February 6, 2021

I have been reading and trying to get around to blogging "The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election" since 2:10 p.m. yesterday.

2:10 p.m. is not a normal time for me to be blogging. I tend to blog between 4 a.m. and 10 a.m. Sometimes I come back to the computer in the afternoon or evening, but usually not to analyze something complicated. And if other people are jumping on a new item, there's less and less reason, as the hours wear on, to blog the link just to show it to you. I feel more and more obligated to get into some of the complicated layers.

2:10 p.m. yesterday was when I first saw the article and decided it was very important. It's 9:36 a.m. the next day now, and I've put up 7 posts, beginning at 5:30 a.m. But the entire time, I've been putting off what I know I need to do and completely intend to do, blog "The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election." 

This is a long article, and understanding it, for me, involves figuring out why Time published it and understanding the possible bias of the author, Molly Ball. It's hard not to read "saved the... election" as rigged the election. Why is this coming out now, just before the weekend before the impeachment trial begins? Time is openly proclaiming that something "secret" happened in the "shadow"? 

MORE: An excerpt:
“It was all very, very strange,” Trump said on Dec. 2. “Within days after the election, we witnessed an orchestrated effort to anoint the winner, even while many key states were still being counted.” 
In a way, Trump was right. There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy. 
The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election–an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted. For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President. Though much of this activity took place on the left, it was separate from the Biden campaign and crossed ideological lines, with crucial contributions by nonpartisan and conservative actors. The scenario the shadow campaigners were desperate to stop was not a Trump victory. It was an election so calamitous that no result could be discerned at all, a failure of the central act of democratic self-governance that has been a hallmark of America since its founding.... 
[T]he participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it. And they believe the public needs to understand the system’s fragility in order to ensure that democracy in America endures....

374 comments:

1 – 200 of 374   Newer›   Newest»
Roughcoat said...

That does it. I'm buying another gun, and more ammo.

Birches said...

Exactly. I read the whole thing yesterday and though all the vocabulary used yesterday is very positive and heroic, I can easily see how other words could be used that show Trump was right.

Why was it published? They really believe they did nothing wrong.

Gahrie said...

Stealing an election is no fun if you can't brag about it afterwards.

Move on you fucking Deplorables.

Gahrie said...

Why was it published? They really believe they did nothing wrong.

Oh they know they did something wrong. But half the fun is getting away with it, and the other half is taunting the Deplorables about it afterward.

John Borell said...

I read the whole article yesterday and my first thought was why the hell are they publicizing this?

Stupidity? Bragging? A warning? Hubris?

This is not the type of article that simply happens, there is a reason for it. What's that reason?

I don't have the answer but my gut says hubris.

tcrosse said...

So they rigged the election to save Democracy.

Ken B said...

The most remarkable admission to me was what sounds like bribes to local election officials. I don’t know what else raising money for allegedly underpaid election *officials* can mean other than bribery.

Jeff Brokaw said...

What would we, as deplorable drooling morons, do without our elites to save us from ourselves?

Come on, guys! They’re from the government and they’re here to help us!

Lucid-Ideas said...

They're bragging.

dwshelf said...

I've yet to read a decent analysis of the article.

Lots of links, but does it matter?

Jeff Brokaw said...

I’ll read this later but just from what I’ve heard so far, this seems very ripe for vicious parody in the skilled hands of, say, Babylon Bee writers.

Gotta laugh to keep from crying, I always say.

Achilles said...

A second odd thing happened amid Trump’s attempts to reverse the result: corporate America turned on him. Hundreds of major business leaders, many of whom had backed Trump’s candidacy and supported his policies, called on him to concede. To the President, something felt amiss. “It was all very, very strange,” Trump said on Dec. 2. “Within days after the election, we witnessed an orchestrated effort to anoint the winner, even while many key states were still being counted.”

Not odd.

All of the big corporations wanted a corrupt puppet.

The oligarchs want open borders and low wages.

Quite obvious to everyone.

Ken B said...

It’s the most tendentious wording I have ever come across, more heavy handed than a John Birch Society pamphlet, so it’s necessary to try to isolate the alleged facts from their characterization. And a few jump out, the biggest being the scheme to bribe election officials.
Other biggies include: working to censor people, and changing the rules in midstream without passing a law.
I am sure there is more.

But bribery is big, no?

Ken B said...

Achilles is right, it’s not odd.

Achilles said...

Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.

Labor leaders like the idea of low skilled immigrants.

Capital likes the idea of low skilled immigrants.

Washington DC likes the idea of low skilled immigrants.

So they assaulted democracy.

narciso said...


Simpler

https://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/2021/02/why-time-election-narrative-is-good-news.html?m=1

Lurker21 said...

True, it would probably have been better for their cause if the article came out after the impeachment. But Trump is still news and Time is still struggling, and they probably think this is the moment to cash in. I will use the phrase "strike while the iron is hot" and leave it to the language mavens to analyze.

If you did want to steal a national election, you wouldn't do it with a top-down command structure. You would work in each state to create the conditions under which the election could be stolen and autonomous local party machines would take it from there. You would organize "get out the vote" and "anti-voter suppression" campaigns in key states, and those campaigns could be used to make altering the election results locally easier.

I don't think Trump won by a landslide, or got more popular votes than Biden. Democrats got more popular votes in five out of six of the last presidential elections and with COVID it wouldn't be surprising if they did so this time. But clearly there was fraud, and possibly enough to swing some key states Biden's way. Democrats probably saw this as justified and assumed that they were saving the country, making the will of the people prevail and "democracy" work.

Achilles said...

The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election–an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted.

And they did this by implementing mass mail in ballots, secret settlements between state AG's and democrat operatives lowering voting fraud standards, and kicking poll observers out of counting stations.

JPS said...

I haven't given the article a careful read, or fully wrapped my head around it.

On a quick skim, I have a feeling that Trump's claim the election was rigged will turn out to be as baseless, unfounded, irresponsible, and defamatory as his claim that Obama spied on his campaign and tapped his phones.

Which was totally untrue, because Obama didn't personally spy on anyone, "spy" is an inflammatory word, and no one actually inserted a tap into the telephone lines of Trump Tower.

Big Mike said...

@Althouse, I expected the Dumbocrats to wait another month or so before bragging about rigging the election, but I always knew that they would do so. Perhaps they are expecting to goad Trump and/or his supporters to point to this article and say something about election-rigging and then they can lower the book? Dunno.

Achilles said...

They also used voting software that save voting totals as floats.

Achilles said...

Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time.

They got millions of "people" to vote by mail for the first time.

You can't make this up.

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Iman said...

It’s a Flying Burrito Bros Saturday morning...

Achilles said...

They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears. They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump’s conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction.

Ok.

This is all a bait.

Something is happening and they are basically admitting they installed a regime and imposed fascist minders on the population.

Wince said...

The overt side of the strategy to change the long-standing "margin of fraud" in key Democrat counties from a fixed numerical constant largely determined when the polls closed, into a variable that could be manipulated well after the polls closed.

Achilles said...

After Election Day, they monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result. “The untold story of the election is the thousands of people of both parties who accomplished the triumph of American democracy at its very foundation,” says Norm Eisen, a prominent lawyer and former Obama Administration official who recruited Republicans and Democrats to the board of the Voter Protection Program.


DC.

Corporations.

Cats and Dogs living together.

Mass hysteria.

I can't believe they are trying to turn this around so fast. They are already saying they stole the election for our own good.

It is all falling apart for the regime.

narciso said...

Norm eisen who led the warfare attack against the administration, including the ridiculous emoluments charge

Achilles said...

God damn this article is dense and it is long.

Long long.

There is no way one person wrote all this since the election.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

About a week before Election Day, Podhorzer received an unexpected message: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wanted to talk.

The AFL-CIO and the Chamber have a long history of antagonism. Though neither organization is explicitly partisan, the influential business lobby has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Republican campaigns, just as the nation’s unions funnel hundreds of millions to Democrats. On one side is labor, on the other management, locked in an eternal struggle for power and resources.



This is the over riding theme of this entire article.

The elites at every level have conspired to replace the populace.

Breezy said...

I want to know more about the AFL-CIO guy who zoom-ran the whole thing...and who he worked with in each state. I doubt the FBI is going to have a chat with him. There could be subpoena fodder here for the defense for the impeachment and for those Dominion/Smartmatic lawsuits.

mikee said...

Motive? Bias? Stick with seeking "Who, what, when, where, why?" and you can tell if the reporting is worth reading.

Time writers famously used to note the menus at state dinners during summits, because doing so gave the impression they knew all the details of the event. Knowing the menu served at dinner doesn't tell the reader squat about the statecraft activities of the summit participants.

Being told about the legal but collusive activities taken by Dems and their supporters, big tech, social media, and news media, tells one nothing about the theft of an election.

The problem with the 2020 election is that the vote counts in several states were made un-auditable such that no conclusive ruling out of vote fraud is possible, and those very same states had unimaginably high voter turnout favoring Biden in select locales. Fix that purposefully introduced problem to make votes verifiable and the counting auditable, and you can then fight over election results in a rational manner.

narciso said...

Thats why the lawsuits against outliers make it possible to put forth this narrative

Achilles said...

–With reporting by LESLIE DICKSTEIN, MARIAH ESPADA and SIMMONE SHAH

So...

mockturtle said...

Gahrie observes: Oh they know they did something wrong. But half the fun is getting away with it, and the other half is taunting the Deplorables about it afterward.

Exactly! They are gleefully rubbing our noses in it. I also think that the taunting will amplify because what they really want is for deplorables to turn to widespread violence so martial law can be employed and not just in DC. And if it doesn't provoke the needed response, a false flag event will be used. And it won't be the first time.

Jeff Weimer said...

tcrosse said...
So they rigged the election to save Democracy.

2/6/21, 10:01 AM

When these people talk about "Democracy" like that, I get the string impression the really mean "Democrats." Try it with other articles - they often begin to make perfect sense.

narciso said...

Yes but its different for us


https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/02/ny22-republican-claudia-tenney-ousts-brindisi-meaning-democrats-have-a-five-seat-majority/#comments

Browndog said...

This is O.J. publishing "If I did it" after he was acquitted, in terms of gloating.

Deep State executing a color revolution on American soil was just too much conspiracy for even the most cynical among us.

Still is.

Related:

Matthew J. Peterson
@docMJP

Q takes psychological hold for the same reason that so many at the top are in deep pathological denial about what's happening to America now daily. It's hard to fathom. It's very painful to process & acknowledge America as you knew it is gone. People mentally retreat instead.

Jeff Brokaw said...

What Achilles said about storing vote totals as floating point numbers — any software professional recognizes that as a huge and immediate red flag. There is no good reason to do this to count whole numbers. Floating point is for vary large numbers that are certain to have fractional parts.

In a sane, non-corrupt voting system, votes don’t occur in fractional parts. And so the obvious implication is that the software is designed to play corrupt games with vote totals. Either that or the designers are idiots, and I sincerely doubt that.

Breezy said...

What are the George Stephanopouloses gonna say now?

Gunner said...

The reason it came out now is because the Left cannot help but brag about how they "outsmarted" Red State Deplorables by conspiring to anoint the SJW supporting Lord Dementia.

Mary Beth said...

Stealing an election is no fun if you can't brag about it afterwards.

Stealing? I think you mean "fortifying"./s

Birches said...

Btw, Twitter is slapping warnings on tweets that just take this article to it's logical conclusion.

Mike Sylwester said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
wild chicken said...

They also used voting software that save voting totals as floats.

2/6/21, 10:15 AM

What difference would that make? Lots of dummies implement integer values as floating point. Stupid, but it still adds up.

Mike Sylwester said...

Patrick Byrnes' fascinating account of how he, Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn tried to make an issue of Dominion's role in the election:

How Donald J. Trump Lost the White House, Preface January 23, 2021

Why I Was Involved Before November 3 & What I Learned Because I Was

All the President's Teams

Was there Foreign Interference in this Election? You Make the Call.

Crashing the White House

The Christmas Doldrums

pacwest said...

why Time published it

You might also consider why we have barricaded the Capitol building.

"To save Democracy" will also provide rationalization for the Ingas out there.

Gunner said...

These Deep State losers also want their share of spoils from the Biden regime. Sure it was nice getting rid of Trump, but they have liens to pay off.

Unknown said...

I remember Ben Rhodes was so proud of himself for pulling the wool over the media's eyes about the Iran deal going through. He couldn't contain himself, he had to brag about how easy it was to lie and get away with it to get what he wanted.
This is no different, the cabal is very proud of what they pulled off so they're bragging.

mockturtle said...

Lou Dobbs' FBN show cancelled effective immediately due to his claims of Dominion's complicity in rigging the election. Maria Bartiromo is also being sued by Dominion and her show is in jeopardy. Let's look at all the MSM pundits and news anchors who flatly declared that Trump's victory was a result of Russian collusion. No cancellations there, of course. There is now not even the faintest claim to fairness or objectivity.

Ken B said...

Mockturtle: “ They are gleefully rubbing our noses in it.”

That was my first thought but now I don’t think it’s quite right. It’s much more solipsistic. They are high-fiving , confident in their belief that *you don’t matter*. They aren’t taunting you, they are simply exulting, unaware of you. To them you aren’t noticeable enough even to taunt. There's a scene in I Claudius I think where Caligula disports himself with his sister in front of the slaves. They aren’t important enough to hide from.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Lurker21 said...

Democrats probably saw this as justified and assumed that they were saving the country, making the will of the people prevail and "democracy" work.

This! They have been spinning like crazy that they are the "real Americans" and that Trump supporters are dangerous right-wing extremists. I think they are somewhere between believing themselves to be right in what they did and also knowing that it will eventually come out, so they are getting their spin going. It has not dawned on them that they are outraging somewhere aroundhalf the populace. They will pay for that bit of conceit.

Ken B said...

This fits nicely with my earlier observation that America has transitioned from a respect based culture to a disrespect based culture. The goal is to see who you can disrespect and get away with it, or earn plaudits for it. Her audience *cheered* when Hillary unleashed “basket of deplorables “. It never occurred to them it would cost her the election. Disrespect is valorized.

Mike Sylwester said...

The big-tech cartel is trying to prevent the public from freely discussing the massive election fraud.

However, there must be some controlled discussion. The Time article provides the model of what may and may not be said.

----

After Khrushchev's speech in 1956, some discussion of Stalin's rule was permitted. People were allowed to say something very brief, along the lines of Some mistakes were made.

So, it was not true that public discussion was prevented completely. Some frank statements could be uttered publicly.

Ken B said...

“ They will pay for that bit of conceit.”

Doubtful.

Night Owl said...

It sets the narrative for media taking heads of the good people fighting the good fight against the Nazis in our midst. The message trickles down to the uninformed and misinformed in their facebook feeds that they should want to be one of the good guys. We can be heroes just for one day!

They're selling the idea that the questionable actions taken in 2020 were justified in order to save the democracy. It's propaganda attempting to normalize election corruption so that the uninformed and misinformed won't bat an eye when it happens in future elections.

If we, the informed people, don't demand election reforms and transparency we can kiss honest elections goodbye. Problem is, in the current narrative, how do we make these demands without being labeled insurrectionists and domestic terrorists? As Scott Adams pointed out the other day, our so-called leaders can't even talk about election reform because to do so they have to admit there was election fraud in 2020. And that is verboten. That's a good catch that catch 22.

Ken B said...

Sylwester
I was always skeptical of Chomsky's “manufacturing consent” because it assumed more surveillance and selective filtering than was humanly possible. It still does, which is why Big Tech uses algorithms. Time to rethink Mr Chomsky. Ahead of his time.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Unknown said...

I remember Ben Rhodes was so proud of himself for pulling the wool over the media's eyes about the Iran deal going through.

Let's not forget Jonathan Gruber and the ACA.

GatorNavy said...

Once again the divine Professor Althouse posts another pillar of the social compact bragging about their mendacity and closeted view of ordinary American citizens. This Time article illustrates a tremendously destructive emotion, contempt. It erodes trust and goodwill of a very heavily armed populace. This is not a good thing for any of us and I hope Professor Althouse’s reader understand all the implications.

RoseAnne said...

Could only get through a little more than half of the article yesterday. Saved it as a document so I could read the same version later in more depth. Who knows what stealth edits may occur.

First thought was of a much commented on statement made earlier before the election. Remember when we were told that replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg should wait until a new president was "installed"? The wording sounded strange at the time but, after reading this article it makes more sense.

Second was of all the boarding up of stores and businesses that took place prior to the election in a number of urban areas. Were they afraid of Biden supporters or Trumps? Based on the article it appears that they were afraid the social justice activists (who may not be supporters of Biden or Trump) could not be controlled. There was a implicit threat that the plan had to bring about a Trump loss or they would have burned a number of urban centers. And the group behind the plan were OK with that possibility.

Third, I am pretty sure that I saw somewhere that this article was the first in a series. What fun if that proves to be true.

Any student of American history knows that NO ELECTION is completely free of fraud. This one had some additional issues that definitely were questionable. I expected that someone would want to brag about how smart they were but I did expect it would take a year or two - not less than a month.

Jersey Fled said...

There is a simple reason for why they published this. Something worse is about to come out, and they want to get their spin out first.

A Russian hack?

Evidence of Chinese involvement?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I doubt that Biden's "win" was legitimate.

but it's illegal to say so.

glenn said...

Hint: It’s just what Trump said. A bunch of people who had financial and political interests were and are trying to pretend that serving those interests was “saving democracy”. They are lying.

Mike Sylwester said...

Winning an Election vs Stealing an Election

Breezy said...

Now we see why all these EOs are being done so quickly.

Particularly ripe for an AFL-CIO guy to be responsible for Biden, who immediately cut thousands of jobs in the pipeline and fossil fuel industry.

MountainMan said...

One purpose of the article could be to prepare much of the populace for the forthcoming ramming through Congress of H.R. 1 - For the People Act. Justify what they did - "fortifying" - since H.R. 1 will enshrine all this overt manipulation and elimination of "voter suppression" into Federal law.

Roughcoat said...

Ken B said:

Mockturtle: “They are gleefully rubbing our noses in it.”

That was my first thought but now I don’t think it’s quite right. It’s much more solipsistic. They are high-fiving , confident in their belief that *you don’t matter*. They aren’t taunting you, they are simply exulting, unaware of you. To them you aren’t noticeable enough even to taunt.


I agree with Ken B. They're behaving in the spirit of Wehrmacht troops goose-stepping down the Champs-Élysées or the Japanese running wild in the streets of Nanjing. They're drunk on victory and power.

Achilles said...

Birches said...

Exactly. I read the whole thing yesterday and though all the vocabulary used yesterday is very positive and heroic, I can easily see how other words could be used that show Trump was right.

Why was it published? They really believe they did nothing wrong.


They know that at best for them a clear plurality of Americans view the election as fraudulent. Latest poll was 47% believe very likely stolen from Trump 37% very unlikely. More democrats, 30%, said very likely stolen than the 20% that said very unlikely.

The United State exists on popular sufferance.

They must get people to willingly pay taxes in April. They know they can count on their Corporate members to take with holdings out of their employees checks. But the under table industries are going to grow.

RoseAnne said...

As Scott Adams pointed out the other day, our so-called leaders can't even talk about election reform because to do so they have to admit there was election fraud in 2020. And that is verboten. That's a good catch that catch 22.

And lets now forget that all this effort resulted in Joe Biden as president and Kamala Harris as Vice President. Its been a couple of weeks and even the New York Times has suggested some caution about the actions of this administration. Jen Psalki, as Press Secretary, seems woefully unprepared.

Who is the "voice" of this administration who can keep this narrative alive? Faith in media types like Tapper, Cuomo, Blitzer, etc was extremely low already before the last election. If Biden is replaced a new VP will be chosen. Who has the gravitas to sell that choice to the American public?

And given the nature of what has been related in the Time article, has that replacement VP already been chosen? Coalitions are much easier to put together than to maintain.

Lurker21 said...

I see the logic behind this, though.

If an "honest politician" is one who, once bought stays bought, then a "fair election" is one that, once stolen, remains stolen.

I will call this extra-special fortified election Project Thunderbird or Project Night Train, after America's favorite fortified wines.

Scott Patton said...

Breezy said...
"What are the George Stephanopouloses gonna say now?"
Maybe we'll find out the next time the Republicans let him moderate a primary debate.

Jupiter said...

Achilles said...
"They also used voting software that save voting totals as floats."

The evidence I have seen so far is that the JSON files used by Edison Research to report the election results use percentages, not floating point. And those percentage have only one or two decimal digits, so they are inherently inaccurate when reporting millions of votes, Wild Chicken. But to date I have found no evidence either way that the Dominion software stores its votes in that format, nor any discussion of where or how Edison gets their data, which are apparently used by the popular entertainers we used to call News as part of their election-night pageantry.

It is really quite strange how little information is available about how votes were counted and reported. It's as if the people who managed this most stirring and patriotic process, which lies at the very basis of our civic order, are somehow ashamed of themselves, and would prefer not to discuss it.

gilbar said...

keep in mind, that a fundamental tenet of the left is:
People Aren't Smart Enough To Decide Things On Their Own... WE Have To Decide FOR THEM

what to eat, what to drive, what to learn, what to watch...the People Need HELP on ALL these!
So, is it a surprise? That this attitude now extends to counting votes?
SERIOUSLY! If you let people decide.... We'd have four more years of the Orangeman
They HAD TO stop that.... By Any Means Necessary

gilbar said...

steps of fraud
1) there Was NO Fraud
2) there was no Significant fraud
3) there was no fraud major enough to make any difference
4) may have been fraud, but it's not worth making a fuss
5) sure, there Was fraud, but it's too late now
6) Damn RIGHT there was Fraud! HaHaHA! We're Bragging about it now!

Russell said...

I think this story wants to be told because they KNOW how a certain segment will interpret it. They want that segment inflamed. Just like they want racial division they want anyone who voted for Trump enraged and sounding ever more conspiratorial. It will help them divide and conquer. I don't think Trump won the election from a votes cast perspective. But I do very much believe the media and the Democrats and Big Tech officially and unofficially did everything in their power to undermine his electoral chances by controlling the flow of information. The suppression of the Hunter Biden story is merely the most overtly egregious. Scratch that: the Mueller investigation and the Russia Collusion hoax was the most egregious. Hunter Biden would be the 2nd most egregious.

Achilles said...

wild chicken said...

They also used voting software that save voting totals as floats.

2/6/21, 10:15 AM

What difference would that make? Lots of dummies implement integer values as floating point. Stupid, but it still adds up.

The only reason to keep the software proprietary and store values as floats is to commit fraud.

Period.

You don't want transparency in our election system because you know the election was fraudulent. Everyone knows it was fraudulent.

It is an open secret at this point that the Joe Biden puppet regime was installed in a fraudulent election.

mockturtle said...

@Lurker21: I will call this extra-special fortified election Project Thunderbird or Project Night Train, after America's favorite fortified wines.

Whatever happened to MD 2020?

walter said...

Ken B said...Disrespect is valorized.
--
That's why we're moving towards "hate" speech regulation akin to our polite Northern neighbors.

Achilles said...

Jupiter said...

It is really quite strange how little information is available about how votes were counted and reported. It's as if the people who managed this most stirring and patriotic process, which lies at the very basis of our civic order, are somehow ashamed of themselves, and would prefer not to discuss it.

There is only one reason to make the election non-transparent.

It is to commit fraud.

The people who installed Joe Biden committed election fraud.

It is obvious. This is why a clear plurality of Americans believe Biden is illegitimate.

unknown said...

American interference in our democracy.

walter said...

By that, I mean outward politeness.
Fortunately, Ken can vent online with respectful terms like "covidiots".

narciso said...


dissent is now treason, ladies and gents,

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/house-dem-says-committee-removal-not-enough-greene-she-must-be-expelled

Yancey Ward said...

Hard to be reasonably sure why this was published, but, yes, it could definitely be a case of people wanting credit for their work even if they know that they broke the law and rigged the election- the belief that the means was justified by the result makes it even easier to brag about it. It reminds me of poker when a person pulls off a big bluff- it is against the bluffer's interest pretty much all of the time to reveal the bluff after it works, and I know I have to work hard to resist revealing the bluff myself in that case.

The other thing is that it might not be possible to hide it all going forward anyway, so you might need to get out in front of it by trying to set the narrative that all the collusion behind the scenes had a "proper" and "innocent" purpose.

And it pains me to admit it, but Ken B has an excellent point above- what the article describes in many places sounds like bribery of local election officials. This could actually be the reason for the article itself- someone in a red locality has launched a criminal investigation into the payoffs involved.

walter said...

mock,
It's more like the owner taking a shit on the floor and rubbing the dog's nose in it.

mockturtle said...

OK, so they're not just contemptuous of us deplorables but, instead, we are beneath contempt. In a way, that's good. It means that, as proles, we can operate under the radar. :-) And the UniParty will destroy itself, in time.

Freeman Hunt said...

"All of these groups that no one trusts worked together out of deep devotion to election integrity."

bonkti said...

As the Time article unfolds, the characterizations increasingly pit ad hominemed corrupt, craven hordes against heroically epitheted brave,selfless defenders of democracy.

It clarified the vote counting as Sarumon's beastly orcs miraculously thwarted by Helms Deep Staters .

Douglas B. Levene said...

JPS wrote, "Which was totally untrue, because Obama didn't personally spy on anyone, 'spy' is an inflammatory word, and no one actually inserted a tap into the telephone lines of Trump Tower."

If you mean that Obama personally wasn't tapping Trump's phone, you're right.

But the fact is that the FBI wanted the FISA tap on some low level Trump campaign person not because they gave a rat's ass about that person but solely as a backdoor into all of the Trump campaign communications. The FBI obtained the FISA warrant by making false and misleading statements to the FISA court. In my humble opinion, it's perfectly reasonable to characterize all that as the Executive Branch, headed by President Obama, spying on Trump.

Mikey NTH said...

Why do something like this that a normal person would consider irrational? Because they are proud of what they did and anyone that can't see the necessity of this is obviously an idiot or a threat.

mezzrow said...

O, for a time machine to take this back to October and publish it.

Not that it would matter. Some deserve representation. Others don't. I see.

How else can we have a perfect world? Forward!

What could possibly go wrong? After all if these folks ever once contemplated what the other side might respond with when they got back into power, why would they do this? It would be inconceivable.

Oh.

Yancey Ward said...

Lurker had a good comment that mirrors the comments I have made about the how it was stolen:

"If you did want to steal a national election, you wouldn't do it with a top-down command structure. You would work in each state to create the conditions under which the election could be stolen and autonomous local party machines would take it from there. You would organize "get out the vote" and "anti-voter suppression" campaigns in key states, and those campaigns could be used to make altering the election results locally easier."

There is no mystery as to how this was done. The Democrats simply flooded the zone with absentee ballots, sending them literally everywhere. There were numerous stories published online with photographic evidence where renters were receiving upwards of 10+ absentee ballots addressed to every past tenant of the house or apartment. How often did this happen where the tenant didn't bother contacting a journalist of any kind and just either mailed all the ballots back himself, trashed them, or sold them. This brings me to Project Veritas which actually recorded people in Minnesota, Democrats by the way, who bragged on camera about their efforts to buy up absentee ballots so that they could be forged and sent back in. Then all the election officials have to do is to stop verifying the signatures when the ballots come back in, which we know they did because of the stupifying drop in rejection rates in certain cities and counties.

Mr Wibble said...

After WWII the various institutions in this country -political, cultural, social, academic, economic- leveraged the social capital which they had amassed to gain increased power and influence. They promised that they could produce a better society for everyone in exchange. For fifty years they managed to appear successful, thanks in large part to technological revolutions and the growth of the third world. However, by the late 90s they were essentially massively overleveraged: massive international bureaucracies, sprawling government agencies, rampant credentialism, and a culture slowly poisoned by left-wing politics led created a very fragile system which was unable to handle the shocks of the next twenty years. First 9/11, then the long slog in Iraq and Afghanistan, the slow disintentegration of the middle east, the rise of China, the collapse of the housing market, and the massive wave of illegal immigrants into Western countries were all challenges that the "elites" were unable to address properly. Instead, they've flailed, reverting to cheap slogans, failed policies, and short-term solutions which paper over the problems while creating larger problems in the long-run.

Donald Trump is a perfect example of this. Rather than see him as the symptom of a larger issue and taking steps to address the concerns of his supporters, they've chosen to try and undermine him, including turning government agencies against his campaign, levelling false accusations of treason, and undermining faith in the electoral process in order to win an election. All this in the hopes that once he's gone things will go back to the way that they were. Ironically, they've guaranteed that things won't go back to the way they were before. Too many Trump supporters are disgusted. Too many foreign governments have seen weakness. Too many institutions have burned their credibility to ash.

DeepRunner said...

Ann Althouse admitted:
"It's 9:36 a.m. the next day now, and I've put up 7 posts, beginning at 5:30 a.m. But the entire time, I've been putting off what I know I need to do and completely intend to do, blog 'The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.' "

Well, better late than never. They dropped the article a few days ahead of the "trial" to thoroughly slant the coverage and act as something noble. Just ordinary, rich, connected citizens trying to save DEMOCRATS--er, democracy. Of COURSE, it would be Molly Ball who wrote it.

Trump, you see, is not one of THEM. He's one of THOSE PEOPLE. And THOSE PEOPLE need to know their place and stay there. Better a muttering, doddering, dementia dude running things(well, being told how to run things, or not even that, just being told, sign here).

dreams said...

"Why was it published?"

They can't resist bragging about their success at saving our country/stealing the election.

Yancey Ward said...

Has anyone else noted something about the comment thread up this point in time?

Despite all the heroic rhetoric of the article itself, it must be difficult to intellectually defend the covert actions themselves. I know were I on the other side of this, I would be pained at having defend this as being proper.

donald said...

I listen to the Pandora Gram Parsons page basically non stop Iman. What’s really neat is they never play that Rick Robert’s era crap when they do FBB songs. Heard Juanita and Lazy Days this morning!

Freeman Hunt said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Whiskeybum said...

Ken B said...

They are high-fiving , confident in their belief that *you don’t matter*. They aren’t taunting you, they are simply exulting, unaware of you. To them you aren’t noticeable enough even to taunt.


This.
It even goes beyond not being noticeable enough. They’ve proven to themselves that they can now essentially get away with anything, and there’s nothing that the deplorables can do about it, so why not openly brag about it?

Whatcha gonna do?

Call the police? Ha!

Call your congressman? Ha!

Call the FBI? Ha!

Call the Election Commission? Ha!

Contact a powerful big business CEO with influence? Ha!

They own all of them.

Whiskeybum said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
effinayright said...

"... is a long article, and understanding it, for me, involves figuring out why Time published it and understanding the possible bias of the author, Molly Ball."
***********

Possible bias? Ya think? When the writer refers to Trump's "henchmen"? When she speaks of Trump's unspecified "lies"?

YA THINK?

donald said...

Anybody here that thinks this won’t end in in extreme government on citizens violence are morons and are part of the enemy.

Freeman Hunt said...

Union boss: "See, fairness is the thing."
Chamber suit: "Oh, yes, fairness!"
"Our organization has a long history of ensuring that elections go the right way."
"Oh, yes, the right way!"
"The fair way."
"Oh, yes, the fair way!"
"It's been called 'election integrity.' On issues of integrity, it's only natural we'd both be involved."
"Oh, yes, only natural!"
"God and country and everything. Well, country anyway in the interest of some of our coalition members."
"Oh, yes, money!" /smack "Oh! Country, yes, country!"

David Begley said...

We must destroy the village in order to save it.

Francisco D said...

mockturtle said... I also think that the taunting will amplify because what they really want is for deplorables to turn to widespread violence so martial law can be employed and not just in DC. And if it doesn't provoke the needed response, a false flag event will be used.

Absolutely!

They are praying for another Timothy McVeigh or two. If none are forthcoming, look for the FBI to instigate a "plot" and then use that information to crack down on the Deplorables.

How far away are we from internment camps in the US?

Mr Wibble said...

My suspicion is that this is all coming out in order to clear the table for Biden's eventual resignation. Not soon, but perhaps by mid-Summer. He'll step aside due to health issues, but by putting this out now, he lands on him and not on Harris.

FullMoon said...

Speaking of protests, here is a typical pretty one in 2017 over a speech by Milo. Remember him? Video originaly linked by commenter Che Dolf
8/13/17, 3:21 PM


video

Achilles said...

"I know one thing that we found in our analysis is that 60% of our emissions come from – as I have it started to say you and me, except you guys are in Vermont – 60% of our emissions come from residential heating and passenger vehicles. Let me say that again …60% of our emissions that need to be reduced come from you, the person on your street, the senior on fixed-income. Right now there is no bad guy left, at least in Massachusetts, to point the finger at and turn the screws on and no break their will so they stop emitting. That’s you. We have to break your will."

They are not even hiding it.

Anyone who supports the Biden Regime at this point is evil.

Browndog said...

A lot of talk about how our elites are at war with the average American. No one wants to examine how this came to be.

The best among us--the professional class--has been supplanted, destroyed, and replaced, right if front of our eyes, in slow motion.

The first thing the nazis did when they invaded Poland was round them up, take them to the woods and shoot them. All of them.

Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro..similarly.

In America, they simply replaced them, over time. Now "the best among us" are actually the "worst among us".

The only elite I see yet standing, defying the model, is Elon Musk. His day is coming.

We all know this is true, which is why so many clung to Donald Trump. They destroyed him, and replaced him with Joe Biden. So much for the last true defender of the common man.

effinayright said...


"Why was it published?"

It's the modern equivalent of displaying your enemies' severed heads on pikes mounted on your castle wall's crenellations.

And leaving them there to rot.

Joe Smith said...

Now they're just shoving it in our faces.

Because right now, they can.

Achilles said...

Yancey Ward said...

Has anyone else noted something about the comment thread up this point in time?

Despite all the heroic rhetoric of the article itself, it must be difficult to intellectually defend the covert actions themselves. I know were I on the other side of this, I would be pained at having defend this as being proper.


It is all falling apart for the Regime.

This sort of thing happens slowly.

Then it happens fast.

Inga said...

‘The untold story of the election is the thousands of people of both parties who accomplished the triumph of American democracy at its very foundation,”

And thank you to the millions of people who were on board for American democracy.

Achilles said...

wholelottasplainin' said...


"Why was it published?"

It's the modern equivalent of displaying your enemies' severed heads on pikes mounted on your castle wall's crenellations.

And leaving them there to rot.


No.

They are trying to make it so the election fraud is perceived as a heroic action.

They are losing their grip.

This is not being posted out of confidence.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

DeepRunner said...

Trump, you see, is not one of THEM. He's one of THOSE PEOPLE. And THOSE PEOPLE need to know their place and stay there.

Trump was one of them once, then he went renegade. That's even worse.

Achilles said...

They know the bullshit they pulled in the 2020 election will not fly in 2022.

They need to hold on to power until they can get their 20 million illegals voting before the 2022 elections.

Joe Smith said...

"All of the big corporations wanted a corrupt puppet.

The oligarchs want open borders and low wages."


Winner.

Achilles said...

Inga said...

‘The untold story of the election is the thousands of people of both parties who accomplished the triumph of American democracy at its very foundation,”

And thank you to the millions of people who were on board for American democracy.

There is always 50% of the population on the left half of the bell curve.

In this case about 37% of the population who actually believe 81 million people voted for Joe Biden makes up a solid majority of that left half of the bell curve.

Some people are stupid enough to actually believe this.

Yancey Ward said...

Do this intellectual exercise: imagine the hypothetical where Trump won the election and this article was describing the behind the scenes effort to "secure" his victory in exactly the same language. Does anyone doubt how Democrats would read it?

chickelit said...

This a disturbing confession of what went on. Half the people in this country were fucked over by powerful people acting in their own interests.

traditionalguy said...

This is taunting Trump’s voters. It is no use ever supporting a Populist candidate again because WE alone count the pre-paid votes and control Cancel Culture.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Why store votes as floating point values vs. integer values? One vote for Trump can be added to the total vote as 80% Trump and 20% Biden, the total number of votes is still correct. Trying to do that as integer values is 80% Trump and 20% Biden would be rounded to 1 and 0. In the same way, 1 vote for Biden could be allocated as 1.2 votes for Biden and -0.2 votes for Trump. Again, using integer values would result as 1 and 0. So if Biden and Trump each got 100 votes, a floating point results would be:

100 Votes Trump: 80 Votes T, 20 Votes B
100 Votes Biden: -20 Votes T, 120 Votes B
200 Votes Total: 60 Votes T, 140 Votes B

So instead of a 50/50 Trump/Biden vote total, its 30/70.

Good work if you can get it.

narciso said...

as mark waugh explains in the link upthread, it's a cover story, that doesn't account for all the irregularities, like why did it happen in those six cities, in as many states,

tim in vermont said...

I can’t read it. It’s so infuriating. Not to mention that it was all so obvious and when this stuff was pointed out here in the comments, the charge of conspiracy nut would come from the usual suspects.

The original headline contained the word “Bi-partisan” BTW, but even Lindsey Graham was probably smart enough to shit his knickers when he saw that and they got the headline changed to keep the Republican sheep in the dark on a steady diet of bullshit.

tim in vermont said...

Once Inga’s cult signed off on assassinating Republicans, stealing elections is only a short leap. There is no need to pay any attention to anybody who would defend this corporate takeover of our once great democracy.

chickelit said...

I no longer see any reason to remain civil towards the assholes on board with went went on.

Temujin said...

Well, that at least explains what we've all been seeing and hearing: A complete dismissiveness on the part of media, social media, news media, academia, entertainment, sports media and sports figures, and every politician with the exception of a handful of Republicans who have the guts to say, something is amiss here. You cannot even broach the subject.

Half of the country, including some of my own friends and family dismiss this as 'known knowledge': that the election was fair and free of fraud. Those in charge seem to be saying: Now...little children, move on, speak of it no more. We'll be listening and watching you. If you say something out of line, you will be disappeared from media and perhaps from your job or your life. So, walk a straight line, understand? And no more talk of this fraud in the election.

Not that we've turned into a Totalitarian country or anything.

As most of the commenters here know- Trump was not the cause of issues. He was the symptom of problems. Those problems have, in the past 4 years, shown themselves in the bright lights. They are full of hubris and have become overbearing and dangerous. Trump being ousted is not the end of anything. They've been fully exposed and everyone knows it.

Can they maybe explain why we still have thousands of troops and fencing with razor wire throughout our Capital? Anyone have the answer to that? Anyone in *journalism* even a bit curious about it?

To the first commenter in this post, Roughcoat, I would suggest using cash.

Browndog said...

narciso said...

as mark waugh explains in the link upthread, it's a cover story, that doesn't account for all the irregularities, like why did it happen in those six cities, in as many states,


*irregularities

Not sure why we keep using the language the left insists we use in order to minimize out-and-out blatant fraud.

Temujin said...

Yeah...to my dying day I will never for a minute believe that 80 million people voted for Joe Biden. It could never happen.

So what did happen?

Inga said...

And thank goodness that there are true patriots among some powerful Americans. They had the wherewithal to recognize the vulnerability in our voting systems and they worked in concert to shore them up. The Trump followers are going to continue to see any effort to strengthen the democracy and its systems as fraudulent. Trump wanted chaos, Trump wanted his followers to be paranoid, Trump counted on conspiracy theory nutballs, Trump didn’t fight the lawsuits that were brought BEFORE the election, which was just a precursor of his poor legal representation AFTER the elections. Trump is and always was a loser, but he had Americans who just so were desperate to “own the libs”, wallow in conspiracy theory, and those who put spite before their Country.

Thank goodness the patriots won, the rest of you can continue your miserable musings of stolen elections.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Democrats themselves generate the election chaos. Between election procedure lawsuits, calls for all-mail voting, and cries of Trump sabotaging the Post Office, and late mail-in vote arrival, the Democrats did everything they could to insure Malvolio Biden won. Also, don't forget the obstruction of Republican monitors during and after the election.

This Time magazine article could be a basis for state lawsuits against everyone involved. Conspiracy to commit election fraud, bribery of election workers, fraudulent voting procedures. We're going to see hydrogen-bomb fire works.

StephenFearby said...

JPS said...
'...Obama didn't personally spy on anyone, "spy" is an inflammatory word, and no one actually inserted a tap into the telephone lines of Trump Tower.'

'On April 25, 2019, Trump said that his original allegation of "wires tapped" was not literal as he had used quotation marks, saying that he really meant: "surveillance, spying you can sort of say whatever you want".'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Tower_wiretapping_allegations

Since the word wiretap goes back to the days when telephone conversations were only recorded on telephone wires (instead of cell phones), Trump's use of quotation marks clearly indicated that he didn't believe his phone lines were actually wiretapped.

Removing the quotes perpetuates an urban legend.

MartieD said...

Night owl is right. It’s propaganda. They want the uninformed/misinformed typical Dem voter to believe election fraud is good and necessary to get the candidate you want. Most of these voters likely felt this way already but now they have the cover of the elites/MSM to publicly support it & sound smart, informed, and even patriotic (I suspect most of them equate patriotism to jingoism though) at the same time? These types of people are always concerned with being or appearing to be “on the right side of history.”

Earnest Prole said...

The piece is a boring recitation of coalition building, dressed up to make it seem as though it bore deep secrets. The proof is that virtually no one is quoting the piece in these comments.

The one thing I learned is why the Left did not take to the streets to violently protest Trump's challenge of the election results: They were instructed to stand down.

Ken B said...

Inga and Achilles are arguing over the wrong things. What matters is what actions were taken, not how many people are happy or sad because of it. Was there bribery? Were election laws ignored? It’s no defense if Inga and two hundred million are happy about it, it’s no indictment if Achilles and two hundred million are mad about it. It’s about evidence folks.

Ray - SoCal said...

Agree with Mike Sylwester and Narciso.

As Mark Waugh at meaninginhistory.blogspot wrote, it’s about keeping a safe narrative accepted. Past one was not being accepted.

Previous PC Narrative - version 1.0
trump lost fairly to Biden and an incredible get out the vote in key blue cities. No election fraud and/or cabal of elites orchestrated this.

New narrative - version 2.0
Trump lost fairly, but there was a bipartisan group of elites, including big business, anti Trumpers, etc that made this happen. No fraud involved.


Reality - Version Trump
Trump lost due to Legal stuff, Soros funded Secretary of states, Democratic fraud efforts in key blue cities, lawfare, big tech funding ($500 million from Zuckerberg), corruption at the gop state level, and the eGOP let the fraud happen. And then after the election the courts, eGOP, and doj ignored the fraud.


MartieD said...

And here’s that thing Inga to prove our point.

Ken B said...

Prole
I pointed to the passage that sounds like raising money for “underpaid” election officials, so they can do their job. Isn’t that a specific reference to the article? Doesn’t it sound like bribery? Isn’t bribery more than just coalition building?

RMc said...

They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.

They had to destroy the country in order to save it.

narciso said...

atlanta, detroit, milwaukee, madison, tucson, philadelphia, you might throw in pittsburgh, why those cities and not the entirety of the states involved,

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

"Spy" is not an inflammatory word. It's an accurate word to what Obama did. He illegally spied on the Trump campaign. He sent FBI and CIA agents to gather incriminating evidence that Carter Page and George Papadopoulos were coordinating with Russia to help the Trump campaign. Too bad for Obama, CT and GP didn't cooperate in this "honey trap" operation. Instead, DOJ Clinesmith had to falsify an official document to get the FISA court to issue a wiretap.

Now that the Democrats have opened the floodgate for impeaching private citizens, Obama can be the next private citizen impeached. Look for the Dems to cry a river about abuse of process. We'll just laugh at them.

Bob Boyd said...

Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests.

On a local scale this is known as community organizing.

donald said...

You are not one of those Patriots Inga. You are evil and deserve bad things.

Inga said...


“It’s no defense if Inga and two hundred million are happy about it, it’s no indictment if Achilles and two hundred million are mad about it. It’s about evidence folks.”

Trump had a chance to fight the elections commissions BEFORE the election, he DIDNT. Same thing he did AFTER the election, when his lawyers had the chance to bring their proof of fraud, they DIDN’T. Why? Because they knew they didn’t have a case. I’m not saying if what these coalitions did was fraudulent or illegal, that it should be acceptable. Fraud isn’t acceptable. These patriots used our system of laws to uphold our voting system.

I’m not saying that because millions are ecstatic that Trump lost, that it makes anything right. That’s not a defense, indeed it’s not. The defense is that powerful, intelligent patriots saw what was happening to our democracy and moved to protect it. Again thank you to them from 81+ million people.

Jamie said...

If you did want to steal a national election, you wouldn't do it with a top-down command structure. You would work in each state to create the conditions under which the election could be stolen and autonomous local party machines would take it from there.

I've been saying.

This article asserts, "without evidence" as the saying goes, that these actions were taken (apparently it does in fact assert that these actions were in fact taken) not to rig the election but to "save" it. The article uses language suggesting or asserting that Trump represented an "assault on democracy" without presenting any examples of how he was assaulting it. And the article - like every other piece I've seen, read, or heard since election season began - failed to make any case at all for how these actions were going to "save" the election, much less democracy.

Inga? What's your explanation? (Thanks for showing up - it seems you're the only one on your team who has.)

Inga said...

“You are not one of those Patriots Inga. You are evil and deserve bad things.”

Yeah? And you’re a nutcase.

robother said...

The motive for Time's article? "Resistance is Futile."

Same as the so-called "impeachment," the cancellation of any open Trump-supporting Republican Senators and House members, "mostly peaceful" burning and looting versus a "violent coup". This is why pointing out the double standards of the Swamp creatures has no effect: the double standard delivers the message that We are in Total Control more effectively than pretending there is equal protection of laws .

Yancey Ward said...

JPS was writing tongue in cheek, guys. And effectively it now seems.

Big Mike said...

The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election–an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted.

Did Molly Ball actually write this with a straight face? I have to wonder about that. Because if that's their goal, then they absolutely failed. Nearly half the population believes that the election was anything but fair and uncorrupted. People who write that they "don't think Trump won the election from a votes cast perspective" need to explain how Donald Trump got more votes than any previous winning candidate, yet lost. They need to explain how he had a positive approval rating and still lost.

mezzrow said...

The author of the Time piece finished high school in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

The median income for a household in the city was $116,147, and the median income for a family was $145,802. She has a degree from Yale, is married to another successful media professional, and is the national political correspondent for Time magazine.

She has a lot to protect from the deplorables. Who knows what they could be up to?

See how easy this is? Five minutes. This modern world.

wild chicken said...

so they are inherently inaccurate when reporting millions of votes, Wild Chicken

Ah, thanks Jupe

AZ Bob said...

David Begley said...

We must destroy the village in order to save it.

Ken B said...

Inga
Let me get this straight. You are saying that even if this group bribed officials to change the results then it’s a good thing? Because it sure sounds like that is what you are saying.

Rosalyn C. said...

Just in case Trump decided to bring up the issue of the election fraud while defending himself in the impeachment trial, the revelations of this article say yeah we admit there was an organized effort which went beyond the normal activities of a presidential campaign to deny Trump a victory.

The Time article seems like an attempt to divert our attention and to give Democrats a plausible explanation they can support. Inga types are happy to jump on board. It is wasn’t ballot stuffing with counterfeit votes and rigged computer systems which won the election it was all done legally for the sake of the country.

Not what we were taught and have believed how an election works though. Coming before the impeachment trial to convince us that Trump is so bad we had to be protected.

Maybe some people will see that as an argument which will support the impeachment trial. That’s my reasoning for releasing the story now.

Freeman Hunt said...

"The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election–an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted."

Did Molly Ball actually write this with a straight face?


No kidding. That sentence elicited a guffaw from me the first time I read it. What is this Bizarro World where journalists laud the partnership of Big Labor and Big Business, taking on face value their assertion that they've joined forces to fight corruption? I don't even think the election was stolen, and I find this so laughable that it reads like parody.

Inga said...

“You are saying that even if this group bribed officials to change the results then it’s a good thing? Because it sure sounds like that is what you are saying.”

No, that’s what YOU are saying. No one bribed anyone. Nice try to stir the pot. You are starting to sound like Buwaya.

Inga said...

“That sentence elicited a guffaw from me the first time I read it.”

I guffawed when Trump said the election was stolen and he won in a landslide and his followers believed him.

mockturtle said...

Yancey Ward asserts: I know were I on the other side of this, I would be pained at having defend this as being proper.

You're projecting, Yancey. You are falsely attributing to the Left any semblance of conscience.

rhhardin said...

I was uninterested because it's aimed at women, whatever it is, and women are the problem then. They lack something that men have that defends against whatever they did.

Whatever women are susceptible to will be done, when the incentive is big enough.

robother said...

Every Biden sign in Boulder stated "Save Our Democracy."

Molly Ball also describes the motives of the Big Business and Labor as a response to their belief that Trump's Presidency represented a fatal threat to "democracy." Yet, we are expected to swallow the fiction that these types would never, ever rig an election to assure the defeat of Trump, even to save our democracy. I daresay, not even Inga buys that fiction: Inga's patriotic big shots would do whatever was necessary to prevent the loss of our democracy*.

*for certain values of democracy.

Inga said...

I guffawed when Giuliani was standing there at his oh so important news conference with his legal team with hair dye running down his face.

So many more laughs as well as head shakes of wonderment at the lengths to which Trumpists would go to perpetuate a fantasy. Sadly for our Country, some Americans put Trump and Trumpism above American democracy.

Freeman Hunt said...

Inga, I also laughed at those things. If you're not laughing at both...

Freeman Hunt said...

The world of politics runs primarily on lies. Laugh at all of them.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Freeman Hunt said...

What is this Bizarro World where journalists laud the partnership of Big Labor and Big Business, taking on face value their assertion that they've joined forces to fight corruption?

Yes, the same Bizarro World where right now Molly Ball is knocking back an appletini with some of her journalist buds, who are all shaking their heads over the misguided proles not trusting the media.

Inga said...

Freeman, did you read the entire article? It goes into more depth about the alliance between Big Labor and Big Business.

daskol said...

One doesn't confess that which about one may brag

Gunner said...

Serious Question: Is there any chance this brazen conspiracy backfires and gives the RINO Trump Hating Senators pressure to vote for acquittal?

Jamie said...

Inga, I really would like to hear your explanation for how increasing mail-in balloting (acknowledged all over the world to be more open to fraud than in-person balloting) to unprecedented levels, eliminating ballot audit trails, suppressing factual stories unfavorable to the Democrat candidate, and faking a water-line break to halt vote-counting and then resuming vote-counting once the poll watchers were gone were ways to save democracy.

I think I know your answer: that Trump represented such an existential that to democracy that nothing was off the table to throw up as many obstacles as possible to his reelection. If that is your response, I'm afraid I need to ask for evidence of the existential threat, since it's always stated that way without any such evidence.

Inga said...

Freeman,
Read the section titled “Strange Bedfellows”. People would be well served to carefully read this piece by Ball.

Earnest Prole said...

I pointed to the passage that sounds like raising money for “underpaid” election officials, so they can do their job. Isn’t that a specific reference to the article? Doesn’t it sound like bribery? Isn’t bribery more than just coalition building?

Our country relies on public-private partnerships to provide services other countries fund solely through their governments. In this case private philanthropic grants supplemented government election funding. If you know of specific examples of bribery that arose from these arrangements, do tell.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The old Russia Russia German woman who buys every single lie fed to her by the left, is certain nothing untoward happened to elect the man she thinks is senile.

Inga said...

“I think I know your answer: that Trump represented such an existential that to democracy that nothing was off the table to throw up as many obstacles as possible to his reelection. If that is your response, I'm afraid I need to ask for evidence of the existential threat, since it's always stated that way without any such evidence.”

There are so many “stories” that haven’t borne out to prove there was massive vote flipping fraud. It just did not happen. Even if there is was existential threat by a candidate, fraud would not be acceptable.

tim in vermont said...

I can’t believe you guys are letting the trolls hijack and derail this thread. Obviously this is an all hands on deck alert for them, oh, excuse me, a “call to action.”

This is a reprehensible collusion of corporate and state power to force an election to go one way. The suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop was enough to turn the election right there. Now it’s being “investigated" by two Democrat houses of Congress and Hunter BIden’s dad.

Next when no news comes from it we will be told that is because there was nothing there and that Rudy’s hair dye proves it.

Francisco D said...

There is really no point in arguing with the Resident Idiot.

She is just repeating what she has been told to say. Her words are not cognitively mediated. It is like an automatic kneejerk response. That is what makes her a loyal patriot in the eyes of the Progressive fascists.

The re-education camps will use her as a model.

Jim at said...

I'm still waiting for someone to explain why at least five states simply stopped updating their vote totals for several hours in the middle of the night.

And then - as if by magic - their next updates had Biden in the lead.

Yancey Ward said...

"We are extending these grants to you election officials in order to assure that people don't have their ballots rejected because they can't sign their names, or that they don't get their ballots because they aren't properly registered, or are undocumented citizens, etc."

Sure, Prole, it was all on the up and up.

tim in vermont said...

Stories of vote rigging have been suppressed by the media. That proves it didn’t happen.

Yancey Ward said...

Let me put it this way- there is no defensible explanation for private money going to election officials or their government organizations. It is prima facie evidence of bribery. They even reveal their motive in this article, as robother points out above.

Jim at said...

Why was it published? They really believe they did nothing wrong.

Exactly. And that's why it's a fool's errand to try to prove anything.

We could actually have a smoking gun - instructions all laid out on how to pull it off in advance - and half the country wouldn't care.

And half of those people - like a certain imbecile shitting all over this thread - would cheer it on.

Inga said...

“I can’t believe you guys are letting the trolls hijack and derail this thread.”

What a pretty little snowflake, it’s a personal affront to snowflakes because an opinion that doesn’t comport with the majority here is being expressed.

tim in vermont said...

"We are extending these grants to you election officials in order to assure that people don't have their ballots rejected because they can't sign their names, “

Or that people who don’t know what the signature actually looks like on the registration we they are voting can have it count anyway.

Without signature validation, mail in voting is a license to manufacture votes. End of story.

One thing that came out in the Braynard research was the huge numbers of voters whose birthdays don’t match.

“Robust security for mail in votes” - Twitter

Complete bullshit.

Browndog said...

Libs-

When we close our eyes, there's nothing to see!

Ken B said...

This is weak even for you prole
“In this case private philanthropic grants supplemented government election funding. If you know of specific examples of bribery that arose from these arrangements, do tell.”

First I am suggesting the article contains what sounds like a profession of bribery. I want to see those examples. I don’t need independent examples to investigate someone else’s claim to have examples.

Second, supplementing the income of officials to have them exercise their official powers is the definition of bribery.



Jamie said...

I understand why some here don't want me to "engage" with Inga (EP did show up, I see, but only for one comment, I think), but for gosh sakes, I really do want to understand how the other side reasons this out.

Inga, your last commented directed to mine doesn't answer the question I asked. You instead tried to answer a question I deliberately didn't ask - whether the election was stolen. I didn't ask it because there is literally no way, now, to tell whether it was fair or not, because one of the things this shadowy cabal you're calling "patriots" did was to eliminate the means to audit the election fully, in certain key places like Pennsylvania.

The question I asked was, how do the means and methods described in this piece, such as destroying ballots before audit and covering the windows poll watchers were forced to watch from, "save democracy"?

tim in vermont said...

Your opinions are fed to you directly by your masters in big tech and ultimately their Chinese masters Inga.

Inga the Rachael Maddow Assassination Cult. member in good standing.

Have you looked at the declassified hand written notes from Brennen noting that the whole Russia hoax was cooked up by the Clinton campaign to take attention off of the email scandal?

Of course not, you are not interested in facts, just regurgitating the propaganda you have been given to regurgitate.

tim in vermont said...

"nga, your last commented directed to mine doesn't answer the question I asked”

Imagine my surprise.

Yancey Ward said...

Right now, if I had to guess, someone with subpoena power is investigating the payments made to the election boards- we have their open admission in this article that it did happen, but it is now described in heroic language as payments to "protect Democrat...er...cy".

I think if you look deep enough you will find that all the private money went to the big blue counties in WI, PA, MI, GA, AZ, NV, FL, and NC, with no money to protect democracy anywhere else.

Ken B said...

Yancey
I must say your comments here are on point. You really should agree with me more often.

Rabel said...

On October 22 the same author wrote this - Why Fears of Post-Election Chaos Are Overblown.

She knew what was going on at the time and has come out with the new article to defend it.

She's one of the conspirators.

Browndog said...

Here's the kicker-

GOP were in on it.

tim in vermont said...

Here are the Democrats today claiming thousands of votes were changed by the machines in NY-22, contesting the Congressional election there.

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2021/02/05/the-guilty-party/

Democrats get their day in court.

Jamie said...

Let me correct my last comment: I included destroying ballots before audit and covering windows of counting rooms, but I doubt that the article addresses these actions specifically as among those that its beneficent, patriotic shadowy cabal facilitated.

So let's stick to stuff like media suppression of stories not in favor of the Democrat on the basis that, though factual, they are "disinformation." How do the means and methods described in the article "save democracy," Inga and EP?

tim in vermont said...

"GOP were in on it.”

Yep. Original headline contained the word “bi-partisan”

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2021/02/05/margin-of-fraud-51/

Scroll down for the HTML.

Yancey Ward said...

Usually, when you bribe a government official, you do it surreptitiously, or you do it long before the official is in a position to help you, or you do it long after they have left office. The usual D.C. two step is to buy up all the books they publish, or pay them exhorbitant fees for 30 minute speeches, always separating the quo from the quid in time and space, and never, never saying explicitly what they want- they let the bribed figure out the ask. Here, you get an admission on the record of the payments and the motive, but dressed up in fancy clothes of "protecting democracy."

Browndog said...

Democrats get their day in court.

Well, they have standing.

MadTownGuy said...

I detect a whiff of Claire McCaskill and Ben Rhodes.

Jamie said...

Clarifying my question further: I'm asking how the means and methods described in the article "save democracy" in the opinion of anyone here who believes that they do. I don't care that the article was written as an ex post facto justification of the... extraordinary actions taken by the beneficent, patriotic shadowy cabal. I just want to know how ordinary people of the Left believe these actions "save democracy."

tim in vermont said...

So in the election Biden won, how many congressional seats did the Democrats lose? The “blue wave” was almost completely undone. That’s kind of odd.

Yancey Ward said...

That is why I think the article might be an attempt to get in front of something. Perhaps the wrong people are asking some unanswerable questions. Not everyone is corrupt in government, and some of them might be taking the fraud seriously enough.

tim in vermont said...

This is going to be an “own goal” for big Tech, they have pissed off people who can fight back

A “very upset” French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Big Tech for hypocritically censoring a sitting president and his supporters after enabling violence. Leaders from Eastern Europe, the Anglosphere, and now the European Union have warned Big Tech that it overstepped its bounds by censoring then-President Donald Trump and his supporters. Macron expressed outrage over Big Tech companies choosing to “suddenly cut the mic” and silence “all the platforms where it was possible for [former-President Donald Trump] and his supporters to express themselves,” AP News reported Feb. 4.

tim in vermont said...

"Not everyone is corrupt in government,”

In New York State it turns out that Cuomo can’t just snuff thousands of grandmas and not lose any support. Officials are turning on him.

mockturtle said...

Browndog notes: Here's the kicker-

GOP were in on it.


Why would any of us be surprised at that?

«Oldest ‹Older   1 – 200 of 374   Newer› Newest»