At some point the CyberNinja mission changed from reinstating Trump now, to getting him back in office in 2024. What they needed was to establish a track record of audits that have unobjectionable conclusions, so relevant actors are more comfortable hiring them, and/or approving their conclusions next time.
I think the audit process was a sufficient shit show that it won't work, but who knows.
Perhaps this is a case where putting up fake numbers would be actual criminal fraud?
In the absence of detailed data, it would be irresponsible not to assume that they did an honest count because Donald Trump's penis got caught in the cat flap of the door to his house and so they never got orders to defraud from him.
This kind of thing always confuses me. For example, Bush & Co. lied so much in the run-up to the Iraq War, that I assumed that they would figure out a way to lie about finding WMDs during or after the war.
Cheney's penis got shut in the door to a jeep that no one could find the keys for.
4: Right. You would think they would have a throw-down nuke for that purpose.
What they needed was to establish a track record of audits that have unobjectionable conclusions, so relevant actors are more comfortable hiring them, and/or approving their conclusions next time.
That seems like the tack they'd take only after finding nothing even remotely possible to gin up.
Also the way the Maricopa BOS not only reamed them out generally but also said they cost the county $3m in voting equipment they made unusable might give others pause.
Actually it looks like Maricopa itself leaked the draft report so they could shape the narrative - as quoted by LGM, "the draft audit report says, however, the election results are inconclusive." They found nothing concrete and their hand count matched, but that didn't stop them trying to gin something up with FUD.
Some of the FUD they wanted the articles to have.
I just read this big (long) downer of an op-ed in the WaPo about how dark things look for 2024. One noteworthy and debatable aspect of this argument is the minimized blame for Democrats, something I rarely see.
Those who criticize Biden and the Democrats for not doing enough to prevent this disaster are not being fair. There is not much they can do without Republican cooperation, especially if they lose control of either chamber in 2022. It has become fashionable to write off any possibility that a handful of Republicans might rise up to save the day. This preemptive capitulation has certainly served well those Republicans who might otherwise be held to account for their cowardice. How nice for them that everyone has decided to focus fire on Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.
Yet it is largely upon these Republicans that the fate of the republic rests.
The tendency to see a Democratic rout in 2022 as a fait accompli is just as "fashionable," and while the odds are not great, this is clearly the moment for maximum pressure on the Democratic Party in particular. Also, I personally would like shenanigans and bullshit with long-term destructive impact to prop up the stock market at least through about February, if not Election Day 2022.
I think the same reasoning plus a different set of values is why the Republicans are going to bring the U.S. into default.
I'm not sure I follow... which reasoning?
Do long term damage to the economy to help win an election.
I'm mostly mystified by the stock market's performance, but mostly too lazy to have changed any investments.
10 The Party is a nothing, and so maximum pressure on the party is punching smoke. Schumer can be pressured, or Manchin, or Biden. Or maybe 4 or five others. At most. IMO, Schumer should be less worried about his own fate than he seems to be, but at the end of the day, there's just not that much leverage over Manchin, Sinema, and whoever their private partners are (including the senior sen from California, perhaps?).
I had lunch with a DC think tank friend the other day, and he was pretty sure they'd find a much diminished deal that Manchin and Sinema would sign on to. Which is really annoying because those two already agreed to deals, and now are renegotiating.
I don't find the Senate map for 2022 all that scary. Georgia is going to be a tough go -- its obviously not unwinnable -- but we should have decent opportunities in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
People are already confirming I will volunteer in 2022. I have, for my sanity, refused to form an opinion about the primary.
15: how can we get rid of the SeniornSenator from California?
9: The Maricopa people have been quite impressive about pushing back immediately on that sort of the thing. Their tweet about being shocked to discover that there are 41-year-old "Maria Garcia"s living in Arizona in more than one county was pretty on point, and they keep reiterating (correctly) that the Cyber Ninjas don't understand election law and are saying US military stationed overseas shouldn't be allowed to vote.
17: There's one way that universally has been demonstrated to work, but it may take a few more years.
Unfortunately the man who represented the Democratic party faithful in contrast to Feinstein last time has now gone full NIMBY, taking a lot of fees from Michael Weinstein and adopting his line. (Although he's now running for LA Mayor so maybe has ruled out going after the Senate again.)
Moby: "Do long term damage to the economy to help win an election."
There's this, and then there's also another problem: As Rick Perlstein wrote about in "The Long Con", the GrOPers are at this point completely colonized by grifters. Forget "to help win an election": They'll do long term damage to the economy, to our nation, to our standing in the world, for a plug nickel. We're slowly,slowly, [then very quickly, as the saying goes] becoming a low-trust society. Our allies are slowly learning not to trust us, and that's the sort of thing that has generational consequences.
Yes. The American era is at the beginning of the end. You can't undo what's been done.
And the thing that *really* pisses me off, is that I'm a real believer in America, and in the importance of American soft power, of our hegemony. Sure, we did a shitty job. But I'm glad it was us, and not the USSR. And I'd be glad it was us, and not the PRC. B/c they would have been worse. These MAGAt imbeciles are doing a bust-out on the birthright of our children, and I *cannot* but be enraged at that.
Yeah. I take a lot of this personally.
1.1: Yes. To a large extent they are making it up as they go along. But the overall thrust is clear, They are all opportunistically using the 2020 outrage to establish an overall political climate, laws, courts and media environment to enable Republican minority control in future elections. Maybe for Trump. maybe for someone else. The audits are now a mechanism for sowing FUD. Probably not their intent but the lazy media headlines of "audit confirms Biden win in Arizona" are a big help. Communicates legitimacy for the craziness.
In addition to t the audits A number of state laws (Arizona, I believe, for instance) are basically now including provisions for the state legislatures to send their own slate of electors irrespective of the voting results ostensibly to combat fraud and "rogue" county boards*. I'm sure Roberts/Gorsuch/Barret/Kavanaugh would prefer not to have to rule on that in a close election** but I suspect they would more in sorrow than anger. Completing the democracy-destroying trifecta after 1) Voting rights act emasculation (Shelby County and the recent Arizona one) and the gerrymandering allowance.
*In Georgia I think the state leg can "take over" for an election board they deem corrupt or incompetent. Look for Fulton County to end up being run by people actively looking to reduce turnout an ease of voting.
**Thomas and Alito on the other hand are probably chomping at the bit.
I propose that all of the state voting malarkey bills since Shelby be called "John Roberts laws." There was a Jim Crow voting era and now there is a John Roberts era.
The Eastman plan/memo is basically an framework for new state laws. An their revelation barely made a ripple in major media news coverage. (Although there have been a number of opinion pieces, but you not not "newsworthy.")
The Federalist Society has always been malign, but it should be treated like the Klan at this point. Any "principle" conservatives have an opportunity to pull a Robert Byrd renunciation but otherwise they need to be shunned. The continuing existence of chapters in law schools is a scandal.
The primary purpose of the audit was to have the audit: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1441923264163500032?s=21
Any positive results would just have been icing on the cake.
25 is a tactic I have been trying for a few years now. Cosign.
OP- I would think that would only happen when they are a 100% sure that criminal sanctions would be applied to them personally.
Sidney Powell is openly stating the insurrection was an attempt to overturn the election, though I kind of doubt anybody is going to jail Alito on her testimony.
Honestly, nobody should go to jail on Sidney Powell's testimony, but somebody should look into it.
Republicans throwing all of Arizona's ballots on a bonfire, only to have the smoke spell "BIDEN WON" across the sky
From the inimitable San / dra New / Man who cruelly blocked me on Twitter.
Republicans throwing all of Arizona's ballots on a bonfire, only to have the smoke spell "BIDEN WON" across the sky
From the inimitable San / dra New / Man who cruelly blocked me on Twitter.
Nothing much. I think it was just a joke she didn't like.
The one about the 12 inch pianist?
That's my go-to joke for meeting new people.
I'm mostly mystified by the stock market's performance, but mostly too lazy to have changed any investments.
I feel like two stylized facts are sufficient to make it un-mystifying (though this explanation may be totally wrong!):
1- Asset prices are driven by supply and demand, and growing inequality and (to a lesser extent) demographic effects means there's more demand for assets to buy.
2- To the extent that stock prices are driven by expectations about the future stream of profits that the stockholders can appropriate, this will go up as: A- monopoly power increases, and B- the capital/labor balance of power within corporations shifts more towards capital; since both have been happening, you would expect a structural increase in equity prices.
Oh, and:
3- We've been in a crazy-low interest rate world for ten years now, which massively increases the effective demand for equities.