Judges have stopped the effort cold in their courtrooms….
The recent Arizona Maricopa County ‘audit’ pushed by Trump has resulted in hundreds of MORE votes counted for Joe Biden’s win …
There are GOP efforts in other places….
They won’t help Trump in the 2020 vote count …
But something IS going on …..
Trump and other Republicans ARE using all of these actions to install people, who tally the vote, to be able to doubt and maybe influence the results next time…..
And to give Donald Trump more air time to keep repeating his ‘Great Lie’ that his loss was somehow not legit…..
IT WAS……
And a ex-President who is a New York Real Estate guy , who IS an entertainer , was NOT able to undo an election system that may flawed, but HAS worked for a few centuries….
Of course….. The Republican efforts to suppress the vote WILL continue regardless ….
After all the scurrying, searching, sifting, speculating, hand-counting and bamboo-hunting had ended, Republicans’ post-mortem review of election results in Arizona’s largest county wound up only adding to President Biden’s margin of victory there.
But for those who have tried to undermine confidence in American elections and restrict voting, the actual findings of the Maricopa County review that were released on Friday did not appear to matter in the slightest. Former President Donald J. Trump and his loyalists redoubled their efforts to mount a full-scale relitigation of the 2020 election.
Any fleeting thought that the failure of the Arizona exercise to unearth some new trove of Trump votes or a smoking gun of election fraud might derail the so-called Stop the Steal movement dissipated abruptly. As draft copies of the report began to circulate late Thursday, Trump allies ignored the new tally, instead zeroing in on the report’s specious claims of malfeasance, inconsistencies and errors by election officials….
…
“The leaked report conclusively shows there were enough fraudulent votes, mystery votes, and fake votes to change the outcome of the election 4 or 5 times over,” Mr. Trump said in a statement early Friday evening, one of seven he had issued about Arizona since late Thursday. “There is fraud and cheating in Arizona and it must be criminally investigated!”
For Mr. Trump, Republican candidates vying to appeal to voters in primary races, and conservative activists agitating for election reviews in their own states, the 91-page document served as something of a choose-your-own-adventure guide. These leaders encouraged their supporters to avert their eyes from the conclusion that Mr. Biden had indeed won legitimately, and to instead focus on fodder for a new set of conspiracy theories.
“Now that the audit of Maricopa is wrapping up, we need to Audit Pima County — the 2nd largest county in AZ,” Mark Finchem, a Republican candidate for secretary of state in Arizona who supported the effort in Maricopa, wrote on Twitter. “There are 35k votes in question from multiple sources & I want answers.”
Even Republicans who do not subscribe to false claims of election fraud are using investigations to justify more restrictive voting laws….
New Open Thread is HERE.…
Morning everyone
Which Lindsey Graham is this????…You can’t get Trump to accept ‘HE” fucked up….Doesn’t work
Graham Told Trump He ‘Fucked Up’ His Presidency
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told former President Donald Trump, “You fucked up your presidency” earlier this year when advising him to accept that he lost the 2020 presidential election, The Hill reports.
The anecdote was shared by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward while he was discussing his new book Peril.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/09/26/trump-politics-american-democracy-threat-2021-2022-analysis-514180
Maybe for Trump (and some others?)….
But the flip side is his actions HAVE made us more aware of what CAN go wrong….
Gonna be a LOT of double checking things in 2024….
Remember….
Things worked out RIGHT in the end…..
And?
Some new oversight WILL there as SOME Republicans TRY and follow Trump’s Bull Shit advice and efforts….
It doesn’t matter what policy triumphs Democrats have or even if they get the most votes in elections. What might only matter is who operates the election systems and who’s in the highest positions of Congressional power.
True.
Anyone who can’t see that the Republicans are setting up an election “steal” is blind as the proverbial bat.
Exactly
Heavily Catholic San Marino voted overwhelmingly to loosen abortion restrictions in that country. In the past 20 years, many countries around the world eased their abortion restrictions. Unfortunately, the USA is moving in the opposite direction.
Morning people….
A federal judge has approved the unconditional release of John Hinckley Jr., the man who shot former President Reagan in a failed assassination attempt in 1981, NPR reported….
More…
RRH on new Texas House districts’s map……
The Texas Legislature’s proposed congressional map was released this morning. By 2020 presidential numbers, Republicans won 25 seats and lost 13, up from 23-13 on the current map. Because Republicans held one Biden seat, that means this map’s net effect is adding two new Republican seats, but its biggest impact is pushing 8 Lean R seats into Safe R or strongly Likely R territory, severely limiting any potential Democrats have to play offense…
More…
New York new House map efforts by both parties…
Dem’s control the state legislature…..
For decades, Democrats have claimed the high road when it comes to redrawing district lines for lawmakers, delivering earnest criticisms and arguing in court that their Republican opponents have operated unethically to maximize their power across a broad range of states.
Now, with their control of the U.S. House measured in a handful of seats, Democrats face a quandary: Make good on their rhetoric or seek to shore up their chance of staying in the majority by doing what they have long criticized Republicans for doing.
Reconfiguring New York’s congressional districts to benefit Democrats represents perhaps the party’s best shot at keeping the House majority. To do so, state Democrats will need to wrestle control of the redistricting process away from a bipartisan commission set up by voters after the last redrawing.
The temptation to do so will be great: This year marks the first time in a century that the New York Democrats have total control of state government, giving them autonomy over redistricting if they choose to take it……
More…
US Senate Republican’s block effort to raise the debt ceiling…..
Morning ……
Stock Market takes another dive downward today….
The two largest national police unions are pushing back on Sen. Tim Scott’s claims that the reform bill would have defunded the police and are instead saying that it’s passage would have strengthened law enforcement. Oops!
One story I read said that Senators Booker and Scott (with Rep. Karen Bass) had somehow gotten both the F.O.P. (Fraternal Order of Police) and I.A.C.P. (International Association of Chiefs of Police) on board with this bill (after considering their comments), as well as a sufficient number of Republican Senators (perhaps as many as 19) to pass over the filibuster threshold.
What torpedoed Republican acquiescence (and very well may have sunk it) is opposition from the National Sheriffs’ Association, far more political and conservative. I don’t know if deputy sheriffs also have voting membership in this association, but most sheriffs are elected by county, while the vast majority of the country’s 3,000-odd counties voted for Trump.
I think our nearby Sheriff of Bristol County, Mass. (Fall River, New Bedford, Taunton), Thomas Hodgson, was the association’s president, and despite being in a heavily-urban and polyethnic county, Hodgson has won election after election by showboating how tough (or cruel) he can be on criminals (and unconvicted defendants) — trying to out-Arpaio the former Maricopa County (Arix.) sheriff Joe Arpaio and out-Trump Trump.
Additional federal oversight of local cop’s was dead the first police protest hit the media…..
Check ur cable channels
Reality police shows are still on….
Talk to minority people in ‘the hood’
There is a quiet , not in the media, STRONG amount of support for cop’s keeping a lid on crime and showing up on 911 calls….
There is also strong support for firing and charging bad cops with crimes
But opposite the ‘defund the police’ protests?
One does NOT cancel out the other
Heck even Bernie Sanders doesn’t support defunding the police…..
America , I keep saying here IS a center RIGHT place mostly
Ya can argue with me
But the fact on my view is in everydays headlines
Scott and Booker sure wasted months of fruitless negotiations when James could have told them the whole thing was “dead.”
Have you thought of volunteering your “expertise” to the United States Senate?
And since the Republicans are the “right” party and the Democrats are the “left” party and you have stated that the country is “center/ right?”
This bodes well for the Republicans ,correct?
The country is Center or Center-Left, considering how her citizens voted ten and eleven months ago and how they poll today on individual questions of policy; not really Center-Right.
James is probably correct in considering his views to be close to whatever median or wishy-washy average you consider the country to be at now; but of course within the Democratic Party (if he’s not really a masquerading independent) James would be either s Right-wing Democrat or a Center-Right one.
And which piece of the human infrastructure package would he remove to pass the bigger bill (presuming he really wants it to pass)?
And which of the package’s tax adjustments would he not support?
Obviously not the Schedule A deduction for State And Local Taxes (SALT).
Morning All…..
Yes DSD…..
It appears I’ve lost my state and local tax deduction for good….
Trump and Now the Democrats have screwed me ALL who live in high local and state tax states and help the NINE states like Florida and Texas with no state tax GAIN people….
I learned today that my nephew’s wife has come down with COVID-19. She was fully vaccinated. The rest of the family tested negative. Her symptoms are relatively minor, but she lost her ability to smell and taste.
The vaccine does NOT stop the virus….
It cuts down your reaction to it……
The amount of people getting the virus after the shot is about 8% as reported…..
My brother in law said yesterday that his aunt passed from COVID a week ago. She was unvaccinated. That is two unvaccinated people I know this month to die from the virus. I know a handful of people who have tested positive despite being vaccinated but only one was hospitalized and she has mostly fully recovered. She credits the vaccine with saving her life.
Hope she makes a full recovery Zreebs. I’ve noticed that with these breakthrough cases in vaccinated households. One person tests positive where the rest do not. Prior to the vaccine I seem to recall whole households coming down with the virus.
Yes. People who are vaccinated but still get infected are less likely to transmit it to others. But the rest of the family remains at risk – which is why all are currently quarantined.
But above all people should get vaccinated. Right Zreebs, I know you agree. That’s why I can’t understand why our host isn’t vaccinated.
Yes. There might be very rare approved exceptions that a person should not get vaccinated, including children under 12 (for the time being).
Vaccinations are a social justice issue. People don’t have the right to endanger others lives because of their lazinesss or disregard of science. Vaccinatios should be mandatory for most people.
Morning people….
Arizona , ex-astronaut, Democratic US Senator is cruising to re-election it appear’s…..
Mark Kelly Leads All Challengers In Arizona
A new OH Predictive Insights poll in Arizona finds Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) in a comfortable position ahead of his re-election race, leading all four Republican candidates in potential head-to-head matchups.
Against Mark Brnovich (R), Kelly currently leads 43% to 39%. Kelly leads Michael McGuire (R) 44% to 37%, Jim Lamon (R) 43% to 36%, and Blake Masters (R) 44% to 35%.
I wouldn’t crow about an incumbent at 44%. His opposition has yet to be fully defined one way or another. Don’t doubt Kelly is favoured, but it will be close, as is usually the case these days in Arizona.
Ok…….
No crowing
Just ‘Favors’ Dem Kelly?
Yes a poll that shows Kelly with a 4-9 point lead (depending on the opponent) a year before the vote with around 20% undecided means little.
Certainly I wouldn’t think that such means one is “cruising “to re-election.
Insurrection subpoena arrives in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s inbox– she scream tweets
Hump day just got a little bit brighter over here as we learn that someone in the inner circle of Trump-bootlicker and QAnon-apologist Georgia Rep. Margorie Taylor Greene is likely to be subpoenaed. Greene was on the attack Wednesday morning, publicly posting an email sent by Sean Tonolli, a senior investigator on the House committee probing the January 6 insurrection.
Greene not-so-subtly attempted to turn the blame from her unnamed associate to Democrats, who she claims “supported, cheered, & funded violent anti-government riots”—aka Black Lives Matter—without whatever consequence she seems to believe should accompany believing Black lives actually matter. Meanwhile, she complains, the “witchhunt” committee investigates “innocent people that had nothing to do with a random 3 hour riot.” ….
Check the link from Daily Kos
Afternoon everybody….
Shes right, and called it from the beginning.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/09/hillary-clinton-gop-conspiracies-and-election-reform/620262/
Yup SE……
It’s been there for a while
Jimmy Carter is 97 years old today…..
Morning all
Morning people
Been busy …..
Will check in and try to do some posting laster
Carry on!
NY Giants pull out a win over the Saints‼️
Finally!
All is good in the world!
Sentiment around here tonight is divided between the New England Patriots and Tom Brady, still hugely popular although he’s quarterbacking the Tampa Bay Buccaneers against the Pats at Gillette Stadium (Foxboro) tonight.
Sort of like the Italians who root for the Yankees in the heart of Red Sox Nation because of Joe DiMaggio (whose brother Dom spent years playing for and later assistant-coaching the Red Sox — “Smarter than his brother Joe/Dominic DiMaggio !)
Bucs all the way. I pulled for them when they were the ass of sports jokes.
Brady is just starting to get his stuff together….
Morning All…..
Facebook has been down most of the day….
It’s trying to come back up now
Morning……
Hundreds of world leaders, powerful politicians, billionaires, celebrities, religious leaders and drug dealers have been hiding their investments in mansions, exclusive beachfront property, yachts, and other assets for the past quarter-century, according to a review of nearly 12 million files obtained from 14 firms located around the world.
The report released Sunday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists involved 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries. It’s being dubbed the “Pandora Papers’’ because the findings shed light on the previously hidden dealings of the elite and the corrupt, and how they have used offshore accounts to shield assets collectively worth trillions of dollars.
The more than 330 current and former politicians identified as beneficiaries of the secret accounts include Jordan’s King Abdullah II; former UK prime minister Tony Blair; the Czech Republic’s prime minister, Andrej Babis; Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta; Ecuador’s president, Guillermo Lasso; and associates of both Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
The billionaires called out in the report include Turkish construction mogul Erman Ilicak and Robert T. Brockman, the former CEO of software maker Reynolds & Reynolds.
Many of the accounts were designed to evade taxes and conceal assets for other shady reasons, according to the report.
“The new data leak must be a wake-up call,” said Sven Giegold, a Green party lawmaker in the European Parliament. “Global tax evasion fuels global inequality. We need to expand and sharpen the countermeasures now.”…
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE and JONATHAN MATTISE
The Associated Press,
Updated October 3, 2021, 5:36 p.m.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/10/03/nation/leaked-records-open-pandora-box-financial-secrets/
Here’s the post here on the money hiders….
BTW?
This site has had 3,993,234 views since it’s birth….
Attorney Steven Donziger, who went to the mat against big polluters and won, sentenced in corporate trial to six months in federal prison following 2+years on house arrest.
https://boingboing.net/2021/10/04/steven-donziger-proved-oil-company-chevron-dumped-billions-of-tons-of-toxic-waste-but-hes-the-one-going-to-jail.html/amp
The previous case resolved against Chevron and in favor of the people of Ecuador has also been overturned.
A transgender student in Orlando Florida was voted homecoming queen of her high school. The students cheered when her name was announced. I cannot imagine how exciting this must have been to that girl. High school students can be cruel to those who are different. It is truly encouraging seeing today’s youth being so progressive. Times are changing – even in red states!
Some things DO change
Even in the more conservative South
Many of the cities in the south are much more moderate,even liberal, than the state they are in…
Charlotte in NC
Charleston in SC
Atlanta in Ga.
New Orleans in La.
To name a few.
Birmingham, Alabama, is also the diverse cultural hub of that state.
I meant to agree with Jack the a LOT of metro cities in the South and MiWest tend to vote Blue……
Morning….
Yeah the whole “red state/blue state” thing is pretty reductive.
For the most part rural areas and small towns in blue states are more conservative than cities and inner suburbs in red states.
There are exceptions to be sure. Vermont is one of the least urban and most liberal states.
There’s quite a few pockets in Eastern GA, between Atlanta and Augusta that are decidedly not Big/Inner City and are decisively Democratic vote sinks.
There’s also the “Black Belt,” from Louisiana into the Carolinas, which is mostly flat, rural areas that vote Democratic, though that area of Democratic strength has been dwindling in size with each passing election.
True the Black Belt is definitely notable looking at election maps of Alabama where a strip of rural counties vote heavily Democratic. Though those votes are obviously outnumbered by the heavily GOP voting majority white rural counties in the state.
You also have the Mississippi Delta counties in AR and MS that buck the trend of rural counties voting Republican. Again these are still majority African-American areas.
Vermont stands out as a state dominated by Democrats with no urban areas to speak of (Burlington is all of 40,000 people).
When I still haunted the Reference Desk section of Wikipedia, we had a comprehensive discussion of the Black Belt back in September 2012, including the correlation of partisan politics, history, demography, agronomy, historical concentrations of slaves and even the geological history that made the Black Belt’s soil so fertile for cotton-farming — with half a dozen comparative maps from several sources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2012_September_2#Blue_Stripe_in_the_Red_South
Boston knocks the Yankee’s out of the playoff’s 6-2…
Here in S.C.,Lexington County(suburban Columbia) is one of the most Republican counties in this deep red state.Indeed,Donald Trump won 64% of the vote here last year and Republicans Control almost all county offices.
One might think then that Republican Party officials would be happy and content with their political dominance over those despised “libruls.”
One would be wrong.
You see the Lexington County Republican Party is demanding an “audit” of the recent election.Biden got like 34% of the vote here,yet their be treachery afoot and these purveyors of “conservative values” are determined to root it out!
One is inclined to think this kind of silliness is just a big put on but these kooks are deadly serious.In essence they can’t accept overwhelming victory.Apprently ,in their fevered imaginations ,those Democrats managed to steal votes in a county they totally control.
They obviously don’t understand that if that be do in a county that Republicans totally control?That must make them some of the dumbest bastards in SC and given the fact that S.C. ranked 49th in just about everything (thank God for Mississippi )…
That’s saying something!
(1) That’s exactly what Louisianans said (when my brother was living in New Orleans): Thank Heaven for Mississippi! or [depending on the subject measured] for Alabama! or Arkansas! or Oklahoma!
La, Miss, Alab & Ark (all Geo. Wallace states, unlike S.C.) found themselves (depending on the question) in the bottom of many economic and social-welfare statistics.
(2) The World Almanac gives these election stats for Lexington County, S.C.
2020
Biden
49.206
Trump
92,594
2016
Biden
35,230
Trump
80,026
Since the Democrat vote increased by nearly 14,000 while the Trump vote increased by only ~12,600, there must ipso facto have been criminal tampering with the county returns. Q,E,D.
Well…..
WELL…..
The Republican Minority Leader gets over AGAIN….
Democrats will accept his deal on the debt ceiling no government shutdown….
Debt Ceiling increase
Push back in Biden legislation
And THAT will make Manchin and Republicans Happy and give House Progressives the finger….
According to Pew Research 63% of Republicans say that GOP should not be too accepting of elected officials who are critical of Trump, and 30% of Republicans say that the party should not accept ANY criticism of Trump from its elected officials. Note that Trump isn’t even in office, and 30% believe that the GOP should not accept any criticism of Trump.
Apart from my mother, who has been a former Republican for 5 years and voted Clinton and Biden, I am friends with no Republicans. Even the saner ones who begrudgingly voted Trump have gotten down with one form of crazy or another. In fact, when I look at OK Cupid prospects, I automatically pass on Conservatives. At some point, the whole right side of the spectrum became corrupted and not worth the time.
I would never consider dating a conservative – Especially in the Trump era.
The editors of both National Review and (separately) of The Boston Globe come out in support of Taiwan against growing menaces from China:
… Ultimately, the latest intimidation efforts fit with the party’s broader effort to isolate Taiwan by picking off its few diplomatic allies, blocking it from all participation at the U.N., launching an economic bullying campaign, and flooding the island with disinformation. This stepped-up military harassment puts the prospect of Taiwan’s engulfment by the Chinese party-state front and center. Beijing couldn’t be clearer about its intentions, and we need to respond accordingly.
THE EDITORS comprise the senior editorial staff of the National Review magazine and website.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/we-must-support-taiwan/
¶ … No Chinese threat should be taken as an idle one.
China’s increasing dominance of Hong Kong and its steady erosion of freedoms there has been a sobering lesson for Taiwan. In fact, a record number of Hong Kong residents (more than 10,000) opted to move to Taiwan in the wake of China’s crackdown on protesters.
Taiwan’s longstanding support from the United States, Japan, and Australia provides a measure of protection that should mean the current campaign of Chinese harassment is unlikely to escalate. But as Taiwan is forced to scramble its own jets, the possibility of that miscalculation Price warned of grows. Perhaps a word from President Biden himself wouldn’t hurt to emphasize the depth of this nation’s abiding interest in regional stability.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/10/06/opinion/chinese-harassment-taiwan-risks-tragic-miscalculation/
President Biden….
The guy who doesn’t like military confrontation is getting tested with this…..
Washington (CNN)More than a week after subpoenaing former Donald Trump aide Dan Scavino to cooperate with its investigation into the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, the House select committee investigating the attack has been unable to physically serve the subpoena to him, according to multiple sources familiar with the effort.
The news comes just days before the committee’s deadline for Scavino and three other close allies of the former President to comply with subpoenas requesting documents by October 7 and a deposition by October 15.
Scavino, Trump’s former White House deputy chief of staff, did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. One source familiar with the situation joked that the committee should just tweet the subpoena to the former Trump aide since he’s been actively trolling the panel there in recent days.
The other Trump aides who have been subpoenaed include former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former adviser Steve Bannon and Kash Patel, a former chief of staff to then-acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller….
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/05/politics/house-committee-january-6-subpoena-serve-dan-scavino/index.html
Morning All…..
Finishing up on my shed project!
Los Angeles Times
@latimes
Using death records, the CDC estimates that about 700 people die from heat-related causes annually.
But scientists have established that the number of deaths attributable to heat is much higher.
Read the project at http://latimes.com/extremeheat
Well known Republican bigot Paul Gosar of Arizona is promoting a website called”the UNZ Review,”known for Holocaust denial and other neo Nazi things.
What ‘privilege’?
You ain’t President anymore Holmes…….
Former President Donald Trump indicated on Thursday that he will try to assert executive privilege to prevent a House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol from getting information from certain witnesses.
A source familiar with the former President’s legal strategy confirms to CNN that an attorney for Trump sent letters to some of the subpoena targets, informing them of his plan to defend executive privilege. The letters were first reported by Politico.
“Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of President Trump and his administration, but also on behalf of the Office of the President of the United States and the future of our nation,” Taylor Budowich, director of communications for Save America and Trump, said in a statement….
More…
Morning….