was thinking this myself. I was wondering if the "simulations" or "gaming" was their planning how to head off Trump's reactions - their plan to block Trump refusing to leave or inciting his followers to rebellion. It looks like it was all gamed out and carried out, for example, in the way that the social media immediately shut down certain communications.

The question for me is whether it was ever a serious threat that Trump would refuse to leave, or whether that was his political opponents' own projections and speculations to which they were reacting, but which were never a serious or grounded possibility.

It looks very much like Trump's political opponents created a giant straw Trump trojan horse and are now celebrating that they kept that horse outside of the gates of the city.



Quayle said...

Stand back, intellectual midgets! Readering has cited to "many experts". Debate is done.

Lurker21 said...



Everything one reads about politics is "Republicans this," "Democrats that." The actions or beliefs of a smaller group are taken as representative of the whole. It's not wholly invalid -- party unity and party loyalty in Congress are at a high point -- but more often the headlines just get things wrong.

Some Republicans do think Trump has a path to victory. Others, especially those in elective office, think he's already lost. Most probably want the investigation but don't think it will yield a Trump victory in the end. I don't think most Republicans think some last minute miracle in the state legislatures is going to give the president a victory.

The other problem with articles like this is that in a competitive political environment everybody has a plan; everybody has a strategy. If Team Trump (or some fraction of it) has a sketchy plan, rest assured that Team Biden has one too. Sometimes one candidate's gang is less advanced in tactics and playing with old rules and procedures that no longer work. But I'm pretty sure that these aren't Mondale's or Dukakis's Democrats. Didn't Joe say that he has assembled the best voter fraud team ever?


DarkHelmet said...

When I look at Real Clear Politics I see Biden with 259 electoral votes and AZ, PA, GA and NC still undecided.

Maybe we should finish counting votes? Also, maybe it is a good thing to determine whether massive dumps of fraudulent ballots actually got into the mix?

I note that Trump got 200,000 more votes in WI that four years ago, the state legislature was little changed (Dems got two state assembly seat pickups while the GOP got two state senate pickups). I also note that Trump's map in Wisconsin looks a lot like his map in 2016. The only difference? Lots more Dem votes in Milwaukee county. Hmm.

Quayle said...

"The actions or beliefs of a smaller group are taken as representative of the whole."

I think this is important to keep in mind. There could indeed have been some bone-headed decisions made or actions taken by individual Biden (or Trump) supporters, at a local counting office, or even among a few local election "officials." That doesn't mean that all Democrats in the higher reaches of the party, or every Democrat Senator, would have wanted or agreed or contributed to such bone-headed things.

We have to get smarter in the recognition of how "groups" are the crutch of intellectually sloth. Like referring to 1.3B people with the phrase, "Muslims believe...."

tim in vermont said...

Appearing on Fox News with Sean Hannity, White House spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany shares information from within 234 pages of sworn affidavits outlining ballot fraud in Wayne County, Michigan. Amid the allegations are: a single person signing sixty percent of ballots, multiple ballots being run through the counting machines more than once, and deceased voters.

Fox seems to have gotten the message that they can’t ban discussion of POTUS’s case without destroying their network viewership.

Gospace said...

How should electoral votes be allocated? As Maine and Nebraska do it, in every state. We would, today, have a clear winner. Trump. Even with all the fraud.

Readering said...

Now that is some bad math.

tim in vermont said...

What Biden said in the Wallace debate:

“Will you urge your supporters to stay calm while the vote is counted, and will you pledge not to declare victory until the election is independently certified?” asked Wallace of Biden at the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio.

“Yes,”


I am sure it was intended as a dig at Trump, but still, it turned out to be one more lie out of Biden’s mouth during that debate.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

How you run an honest election:

1: Follow the law
2: If the law is suboptimal, the Governor and State Legislature work together to write new laws
3: If you don't like what's going to be used? Tough. Follow the law. Don't go to courts to get the rules rewritten in a way you couldn't get the State Legislature to vote for, and the Governor to approve

4: Provide a clear and transparent way for all interested parties to monitor what's going on
5: All the Parties running for office to provide observers who can easily observe everything you're doing in the vote counting process.
6: That means they get to have their observers at the polls, making sure everything is done legally
7: That means you can not ever count any ballots when the observers aren't there, able to see exactly what you're doing
8: If you're working on a computer, they get to stand where they can see and read the screen. If you're working with paper they get be where they can read what's on the paper, and see whatever you're doing with it

9: If you consider letting them do that to be a threat to your health, you are welcome to quit your job. But your health concerns aren't as important as my RIGHT to have an honest vote. Because vote fraud steals my vote just as much as taking away my ballot and ripping it up

Pretty much at every step of the way, Democrats fought to violate these principles. Which is to say, at every step of the way Democrat publicly showed us that their sole interest was in getting power by any means, fair or foul.

When you do that, you can no longer object when the other side responds the same way.

The voting is over. The ballots in the margin of victory States are so horribly tainted, by the Democrats chosen actions, that there is NO way to know who actually won

It is my personal belief and position that when Party X violates the rules, and then "wins", one should assume that Party X knew they were going to lose, which is why they cheated. And we should take them at their word, and take away any "victory" that came to them after they cheated. So, as a matter of morality, I think either we need a revote in the relevant States, with strict guards to block any repeat of the cheating, or else the election goes to Trump

In any event, I can see no moral, legal, or ethical reason why Trump should refrain from doing ANYTHING that can give him the win. The Democrats chose that style of play. Now they must be made to pay for it

Readering said...

We are going to finish counting votes. Biden current 5 million vote lead expected to exceed 7 million when CA and NY done.

DavidUW said...

I wasn't aware that there were millions of electoral votes. you know, the only votes that elect the president.

roesch/voltaire said...

The Trump team is trying this stunt in Mich--anything to suppress the vote of the people.

gerry said...

We are going to finish counting votes. Biden current 5 million vote lead expected to exceed 7 million when CA and NY done.

Will the increase in the popular vote total in New York or California affect the Electoral College vote total? Or is the popular vote total in New York and California simply another example of sperm in the gutter?

Greg The Class Traitor said...

tim in vermont said...
Fox seems to have gotten the message that they can’t ban discussion of POTUS’s case without destroying their network viewership.

Not really. They canceled Judge Judy's show (for at least one night) because apparently she was going to discuss Democrat vote fraud: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/391212.php

IMO, what' happened here is Hannity told the lefties at Fox News that they could get stuffed, he was going to talk about what he wanted to, and the lefties decided that they couldn't afford to fire Hannity the way they fired Judge Judy.

Looking at the viewership numbers for Fox here: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/391210.php they may well be in a position where they can no longer threaten Hannity of Carlson.

DavidUW said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
DavidUW said...

Gospace: agree. The Maine/Neb way is a logical way to allocate electoral votes and I would prefer states did it that way.
Although if done that way, I believe we'd have had President Romney and we'd definitely have fully cemented Obamacare, now fully transformed into Medicare for all, plus another 20M tax eaters as new citizens.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Readering said...
We are going to finish counting votes. Biden current 5 million vote lead expected to exceed 7 million when CA and NY done.

So what?

The US will not be ruled by NY and CA. That's why we have an Electoral College

Don't like it? Here's your options:
1: Get a Constitutional Amendment passed changing it
2: Have a Civil War
3: Suck it up

I Callahan said...

Trump opposite of calm. Many experts have pointed out why (and predicted he would take the results this way).

Of course he would. Any lucid minded human would have reacted this way with the amount of cheating going on. And don't tell me there isn't. I'm a data analyst by trade, and there is no way in hell Biden got WAY more votes than Obama in Detroit, Philly, Atlanta and Milwaukee.

That aside - if the show were on the other foot (like in 2000 and 2018), the Dems would be reacting the same way. So pull the other one; this one's already sore.

Temujin said...

I swear these 'journalists' drop some psilocybin and gather round each other to come up with new bizarre angles on what is in front of us.

No, Republicans will not go beyond the actual cases. If they cannot prove with evidence that there has been fraud, then they will have to move on. And they know that.

Two things most of the country knows:

1) There has been fraud, massive fraud, organized fraud.
2) It is so spread out, pervasive, and overwhelming that it cannot all be found in a short time, and not enough of it will be able to be presented.

Biden/Harris will be a sick 4 year term. Damaged from the start. Denied respect from millions. And they'll stomp all over our country's founding principals to do their thing, further isolating the populace from Washington. 2022 will be a bellwether election.

tim in vermont said...

50 Republican Senators now with Alaska, so Dem’s have to get both in Georgia, where one of the Republicans is vulnerable, and one has a comfortable lead, according to pollsters who seem to have no way of gauging Republican sentiment.

Jersey Fled said...

I haven't bothered to do the math this time, but 4 years ago the 10 largest cities in the US accounted for more than 100% of Hillary's popular vote margin. I suspect that this time its even worse.

NCMoss said...

My newspaper proudly printed on the front page that "Officials find no evidence of fraud" and then later explained that "some states described small problems common to all elections with a few instances of illegal or double voting, some technical glitches and some minor errors in math". See; even though there's fraud, it's not fraud-fraud.

tim in vermont said...

Trump went to California once, and flipped a few house. seats there, but never set up an organization either in NY or CA to try to run up irrelevant votes. "Sperm in the gutter” is exactly right.

MadisonMan said...

that 353 U.S. counties had 1.8 million more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens.
In the precinct I worked in, there were about a dozen people still on the roles that I know have moved. Dead people are excised quickly enough though.
And voter fraud must involve money. You have to pay someone not to show up, so you can vote for them. Follow the money. Is there an increase in tax revenue from local bodegas after a very close election that mysteriously goes for the Democrat every time? That's what I'd look into if I had time.

tim in vermont said...

Should Biden prevail, Harris was so unpopular a politician that she couldn’t even make the first primary, will be the standard bearer for Democrats? OK, sure.

Maybe they chose this doomed pair to clear the decks for 2024 for Democrats. That would be smart, I guess. But the stink of the coming exploration of Biden’s corruption may fatally wound their party’s chances in that year.

tim in vermont said...

"You have to pay someone not to show up, so you can vote for them. “

No, you just have to spend the overnight hours after the election manufacturing ballots for the ones who didn’t show up. I read somewhere that in some precinct in Texas, when Kennedy and Johnson won, at the end of the day, all of the people who hadn’t yet voted showed up and voted in alphabetical order. It was an election day miracle!

Chuck said...

It's okay if Trump wants to play out absolutely every legal option, no matter how obviously futile.

Trump's doing that will damage the transition, and will damage the nation, and will damage Trump's standing in history, if that last item can possibly be damaged any more than it already is.

It will certainly NOT be somehow good for the electoral process. If we need to examine electoral processes, the waning moments of a super-contentious election count is NOT the time to do that. We can do that outside of election season, with proper academic research and data.

What Trump is obviously intending, is that he will always be able to say that he never conceded, and in the end he was robbed of an electoral victory. The falsity of that will not matter in TrumpWorld, because the falsity of things that Trump falsely contends never matters in TrumpWorld. Trump just doesn't want to ever have to admit that he lost. Everything else -- nation, party, history, legacy -- be damned.

And of course the final act is that when Biden is sworn in, with Trump still contending that he should be President, we in the anti-Trump majority can really spike that football. Trump will have had his day in court. He will have gotten his recounts. He will have played out all the legal options. Leaving absolutely no doubt what a loser he is.

mockturtle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mockturtle said...

Here's an interesting interaction between a Biden voter and a BLM mob in Portlandia in his front yard on election night: Link Just goes to show that appeasement never works.

Attonasi said...

RNC Chair: 500 sworn affidavits, over 11,000 witnessed incidents of voter fraud.

Pennsylvania is pretty much a lock to have it's election invalidated and thrown to the state legislature. There were clear systematic violations of law, clear equal protection violations, and they disobeyed a direct order from Justice Alito.

The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court will delay their ruling as long as they can to avoid it going to the Supreme Court where it will be a 5-4 or 6-3 depending on how Roberts is told by his masters to vote. They might want him inside a 6-3 to mess with it.

Once Pennsylvania is thrown out nobody will accept Michigan or Wisconsin or Nevada or especially Georgia. Dominoes are a blast.

tim in vermont said...

The stakes dropped significantly once Manchin, who is a Democrat from a 70% Trump state, said that he would not support getting rid of the filibuster or packing the courts. Biden can write executive orders all he wants, but the next guy can just un-write them.

The Democrats best hope is to snatch Romney, but as little as I think of that man, I don’t think he would do that. I think that we are in for two years of Gridlock with Democrat insanity on display.

narciso said...

I trust manchin like i would trust a rabideaccoon.

jaydub said...

When I moved back to NC from Spain 18 months ago, I got a cell number that had apparently been held by a young lefty named Jonathon. When we left NC and moved to FL a few months ago, I kept the NC cell number and I registered to vote in FL but apparently every lefty organization in the state still thought I was Johnathon and still registered in NC. Long story short, over the course of the last couple of months I have received about 15 or 20 texts from those leftist organizations asking if I was going to vote by mail and offering to help me get a mail in ballot. It was not a GOTV effort, it was a get out the mail in vote effort because not once did anyone encourage me to actually go to the polls and vote, they were only interested in me mailing my vote in. I thought that smelled at the time and now I'm convinced this whole effort was nefarious.

Regardless, I understand the reluctance to concede the election and desire to dig into the details of the vote in swing states. However, I'm personally over it and just looking forward to being a active, dedicated member of the new resistance while also keeping my powder dry. Might even put on a pussy hat and demonstrate in DC during the inauguration.

DaveL said...

I think the electors for Pennsylvania might be certified by the legislature as I think the ballots were not separated as required by the USSC.

If it is true that votes that were outside the actual PA election law requirements were not separated during counting, and if the higher courts agreed that PA judges erred in allowing such votes (received or postmarked after the polls closed or without signatures or without privacy envelopes, etc.), then there would be a serious case for invalidating the election and having a re-run. Alternatively, the legislature could reset the count to what it was at the end of election day.

However, if somehow Trump ended up getting PA's 20 electoral votes, it still wouldn't be enough for him to win: he'd have 252. He would still need both GA (16) and AZ (11) to get over 270, and there are small Biden leads in both (source: DDHQ).

So to win he'd have to somehow get leads in both of those states, running the table with 279 EV.

tim in vermont said...

"Trump's doing that will damage the transition, and will damage the nation, and will damage “

Spying, bullshit charges of Russian collusion to destroy people’s faith in elections, etc, etc, cry me a fucking river Chuck

"Trump's standing in history, if that last item can possibly be damaged any more than it already is.”

You guys have played out that suit as you rightly point out.

"we in the anti-Trump majority can really spike that football.”

All I can think of is that. line from Of Mice and Men, since Steinbeck seems to be a subject today on the blog: “Tell me again about the rabbits George."

Attonasi said...

Chuck said...

And of course the final act is that when Biden is sworn in, with Trump still contending that he should be President, we in the anti-Trump majority can really spike that football. Trump will have had his day in court. He will have gotten his recounts. He will have played out all the legal options. Leaving absolutely no doubt what a loser he is.

tim in vermont said...

What Biden said in the Wallace debate:

“Will you urge your supporters to stay calm while the vote is counted, and will you pledge not to declare victory until the election is independently certified?” asked Wallace of Biden at the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio.

“Yes,”



When Pennsylvania's election is invalidated what will you do Chuck?

Lurker21 said...

If we need to examine electoral processes, the waning moments of a super-contentious election count is NOT the time to do that. We can do that outside of election season, with proper academic research and data.

Really? If voter fraud isn't an issue now, it won't be one afterwards. You'll just have blanket denials that it happens and that it matters.

mockturtle said...

I'm personally over it and just looking forward to being a active, dedicated member of the new resistance while also keeping my powder dry.

I'll second this, jaydub. [I draw the line at pussy hats, though].

J. Farmer said...

@Robert Cook:

Few people (possibly none) ever see their own cause as unjust (or unjustified). The more righteous one believes one's cause to be, the greater likelihood one will stop at nothing, even willingly committing atrocities, in furtherance of the cause. Human history, ancient and recent, tells the tale.

I think this is almost certainly true. You can observe the same dynamic in chimp communities, one set of rules for in-group members and another set for out-group members based on kinship. But because humans have symbolic communication, we can create through cultural symbols a kind of pseudo-kinship between people who are otherwise distantly related and not personally known to each other. That mixture of kinship and cultural symbols is the source for ethnic and national identity. And a myriad of other subcultures.

mockturtle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim in vermont said...

" trust manchin like i would trust a rabideaccoon.”

They could buy him off, I guess, but he wouldnt’ be able to ever be re-elected. I like what Howie Carr said about Manchin, “He’s always there when you don’t need him.” But I think in this case he probably really believes it.

Chuck said...

Attonasi said...
...
...
When Pennsylvania's election is invalidated what will you do Chuck?


What I think, is that you and I need to have a wager on whether Pennsylvania's election will be "invalidated."

Are you on?

mockturtle said...

Never has Hosea 8:7 been more appropriately applied than it is to the Dems today:
“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.”

stever said...

My "stay calm" checklist:

1. Stay away from social media
2. Know that the polls are wrong
3. Know the Dems will cheat and gladly steal the election
4. Don't watch network or cable news
5. Ignore websites like Axios
6. Joe Biden? Its going to be a shit show

Howard said...

Blogger tcrosse said...

I tremble to think what Trump might say in his concession speech, should he choose to make one. I do not expect him to lead us in Kumbaya.


It will be a "The End of the Beginning" speech. The best is yet to come. Send lawyers guns and money, the shit has hit the fan.

tim in vermont said...

I know Chuck would rather sweep this under the rug, so as to preserve the illusion of electino integrity

https://www.theepochtimes.com/pennsylvania-100000-ballots-with-implausible-return-dates_3572942.html

rehajm said...

So to win he'd have to somehow get leads in both of those states, running the table with 279 EV.

They are still counting in AZ and Trump could yet be on top when all the votes are counted. GA is tougher but the winning margin is still small- if Trump doesn't have the vote at the end of counting a recount and/or legal battle could change the tally to turn the lead in Trump's favor. CoA's could do it in GA.

There's also reasons Tump legal is still talking about WI, MI and NV, too. There a re still multiple path's to a Trump victory...

Michael K said...

the shit has hit the fan.

That's Biden and, if he says so, it will be the first truth he's told.

I know that's OK with you Howard because Orangemanbad.

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim in vermont said...

Hand recount/audit coming in Georgia

Chuck said...

tim in vermont said...
I know Chuck would rather sweep this under the rug, so as to preserve the illusion of electino integrity...


I don't want to sweep anything under any rugs. I don't even want to pick up a broom. I am not going to argue any of these conspiracy theories. I am going to sit back, with a delicious cocktail, and watch the Trumpists flail. I am not lifting a finger to try to "debunk" anything. If I did so, I'd be getting in the way of TrumpWorld's turning itself into a world laughingstock. See you in December, and again on January 20.

And then again(!) when Melania files for divorce, when Deutsche Bank appears in court, when Trump is indicted in New York, etc., etc.

Jupiter said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Readering said...

Greg, we had a civil war. That's why you are ruled by CA and NY.

tim in vermont said...

First rule of holes, Fox!

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1326297254374879233

Fox has been told that their news people may not engage in balanced reporting.

tim in vermont said...

I don't want to sweep anything under any rugs. I don't even want to pick up a broom. - Chuck

If we need to examine electoral processes, the waning moments of a super-contentious election count is NOT the time to do that.. - Chuck

Jupiter said...

Jupiter said...
What, the Times is getting to be thin gruel, so you've decided to supplement it with -- Axios? I haven't even bothered to find out which billionaire is subsidizing that transparent purveyor of the Party Line, or which collection of drug-addled children he purchased for that purpose. Drivel.

"As the shortage of drugs around the Axios office becomes clearer, tattooed "editors" with prominent penis-rings are beginning to seriously float a proposal to trade a particularly attractive reporter to their drug-dealer, in return for several ounces of heroin, an unspecified but presumably lethal amount of fentanyl, and almost a pound of high-grade marijuana. The reporter has been tied up and locked in her office while the staff votes on the offer.

'Really, she needs to check her Becky-P. It's so selfish for her to refuse to help out when so many are suffering!', explained one senior copy editor. Becky-P is a shortened form of "Becky Privilege", the unwillingness of young, slender females with long, straight hair to have sex with the short, fat men they work for."

There, you want news, I made some up. I'm a journalist.

Attonasi said...

DaveL said...

If it is true that votes that were outside the actual PA election law requirements were not separated during counting, and if the higher courts agreed that PA judges erred in allowing such votes (received or postmarked after the polls closed or without signatures or without privacy envelopes, etc.), then there would be a serious case for invalidating the election and having a re-run. Alternatively, the legislature could reset the count to what it was at the end of election day.

You aren't looking at the big picture.

What happens if one state election is thrown out as fraudulent?

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

As Joe Poli Sci, I enjoy this constitutional stuff in election years.

1. The founders clearly intended that electors could be "rogue" or "unfaithful": they should be prominent people, and it is better to have them decide for themselves than always follow the popular vote, i.e. the mob. For that matter, Pres and VP candidates didn't run on party slates.
2. The USSC has confirmed that individual electors now have no right to go rogue. They have to follow the law for the state. The country has become more democratic. Does this mean state legislatures have a power they never officially had--to simply dictate to electors what they must do, regardless of the vote at either the state or national level? Lessig and Harrow have written on Lawfare that the state leg. must follow the vote at one of two places: the individual state, or the national vote.
Then there are other arcane procedures. A helpful comment:

Blogger cornroaster said...
If state legislatures refuse to confirm slates of electors, and as a result no candidate receives enough electoral votes, the Constitution then has the House of Representatives vote, with the delegation for each state getting one vote. Thus, if the Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin legislatures would refuse to confirm Democratic electors, there is a possibility of the election going to the House.

Each state with one vote = Trump win? Hypothetically, each state allocating its vote by party result = Trump win?

Howard said...

C'mon. Don't you wanna see Trumps Jailhouse hairdo? His fat white face and white hair sticking out of an orange jumpsuit will make him look like a melting Creamsicle

tim in vermont said...

Lauren Powell Jobs is the billionaire who owns Axios.

Steve Jobs is probably spinning in his grave.

tim in vermont said...

"His fat white face and white hair sticking out of an orange jumpsuit will make him look like a melting Creamsicle”

Rember when lefties were saying a week ago that the reason non whites were voting for Trump was to partake vicariously in the power of the patriarchy.

It was projection, just look at Howard getting a semi just thinking about the boot of the state being used to imprison Trump on whatever invented charges are required.

Attonasi said...

Chuck said...

What I think, is that you and I need to have a wager on whether Pennsylvania's election will be "invalidated."

Are you on?


What did you do when Trump won?

I assume you made similar bets about Hillary.

Looking back at your work the last couple days I think it is fair to assume you have a tendency toward dishonesty. Taking bets with people like that is a lose lose proposition.

narciso said...

how many seats did this impeachment fooferaw contribute to, in addition to the riots, the pennsylvania state house got redder, so its all very dubious,

Attonasi said...

Howard said...

C'mon. Don't you wanna see Trumps Jailhouse hairdo? His fat white face and white hair sticking out of an orange jumpsuit will make him look like a melting Creamsicle

No.

Because by average about 3% of the 71+ million voters that voted for him would stop being peaceful.

And most of those people have active military experience and seen things that would make fat white people like you shit their pants.

J. Farmer said...

@stever:

My "stay calm" checklist:

Please allow me to nominate a few possible additions:

7. The country and government are too divided for this to be a transformative presidency.
8. The governing paradigm we've relied on for three decades remains largely intact.
9. Most power in society is not contained in elected positions.

Static Ping said...

When you see the media obviously colluding about talking points and writing stories that sound like propaganda from a one party state, it does bring into question what exactly they are hiding.

Attonasi said...

J. Farmer said...

@Robert Cook:

Few people (possibly none) ever see their own cause as unjust (or unjustified). The more righteous one believes one's cause to be, the greater likelihood one will stop at nothing, even willingly committing atrocities, in furtherance of the cause. Human history, ancient and recent, tells the tale.

I think this is almost certainly true. You can observe the same dynamic in chimp communities, one set of rules for in-group members and another set for out-group members based on kinship. But because humans have symbolic communication, we can create through cultural symbols a kind of pseudo-kinship between people who are otherwise distantly related and not personally known to each other. That mixture of kinship and cultural symbols is the source for ethnic and national identity. And a myriad of other subcultures.

And there is not much difference on most levels between those chimp communities and our country under Joe Biden.

Or Mitt Romney. Or George Bush. Or Obama, Clinton, Ford, Nixon etc...

We have had some outliers like Reagan, Trump, Washington, Teddy Roosevelt that managed to be better than standard animal social constructions.

Attonasi said...

J. Farmer said...

@stever:

My "stay calm" checklist:

Please allow me to nominate a few possible additions:

7. The country and government are too divided for this to be a transformative presidency.
8. The governing paradigm we've relied on for three decades remains largely intact.
9. Most power in society is not contained in elected positions.


The issue now is the alliance between corporations and government.

If Biden wins our path as a species boils down to monkeys hiding in caves waiting for AI's to wipe us out in one of a variety of ways.

Renee said...

Wouldn't Democrats want to see Trump lose twice, once in the election and again in the courts?

I don't understand media's pressure to concede, Biden can still plan his transition team while Trump is in the courts. .

Attonasi said...

Dominion Software engineers are coming forward as whisteblowers.

Dominion built the software that runs a lot of voting machines.

It also has several significant Democrat shareholders like Nancy Pelosi.

So yeah about Michigan where there have already been 2 "glitches" found?

Left Bank of the Charles said...

Back in December 2000, the Florida House of Representatives voted to award the state's electors to George W. Bush. That was rendered moot by the Bush v. Gore decision in the Supreme Court. But getting the state legislature to award the electors is in the Republican playbook.

The Constitutional question is who gets to make the final decision as to who are the electors for a disputed state, the U.S. Supreme Court or Congress? Gore didn't take his case to Congress in 2000, so we don't have a precedent there. For the 1877 election, a fifteen-person commission was established with five members each from the House, Senate, and Supreme Court. But that can be regarded as only a precedent for a negotiated settlement.

tim in vermont said...

I figure that Trump has about a ten percent chance of prevailing, and that is worth fighting for, and it’s a lot to walk away from. The biggest pot I ever won in poker involved me drawing to an inside straight. Being the asshole that I am, I rubbed it in by laughing about it. But the reason I did it was that I bought the card cheap compared to the payoff. My daddy didn’t raise no fool. Same logic applies here with Trump.

Tom said...

Here’s the pattern I see at worries me greatly. Hong Kong revolted. Covid effectively killed that revolt right after China shot some protesters.

There were various and nefarious campaigns to oust the president and all they proved is that the Obama administration illegially surveilled his campaign. There was a malicious prosecution of Michael Flynn. The impeachment was a joke but it was a nice, pre Covid distraction.

Meanwhile, China is expanding its sphere of influence in the South Pacific, Africa, the Caribbean, and in the US. Australia and New Zealand have disarmed their populous. Europeans are totally disarmed.

Trump has repeatedly socked China in the nose economically over the last four years.

Covid set up the perfect excuse for mail in balloting. Mail-in balloting is proving to be full of fraud.

So, yeah, I think it’s time to be very worried. Thank God we’re not yet disarmed. But we are starved for ammo and that might be just as important.

If I’m right and this is the pattern, then if Biden is elected, there will be a mass shooting that triggers gun control and confiscation. If the Dems get control of the senate, I’d say it’s game over at the federal level.

chuck said...

But getting the state legislature to award the electors is in the Republican playbook.

My understanding is that the state legislature is constitutionally responsible for choosing the electors. State legislatures may delegate that power to the voters, but that is their choice, it is not in the Constitution.

Mr. O. Possum said...

I think Trump will win, and I am surprised there is so much downhearted talk.

With Alaska, he is at 217. He has won NC. That puts him at 232.

GA is 16.
PA has 20.
AZ has 11.
NV has 6

GA, PA, and NV give him 42, and the win.
GA, PA, and AZ give him 47, and the win.
PA, AZ, and NV give him 37, and maybe there's a way to get 1 more elector.

There are 2 possible winning combinations, and a third that holds promise.

There was a damn blizzard the night Washington ordered his forces--sick and barefoot--across the icy Delaware. Have heart!

Chuck said...

Attonasi said...
Chuck said...
"What I think, is that you and I need to have a wager on whether Pennsylvania's election will be 'invalidated.'

"Are you on?"

What did you do when Trump won?

I assume you made similar bets about Hillary.

Looking back at your work the last couple days I think it is fair to assume you have a tendency toward dishonesty. Taking bets with people like that is a lose lose proposition.


I made no bets on the 2016 winner, which was a good thing for me because I would have lost. I did have a well-publicized bet with another Althouse commenter on the percentage of the black vote for Trump. I won that bet and commenter -- a very honorable straight-up guy who doesn't much like me but who paid up on the bet almost instantly -- made good.

I voted, very reluctantly, for Trump in 2016. Of course I voted for Biden this year.

I would assure you that I would pay up on any wager, but I haven't lost any wagers made with Althouse commenters. I'm 3-0.

So are we on? The bet is that the Pennsylvania election will be "invalidated." My standard bet is a large bottle of spirits and I will tell you how to order it for me when I win.

tim in vermont said...

Left Bank has a point, Trump is only guaranteed to win in the case where there are not enough votes for any candidate:

if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote;

I heard in 2000 that Congress would decide which electors to certify, in the case that two slates arrived, which might be the scenario we are talking about, in that case, if the Dems hold onto the House, which is not yet certain, but probably will happen, Biden wins?

This is not at all obvious.

BTW, good job on impeachment Democrats! Remember how it was supposed to increase your majority!

n.n said...

Democrats had 16 trimesters to project and abort their burden. 16 trimesters of witch hunts, warlock trials, and protests founded on false premises. 16 trimesters to protect Obama/Biden's legacy of social justice adventurism and wars (e.g. Iraq War 2.0), elective coups, catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform (e.g. refugee crises), progressive prices, outsourcing/insourcing, Green shifting and obfuscation, political congruence, spying and colluding, influence peddling, normalizing diversity (i.e. color judgments) not limited to racism, and, of course, liberal license and the Progressive Church's wicked solution.

rehajm said...

... if the Dems hold onto the House, which is not yet certain, but probably will happen, Biden wins?

In the case of two sets of electors 12A comes into play and it looks like the VP Pence has the authority- not a vote by house members...

President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.

Discuss....

Ralph Strickland said...

I’m curious if any of the legal minds here think that a judge might order a recount and how that might play out? Right now Trump trails by about 21k votes in Wisconsin (10 EV), 14k in Georgia (16 EV) and 13k in Arizona (11 EV). A recount that flipped all of those states could tie the race at 269. Of course PA shows Trump behind by about 48k with 20 electoral votes so figure that different ways to get different results. Trump leads by 73k in NC (15 EV) which I don’t think will change.

Stephen said...

I agree that Democrats should not get hysterical, but why shouldn't they be both concerned and angry about about a massive falsehood that tarnishes their legitimate victory? And why shouldn't independents (like Althouse) and Republicans (like most of the commenters on that list) also share that view.

To be clear: to this point, no one has identified evidence of systemic fraud in any state essential to Biden's electoral majority that is sufficient to overcome the margin of Biden's victory in that state. Indeed, to my knowledge, no one has identified systemic fraud that would change the outcome in any election, federal, state or local, in the 2020 election cycle.

Nothing in today's news changes that conclusion. To list a few: Trump supporter Henry Olsen's detailed analysis of national election returns finds no material evidence of fraud; a poll of state election officials, both Democrats and Republicans, finds that they are unanimous in finding no material evidence of fraud. I have read the complaint in the complaint in the lawsuit filed yesterday in Michigan, which focuses almost exclusively on Wayne County, though it also relies on the already debunked incident in Antrim County. The best supported factual allegations in that case concern unequal opportunties to observe the count; but election official and reporters say those allegations are false, and even if proven, they would not affect the count. More fundamentally, the margin in Michigan is close to 150,000 votes and Biden's margin in Wayne County is about 323,000 out of 850,000 votes cast, with essentially the same percentage of the vote as in 2016. So the lawsuit would have to prove that there is reason to think that half of the margin in Wayne County is the product of fraud. The complaint is not bold enough to allege that--because on the evidence it is obviously frivolous. The lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania, which Michael K. kindly referred me to, repeats allegations that have already failed in court (such as failure to allow Republicans to observe) or that would have no impact on Biden's current margin (objecting to ballots received after election day that are not part of that margin). There is nothing there to suggest that Biden's 50,000 vote margin in Pennsylvania is not legitimate.

And the evidence in other states is weaker than that.

So calm, yes. But calling out a lie, that is worth doing. And the claim that the election was stolen from Trump is a flat out lie offered from the most cynical of motives.

Finally, it's not an answer to say that the post election investigation of Russian interference is similar. To begin with, Hillary conceded, and graciously, by Althouse's own account, even though the margins of victory in the decisive Blue Wall states were narrower in her case. Moreover, there was no refusal by the Obama administration to begin prompt cooperation in the transition. Second, no one ever argued that Russian interference in 2016 invalidated the results of the election. More important, there was strong bipartisan agreement that Russian interference deserved a full after the fact investigation, and the investigation was carried out in both the Senate and the Justice Department by Republican officials.

rehajm said...

...BTW if nobody has 270 after that the House chooses but not by every House member. It is a vote taken by states and there the GOP currently has a majority of 26.

Known Unknown said...

"Gospace: agree. The Maine/Neb way is a logical way to allocate electoral votes and I would prefer states did it that way."

Gerrymandering would be much more rampant. Unless, one decided to redistrict states in perfectly square quadrants (no matter the shape of the state) anyone within this square is a district. Neither party would go for that.

Known Unknown said...

" If the Dems get control of the senate, I’d say it’s game over at the federal level."

Red states would become 'sanctuary states' for gun ownership, etc. It would be secession without the real thing.

Kay said...

Personally, I feel calm about waiting for that. Why isn't that okay? It seems to me that as long as they choose to pressure Trump to concede before the vote certification, they're forfeiting the high ground of calmness above all, and I'm not going to worry about Trump's pot stirring.

This seems to me to be the right attitude.

narciso said...

you think they would let it stay like that, snorfle, they want to rule over us,

Gospace said...

Funny how no one worried about damaging the nation with four years of false accusations of Russian collusion.

And I saw someone post on Facebook that the Mueller investigation proved there was such, but the evil Republicans in the senate interfered with the report preventing the truth from coming out.

Rusty said...

Blogger Howard said...
"Elliot you should just go back into the woodwork. That's the most retarded comment written on a blog with mostly retarded comments"
Dunning-Kruger writ large.

Gk1 said...

"My "stay calm" checklist:

1. Stay away from social media
2. Know that the polls are wrong
3. Know the Dems will cheat and gladly steal the election
4. Don't watch network or cable news
5. Ignore websites like Axios
6. Joe Biden? Its going to be a shit show"

Yes, this is what I have done since last week and it has really improved my mental health. I have resigned myself to the fact the same swamp that thwarted Trump from 2016 until today would have no problems rigging an election against him. If they saw no problems using the FBI to remove him, why wouldn't they rig an election? The unknown is if they entire system will collapse when half of the country doesn't believe the results ( I don't)

Amadeus 48 said...

This is ultimately a political problem, and the federal courts want as little to do with it as possible. I expect them to kick it back to the states.

That GA, PA, WI, MI and AZ have GOP majorities in their legislatures is another turn of the screw. Imagine that you are a GOP state legislator. All you have is a bunch of shenanigans and a pile of suspicious ballots that speak for themselves, and they say "Biden". Are you really going to switch the state's electors to "Trump" in the absence of any ability to say which ballots are bad and which are good?

I can't see it.

Team Trump should go through every ballot in the pile. Absent some extremely unlikely developments, we are likely to find that there are more ballots marked "Biden" than marked "Trump", and we have no idea where many of them came from.

What would you do?

Howard said...

Blogger Attonasi said...

Howard said...
Because by average about 3% of the 71+ million voters that voted for him would stop being peaceful.

And most of those people have active military experience and seen things that would make fat white people like you shit their pants.


Keep talking, Achilles. It's what you people do so well.

Unknown said...

The 'left' hates the US and democracy. This is their preferred outcome. Lenin would be happy.

How in the world will it be possible for America to have a bright future when about half the country is going to feel like the election has been stolen from them no matter what the final outcome is? There simply isn’t going to be any going back to the way that things were for the last four years. At this moment, tens of millions of Trump supporters believe that the Democrats stole the election. But if the courts agree with Trump’s legal team and Trump ends up getting a second term, tens of millions of Biden supporters will be convinced that Republicans stole the election. Either way, we are going to be a nation that is full of deeply angry people.

Iman said...

Just the news, please. Axios is activism and advocacy.

Chuck said...

Unknown said...
The 'left' hates the US and democracy. This is their preferred outcome. Lenin would be happy.

How in the world will it be possible for America to have a bright future when about half the country is going to feel like the election has been stolen from them no matter what the final outcome is? There simply isn’t going to be any going back to the way that things were for the last four years. At this moment, tens of millions of Trump supporters believe that the Democrats stole the election. But if the courts agree with Trump’s legal team and Trump ends up getting a second term, tens of millions of Biden supporters will be convinced that Republicans stole the election. Either way, we are going to be a nation that is full of deeply angry people.


After Trump pursues every last unlikely legal challenge, and many frivolous challenges, and the margin of victory for Biden is larger in every tangible way than Trump's 2016 victory, why would anyone think that the Biden victory is tainted or supcious?

I know the answer to that question, and the answer is that the Limbaugh/Hannity/Breitbart/QAnon/Scott Adams media world will still be feeding those myths to a credulous, ignorant audience.

MartyH said...

Re: Stephen’s assertion that there was no evidence of fraud in the 2020 cycle: Paterson NJ repeated a city council (IIRC) election because of mail in vote fraud.

A Philadelphia election judge was convicted in May 2020 for vote fraud-adding votes to candidates in 2014, 2016, & 2018.

Rabel said...

"...I'm not going to worry about Trump's pot stirring."

What pot stirring? The story you linked is a fantasy.

Banjo said...

I keep confusing Axios with Politico. Apart from both being part of The Resistance, is there a difference? I'm asking for myself as my friend doesn't care.

Qwinn said...

Stephen attempts a substantive rebuttal. Congrats on being pretty much the first Biden supporter here to do so.

Of course, when early on you call Antrim "debunked", purely because election officials that would have been party to the fraud deem it "unlikely" that this "glitch" in software that is used in every swing state could happen twice, when all it seemed to require was someone not installing a software update, and when Dominion software engineers are coming forward as whistleblowers, and when we have multiple screenshots from broadcast election nite coverage of Trump's vote total dropping and Biden's rising in the exact same amount in a way that exactly replicates what would happen if Antrim were happening everywhere... go fuck yourself, fascist.

J. Farmer said...

Attonasi said...

The issue now is the alliance between corporations and government.

I agree, but I don't think it's a recent phenomenon.


If Biden wins our path as a species boils down to monkeys hiding in caves waiting for AI's to wipe us out in one of a variety of ways.

Again, this is a very confusing sentence. What is the "path" you're talking about? By species, do you mean all of humanity? What are we hiding from? I think these metaphors may be obscuring more than they are clarifying your point-of-view.

Jupiter said...

"Red states would become 'sanctuary states' for gun ownership, etc. It would be secession without the real thing."

The Blues have already done that with regard to drugs and immigration. Pretty amazing, really, that local governments have openly flouted national laws, and gotten away with it. I say fine about the drugs, if that's how a State wants to advertise for new citizens, it should hardly bother the other states. Same for guns, those of us who like them can move to where we can keep 'em. Immigration is another matter. Once they're in, they don't have to stay in CA.

WaitingToBuy said...

There must be a do over in MI, PA, WI, GA, AZ and NV. We cannot allow this voter fraud to stand. If we give the scam a pass it will be repeated in every election going forward.

Richard Aubrey said...

Over at Ace, somebody made the point that, if this goes back to the state legislators, the last job you want is that of a republican state legislator. You don't need a half dozen Hodgknsons. Just a couple of screaming mobs at your home or your kids' school can be awfully pressuring.

DaveL said...

There's also reasons Trump legal is still talking about WI, MI and NV, too. There a re still multiple path's to a Trump victory...

Sure, but he needs 38 more EVs (37 to tie, if that's still possible). As pointed out by "Unknown" above, the states in play from fairly miraculous judicial outcomes or unlikely percentages of the uncounted votes are:

PA (20) - 50K lead for Biden w/ 99% counted, called for Biden; lawsuit is only hope here
GA (16) - 15K lead for Biden, uncalled
MI (16) - 140K lead for Biden, called for him; 5% still to be counted, lawsuit only hope
AZ (11) - 13K lead for Biden, uncalled
WI (10) - 10K lead for Biden, 99% counted
NV (6) - 37K lead for Biden, 5% uncounted

Trump needs three states to end up on his side, and one of them has to be PA, GA or MI. GA is clearly the most likely one, but after that it's whistling in the wind.

effinayright said...

Chuck said:

"I know the answer to that question, and the answer is that the Limbaugh/Hannity/Breitbart/QAnon/Scott Adams media world will still be feeding those myths to a credulous, ignorant audience."
*********

Tell us, Chuck: when Obama, Hillary et al whined that the Supremes had got it wrong when they decided Citizens United, were they feeding myths to a credulous, ignorant audience?

Bruce Hayden said...

“If state legislatures refuse to confirm slates of electors, and as a result no candidate receives enough electoral votes, the Constitution then has the House of Representatives vote, with the delegation for each state getting one vote. Thus, if the Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin legislatures would refuse to confirm Democratic electors, there is a possibility of the election going to the House.”

As I understand it, the Constitution gives the state legislatures the right and power to determine the process for determining electors. They invariably delegate this to the Executive Branch, giving the rules to obey when doing that. Most often it is the state’s Secretary of State who does the actual certification of slates of electors - a power delegated to them by their selective legislatures. They also typically oversee the election process, which is presumably why Soros spent so much money a couple years ago getting his people in those positions

What happened in 2000 was that the Republican Secretary of State certified the Republican slate of electors. The Dem dominated FL Supreme Court said “nope”, we don’t like your choice, and were ready to certify their own (Dem) slate of electors. The US Supreme Court said “nope” back, pointing out that the Constitution puts that power with the legislature, which had delegated that power to the Secretary of State. They also threw in some Equal Protection (for the different rules for recounting, and that only the two Dem counties were being recounted), to get a couple of the less radical Dem Justices on board.

In any case, this is a little different. The legislatures had at some point in the past delegated the power to certify slates of electors to the state. But delegation can most typically be rescinded. Can they this time? Maybe. Interestingly, there really isn’t a Constitutional place for governors in determining the rules for certifying electors. Invariably, in the past, the legislatures have enacted bills that governors then sign into law. But arguably that is not necessary. I think that is very possible this time that some states submit competing slates of electors, one certified by the Dem Sec of State, and one by the Republican legislatures.

One argument against that though is that Bush v Gore also talked about following the rules in place before the election (violation of that was one of the things that they held that the FL Supreme Court got wrong). Of course, that same argument can be used against all of the shenanigans that the Dems pulled in the name of COVID-19, and, in particular against extending deadlines, not checking signatures, etc.


jg said...

Whether or not there is a route through the courts to reverse the stolen states' election, there is certainly a *moral* right for electors who believe the evidence that states were stolen to vote for Trump.

jg said...

In Georgia, among ballots that only voted for President and no other races, these are the number of votes:
Trump: 818
Biden: 95,801
In Georgia, among ballots that voted for President and at least one other race:
Trump: 2,456,915
Biden: 2,376,081

Gator McCluskey said...

"Few people (possibly none) ever see their own cause as unjust (or unjustified). The more righteous one believes one's cause to be, the greater likelihood one will stop at nothing, even willingly committing atrocities, in furtherance of the cause."
Well that explains your hard-on for Communism rather nicely, doesnt it?

tim maguire said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim maguire said...

Robert Cook said...
"Some of Trump's team are people I have been following for a long time. One of them, Ron Coleman, I've paid attention to for almost 20 years for reasons that have nothing to do with politics. I don't get the sense from any of them that they think they are fighting for an unjust cause."

Few people (possibly none) ever see their own cause as unjust (or unjustified). The more righteous one believes one's cause to be, the greater likelihood one will stop at nothing, even willingly committing atrocities, in furtherance of the cause. Human history, ancient and recent, tells the tale.


True, but proves nothing about this case or these people.

Here's the bottom line: 70 million people feel cheated. If Rasmussen is to be believed, another 10 million or so suspect they're right. If Biden won fair and square, then it is to his advantage to have this play out so that people can have confidence in his victory. It won't affect his swearing in in January. He will not become president one day sooner or one day later for this.

Why oppose an investigation that you are so confident will only legitimate Biden's win?

steve uhr said...

A legislator would have to be pretty morally bankrupt to ignore and overturn the will of the citizens of her state as reflected in the accurate count of lawful votes. If it happens there will be blood in the streets and the country will be torn apart.

But hey, if it keeps in power the most corrupt president in 230 years, it's worth it.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Blogger DaveL said...
However, if somehow Trump ended up getting PA's 20 electoral votes, it still wouldn't be enough for him to win: he'd have 252. He would still need both GA (16) and AZ (11) to get over 270, and there are small Biden leads in both (source: DDHQ).

So to win he'd have to somehow get leads in both of those states, running the table with 279 EV.


Nope. WI, 10 EC votes, the Wisconsin Election Commission (run by a Democrat) told County registrars they could violate the law in multiple ways. 20k vote difference, well more than 20k illegal votes. So toss WI, too

Jonathan Graehl said...
In Georgia, among ballots that only voted for President and no other races, these are the number of votes:
Trump: 818
Biden: 95,801

Fulton County told the GOP poll watchers to go home because there would be no more counting, then they resumed counting.

Toss out everything they counted, you've now lost GA's 16 EC votes.

Take 46 EC votes from Biden, give 0 to Trump. Both are now under 270. The election goes to the House & to the Senate.

The GA runoff is 1/5. The Senate considers the election on 1/6. There's at least 27 States with a GOP House majority, and the Senate will be 50 - 48

Congratulations President Trump and Vice President Pence on your re-election

Greg The Class Traitor said...

steve uhr said...
A legislator would have to be pretty morally bankrupt to ignore and overturn the will of the citizens of her state as reflected in the accurate count of lawful votes.

A vote counter would have to be morally bankrupt to kill poll watchers out, to not let them in, or to force them to stand where they can't monitor what's going on.

But that's what the Democrat vote counters did in WI, MI, PA, and GA.

There is no "accurate count of lawful votes" in any of those States that shows Biden winning. The last accurate count of lawful votes we had in each of those 4 States had Trump willing.
So a moral and ethical State Legislator, or House member, would be bound to vote for Trump

Gator McCluskey said...

LLR Chuck, positively gleefull at the prospect of a Dem POTUS. where's Drago?

tim maguire said...

Michael K said...
I think the electors for Pennsylvania might be certified by the legislature as I think the ballots were not separated as required by the USSC.


I wish there were a nice reliable place to go to get all your questions answered, but there isn't. The folks on twitter claim it was only late 10,000 ballots. If true, it would not be enough to invalidate the results. It's only a small part of what Trump needs there.

Michael K said...

But hey, if it keeps in power the most corrupt president in 230 years, it's worth it.

No, steve, Obama left office already. You dims are fine with fraud, I know. Did it have to be so flagrant ?

steve uhr said...

Yes, Michael, I guess that would explain why Trump's DOJ never charged Obama with any crime. He must have Barr in his pocket.

Chuck said...

kennymac said...
LLR Chuck, positively gleefull at the prospect of a Dem POTUS.


All along -- like George Conway and the rest of the Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump -- I've never once said that I was looking forward to Democratic Party rule, or a Democratic legislative agenda.

I've had almost nothing encouraging to say about Joe Biden. I've reminded everyone of the old bitter fights we had with Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, when Biden was chairman.

I've laughed at how Donald Trump has been right about exactly one thing in this electoral campaign, and that is that his loss to such a weak candidate as Joe Biden would say everything about what a sorry candidate Trump has been.

And -- most of all -- that I cared about one and only one thing in this entire election cycle and that was making sure that Donald Trump would be America's worst loser.

Michael K said...

I know the answer to that question, and the answer is that the Limbaugh/Hannity/Breitbart/QAnon/Scott Adams media world will still be feeding those myths to a credulous, ignorant audience.

Chuck, with all due respect, how many degrees do you have? What was your law school class standing? Lower than Biden, as I suspect?

Short version, go fuck yourself.

Birkel said...

The legal arguments about absentee ballots arriving back to Pennsylvania before they were requested is an interesting take.
AXIOS is pushing the company line.

Fopdoodles cheer obvious vote stealing.
Good times.

Chuck said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Greg The Class Traitor said...

Everything you need to know about the validity of the Fulton County vote count:

Let me repeat. Fulton County elections officials told the media and our observers that they were shutting down the tabulation center at State Farm Arena at 10:30 p.m. on election night only to continue counting ballots in secret until 1:00 a.m.
— David Shafer (@DavidShafer) November 10, 2020

Every single ballot counted after they left is invalid. Every single ballot that was in the State Farm Arena, and so could have been doctored by those criminal thugs, is invalid.

Without those votes, Trump wins GA, and Perdue doesn't go to a runoff.

Qwinn said...

Jonathan Graehl's post at 1:11 is fucking devastating.

Any of our resident lefties want to take a crack at a plausible explanation for why Biden voters would be over 100x more likely than Trump voters to ignore all down ballot races?

Of course you don't.

Qwinn said...

If Biden-only votes were even 5x that of Trump-only votes, that would be utterly completely implausible. That would be prima facia evidence of fraud.

It's over 100x.

Give it up, fascists. That's the fucking game.

Chuck said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Qwinn said...

Jonathan Graehl, PLEASE post a source for that data.

Jupiter said...

steve uhr said...
"A legislator would have to be pretty morally bankrupt to ignore and overturn the will of the citizens of her state as reflected in the accurate count of lawful votes."

Hmmmm... so what does that say about the situation where count is fraudulent, steve?

"If it happens there will be blood in the streets and the country will be torn apart."

Well, of course, the mob the Democrats thought they could control has already caused billions in property damage, through looting and arson, and have killed several people. Do I understand you correctly, that if we do not accede to the theft of the election, we can expect more of the same? Noted.

Qwinn said...

A garbage bag full of Trump votes (oh wait, and a single Biden vote) found in a polling place.

In Oklahoma.

Yes, they even pulled this shit in deep red states.

tim in vermont said...

"A legislator would have to be pretty morally bankrupt to ignore and overturn the will of the citizens of her state as reflected in the accurate count of lawful votes."

No argument here. Of course they would have to be morally bankrupt to not overturn a fraudulent election. I know your thing is verdict first, show trial later, but this is still American steve.

DaveL said...

Jonathan Graehl: Is there a source for those numbers?

DaveL said...

National Review: No, There Were Not 95,000 Biden-Only Ballots in Georgia

You may have seen a number bouncing around Twitter saying that there were 95,801 “Biden-Only Ballots” in Georgia compared to just 818 “Trump-Only Ballots.” That appears to originate with Steve Cortes from the Trump campaign:
[two video clips]
If you actually watch Cortes explain this, however, he is computing something completely different: the difference between the Joe Biden and Donald Trump votes and the votes for Georgia Senate campaigns. But he completely ignores the possibility that some voters submitted split-ticket ballots, i.e., they voted for Biden but also cast ballots for David Perdue or Kelly Loeffler for the Senate. If you compare the total number of votes cast in the Georgia Senate race between Perdue and Jon Ossoff, you see that the 95,000 number is mathematically impossible. As of the current count, there were 4,991,753 votes cast in Georgia in the presidential election, and 4,945,454 votes cast in the Perdue-Ossoff race. That’s a difference of 46,299 votes, meaning that it is not possible that there were 95,000 ballots with only a presidential vote marked.

Nichevo said...


Howard said...
C'mon. Don't you wanna see Trumps Jailhouse hairdo? His fat white face and white hair sticking out of an orange jumpsuit will make him look like a melting Creamsicle

11/11/20, 10:34 AM


You can't be Donald Trump's first stalker, but obviously, you can be next.

FullMoon said...

Off topic ,but, as a semi regular, I must begrudgingly give respect to Inga for remaining absent and allowing the second and third string protagonists to wallow in their cesspool of "glory" .

Readering said...

Circle jerk interrupted by Chuck not a pretty sight.

steve uhr said...

This Biden only ballot argument is ridiculous. Whoever was committing the fraud didn’t have an extra 1/2 second to vote for the dem senate candidates? Please tell me that’s not your best argument


Qwinn said...

steveuhr: If those ballots were being mass produced by the tens of thousands, yeah, they didn't have the time. That was the worst counter argument in history.

DaveL, I'm still trying to work out that NR argument, but it seems to me they're arguing that somehow Biden voters voting split ticket 100x more than Trump voters voted split ticket is more plausible than the pres-only argument. It is so, so not.

Skippy Tisdale said...

Last night I saw a PBS documentary on the rise of Hitler. The similarities to the current Democratic Party were at once striking and scary.

You can watch it here:

https://www.tpt.org/rise-of-the-nazis/

steve uhr said...

Quinn. And why didn’t they have time to mark another box if you don’t mind me asking?

Attonasi said...

J. Farmer said...

Attonasi said...

The issue now is the alliance between corporations and government.

I agree, but I don't think it's a recent phenomenon.

That is where outliers like Teddy Roosevelt come in. Things like that don't happen very often, but they happened enough in the US to shift that balance of power.

If Biden wins our path as a species boils down to monkeys hiding in caves waiting for AI's to wipe us out in one of a variety of ways.

Again, this is a very confusing sentence. What is the "path" you're talking about? By species, do you mean all of humanity? What are we hiding from? I think these metaphors may be obscuring more than they are clarifying your point-of-view.

If you look back at history you can see the divergent paths forward. At some point our technological tools will progress to the point where a small enough number of people can create them and wipe us out.

Nuclear Fission came pretty damn close.

COVID-19 was traced back to Chinese military labs. I have friends that are using AI to predict new drugs that will come to market so they can prepare treatments and monitor supply channels.

Turning AI towards developing a flu that has ideal communicability and lethality characteristics would not be a big step from that. It wouldn't even really be a step.

That isn't nearly as scary for our race as Better Than Life virtual reality. Couple that with direct dopamine injection and maybe 1% of the population could resist that. I doubt even 1%.

The people that develop these technologies do it to maintain control of their populations and they are increasingly dangerous as our technological prowess grows. Currently Google and Facebook and Amazon have essentially unlimited capital. They don't need to make a profit. They are just fine with writing off 50% of their customer base.

If we continue with standard tribally oriented governments with standard corrupt leaders like Goerge Bush or Bill Clinton or Joe Biden who are acting as puppets for corporate scum like Amazon, Google, Facebook et. al and your average 80 IQ serf like Readering or Howard in charge we are doomed as a race to fall to any one of these threats.

Birkel said...

Fopdoodles want people to concede with four states outstanding and significant evidence of fraud in Milwaukee, Detroit, Philly, and Atlanta?

Do you have a newsletter?

Qwinn said...

DaveL, the NR claim that there couldn't have been 90,000 because there was only 40000 between the races also ignores people who voted ONLY for the Senate races and didn't vote for President. He's committing the same kind of error he's accusing others of. Hack.

Birkel said...

steve uhr,
The 128,000 consecutive ballots exclusively for Biden with no down-ticket votes cast at 3am after lying about shutting down the counting seems reasonable to you? With no observers present?

Wow me.

Attonasi said...

steve uhr said...

Quinn. And why didn’t they have time to mark another box if you don’t mind me asking?

450,000 ballots. Several states.

1 hour between 3AM and 4 AM.

15 seconds per ballot.

If one person could do 240 ballots per hour that is 1875 people.

If you make that 20 seconds per ballot then a person could do 180 ballots an hour. That would require 2500 people.

It would take a person at least 2 minutes even following a repetitive pattern to fill out 20 bubbles on a ballot accurately. at 30 ballots an hour you need 15000 people.

The reason for all of those votes in only one election out of 20 races or more becomes pretty obvious when you actually think about what they were doing.

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