"The presidential election was stolen
There are several ways it could have happened — not did happen, but could have happened — so let’s look at them first.
We’ll start with FBI director James Comey’s late-October announcement that investigators were examining “additional evidence concerning Clinton’s use of a private email server.”...
Yes, it was a dumb goddamned thing to do for Clinton to have used a private email server for government business.
But some of her predecessors had done the same...
Meanwhile, Republicans conducted multiple congressional investigations in hopes of finding evidence of a crime, as did the FBI itself. And what did they all come up with? Bupkus.
Still, Comey’s 11th-hour announcement did affect Clinton’s standing in the polls:
An ABC/Washington Post tracking survey released Sunday [Oct. 30], conducted both before and after Comey’s letter was made public on Friday, found that about one-third of likely voters, including 7 percent of Clinton supporters, said the new e-mail revelations made them less likely to support the former secretary of state.
The poll found that Clinton received support from 46 percent of likely voters to Trump’s 45 percent, suggesting the race is a toss-up. That contrasts with the 12-point advantage that Clinton held in the same poll a week ago.
And what Comey did wasn’t just damaging, it was also wrong.
He caught hell from some of his Justice Department colleagues for having spoken out so close to the election on a matter likely to influence it (such matters usually aren’t supposed to be discussed by federal investigators or prosecutors within 60 days of an election):...
...what Comey did was wrong and damaged Clinton’s chances. ...it eroded Clinton’s lead significantly...
...we have credible evidence that Russia tried to interfere with the outcome of a U.S. presidential election.
The most spectacular accusation is that Russia hacked enough voting machines to give Trump the win, and let me say right up front that I don’t necessarily buy ...I just don’t know. But what do we know?
...Sen. Dianne Feinstein, vice-chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, claimed before the election that based on briefings she and other congresscritters had received, Russia was trying to influence the outcome of the election. And we know, from the Russians themselves, that Trump’s folks and Putin’s folks, if not the principals themselves, were in contact during the campaign, which should raise Logan Act red flags irrespective of questions about hacking.
There were things about the differences between vote totals and exit polls — more on those in a second — that simply weren’t explainable by random chance, whether you think Russians were involved or not.
[Dailynewsbin.com's] Bill Palmer summarizes them pretty well here.
As he says, they don’t conclusively prove that the election was rigged, but if the polling really was simply off, it should have been off in a different way.
...A group of prominent computer scientists affiliated with the University of Michigan’s Center for Computer Security and Society is pressing Clinton to seek a recount in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which went to Trump, and Michigan, where votes are still being counted and it’s too close to call.
...the experts are not claiming they have proof of fraud, but they have found what they consider statistically suspicious differences in voting patterns in areas with electronic touch-screen machines compared with areas with other forms of vote tabulation...
Now, about exit polling: The exit polls failed to match up with vote tallies in a number of key states, particularly Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, any three of which — or, with Florida, any two — would have swung the Electoral College to Clinton. Exit polling is generally more accurate than pre-election polling, for obvious reasons.
...In exit polling, you’re asking people what they actually did, right after they did it. Exit polling generally is so reliable that the U.S. has used it as a gauge of voting integrity in other countries around the world. It could be wrong here...
...all the evidence — and there is a lot — is circumstantial, not directly probative. Therefore, as I said, I remain agnostic on that point, subject to the discovery of new information one way or the other.
So why am I stating as a fact that the election was stolen? Because while there’s some doubt about the shenanigans I’ve listed above, I am much more certain about another effort: Republican officials conspired to purge the voter rolls of a number of states in ways that overwhelmingly affected people likely to vote Democratic.
...the outcome is discriminatory against minorities.”
...some voters about whose eligibility someone raised a question were forced to cast provisional ballots which, in many cases, were never counted and which, in some cases, were simply thrown out, Palast found.
Palast also has evidence of widespread, illegal vote caging; indeed, thousands of North Carolina voters successfully sued just a few weeks ago to have their voting eligibility restored after an incidence of attempted caging here by the state GOP in a process the federal judge in the case called “insane.” But similar efforts went on elsewhere and most likely were successful.
And that’s on top of the efforts by states to impose onerous voter-ID requirements and limits on early voting, both of which disproportionately affect young and senior voters, minorities and the poor — who disproportionately vote Democratic. The courts threw out some, but not all, of these changes, which carried the force of law and helped provide at least a small bit of help for the Republican ticket.
Despite all of this, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2 million votes (and counting, at this writing). She won more popular votes than anyone in history not named Barack Obama. But the GOP efforts provided a narrow edge — 1% or less — in a few key swing states to give the Electoral College vote, wrongly, to Trump...
...but no one will do anything about the stolen presidential election
I would dearly love to be wrong about this one.
But unfortunately for the country, no one is going to do anything about the fact that the U.S. presidential election was stolen.
There are a lot of reasons for this.
One is Americans are awful at math. Accordingly, no matter how good a case the researchers ...might be able to make that vote totals in certain swing states were monkeyed with..., Americans won’t buy it because they can’t follow the math.
I realize that the trolls’ next question is, “Well, if you can’t follow the math, why should you believe them?” And the answer is that I didn’t have to be a computer programmer or an advanced mathematician to believe that, say, America could send people to the moon. I just had to look at what these same people already had accomplished and make reasonable inferences about what else they might be capable of, using the same skills.
Another is that Americans have an unwavering ability to ignore facts and research if those facts and that research conflict with strongly held beliefs, however untrue those beliefs might be.
But the biggest reason is that fixing a stolen election would be a lot of hard work.
...let’s say that a miracle happens and America reaches the consensus that not only are some of the voting-machine totals squirrely... What would be the solution?
Even with the foregoing hypothetical consensuses, there’s no way America would reach consensus on simply awarding the presidency to Hillary Clinton. And even if it did, consensuses aren’t self-enforcing. There would have to be a legal mechanism of some kind to overturn the Nov. 8 results and award the presidency to Clinton...
If the Electoral College, which votes on Dec. 19, decided in this case to affirm the national popular vote, that would be a way...
That leaves us the courts. ...someone could file a lawsuit on behalf of the voters who supported Hillary Clinton, address all challenges to standing, provide proof of harm, and so on and so forth and get the case to the Supreme Court. ...We’d then most likely lose on a 4-4 tie and Trump would become president anyway.
Beyond those two options? We’ve got nothing. This is election theft on a scale we have not seen in the modern era and perhaps ever.
The imagination of the thieves here far surpassed the imagination of those who were robbed and the few who have even tried to anticipate a theft such as this, let alone prevent or undo it...
...Republican politicians, as an almost ironclade rule, no longer respect the rule of law, particularly when it comes to elections.
In Republican-controlled states, it’ll take a federal court order to get all the provisional ballots counted unless, as here in North Carolina, a Republican candidate (like our apparently one-term governor, Pat McCrory) is behind.
No Republican-controlled legislature is going to intervene and force a recount, let alone a true audit, where vote totals are flaky.
Not only do they not respect the rule of law anymore, neither do they recognize the notion of country over party anymore — indeed, they don’t recognize even elected Democrats as legitimate leaders and haven’t since Bill Clinton’s first election.
If you’re wondering how a dwindling minority of white Christian males manages to hang onto an outsized share of power in a country that is becoming less white, male and Christian every year, now you know.
As I say, I’d love to be wrong about this. But I don’t think I am.
(And don’t expect the media to help on the theft. More on them later.)
https://blogontherun.wordpress.com/2016/11/25/but-no-one-will-do-anything-about-the-stolen-presidential-election/
https://blogontherun.wordpress.com/2016/11/25/but-no-one-will-do-anything-about-the-stolen-presidential-election/
There are several ways it could have happened — not did happen, but could have happened — so let’s look at them first.
We’ll start with FBI director James Comey’s late-October announcement that investigators were examining “additional evidence concerning Clinton’s use of a private email server.”...
Which Comey let Clinton off the hook for a week later
which ended up hurting Clinton more than helping her
after letting her off for multiples of crimes a few months before,
after the Greensboro's Loretta Lynch completely lost credibility
by meeting with Bill on a plane and then probably lied about it
Yes, it was a dumb goddamned thing to do for Clinton to have used a private email server for government business.
It was illegal, and she wasn't charged when others who did the same were
But some of her predecessors had done the same...
Meanwhile, Republicans conducted multiple congressional investigations in hopes of finding evidence of a crime, as did the FBI itself. And what did they all come up with? Bupkus.
I respectfully disagree, along with a bunch of FBI underlings
Still, Comey’s 11th-hour announcement did affect Clinton’s standing in the polls:
An ABC/Washington Post tracking survey released Sunday [Oct. 30], conducted both before and after Comey’s letter was made public on Friday, found that about one-third of likely voters, including 7 percent of Clinton supporters, said the new e-mail revelations made them less likely to support the former secretary of state.
For good reasons
The poll found that Clinton received support from 46 percent of likely voters to Trump’s 45 percent, suggesting the race is a toss-up. That contrasts with the 12-point advantage that Clinton held in the same poll a week ago.
The ABC/Washington Post poll was garbage,
over and above most of the other incorrect polls,
as the Washington Post was overtly used as a propaganda tool for Clinton,
which Lex leaves out along with any mention of Wikileaks
And what Comey did wasn’t just damaging, it was also wrong.
What Clinton and friends did to Bernie Sanders was damaging and wrong
He caught hell from some of his Justice Department colleagues for having spoken out so close to the election on a matter likely to influence it (such matters usually aren’t supposed to be discussed by federal investigators or prosecutors within 60 days of an election):...
Lex provides some quotes from partisans
backing up his theory that Clinton didn't screw herself,
but was screwed by Comey for Donald Trump
which I chose to not include
The links to the original posts are at the bottom
...what Comey did was wrong and damaged Clinton’s chances. ...it eroded Clinton’s lead significantly...
Clinton did the exact same thing to Bernie
Comey reversed some of Clinton, the media's and the establishment's rigging,
and should resign asap in disgrace
for not insisting that the Justice Department do their jobs
...we have credible evidence that Russia tried to interfere with the outcome of a U.S. presidential election.
The most spectacular accusation is that Russia hacked enough voting machines to give Trump the win, and let me say right up front that I don’t necessarily buy ...I just don’t know. But what do we know?
I haven't seen any "credible evidence",
just people who wanted Clinton to win say there is
If Clinton had won, there probably wouldn't be any more Russia stories
A conspiracy theory, which Lex likes to accuse us of quite frequently,
yet he's using a conspiracy theory espoused by a partisan to make his case
There were things about the differences between vote totals and exit polls — more on those in a second — that simply weren’t explainable by random chance, whether you think Russians were involved or not.
[Dailynewsbin.com's] Bill Palmer summarizes them pretty well here.
As he says, they don’t conclusively prove that the election was rigged, but if the polling really was simply off, it should have been off in a different way.
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Reputation Detail; Misleading claims or unethical
Status : Questionable
Confidence Value : 7%
This site may make unproven or incorrect product claims
or it may be involved in activities perceived as unethical.
...A group of prominent computer scientists affiliated with the University of Michigan’s Center for Computer Security and Society is pressing Clinton to seek a recount in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which went to Trump, and Michigan, where votes are still being counted and it’s too close to call.
The presidential election was stolen
Lex Alexander
...the experts are not claiming they have proof of fraud, but they have found what they consider statistically suspicious differences in voting patterns in areas with electronic touch-screen machines compared with areas with other forms of vote tabulation...
The presidential election was stolen
Lex Alexander
Now, about exit polling: The exit polls failed to match up with vote tallies in a number of key states, particularly Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, any three of which — or, with Florida, any two — would have swung the Electoral College to Clinton. Exit polling is generally more accurate than pre-election polling, for obvious reasons.
Unless a Trump voter is standing next to a spouse or friends who were not
Not many signs in yards either
More like the Brexit vote,
where many if not most didn't want to say anything about who or what they voted for
...In exit polling, you’re asking people what they actually did, right after they did it. Exit polling generally is so reliable that the U.S. has used it as a gauge of voting integrity in other countries around the world. It could be wrong here...
You probably are
...all the evidence — and there is a lot — is circumstantial, not directly probative. Therefore, as I said, I remain agnostic on that point, subject to the discovery of new information one way or the other.
Agreed, but the title of the post leads a scanning reader
to a different conclusion
So why am I stating as a fact that the election was stolen? Because while there’s some doubt about the shenanigans I’ve listed above, I am much more certain about another effort: Republican officials conspired to purge the voter rolls of a number of states in ways that overwhelmingly affected people likely to vote Democratic.
They sure did try in North Carolina
So how many voters complained they couldn't vote?
How many minorities said they weren't allowed to vote?
...some voters about whose eligibility someone raised a question were forced to cast provisional ballots which, in many cases, were never counted and which, in some cases, were simply thrown out, Palast found.
How many?
Palast also has evidence of widespread, illegal vote caging; indeed, thousands of North Carolina voters successfully sued just a few weeks ago to have their voting eligibility restored after an incidence of attempted caging here by the state GOP in a process the federal judge in the case called “insane.” But similar efforts went on elsewhere and most likely were successful.
Shouldn't many of those who were disenfranchised have spoken up?
Where are the numbers?
Where are the thousands of anecdotes?
And that’s on top of the efforts by states to impose onerous voter-ID requirements and limits on early voting, both of which disproportionately affect young and senior voters, minorities and the poor — who disproportionately vote Democratic. The courts threw out some, but not all, of these changes, which carried the force of law and helped provide at least a small bit of help for the Republican ticket.
Showing an ID to vote is a good idea
I could have voted 10 times on election day if I had wanted to
by looking up eligible voters who don't vote, and voting as them,
which many others could have actually done without anyone knowing
All the evidence — and there is a lot — is circumstantial,
not directly probative.
Therefore, as I said, I remain agnostic on that point,
subject to the discovery of new information one way or the other.
Lex Alexander, before concluding on circumstantial evidence,
that "a few key swing states to give the Electoral College vote, wrongly, to Trump"
...but no one will do anything about the stolen presidential election
I would dearly love to be wrong about this one.
But unfortunately for the country, no one is going to do anything about the fact that the U.S. presidential election was stolen.
All the evidence — and there is a lot — is circumstantial,
not directly probative.
I remain agnostic on that point,
subject to the discovery of new information one way or the other.
Lex Alexander, before concluding on circumstantial evidence,
that "no one is going to do anything about the fact
that the U.S. presidential election was stolen."
There are a lot of reasons for this.
Clinton rigged to primary against Bernie?
One is Americans are awful at math. Accordingly, no matter how good a case the researchers ...might be able to make that vote totals in certain swing states were monkeyed with..., Americans won’t buy it because they can’t follow the math.
I realize that the trolls’ next question is, “Well, if you can’t follow the math, why should you believe them?” And the answer is that I didn’t have to be a computer programmer or an advanced mathematician to believe that, say, America could send people to the moon. I just had to look at what these same people already had accomplished and make reasonable inferences about what else they might be capable of, using the same skills.
Thin, from a troll
I can make statistics show about anything I want them to
if I messed with them enough,
like a made up financial plan to get an incentive bonus at Wells Fargo
Another is that Americans have an unwavering ability to ignore facts and research if those facts and that research conflict with strongly held beliefs, however untrue those beliefs might be.
Cognitive Dissonance
But the biggest reason is that fixing a stolen election would be a lot of hard work.
...let’s say that a miracle happens and America reaches the consensus that not only are some of the voting-machine totals squirrely... What would be the solution?
Even with the foregoing hypothetical consensuses, there’s no way America would reach consensus on simply awarding the presidency to Hillary Clinton. And even if it did, consensuses aren’t self-enforcing. There would have to be a legal mechanism of some kind to overturn the Nov. 8 results and award the presidency to Clinton...
How about a legal mechanism to give the primary to Bernie,
who would have beaten Trump?
If the Electoral College, which votes on Dec. 19, decided in this case to affirm the national popular vote, that would be a way...
That's not how the rules of the game were set up
They both supposedly played by the same rules
The rules were to win the Electoral College, not the popular vote,
so Lex appears to be calling for the Electoral College to cheat for Clinton
That leaves us the courts. ...someone could file a lawsuit on behalf of the voters who supported Hillary Clinton, address all challenges to standing, provide proof of harm, and so on and so forth and get the case to the Supreme Court. ...We’d then most likely lose on a 4-4 tie and Trump would become president anyway.
"We’d"
Lex Alexander, who is clearly on one side,
as opposed to non-biased
Beyond those two options? We’ve got nothing. This is election theft on a scale we have not seen in the modern era and perhaps ever.
The imagination of the thieves here far surpassed the imagination of those who were robbed and the few who have even tried to anticipate a theft such as this, let alone prevent or undo it...
This is election theft on a scale we have not seen
in the modern era and perhaps ever.
Lex Alexander
...Republican politicians, as an almost ironclade rule, no longer respect the rule of law, particularly when it comes to elections.
Many politicians in both parties don't care about the law
See how no one went to jail after the financial crisis
McCrory should concede
No Republican-controlled legislature is going to intervene and force a recount, let alone a true audit, where vote totals are flaky.
Nor a Democratic-controlled legislature for a Republican candidate
Not only do they not respect the rule of law anymore, neither do they recognize the notion of country over party anymore — indeed, they don’t recognize even elected Democrats as legitimate leaders and haven’t since Bill Clinton’s first election.
Same with Democrats
If you’re wondering how a dwindling minority of white Christian males manages to hang onto an outsized share of power in a country that is becoming less white, male and Christian every year, now you know.
All the evidence — and there is a lot — is circumstantial,
not directly probative.
I remain agnostic on that point,
subject to the discovery of new information one way or the other.
Lex Alexander, before concluding on circumstantial evidence,
that "no one is going to do anything about the fact
that the U.S. presidential election was stolen."
As I say, I’d love to be wrong about this. But I don’t think I am.
(And don’t expect the media to help on the theft. More on them later.)
https://blogontherun.wordpress.com/2016/11/25/but-no-one-will-do-anything-about-the-stolen-presidential-election/
https://blogontherun.wordpress.com/2016/11/25/but-no-one-will-do-anything-about-the-stolen-presidential-election/
